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Uribe, Sergio Nicolas was born 6 July 1960, is male, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 3812 Wood Thrush Dr, Kissimmee, Florida 34744. Florida voter ID number 115409103. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 July 2018 voter list: Sergio N. Uribe, 11490 SW 57Th St, Miami, FL 33173 Florida Democratic Party.
Uribe, Sergio Soler was born 20 May 1964, is male, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 2025 Rivers Own Rd, St Augustine, Florida 32092. Florida voter ID number 108088036. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 22 October 2014.
Uribe, Sharon D. was born 9 October 1953, is female, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 1012 11Th Ave W, Palmetto, Florida 34221-3716. Florida voter ID number 120314932. The voter lists a mailing address and probably prefers you use it: 1402 Vermont Apt 194 Harlingen TX 78550-8909. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 July 2017 voter list: Sharon D. Uribe, 1012 11Th Ave W, Palmetto, FL 34221 Republican Party of Florida.
Uribe, Shauntae Renay was born 26 November 1978, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 11031 Sw 25Th St, Apt 1307, Miramar, Florida 33025. Florida voter ID number 117033256. Her telephone number is 1-786-223-0314. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 October 2018 voter list: Shauntae Renay Jones, 11031 SW 25th ST, APT 1307, Miramar, FL 33025 Florida Democratic Party.
30 September 2018 voter list: Shauntae Renay Jones, 2875 NW 164th Ter, Miami Gardens, FL 33054 Florida Democratic Party.
Uribe, Shawn B. was born 21 May 1990, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 10521 Sw 142Nd Ave, Miami, Florida 33186. Florida voter ID number 116437421. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 30 June 2016.
Uribe, Shawn Benjamin was born 12 May 1990, is male, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 10521 Sw 142Nd Ave, Miami, Florida 33186. Florida voter ID number 116324076. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE, SHERRA N. born 1 May 1986, Florida voter ID number 104402238 See LONG, SHERRA NATAVIA. CLICK HERE.
Uribe, Sherri A. was born 28 August 1958, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 509 Mountain Dr, Babson Park, Florida 33827. Florida voter ID number 114874876. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE, SILVIA born 5 January 1943, Florida voter ID number 117658147 See OCAMPO, SILVIA. CLICK HERE.
Uribe, Silvia was born 10 February 1957, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 1551 Ne 167Th St, #721, N Miami Beach, Florida 33162. Florida voter ID number 110212365. The voter lists a mailing address and probably prefers you use it: 264 Columbia Ave Lodi NJ 07644. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 May 2012.
URIBE, SILVIA ENEIDA was born 8 July 1940, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 3368 Perimeter Dr, Greenacres, Florida 33467. Florida voter ID number 120692236. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 May 2017 voter list: SILVIA E. URIBE, 3368 PERIMETER DR, GREENACRES, FL 33467 Florida Democratic Party.
30 June 2014 voter list: SILVIA E. URIBE, 6030 SERENE RUN, LAKE WORTH, FL 33467 Florida Democratic Party.
URIBE, SILVIA ENEIDA was born 8 July 1940, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 3368 Perimeter Dr, Greenacres, Florida 33467. Florida voter ID number 122879960. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 May 2017.
31 October 2015 voter list: SILVIA ENCIDA URIBE, 3368 PERIMETER DR, GREENACRES, FL 33467 Florida Democratic Party.
Uribe, Sofia Marina was born 26 January 2001, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 429 169Th Ct Ne, Bradenton, Florida 34212-5550. Florida voter ID number 124819612. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE, SONIA was born 28 February 1944, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 23 Boxwood Ln, Palm Coast, Florida 32137. Florida voter ID number 120932723. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE, SOPHIA was born 11 January 2001, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 1984 White Coral Way, Wellington, Florida 33414. Florida voter ID number 125452090. Her telephone number is 1-561-603-0205. Her email address is [email protected]. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Stefanie E. was born 19 July 1989, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 2124 Sw 102Nd Ter, Gainesville, Florida 32607. Florida voter ID number 115958880. Her telephone number is 1-352-317-5001. The voter lists a mailing address and probably prefers you use it: 1252 26Th St Unit Frnt Santa Monica CA 90404. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Stella was born 2 January 1936, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 2104 S Cypress Bend Dr, Apt 107, Pompano Beach, Florida 33069. Florida voter ID number 117624847. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 30 November 2016.
URIBE, STEPHANIE was born 25 June 1999, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 10088 Savannah Bluff Ln, Orlando, Florida 32829. Florida voter ID number 124856371. Her telephone number is 1-210-875-7139. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 July 2018 voter list: STEPHANIE URIBE, 14002 PORTRUSH DR, ORLANDO, FL 32828 No Party Affiliation.
Uribe, Stephanie was born 28 June 1992, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 16601 Palm Coast Ct, Apt 610, Tampa, Florida 33647. Florida voter ID number 120887480. The voter lists a mailing address and probably prefers you use it: Apt E326 7600 Penn Ave S Minneapolis MN 55423-2257. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 May 2015 voter list: Stephanie Uribe, 10828 Kensington Park AVE, Riverview, FL 335784495 Florida Democratic Party.
Uribe, Stephanie was born 17 August 1987, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 538 Ne 82Nd Ter, Apt 3, Miami, Florida 33138-4074. Florida voter ID number 124183800. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 June 2017 voter list: Stephanie Uribe, 437 NE 29Th ST, APT 202, Miami, FL 33137 No Party Affiliation.
Uribe, Stephenie Nicole was born 20 November 1976, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 26 Volusia Dr, Debary, Florida 32713. Florida voter ID number 103909274. Her telephone number is 1-407-431-4076. The voter lists a mailing address and probably prefers you use it: P O BOX 530562 Debary FL 32753. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 May 2012 voter list: Stephenie Nicole Uribe, 623 Orange Ave, Daytona Beach, FL 32114 Florida Democratic Party.
URIBE, SUNSHINE J. was born 5 August 1974, is female, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 126 Penelope Dr, Longwood, Florida 32750-2761. Florida voter ID number 107665689. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 May 2012.
Uribe, Susan Moore was born 26 October 1953, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 275 Indigo Dr, #201, Daytona Beach, Florida 32114. Florida voter ID number 108758452. Her telephone number is 1-904-258-8868. Her email address is [email protected]. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 April 2017 voter list: Susan M. Uribe, 275 Indigo Dr, NO 201, Daytona Beach, FL 321147115 Florida Democratic Party.
URIBE, SUSANNE M. was born 30 October 1957, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 8791 Peachtree Park Ct, Windermere, Florida 34786. Florida voter ID number 113176449. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 January 2018 voter list: SUSANNE M. URIBE, 9939 LONG BAY DR, ORLANDO, FL 32832 Florida Democratic Party.
31 October 2015 voter list: SUSANNE M. URIBE, 1021 MOSSHART LN, ORLANDO, FL 32825 Florida Democratic Party.
31 August 2014 voter list: SUSANNE M. URIBE, 9846 STONEHOLLOW CT, ORLANDO, FL 32832 Florida Democratic Party.
Uribe, Sylvia was born 20 June 1958, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 11111 Biscayne Blvd, Apt 221, Miami, Florida 33181. Florida voter ID number 109809548. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 September 2014 voter list: Sylvia Uribe, 9201 E Bay Harbor Dr, APT 2, Bay Harbor Islands, FL 331542760 Florida Democratic Party.
Uribe, Tammy Lynn was born 15 July 1962, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 730 Byni Rdg, Winter Haven, Florida 33880. Florida voter ID number 120228997. Her telephone number is 1-863-288-6647. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE, TANASIA MONET was born 27 April 1998, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 6500 Rainbow Ave, Pensacola, Florida 32505. Florida voter ID number 126171874. Her telephone number is 1-850-637-9435. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Tania was born 9 March 1983, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 5261 Sw 90Th Way, Apt 2, Cooper City, Florida 33328. Florida voter ID number 115393030. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 October 2015.
Uribe, Teresa D. was born 1 October 1953, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 407 Nw 128Th Ave, Miami, Florida 33182. Florida voter ID number 116818162. Her telephone number is 1-305-790-6318. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Teresa P. was born 15 October 1930, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 6350 Palm Trace Landings Dr, Apt 206, Davie, Florida 33314-1839. Florida voter ID number 110065770. Her telephone number is 1-754-423-6353. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 January 2018 voter list: Teresa P. Uribe, 6350 Palm Trace Landings Dr, 202, Davie, FL 33314 Florida Democratic Party.
Uribe, Terry was born 27 June 1978, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 930 Walker Rd, Lakeland, Florida 33810-0000. Florida voter ID number 113656844. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 December 2018.
31 March 2015 voter list: TERRY URIBE, 930 WALKER RD, LAKELAND, FL 33810 No Party Affiliation.
Uribe, Theodore M. was born 11 January 1957, is male, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 250 Candycane Ln, Apt 2, Naples, Florida 34112. Florida voter ID number 122962754. His telephone number is 1-414-510-8610. His email address is [email protected]. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE, TIFFANY was born 11 December 1989, is female, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 3244 Oakmont Ter, Longwood, Florida 32779-3146. Florida voter ID number 124303832. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
28 February 2018 voter list: TIFFANY URIBE, 910 ALAMEDA DR, LONGWOOD, FL 32750 Republican Party of Florida.
Uribe, Tomasa P. was born 21 December 1955, is female, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 406 S Chipola Ave, Davenport, Florida 33837. Florida voter ID number 113595268. Her telephone number is 1-863-422-8195. The voter lists a mailing address and probably prefers you use it: PO BOX 1267 Davenport FL 33836. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE, TOMAS FERNANDO was born 6 January 1954, is male, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 325 Golden Gate Pt, Apt 14, Sarasota, Florida 34236. Florida voter ID number 123299201. His telephone number is 1-904-515-7280. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE, TOMAS M. was born 25 June 1986, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 16312 Sacramento Ave, Brooksville, Florida 34604. Florida voter ID number 104407955. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Tracy was born 22 August 1967, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 6928 Monarch Park Dr, Apollo Beach, Florida 33572. Florida voter ID number 123311471. Her email address is [email protected]. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Valdemar was born 21 May 1971, is male, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 1049 Willow Branch Ave, Jacksonville, Florida 32205. Florida voter ID number 103495430. The voter lists a mailing address and probably prefers you use it: 32 Gallatin St Providence RI 02907-1904. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 June 2015 voter list: Valdemar Uribe, 1049 Willowbranch Ave, Jacksonville, FL 32205 Florida Democratic Party.
URIBE, VANESSA was born 19 July 1998, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 341 Queen Ave, Oviedo, Florida 32765. Florida voter ID number 124630346. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Vanessa was born 3 November 1985, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 2121 N 61St Ave, Hollywood, Florida 33024. Florida voter ID number 102383931. Her telephone number is 1-954-981-2021. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Vanessa was born 22 December 1996, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 14225 Sw 148Th Ct, Miami, Florida 33196. Florida voter ID number 121993041. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE, VANESSA I. born 22 January 1982, Florida voter ID number 116304275 See Cantinieri, Vanessa Isadora. CLICK HERE.
Uribe, Vanessa Isabel was born 9 November 1996, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 16755 Hemingway Dr, Weston, Florida 33326. Florida voter ID number 121559318. Her telephone number is 1-954-822-5863. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 June 2018 voter list: Vanessa Isabel Uribe, 16755 Hemingway Dr, Weston, FL 333263107 No Party Affiliation.
30 June 2015 voter list: Vanessa Isabel Uribe, 16755 HEMINGWAY DR, Weston, FL 33326 No Party Affiliation.
URIBE, VERONICA was born 27 October 1983, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 19009 Bartow Blvd, Fort Myers, Florida 33967. Florida voter ID number 111423518. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 May 2012.
URIBE, VERONICA AURELIA was born 13 July 1993, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 725 9Th Ave N, St Petersburg, Florida 33701. Florida voter ID number 124109806. Her telephone number is 1-602-762-1056. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 September 2018 voter list: VERONICA AURELIA URIBE, 3635 HAINES RD N, ST PETERSBURG, FL 33704 Florida Democratic Party.
31 October 2017 voter list: Veronica Aurelia Uribe, 12702 N 53Rd ST, Temple Terrace, FL 33617 Florida Democratic Party.
URIBE, VERONICA E. was born 3 December 1975, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 147 Granada St, Royal Palm Beach, Florida 33411. Florida voter ID number 122961783. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Vicente was born 4 April 1970, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 2201 S Us Highway 41, Lot 24, Ruskin, Florida 33570-5301. Florida voter ID number 122820655. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 September 2018 voter list: Vicente Uribe, 2201 S US Highway 41, LOT 2, Ruskin, FL 335705301 No Party Affiliation.
30 November 2017 voter list: Vicente Uribe, 2201 S US HIGHWAY 41, LOT 24, RUSKIN, FL 335705302 No Party Affiliation.
31 May 2017 voter list: VICENTE URIBE, 8190 MADISON ST, BROOKSVILLE, FL 34613 No Party Affiliation.
Uribe, Victor was born 16 October 1966, is male, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 6928 Monarch Park Dr, Apollo Beach, Florida 33572. Florida voter ID number 110776015. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Victor Hugo was born 3 April 1972, is male, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 428 Hickory Tree Cir, Seffner, Florida 33584. Florida voter ID number 110885024. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 October 2016 voter list: Victor Hugo Uribe, 428 Hickory LN, Seffner, FL 33584 No Party Affiliation.
31 January 2015 voter list: Victor Hugo Uribe, 3407 Cardinal Feather DR, Land O Lakes, FL 34638 No Party Affiliation.
URIBE, VICTORIA was born 27 March 1995, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 660 Glouchester St, Boca Raton, Florida 33487. Florida voter ID number 126417283. Her telephone number is 1-512-431-4648. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Victoria Elizabeth born 20 May 1992, Florida voter ID number 117451377 See Ward, Victoria Elizabeth. CLICK HERE.
Uribe, Victor Leon was born 6 February 1953, is male, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 2450 E Hillsborough Ave, Apt 402, Tampa, Florida 33610-4416. Florida voter ID number 104130462. His telephone number is 1-850-525-8825. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 March 2017 voter list: Victor Leon Uribe, 1412 21St St SE, Ruskin, FL 33570 Florida Democratic Party.
Uribe, Victor Robert was born 7 June 1998, is male, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 428 Hickory Tree Cir, Seffner, Florida 33584. Florida voter ID number 123092259. His telephone number is 1-813-412-0873. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 July 2018 voter list: Victor Robert Uribe, 2608 N LINCOLN Ave, Tampa, FL 336072119 No Party Affiliation.
Uribe, Violeta was born 20 July 1958, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 10130 Nw 56Th St, Doral, Florida 33178. Florida voter ID number 115303204. Her telephone number is 1-305-710-6029. The voter lists a mailing address and probably prefers you use it: Apt 196 2323 W Dunlap Ave Phoenix AZ 85021. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 May 2012 voter list: Violeta Uribe, 15675 SW 40th ST, Miramar, FL 33027 Florida Democratic Party.
URIBE, VIVERLY was born 28 December 1954, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 155 Largs Ct, #206, Dunedin, Florida 34698-8389. Florida voter ID number 118601040. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 May 2017 voter list: VIVERLY URIBE, 391 DUNCAN LOOP W, #208, DUNEDIN, FL 34698 Florida Democratic Party.
URIBE, VIVIANA was born 19 November 1997, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 971 Beach Breeze Dr, Orlando, Florida 32835. Florida voter ID number 123800641. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Vivian Fernanda was born 10 October 1958, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 2650 Nw 28Th St, Apt 0910, Miami, Florida 33142. Florida voter ID number 121534955. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 October 2018 voter list: Vivian Rubio Uribe, 2650 NW 28Th ST, APT 0910, Miami, FL 33142 Florida Democratic Party.
31 July 2018 voter list: Vivian Fernanda Uribe, 2650 NW 28Th ST, APT 910, Miami, FL 33142 Florida Democratic Party.
URIBE, WHITNEY MARIE was born 12 April 1986, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 8706 Deland Ave, Fort Pierce, Florida 34951. Florida voter ID number 108263689. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 November 2016 voter list: WHITNEY MARIE URIBE, 6802 SANTA CLARA BLVD, FORT PIERCE, FL 34951 No Party Affiliation.
31 March 2014 voter list: WHITNEY MARIE URIBE, 105 LAJEAN DR, FORT PIERCE, FL 34947 No Party Affiliation.
31 May 2012 voter list: WHITNEY MARIE URIBE, 3516 ROSELAWN BLVD, FORT PIERCE, FL 34982 No Party Affiliation.
Uribe, William Alexander was born 28 March 1987, is male, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 3311 S Moorings Way, Miami, Florida 33133. Florida voter ID number 119733207. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, William David was born 27 August 1974, is male, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 1607 Michigan Ave, Apt 6, Miami Beach, Florida 33139. Florida voter ID number 109830281. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, William R. was born 26 November 1935, is male, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 132 Florida Shores Blvd, Daytona Bch Shores, Florida 32118. Florida voter ID number 108811437. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 May 2012.
URIBE, WILSON ALEJANDRO was born 14 September 1972, is male, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 5975 Sw 2Nd Way, Bushnell, Florida 33513. Florida voter ID number 114579211. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 October 2015 voter list: WILSON A. URIBE, 4856 SW 74TH RD, BUSHNELL, FL 335138523 Republican Party of Florida.
Uribe, Ximena was born 3 March 1962, is female, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 1695 Orchid Bnd, Weston, Florida 33327-0000. Florida voter ID number 101593735. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 30 November 2016.
Uribe, Yachira Minellie was born 13 February 1992, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 2338 Campus Club Ct, Apt 202, Tampa, Florida 33612-6584. Florida voter ID number 123568545. Her telephone number is 1-813-704-8884. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
28 February 2019 voter list: Yachira Minellie Uribe, 10101 N Florida AVE, LOT 28, Tampa, FL 33612 Florida Democratic Party.
31 August 2016 voter list: Yachira Minellie De Jesuis Uribe, 10101 N FLORIDA AVE, LOT 28, Tampa, FL 33612 Florida Democratic Party.
URIBE, YALITZA CARINA was born 14 April 1996, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 341 Queen Ave, Oviedo, Florida 32765. Florida voter ID number 126076542. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Yamirca Janece was born 26 April 1979, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 1871 Monte Cristo Ln, Kissimmee, Florida 34758. Florida voter ID number 106206972. Her telephone number is 847-7516 (no area code listed). This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE, YANERIS was born 1 November 1982, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 111 Euna Ln, Altamonte Springs, Florida 32701. Florida voter ID number 107858983. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Yanneth was born 21 June 1969, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 5214 Monza Ct, Ave Maria, Florida 34142. Florida voter ID number 101869640. Her telephone number is 1-954-648-4811. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
28 February 2018 voter list: Yanneth Uribe, 12096 SW 42Nd MNR, APT 304, Miramar, FL 330257998 Florida Democratic Party.
31 May 2017 voter list: Yanneth Uribe, 17953 SW 29th Ln, Miramar, FL 330295503 Florida Democratic Party.
31 May 2015 voter list: Yanneth Uribe, 17953 SW 29th Ln, Miramar, FL 33029 Florida Democratic Party.
Uribe, Yarima was born 22 March 1972, is female, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 11055 Watercrest Cir E, Parkland, Florida 33076. Florida voter ID number 122269871. Her email address is [email protected]. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 June 2016 voter list: Yarima Uribe, 12640 NW 9Th St, Coral Springs, FL 330714429 Republican Party of Florida.
31 March 2015 voter list: Yarima Uribe, 12640 NW 9Th ST, Coral Springs, FL 33071 Republican Party of Florida.
Uribe, Yasmin born 12 August 1990, Florida voter ID number 116293345 See Solito, Yasmin. CLICK HERE.
Uribe, Yesenia was born 16 September 1996, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 690 Bradbury Rd, Haines City, Florida 33844. Florida voter ID number 125427060. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Yessica Mercedes was born 8 June 1990, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 6345 W 22Nd Ct, Apt 203, Hialeah, Florida 33016. Florida voter ID number 120962737. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Yolanda was born 11 April 1959, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 1229 Cordova St, Coral Gables, Florida 33134. Florida voter ID number 110301413. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 August 2016 voter list: Yolanda Uribe Daravina, 1229 Cordova St, Coral Gables, FL 33134 Florida Democratic Party.
Uribe, Yolanda was born 1 November 1948, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 5222 Nw 197Th Ter, Opa Locka, Florida 33055. Florida voter ID number 109173654. Her telephone number is 625-6876 (no area code listed). This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Yolanda De La Cruz was born 27 August 1951, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 712 Black Eagle Dr, Groveland, Florida 34736. Florida voter ID number 116563433. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 June 2014 voter list: YOLANDA DE LA CRUZ URIBE, 7314 HUNTERDON CT, ORLANDO, FL 32835 Florida Democratic Party.
31 May 2012 voter list: Yolanda De La Cruz Uribe, 919 Venetia AVE, Coral Gables, FL 33134 Florida Democratic Party.
URIBE, YSABEL ANITA was born 20 December 1954, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 4117 Forrestal Pl, Orlando, Florida 32806. Florida voter ID number 124104655. Her telephone number is 1-484-769-6788. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Yuderca was born 16 August 1964, is female, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 1207 Commonwealth Cir, Apt 102, Naples, Florida 34116. Florida voter ID number 124601647. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe, Yuderca was born 16 August 1964, is female, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 1280 Henley St, Apt 1605, Naples, Florida 34105. Florida voter ID number 114561503. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 30 November 2014.
Uribe, Zulay was born 1 September 1967, is female, registered as Florida Democratic Party, residing at 2513 Ascot Ct, Kissimmee, Florida 34744. Florida voter ID number 106307827. Her telephone number is 1-407-340-4175. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
URIBE-ALARCON, VEROHUSKA MARIA was born 7 February 1973, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 419 Lanarkshire Pl, Apopka, Florida 32712. Florida voter ID number 113293019. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
30 November 2015 voter list: VEROHUSKA MARIA URIBE-ALARCON, 2526 TWILIGHT DR, ORLANDO, FL 32825 No Party Affiliation.
Uribe Alcantara, Catalina was born 27 November 1965, is female, registered as Republican Party of Florida, residing at 3602 16Th St W, Bradenton, Florida 34205-5502. Florida voter ID number 100332965. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 August 2017 voter list: Catalina Uribe Alcantara, 3602 16th St W, Bradenton, FL 34205 Republican Party of Florida.
Uribe-Almunia, Vivian Vanessa was born 21 July 1982, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 750 Sw 103Rd Path, Sweetwater, Florida 33174. Florida voter ID number 122687461. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
Uribe-Antunano, Carlos E. was born 15 March 1980, is male, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 1990 Bay Dr, #1, Miami Beach, Florida 33141. Florida voter ID number 110192057. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 August 2016 voter list: Carlos E. Uribe-Antunano, 8888 Collins Ave, APT 316, Surfside, FL 33154 No Party Affiliation.
31 May 2012 voter list: Carlos E. Uribe-Antunano, 9250 W Bay Harbor Dr, #513, Bay Harbor Islands, FL 33154 No Party Affiliation.
Uribe Arias, Natalia Andrea was born 9 June 1978, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 9180 Nw 20Th Pl, Sunrise, Florida 33322. Florida voter ID number 119137790. Her telephone number is 1-772-501-3732. Her email address is [email protected]. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019.
31 August 2016 voter list: Natalia Andrea Uribe Arias, 8150 CLEARY Blvd, APT 1510, Plantation, FL 333241375 No Party Affiliation.
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URIBE CEDANO, LUZ ADRIANA born 20 September 1970, Florida voter ID number 120253903 See URIBE, LUZ ADRIANA. CLICK HERE.
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31 January 2018 voter list: Carolina Uribe, 3130 Jackson Ave, Miami, FL 33133 Republican Party of Florida.
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Uribe Daravina, Yolanda born 11 April 1959, Florida voter ID number 110301413 See Uribe, Yolanda. CLICK HERE.
Uribe-Dealmeida, Rennee Marie was born 14 January 1975, is female, registered as No Party Affiliation, residing at 385 Snow Dr, Fort Myers, Florida 33919. Florida voter ID number 125461243. This is the most recent information, from the Florida voter list as of 31 March 2019. | 2019-04-22T22:30:38Z | https://flvoters.com/pages/u100342.html |
Objectives We examined the utility of circulating total and IgG4+ plasmablasts as biomarkers of diagnosis and disease activity in IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD).
Materials methods We evaluated patients with active, untreated, biopsy-proven IgG4-RD affecting various organs. Flow cytometry was used to measure total plasmablast and IgG4+ plasmablast counts by gating peripheral blood for CD19lowCD38+CD20−CD27+ cells and CD19lowCD38+CD20−CD27+IgG4+ cells. Serum IgG4 concentrations were measured by nephelometry. We compared 37 IgG4-RD patients to 35 controls, including healthy individuals (n=14) and patients with other inflammatory diseases before treatment (n=21).
Results The IgG4-RD patients’ mean age was 59, and 68% were male. Fourteen patients (38%) had three or more organs involved. The IgG4-RD patients had substantially elevated total plasmablast counts (median 4698/mL, range 610–79524/mL) compared to both untreated disease controls (median 592/mL, range 19–4294/mL; p < 0.001) and healthy controls (median 94/mL, range 1–653/mL; p < 0.001). Thirteen IgG4-RD patients (36%) had normal serum IgG4 concentrations (mean 60 mg/dL, range 5–123 mg/dL, normal <135 mg/dL). However, the median plasmablast count was not significantly lower in that subset with normal serum IgG4 concentrations (3784/mL) compared to those with elevated serum IgG4 (5155/mL) (p = 0.242). Among the 12 rituximab (RTX)-treated patients, the median plasmablast level during disease flare was 6356/mL (range 1123–41589/mL), declining to 1419/mL (range 386/mL–4150/mL) during remission (p < 0.01).
Conclusions Circulating plasmablasts are elevated in active IgG4-RD, even in patients with normal serum IgG4 concentrations. Plasmablast counts are a potentially useful biomarker for diagnosis, assessing response to treatment, and determining the appropriate time for re-treatment.
B cell depletion appears to be an effective treatment strategy for IgG4-RD, but the assessment of disease activity following treatment and appropriate timing of re-treatment remains challenging. In patients with a normal serum IgG4 concentration at baseline, for example, serial measurements are of limited to no utility. Even in patients with elevated baseline IgG4 concentrations, the decline in IgG4 following successful treatment is variable, and measurements frequently remain elevated, albeit lower. A biomarker with high sensitivity and specificity for active IgG4-RD would be of tremendous value for confirming diagnostic suspicion, assessing response to treatment, and identifying impending relapse.
Circulating plasmablasts have been described previously in inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus and multiple myeloma.21 ,22 ,24–27 One case report describes a patient with IgG4-RD who had elevated circulating plasmablasts that declined with corticosteroid treatment.28 In this study, we describe the clinical characteristics of patients with active, untreated IgG4-RD and elevated plasmablast levels in blood, stratified according to serum IgG4 concentration. We also report the relationship between total and IgG4+ plasmablasts and disease activity, and describe serial assessments of plasmablasts following treatment.
This study was approved by the institutional review board and all subjects provided informed, written consent. From the database of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for IgG4-Related Disease, we identified 37 sequentially evaluated patients who had active, untreated disease. The IgG4-RD patients were compared to 14 healthy controls and to 21 disease controls with active, untreated inflammatory diseases or malignancies at the time their blood samples were drawn. The 21 disease control subjects included five patients with RA, four with GPA, two with pancreatic cancer, one with diffuse large B cell lymphoma, three with sarcoidosis, and one each with livedoid vasculopathy, Sjögren's syndrome, primary biliary cirrhosis, chronic pain, acute Lyme disease, and gout. Twelve of the patients with active, untreated IgG4-RD were treated with RTX (two 1000 mg doses separated by 15 days). Peripheral blood was analysed by flow cytometry before and after this therapy.
All 37 patients had clinical histories consistent with IgG4-RD and biopsies of involved organs met criteria for a definite diagnosis.7 Haematoxylin and eosin-stained slides were reviewed to determine the histopathological features. Immunohistochemistry for IgG4 and IgG was performed using antibodies to IgG4 (Zymed; 1:200 dilution) and IgG (Dako; 1:3000 dilution). For each case, the number of plasma cells staining for IgG4 was assessed in three non-overlapping high-power fields (magnification ×400).7 The fields with the highest degree of IgG4 reactivity were counted. The number of IgG4+ plasma cells was then divided by the total number of IgG+ plasma cells in these fields to determine the IgG4+:IgG+ plasma cell ratio.
The IgG4-RD Responder Index (RI) was used to identify patients with active disease, defined by an RI score ≥3.29 In serial assessments, disease activity was categorised as ‘flare’ or ‘not flare’.30 Details regarding demographic features and reported standard laboratory tests were collected from the electronic medical record; one patient did not have data on serum IgG4 concentrations at baseline available. Patients with other immune-mediated conditions were determined to have active disease based on the assessments of their treating providers. None of the controls had received treatment for their condition prior to blood sampling.
All statistical tests were performed using SPSS V.21. Statistical differences were found by paired and unpaired Student t tests and by non-parametric tests, including all assessments of plasmablast levels. Linear correlations were measured by Pearson's correlation coefficient. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated based on the assumption that ascending rank of plasmablast counts would increase the likelihood of an IgG4-RD diagnosis. A p value of <0.05 was considered significant for all statistical testing.
The clinical characteristics of the 37 IgG4-RD patients and the subset of 12 who were treated with RTX are described in table 1. The mean age of the IgG4-RD group was 59 years (range 33–82). Twenty-five (68%) of the patients were male. Fourteen (38%) patients had at least three organs involved (range 3–6), while the remaining 23 had active IgG4-RD in only one or two organs. Of the 12 patients treated with RTX, four experienced disease flares an average of 8 months after the initial infusion.
The most commonly involved organs were the lymph nodes and submandibular glands (11 cases each). Lymphadenopathy was the sole disease manifestation in only one patient. Other frequent sites of involvement included the pancreas (8 cases), parotid gland (7 cases) and orbit (7 cases). In the 37 IgG4-RD patients overall, 18 different anatomical locations were involved in at least one patient. The average IgG4-RD RI score was 11 (range 3–36). The mean ages of the disease controls and healthy controls were 53 years (range 25–81) and 43 years (range 23–60), respectively. Twenty-nine percent of the disease controls and 60% of the healthy controls were males.
All IgG4-RD patients had expanded circulating plasmablast populations (median 4698/mL, range 610–79 524/mL). The median plasmablast count among healthy controls was 94/mL (range 1–653/mL; p<0.001 compared with IgG4-RD) (figure 1), while that of patients with other immune-mediated conditions and malignancies was 592.0/mL (range 19–4294/mL; p<0.001 compared with IgG4-RD) (figure 1). Several patients with other immune-mediated conditions and one healthy control had elevated plasmablast counts. These values were 644/mL (a patient with GPA), 653/mL (healthy control), 752/mL (RA), 798/mL (sarcoidosis), 1917/mL (primary biliary cirrhosis), 2428/mL (GPA), 3802/mL (Sjögren's syndrome) and 4294/mL (RA). Male and female IgG4-RD patients had similar plasmablast counts (male median 4093/mL, range 610–79 524/mL; female median 5155/mL, range 910–15 528/mL; p=0.67).
Box plot of median plasmablast count (power scale /mL) by diagnosis. Open circles represent outliers and asterisks represent extreme outliers.
Among IgG4-RD patients, 13 (36%) had normal serum IgG4 concentrations (mean 59.5 mg/dL, range 5.3–123 mg/dL, normal <135 mg/dL). The features of patients with elevated serum IgG4 concentrations are compared to those of patients with normal serum IgG4 concentrations in table 2. Patients with elevated serum IgG4 concentrations (mean 924 mg/dL, range 138–4780 mg/dL, normal <135 mg/dL) were more likely to have involvement of three or more organs (57% vs 15%; p<0.01). In addition, IgG4-RD patients with elevated serum IgG4 concentrations had a greater mean number of organs involved than did those with normal serum IgG4 (2.9 vs 1.7; p<0.01), and were also more likely to have abnormal inflammatory markers (low C3 and C4, and high erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein) (table 2). Patients with normal serum IgG4 concentrations had mean RI scores nearly seven points lower compared to those with elevated serum IgG4 concentrations (mean 6.5 (range 3–14) vs 13.3 (range 6–36); p<0.01). The mean serum IgG4 concentration was higher among male patients (mean 728 mg/dL vs 378 mg/dL for females; p=0.05).
Table 2 shows data from a comparison among IgG4-RD patients, stratified according to whether their serum IgG4 concentrations were elevated (>135 mg/dL) or normal.
No differences were observed between the plasmablast counts of IgG4-RD patients with elevated as opposed to normal serum IgG4 values (medians 5525/mL and 3784/mL; p=0.24). Plasmablast counts were significantly different between those with multi-organ disease and those with ≤2 organs involved (medians 7370/mL and 3435/mL, respectively; p=0.01). Correlation between the baseline plasmablast counts and the baseline IgG4-RD RI score was modest (R=0.17; p=0.16).
IgG4+ plasmablast levels were assessed in 24 patients with active, untreated IgG4-RD. The median IgG4+ plasmablast level was 2808/mL (range 203–57 012/mL). In this same group of 24 IgG4-RD patients, the median total number of plasmablasts was 4083/mL (range 610–79 524/mL). Thus, IgG4+ plasmablasts accounted for a mean percentage of 61% of the total plasmablast concentrations (range 14–90%). There appeared to be trends toward a higher median IgG4+ plasmablast level among patients with elevated as opposed to normal serum IgG4 concentrations (4631/mL vs 1372/mL; p=0.10). Similarly, the percentage of plasmablasts that were IgG4+ plasmablasts was higher among those patients with elevated serum IgG4, but this comparison fell short of statistical significance (67% vs 49%, respectively; p=0.15).
An ROC curve was created to analyse the utility of the plasmablast level as a diagnostic test for IgG4-RD. Overall, plasmablast levels demonstrated excellent performance as a test for IgG4-RD (area under the ROC curve (AUC) 0.96; p<0.05; 95% CI 0.92 to 0.99). A plasmablast value of 900/mL had a sensitivity of 95%, a specificity of 82%, a positive predictive value of 86%, and a negative predictive value of 97%. A plasmablast value of 2000/mL had a sensitivity of 87%, a specificity of 91%, a positive predictive value of 91%, and a negative predictive value of 87%.
Twelve of the patients evaluated with active, untreated disease received a course of RTX (two 1000 mg doses separated by 15 days). Flow cytometry was performed at baseline and at least once between months 3 and 6 after treatment in all patients (figure 2A). The median plasmablast level of 6356/mL (range 1123–41 589/mL) during periods of active disease declined to 1419/mL (range 386–4150/mL) during periods of complete or partial remission (p<0.01 by related samples Wilcoxon signed rank test) (see online supplement 1). In contrast, no significant difference in the mean serum IgG4 concentration was observed between these same periods (mean serum IgG4 concentration with active disease of 1014 mg/dL (range 26–4780 mg/dL) compared with 521 mg/dL (range 18–2098 mg/dL); p=0.12 by paired t test) (see online supplement 2). The mean percentage change in plasmablast level between flare and remission was 66% (range −15% to 98%) compared to 23% (range −109% to 75%) for IgG4 concentrations (p=0.002 by paired t test). The mean baseline and follow-up IgG4-RD RI scores were 13.8 during flare (range 3–36) and 4.4 during periods of partial or complete remission (range 0–10; p=0.001) following RTX.
(A) Absolute plasmablast count (/mL) at baseline (month 0) and following rituximab (RTX) infusions. Each line represents a different patient (n=12 patients). (B) Absolute IgG4+ plasmablast count (/mL) at baseline (month 0) and following RTX infusions. Each line represents a different patient (n=6 patients). The same colour is used for these six patients as in figure 2(A).
In six patients, IgG4+ and total plasmablast levels were assessed at baseline and 3–6 months following RTX treatment (figure 2B). The median IgG4+ plasmablast level among these patients was 4077/mL (range 534–45 752/mL) at baseline and 178/mL (range 0–4906/mL) at 3–6 months after treatment (p = 0.046).
This study demonstrates that patients with active, untreated IgG4-RD have significant elevations in their circulating plasmablast counts regardless of their serum IgG4 concentrations, and that patients with multi-organ IgG4-RD have higher absolute plasmablast counts than those with involvement of only one or two organs. In addition, plasmablast levels appear to be superior to serum IgG4 concentrations as a biomarker for IgG4-RD. Plasmablast counts decline swiftly following peripheral B cell depletion, and this decline is accompanied by corresponding decreases in disease activity as measured by the IgG4-RD RI. IgG4-RD thus represents an unusual example of an immune-mediated condition in which measurement of a single cell type may play a central role in diagnosing, monitoring and managing the disease.
The identification of circulating plasmablast expansion in IgG4-RD has substantial implications for clinical care. The diagnosis of IgG4-RD remains dependent upon biopsy and is therefore subject to the limitations of tissue accessibility (eg, the aorta), the small size of the biopsy specimen (the upper airways, retroperitoneum) and sampling error. Although elevated plasmablast levels can be found in patients with other inflammatory conditions, the expansion seen in patients with IgG4-RD is significantly greater such that levels over 2000/mL have a high specificity and positive predictive value for this diagnosis. At the same time, blood plasmablast levels of this magnitude maintain a high sensitivity for IgG4-RD. Further, the combination of an extreme elevation in plasmablast count and a substantial elevation in the serum IgG4 concentration suggests a high likelihood of multi-organ disease and should prompt providers to consider more comprehensive evaluations, for example, with additional imaging, as appropriate. Alternatively, a low plasmablast level argues against active IgG4-RD and may suggest another diagnosis.
Measurements of peripheral blood plasmablasts may be particularly useful in patients with normal serum IgG4 concentrations in whom there remains a high clinical suspicion for IgG4-RD and in whom appropriate measures have been undertaken to exclude malignancy. Moreover, the declines observed in circulating plasmablast counts following treatment and the rise before clinical flare in the small number of patients in this series who flared during the period of observation, suggest that serial measurements have an important role in following response to treatment, in determining if the intensity of treatment has been sufficient, and in guiding the timing of repeat therapy (data not shown). This final point is particularly critical in patients with organ-threatening disease (eg, IgG4-related sclerosing cholangitis, tubulointerstitial nephritis, aortitis or pachymeningitis) in whom disease recurrence may lead to irreversible damage or organ failure. Other immune-mediated diseases that respond to B cell depletion, for example, ANCA-associated vasculitis and RA, typically require re-treatment over the course of longitudinal follow-up, but there are no reliable laboratory indicators that predict the timing of disease relapse in advance. Consequently, clinicians are confronted with the need to treat patients at regular intervals—risking overtreatment of some patients—or waiting for clinical disease flares to become evident, placing patients at some risk of irreversible organ damage.
All 37 patients with active, untreated IgG4-RD had elevated plasmablast counts despite the fact that 13 (36%) had normal serum IgG4 concentrations. This finding is consistent with other studies of serum IgG4 concentrations, which have observed that between 10% and 30% of patients have normal serum IgG4 concentrations even in the presence of classic histopathological and immunohistochemical staining features of the disease.14 ,32 Other investigators have demonstrated that serum IgG4 concentrations also have shortcomings as predictors of disease flares.33 In our study of patients with active, untreated IgG4-RD, the median plasmablast count did not differ between the two groups with normal and elevated serum IgG4 concentrations, consistent with the concept that the circulating plasmablast count is a more robust diagnostic marker than are serum IgG4 concentrations. Our observation that plasmablast levels differ significantly during periods of disease flare as opposed to clinical remission, suggests that monitoring plasmablast levels after treatment might be useful in predicting clinical flares and guiding management accordingly, with prophylactic treatment. Further studies are necessary to evaluate this hypothesis. Broader investigations are also required of the subset of expanded plasmablasts that are IgG4+.
The observation of elevated plasmablasts in patients with active, untreated IgG4-RD has important implications for understanding the pathophysiology of IgG4-RD as well as the response to treatment. A prior report described oligoclonal B cells in patients with IgG4-RD,37 suggesting that circulating plasmablasts may also be oligoclonal (this requires confirmation). Successful treatment of IgG4-RD by the depletion of mature peripheral B cells has been described, but plasmablasts lack surface expression of CD20 and are therefore resistant to direct depletion by anti-CD20 treatment approaches.18 The steep decline in plasmablast counts after anti-CD20 treatment likely stems from the depletion of CD20+ precursors. We observed that IgG4-RD patients with elevated plasmablast counts on presentation demonstrate clinical responses to RTX, coincident with a swift decline in both total and IgG4+ plasmablast levels. The utility of total and IgG4+ plasmablast levels as biomarkers of disease activity and predictors of flare requires further investigation.
Our study has both strengths and weaknesses. All patients had IgG4-RD confirmed by biopsy according to recent consensus criteria7 and had active disease when their blood samples were evaluated. In addition, none had been treated before study entry. A common challenge in studying patients with inflammatory conditions is the identification of patients before they have received any immunosuppressive therapy. The identification of such patients was a major focus of our study and the main reason why the number of patients studied was relatively small. Although it will be important to confirm and extend these findings in larger studies, our statistical analyses suggest robust differences across many of the comparisons made.
In summary, IgG4-RD is associated with elevated plasmablast counts in the blood. Our results suggest that the plasmablast count is superior to serum IgG4 concentrations as a biomarker for the diagnosis of IgG4-RD. The plasmablast count reflects the extent of disease and may also be useful for the timing of re-treatment.
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. Origin and function of circulating plasmablasts during acute viral infections. Front Immunol 2012;3:1.
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. Perturbations of peripheral B lymphocyte homoeostasis in children with systemic lupus erythematosus. Ann Rheum Dis 2003;62:851–8.
. Circulating plasmablasts/plasmacells as a source of anticitrullinated protein antibodies in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Ann Rheum Dis 2013;72:1259–63.
. B cell biomarkers of rituximab responses in systemic lupus erythematosus. Arthritis Rheum 2011;63:3038–47.
. Phenotypic changes of lymphocyte in a patient with IgG4-related disease after corticosteroid therapy. Ann Rheum Dis 2012;71: 2058–9.
. Development of an IgG4-RD Responder Index. Int J Rheumatol 2012;2012:259408.
. Treatment of relapsing autoimmune pancreatitis with immunomodulators and rituximab: the Mayo Clinic experience. Gut 2013;62:1607–15.
. Spuriously low serum IgG4 concentrations caused by the prozone phenomenon in IgG4-related disease. Arthritis Rheumatol 2014;66:213–17.
. IgG4-related systemic disease: the age of discovery. Curr Opin Rheumatol 2011;23:72–3.
. Standard steroid treatment for autoimmune pancreatitis. Gut 2009;58:1504–7.
. Increased numbers of immature plasma cells in peripheral blood specifically overexpress chemokine receptor CXCR3 and CXCR4 in patients with ulcerative colitis. Clin Exp Immunol 2011; 163:215–24.
. A plasmablast biomarker for nonresponse to antibody therapy to CD20 in rheumatoid arthritis. Sci Transl Med 2011;3:101ra92.
. Plasmablast frequency and trafficking receptor expression are altered in pediatric ulcerative colitis. Inflamm Bowel Dis 2012;18:2381–91.
. Immunoglobulin G4+ clones identified by next-generation sequencing dominate the B cell receptor repertoire in immunoglobulin G4 associated cholangitis. Hepatology 2013;57:2390–8.
Funding This study was funded by grants AI 064930 and AI 076505 from the National Institutes of Health and a pilot grant from the Harvard Institute of Translational Immunology supported by the Helmsley Foundation.
Ethics approval This study was reviewed and approved by the Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners Institutional Review Board. | 2019-04-23T11:25:59Z | https://ard.bmj.com/content/74/1/190?ijkey=526f3bdbed71a28ad0bfb121b9947f0293ee5406&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha |
Ab Kettleby, Leicestershire, St. James the Greater. © Jim Rushton. Two additional views - 1, 2, both © David Regan (2015). Link. Grade II* listed. A video about the restoration project. The former Methodist Church. Another view. Both © David Regan (2015).
Abberley, Worcestershire, St. Mary (1850). Interior view. SO 751 679. Link. Grade II listed. St. Michael, the former parish church, of which the chancel is still used for services. The rest of the church is a shell. Two additional views - 1, 2. SO 753 678. Link. Grade II* listed. All © Chris Kippin (2018).
Abberton, Worcestershire, St. Edburga. Another view. Both © Peter Morgan (2012). Link. Both links refer to a "broach spire", but nothing is evident in either photo. Howard Richter has pointed out that the grade II listing mentions that it was taken down in 1962, as it posed a hazard for RAF planes from the nearby RAF Pershore.
Abbess Roding, Essex, St. Edmund. From an old postcard (franked 1911) in Reg Dosell's Collection. Link.
Abbey Hey, Manchester, Greater Manchester.
Abbey Hulton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire - see Stoke-on-Trent.
Abbeycwmhir, Powys, St. Mary. The present church was built with stone from the abbey. © Eirian Evans. Another view, interior view, and the remains of the old church, all © John Bowdler. Link.
Abbeydale, Sheffield, South Yorkshire - see Sheffield.
Abbeydore, Herefordshire, St. Mary. The remains of the medieval abbey now serve as the parish church. From an old postcard in Steve Bulman's Collection. A modern view, and an interior view. Both © Tim Hollinghurst. Link.
Abbeyleix, County Laois, Holy Rosary Church (R.C.). © Joseph Cantwell.
Abbeytown, Cumbria, St. Mary. The parish church is the remaining fragment (the nave) of Holme Cultram abbey. Severely damaged by fire 9 June 2006. NY 177 508. © Steve Bulman. Methodist Church. NY 173 507. © Steve Bulman. Link. The church was offered for sale in late 2018 or early 2019, and the Estate Agents notice, which says it was built in 1869, includes photos of the unaltered interior.
Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, St. Nicholas. Stained glass window. Both © John French. Interior view, © Richard Roberts (2015). Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart (1831-46). SK 079 245. © John French. Another view, © Richard Roberts (2014). Link. Chapel of St. Anne (ca. 1884) at Abbots Bromley School for Girls on High Street. SK 083 245. © Richard Roberts (2014). Link. The former Primitive Methodist Chapel (uncertain date, but pre-1882) on Lichfield Road, now a private residence. SK 083 242. © Richard Roberts (2014). The former Independent Chapel (later Congregational) on Hall Hill Lane. Also built pre-1882, and now a private residence. SK 080 244. © Richard Roberts (2014).
Abbots Leigh, Somerset, Holy Trinity, on Church Road. Two additional views - 1, 2, and the interior. ST 5444 7402. All © Carole Sage (2016). Link. Grade II* listed.
Abbot's Morton, Worcestershire, St. Peter. Interior view. Both © Aidan McRae Thomson. The following are all © John Bowdler (2010) - the porch, just inside of which are two pews, dated by the church information leaflet to the 15th century; a triplet of windows of very unusual design; another three interior views - 1, 2, 3; the roof; the font is very plain, usually a sign of early date; the organ; and a window. Link.
Abbots Ripton, Cambridgeshire, St. Andrew. Another view. Both © Jim Rushton. Link.
Abbotsbury, Dorset, St. Nicholas. Another view, an ancient carved stone figure in the porch (the listing says it's of an abbot, of circa 1200), another in the exterior wall (St. Nicholas?), two of the interior - 1, 2, the altar and the font. All © Peter Morgan (2017). An old postcard view, from Steve Bulman's Collection. Link. Grade I listed. St. Catherine's Chapel (originally part of the abbey). Link. © Derek Jordan, on an external web-site. The former Congregational Church, © Dennis Harper (2011).
Abbotskerswell, Devon, St. Mary. SX 658 687. From an old postcard in Reg Dosell's Collection. Link.
Abbotsley, Cambridgeshire, St. Margaret. © Jim Rushton. Another view. © James Murray.
Abenhall, Gloucestershire, St. Michael. Another view. Both © Graeme Harvey (2013).
Aber (south of Trawsfynydd), Gwynedd, the former chapel (according to this old map), or Sunday School (according to Coflein, which refers to a building date of 1905, with conversion to residential use before 1998). Another view. SH 7087 3240. Both © Howard Richter (2016).
Aber-banc, Ceredigion, Capel Drindod (Methodist and Independent). SN 355 418. © Mike Berrell. The unusual diamond-shaped date-stone. © Mike Berrell (2012). Two interior views - 1, 2, and the ceiling rose, all © Elaine Rogers (2012). Link.
Aberarth, Ceredigion, St. David. SN 479 639. © Mike Berrell (2011). Link.
Aberavon, Port Talbot, Neath Port Talbot - see Port Talbot.
Aberbargoed, Caerphilly, Caersalem Baptist Chapel has dates 1839 and 1860 (re-built). Hills Community Church. The former Moriah Baptist Church, now a nursery. All © Gerard Charmley (2011).
Aberbeeg, Blaenau Gwent, Methodist Church, built as Primitive Methodist. © Gerard Charmley (2011). Aberbeeg straddles the county boundary, so for Christchurch, see the next entry.
Aberbeeg, Caerphilly, Christchurch. © Gerard Charmley (2011). Aberbeeg straddles the county boundary, so for the Methodist Church, see the previous entry.
Abercanaid, Merthyr Tydfil, St. Peter & St. Paul (CiW, 1882). Another view. © Gerard Charmley (2011). The original became too small, and another church was built adjacent (1912). Gerard advises that it appears to be disused. Both © Gerard Charmley. Sion Welsh Independent Church. © Gerard Charmley.
Abercorn, West Lothian, the Parish Church. © Bill McKenzie. Link1. Link2.
Abercwmboi, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Bethesda Welsh Baptist Chapel (1864, Grade II listed). Life in the Nations Church (Charismatic), originally Bethlehem Welsh Independent Chapel. Abercwmboi Christian Centre, in the former Abercwmboi Miners's Institute. All © Gerard Charmley (2010).
Abercych, Pembrokeshire, the former Ramoth Chapel (Addoldy Bedyddwyr, 1825), now in private hands. SN 250405. © Mike Berrell (2010).
St. Clears, Carmarthenshire, Abercywyn Church (CiW). Interior view. SN 299 169. Both © Peter Morgan (2011).
Aberdaron, Gwynedd, St. Hywyn (CiW). Another view, showing the church's spectacular situation. SH 173 264. © David Wilkinson. Another view, two interiors - 1, 2, the pulpit, altar, and the font. Link. Grade I listed. The former Salem Chapel (1898), now in residential use. SH 174 266. All © Dennis Harper (2013).
Aberdour, Fife, St. Fillan, the Parish Church (CoS) on Hawkcraig Road. Another view. Link1. Link2. The former Parish Church (1790) on High Street has served as the hall for St. Fillan since 1926. Link. St. Columba (Scottish Episcopal, circa 1845) on Inverkeithing Road. Link1. Link2. All © Jim Parker (2013).
Aberdulais, Neath Port Talbot, Sion Calvinistic Methodist Chapel on Fforest Hill. The former Wesley Chapel, now a private residence. Both © Jim Parker.
Aberdyfi, Gwynedd, St. Peter. © Chris Emms (2010).
Aberedw, Powys, St. Cewydd. SO 0803 4731. From an old postcard in Reg Dosell's Collection. A modern view, the porch, and an inscribed gravestone (inscribed with, Paul tells me, "IH 1604"), all © Paul Wood (2015). Link.
Abererch, Gwynedd, St. Cawrdaf. Another view. SH 396 365. Link. (The former?) Ebenezer Chapel (1868). SH 395 365. All © Dennis Harper (2013).
Aberfeldy, Perth & Kinross, the former Congregational Church of 1877, on The Square. The congregation dates from 1790, and they moved into a newly-built church on Chapel Street in 1820, which they used until 1878. The present church building was gifted to the town in the 1987, and is now known as The Locus Centre (link). NN 85619 49091. © Jane Scott. The former Free Church on Chapel Street. The first service was held in 1907, and the building was sold in 1994. Another view. NN 85669 49147. Both © Jane Scott.
Aberffraw, Isle of Anglesey, St. Beuno (CiW). Largely a Victorian re-build, it still retains some features from the 12th, 14th, and 16th centuries. Another view. SH 353 688. Link1. Link2. Link3. Link4. Seion Methodist Church (1887). SH 354 690. All © Dave Westrap.
Aberford, West Yorkshire, St. Ricarius. © Bill Henderson. Nearby, at Lotherton Hall, stands a 12th century Chapel of Ease. © Chris Cole (copyright holder, and postcard publisher). Link. Grade II* listed.
Aberfoyle, Stirling, Church of Scotland. Another view. NN 514 013. Link. St. Mary (Scottish Episcopal). Another view. NN 524 010. Link. All © Dennis Harper (2013).
Abergwesyn, Powys, Pantycelyn Baptist Chapel. SN 893 537. © Simon Atkin. Hereabouts once stood St. David's Church. All that remains today is a graveyard with some ancient yews, and a fine Celtic cross. SN 8525 5260. Both © Paul Wood (2015). Last used for worship in 1865, its date of demolition is not so far apparent, though it was still standing "c. 1950" when this Francis Frith photo was taken. The Coflein entry includes an old photo, and says that in 1977, some low walls of the church were still visible, but Paul couldn't locate any.
Abergwili, Carmarthenshire, St. David. Another view. According to local legend, the finial atop the spire was made from a stone to which the stake had been fixed for the execution by burning of Bishop Ferrar in 1555, during the Marian persecutions. All © Janet Gimber (2018). Coflein entry. Grade II listed. Capel y Ebeneser Annibynwyr (Independent). SN 437 211. © Mike Berrell (2009).
Abergwynfi, Neath Port Talbot, St. Gabriel, the former Parish Church, now in residential use. © Gerard Charmley (2011). St. Gabriel prior to its conversion - note the bell-turret, now gone, © David Read (2003). Link. Caersalem Baptist Church (1887). Tabor Independent Chapel. Both © Gerard Charmley (2011). St. Gabriel prior to its conversion - note the bell-turret, now gone. © David Read (2003).
Abergynolwyn, Gwynedd, St. David. Another view and the bell-turret. Two interior views - 1, 2, and the font. There are two former chapels, both on Llanegryn Street - Chapel one (from a study of various maps, Howard Richter suspects Congregational). Chapel two, and another view - Howard thinks this one may have been Calvinistic Methodist. All © John Bowdler. Former Wesleyan Chapel, now a B&B. © Chris Emms (2009).
Aberkenfig, Bridgend, St. John. St. Robert (R.C.). The former Ebenezer Independent Chapel, now in commercial use. Bible Church. Church of God. The derelict Carey Baptist Church. All © Gervase N. E. Charmley.
Aberlady, East Lothian, the Parish Church. © Bill Henderson. A winter view, and the East Window, both © Revd. Norman Faulds. Norman advises that the central panel of the window is based on Botticelli's "Madonna and Child" which is now in the National Gallery of Scotland. The fabric of the church is late C15 (tower), C16 and C17 (aisles), with a Victorian renovation (1887). Link.
Aberlemno, Angus, the Parish Church. © Derek Robertson.
Abermeurig, Ceredigion, disused chapel. SN 565 562. © Mike Berrell (2012). In a more recent photo it looks as though the building is in use again, perhaps residential. © Neil Floyd. Coflein entry.
Abernant, Rhondda Cynon Taff, St. Matthew (CIW). Bethel Baptist Church (1856). Both © Gerard Charmley.
Abernethy, Perth & Kinross, Kirk of St. Bride (the Parish Church) on School Wynd. Link. The former South United Free Church on Kirk Wynd. Both photos taken from the adjacent Round Tower, © Alex Parker.
Aberporth, Ceredigion, St. Cynwyl. Interior view. SN 256 511. Link. Presbyterian Church of Wales, formerly the Calvinistic Methodist Chapel. SN 258 514. All © Mike Berrell.
Abersychan, Torfaen, the former St. Thomas (1831-2) at Talywain. Another view. SO 262 040. Janet advises that there are plans to regenerate this building to be included as part of the Blaenavon World Heritage complex. Both © Janet Gimber (2014). Grade II listed.
Abertridwr, Caerphilly, Beulah Baptist Church. The former Nazareth Calvinistic Methodist Chapel, now a community centre. The former Gospel Hall, now a private residence. The former St. Peter. All © Gerard Charmley.
Abertridwr, Powys, Sardis Chapel (1821 - date-stone). SJ 034 188. Both © Dennis Harper (2014). Link.
Abertysswg, Caerphilly, St. Paul (CiW). Elim Tabernacle. Another view. Ainon Baptist Chapel has been demolished, but the congregation meet in the vestry. Similarly, Jerusalem Calvinistic Methodist Chapel has also been demolished, and again, the vestry (which bears the date 1903) is now used. Another view. All © Gerard Charmley (2011).
Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, Aboyne-Dinnett Parish Church (CoS). Another view. NO 525985. Both © John Mackie (2010). Link.
Abson, Gloucestershire, St. James. © Phil Draper.
Abthorpe, Northamptonshire, St. John the Baptist. Three further views - 1, 2, 3. SP 649 465. Grade II listed. The former Ebenezer Primitive Methodist Chapel (1925-1996) is now in residential use (The Old Chapel). SP 6403 4679. Link, which has a photo of an earlier chapel. All © Howard Richter (2015).
Aby, Lincolnshire, the site of All Saints. According to Wikipedia, it was demolished in 1660 following the merger with Belleau parish. The stones were re-used in a Manor House. It also says that a wooden church was built on the site in 1888, now also long gone. There may be a photo of this one somewhere. Another view. The former Methodist Church. All © David Regan (2015).
A'Chleit, Argyll & Bute, the Killean & Kilchenzie parish church. © Martin Briscoe.
Acaster Malbis, North Yorkshire, Holy Trinity. Methodist Church. Both © Bill Henderson. 105 SE 594 458.
Acaster Selby, North Yorkshire, St. John. © Bill Henderson.
Achahoish, Argyll & Bute, the South Knapdale Parish Church. © Martin Briscoe.
Acharacle, Highland, Church of our Lady of the Angels (R.C.). © Martin Briscoe. The Parish Church, dating from 1829. NM 675 683. © N. Argyll Extracts. Free Church of Scotland. © Peter Amsden.
Achill Sound (on Achill Island), County Mayo, Sisters of Mercy (R.C.). © Bill Henderson.
Achiltibuie, Highland, Coigach Free Church of Scotland. Another view. NC 018 090. Both © Tim Flitcroft (2013).
Achnacarry, Highland, St. Ciaran. NN 181 873. © Martin Briscoe. NN 181 873; grid reference courtesy of N. Argyll Extracts.
Achurch, Northamptonshire, St. John the Baptist. © Robin Peel. Another view. © Michael John York. Michael sells some church photographs, and has kindly allowed me to use some reduced resolution photos on this website. His business websites are here - 1, 2, 3.
Acklam, North Yorkshire, St. John the Baptist. © David Regan (2011). Link.
Acklington, Northumberland, St. John the Divine. NU 227 019. © Steve Bulman. Another view, © Bill Henderson (2013).
Acle, Norfolk, St. Edmund. © George Weston. Link.
Acol, Kent, St. Mildred. © Peter Morgan (2017). Link.
Acomb, Northumberland, St. John of Beverley at St. John Lee. NY 933 657. © Bill Henderson (2011). Link.
Acomb, York, North Yorkshire - see York.
Aconbury, Herefordshire, the redundant St. John the Baptist. The wooden porch. SO 517 335. Both © Janet Gimber (2017). Grade II* listed.
Aconry, Co. Sligo, the former Cathedral of St. Crumnathy (CoI). An astonishingly small cathedral, no bigger than many an ordinary parish church, its dates are 1822 - 1997. Certainly the smallest cathedral in Ireland, and perhaps the whole of Europe. G 568 150. Link. St. Nathy and St. Brigid (R.C.). G 570 142. Both © Gerard Close (2016).
Acrefair, Wrexham, the former Trinity Presbyterian Forward Movement chapel. The former Wesleyan Chapel. Both © Gerard Charmley (2012).
Acrise, Kent, St. Martin. TR 193 422. © Dave Westrap. Link.
Acton, Cheshire, St. Mary. SJ 631 531. © Les Needham. Link.
Acton, Greater London, Holy Family (R.C.) on Vale Lane. © Christopher Skottowe (1968).
Acton, Staffordshire, the former Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, now in residential use. Another view. Both © Peter Morgan (2015).
Acton, Suffolk, All Saints. TL 892 452. © Steve Bulman (2005). Link.
Acton Beauchamp, Herefordshire, St. Giles. SO 679 503. © Mark Turbott. Another view, and an interior view, both © Aidan McRae Thomson.
Acton Bridge, Cheshire, Methodist Church. SJ 592 757. Milton Methodist Church. SJ 596 744. Both © Bruce Read.
Acton Burnell, Shropshire, St. Mary. Interior view. Another view. Another, also showing part of Acton Burnell Castle. Langley Chapel. Interior view. Disused, and now in the care of English Heritage. SJ 538 001. All © James Murray.
Acton Round, Shropshire, St. Mary the Virgin. Another view, three interiors - 1, 2, 3, and the altar and font. SO 634 956. All © Dennis Harper (2014). Link. Grade II* listed.
Acton Scott, Shropshire, St. Margaret. Another view. Interior view. All © John Bowdler. Grade II* listed.
Acton Trussell, Staffordshire, St. James, on Penkridge Road. SJ 937 175. © Dorothy Turley. Another view, © Dennis Harper (2005). Interior view, and the font, both © Dennis Harper (2011). Link. Grade II* listed - link.
Acton Turville, Gloucestershire, St. Mary. © Phil Draper. Link. Grade II* listed. The former Baptist Chapel on Luckington Road, originally Particular Baptist, and now in residential use. Another view. Both Both © Janet Gimber (2012).
Adare, Co. Limerick, the ruins of the Franciscan Friary. Previously in the "Unknown" section, Margaret Toffolo's painting of a church was identified by Phil Draper. Link.
Adbaston, Staffordshire, St. Michael. SJ 7627. © Geoff Pick.
Adderbury, Oxfordshire. A splendid church, dedicated to St. Mary. The spire. Both © Steve Bulman. Interior view, © Simon Edwards (2011). Another view, interior view, sedilia, font, brass, carved capital, carving (man-lion?), a wonderful owl and a two-tailed mermaid (among other carvings), all © Chris Stafford (2012). SP 471 354. Link. Friends Meeting House (link to external website). Methodist Church. © John French.
Addiewell, West Lothian, the former Addiewell Parish Church on Livingstone Road. Another view. St. Thomas (R.C.) on Blackburn Road. Link. All © Jim Parker (2016).
Addingham, West Yorkshire, St. Peter. Interior view. SE 085 497. Both © Alan Blacklock. Another view, © Stuart Mackrell. Link. Mount Hermon Wesleyan Reform Chapel (1861). SE 078 497. © Stuart Mackrell. Another view. © David Regan (2011). Link. Our Lady and the English Martyrs (R.C.). © David Regan (2011).
Addington, Buckinghamshire, St. Mary the Virgin. Interior view, the chancel and the font. All © David Regan (2018). Link. Grade II* listed.
Addington, Kent, St. Margaret of Antioch. TQ 654 588. From an old postcard, Geoff Watt's Collection. Some additional views, all © Dave Godden - a NE view, showing a blocked window in the Watton Chapel; the East Window; the Watton Memorial; and an obelisk in the graveyard to William Lockyer, R.N. (1730/1-1800).
Addlestone, Surrey, dedicated to St. Paul. © Barbara Barklem. TQ 043 644. The Surrey Islamic Trust (or Surrey Muslim Centre) on Albert Road was formerly St. Augustine's (Anglican). TQ 059 650. © Mehmood Naqshbandi, and reproduced from his website Muslims in Britain.
Addlethorpe, Lincolnshire, St. Nicholas. © George Weston. Another view, in springtime. © Pamela Weston. Another view, © Bill Henderson (2013). Link. Grade I listed.
Adel, Leeds, West Yorkshire - see Leeds.
Adisham, Kent, Holy Innocents. 179 TR 226 537. Link. Baptist Church. TR 227 533. Both © Geoff Watt. Interior view, from an old postcard in John Bowdler's collection.
Adlestrop, Gloucestershire, St. Mary Magdalene. Two interior views- 1, 2, and the font. SP 243 268. All © Steve Bulman (2011). Grade II listed - link.
Adlingfleet, East Riding of Yorkshire, All Saints. Interior view and side altar. This memorial is to Mary Ramsden, who left her fortune to Catherine Hall, Cambridge. A ceremonial cleaning is undertaken yearly, known as "Washing Mary Ramsden's neck". All © James Murray.
Adlington, Cheshire, St. John. SJ 925 803. Wood Lanes Methodist Church. SJ 936 817. Both © Len Brankin.
Admaston, Staffordshire, St. Leonard. SK 044 239. From an old postcard in Reg Dosell's Collection. The card is labelled as Blithfield Church which sits close to Blithfield Hall - Admaston is the nearest settlement. A modern view, © Richard Roberts (2014). Link. Grade I listed.
Adsborough, Somerset, former chapel. ST 277 291. © Mike Berrell (2013). Photo removed at request of property owner. Link (which includes a link to a photo).
Adstock, Buckinghamshire, St. Cecilia. © David Regan (2018). Link. Grade I listed.
Adstone, Northamptonshire, All Saints on Blakesley Lane. Another view. SP 596 514. Both © Howard Richter (2015). Grade II listed.
Adswood, Stockport, Greater Manchester - see Stockport.
Adwick-le-Street, South Yorkshire, St. Laurence (or St. Lawrence, according to source consulted). The church has fabric from the 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, and underwent restorations in 1862 and 1875. SE 541 086. © Peter Fowler. Another view, © Bill Henderson. Grade II* listed. Methodist Church. SE 538 087. © Bill Henderson.
Adwick-on-Dearne, South Yorkshire, St. John. © Bill Henderson. SE 471 015.
Affetside, Greater Manchester, Trinity Presbyterian Church on Watling Street, built in 1840 as Ebenezer Independent Chapel. SD 755 136. © Mike Berrell. Interior view, © Mike Berrell (2013).
Affpuddle, Dorset, St. Lawrence. © Bill McKenzie. Another view. © June Norris. Link.
Agecroft, Salford, Greater Manchester - see Salford.
Aghacommon, Co. Armagh, St. Patrick (R.C.), originally The Derrymacash Chapel (1834). J 049 589. © Gerard Close (2011).
Aghadowey, Co. Derry, St. Guaire (CoI). C 858 210. © Gerard Close.
Aghadrumsee, County Fermanagh, St. Mark, Church of Ireland. © Jack Storey.
Aghagallon, Co. Antrim, St. Patrick (R.C.1834). J 105 637. © Len Brankin. Another view, © Gerard Close (2015).
Aghalee, Co. Antrim, Craigmore Methodist Church, built as Aghagallon Wesleyan Chapel in 1834. J 117 661. © Gerard Close (2015).
Agharan, Co. Tyrone, Agharan Mission Hall. H 793 693. © Gerard Close (2013).
Aghavilly, Co. Armagh, St. Mary (CoI, 1841). H 843 408. © Gerard Close (2016).
Ahoghill, Co. Antrim, St. Colmanell (CoI). D 049 014. Link. St. Mary (R.C.). D 046 015. Link. Gospel Hall. D 048 018. 1st Presbyterian Church. D 050 015. Link. 2nd Presbyterian Church. D 049 014. All © Gerard Close. The 1st Presbyterian Church has recently (late 2013) built a new church on a different site. D 058 017. © Gerard Close (2014). The Gospel hall has also been re-built, opening in October 2018. © Gerard Close (2018). Link. Brookside Church (3rd Presbyterian). D 048 017. © Gerard Close (2018).
Ahorey, County Armagh, Presbyterian Church. Gospel Hall. Both © Richard Edgar.
Aikton, Cumbria. Dedicated to St. Andrew. © Steve Bulman. NY 283 529. Link.
Ainderby Steeple, North Yorkshire, St. Helen. © Bill Henderson. Interior view, and the font, both © Kenneth Paver. Grade I listed - link.
Ainstable, Cumbria, dedicated to St. Michael. © Steve Bulman. NY 530 467. Link.
Ainsworth, Bolton, Greater Manchester - see Bolton.
Airmyn, East Yorkshire, St. David. © Bill Henderson. Another view. © James Murray.
Airton, North Yorkshire, Methodist Church. SD 902 593. © Philip Kapp.
Aiskew, North Yorkshire, St. Mary and St. Joseph (R.C.). SE 270 884. © Bill Henderson. Methodist Church (1922). SE 271 885. © Michael Bourne. A memorial stone is built into its base. Howard suspects that it may also have been Primitive Methodist originally, as it pre-dates the merger of 1932. © Howard Richter (2015). A former Primitive Methodist Chapel of 1869 stands behind (and is attached to) the Methodist Church. It has seen use as a Community Hall. The Methodist Church itself is now closed (the congregation having joined with that of Bedale). Circuit closure notice. The church and former P.M. chapel are on offer for sale and conversion into two residential properties. The Estate Agents notice has interior photos of each. The Planning Application has plans etc. - click on View Associated Documents, ref. 1739661 and 1739664. © Howard Richter (2015).
Aislaby, North Yorkshire (near Whitby), St. Margaret. © Colin Waters. Link.
Aisthorpe, Lincolnshire, St. Peter. © Dave Hitchborne.
Aith, Mainland, Shetland, Church of Scotland. © Tim Flitcroft (2012).
Akeley, Buckinghamshire, the site of the demolished St. James the Apostle. © David Regan (2017). Photos of the church are available here and here (the latter slow to load, but has a good history of the church).
Akinduff, Co. Tyrone, St. Joseph (R.C.). H 694 613. © Gerard Close.
Albaston, Cornwall, Tamar Valley Methodist Church. Another view. SX 423 706. Link. The former Bible Christian Chapel. Another view. The National Archives holds documents for 1935-1967. SX 424 706. All © Paul E. Barnett (2018).
Alberbury, Shropshire, St. Michael and All Angels. Another view. SJ 358 144. Both © Les Needham (2011). Grade II* listed - link.
Albourne, West Sussex, St. Bartholomew on Church Lane. TQ 257 162. © Tony Preston. Link. Grade II listed.
Albrighton, Shropshire, St. Mary Magdalene on High Street. SJ 809 044. © Roy Graham. Two further views - 1, 2, interior view and font, all © Dennis Harper (2011). Link. Methodist Church, also on High Street. © Graeme Harvey (2010). Interior view, © Dennis Harper (2011). Link. St. Joseph (R.C.) on Bushfield Road. © Dennis Harper (2011). Link.
Albury, Hertfordshire, St. Mary the Virgin. © Bill McKenzie.
Albury, Surrey, St. Martha. © Mike Rice. Link.
Alby, Norfolk, St. Ethelbert. Three interior views - 1, 2, 3. The church stands isolated at TG 202 336. All © Chris Stafford (2012). Link1. Link2.
Alcester, Warwickshire, St. Nicholas. Another view. Both © Victor Hunter. Another view, this one © Aidan McRae Thomson. Interior view. © Aidan McRae Thomson. Link. Methodist Church. © Victor Hunter. Our Lady and St. Joseph (R.C.). © Graeme Harvey (2011).
Alciston, East Sussex. The dedication is lost. From an old postcard in Geoff Watt's Collection. Link.
Alcombe, Minehead, Somerset - see Minehead.
Alconbury, Cambridgeshire, St. Peter and St. Paul. © Robin Peel. Another view. © Jim Rushton.
Aldborough, Norfolk, St. Mary on Aldborough Road, whose tower collapsed in the 18th century. Interior view. TG 179 338. Both © Richard Roberts (2018). Link1. Link2. Grade II* listed.
Aldborough, North Yorkshire, St Andrew. SE 406 664. © Paul Brown. An old postcard view from Steve Bulman's Collection.
Aldbourne, Wiltshire, St. Michael. SU 263 758. © Chris Kippin (2018). Link. Grade I listed.
Aldbrough, East Riding of Yorkshire, St. Bartholomew. © James Murray. Another view, © David Regan (2016). Link. Grade II* listed. Methodist Church. © James Murray. Former Chapel. The smaller building to the left has a tablet - "Sabbath School for Children of Every Denomination. 1835, Restored 1907". Janet Gimber advises that this chapel shows on old maps as Wesleyan Methodist. © James Murray. Former Primitive Methodist Chapel, © James Murray (2009).
Aldbrough St. John, North Yorkshire, St. Paul. © Alan Blacklock.
Aldbury, Hertfordshire, St. John the Baptist. Another view showing the recent extension, used as a meeting room, and called Chapter House. SP 963 124. Both © Richard Pykett (2018). Link. Grade I listed.
Aldeburgh, Suffolk, St. Peter & St. Paul. TM 465 569. © Steve Bulman (2005). Two further views - 1, 2, an interior view, and the graves of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, all © Simon Edwards (2012). The font, and a carved bench-end, both © Christopher Skottowe (2015). Grade II* listed. Baptist Church. TM 465 565. © Steve Bulman (2005). Grade II listed. Catholic Church of Our Lady and St. Peter, © Alan Wilson.
Alderbury, Wiltshire, St. Mary (1858). SU 182 269. © Les Needham. Link. Grade II listed.
Aldergrove, Co. Antrim, St. Catherine (Church of Ireland). © Jack Storey.
Alderholt, Dorset, St. James. Another view. As Roger points out, the stepped gable is very unusual outside of Scotland, and in this case the 12 steps are probably symbolic of the apostles. Link.
Alderley, Gloucestershire, St. Kenelm (O). © Graeme Harvey (2012). Link. Grade II listed - link.
Aldermaston, Berkshire, St. Mary the Virgin. SU 596 650. © Jill Bennett. Another view. © Roy Graham. Interior, from an old postcard in Judy Flynn's collection. Link.
Alderminster, Warwickshire, St. Mary and Holy Cross. Interior view. SP 230 485. Both © Aidan McRae Thomson. Two further views - 1, 2, interior view, window, font, and an incised cross in the tympanum, all © Steve Bulman (2011). The following are all © John Bowdler (2012) - porch, doorway, font cover, gargoyle, pulpit, altar, and side chapel. Grade II* listed - link.
Alderton, Gloucestershire, St. Margaret of Antioch. © Graeme Harvey (2011). Another view, and an interior view, both © Graeme Harvey (2012). Link.
Alderton, Northamptonshire, St. Margaret. Another view. Both © David Regan (2017). Another view, © Les Needham (2018). SP 740 469. Link. Grade II* listed.
Alderwasley, Derbyshire, All Saints (1849-50) on Higg Lane. SK 323 532. Grade II listed. The village hall is the former St. Margaret's Chapel. Situated on Chapel Hill, it dates to the sixteenth century, and was closed in 1849. Grade II listed. Both © Richard Roberts (2014).
Aldfield, North Yorkshire, St. Lawrence the Martyr. Interior view, and the pulpit and tester. All © David Regan (2010). Link1. Link2. Link3. The ruins of Fountains Abbey. From an old postcard (franked 1908) in Steve Bulman's Collection. The Lady Chapel, from the Colin Waters Collection. Some modern views, 1, 2, 3, all © James Murray. A view from an old engraving, from Christopher Skottowe's Collection. Link.
Aldgate East/Tower Hamlets, Greater London, Jamia Masjid (Mosque) on Brick Lane. TQ 176 305. © Mehmood Naqshbandi, and reproduced from his website Muslims in Britain. Gervase Charmley advises that this was originally a Huguenot Church, and later served as a synagogue.
Aldham, Essex, St. Margaret and St. Catherine. From an old postcard in Reg Dosell's Collection. Link.
Aldingbourne, West Sussex, St. Mary the Virgin. © David and Pat Halliday.
Aldingham, Cumbria, St. Cuthbert. © John Balaam (2008). Interior view. Both © John Balaam (2008). Link.
Aldington, Kent, St. Martin. TR 074 361. Link1. Link2. Link3. Aldington Evangelical Mission Church. TR 061 364. Both © Dave Westrap.
Aldridge, West Midlands, St. Mary the Virgin, on The Green. SK 060 007. © Peter Wood. Three further views - 1, 2, 3, all © Dennis Harper (2012). Link. Methodist Church on Anchor Road. Another view. Both © Dennis Harper (2012). Link.
Aldringham, Suffolk, the former Providence Baptist Chapel now in residential use. © Iris Maeers.
Aldsworth, Gloucestershire, St. Bartholomew. © Steve Watson.
Aldwark, North Yorkshire, St. Stephen. © Graham Pickles. Another view, © David Regan (2011). Interior view, © Kenneth Paver. Link. Grade II listed - link.
Aldwincle, Northamptonshire, All Saints - which is cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust. © Michael John York. Another view, interior view, and a fragment of wall-painting, all © Chris Stafford (2012). Link. Grade I listed. St. Peter (open, Churches Conservation Trust). © Michael John York. Michael sells some church photographs, and has kindly allowed me to use some reduced resolution photos on this website. His business websites are here - 1, 2, 3. Another view, and an interior, both © Chris Stafford (2012). Link1. Link2. Grade I listed. Baptist Chapel, © David Regan (2016).
Aldworth, Berkshire, St. Mary the Virgin. Interior view. SU 554 793. Both © Marion Hall. Another view, from an old postcard in Judy Flynn's collection. Link. Grade I listed - link.
Aley Green, Bedfordshire, Methodist Church on Mancroft Road. © Bedfordshire and Luton Archives & Records Service (2007). Link.
Alford, Aberdeenshire, Howe Trinity Church of Scotland. Link. Alford West Kirk (CoS). NJ 575 165. Both © John Mackie.
Alfriston, East Sussex, St. Andrew. From an old postcard in Steve Bulman's Collection. A modern view. © Graeme Wall. Link.
Algarkirk, Lincolnshire, St. Peter and St. Paul. From an old postcard in Geoff Watt's Collection. A modern view, © Bill Henderson (2011). Link.
Alkborough, Lincolnshire, St. John the Baptist. Another view. Both © David Regan (2011). Link.
Alkerton, Oxfordshire, dedicated to St. Michael. The West front. Lively carvings on the clerestory. All © Steve Bulman. SP 377 429. Two interior views -1, 2 - both © John Bowdler. Link.
Alkham, Kent, St. Anthony. TR 256 424. Link. Former Wesleyan Chapel, now a private residence. TR 253 426. Both © Geoff Watt.
Alkmonton, Derbyshire, St. John. Interior view. Both © James Murray. Link.
All Saints, Devon, dedicated to All Saints. ST 304 011. © Julie Baker.
All Saints, Manchester, Greater Manchester - see Manchester.
All Stretton, Shropshire, St. Michael and All Angels. © John Bowdler.
Allensmore, Herefordshire, St. Andrew. SO 466 358. © Chris Kippin (2018). Link. Grade II* listed.
Allenton, Derby, Derbyshire - see Derby.
Aller, Somerset, St. Andrew, on Church Path. Two interiors - 1, 2. The list of rectors commences in 1205. ST 396 288. Link. Grade II* listed. A former chapel, now in residential use. All © Mike Berrell (2016).
Allerston, North Yorkshire, St. John. SE 878 829. © Elaine Hindson. The Priest's Door and font, both © Kenneth Paver. Another view, © Bill Henderson (2013). Link. Grade II* listed. Methodist Church. SE 878 825. © Bill Henderson (2013).
Allerthorpe, East Riding of Yorkshire, St. Botolph (O). © Bill Henderson. Another view, two interior views- 1, 2, and the font, all © David Regan (2012). Link. Grade II listed - link. Former Methodist Chapel. © David Regan (2012).
Allerton, Bradford, West Yorkshire - see Bradford.
Allerton, Liverpool, Merseyside - see Liverpool.
Allerton Mauleverer, North Yorkshire, St. Martin. © Bill Henderson.
Allet, Cornwall, the Free United Methodist Chapel of 1866, and the adjacent Sunday School of 1961. SW 791 485. © Paul E. Barnett (2014). Former Mission Chapel (1884). Another view (on Streetview). SW 805 481. © Paul E. Barnett (2015).
Allexton, Leicestershire, St. Peter. © George Weston. Another view. © Michael John York.
Allgreave, Cheshire, the former Methodist Church, closed since 2000. SJ 972 669. © Len Brankin. Another view. © Bruce Read.
Allhallows, Cumbria, All Saints. © Steve Bulman. NY 197 427. This church was built in 1898, replacing the old church, © Graeme Rumney, dating from Norman times. NY 204 418. Link.
Allhallows, Kent, All Saints. TQ 836 775. © Dave Westrap. An old postcard view, Tony Larkin Collection. Link1. Link2.
Allington, Lincolnshire, Holy Trinity. Another view. Both © David Regan (2013). Link. Grade II* listed.
Allington, Wiltshire, the former St. Paul. Converted from an old farm building at Manor Farm in 1860, it served the local community for over 100 years. © Janet Gimber (2018).
Allonby, Cumbria. Dedicated as Christ Church. NY 082 425. © Leslie Mikesell Wood. Another view. © Alan Blacklock. Link. Congregational Chapel. © Alan Blacklock.
Alloway, South Ayrshire, Auld Kirk. Another view. Link. Parish Church (CoS). Link. All © Jim Parker (2012).
Allstone, Gloucestershire, St. Margaret. © Aidan McRae Thomson.
Alltami, Flintshire, Bryn Methodist Church. SJ 266 655. © Mike Berrell (2009).
Alltwalis, Carmarthenshire, the derelict Capel Troedrhiw. The date-stone above the door bears the dates 1833 and 1897. © Gerard Charmley (2011).
Alltwen, Neath Port Talbot, Independent Chapel. The date stone has dates 1831, 1861 and 1886 (the latter a little unclear). © Gerard Charmley (2011).
Alltyblaca, Ceredigion, Unitarian Chapel. © Gerard Charmley (2011).
Almeley, Herefordshire, St. Mary. © Tim Hollinghurst. Link. Grade I listed.
Almeley Wootton, Herefordshire, Friends' Meeting House. Built 1647, it has been in use by the Friends since 1672. SO 3327 5242. Link. Grade II* listed. The former Primitive Methodist Chapel, now in residential use. According to the My Primitive Methodist entry, it dates from 1870, and had closed before 2012. SO 3337 5253. Both © Paul Wood (2000).
Almer, Dorset, St. Mary. © Mike Rice. Another view, from an old postcard in Reg Dosell's Collection. Another view, and an interior view, both © Roger Hopkins. Roger rates this C12 church very highly.
Alminstone Cross, Devon, former Wesleyan Methodist Chapel (1876). Another view. SS 347 202. Both © Martin Richter (2011).
Almondbury, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire - see Huddersfield.
Almondsbury, Gloucestershire, St. Mary. © Phil Draper. Link.
Alne, North Yorkshire, St. Mary the Virgin. © Graham Pickles. Interior view, and the Kempe window, both © Kenneth Paver. Link. Grade I listed - link.
Alness, Highland, the Parish Church. © Martin Briscoe.
Alnmouth, Northumberland, St. John the Baptist. © David Gallimore. Link. Methodist Church, founded as Wesleyan in 1891. © Peter Morgan (2009). Two further views - 1, 2. Both © David Gallimore (2009). Hanwick Hall, which Peter advises is "thought to have been Methodist". The same building can be seen from the other side in this old photo. Notwithstanding this, I can find no web text reference to Hanwick Hall, so can you confirm that it was indeed a Methodist Chapel? © Peter Morgan (2009). David Gallimore has sent a photo of Hindmarsh Hall, which is evidently the same building as Hanwick Hall. Previously a granary and corn exchange, it was converted to serve as a church in 1859, in which use it continued until 1876 when St. John was opened. © David Gallimore. Link.
Alphamstone, Essex, St. Barnabas. Three interiors - 1, 2, 3, a window, and the font. All © Chris Stafford (2013). Link. Grade I listed.
Arlesford, Essex, the ruins of St. Peter, burnt down in a fire in 1971. The churchyard is still in use. The church was replaced - St. Andrew and St. Peter. TM 068 213. Both © Les Needham.
Alrewas, Staffordshire, All Saints. Methodist Church. Both © Bruce Read. The Millennium Memorial Chapel at the National Memorial Arboretum, interior view and font, all © Dennis Harper (2012). Link, and the NMA's website.
Alsagers Bank, Staffordshire, St. John. SJ 8048. © Geoff Pick.
Alsop en le Dale, Derbyshire, St. Michael and All Angels. Interior view. A rather beautiful modern window. All © James Murray. Link.
Alstone, Gloucestershire, St. Margaret. Interior view. Both © Aidan McRae Thomson.
Altarnun, Cornwall, St. Nonna. SX 222 812. Wesleyan Chapel. SX 224 811. Both © Bill Henderson. Wesley Cottage (or Digory Isbell's Cottage). See the story here. SX 219 805. © Paul E. Barnett (2018).
Altham, Lancashire, St. James. SD 771 331. © Philip Kapp. Another view, three interior views - 1, 2, 3; a plaque has a brief history. The Bishop's Chair is unique in a parish church, all © Mike Berrell (2014). Grade II* listed.
Althorpe, Lincolnshire, St. Oswald. © Dave Hitchborne. Link.
Altmore, Co. Tyrone, Immaculate Conception (R.C.). H 641 689. © Gerard Close (2012).
Altnaharra, Highland, the parish church of Altnaharra & Farr. © Bill Henderson. Drawing © Catherine Tremper.
Alton, Hampshire, St. Lawrence on Church Street. SU 717 396. Link. Grade I listed. All Saints on Butts Road. SU 714 390. Link. Grade II listed. Former U.R.C on Normandy Street, built as Congregational. SU 720 396. All © Chris Kippin.
Altofts, West Yorkshire, St. Mary Magdalen. Methodist Church. Both © Bill Henderson.
Alton, Hampshire, St. Lawrence. SU 717 396. © Chris Kippin. Link. Grade I listed.
Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, St. Mary the Virgin. © Roger Jones. Two views © Ian Miller - 1, 2. Link.
Alton Pancras, Dorset, St. Pancras. Interior view. Both © Marion Hall. Link. Grade II* listed - link.
Alvanley, Cheshire, St. John the Evangelist. SJ 497 741. © Bruce Read.
Alvaston, Derby, Derbyshire - see Derby.
Alveley, Shropshire, St. Mary the Virgin. Another view and an interior view. SO 759 842. All © Peter Morgan (2009). Another view, three interior views - 1, 2, 3, the altar and East Window, and the font; there are also traces of medieval wall paintings. All © Dennis Harper (2013). Grade II* listed. Methodist Church (built as Primitive Methodist, 1862). SO 762 842. © Peter Morgan (2009). Since Peter took his photo the chapel has closed, and is now a tea-room - the sign is visible almost side on to the left of the left-most window. in this view, © Dennis Harper (2013).
Alverstoke, Hampshire, St. Mary. From an old postcard, Geoff Watt's Collection. Two modern views - 1, 2 - both © Kerry Marriott. Link.
Alvescot, Oxfordshire, St. Peter. © Brian J. Curtis. SP 274 045.
Alveston, Warwickshire, St. James. Interior view. The Old Church. All © Aidan McRae Thomson. Link.
Alveston, Gloucestershire, St. Helen. St. Helen Old Church. Both © Phil Draper. Methodist Church. © Graeme Harvey. The former Primitive Methodist Chapel, now in residential use. © Janet Gimber (2012).
Alvie, Highland, Church of Scotland. NH 864 093. © John Mackie.
Alvingham, Lincolnshire, St. Adelwold. Methodist Church. Both © Dave Hitchborne.
Alvington, Gloucestershire, St. Andrew. © Graeme Harvey (2015). Another view, © Janet Gimber (2015). Link. Grade II listed.
Alwalton, Cambridgeshire, St. Andrew. TL 134 959. © Zoe Martin. Another view. © Robin Peel. Link.
Alwinton, Northumberland, St. Michael and All Angels. NT 924 057. © Bill Henderson (2015). Comprehensive history here. Grade II* listed.
Alwoodley and Alwoodley Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire - see Leeds.
Alyth, Perth & Kinross, the former South United Free Church, which now serves as the parish halls. © Kevin Price (2012).
Am Baile (Eriskay), W. Isles, St. Michael (R.C.). © Carol Myers. Link.
Ambergate, Derbyshire, St. Anne. © James Murray. The former Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on Newbridge Road and Derby Road. Built before 1880, it is now in commercial use. SK 348 514. © Richard Roberts (2014).
Amberley, West Sussex, St. Michael and All Angels on Church Street - the splendid chancel arch. © Christopher Skottowe (1961). Link, which has exterior photos. The very short grade I listing.
Amble, Northumberland, St. Cuthbert. © Bill Henderson. All that remains of the cemetery buildings is this arch, which used to have a chapel to either side. These were demolished in 1971. © Peter Morgan (2009). Sacred Heart & St. Cuthbert (R.C.). © Peter Morgan (2009). St. Mark (U.R.C. formerly Congregational). © Peter Morgan (2009). Trinity Methodist Church. © Peter Morgan (2009).
Ambleston, Pembrokeshire, St. Mary. SN 001 258. © Mike Berrell (2010).
Ambrosden, Oxfordshire, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin. The tower. Both © Steve Bulman. SP 602 193.
Amcotts, Lincolnshire, St. Mark. © Dave Hitchborne. Link.
Amersham & Amersham Old Town, Buckinghamshire.
Amesbury, Wiltshire, the Abbey Church of St. Mary and St. Melor. SU 152 414. From an old postcard (franked 1905) in Steve Bulman's Collection. A modern view, taken from an almost identical position. © Chris Kippin. Link. Grade I listed.
Amlwch, Isle of Anglesey, dedicated to St. Eleth. The Catholic church Our Lady of the Sea. Both © Bill McKenzie. Methodist Church on Wesley Street, dating from 1832. It was built to serve English miners and their families, who had come to Amlwch to work in the massive copper mine on Parys Mountain. © Keith Alexander.
Amotherby, North Yorkshire, St. Helen. © Bill Henderson.
Ampleforth, North Yorkshire, St. Hilda. Interior view. Both © Alan Blacklock. Link. Abbey of St. Laurence (Ampleforth Abbey). © David Regan (2011). Link. Grade II listed - link. Our Lady and St. Benedict (R.C.). © David Regan (2011). The village has two former Methodist Chapels - Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist, both © David Regan (2012).
Ampney Crucis, Gloucestershire, Church of the Holy Rood. © Graeme Harvey. Link.
Ampney St. Mary, Gloucestershire, dedicated to St. Mary. © Aidan McRae Thomson. Another view, interior view, and one of many fragments of wall paintings, all © Chris Stafford (2013). Link. Grade I listed.
Ampney St. Peter, Gloucestershire, St. Peter. © Graeme Harvey.
Amport, Hampshire, St. Mary. SU 299 442. © Les Needham. Another view, © Chris Kippin. Link. Grade II* listed.
Ampthill, Bedfordshire, St. Andrew. Interior view. TL 037 383. Link. Grade I listed - link. Methodist Church on Dunstable Street, built as Wesleyan. Another old postcard view. TL 034 379. Link. All from old postcards in Judy Flynn's Collection.
Ampton, Suffolk, St. Peter & St. Paul on New Road. Mainly of the 14th and 15 centuries, there were restorations in the mid-19th century and in 1889. TL 866 711. From an old postcard in Reg Dosell's Collection. A modern view, © Richard Roberts (2017). Link. Grade I listed.
Amroth, Pembrokeshire, St. Elidyr. From an old postcard in Steve Bulman's Collection. A modern view. © Peter Morgan (2011). Another view, and two interior views - 1, 2, all © Mike Berrell (2011). The former Ebenezer Independent Chapel (1867), for sale in 2011. Interior view (taken through a window). SN 165 071. Both © Mike Berrell (2011).
Amulree, Perth & Kinross, the Amulree and Strathbraan Parish Church (CoS, 1743). NN 899 366. © John Cannon. Link1. Link2. Grade B listed. | 2019-04-22T08:52:36Z | http://churches-uk-ireland.org/a-am.html |
This update contains compatibility fixes for .NET 4.6. There are also bug fixes and performance enhancements. Additionally, you can now specify “all” as a generation for !dumpgen and !dumpgen now also supports –live and –dead options.
I recently moved the SOSEX project to Visual Studio 2012, and I forgot that the VC11 compiler won’t target Windows XP/2003. I made a special build of the latest update and added additional links for the Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 builds. This will likely be the last update that supports Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
I’ve just posted an update that fixes a problem resolving breakpoints for !mbp and !mbm. The problem occurs when there are multiple app domains and the debugger is attached after the app domains have been created.
Additionally, I have significantly optimized heap indexing, so !bhi should run much faster now.
In my latest release, I inadvertently broke compatibility with Windows XP. This is now fixed. Additionally, I’ve made a number of performance improvements and minor bug fixes.
Sosex has been updated to work with .NET 4.5. This version of SOSEX has also been enhanced with DML pretty much everywhere.
The main new feature is the addition of heap indexing. For large dumps, !bhi (Build Heap Index) will index all of the heap objects and all of the object references in a disk file. This provides the ability for the new !mroot and existing !refs commands to very quickly locate object roots and references. With a heap index, !mroot and !refs return nearly instantaneously. By default, the index is named <DUMP_PATH_AND_NAME>_HeapIndex.bin. If desired, you can specify your own filename by passing it as a parameter to the !bhi command. To load a heap index that has already been built, run !lhi (Load Heap Index). To clear the heap index and remove its resources from memory, run !chi (Clear Heap Index). For very large dumps, it can take several minutes to build the heap index, but if you need to search for more than a few roots and references, this up-front time is well worth the cost.
As always, PLEASE feel free to offer feedback and/or bug reports to the email address listed by the help command or via the contact link on the site. I’m generally very responsive to bug reports. Enjoy!
I just released a significant update to SOSEX. There are many bug fixes as well as several new goodies.
!mdso – Just like !sos.dso, only several switches allow you to filter the output. No more scrolling through pages of noise to find what you’re looking for.
!mfrag – Reports on FREE blocks in Gen2, lists objects following the free blocks, and lists pinned GCHandles that reference objects following FREE blocks.
!mt – Managed trace into. Cleanly traces into a managed method, skipping runtime goo.
!mgu – Managed go up. Cleanly traces out of a managed method, skipping runtime goo.
!mlocks – Lists all managed locks and unmanaged CriticalSections, along with their owner thread ID.
!mwaits – Lists all waiting threads and, if it can be determined, the lock objects they are waiting on.
!mu – Managed Unassemble. Unassembles around the current IP or the specified IP and lists interleaved source, IL and native code.
!muf – Managed Unassebmble Function. Unassembles the current or specified method and lists interleaved source, IL and native code.
Breakpoint commands are now AppDomain-aware.
Please consult the help (!sosex.help, !sosex.sosexhelp or !sosex.help <Command>) for more detailed usage information.
As Tess mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there was a problem with the way SOSEX displayed CLR thread IDs. The problem was that I was printing them in decimal format, whereas the SOS/PSSCOR2 !threads command lists them in hexadecimal format. This caused confusion and extra effort. This has been corrected, and I now display CLR thread IDs in hex throughout, even using an explicit "0x" prefix to remove all doubt.
This way, you can view the backing value as well as the friendly field names.
!mx now provides more information for each item, including the metadata type, MethodDesc, MethodTable and field type, as applicable.
!rwlock – List all ReaderWriterLock instances, or list the details of a specific instance by passing an address.
Please be sure to take a look at the !help (or !sosexhelp) command, or open the readme.txt file for details, options and examples for each command. As always, if you notice any problems or bugs, please contact me to report them. There are actually four other new commands that I’ve withheld temporarily in order to tighten them up, so I’ll fix any reported bugs while I’m working to complete the new commands. Expect the new commands within the next month or so.
At long last, I’m pleased to announce the availability of SOSEX version 2.0. This is a major overhaul of the extension that optimizes and enhances existing functionality, adds many new features, and changes the command naming scheme to be more like the built-in debugger engine commands. I’ve added support for many of the staple debugger commands by implementing similar functionality and prefixing the commands with “m” (managed). Included are: mbp, mbm, mbl, mbc, mbe, mbd, mdt, mdv, mframe, mk, mln and mx.
Be sure to check out “help” or “sosexhelp” for all commands to ensure you’re aware of all the new goodies. Stay tuned in the coming days and weeks, as I’ll be posting articles that dive into each individual command in detail. To start with, though, I’d like to provide an overview of my personal favorite new feature: the “mdt” (Managed Display Type) command.
!mdt allows you to dump the fields of a given type by type name or to examine the fields of an object or value type instance. Not only can you examine the fields of an object or value type instance, but you can also examine an entire object graph by specifying the “-r” (recursive) switch. Want to examine a local variable or argument? No problem. Just enter “!mdt <Var Name>”, and voila! The best way to demonstrate the power of this command is with a few examples.
I hope you enjoy using SOSEX v2.0 as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it!
OK, sorry for the OT rant, but may I vent a bit about one of my biggest pet peeves? OK, thank you for staying with me.
If for any reason you are not satisfied, you can cancel anytime to discontinue your membership to Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring and stop the monthly billing. However, you will not be eligible for a prorated refund of any portion of your current month's paid membership fee. To cancel, please contact Customer Care at 1-888-829-6560.
Naturally, when I called the number I was informed by the bot that I needed to call back during "normal business hours", which, to them, are 6AM-6PM Pacific. Forget about it. I just went and placed a dispute on the recurring charge with my credit card company on the web.
This website so lacks confidence that they can satisfy their customers with the quality of their services that they feel they must resort instead to AOL-like strong-arm tactics to keep subscribers. Shame on you, Free Credit Report. If your website is operated in such a manner then please, for the love of all that is good and holy, provide a simple, prominently-displayed cancellation method on your site.
Thank you for listening. These rants will not be frequent.
Today, a user reported the following error, which occurred when attempting to load the extension.
The call to LoadLibrary(sosex) failed, Win32 error 0n14001 "This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem." Please check your debugger configuration and/or network access.
The short answer to this is that I failed to include the VC9 redist. You can solve this problem by downloading the latest SOSEX zip file or by downloading the VC9 redist package from Microsoft. The link to the x64 package is also at the bottom of that page.
Here's how I got there, given error number 14001, in case somebody else sees a similar error message in their application. The description for error 14001 is "The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log for more detail." My search for an explanation of this error led me to this page on Junfeng Zhang's excellent blog. It was there that I learned that a missing CRT could cause this error.
Added support for inspecting variables in frames other than the current frame. By passing a frame index (eg. !vars 3), you can inspect the variables in any single frame in the call stack. By passing the -w switch (!vars -w), the command will walk the stack all the way up, dumping args/locals for each managed frame. This was the number one requested improvement for sosex.
This was another popular feature request.
Added detection capability for cases where a deadlock is caused by a dead thread holding a lock.
In v1.0, there was a bug that caused only the first instance of a generic method to receive the breakpoint. This is now fixed so that all generic instances get the breakpoint as expected.
Added -c switch to allow viewing of the static variable in the current context only. Without the switch, the state of the static field is displayed for all AppDomains/Threads.
I also improved the display of value types. When !isf or !vars show a value type, SOSEX indicates a value type using a "VALUETYPE" indicator along with a "MT" (method table address) and "ADDR" (value type start address) indicator to facilitate dumping the data with the SOS!dumpvc command. This provides a big advantage over SOS and v1.0 of SOSEX, because they simply display the first 4 bytes of the value type data, with no VT indication or MT info.
As always, feel free to contact me or leave comments to this post with any bug reports or feature requests.
SOSEX and the Dreaded "Unable to Obtain IXCLRDataProcess"
One of the top search phrases I get is "Unable to obtain IXCLRDataProcess". The reason you're getting this is likely because you are using the !bpsc or !bpmo extensions before the CLR has been initialized. If you try to run these extensions at the initial process breakpoint, they won't work because the runtime has not been loaded. I'm hoping to have this corrected for the next release of SOSEX so that !bpsc and !bpmo are saved and then executed when the runtime has initialized.
Over the course of the last few months, I've really put lots of effort into understanding and utilizing WinDbg. As a primarily C# developer, this meant also becoming intimately familiar with the SOS extension. Though a bit tedious, this exercise has already paid rich dividends in my debugging experience. As powerful and handy as SOS is, however, it has some annoying limitations and quirks. My personal peeves with SOS, combined with my desire to learn to write a WinDbg extension, led me to develop SOSEX, a debugging extension for managed code that begins to alleviate some of my frustrations with SOS. SOSEX (available in x86 and x64 versions) provides 8 easy-to-use commands: !dumpgen (dumps the contents of a GC generation), !gcgen (indicates the GC generation of a given object), !refs (lists all references to and from the specified object), !bpsc (breakpoint, source code), !bpmo (breakpoint, method offset), !vars (dump all args and local variables), !isf (inspect static field) and !dlk (deadlock detection).
The rest of this post will provide a bit more detail about each command and how they can save you time. Use the !help command for a list of commands and !help <command name> for the syntax and usage of each command.
Conversely, if you know an object's address and you wish to know what generation it belongs to, you can simply provide the address of the object to the !gcgen command.
Though not a replacement, the !refs command supplements SOS's !gcroot command by allowing you to view the immediate references from and to a given object.
The sample output above shows only heap references, but !refs will also list all references from handles, stacks, registers and the freachable queues.
As you can see, !dlk makes it dead simple to troubleshoot this common kind of deadlock in managed code. One important caveat holds true for !dlk: it only works for deadlocks on "sync blocks". Put more simply, it will only spot locks created by Monitor.Enter (which is used by the C# lock keyword). !dlk will not catch deadlock on other types of synchronization objects, such as mutexes and semaphores.
Although managed debugging with WinDbg has become more supported in later builds, it is still difficult to get managed source code breakpoints to work correctly. With the !bpsc command, it is now simple to set source code breakpoints. !bpsc allows you to set a breakpoint in a source code file at a specified line number and, optionally, column number. I've often wanted to stop the execution of my application either deep inside a method in the BCL or in one of my own methods in a build for which I have no symbols. Though SOS provides the handy !bpmd command, !bpmd only allows you to set a breakpoint on the first instruction of a method. This is often not effective for more difficult debugging scenarios. The !bpmo command now provides a means for you to set a breakpoint at specific IL offset within a given type and method.
Once you are stopped at a breakpoint, you need an easy means to inspect the contents of method arguments, local variables and instance and static fields. !vars dumps the values of arguments and local variables. If symbols are available, !vars will display the names of the local variables. Names of arguments are (with rare exception) provided even without symbols. In order to inspect member variables, first call !vars and then provide the value of "this" to the sos!do command. Using SOS, it is a bit of a cumbersome process to view the contents of static fields. The !isf command makes it simple by allowing you to simply specify the type and field name to inspect.
I hope you enjoy using SOSEX as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Please provide bug reports and feature requests either in the comments for this post or via the "email" link on my home page. I owe many thanks to John Robbins, who provided some key feature ideas for SOSEX as well as some valuable testing time. John has also written a nice blog post describing how he uses SOSEX in his own debugging. Thanks, John!
I just switched over to dasBlog and Windows Live Writer. This is just a test drive.
HttpConfig has been updated to work correctly with UAC on Vista.
Roger Lipscombe also pointed out some NullReferenceExceptions, which are also now fixed. Thanks, Roger!
I've updated HttpConfig to fix a couple of 64-bit bugs.
At long last, I've been able to update the HttpConfig GUI tool. I've fixed many bugs, streamlined the UI, added graphical security editing and gotten the thing to run on Vista.
Thanks to Keith and Dominick for the inspiration to enhance the security stuff. Now that I'm using .NET 2.0 for this app, I was able to get the EditSecurity API working purely in C#.
As indicated in my last post, I'm posting a wrap-up to the SSL cert saga. Unfortunately, I've waited too long between posts and forgotten some of what I had intended to write here. However, since I included more details in the last post than I had intended, you're not missing much.
One of the more interesting tasks involved in researching SSL cert problems was how to locate the key containers. The manner in which key containers are persisted is not documented anywhere that I know of, and I'm sure that's intentional as key container persistence is an internal implementation detail. I knew from some work several years ago that the MS RSA providers persist the key containers in the file system. I also remembered the approximate location, but I couldn't remember all the details. I fired up filemon and my memory was refreshed. The keys are stored in the common or user profile, depending on whether the container is a machine or user keyset. However, the containers are named in some bizarre guidish/hashy-looking format, so it's not obvious at a glance which files belong to which key containers. I was able to locate older key containers by opening them in TextPad because the name of the container is embedded in ASCII text within the file itself. New containers were easy to locate simply by sorting the files. However, I wanted to know how the filenames are derived. I have a sick mind that way. I always want to know how things work behind the scenes. After a few hours with FileMon, RegMon and the disassembler, I finally think I understand how these filenames are derived. I'm going to document this process here for the curious and so I can find this information the next time I need it. This information is applicable to Win2K, WinXP and Win2K3. I don't yet have a Vista box to test this on, so I don't know if it remains the same in that version of the OS.
1 - Obtain the name of the key container. The private key container name for a cert can be obtained via the CertGetCertificateContextProperty API, specifying the CERT_KEY_PROV_INFO_PROP_ID property. You can also obtain the key container name by using the checkcert utility from my last post.
2 - Convert the key container name to lower case.
I'm including a sample class that demonstrates the code necessary to calculate the full path and filename of an RSA key container. The class exposes a static method called "GetRsaKeyContainerFilename" as well as methods that will allow you to perform each step of this operation separately.
There may be an API to do this, but I haven't been able to find it. I wasn't as concerned with an easy way to do this as much as understanding the process, anyway.
One of the joys I�ve experienced in my recent dealings with the HTTP API and some lower-level SChannel code is that of trying to generate proper SSL test certificates. During the initial development phase of the product I�m currently working on, we used one common test certificate for all our test/dev servers. Later on, we began to generate different certificates for each server so that we could test some cert verification code and also verify that we knew exactly what was required of certificates to work with our product. Needless to say (or I wouldn�t have anything to write here), we immediately began to have many problems. Some servers worked just fine, while others failed. On the failing servers, test requests with WebRequest yielded the familiar but unhelpful error "Could not establish secure channel for SSL/TLS". Attempts to connect from IE produced the error "Cannot find server or DNS Error". In order to further troubleshoot, I tried making a connection using a plain SChannel-based SSL socket. The connection was established just fine and the client socket sent the hello message. As soon as the client socket attempted to read the server response, an exception was thrown, indicating that the connection had been closed by the server. Next, I enabled full SChannel logging on the server and restarted. Attempts to connect left 2 messages in the event logs: "Creating an SSL server credential", followed by "The SSL server credential�s private key has the following properties..." and NO error. Baffled, I installed Microsoft�s SSL Diagnostics utility and attempted a handshake simulation. This yielded the error "Unexpected error receiving data (0x80090304)", which error code is defined as SEC_E_INTERNAL_ERROR; again, a most unhelpful description. This led me on a week-long study of X.509 certificates, makecert.exe and the MS Crypto Providers� key container implementation. I�m going to omit many details here in order to get to the point, which is to enumerate the problems and solutions I�ve found for our situation. I�ll follow up with another post to describe the gory details of this research in some depth. Anyway, simply stated, the problem is that the certificate's private key is either inaccessible or the keyspec is incorrect.
1 - Improper import of good certificates, which caused them to appear faulty.
3 - Failure to realize that makecert.exe does not, by default, generate certs that use the correct keyspec for an SSL cert.
Problem #1 - The problem with importing was that I sometimes imported the certificate into the CurrentUser MY store and then, realizing that I'd imported into the wrong store, copied the cert into the LocalMachine MY store. The problem is that once a certificate is imported into a CurrentUser store, the private key container resides in the user�s profile, where it cannot be found by a system process.
Problem #2 - One of the first things I do when I create a development VM is to add the path to the .NET SDK bin directory to my system path. I always want access to the tools therein from any command prompt. Unfortunately, the makecert.exe in that directory (v5.131.2157.1) won�t work for generating SSL certs. The problem is that even if you specify a LocalMachine store for the cert, the private key container it generates is generated as a user key, not a machine key. Therefore, though everything looks good, when you use the cert from a system process, you experience the symptoms enumerated above. In order to use this build for SSL certs, you�d have to pre-generate the key container and reference the pre-created container on the makecert command line.
Problem #3 - There are two standard key types for RSA keys: signature and exchange. Which key is used is defined by the keyspec property of the private key context belonging to the certificate. The keyspec property must be set to "Exchange" in order for the cert to work for SSL. This is obvious to me, but I never realized that makecert.exe sets the keyspec to Signature by default, and there isn�t a standard interface to view this property of a certificate that I�m aware of.
Solution #1 - Import certificates intended for SSL usage into a LocalMachine store directly. Don�t try to copy a cert from a CurrentUser store into a LocalMachine store. If you�ve mistakenly imported a cert into a CurrentUser store, you need to delete the cert and the key container (deleting a certificate does not delete the key container), and then import the cert into a LocalMachine store. See my next post for details as to how to locate the key container and delete it.
Solution #2 - Don�t use v5.131.2157.1 of makecert.exe (the one in the .NET v1.1 SDK) to generate SSL certificates. It always generates user key containers, which won�t work from a system process. Fortunately, the version of makecert.exe (v5.131.3790.0) that ships with v2.0 of the .NET SDK, as well as the latest Platform SDKs, works properly.
Solution #3 - Always use the command line option "-sky exchange" with makecert.exe if you�re generating SSL certificates. If you don�t specify this, it will default to the signature keyspec, which won�t work for SSL.
The difficulties I�ve experienced have been compounded by the fact that any one or more of these problems could be combined in a single situation, making it terribly difficult to pinpoint precisely what is going on. To aid in the diagnosis of SSL certificate problems, I�m making available a little command line utility that I wrote for this purpose.
To use checkcert.exe, pass a store name and a cert subject search string (such as the common name). Checkcert will display some key information about the cert that is not available in the built-in tools (again, that I�m aware of). Most importantly, checkcert will display the private key container location and the keyspec. You want to ensure that the key container location is "Machine" and that the keyspec is "Exchange" for an SSL cert. I hope this information and the utility will save someone the hassle of trying to unravel this mess from scratch.
I've been doing a fair bit of development against the MS HTTP API lately, and I'm weary of the httpcfg.exe utility. First of all, it's a right pain in the neck to find in the first place. Once located and downloaded, it's equally painful to use, IMO. Having read several articles on the net about the woes others were also experiencing in using this tool, I decided to write a simple GUI application against the Http configuration APIs. It's called, quite simply, HttpConfig. It won't win any points for UI flash, but I do hope it will make life easier for some as it already has for me. Enjoy! | 2019-04-23T00:51:50Z | http://www.stevestechspot.com/default.aspx |
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With the intro of the Internet, the entire world has become a Global City. Info is passed onto every edge of the globe within mins. This raising appeal generated a number of data and also content organizing sites online.
The 21st century brought with it, a great deal of data and material being consistently created as well as released. With loads of paper being utilized in a solitary day, there was a requirement for online data monitoring systems. This brand-new thinking brought innovative adjustments.
. Net holding solution is a service which enables the companies and individuals to put data and also web content on the Internet.
Web holding is a kind of web organizing which allows the organizations and also people to access their web pages as well as websites.
WordPress is the most pre-owned material monitoring system. It gives its users with templates, plug-ins, themes and also many other appealing features.
When the idea suggestion owning having pages and as well as websites first introduced, the situation scenario confusingComplicated As a result, web organizing solution was presented as well as it began to provide the solutions, without the customer requiring the needed framework required to do the work.
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While composing the web content or making web sites, your recent data could be truly vital in order to make a record. WP engine, by default, offers a 30-day back-up and maintains the track. This truly is a great function to appreciate.
Internet protection is the primary frustration nowadays for the online platforms. We listen to the news of data breaches quite nowadays. WP engine not just gives safety and security with the safety and security code yet furthermore it sends out one more code to the cell phone in order to enable accessibility to the account.
Transferring the websites to the customers is also possible with WP engine. It is simple and really practical when doing mass work.
Both the platforms get on a leading notch in performance and also rate. WP engine being a little faster wins the award. Hostgator isn’t much behind.
Right here, hostgator is clearly a better alternative as it’s much, more affordable compared to the various other one. WP engine is truly an expensive one. In spite of WP engine promo code discount, Hostgator is much more affordable.
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Information sharing has has actually constantly an important vital of manMale history. This thirst of getting understanding has actually always strengthened the ‘homo sapiens’ in many different means.
With the introduction of the Internet, the entire world has actually become a Global City. Information is passed onto every edge of the globe within minutes. This enhancing appeal provided increase to a number of data as well as content holding websites on the Internet.
. Internet hosting solution is a solution which allows the organizations as well as individuals to place data as well as material on the Internet.
Internet holding is a type of web holding which enables the companies and people to access their web pages and also sites.
WordPress is the most secondhand content administration system. According to some statistics, it’s made use of by 30.6% of the top 10 million websites for content uploading as well as blogging.
When the suggestion of having websites as well as sites was first presented, the situation came to be confusing. The concept was truly advantageous but to possess an internet site, it required unique computer systems which might get the job done. Because of this, internet holding solution was presented as well as it started to use the services, without the customer requiring the necessary facilities called for to do the job. This way, this idea spread.
Nowadays there are several holding systems like webBuilder, iPage, Hostgator, WordPress engine etc. From all these, we will be concentrating on WP engine vs hostgator.
WP Engine is a specifically construct platform for the WordPress individuals in order to publish the websites and also other materials. WP engine gives WP engine vouchers which could be made use of to obtain 30% or even more discount rates.
When it involves giving hosting for WordPress, WP engine goes to the top in this area. The major problem with WP engine is that it does not sustain any kind of various other CMS various other compared to WordPress.
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Because of the prior things, we can say that Hostgator is plainly a far better choice than WP engine. WP engine is specialized in a single CMS, however Hostgator offers you with range. | 2019-04-21T08:40:03Z | http://litchickshow.com/connecting-my-go-daddy-domain-to-my-wp-engine-wordpress-site/ |
Many new cyclists or cyclists who are thinking about using their bike to commute to work are anxious about riding in the road with traffic. It’s not as scary as it looks and in many circumstances riding with cars is actually safer than riding in segregated bicycle lanes or what are euphimistically called “bicycle paths”. If you’re going to be at all serious about road cycling or are going to commute to work you are going to have to share the road with cars. How to ride a bike in traffic can be a controversial topic that generates discussions informed by passionately held ideologies and beliefs. The advice and opinions expressed here are based on many years and tens of thousands of miles spent sharing the road with cars. I ride with cars every day and I don’t want to be killed, maimed or seriously injured on the bike. These are some of the ways I’ve found to most effectively accomplish those things. Keep in mind that there are no hard and fast rules about riding in traffic. You have to evaluate and adapt to each situation separately. Riding safely with cars involves riding the line and riding defensively among other things.
The first question you have to ask if you’re going to ride in the road with cars is where in the road you should ride. People who are not used to riding with traffic are likely to say, “as far away from the traffic as I can get.” That seems like it makes sense but in most cases it’s exactly the wrong thing to do. Why is that? One of the most important things to keep in mind when sharing the road with cars, maybe the most important thing, is that it is absolutely essential that the drivers of the cars see you and be aware of you. This seems so obvious that you might wonder why it needs to be mentioned at all. The reason is that drivers generally aren’t looking for cyclists, they’re looking for other cars, and it’s very easy not to be aware of something that’s right in front of you when you’re looking for something else. To see a terrific example of what I’m talking about, check out this video. It’s only about a minute long and it’s very cool. . . . . See what I mean? You’re already wearing that bright and garish jersey to make yourself more visible to the drivers, you also need to ride where they have a better chance of both seeing you and being aware of you.
So where should you ride? On the outer (right hand) edge of the driving lane, not on the outer edge of the road near the curb. Many roads have a solid white line that separates the roadway from the shoulder. You should ride as close to that white line as you can. Depending on road conditions and the width of the shoulder, you can ride on either the roadway side of the line with the cars or the shoulder side of the line but you should try to stay close to the line. It’s also a good idea not to get in the habit of riding directly on the line. Road markings are usually made using a plastic or epoxy based paint and they get slippery when wet. You’re more likely to have your wheels suddenly go out from under you on a wet road when you’re riding over the painted lines on the road. If you get in the habit of riding directly on the painted line in dry conditions, you’re likely to unthinkingly ride on the painted line when the road is wet as well. Practice riding to either side of the line.
On a road with a paved shoulder of even a few feet, the closer you ride to the outside edge of the roadway, the further you move away from the area of the road the driver is watching. The drivers may be able to see you but they will be less likely to be aware of you. In addition, the closer you get to the edge of the roadway the more likely you are to run into road debris like stones, rocks, gravel, sand, sticks, glass, garbage, bits and pieces of metal and other junk that has been swept to the side of the road by rain and passing cars. Riding through this stuff is dangerous and you want to avoid it whenever possible.
Unless a road is extremely narrow, traffic lanes are usually wide enough for a car to comfortably pass you when you are riding on the road side of the line. On roads with virtually no paved shoulder like the one in the picture at the left, you have no choice but to ride on the road side of the line. However, even this country road is wide enough that passing shouldn’t be a problem. If there is no line at the side of the road, ride near the outer edge of the roadway but not so close to the edge that you’re having to weave in and out of the traffic lane in order to avoid road debris.
When you’re riding down a street that has an occasional car parked along the side you want to avoid the temptation to weave out to pass the car and then drop back in toward the curb once the parked car is behind you. When you drop in toward the curb the parked car is blocking you from the field of view of drivers who are behind you. If there are several parked cars spaced at intervals along the side of the road, a rider who weaves in and out to pass the cars is popping in and out of the driver’s field of vision and this can be very dangerous for the cyclist. The solution is to ride far enough into the road to pass the parked cars and stay there. When approaching a parked car, try and see if there is someone sitting in the car who might open a driver’s side door and hit you as you go by. People rarely look for cyclists when they’re getting out of their car and this type of collision happens more often than you might think.
Riding near the line is only part of what you can do to maximize your safety when sharing the road with cars. How you ride the line is also important. You want to ride a smooth, steady line without weaving back and forth. There are several reasons for this. If you’re weaving around you may be pulling out of the driver’s zone of awareness when you go one way and into the line of traffic when you go the other. Another benefit of riding a smooth, straight line is that it gives the driver coming up behind you confidence that you know what you’re doing so that they can reliably predict where you’re going to be when they pass you. Think about what’s it’s like when you’re driving and come up behind a cyclist. If the bike rider is wobbling all over the place, passing them can be a nerve-wracking experience. If they’re riding straight and sure, passing is usually no problem.
Holding to a straight, sure line when you ride is a valuable skill for the road cyclist to have for many reasons and one of the best ways to practice this skill is by riding the line along the side of the road. Part of this skill involves learning to turn and look back over your shoulder to see what’s behind you without straying from your straight line. When you turn to look over your shoulder, there’s a tendency to drift in the direction you’re looking which means drifting into the line of traffic. You can practice line riding skills like looking over your shoulder when you’re riding the line and there’s no traffic behind you.
Remember that the drivers don’t want to hit you almost as much as you don’t want to be hit. You can make their job easier and increase your level of safety by riding the line in a straight, smooth and sure fashion.
The first and probably most important decision a new rider has to make is what kind of bike to buy. Choose the right kind of bike at the beginning and you may be opening a whole new world that will give you years, maybe a lifetime, of enjoyment. Choose the wrong kind of bike and you may have just bought an expensive garage ornament. There are so many different types of bicycles out there and so many variants on each of those different types that it would take a book to cover them all. It would also be useless information for many new riders because most of the variants are designed to fit a highly specific need or small niche in the cycling market. Most new riders will be faced with choosing some type of road bike, mountain bike or hybrid. If you are at all unsure about which type of bike is right for you, renting a bike for a day’s or weekend’s worth of riding is highly recommended. This post takes a more detailed look at hybrid bikes.
Hybrid bikes fill the gap between the heavy, rugged mountain bikes and the light, swift road bikes. That’s a wide gap and by combining different road and mountain bike features you can find a hybrid to fill just about any slot in it. They’re the swiss army knives of cycling.
Hybrid bikes typically feature frames that are lighter than a mountain bike but heavier than a road bike. Handlebars are usually flat like a mountain bike and the rider sits in much more of an upright position than on a road bike. They have the larger wheels of the road bike, but the wheels are heavier and more solidly constructed than a set of race wheels. Tires are typically a compromise between the narrow, smooth high pressure tire of the road bike and the fat, wide, markedly knobbed tire of the mountain bike.
It’s difficult to characterize the “typical” hybrid because they run the entire gamut from the pure mountain to the pure road bike. At the mountain end of the continuum, a hybrid will be up to the task of riding on well maintained gravel bike paths and beginning-level non-technical trails. At the road bike end of the continuum a hybrid may be suitable for medium length fitness and endurance rides on paved roads. However, because the bikes are all called “hybrids” doesn’t mean that any one of them can do all these things equally well. Road-oriented hybrids will be good at road-style riding and poor at cross-country style riding and vice-versa, the mountain-oriented hybrid will not do very well over long distances on a paved surface.
The wide range of bikes that fall in the hybrid category can pose a problem for a new rider who may have a hard time telling a road-oriented hybrid from a middle-of-the-road hybrid from a mountain-oriented hybrid. In addition, it’s probably the case that most of the crappy bikes sold by mass-market retailers that are cheap in terms of intial cost and expensive in terms of what you get for your money are properly categorized as hybrid bikes no matter what the retailers call them. For these reasons it’s a good idea for riders who may be interested in a hybrid to buy their bike from a bike shop where they can get good advice about what kind of hybrid to buy.
One of the strengths of a hybrid bike is its initial cost. Good entry level hybrids start at around $300, the least expensive entry point of the road, mountain, hybrid bike triumvirate. Another strength is their versatility. A middle-of-the-road hybrid can be riden on undemanding unpaved surfaces better than a pure road bike and can be ridden for fairly short periods of time on paved surfaces better than a pure mountain bike. Hybrids are good for light recreational riding, zipping down to the store, or going for a ride through the neighborhood with the kids. Perhaps most importantly, a hybrid gets a new rider out on the bike so he can discover for himself what kind of cyclist he wants to be.
The major drawback of a hybrid bike is the flip side of it’s major strength. Its versatility insures that it doesn’t really do anything well. When compared to a road bike, the increase in weight, the increase in tire width and tread, and the upright riding position combine to make riding any kind of distance more difficult than it ought to be. In addition, the hybrid bike’s flat handlebars put severe limits on where you can put your hands which can lead to numbness in the hands and stiffness and discomfort in the neck, shoulders and back on longer rides. This can be especially problematic for riders with carpel tunnel syndrome. When compared to a mountain bike, the decrease in weight and sturdiness combined with the decrease in tire width and tread put limits on where the hybrid can go off-road and make the bike more prone to breaking down when you come upon obstacles that are beyond the capabilities of your bike. When the riding gets serious, hybrids get left out off the road and left behind on the road.
A hybrid can be an ideal choice for the new rider who isn’t sure what kind of riding he wants to do. The fitness benefits of road riding and the idea of spending wonderful days going for long bike rides in beautiful weather make a road bike sound appealing but the excitment and challenge of off-road riding also sounds appealing. You’re not ready to commit to one or the other. What do you do? One solution is buy a hybrid and do the dialed back versions of each and see which you like the best. Riders who are thinking about cycling as a fairly low stress form of leisure activity that also has some health benefits are likely to be attracted to hybrids as well. A lot of people buy a hybrid as their first bike, discover they really enjoy some aspect of cyclng, and then move beyond the hybrid to a mountain or road bike as their interest and fitness levels increase. As long as you understand that it is often a temporary first solution, a hybrid bike may be just the bike you need.
The first and probably most important decision a new rider has to make is what kind of bike to buy. Choose the right kind of bike at the beginning and you may be opening a whole new world that will give you years, maybe a lifetime, of enjoyment. Choose the wrong kind of bike and you may have just bought an expensive garage ornament. There are so many different types of bicycles out there and so many variants on each of those different types that it would take a book to cover them all. It would also be useless information for many new riders because most of the variants are designed to fit a highly specific need or small niche in the cycling market. Most new riders will be faced with choosing some type of road bike, mountain bike or hybrid. If you are at all unsure about which type of bike is right for you, renting a bike for a day’s or weekend’s worth of riding is highly recommended. This post takes a more detailed look at mountain bikes.
Mountain bikes are built to go where no bike has gone before, or at least where no road bike has gone before. They’re the all-terrain vehicles of the bicycle world and are sometimes called all-terrain bikes. In many respects, they are the exact opposite of the road bike. Where road bikes are light and sleek, mountain bikes are heavy and rugged. Road riders think about how to attack the next section of road to maintain their current speed or go faster; mountain bike riders think about how to handle the next two or three obstacles in front of them. Ride a high-end racing bike on a rough, off-road trek and the racing bike would probably break down and leave you walking long before you reached the end of the ride. Take a mountain bike on a 100 mile bike ride on paved roads and it wouldn’t fall apart but it would be so slow, cumbersome and exhausting to ride you’d wish it would break down so you could end a horrible experience.
There are several styles of mountain biking such as downhill (being carried to the top of a steep mountain descent and then riding down on your bike) or dirt jumping (riding a dirt course with ramps constructed for jumping) but most new riders with mountain bikes will be engaged in cross-country biking. Cross country can range from riding on fairly sedate, well maintained, gravelled bike paths, to tackling trails of varying degrees of technical difficulty designed for cross country riders, to striking out across pathless terrain. Rougher riding conditions demand bikes that are better made and more durable, and hence more expensive.
Mountain bikes are built to withstand the punishment of riding in harsh terrain. They have small, heavy, reinforced frames that are designed to withstand riding over logs and boulders, and crashing down to earth after the bike and rider have launched into the air. Wheels are usually smaller and heavier than typical road wheels. Mountain bike tires are wide with knobbled tread patterns that are designed to gain traction in mud, sand, leaves and water. Handlebars are usually flat or gently rising and the rider sits in much more of an upright position than on a road bike. Many mountain bikes use some type of disc brake rather than the caliper brakes commonly seen on road bikes. Caliper brakes grip the wheel rim to slow the bike down. They don’t work very well on mountain bikes because the rims are often wet or muddy. Disc brakes provide much better stopping power in wet conditions but they are heavy. All of these design differences contribute to making the mountain bike durable and stable when ridden over very rough terrain.
As with any kind of bike there are many varieties of mountain bike. A decision the new rider will have to make at the outset is what type of suspension, if any, they want on their bike. A rigid bike has no suspension. It’s lighter than a mountain bike with suspension and easier to ride uphill. It also provides a much rougher ride because more of the vibration from every rock, root and hole you hit is transferred to the rider’s body. They are also harder to handle because anything hit with the front wheel tends to knock the steering out of the rider’s control. A hardtail has suspension on the front wheel but not the rear. The suspension adds weight to the bike which makes it harder to ride uphill. However, it also soaks up vibration from the front half of the bike and greatly lessens the chance that hitting a rock or other obstruction will cause the rider to lose control of the bike. Full suspension bikes have suspension on both wheels. They are the heaviest of the three but they also provide the most comfortable ride over rough terrain. The bike pictured at the beginning of this post is a full suspension bike. All else being equal, rigid bikes are the least expensive while full suspension bikes cost the most.
A good entry level mountain bike costs about $500 which is much less expensive than an entry level road bike. The rugged look and riding style associated with mountain bikes is appealing to many young males and bike manufacturers take advantage of this to sell bikes that they call mountain bikes and are made to look like mountain bikes but are basically cheap knock offs that sell in the $300 range or less. At the $300 price point many of these bikes will hold up if you take care to maneuver around every rock and log in your path instead of riding over them. As the price drops, so does the quality of the bike.
If you are thinking about buying a mountain bike several additional costs need to be considered. Because mountain bikes get hard use in rough terrain they break down more often. Flexing their egos, mountain bikers will sometimes say that if you don’t break something on your bike every week, you’re not riding hard enough. For a new rider this is silly, but you can expect a higher incidence of repair for off-road and trail riding which means both greater expense and more time when the bike is unavailable to you because it’s in the shop waiting for parts or repairs. The higher maintainence needs of mountain bikes make establishing a good relationship with a bike shop especially important for mountain bike riders.
Another cost you may have to take into account is some kind of rack on your car to transport the bike. A mountain bike ride almost always involves a trip by car to and from the trail head where the bike ride starts. Some SUVs, vans or jeeps will allow you to throw the bike in the back and drive it to the trail head. If you don’t have a vehicle like this, you’ll need a bike rack.
The biggest drawback to mountain bikes is their limited range of use. They are wonderful for cross country riding and just about useless for riding on paved surfaces. Their weight and fat knobbed tires make them very slow. Any kind of suspension makes the problem worse because the suspension not only soaks up that bumps of off-road riding it also soaks up the energy and power the rider is trying to put into the crank to make the bike move forward. The rider’s upright position on a mountain bike is also very inefficient when riding over a smooth paved surface. You need to generate more power because your bike is very heavy with tires that are slowing you down, you have a harder time generating that power because of the position you’re in on the bike, and a good percentage of the power you do generate is soaked up by the bike’s suspension. Riding a mountain bike up any kind of decent hill on a paved road can be a nightmare.
Cross country riding can be challenging and exhilarating. You have to control a bike that sometimes feels like a live thing that’s trying to get away. You have to think fast about how to solve the problems presented by the many obstacles that are coming your way. Do you go over the rock or around it? Can you get over those roots and if you do, will they slow you down so much you won’t be able to get up the hill just beyond them? Can you build up enough speed to get through that muddy patch? For breakneck, throw-caution-to-the-winds excitement there’s not much that can beat a balls out ride down a steep forested slope. If this kind of riding appeals to you, you’re probablyy looking at buying a mountain bike.
What Kind Of Cyclist Do You Want To Be?
The quick hot fire of initial enthusiasm can be easily doused. However, if that fire is laid properly it can ignite into the powerful and long burning flame of passion. My wife and I are avid and experienced road cyclists. Many times we have seen people decide to start cycling with great enthusiasm and little knowledge of bikes or riding beyond what they remember from childhood. With great intentions and expectations they rush out and buy a bike that more or less suits their cycling visions only to find that their initial enthusiasm is quickly dulled. The bike ends up out on the balcony or in the garage gathering dust, the flame of passion extinguished before it ever had a chance to take hold. As often as not the reasons lie in the would-be cyclist not thinking clearly about what kind of bike rider they would likely be and buying the wrong kind of bike as a result. Riding a bike that is not suited to the type of cycling you’re doing is taking the fast lane to unhappiness and discomfort on the bike. It turns an activity that can be a joy into something that is no fun at all. This is the first in a series of posts designed to help the beginning cyclist roll out with their foot on the right pedal.
When you go to buy your first bike you’re often hit with a barrage of questions. What kind of riding do you do? Racing, recreational, off-road? What kind of bike do you want? A road bike, a hybrid, a mountain bike? What kind of frame do you want? Carbon fiber, steel, aluminum, titanium, composit? You don’t know the answer to any of these questions. You don’t even know what half the choices you’re being offered mean. Where do you start when you don’t know anything?
If you are thinking about getting a bike but don’t know much about bikes or cycling it makes sense to go to a place that sells bikes and ask questions to get the information you need. This works really well if you happen to go to a place where they know a lot about bikes, will take the time to answer your questions, and won’t try and sell you something just to make the sale. I think it’s a good idea to spend some time thinking about how you’d like to ride your bike before you buy anything and before you go to a place where someone might take advantage of your enthusiasm and ignorance to sell you something that doesn’t suit your needs. Think about what it is about riding a bike that intrigues you or appeals to you while keeping an open mind about what kind of bike you would like to have. People who are new to cycling sometimes make the mistake of being committed to buying a bike that looks a certain way or is associated with a particular image of the cyclist they find appealing when in fact that type of bike is all wrong for the type of riding they want to do.
What do you want to do on your bike? Win the Tour de France? Careen down forested mountain slopes catching big air over small cliffs? Toodle around the neighborhood with your baby in a carrier on the back? Tour around the country with a tent and some camping gear? Commute to work? Get in shape? All these things? If you’re thinking about riding where there’s no pavement and maybe even no path, if you want to ride through woods and fields and streams without being limited by having to go where the roads go, then some type of mountain bike is probably what you want. If light recreational riding around the neighborhood or on the local bike paths intrigues you, or if you want to commute to work or use your bike for basic transportation, then you should probably be considering some type of hybrid (a hybrid combines some of the characteristics of road and mountain bikes). Depending on the condition you’re in now, any kind of riding will help get you in shape but if getting in shape or using the bike as an exercise or athletic outlet is what you find appealing, or if you are enthralled with a vision of yourself using a bike instead of an RV to travel and see the world, then you’re probably going to be looking at some kind of road bike.
Did you have a bike as a kid? Did you like it? What did you like about it? Did you like to go fast? Feel the wind in your face? Think about a road bike. Did you like being able to get around town on your bike? Like the way the bike expanded the range of places you could go and people you could see? Think about a hybrid. Did you like being able to cut across the fields, the parks, the neighboors yard, go through the woods, ride in the streams? Sounds like you’re a mountain bike kind of person.
How athletic have you been throughout your life? Be honest with yourself about this. Most people who decide to take up cycling want to lose weight or get in shape. Any kind of cycling can help but real conditioning or real weight loss takes exertion and effort. If you realistically calibrate your expectations and desires to the kind of riding you are most likely to do and keep doing, that effort can also be a lot of fun. Have you enjoyed playing sports at different times in your life? Do you find yourself going through periods of time, maybe months or years long, when you’re regularly engaged in physical or athletic activity like running or regular gym workouts and periods when you get almost no exercise? Have you always shied away from physical exertion? Are you out of shape or never been in shape? Road and mountain biking tend to provide the most exercise, the types of riding best suited to a hybrid the least. This doesn’t mean that you can’t get as intense a workout as you might want on a hybrid, you can. However, a hybrid is not as well suited for exercise and conditioning as the other types of bikes. If you think you are likely to really get into the bike for exercise, weight loss and cardiovascular conditioning, you’re probably going to end up on a road bike.
Don’t be concerned if your answers to some of these questions point to one type of bike and your answers to others point to a different kind of bike. The goal here is to get you thinking along certain lines and to help you begin to think about different kinds of bikes in terms of what kind of cycling you’d like to do. At the extremes a specific kind of bike is the one you will need. You have to have a mountain bike if you are going to go all-out cross country where there are no roads and no bike paths; you want to have a road bike if you are going to ride really fast or ride for long distances; you really want a hybrid if you are going to commute long distances to work come rain or shine, winter and summer. But you’re not at the extremes, you’re just starting out. Any kind of bike can be used in many ways. At this point you want to start thinking about the kind of bike that is going to be best suited to the way you want to ride.
What kind of cyclist would you like to be? You can be any kind you want. | 2019-04-26T10:07:16Z | https://tunedintocycling.com/tag/cyclist/ |
This post will be going through the process of filling the USPS change of address form at the official USPS website. There are many other companies and organizations providing the service, where they file the change of address on your behalf. They usually charge a premium for that which is way higher than what USPS charge. The charges for filing United States Postal Service change of address from at USPS official site is $1.05, which is justified by the security attached the address changing process. While other service providers charge anywhere from $15 to $40.
Most of the service providers do make the changes for you but there are some complaints where the person was charged but the address was not changed. You need to be very careful about using such service. They usually never inform post office about your move.
Once you have decided that you need to apply for a change of address, you have two options in hand; you can either walk to your nearest post office and fill a form there about your new address or you can fill the same form online, avoiding some common mistakes, in five minutes using the laptop on which you are reading this post.
Step by step process of filling the post office change of address is discussed in detail below. You can read it once and then start to fill the form or you can also do both the things simultaneously in different tabs.
You should start the process of changing your address by going to the online form available at the official website of USPS, you can find the link also at the bottom of this post. When you go to the USPS’s change of address form you will see a welcome page.
You need to click the orange Continue button to go to the next page.
On the next page, it gives you some tips and information on charges. There is a clearly mentioned charge of $1.05 to be charged from your credit card or debit card. This helps USPS to verify that the person filing the request is real.
This form can be filled personally by anyone who wants to update his/her address in post office or he or she should be the executor, guardian, authorized officer of the person whose USPS address change is being done or an agent of the person for whom the update of address is being carried out. This is clearly stated on the official UMove (This page www.usps.com/umove has been removed by USPS some time back, but the official link mentioned at the end of this post is still good) page, you need to acknowledge that statement before you start the actual change of address process.
The first step ‘Move Info’ is divided into three important questions.
The most important question is the status of move, weather it is temporary or permanent. If you are planning to move back to the same address within a year then temporary should be marked, even if you are sure about the first six months and your next six months plan in dependent on something else, you should file a temporary change request and then after six months, you should again file the same request.
Date of forwarding implies to the date from which you want your mails to be delivered to the new address, you can fill the form after or before moving so you have to tell USPS the date when you want the mail forwarding to start. For example you can file the request within thirty (30) days of moving or if you want to fill the change of address form well in advance than you can do it that upto three months before the date of forwarding.
If you apply for a permanent address change than you will see only one date option, ‘Start Forwarding’ date, but if you are applying for a temporary change of address then you will see a second date option as ‘End Forwarding’ which will tell USPS to stop your mail forwarding to new address and resume its going to the old address.
The ‘End Forwarding’ date should not be more than six months away from the Start Forwarding date. As it was mentioned earlier, you can apply for temporary change of address for six months and extend it for another six months.
In case you don’t know the exact End Forwarding date then it is good to input the best estimated date, and if this date is ever changed , you must inform your local post office about the new/changed End Forwarding date.
Another important point to remember is that if you receive your mails by more than one name e.g. your middle name or nick name then a separate postal service change of address form should be filed for that name as well.
The next point asks about the type of move it is. You should clearly mention whether it is an individual move, a family move or a business moving to a new address.
Here is an explanation of three different types of moves. Individual move is defined as move when a single person from a family is moving and the rest of the family is going to stay at the same old address.
If one person in a family has a different surname then the family has to file for a change of address as a family and the person who has a different surname has to file separate change of address for as an individual. You can mark it as a family move if the whole family which has same surname is moving to a new address, in that case all the people having same surname will get their mails forwarded to the new address by filing just one form.
Third option is for the businesses moving to a new address. It is not possible to divert few mails to a different address; all the mails should be delivered to the same business address, either new or old.
Once you have filled all three options, you can now click on the orange ‘Continue’ button to provide your name and address details.
contain the First Name or initials of the Head of the family. Another important point to remember is that if you receive your mails by more than one name e.g. your middle name or nick name then a separate postal service change of address form should be filed for that name as well. Same goes with the last name and surname.
Another important point, if a person who has the same surname is moving to a different address, then a separate form should be filled for that person otherwise mails of that person will also be forwarded to the address where whole family’s mails are being forwarded.
Please remember, you can’t file for a change of address from a non USPS PO box, but if you have a USPS PO box, you should put that in the street field.
The second block has the space for you to provide your old address information (not your previous address, this is the address where you are already receiving your mails) you need to be careful in filling this as any mistakes will complicate the process of changing the address with USPS.
The third block is where you will put your new address or the address where you want your mails to be forwarded. If you are moving to a newly built house that was built in last six months, then it may not be in USPS database, in that case you must tick the box below the ZIP code.
There are few type of address which you cannot use for these fields like you cannot file for a US Postal Service change of address from a non USPS PO box but if you have a USPS PO box you should put it in the street field.
Similarly you cannot file Similarly you cannot file United States Postal Service Change of address online for international address or from a Military APO/FPO address, but you can file an online change of address to change your address ‘to’ a military address.
Online address changing facility can also not be used to change ’Unique ZIP Codes’ address. Unique ZIP codes are used for specific universities, governmental agencies, buildings or business that gets a very high volume of mails. Such offices are assigned a Unique ZIP code to funnel the mails easily.
Once you are done with the contact information, press the orange “Continue” button to the next step of “Identity Check” and confirm your identity.
In the Fourth block you need to provide your contact information including your email address, confirmation of email address, home phone and Mobile phone. This information is used to send the information of the transaction and confirmation of the change of address and mail forwarding.
Third Step of filling the form is Identity Verification, this step helps USPS verify the applicant. It require you to verify yourself using a valid Debit or Credit card, this card should be in the name of person filing the request and it should have the same billing address as either your old or new house.
USPS charges a $1.05 fee to verify the ownership of the card. This helps in preventing fraudulent address changing requests and also saves you from your friend’s playing prank on you.
When you fill this page, it will show you both of your address (New where you are moving and old from where you are moving) to select for billing address; you can select the right address on your card. If your card is billed on any other address (a third address) then there is an option for entering a different billing address of your credit card or debit card.
If you mark the third option of “Enter a Different Address” a new address field appears where you can enter your billing address. In case you are making the payment on behalf of someone else, there is an option to mark “I’M HELPING SOMEONE ELSE”.
If you mark that field, you will have to provide your details like Name, Phone Number and Email address. Once you are done with that, you can click on the Continue button to move to the next step. If you feel like you have not provided the card information, please don’t afraid as USPS will ask that information in the next step.
On the next page you will be asked to enter your card information, once you do that, your United States Postal Service change of address process will be done.
While you are filling the form, you will see a vertical orange box on the right hand side of each page, this box shows all the information you have filled during the whole process and if you want to make any corrections or changes, you will find an edit button in front of each field, at any stage, you can click on edit button and it will take you to the respective page to make the edits.
Please note, the address you see in the box is standardized by USPS database the moment you enter it, so if you see any difference in the format of address you filled and the address you see, it may be due to the database address, and you can leave it like that.
Once you have checked and verified the details, you can be sure that your change of address is applied and it will start forwarding your mails to your new forwarding address within fourteen days.
Thanks for the detailed article, it was really helpful for me. I have to apply in next week and I just wanted to know how i is done. This article has made me really happy to know that this process is really simple.
I was really afraid of doing it online after reading all those scam and consumer complaints. But now I am confident about where to do it.
Just want to ask one question, is the payment really necessary of we are doing it online?
Yes, it is. If you are doing it online then making a payment also helps to verify your identity, this way you are safe.
Very informative article, thanks for all those detailed images. they were really helpful.
I will be moving from NYC to SF right after Christmas, but if I do it around that time, wouldn’t USPS be closed around that time?
You can do it up to 3 months in advance, so if you do it now and mention the date when you want the forwarding to start, it would be done. That is why the 3 months in advance and 30 days after moving this facility is available.
Great information and the whole process is discussed very clearly. I heard too much about the scams around changing of address in post office. Thanks you for clarifying that US Postal Service charges only $1.05 for change of address.
Last time I moved, I used a service which charged me $24 for the same. Postal Inspection Service also alerts about such services. Here is the link https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/pressroom/schemealerts.aspx that says some people were charged up to $40.
Thanks for adding to the information.
Why are they charging $1.05, are they not supposed to do it for free? We already pay for the shipping charges so why pay this.
That $1.05 charged by USPS is more important towards the security then the service charge. This way they can always track who applied for the address update.
I agree with the point that people receiving mails on more that one name should file a separate form for both the names. It happened to me last year, I receive mails with my nick name also, and when I moved, I filed for the First Name and Last name only.
Then I noticed that my mails which used to come by nick name are not coming any more.I checked with the local postal office and they told me I need to do it for my nick name as well.
of blogging, that in fact how to do blogging. I love the way you have blogged about changing the address at USPS. This is the exact information I was looking for. Liked you on FaceBook.
My nephew lives across the street from me on the same street, but he will be moving in with me. He doesn’t have a credit card so my question is – can he do the change of address online and me paying with my credit card? Thank you in advance.
No, he can not use your credit card. He should do it from the nearest post office.
Wow, that’s a really great step by step tutorial I have found online about free change of address form, I know it is not free but you really made it very clear why the amount should be charged. If it was free, then anyone would change my address and get all my mails. USPS will probably never be able to figure out who filled it. It is a really great way to keep us safe. I saw some complaints of overcharged cards like http://www.cnbc.com/id/100908339 and I am happy that you have linked to the official USPS site clearly so that nobody is misguided.
I am a single dad of 2 yr old and really have no time to visit post office, this was the reason I wanted to do it online. I kept your site open in one window and USPS official site on other window and filled the form really quickly without any problems.
Thanks you very much. I will share it on my FB and Twitter with my friends.
I went to my nearest post office for change of address and saw there was a huge line, that is when I got to know about online change of address facility. Your site helped me understanding the process before I started.
I must thank you for saving my time, and thanks for the official link. I searched on google and there were lot of providers which look like scam and charging upto $80 for the same thing I did on official USPS change of address page for $1.05.
Many people say it is free but I could not find the free option and when I read here, i got to know why it is not free. I will say it is nearly free as the validation charge is justified.
US Postal service is really struggling these days for funds as I keep seeing that in news that many post offices are closing down. I am sure this little charge will help them.
This is not good, us postal service ask money for change of address? why they need to charge us, we pay for postage and stamps and many other charges, why do they want that $1 charge, i think they are hungry of our money. USPS can’t be charging me just because i want to change my address to a new address.
That is for our safety, it varify you as a person staying in the address. USPS is doing it for a reason, you get the peace of mind for a $.
When ever you move to a new address, the formality remain same. So you have to apply if you move to a a new address, every time.
I moved for work last year had to notify tons of banks magazines etc ended up hiring a website that helped a ton I think it was $20 worth the money for me, you could spend all day trying to contact all of the companies but with one of those companies you just list your services and they get you the right info and help you handle it, helped a lot.
Mark, it is good that it worked well for you. But you can get the same thing done at USPS official site as they are diverting all your posts to your new address for a whole year. And the cost is much less, just $1.05.
The link you have posted for UMove as usps.com/umove is not working, can you provide the updated link please.
Thanks Steven for the headsup. I have posted a note above to let readers know about the change. Since the page has been removed and not just moved, I have not posted the updated URL. But we are going to look into it again in few days it the page is redirected to a new short URL. Here is a post about this update – usps.com/umove Has Moved To New Address Hope that helps.
You save a lot of my time. After reading your post, changing my address was apiece of cake. Keep the good work.
Thanks for the kind words George. Such things keep us motivated.
Why do we still need to pay that $ amount. We didn’t buy that address from USPS.
Thanks for your comment Mark. It is for your safety, imagine someone changes your address without you knowing it.
How can I do free change of address, no credit card is there to verify?
How can I did free address change af Ter I moved? I lost my cards during the move and now if I file for address change, all my cards had old address, so they will be sent to my old address. | 2019-04-22T04:45:50Z | https://www.megcor.net/filling-usps-change-of-address-form-online/ |
A catheter connector including a valve assembly and an access cannula. The valve assembly includes a housing with a septum, a displaceable plunger, and a distal end adapted for insertion into a catheter. The access cannula includes a distal end configured to engage the plunger. Displacement of the plunger by the cannula establishes fluid communication between the cannula and housing.
This application is a division of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/987,647, filed Nov. 12, 2004, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/844,236, filed May 12, 2004, and a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/844,276, filed May 12, 2004, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,063,685, each of which is incorporated by reference into this application as if fully set forth herein.
There are a variety of conditions that require injection of fluids into, or withdrawal of fluids from, a patient's circulatory system. It is common to use an implanted catheter to repeatedly access the patient's vascular system. A flexible guidewire placed in the vascular system may be used to facilitate placement of the catheter, but its use would prevent the physician from capping the proximal end of the catheter to prevent fluid from exiting the catheter or air from entering the vascular system through the catheter during placement. After catheter placement, it is common to attach a valve cap or other terminating device to the proximal end of the catheter to prevent fluid from exiting the catheter or air from entering the vascular system through the catheter. However, in case of accidental separation of the valve cap from the catheter, the distal end of the catheter would then be exposed to the environment outside the body of the patient. The exposed catheter lumen may increase the patient's risk of blood loss, air embolism, or infection.
The use of a cap or adapter to seal the proximal end of a catheter may increase the risk of trapping air pockets within the lumen of the catheter, resulting in an air embolism. Furthermore, during a treatment process requiring infusion of multiple fluids through the implanted catheter, the physician may inadvertently leave the lumens unprotected between procedures, and expose one or more of the lumens to possible contaminations. Thus, an improved catheter access interface may allow easy access to the catheter lumen and at the same time provide better protection against contamination and infection. In addition, an improved catheter access interface may also be configured for utilization as a needle-less access interface for an implanted catheter.
Therefore, a catheter including a self-sealing proximal lumen opening and a corresponding connector for accessing the catheter lumen may be desirable. In particular, a multi-lumen interface with self-sealing mechanisms may be especially desirable in medical procedures where infusion of multiple fluids and/or medications is required.
Accordingly, described herein is a catheter interconnecting interface that provides a self-sealing capability to the proximal end of a catheter and a corresponding connector for releasing the seal and accessing the catheter lumen. In one aspect of the invention, a multi-lumen catheter is configured with a valve positioned at the proximal opening of each of the lumens. A corresponding connector is provided for opening the valves and providing fluid communication between the catheter lumens and a purity of extension legs on the connector.
In one variation, the catheter device comprises a catheter valve assembly and an extension leg unit. The catheter valve assembly has a proximal opening for receiving a lumen insert on the extension leg unit. The valve in the catheter valve assembly is opened by inserting the lumen insert into the proximal end of the catheter valve assembly, and the valve is closed by retracting the lumen insert from the catheter valve assembly. The catheter valve assembly may be integrated within the proximal end of a catheter. In another variation, the catheter valve assembly comprises a housing with a lumen. The proximal end of the lumen is configured to receive the lumen insert, while the distal end of the housing is configured for connection to a catheter. The catheter may be connected to the housing through a releasable interface. In another variation, a permanent connection may be established between the housing and the catheter.
In another variation, the catheter valve assembly and its corresponding extension leg unit are configured to support a multi-lumen catheter. Each of the lumens in the catheter valve assembly may be provided with a corresponding valve to prevent fluid outflow (i.e., retrograde backflow). A plurality of lumen inserts may be provided on the extension leg unit for opening the valves and providing fluid communication channels to the lumens in the catheter. A plurality of extension legs may extend from the proximal end of the extension leg unit for accessing the lumens in the catheter. In one example, each of the lumens within the catheter is provided with a corresponding extension leg on the extension leg unit, which allows the user to establish fluid communication with each of the lumens independently. Optionally, each of the extension legs may be connected to an extension catheter or tubing. The extension catheters may be attached to the extension leg unit through a removable connection. In another variation, the extension catheters may be permanently connected to the extension leg unit.
In another aspect of the invention, a catheter valve assembly is provided at the proximal end of a catheter to serve as an access interface. In one variation, the catheter valve assembly comprises a housing with a single spring-load valve which actively seals access to one or more chambers in the housing. The catheter valve assembly may be configured to support a catheter including a plurality of lumens. The housing with a single spring-load valve actively seals access to a plurality of chambers in the housing. Each of the chambers is in fluid communication with a corresponding fluid channel. A cannula is provided for interfacing with the valve assembly. The cannula has a plurality of lumens matching the number of chambers in the housing. The cannula is further configured with a sealed distal end, and a side port is provided for each of the lumens. When the cannula is inserted into the housing, the distal end of the cannula displaces the spring loaded valve and establishes fluid communication channels between each of the lumens in the cannula with a corresponding chamber in the housing through the lumen's side port. In another design variation, the catheter assembly with the spring-loaded valve is configured for providing a bifurcating connection to a single lumen catheter. A single lumen cannula with dual side ports is configured for insertion into the valve assembly including two chambers, such that fluid communication can be established between the two chambers in the housing and the single lumen in the cannula.
In yet another aspect of the invention, the catheter valve assembly is configured as a single lumen catheter access system. In one variation, the valve assembly comprises a housing supporting an access tubing. The proximal end of a catheter may be connected to the distal end of the housing such that the lumen of the catheter is in fluid communication with the lumen of the access tubing. The proximal end of the access tubing is closed while one or more orifices are provided on the circumferential surface of the access tubing. Within the housing, a low durometer polymeric material (e.g., silicone, closed cell foam rubber, etc.) surrounds the distal portion of the access tubing and seals the orifices on the access tubing. An access cannula which may be attached to an extension catheter may be provided for interfacing with the access tubing in the housing. When the distal end of the access cannula is inserted into the housing and over the access tubing, the seal around the tubing orifice is displaced, and the proximal portion of the access tubing is positioned within the lumen of the access cannula. The proximal portion of the access cannula has a larger inner diameter than the outer diameter of the access tubing, such that the inner lumen of the access cannula can establish fluid communication with the inner lumen of the access tubing through the tubing orifices. The distal end of the access cannula may be tapered such that it can surround the outer periphery of the access tubing to provide a fluid seal when the access tubing inserted inside the distal lumen of the access cannula.
In addition, methods for establishing fluid communications at the proximal end of a catheter are also disclosed. In one variation, the method comprises inserting lumen inserts into the proximal end of a catheter to displaced valves positioned within the lumens of the catheter. Each of the valves may comprise a unidirectional valve (e.g., duck-bill valve, bi-leaf valve, etc.). The lumen inserts may be connected to a distal end of a housing, with extension legs at the proximal end of the housing for connection to extension tubings. Once the lumen inserts from the housing are inserted into their corresponding lumens at the proximal end of the catheter, fluid communication is established between each of the lumens within the catheters and a corresponding extension leg on the housing. A hemodialysis machine may be connected to the housing through the extension tubings which can be attached to the extension legs. To disconnect the hemodialysis machine from the patient, the operator may simply remove the housing and in the process retract the lumen inserts from the proximal end of the catheter. Once the lumen inserts are removed, the valves within the catheter lumens closes by themselves without further intervention by the operator.
In another variation, the method comprises inserting a cannula into a proximal end of a valve assembly to establish fluid communication with a catheter connected at the distal end of the valve assembly. In one example, the valve assembly comprises a depressible valve, and the cannula includes a blunt distal end for engaging the depressable valve. As the cannula is inserted into the valve assembly, the depressable valve is displaced, and fluid communication is established between the plurality of lumens within the catheter and the plurality of lumens within the cannula. In one variation, the cannula comprises two lumens and each of the lumens has an orifice located on a circumferential surface of the cannula. Insertion of the cannula into the valve assembly establishes fluid communication from each of the cannula lumen through its orifice on the cannula surface to a corresponding catheter lumen. Once the cannula is removed from the valve assembly, the valve closes and seals the proximal end of the catheter.
The implementation of the catheter valve assembly and its corresponding extension leg unit provides various advantages, which may include one or more of the following: (1) the removable extension leg unit may allow the physician to easily disengage multiple fluid infusion lines to a catheter, while simultaneously sealing all access ports without additional efforts; (2) the catheter valve assembly may prevent infection, limit backflow, and minimize embolism by keeping the proximal end of the catheter closed except when accessed by the extension leg unit or the corresponding access cannula; (3) the catheter with the proximal end valve assembly may improve patient safety by insuring that the proximal end of the catheter is closed except when it is properly accessed; (4) the catheter with the valve assembly may be accessed multiple times without requiring replacement; (5) in some variations the catheter valve assembly may allow selective access of individual lumen while keeping the unused lumens sealed; (6) the catheter valve assembly may have built-in safety features to prevent accidental opening of the valve; and (7) because a blood clot begins to form when blood is exposed to air, the automatic closure of the valves immediately upon disengagement of the removable extension leg unit or the access cannula may minimize coagulation within the catheter lumen.
FIG. 1 (left) illustrates the proximal portion of a dual lumen catheter with an integrated valve assembly. FIG. 1 (right) illustrates the corresponding extension leg unit. The extension leg unit comprises a removable bifurcate including two lumen inserts at the distal end for engaging the valves in the catheter valve assembly.
FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the catheter and the corresponding extension leg unit of FIG. 1. The catheter and the extension leg unit are shown in a disengaged position.
FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view illustrating the interlocking of the extension leg unit with the catheter. As shown, the lumen inserts engage the valves in the catheter and keep the valves open.
FIG. 4 illustrates another variation where the catheter valve assembly is configured as a separate unit for connection to the proximal end of a catheter to control flow and provide the interface to an extension leg unit.
FIG. 5 illustrates yet another variation where the catheter device comprises a triple lumen catheter with a catheter valve assembly integrated within the proximal end of the catheter. A corresponding extension leg unit with three leg extensions for engaging the three lumens at the proximal end of the catheter is also shown.
FIG. 6A illustrates one variation of a dual lumen catheter valve assembly, comprising a depressable plunger, and its corresponding blunt cannula for accessing the valve assembly.
FIG. 6B is a cross-sectional view of the valve assembly and its corresponding cannula of FIG. 6A.
FIG. 6C is a cross-sectional view of the valve assembly of FIG. 6A, shown with the cannula depressing the plunger and accessing the valve assembly. One possible fluid flow implementation is illustrated with arrows showing the dual lumen catheter being utilized to support simultaneous inflow and outflow of fluids.
FIG. 6D is a plain view of the septum implemented in the valve assembly of FIG. 6A. The septum is shown from its proximal end, viewed down its longitudinal axis toward its distal end.
FIG. 6E is a cross-sectional view of the septum of FIG. 6D, with the section taken along its longitudinal axis.
FIG. 6F is a cross-sectional view of the septum of FIG. 6E, with the section taken at A-A as indicated in FIG. 6E.
FIG. 7A is a cross-sectional view of another variation of a dual lumen catheter valve assembly, comprising a depressable plunger, and its corresponding blunt cannula for accessing the valve assembly. The valve is shown fully closed.
FIG. 7B illustrates the valve assembly of FIG. 7A with the blunt cannula engaging the plunger of the valve. The valve is shown partially accessed.
FIG. 7C illustrates the valve assembly of FIG. 7A with the valve fully accessed.
FIG. 8A illustrates another variation of a dual lumen catheter valve assembly, comprising a despressable plunger, and its corresponding blunt cannula for accessing the valve assembly.
FIG. 8B is a cross-sectional view of the dual lumen catheter valve assembly of FIG. 8A. The valve is shown fully closed.
FIG. 8C illustrates the valve assembly of FIG. 8A with the valve partially accessed.
FIG. 8D illustrates the valve assembly of FIG. 8A with the valve fully accessed.
FIG. 8E is a plain view of the septum implemented in the valve assembly of FIG. 8A. The septum is viewed from the proximal end towards the distal end.
FIG. 8F is a side view of the septum of FIG. 8E.
FIG. 9A illustrates a side view of one variation of a valve assembly where the accessing cannula is integrated within a housing. The cannula housing is configured to engage the valve assembly housing and property orient the ports on the cannula when the cannula is inserted into the valve assembly.
FIG. 9B is a top view of the valve assembly of FIG. 9A.
FIG. 9C is a cross-sectional view of the valve assembly of FIG. 9B. The access cannula and its supporting housing are shown disengaged from the valve assembly.
FIG. 9D illustrates the valve assembly of FIG. 9C with the access cannula fully engaging the valve.
FIG. 9E illustrates a pair of removal tool being positioned for disengaging the access cannula from the valve assembly.
FIG. 10A illustrates another variation of a valve assembly where the access cannula supporting housing is configured with latches for securing the access cannula unit to the valve assembly housing. An optional removal tool for disengaging the latches is also shown.
FIG. 10B is a side view of the valve assembly and its corresponding access cannula unit of FIG. 10A.
FIG. 11A is a side view of another variation of valve assembly and its corresponding access unit with detachable clips provided for securing the access unit to the valve assembly housing. The access unit is shown separated from the valve assembly.
FIG. 11B shows the valve assembly and the corresponding access unit of FIG. 11A with the access unit engaging the valve assembly. The clips are shown engaging the valve assembly housing and securing the access unit to the valve assembly housing.
FIG. 12 illustrates another variation of an access unit where the access cannula bifurcates at the proximal end, and the housing supporting the cannula is provided with two channels to supporting fluid communications to two separate catheters that are connected to the proximal end of the cannula housing.
FIG. 13A is a cross-sectional view illustrating a variation of an adapter cap for accessing a valve assembly. The corresponding valve assembly is also shown.
FIG. 13B illustrates the adapter cap of FIG. 13A engaging its corresponding valve assembly. The valve is forced open to allow a guidewire to pass through the valve assembly.
FIG. 14A illustrates another variation of a valve assembly with an integrated safety sealing disk. The safety sealing disk prevents air or fluid leak if the sealing plunger is inadvertently depressed. The corresponding access cannula is also shown.
FIG. 14B illustrates the valve assembly of FIG. 13A with the corresponding access cannula engaging the valve assembly. The access cannula is shown in a partially inserted position and engaging both the plunger and the safety sealing disk.
FIG. 14C illustrates the valve assembly of FIG. 13B with the plunger and the safety disk fully depressed, allowing fluids to flow through the valve assembly.
FIG. 14D is a frontal view of the valve assembly of FIG. 14A viewed from the distal end of the valve assembly along the longitudinal axis of the valve assembly towards the proximal end.
FIG. 14E is an end view of the safety sealing disk implemented within the valve assembly of FIG. 14A.
FIG. 14F is a side view of the sealing housing implemented within the valve assembly of FIG. 14A.
FIG. 14G is an end view of the sealing housing of FIG. 14F, shown from the distal end along the longitudinal axis towards the proximal end.
FIG. 15A illustrates yet another variation of a valve assembly with an integrated safety sealing disk. The safety sealing disk prevents air or fluid leak if the sealing plunger is inadvertently depressed. The corresponding access cannula is also shown.
FIG. 15B shows the valve assembly of FIG. 15A with its corresponding access cannula engaging the plunger and the safety sealing disk to keep the valve open for fluid flow.
FIG. 15C is an end view of the safety sealing disk implemented within the valve assembly of FIG. 15A. The safety sealing disk is viewed from the proximal end towards the distal end.
FIG. 15D is a side view of the safety sealing disk of FIG. 15C.
FIG. 15E is an end view of the septum implemented within the valve assembly of FIG. 15A.
FIG. 15F is a side view of the septum of FIG. 15E.
FIG. 16A illustrates another variation of valve assembly supporting single lumen catheter connections. The corresponding access cannula is also shown.
FIG. 16B is a cross-sectional view of the valve assembly of FIG. 16A.
FIG. 16C illustrates the access cannula engaging the valve assembly of FIG. 16B. The valve is opened to allow fluids to flow through the valve assembly.
FIG. 16D is a side view of the of the access tubing of the valve assembly of FIG. 16B.
FIG. 16E is a side view of the access tubing of FIG. 16D with the access tubing rotated 90 degrees along the longitudinal axis of the access tubing.
FIG. 16F is an end view of the sealing housing shown from the proximal end along the longitudinal axis toward the distal end.
FIG. 16G is a side view of the sealing housing of FIG. 16F.
FIG. 17A illustrates another variation of a single lumen catheter connector with a valve assembly comprising a plurality of polymeric disks layered one over the other.
FIG. 17B shows the three polymeric disks and the house chamber of the valve assembly of FIG. 17A in a disassembled condition.
FIG. 18A is a cross-sectional view illustrating another variation of a catheter valve assembly implanted under the skin of a patient. The corresponding access cannula is also shown.
FIG. 18B illustrates the access cannula engaging the valve assembly of FIG. 17A. The valve is shown in an opened position to allow fluid flow.
The following detailed description should be read with reference to the drawings, in which like elements in different drawings may be identically numbered. The drawings, which are not necessarily to scale, depict selected embodiments and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. The detailed description illustrates by way of example, not by way of limitation, the principles of the invention. This description will clearly enable one skilled in the art to make and use the invention, and describes several embodiments, adaptations, variations, alternatives and uses of the invention, including what is presently believed to be the best mode of carrying out the invention.
Before describing the present invention, it is to be understood that unless otherwise indicated this invention need not be limited to applications in humans. As one of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate, variations of the invention may be applied to other mammals as well. Moreover, it should be understood that embodiments of the present invention may be applied in combination with various catheters, drug pumps, and infusion devices.
A hemodialysis catheter is used herein as an example application of the extension leg unit with its corresponding valve assembly to illustrate various aspects of the invention disclosed herein. One of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure would appreciate that the valve assembly disclosed herein may be applicable with various catheters for infusion of fluids into the circulatory system in various medical applications. It is also contemplated that the access cannula or extension leg unit with its corresponding valve assembly described herein may be implemented with various fluid infusion lines and catheters, including, but not limited to, hemodialysis catheters, central line catheters and contrast dye injection catheters.
It must also be noted that, as used in this specification and the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, the term “a lumen” is intended to mean a single lumen or a combination of lumens, “a fluid” is intended to mean one or more fluids, or a mixture thereof. Furthermore, the words “proximal” and “distal” refer to directions closer to and away from, respectively, a physician operating the implanted catheter with the tip-end (i.e., distal end) of the catheter inserted inside a patient's body. Thus, for example, the catheter end inserted inside a patient's circulatory system would be the distal end of the catheter, while the catheter end outside the patient's body would be the proximal end of the catheter.
The catheter device with a valve assembly may be used for facilitating the introduction/removal of a fluid into/from a patient's body. The catheter valve assembly may be temporarily attached to the proximal end of the catheter or it may be integrated within the proximal portion of the catheter body. In one aspect of the invention, a removable extension leg unit is implemented for accessing the valve assembly. The distal end of the removable extension leg unit is designed for coupling with the catheter valve assembly at the proximal end of the catheter. The proximal end of the extension leg unit may be coupled to an electromechanically powered and/or magnetically coupled vascular pump to permit assisted flow of a fluid into or out of the patient's body. Bi-directional flow may be achieved with the implementation of multi-lumen catheter.
The catheter valve assembly at the proximal end of the catheter may be configured with an orifice that is large enough to allow the passage of a guidewire and/or introducer (e.g., dilator). Fluid valves, such as polymeric duck-bill valves or bi-leaf valves, which are compatible with the guidewire, may be implemented to support “over the guidewire” placement of the catheter. The fluid valves may prevent bleed-back or air embolism during the placement of the catheter. In one design variation, the catheter valve assembly is configured with lumens matching the lumens within the catheter. Each of the lumens within the catheter valve assembly may be configured with a cross-sectional area that is +/−10% of the cross-sectional area of its corresponding catheter lumen. In another variation, each of the lumens within the catheter valve assembly matches the lumen of its corresponding catheter lumen. For example, the valves may be built into the lumen of the catheter.
As is apparent from the figures, the catheter valve assembly at the proximal end of the catheter controls fluid flow into and out of the proximal end of the catheter. In one variation, each of the lumens is configured with a valve. In one particular design, a unidirectional valve (e.g., duck-bill valve, etc.) that allows fluid to flow into the catheter lumen but prevents fluid from flowing out at the proximal end of the catheter is implemented within the valve assembly. The unidirectional valves may be configured such that the physician may selectively inject fluids into one of the plurality of lumens directly without the use of the extension leg unit. The pressure from the injected fluid opens the valve and allows inflow of the fluid. Since the unused lumens are sealed by their corresponding unidirectional valve, the physician does not have to worry about backflow coming out of the unused lumens. In the lumen utilized for fluid injection, once the inflow of the fluid stops, the valve returns to the closed position. The syringe used for fluid injection may have a tip configured to fit into the lumen opening at the proximal end of the catheter valve assembly to provide sealed connection for the injection of the fluid. In another variation, the infusion syringe/instrument may be configured with an extended distal tip that can be inserted into the lumen and through the valve, such that insertion of the extended distal tip forces the valve open. As a result, as long as the extended syringe tip is inserted inside the valve assembly, the valve is kept open, and fluid may be infused or withdrawn by the syringe. Once the syringe is removed, the valve closes.
To utilize the plurality of lumens in the catheter simultaneously, an extension leg unit is provided for engaging the valve assembly. The extension leg unit may be provided with a plurality of lumen inserts for insertion into the catheter valve assembly at the proximal end of the catheter. The lumen inserts force the valves open and establishes fluid inflow/outflow pathways for each of the lumens in the catheter. The valves within the catheter valve assembly may comprise duck-bill valves, bi-leaf valves, spring-loaded valves, etc. For example, the valve can be a spring-like biasing mechanism that is coupled to a luer fitting at the proximal end of the catheter valve assembly. When a corresponding extension leg unit is attached to the catheter valve assembly, the pressure from the insertion of the extension leg unit is transferred to the spring, opening the valve. In the default position, with the extension leg unit disengaged, the valve is biased in the closed position by the spring.
As discussed earlier, unidirectional valves may be advantageous in some applications. In the default state (i.e., extension leg unit not connected), the unidirectional valves prevent fluids from exiting the proximal end of the catheter but allow fluid inflow. When the extension leg unit is connected, the unidirectional valves are kept open and fluid may flow in either direction. For example, the valve may comprise a duck-bill valve that opens when the lumen insert at the distal end of the extension leg unit is inserted into the mouth of the duck-bill valve and forces the two valve leafs to part laterally. The valve may include silicone or other polymeric materials.
In another variation, bidirectional valves that are configured to resist low fluid pressure in the lumen of the catheter and can be forced open through the insertion of lumen inserts may also be utilized. For example, a silicone barrier with one or more pre-cut slit may be implemented as a valve within the valve assembly. The elasticity of the silicone can resist the normal fluid pressure within the catheter lumen and prevent fluid backflow. When the extension leg unit is attached to the catheter valve assembly, the lumen insert pushes through the slit within the silicone barrier and forms a flow-path through the barrier.
Referring to FIG. 1, one variation of a removable extension leg unit 2 (right side of the figure) and a corresponding catheter 4 with a catheter valve assembly 6 (left side of the figure) are illustrated. In this particular variation, the extension leg unit 2 comprises a removable bifurcate including two extension legs 8, 10 at the proximal end 12 and two lumen inserts 14, 16 at the distal end 18. A luer connector 20 is provided for securing the extension leg 2 unit to the proximal end 22 of the catheter 4. The catheter valve assembly 6 is integrated within the proximal portion of the dual lumen catheter 4. Within each of the catheter lumen 24, 26 is a fluid valve 28, 30 positioned close to the proximal opening. In this particular design, each of the fluid valves 28, 30 comprises a duck-bill valve as shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the extension leg unit 2 and the catheter 4 of FIG. 1. The catheter valve assembly 6 and the extension leg unit 2 can be engaged by inserting the lumen inserts 14, 16 into the lumens 24, 26 of the catheters, as shown in FIG. 2. FIG. 3 shows the extension leg unit 2 engaged to the catheter 4 via the valve assembly 6. As shown, each of the two lumen inserts 14, 16 diverts the leaflets of the corresponding valve towards the inner wall of the catheter lumen and establishes a continuous fluid pathway from the lumen 24, 26 of the catheter, through the valve 28, 30 and into the corresponding extension leg 8, 10. In one embodiment, the catheter valve assembly 6 is configured for repeated and/or prolonged access and does not interfere with fluid flow when valves are opened. In the particular variation shown in FIG. 3, the lumen inserts 14, 16 isolate the valves 28, 30 from the fluid and prevent the valves 28, 30 from interfering with the fluid flow in any way.
In this variation, the luer connector 20 is provided around the distal end of the extension leg unit 2, and corresponding luer interface 32 is provided around the shaft of the catheter 4 at the proximal end of the catheter. The luer connector 20 provides for protection against accidental disconnection of the extension leg unit 2 from the proximal end of the catheter 4. The luer connector 20 can be rotated around the lumen inserts 14, 16, such that once the lumen inserts 14, 16 are inserted into the proximal end 22 of the catheter 4, the luer connector 20 can be rotated to engage the corresponding thread 34 on the circumferential surface at the proximal end of the catheter body 4. The luer connector fits axially about the distal portion of the extension leg unit 2. The inner surface of the luer connector 36 is appropriately threaded such that it can be selectively attached to the threaded portion 34 of the catheter body 4 to secure the catheter 4 to the extension leg unit 2. As illustrated in FIG. 1, the luer connector 20 may include female threads to selectively receive the male threads formed around the shaft of the catheter.
In another variation, the catheter device may further comprise a coupling lock that detachably locks the proximal end of the extension leg set to the catheter valve assembly. In one embodiment, the coupling lock is integrally connected to the extension leg unit and/or the catheter shaft. While FIGS. 1-3 show the luer connector on the extension leg unit, the position of the luer connector may be reversed such that the male side of the luer interface can be on proximal end of the catheter and the female side of the luer interface can be on the extension leg unit.
The catheter device described herein may also include a compression sleeve that fits axially about the distal portion of the extension leg unit around the lumen inserts, as well as fitting axially about each of the extension legs. The compression sleeve may be formed of malleable material so as to provide further compression on the connection between the connecting catheter/tubing and its corresponding connector. For example, luer connection and the compression sleeve may be implemented together to create a force to prevent inadvertent separation of the extension catheter or tube from the extension leg after the extension leg has been inserted into the lumen of the extension catheter/tubing. In another variation, the compression sleeve may be placed on the multi-lumen catheter to secure the catheter on the lumen inserts.
In one embodiment, the catheter has a first and second lumen 24, 26 as shown in FIG. 1. Each of the first and second lumens 24, 26 has a generally D-shaped cross-section. A longitudinally extending wall 38 defines the two lumens 24, 26 along the length of the catheter body 4. Each lumen 24, 26 connect to a respective lumen insert 14, 16 for fluid communication therewith. As shown in FIG. 2, the connection between the proximal portions of each of the extension leg 8, 10 and the distal portion of an extension catheter or tubing is an overlapping fitted connection. However, any other appropriate fastening means, such as detents may be used. In another variation, the proximal end of each leg extension is configured with a female luer interface for connection to an extension tubing's male luer distal tip. In addition, ribs 40 or grooves may be provided on the circumferential surface of the leg extension 8, 10 to improve connection between the leg extensions and their corresponding extension tubings.
Markings, indicators and/or coloring may be provided on the extension leg unit and the proximal portion of the catheter to assist the operator in matching the proper connections between each of the lumen inserts and its corresponding lumen within the catheter. To further ensure matched correspondence, the catheter tips at the proximal end of the catheter, the lumen inserts, and the extension legs may follow the same marking pattern. Thus, the first indicator is associated with one of the lumen inserts and a second indicator is associated with the other lumen insert, such that the first indicator and the second indicator define a correspondence between that lumen insert and an associated catheter lumen. In addition, the corresponding leg extension may be provided with the same indicator. While the indicator may be a visual indicator, such as color or lettering, a multi-lumen catheter with an extension leg attachment utilizing any indicator, visual, tactile, or otherwise, should be considered within the scope of the invention.
For example, the catheter may be a dialysis catheter with staggered lumen openings at the distal end of the catheter. One may provide blue and red markings on the catheter body corresponding to the lumens representing the arterial-line and the venous-line in the dialysis catheter. The lumen inserts and the extension legs on the extension leg unit may also be correspondingly marked with red and blue to prevent the operator from accidentally connecting the venous feed from the dialysis machine to the arterial-line on the catheter.
In another aspect of the invention, the catheter device comprises a catheter valve assembly 6 with a distal end 42 for connection to the proximal end 22 of a catheter 4, and a proximal end 44 for connection to the distal end 18 of an extension leg unit 2, as shown in FIG. 4. The distal end 42 of the catheter valve assembly 6 may comprise an oversleeve 46 for receiving the distal portion 48 of the catheter 4 and allowing the catheter 4 to be solvent-bond to the distal end of the catheter valve assembly 6. In another variation, the distal end 42 of the valve assembly 6 may comprise various locking interfaces with corresponding locking interfaces provided on the proximal end 22 of the catheter 4 for connecting the catheter 4 to the valve assembly 6. In the particular variation shown in FIG. 4, the catheter valve assembly 6 supports two lumens 50, 52. The distal end of each lumen exits in a corresponding lumen insert 54, 56 configured for insertion into one of the lumens 24, 26 at the proximal end 22 of the catheter 4. Although semi-circular lumen shapes are illustrated here, one of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that other geometries may also be implemented within the corresponding lumens. The proximal ends 44 of the catheter valve assembly 6 are configured to receive the lumen inserts 14, 16 from the extension leg unit 2. A valve 28, 30 is configured within each of the lumens 50, 52 in the catheter valve assembly 6 to prevent retrograde fluid flow when the extension leg unit 2 is disengaged from the catheter valve assembly 6. When the extension leg unit 2 is connected to the proximal end 44 of the catheter valve assembly 6, the lumen inserts 14, 16 from the extension leg unit are inserted into their corresponding lumens 50, 52 in the catheter valve assembly 6, forcing the valves 28, 30 to open. Various locking mechanisms that were described earlier may also be configured here for connecting the extension leg unit 2 to the catheter valve assembly 6. An adapter comprising a valve assembly 6, such as the one illustrated in FIG. 4, may also be implemented for connecting an extension catheter to the proximal end of an implanted catheter.
In another variation, the catheter adapter with an integrated valve assembly may be configured with an antithrombogenic agent and/or an antibacterial agent. An antithrombogenic agent or material may be placed inside the lumens of the adapter to prevent coagulation and formation of thrombus within the adapter. For example, an antithrombogenic agent (e.g., heparinized hydrophilic polymer, various heparin complexes, etc.) may be coated on the inner surface of the adapter's lumens. In another variation, an antibacterial agent or material may be placed within the lumens of the adapter to serve as a bacterial barrier to prevent migration of infective agents into the lumens of an implanted catheter. For example, the adapter may comprise of an antibacterial polymer. In another variation, the inner lumens of the adapter may be coated with an antibacterial agent (e.g., polymer integrated with antibiotic such as gentamicin, nitrofurazone, Minocycline-rifampin, etc.). In anther variation, the polymeric valves within the valve assembly comprise a polymer impregnated with an antithrombogenic and/or an antibacterial agent. Furthermore, an antibacterial agent may also be provided on the outer surface of the adapter.
As stated above, the invention is described with a design containing two lumen inserts and a catheter valve assembly integrated within the tubing at the proximal end of a dual-lumen catheter. The present invention should not be limited, however, to this embodiment. Other appropriate configurations should be considered within the scope of the present invention. For example, the catheter tube and corresponding lumen inserts may be a series of concentric tubes of varying diameter. In another variation, the invention may provide a similar configuration to that described hereinabove with three (or more) lumen inserts and a triple (or more) lumen catheter tube.
FIG. 5 illustrates one design variation of a triple lumen configuration. In this variation, the catheter 62 comprises three pie-shaped lumens 64, 66, 68. Each of the catheter lumens 64, 66, 68 has an integrated valve positioned close to its proximal opening. An extension leg unit 70 supporting three lumen inserts 72, 74, 76 is configured for connecting extension tubings to the catheter 62. The three lumen inserts 72, 74, 76 may be placed into the three corresponding lumen openings 64, 66, 68 at the proximal end 78 of the catheter 62. The insertion of the lumen inserts 72, 74, 76 forces the valves in the catheter to open and establishes fluid communication from each of the lumens 64, 66, 68 to one of the three extension legs 80, 82, 84 at the proximal end 86 of the extension leg unit 70. Each of the three leg extensions 80, 82, 84 may be connected to an extension tubing or catheter. In another variation, the triple lumen configuration may be implemented with three circular lumens, instead of the three pie-shaped lumens.
In another variation, the catheter device is configured with fluid valves that allow introduction of an introducer (dilator) and/or guidewire through the catheter device. For example, a duck-bill valve positioned in the lumen of the catheter may be configured to accommodate a dilator. As the dilator is inserted into the proximal end of the catheter, the valve leaf of the duck-leaf valve is forced against the wall of the catheter and allows the dilator to be advanced toward the distal end of the catheter. One of ordinary skill in the art, having the benefit of this disclosure would appreciate that other polymeric valves or compressible/retractable valve mechanisms may also be implemented.
It should be appreciated in view of this disclosure that the catheter device described herein may be configured to permit reverse tunneling of an associated catheter. In the variation shown in FIG. 1, the proximal end 22 of the catheter 4 has a profile similar to the mid-shaft 23 of the catheter 4 such that it can be easily reverse tunneled through a small channel in the body of the patient. In comparison, if the catheter had a large valve mechanism at its proximal end, it would be difficult to pass the proximal end of the catheter with a large surface profile through a small channel created within the body of the patient. In one particular design, the proximal portion of the catheter, which houses the valve assembly, has a cross-sectional area that is no more than 10% larger than the cross-sectional area at the mid-shaft of the catheter body. In another design variation, the proximal portion of the catheter has a cross-sectional area that is no more than 5% larger than the cross-sectional at the mid-shaft of the catheter body.
Because the extension leg unit may comprise low cost polymeric materials, the extension leg unit may be dispensed after one treatment. The use of a new extension leg unit for each treatment may decrease the risk of infection. In some applications, such as chemotherapy treatment, it may be desirable to dispose of the extension leg unit and the associated extension tubings that are connected to the extension legs. Furthermore, blood filters, drug infusion pumps, and other medical instrumentation may be connected to a new extension leg unit prior to connection of the extension leg unit to the catheter, thereby enabling ease of connection of the patient's implanted catheter to a plurality of tubings or fluid sources. For example, the arterial-line and the venous-line of the dialysis machine may be connected to an extension leg unit prior to the patient's arrival. Once the patient is ready, the patient can be quickly hooked up to the dialysis machine by simply connecting the proximal end of the implanted dialysis catheter to the extension leg unit. After treatment, patient may be quickly disconnected from all the tubings by simply disconnecting the extension leg unit from the proximal end of the implanted dialysis catheter. Once the extension leg unit is removed, the valves at the proximal end of the catheter automatically close, and prevent fluid backflow from the catheter and seal the lumens from outside air exposure. An optional cap may then be placed on the proximal end of the implanted dialysis catheter.
In one variation, the extension leg unit may be configured with an antithrombogenic agent and/or an antibacterial agent. An antithrombogenic agent or material may be placed inside the lumens of the extension leg unit to prevent coagulation and formation of thrombus within the extension leg unit. For example, an antithrombogenic agent (e.g., heparinized hydrophilic polymer, various heparin complexes, etc.) may be coated on the inner surface of the extension leg unit's lumens. In another variation, antibacterial agent or material may be placed within the lumens of the extension leg unit to serve as a bacterial barrier to prevent migration of infective agents into the lumen of an implanted catheter. For example, the extension leg unit may comprise of an antibacterial polymer. In another variation, the inner lumens of the extension leg unit may be coated with an antibacterial agent (e.g., polymer integrated with antibiotic such as gentamicin, nitrofurazone, Minocycline-rifampin, etc.). Furthermore, an antibacterial agent may also be provided on the outer surface of the extension leg unit.
In another variation, the catheter device is configured to allow fluids to flow through the catheter device at a flow rate of about 0-500 ml/min. The valves assembly and the corresponding extension leg unit may be configured such that they introduce minimal resistance along the fluid flow paths. In another design, the catheter device is configured to support a fluid infusion rate of at least 200 ml/min. In yet another design, the catheter device is configured to support a fluid infusion rate of at least 400 ml/min.
In yet another variation, the catheter device further comprises a porous mesh or filter positioned along one or more of the fluid paths. In one variation, the porous mesh or filter is positioned in the catheter valve assembly unit. In another variation, the porous mesh or filter is positioned in the extension leg unit. For example, the porous mesh or filter may be placed in the lumen within each of the extension legs. The housing of the extension leg unit may comprise a transparent plastic such that the operator can easily monitor fluid flow inside the extension leg unit. Because the extension leg unit may be disposable, if the porous mesh or filter is clogged, the operator may simply replace the entire extension leg unit.
In another aspect of the invention, the catheter valve assembly 102 is configured within a housing 104 that may be removably or permanently attached to the proximal end 106 of a catheter 108. In one variation, as shown in FIG. 6A, a valve assembly 102 is provided for accessing the proximal end 106 of a dual lumen catheter 108. An access cannula 110 is configured for insertion into a housing supporting a valve assembly. The distal end 112 of the housing 104 is connected to a dual lumen catheter 108. In one particular design, the housing 104 is configured with a length, L1. The valve assembly 102 comprises a depressable plunger 114 for sealing the opening 116 on the valve assembly 102, as shown in FIG. 6B. In this particular example, the plunger 114 is spring-loaded 118. However, one of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that other compression mechanisms or resilient materials that can overcome compressive stress may also be utilized in place of a spring 118 to actively displace the plunger 114 to seal the access opening 116 of the valve assembly.
The proximal end 120 of the housing has an opening 116 for receiving an access cannula 110. At the distal end 112 of the housing 104 are two ports 122, 124 for connection to a dual lumen catheter. Within the housing, two chambers 126, 128 are provided. Each of the two chambers 126, 128 is connected to a corresponding port 122, 124 through a channel 130, 132. The distal end of the housing may be configured with two extension legs 134, 136 for insertion into a dual lumen catheter, such that the catheter may be directly connected to the housing without the need for a standard bifurcation, extension legs and luer connectors.
A septum 138, which may be made of a material such as silicone, is implemented to provide a seal around the plunger 114 when the plunger is in an extended position. FIG. 6D shows the septum 138 from its proximal end. A center opening 140 is provided for receiving the plunger, and two side openings 142, 144 are provided to surround the two chambers. FIG. 6E is a cross-sectional view of the septum 138 taken along its longitudinal axis. FIG. 6F is a cross-sectional view of the septum taken along section A-A as indicated in FIG. 6E. An optional flexible boot or sleeve may be placed around the spring 118 to protect the spring and prevent particle build-up within the gaps within the spring.
An access cannula 110 is provided to depress the plunger 114, allowing fluid access of the chambers 126, 128 within the valve assembly housing 104. The proximal end of the access cannula 110 may be connected to a catheter. In another variation, the distal end of a catheter may be modified to serve as an access cannula. In this example, the access cannula has a blunt distal end 146 for interfacing with the plunger 114. Two lumens 148, 150 are provided within the access cannula. Each of the lumens 148, 150 has a side port 152, 154 such that when the access cannula is inserted within the valve assembly, fluid communication may be established between a corresponding chamber 126, 128 within the housing and the lumens 148, 150 of the access cannula. FIG. 6B shows the valve closed with the access cannula 110 disengaged from the valve assembly 102. FIG. 6C shows the access cannula 110 depressing the plunger 114, which fully opens the valve.
Another variation of the valve assembly 102 is illustrated in FIG. 7A. In this variation, the distal end of the access cannula 110 has a taper 156 to facilitate the insertion of the cannula 110 into the valve assembly 102. The tapered profile may help separate the septum 138 from the plunger 114, as shown in FIG. 7B. When the access cannula 110 is fully inserted into the valve assembly 102, the tapered profile engages the inner wall 158 of the septum 138 and seals the plunger 114 and its spring mechanism from the fluid flowing in the chambers 126, 128 of the valve assembly 102, as shown in FIG. 7C. In this variation, the fluid flow path is defined by the septum 138 that also serves to seal around the plunger 114 when the valve assembly is not accessed. The septum 138 also seals around the access cannula 110 when the valve assembly is accessed. The inner surface 160, 162 of the septum 138 is configured with a curved profile to allow a guidewire inserted from the distal port 122, 124 of the housing to easily pass through the valve assembly 102. For over the guidewire insertion, an adapter with an access cannula may be utilized to depress the plunger and keep the valve open.
Referring to FIGS. 8A-8D, another variation of the valve assembly 102 is illustrated. In this design, the septum 138 has a disk-shaped body with a center opening 140 to accommodate the plunger 114. FIG. 8E shows the septum 138 from a top view. FIG. 8F is a side view of the septum 138. The inner wall 164, 166 of the valve assembly housing surrounds the two chambers 126, 128. The walls 168, 170 at the proximal end of the chambers are tapered to assist the pass-through of a guidewire.
A housing, adapter, or casing 172 may be provided to support the access cannula 110 and to position the access cannula 110 within the valve assembly 102 when the valve assembly 102 is accessed. FIGS. 9A-9E illustrate one variation in which the housing 172 for the access cannula 110 is configured with leg/tubing extensions 174, 176. FIG. 9A is a side view of a detachable extension leg unit 178 for interfacing and accessing the corresponding valve assembly 102. The distal end of the valve assembly housing is connected to a dual lumen catheter 108. Latches 180, 182 are provided for securing the detachable extension leg unit 178 to the housing 104 of the valve assembly 102. FIG. 9B is a top view of the detachable extension leg unit 178 and the corresponding valve assembly. In this particular design, the housing 104 of extension leg unit 178 has a length L2. As shown in FIG. 9C, two extension/tubing 174, 176 are connected to the proximal end 184 of the access cannula 110 and direct fluids in and out of the two lumens 148, 150 within the access cannula 110. The two extensions 172, 176 bifurcate as they exit the housing 172. Luer connectors may be provided at the proximal end of the extensions for connection to other tubing or catheters. In another variation, a single extension with a dual lumen may be implemented on the access cannula housing 172 for connection to the proximal end of the access cannula 110. In addition, an optional redundant O-ring seal 186 may be provided on the shaft of the access cannula 110 to improve the seal between the access cannula 110 and the valve assembly 102 when the access cannula 110 engages the valve assembly 102.
As shown in FIG. 9C, latches 180, 182 are provided on the inner surface of the access cannula housing 172 for engaging and securing the access cannula housing 172 to the valve assembly housing 104. FIG. 9D shows the access cannula 110 fully inserted within the valve assembly 102 and the latches 180, 182 engages their corresponding notches 188, 190 on the valve assembly housing 104. In this particular design, slots 192, 194 are provided on the access cannula housing 172 for receiving a removal tool 196, 198 to release the latches from the valve assembly housing. As shown in FIG. 9E, a pair of removable tools 196, 198 are inserted into the removal tool access slots and the latches 180, 182 are forced to disengage from their corresponding notches 188, 190. Once the latches 180, 182 have disengaged, the detachable extension unit 178 with its access cannula 110 may be pried apart from the valve assembly unit 102.
One of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure would appreciate that various other locking mechanisms may be implemented to secure the access cannula within the valve assembly. In another variation, latches 180, 182 with built-in levers 200, 202, such as the ones illustrated in FIG. 10A may be utilized. An optional removal tool 204 may be provided to disengage the latches 180, 182. FIG. 10B is a side view illustrating the position of an integrated latch 182. In another example, detachable clips 206, 208 may be provided on the housing 172 supporting the access cannula 110, as shown in FIG. 1A. The operator depresses the lever 210, 212 on the clip to release the distal end of the clip so the valve assembly 102 may be slid into the access cannula housing 172. Once the valve assembly 102 is positioned in place, the clips 206, 208 are released to engage the valve assembly housing 104 and secure the proximal end 120 of the valve assembly housing 104 within the access cannula housing 172 as shown in FIG. 11B. To disengage from the valve assembly 102, the operator may depress the clips 206, 208 and pull the access cannula unit 178 off of the valve assembly 102.
In another variation, the access cannula unit 178 may be configured with extension legs 214, 216 branching from the housing 172, supporting the access cannula, as show in FIG. 12. In this particular design, the proximal portion 218 of the cannula 110 is configured with a bifurcation. Each branch of the bifurcate 220, 222 is connected to a respective lumen of one of the two extension legs 214, 216. Tubing or catheters 224, 226 may be solvent bond onto the extension legs as shown in FIG. 12. In another variation, a luer fitting may be provided at the proximal ends of the extension legs 214, 216 such that tubing or catheters 224, 226 may be connected to the extension legs 214, 216. Certainly, there are many other ways to connect tubing 224, 226 to extension legs 214, 216, which would be within the scope of this invention.
An optional adapter 228 may be provided to allow the operator to electively access the valve assembly 102. In one variation the access adapter 228 comprises a housing 230 with a protruding element 232 for depressing the plunger 114 in the valve assembly 102. In one example, the access adapter 228 comprises a housing 230, supporting a single lumen access cannula 234. An optional valve 236 may be provided at the proximal end 238 of the cannula 234 to prevent fluid backflow from the opened valve assembly 102 and keeping the system sealed when not in use. The valve 236 may include various pliable polymeric materials. In one variation, the valve 236 comprises a block of pliable silicone with a slit to allow needles or wiring to pass through. In another variation, the valve 236 comprises a silicone block 240 with an inner lumen modeled in an hourglass-shape 242 as shown in FIG. 13A. The proximal end 244 of the hourglass lumen is closed. A slit 246 is provided on the closed proximal end 244 to allow an elongated object to be pushed through.
With the access adapter 228 connected to the valve assembly 102, the operator may insert a needle on a syringe through the valve 236 and inject fluids and/or medication through the opened valve assembly 102. In another application, the access adapter 228 is utilized for over the guidewire insertion of a catheter, as shown in FIG. 13B. The distal end 112 of the valve assembly 102 is attached to the proximal end of a catheter. An access adapter 228 is attached to the proximal end 120 of the valve assembly to depress the plunger 114 and open the valve assembly. The distal end of the catheter may then be inserted over a guidewire that has its proximal portion inserted within a vessel of a patient. The catheter is then advanced forward along the length of the guidewire. Finally, the proximal end 248 of the guidewire 250 passes through the opened valve assembly and then through the valve 236 at the distal end of the access cannula 234. The valve 236 prevents fluids in the catheter lumen from back-flowing out of the proximal end of the access adapter 238.
In applications where an hourglass-valve 236 is utilized as illustrated in FIG. 13B, the neck of the hour glass may provide a seal around circumferential surface of the guidewire 250 and provide added protection to back-flow in addition to the slit 246 at the proximal end. Since the neck 252 of the hourglass 236 valve may be configured with a circumferential inner surface including an inner diameter that is equal or slightly smaller than the outer diameter of the guidewire 250, the neck portion 252 may provide a more even seal around the body of the guidewire 250 than the proximal end slit 246.
Although a single lumen access cannula 234 is illustrated in FIG. 13A, one of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that a dual lumen access cannula may also be implemented in the access adapter to allow the operator to selectively inject or withdrawal fluids from either of the catheter lumens. In addition, one may modify the single lumen access cannula adapter 228 by removing the valve 236, and attaching a catheter to the proximal end of the cannula housing. In another variation, an extension leg may be provided at the proximal end of the housing for connection to a catheter. The modified access cannula adapter may then be utilized to connect a single lumen catheter to a dual lumen catheter for accessing the two lumens simultaneously.
In another variation of the valve assembly 102, a safety sealing disk 254 is implemented to prevent accidental opening of the valve. The safety disk 254 is configured such that depressing the plunger 114 alone can not open the valve. In this design, the access cannula 110 may depress the plunger 114 and at the same time engage the safety disk 254 to establish an open fluid pathway within the valve assembly 102. In one variation, as shown in FIG. 14A, a first spring 256 positioned at the distal end of the plunger provides spring-loading of the plunger 114. A second spring 258 positioned on the shaft of the plunger 114 between the base 260 of the plunger and the safety disk 254 provides the spring-loading of the safety disk 254. Depending on the design criteria, the thickness of the safety disk 254 may be modified to provide the necessary protection. In this design, if the plunger 114 is depressed without engaging the safety sealing disk 254, the second spring 258 keeps the safety sealing disk 254 in place and prevent premature leakage of fluids. When an access cannula 110 is partially inserted into the valve assembly, as shown in FIG. 14B, the distal tip of the cannula 110 engages both the plunger 114 and the safety sealing disk 254. As the plunger 114 and the safety sealing disk 254 are fully depressed, fluids may then flow out of the lumens 148, 150 of the access cannula 110, through the openings 262, 264 on the safety sealing disk 254, and into the channels 130, 132 in the valve assembly housing 104, as shown in FIG. 14C.
FIG. 14D shows the valve assembly housing 104 viewed from the distal end 112 of the housing. Two extension legs 134, 136 form the two inserts for insertion into a dual lumen catheter. FIG. 14E is a plain view of the safety sealing disk 254. A center opening 266 accommodates the plunger 114; two side openings 262, 264 provide the pathways for fluid pass-through when the safety disk 254 is depressed. FIG. 14F is a side view of the septum 138 which provides the seal around the plunger 114 and the safety sealing disk 254 when the valve is closed. When the valve is accessed by an access cannula 110, the septum 138 provides the seal around the access cannula 110 and guides the safety sealing disk as it displaces toward the distal end of the housing. FIG. 14G is a plain view of the septum 138 viewed form the proximal end down its longitudinal axis.
In another variation, as shown in FIG. 15A, the safety sealing disk 254 is spring-loaded by a spring 268 position along the inner wall 270 of the valve assembly housing 104. The septum 138 comprises a disk-shaped block with an opening 140 to accommodate the plunger 114, as shown in FIG. 15E. FIG. 15F illustrates the side view of the septum 138. The safety disk 254, as shown in FIG. 15C, comprises a center opening 266 to accommodate the plunger 114 and two side channels 262, 264 to allow fluid pass-through when the safety sealing disk 254 is depressed. In this design, if the plunger 114 is accidentally depressed without engaging the safety disk 254, as the plunger advances distally, the inner wall 270 of the safety sealing disk is exposed. However, the presence of the safety sealing disk 254 blocks fluid from flowing into or out of the chambers 126, 128 within the valve assembly 102. The distal end of the access cannula 110 is tapered 272 to facilitate insertion of the tip 274 of the cannula between the plunger 114 and the septum 138. In addition, the tapered profile 272 is also configured to engage the safety sealing disk 254. As shown in FIG. 15D, the inner wall 270 of the center opening 266 of the safety sealing disk 254 is configured with a slanted profile 276 matching the tapered profile 272 on the distal end of the access cannula 110. When the access cannula 110 is inserted into the valve assembly 102, the tapered profile 272 on the outer wall of the access cannula 110 engages the inner wall 270 of the safety sealing disk's center opening 266 and forces the safety sealing disk 254 to displace distally, as shown in FIG. 15B. Consequently, fluid paths are established through the valve assembly.
Although in the above examples, a dual channel valve assembly is used to illustrate the functionality of a plunger-based valve assembly, one of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure would appreciate that the plunger-based valve assembly may be modified to accommodate single channel connections or connections with three or more fluid channels. For example, the device shown in FIG. 15B may be modified such that the access cannula 110 has a single lumen and the extension legs 134, 136 at the distal end of the housing may be merged into a single extension. As such, the valve assembly unit may serve as a proximal end protection for a single lumen catheter, and at the same time, provide an interface for connecting another single lumen catheter to serve as an extension. In another variation, the device shown in FIG. 15B may also be modified such that the access cannula 110 supports three or more lumens with corresponding side ports. The valve assembly 102 may be configured with a plurality of chambers matching the number of lumens in the access cannula. As such, the valve assembly may be utilized to provide proximal end protection and connection to a catheter including a plurality of lumens. In another variation, the valve assembly may be utilized for sealing a plurality of single lumen catheters and allow simultaneous access of all the single lumen catheters connected to the valve assembly. For example, the valve assembly may have four chambers with four corresponding ports. Each of the ports is connected to a separate catheter. An access cannula including four lumens may then be utilized to access the four catheters connected to the four chamber valve assembly simultaneously.
In yet another aspect of the invention, a valve assembly 102 is configured for single lumen catheter connection and access protection. The valve assembly comprises a housing which is accessible at the proximal end 180 with an access cannula 110 including a slightly tapered 282 blunt end 284, as shown in FIG. 16A. A catheter 292 may be attached (either pre-connected or attachable) to the distal end of the valve assembly housing 294. An access tubing 286 with a closed proximal end 288, and one or more side orifices 290 for accessing the lumen of the tubing 286 is positioned at the center of the housing 290. The distal end 296 of the access tubing is attached to the valve assembly housing 294 and a fluid communication path is established between the lumen of the catheter 292 and the lumen of the access tubing 286. In one design, the access tubing 286 has two oval shaped orifices 290, 296, as shown in FIG. 16D and FIG. 16E.
A compressible seal 298 is positioned within the valve assembly housing 294 and surrounds the access tubing 286 to seal the orifices 290, 296 on the access tubing 286, as shown in FIG. 16B. The compressible seal 298 may comprise various compressible polymeric materials (e.g., low durometer silicone, closed cell foam rubber, etc.). FIG. 16F is a proximal end view of the compressible seal 298. FIG. 16G is a side view of the compressible seal 298. Indentations 300 are provided around the circumferential surface of the compressible seal 298, such that the compressible seal may have room 302 for displacement within the valve assembly housing 294 when the access cannula 110 engages the valve assembly 102. To provide access to the catheter, the access cannula 110 is aligned with the access tubing 286 within the valve assembly housing 294, and then the access cannula 110 is inserted into the valve assembly 102 and over the access tubing 286. As the access cannula 110 is advanced into the valve assembly 102, as shown in FIG. 16C, the access cannula 110 separates the compressible seal 298 from the access tubing 288 and pushes the compressible seal 298 against the inner wall 304 of the valve assembly housing 294. Because the inner diameter 306 of the access cannula 110 is larger than the outer diameter 308 of the access tubing 286, a fluid flow-path is established between the inner lumen of the access tubing 286 and the inner lumen of the access cannula 110, through the orifices 290, 296 on the inner tubing 286. The distal end 284 of the access cannula 110 is tapered and may be configured to provide an additional seal around the base 310 of the access tubing 286.
In another variation, a single lumen catheter connection 312 is configured with a valve assembly 314 comprising a plurality of polymeric layers, each with at least one access slit 316. In the example shown in FIG. 17A, the valve assembly comprises a housing 318 supporting three layers of a disk, which may be made of silicone, layered over each other to form the access port 312. The top layer 320 has an opening 322 at the center of the disk to guide the placement of an access cannula, as shown in FIG. 17B. The middle layer 324 has a slit 316 across the center of the disk. The bottom layer 326 also has a slit 328 on the center of the disk. An inner frame 330 is provided to support the polymeric disks. The middle 324 and the bottom disk 326 are positioned such that their corresponding slits 316, 328 are angularly aligned with each other. In one variation, the two slits 316, 328 are positioned perpendicularly with each other such that the slits cross at the center of the access port. One of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that three or more polymer disks with slits may also be implemented. Additional disks with circular openings may be implemented as the base layer or between the slit disks to keep the access cannula aligned when it is inserted in to the valve assembly.
The various valve assemblies described above may be configured to serve as needle-less catheter access systems. In one example, illustrated in FIG. 18A, the valve assembly 102 is attached to the proximal end 335 of a catheter 332 and implanted into a patient's body. The outer circumference of the valve assembly may be encased within a Vitacuff® material 334 to facilitate tissue in-growth to seal around the valve assembly 102 implanted under the skin of the patient. The proximal access end 336 of the valve assembly 102 is exposed on the surface of the skin. The distal end 338 of the valve assembly housing 342 may be modified to provide suitable catheter connection angles depending on the particular application. For example, in FIG. 18A, the distal portion 340 of the valve assembly housing 342 has a bent profile to support that attachment of a catheter 332 at an angle. To access the implanted catheter 332, an access cannula 110 is inserted into the valve assembly 102 through the access port 344 exposed on the surface of the skin. FIG. 18B shows the access cannula 110 engaging the valve assembly 102 and a fluid path is established between the lumen of the implanted catheter 332 and the lumen of the access cannula 110. Although, in FIGS. 18A and 18B, a single lumen catheter connection is illustrated, one of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure would appreciate that other valve assemblies disclosed herein, whether including one, two or three lumens/chambers, may also be implemented as an access port for an implanted catheter.
Furthermore, the various valve assemblies described herein, whether integrated within the proximal end of a catheter or as a separate adapter, may be configured with an antithrombogenic agent and/or an antibacterial agent. An antithrombogenic agents or material may be placed inside the lumen of the valve assembly to prevent coagulation and formation of thrombus within the valve assembly. For example, an antithrombogenic agent (e.g., heparinized hydrophilic polymer, various heparin complexes, etc.) may be coated on the inner surface of the adapter's lumens/chambers. In another variation, an antibacterial agent or material may be placed within the lumen/chamber of the valve assembly to serve as a bacterial barrier to prevent migration of infective agents into the lumen of an implanted catheter. For example, the valve assembly housing may comprise of an antibacterial polymer. In another variation, the inner lumen/chamber of the valve assembly may be coated with an antibacterial agent (e.g., polymer integrated with antibiotic such as gentamicin, nitrofurazone, Minocycline-rifampin, etc.). In anther variation, the valve (e.g., polymeric duckbill valve, spring-loaded plunger, etc.) within the valve assembly comprises a polymer impregnated with an antithrombogenic and/or an antibacterial agent. Furthermore, an antibacterial agent may also be provided on the outer surface of the valve assembly housing.
In view of the disclosure herein, one of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that a catheter device incorporating the valve assembly described herein may be utilized in various medical procedures. One of ordinary skill in the art would also appreciate that catheters including integrated valve assemblies described herein may be inserted into the patient's circulatory system through various veins and arteries with procedures that are well known to one of ordinary skill in the art.
In one example, the following devices and instruments are prepared for carrying out an implant procedure: multi-lumen catheter tube, introducer needle, multiple tear away sheath dilator introducers, J-flex guidewires, trocars, lock right adapters with clamps, injection caps, scalpel, sutures, and adhesive wound dressing. Additionally, the physician is also be provided with scissors, forceps, needles dishes, syringes and gauze. In particular approach, the catheter with a valve assembly incorporated at the proximal end is inserted into a patient's jugular vein. The procedure begins with placing the patient in a position with the patient's head turned to the opposite side of where catheter tip is to be placed into the jugular vein. The anatomical landmark for proper insertion is defined by the triangle formed by the lateral edge of the sternal head, the medial edge of the clavicular head of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, and the upper edge of the clavicle. The patient's neck and a portion of the patient's thorax beneath the clavicle, at least about 20 cm, are prepared for incision. Thereafter, the patient is draped and a local anesthetic is administered.
A local anesthetic skin wheel may be created, taking care to infiltrate the subcutaneous tissue for about 2 to 3 cm. Next, with an 18-gauge needle attached to a syringe, the physician can identify the internal jugular vein by aspiration and then proceed at an angle while continuing to aspirate with the syringe. Once the internal jugular vein has been located, the method includes detaching the syringe while leaving the needle in place. Thereafter the J-flex guidewire is introduced through the needle and into the internal jugular vein. The guidewire is passed with minimal resistance into the desired location. The needle is removed, leaving the guidewire in place. The tip of the guidewire rests at the junction of the superior vena cava and the right atrium. Appropriate guidewire placement may be confirmed with fluoroscopy.
Next, with a scalpel, the physician makes an incision in the skin that is wide enough for the catheter tube to pass. A tearaway sheath dilator may be introduced over the guidewire and into the vein far enough to dilate the vessel. After expanding the vein wall, the guidewire may be removed. A trocar is screwed onto the catheter tube. The dilator may be removed, leaving the tearaway sheath in place to introduce the catheter tube. As the catheter tube is fed into the sheath the tearaway sheath may be torn away. Fluoroscopy may then be performed to confirm catheter tube placement. The distal tip with the venous lumen opening on the dual lumen dialysis catheter is positioned at the opening of the right atrium, and the arterial lumen opening, proximal to the distal tip, is positioned approximately 4 cm higher. Positioning, as described, may prevent blood recirculation during hemodialysis. Next, a tunnel, of about 8 to 10 cm, is created in a caudal and internal direction by means of the tunneler, which may be shaped to physician's preference. The proximal portion of the catheter tube is gently pulled through the tunnel until the loop at the original puncture site is gone. The catheter tube is then adjusted to rest over the clavicle.
If the catheter implanted has a built-in valve assembly within the lumens of the catheter, an extension leg unit may then be attached to the proximal end of the implanted catheter through the valve assembly. As the extension leg unit is attached to the proximal end of the implanted catheter, the lumen inserts from the extension leg unit or the access cannula engages the valve assembly located within the proximal end of the implanted catheter. In another variation, after tunneling the proximal end of the catheter, a removable valve assembly may be connected to the proximal end of the implanted catheter. An access cannula may then be inserted into the valve assembly to access the implanted catheter.
For dialysis application, the arterial-line and the venous-line on the dialysis machine may be connected to the extension leg unit or the access cannula prior to attaching the extension leg unit or the access cannula to the valve assembly on the catheter. When an extension leg unit is utilized, the luer connector on the extension leg unit may be backfitted over the shaft of the implanted catheter. Next, the compression sleeve may be backfitted over the catheter shaft. The two lumen inserts are positioned within the implanted catheter's two lumens, respectively, creating a friction fit. Optionally, proper markings may be provided on the valve assembly and the extension leg unit (or the access cannula unit), so that the arterial and venous lines from the hemodialysis machine can be connected to withdraw and infuse blood from the appropriate lumen in the implanted hemodialysis catheter.
In applications where tunneling is required, the physician may attach the tunneler to the distal end of the catheter. The catheter may then be tunneled from the exit incision site to the cut-down site before inserting the distal end of the catheter into the body. However, for catheter implementing an extension leg unit with a removable bifurcate or a detachable valve assembly, the physician may be removed the bifurcate or the detachable valve assembly so that the proximal end of the catheter can be easily reverse tunneled. In this case, the proximal portion of the catheter is tunneled from the cut-down site to the exit incision site. Optionally, a tunneler including an interconnector or locking mechanism matching the locking interface at the proximal end of catheter may be utilized for tunneling of the catheter. For example, the proximal end of a multi-lumen catheter with a built-in valve assembly may have a threading 34 surrounding the body of the catheter, as shown in FIG. 1 (left). One may provide a tunneler including a connector with matching threads, for the tunneling procedure. The physician screws the proximal end of the multi-lumen catheter onto the connector at the proximal end of the tunneler to secure the catheter to the tunneler. Once the proximal portion of the multi-lumen catheter is tunneled through the tissue, the tunneler is then removed, and the corresponding extension leg unit may be inserted into the proximal end of the catheter. In another variation, tunneling devices with other attachment mechanisms that are capable of holding/gripping onto the proximal end of the catheter may also be utilized to complete the tunneling of the catheter.
This invention has been described and specific examples of the invention have been portrayed. While the invention has been described in terms of particular variations and illustrative figures, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the invention is not limited to the variations or figures described. In addition, where methods and steps described above indicate certain events occurring in certain order, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the ordering of certain steps may be modified and that such modifications are in accordance with the variations of the invention. Additionally, certain of the steps may be performed concurrently in a parallel process when possible, as well as performed sequentially as described above. Therefore, to the extent that there are variations of the invention, which are within the spirit of the disclosure or equivalent to the inventions found in the claims, it is the intent that this patent will cover those variations as well. Finally, all publications and patent applications cited in this specification are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually put forth herein.
an access cannula including a distal end configured to engage the plunger, and first and second lumens in respective fluid communication with first and second side ports, insertion of a distal portion of the cannula through the proximal openings of the septum and housing displacing the plunger and establishing fluid communication between the side ports and the channels in a valve assembly open position.
2. The catheter connector according to claim 1, wherein the plunger is spring-loaded.
3. The catheter connector according to claim 1, wherein the distal end of the access cannula includes a recess configured to receive a proximal portion of the plunger.
4. The catheter connector according to claim 1, wherein the distal end of the access cannula is tapered.
5. The catheter connector according to claim 1, wherein the housing comprises first and second chambers in respective fluid communication with the first and second channels, the plunger separating the first and second chambers from one another in the valve assembly closed position.
6. The catheter connector according to claim 5, wherein at least one of the first and second chambers includes a curved surface.
7. The catheter connector according to claim 5, wherein the first and second chambers are defined by the septum.
8. The catheter connector according to claim 7, wherein the septum further comprises a plunger receiving section positioned between the first and second chambers, the distal end of the cannula received in the plunger receiving section in the valve assembly open position.
9. The catheter connector according to claim 1, wherein the septum has a disk-shaped configuration.
10. The catheter connector according to claim 1, wherein the access cannula further comprises first and second tubing extensions in respective fluid communication with first and second lumens.
11. The catheter connector according to claim 1, wherein the access cannula further comprises a cannula casing including an outer wall circumscribing the distal portion of the cannula.
12. The catheter connector according to claim 11, wherein the cannula casing outer wall includes latches configured to engage the valve assembly housing.
13. The catheter connector according to claim 12, wherein the cannula casing further comprises levers cooperating with the latches.
14. The catheter connector according to claim 12, wherein the cannula casing outer wall further comprises slots proximal of the latches configured to receive a removal tool.
15. The catheter connector according to claim 11, wherein the cannula casing includes a clip configured to engage the valve assembly housing.
16. The catheter connector according to claim 11, further comprising an O-ring seal around a shaft of the access cannula, the O-ring seal positioned adjacent the septum proximal opening in the valve assembly open position.
17. The catheter connector according to claim 11, wherein the cannula casing further comprises a bifurcation positioned at a proximal end, the bifurcation including a first and second extension leg with passages in respective fluid communication with first and second tubings.
18. The catheter connector according to claim 11, further comprising a valve positioned in a proximal portion of the cannula casing, including a closed proximal end with a slit, an open distal end in fluid communication with at least one of the first and second lumens, and a side wall that narrows from the valve proximal end to a neck and expands from the neck to the valve distal end, the neck configured to seal around a standard guidewire.
an access cannula including a distal end configured to engage the plunger, insertion of a distal portion of the cannula through the proximal openings of the septum and housing displacing the plunger and sealing disk to establish fluid communication between a lumen of the cannula and a channel of the valve assembly. | 2019-04-23T01:28:48Z | https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080147012A1/en |
There’s no better feeling than hitting the open road with miles of possibilities in front of you. For those of us who hate being cooped up in an office, a career in truck driving is one of the best jobs in the world! If you want to know how to become a truck driver, take some time to research the industry and learn about truck driver training, CDL license requirements, and what it takes to become a truck driver.
So go ahead, get out there and chat with some established truckers. If you don’t know any truckers, head out to a truck stop to find some. Despite the long solo hours on the road, lots of truckers actually really like to chat and share what they know. Ask questions about the industry, what the job is like on a day-to-day basis, what their experience is, what opportunities there are, and what the salary is like so you can get an idea if becoming a truck driver is right for you.
Before you decide to become a truck driver and do your truck driver training, you should consider both the benefits and challenges of becoming a truck driver. Professional truck driving is more than just a job. It’s a career, even a way of life. And once you complete truck driving training and have your CDL, your future will shift into high gear. When you go to work, you won’t be stuck in a cubicle or a dead-end job. Trucking puts you out on the road so you can enjoy constantly changing, 180-degree views.
Freedom from the monotonous office grind is just one of the many benefits of being a professional truck driver. The longer you drive, the more your salary grows. Plus, many employers offer benefit packages, vacation time, and other perks. Whether you transport freight state-to-state, deliver packages door-to-door, or load and unload deliveries in your hometown, you are the lifeblood of our country’s economy. Professional drivers are in serious demand. Getting a CDL sets you up for a lucrative profession that will not only pay the bills today but keep you in a sought-after, high demand position over the long haul.
On the flip side, truck driving can be challenging because the job itself can be demanding, 11-hour days are common, delivery deadlines can be tight, and if you transport hazardous materials the job can even be dangerous. There’s also the challenge of living away from home for weeks at a time. While some people might like the idea of an adventure away from home, others may need to spend more time around their home and families.
Once you’ve reviewed the pros and cons and what a trucker’s job is like, you’ll need to follow a few steps to become a truck driver. This includes going through truck driver training at a rucking school, and get your CDL before you can start job hunting. If you like the idea of a high-demand career, good pay and benefit options, and workdays on wheels, then it’s time to get going. We’ve taken all the headaches out of learning how to get your CDL, preparing you in just weeks for much more than just a passing score on the CDL exam.
Check out the State Requirements & Regulations to learn more about getting your CDL license and how it varies from state to state.
What Kind of Education Do You Need to Become a Truck Driver?
Unlike many job positions, there is no minimum education requirement for becoming a truck driver. You simply need to go through trucking school and get your CDL. Some trucking schools and companies may require a GED or high school diploma, there are others that focus directly on your ability to acquire the skills to become a professional driver.
Your main obstacle when learning how to become a truck driver is the cost associated with attending trucking school. Getting your CDL and going through truck driver training costs around $3,000-$10,000. Although the cost of trucking school might seem high, don’t worry, there are plenty of ways to cover the cost of tuition, including company-sponsored programs. And don’t forget, truck driver training will get you into a good-paying career right away.
The first step to becoming a truck driver is to find a trucking school in your state. Your trucking school will provide you with the right steps to get your CDL and help you learn how to become a truck driver. CDL training offers programs around the country to help you meet your CDL requirements and get into a great career.
Are There Any Paid CDL Options?
If the prospect of paying for trucking school seems too financially taxing, there are other options available to cover your tuition costs. While you might not get paid to complete your CDL requirements, you can enter a company-sponsored training program to save you up-front costs on your education. Of course, companies won’t just sponsor your training without some requirements.
If a company sponsors your training, they will usually require that you contract to work for them for at least one year and will often deduct the cost of training from your paycheck during this time. While you won’t be making a ton of money your first year, you also won’t have any tuition debt or overhead costs to become a truck driver.
CDL.com partnering schools have different payment options for students who need more information on how to pay for their truck driver training.
For those who have their CDL already but have been out of the truck driving game for a while, there are refresher courses available that don’t require you to re-do truck driving school. Most refresher courses are available through both schools and trucking companies. Refresher courses usually take a few weeks to complete.
How Long Does It Take to Get a Commercial Driver's License?
The time it takes to get your CDL requirements depends on the school you choose to attend as well as what type of commercial drivers license you want to get. Most programs take around three to seven weeks to complete, and Class A programs take longer than Class B and C programs because they provide more in-depth truck driver training. Class A programs also allow you to drive a wider variety of loads and vehicles than Class B and C licensing.
Each school varies slightly as to how long their truck driver training programs are. Contact the driving schools in your state to find out more about their programs. Remember, just because one program is shorter than another does not mean the quality of the education will be as good. Do some research and make sure you’re investing in the best school for you.
What's the Difference Between a Class A, B, and C Driver's License?
Class A: This option allows you to drive vehicles like tractor-trailers, livestock carriers, tankers, flatbeds, and more.
Class B: This option is geared towards operators of city buses, school buses, delivery trucks, dump trucks, straight trucks, and more.
A Class A CDL allows you to drive a wider variety of commercial trucks, but truck driver training for a Class A CDL also typically takes longer than Class B or C. This is why it’s important to not only consider your current job position, but also how you want to advance your career in the future. Getting the license you need now will save you from having to re-do truck driving training if you want a different truck driving position later.
How Much Does a CDL Driver Make a Year?
Becoming a truck driver requires long hours and is a tough but rewarding career. If you’re putting in the effort to learn how to become a truck driver, you probably want to know how much a CDL driver makes every year. The answer? Pay for CDL drivers varies—a lot. BLS.gov estimates the average truck driver salary at $42,480 per year. The variation in pay is due to experience, type of trucking, and the company you work for.
If you own and operate your own vehicle you can make significantly more money. The average owner-operator truck driver makes around $162,000 per year, with salaries ranging from $27,500 to $374,000. However, as an owner-operator, you are responsible for purchasing, maintaining, and insuring your own vehicle, as well as providing your own benefits—all of which are costs of doing business. The main idea here is that pay for truckers varies widely based on a number of factors including mileage, experience, location, bonuses, type of trucking, cargo, and licensing.
If you want to become a truck driver and fulfill CDL requirements, you might also be wondering how truck drivers are paid. Are truck drivers paid hourly? Do they get paid at the end of every week? Is their pay in the form of a check, or is it directly deposited into their bank account? The answer really depends on how your trucking company has decided to structure their pay system.
Most truck drivers are paid per mile, while some pay per hour or salaried. Hourly pay jobs are typical in the delivery industry with companies like FedEx or UPS. Truck drivers that haul freights are usually paid per mile. In general, getting paid per mile allows you to earn more money based on how far your drive.
As a truck driver, you are often provided with benefits that go beyond your standard base pay, including 401K retirement plans, paid time off for vacations, sick time, healthcare plans, life insurance, bonuses for meeting goals or evaluations, and even hiring bonuses. Even though these benefits are great, nothing can compare with the freedom of the open road and the trust you’re given to do your job, and do it well.
How Much Does It Cost to Take the CDL Driving Test?
After you’ve completed truck driver training and before you can claim your job position and collect your pay, you’ll need to make sure you take and pass the CDL driving test. Typically, your state of residency is also where you must get your CDL. The cost to take the CDL exam varies from state to state, but it is usually between $40 to $70 to take the actual exam.
After you’ve completed and passed your CDL exam, you will need to take your skills exam to make sure you know the rules of the road and are skilled and ready to drive on public roadways. Once you’ve passed the test you won’t need to take it again so long as you maintain your license. However, depending on your medical certificate expiration date you will need to retake the physical exam to make sure you are still in good health for your job.
There are several ways to find a job and become a truck driver, including looking for a truck driving school that has job placement services, contacting trucking companies directly, and networking through established truck drivers. When you go to apply, make sure your resume or application is complete and accurate. A standard resume and application will detail your previous experience, background, skills, and driving record which will help you receive an immediate offer.
Accuracy: Ensure that all of the information required in the application is accurate. Missing previous employers, accidents, or background information will be researched and poor accuracy will only delay a hiring decision.
Understand the job opportunity: Research and know early on which job you’re interested in pursuing. There are hundreds of different driving jobs, routes, types of cargo and it’s important to apply to those that fit your preferences.
Be ready with supporting information: You will need your driver’s license, social security cards, employment information, ticket numbers, etc. If you are not prepared to answer the entire application, spend time collecting and having this information available to you before starting the application process.
Be available: Most recruiting departments make tens of thousands of calls everyday. If you’re contacted regarding your application, be ready for the call.
Completing an application is takes time, but it’s worth it if it will help you attain a hiring decision.
Once you’ve become a truck driver and landed a job with a company you love, there’s a couple of steps to take before you can head out on the open road. First off, you’ll usually attend company orientation to learn about company policies, fill out paperwork, pass a physical, and undergo drug testing. Orientations typically last for three to five days depending on your experience level and afterward you’ll be ready to enter your official training period with the company.
During your truck driver training period, you’ll usually work with an experienced trainer who will prepare you to hit the open road on your own. Training can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months until you’ve mastered the company routes and procedures. After training, the company will have you take their internal trucking exam, which typically focuses more on road skills. Once you’ve passed you’ll be assigned a truck and route and ready to hit the open road.
How Many Hours Are Truck Drivers Typically on the Road?
Now that you’ve become a truck driver, get ready to spend around 11 hours on the road every day. Truck drivers are required to operate within a 11-hour window, and can only be on the road for 11 of those hours. Depending on your route and company, you might be on the road all day, all week, or for several weeks before heading back home for a few days off.
What Are the Standard Delivery Deadlines?
When you’re responsible for your own route, you’ll also need to make sure you’re getting your deliveries to their destinations on time. If you’re curious what a delivery schedule looks like, chat with a seasoned commercial driver, or talk to the companies you’re interested in working for.
How to Advance Your Career as a Truck Driver?
When you become a truck driver it’s common to start out in long-haul trucking. Although it’s tough at first, as you work and gain experience you can advance your career and get better and better positions, as well as increase your pay. Getting a position in specialty trucking, local trucking, or as a trainer can help you advance your career. You can also advance your career by training for different endorsements that will allow you to tackle different types of driving positions and gain greater experience in the field. Training and testing for as many endorsements as you can is a great way to advance your career as a truck driver and increase your pay.
Another important factor in advancing your career is to avoid costly mistakes that can damage your driving and delivery record. This might include unsecured or improperly secured loads, equipment damage, or on the job injuries. The best ways to avoid these issues is to take your safety practices very seriously. Make sure you always complete your pre-inspection, drive cautiously at night and in parking lots, change your oil regularly and maintain your vehicle, and never discuss the specifics of your load to avoid potential theft.
What Home Time Options Are Available to Truckers?
As a truck driver, you’re often away from home for several days at a time, depending on where your route takes you and what your company requires. Some companies operate on a schedule where you drive for 11-14 days and then have three days of home time. Others have schedules structured so you’re home a couple of times a week, or once every 4-6 weeks.
For truckers with families, it’s understandable that you want to spend as much time with your family as possible. Some companies do allow you to bring direct relatives, like your spouse or child, on the road with you. However, this really depends on your company’s policy, and not all companies permit bringing your family on the road.
Because many truck drivers only have a 11-hour window to drive, a day in the life of a trucker often starts very early—like 4am early. Once they have breakfast they hit the road and take a couple of breaks throughout the day to stretch their legs and eat lunch. One of the most challenging things about becoming a truck driver is learning how to eat healthy on the road. Many trucks have mini-fridges inside, so instead of loading up on soda, stock up on veggies and fruits to keep you healthy.
Most truckers drive until around 5pm when they’ll stop at a truck stop overnight, take a shower, and get some rest for the following day. One of the biggest safety tips you can follow as a truck driver is to get enough sleep. Getting enough sleep will help keep you safe while you’re out on the open road.
Now You Know How to Become a Truck Driver. Make It Happen!
Your exciting new career is just weeks away. Apply for truck driver training classes at one of many locations across the country today and start working towards that dream. For more information about how to become a truck driver or help finding a school, call 844.5CDLNOW. To get started now, visit our school directory or start a driver profile with CDL.com and let us help you find the right school or company.. | 2019-04-18T10:39:23Z | https://www.cdl.com/becoming-a-cdl-driver |
PCTRAN is a Windows PC-based application specifically designed to model nuclear power plant and radiological dispersal device (RDD) events for emergency response planning. For nuclear power plants, the scope goes beyond that of normal training simulators to include core-melt and containment failure events. Plant specific models trace radioactive nuclide leak pathways through cladding, coolant and containment boundaries. PCTRAN models are also available that model releases from spent fuel or Radiological Dispersion Devices (“Dirty Bombs”). Real-time meteorological conditions are used in a Gaussian puff dispersion calculation for dose projection on an online downloaded map and used for event classification and protective action recommendations.
This three-part system covers every type of radioactive dispersion event. It is intended for training and exercise development as well as real life accident management for both nuclear plant and public protection personnel.
It has been nearly three decades since the NRC issued the “TMI Action Plan” (Ref. 1) that led to every nuclear power plant in the United States procuring a site-specific “full scope” training simulator capable of modeling all “design basis” events. Design basis events are analyzed in a plant’s Safety Analysis Report and assume a “single failure” in addition to the initiating event. Nuclear Power Plants are designed with redundant mitigating systems so that offsite radiological releases are well within allowable limits even with these “single failures.” The required scope of simulation for a training simulator does not include severe core damage such as occurred in the Three Mile Island accident.
During a full-scale emergency planning exercise, a significant radiological release must be assumed to achieve conditions required to classify the event as a “General Emergency.” Simple “batch” files are often used to override simulator thermal-hydraulic and radiation transport models because severe core damage events are beyond the scope of simulation for training simulators.
In many emergency planning exercises, this results in a decoupling between the plant data generated by the simulator and the radiological data generated by hand calculations, spreadsheet programs or estimated values. If the operating crew in the simulator during the exercise takes different actions than those taken during scenario validation, the radiological data may not reflect simulated plant conditions.
The reactor’s core is not the only potential source for a radioactive release. The spent fuel pool (SFP) and dry storage facilities may have larger inventories of radionuclides such as CS-137. The potential risk of a release from a spent fuel pool was first analyzed in NUREG-1738 (Ref. 2). Using a conservative model, the results showed that under certain conditions, fuels discharged less than five years may heat up to cause oxidation of the zirconium cladding following a complete loss of spent fuel pool water inventory. This could potentially lead to a significant release of radioactivity from the facility. Since 9/11, there is increased concern that a fuel storage facility could become a terrorist target.
The Spent Fuel Pool version of PCTRAN uses a relatively simple thermal-hydraulic simulation model. Fission product release and transport are also modeled. Accelerated computation can predict the time to boiling and the maximum clad temperature.
An explosive device designed to spread radionuclides is known as a radiological dispersal device (RDD) or “dirty bomb”. A RDD would likely contain industrial or medical radioisotopes. The psychological impact of an RDD detonation could far exceed the actual damage. A dose projection system could provide a quantitative estimate of potential radiation doses and might reduce the level of anxiety.
In this paper, each of these models will be described. The nuclear power plant and spent fuel pool have been used successfully for years. The puff dispersion model and RDD simulator have been developed recently and are undergoing field testing. User feedback will be used to make future improvements in the combined effectiveness of these models.
PCTRAN was first developed as a Microsoft DOS application in 1985 (Ref. 3). A reduced node thermal-hydraulics model was used along with reactor point kinetics to calculate the results of various plant transients and accidents. The original code was upgraded and converted to a Microsoft Windows Application using Microsoft Visual Basic. A user friendly graphical user interface (GUI) was implemented along with this upgrade. On a Pentium 4 / 1.90 GHz PC with 512 MB RAM running Windows XP, simulation speed can be varied from real-time to up to sixteen times actual speed.
PCTRAN’s interface is very user friendly. Users can choose to have plant control systems operate automatically or they can be manually overridden. Numerous malfunctions can be initiated using a simple pull down menu. Valve position and pump status can be changed with a mouse click. Control system set points can be easily changed. The values of key transient variables are collected and can be plotted during simulation. The data can be saved in Access or Excel files for plotting after the simulation. Snapshot, restart, replay and backtrack capabilities are provided for documentation or classroom training.
Figure 1 is the NSSS mimic of Fort Calhoun, a C-E designed PWR of 1500 MW thermal of Omaha Public Power District.
The core is modeled into six vertical nodes. Each one generates a portion of the decay heat. During inadequate core cooling situations, the core nodes’ may heat up to fuel melting temperatures. Molten fuel and other core structural materials may combine to form “corium” and relocate to the bottom of the reactor vessel. The vessel lower head may then fail due to the extreme temperature allowing the molten corium to reach the containment cavity.
A number of chemical reactions between the corium and containment concrete can generate additional heat and gases.
PCTRAN results for the TMI-2 event as well as a large break LOCA with a coincident station blackout for the three-loop Westinghouse plant Maanshan in Taiwan have been benchmarked by comparison to the documented data and results of analyses performed using the severe accident code MAAP (Ref. 4) respectively .
PCTRAN tracks fission product transport through release pathways. Plant area, process and effluent radiation monitor readings for various plant locations are displayed in a separate mimic. Concentrations of iodine, noble gases and other fission products listed in Regulatory Guide 1.183, Revised Source Terms (Ref. 5), are calculated at given time intervals for later use in dose dispersion calculations. Figure 2 is a containment and dose mimic for Ft. Calhoun station under hypothetical severe accident conditions; a large break loss of coolant accident (LOCA) without any ECCS. The core has melted and core debris is interacting with the concrete cavity floor.
Micro-Simulation Technology Inc. partnered with Jerricho Solutions Inc. to develop a plant specific severe accident model of Omaha Public Power District’s Fort Calhoun Station. PCTRAN has been used for several years to train members of Fort Calhoun’s Emergency Response Organization in effective use of the plant’s Severe Accident Managements Guidelines. It has also been used to support emergency planning exercise development and provide reactor safety fundamentals training to plant operators and engineers.
General Electric BWR 2 (Tsuruga-1 in Japan), 4 (ChinShan in Taiwan and Hope Creek), 5 (Laguna Verdi in Mexico), 6 (Kwosheng in Taiwan and Leibstadt in Switzerland) and ABWR (Lungmen in Taiwan) with Mark I, II, III and advanced containment respectively.
In addition, generic PWR and BWR models are licensed to JAERI and NUPEC of Japan (current JNES) and the USNRC. PCTRAN is also licensed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and has been used as standard training material for its annual Advanced Reactor Simulation Workshop since 1996. Two Generation III+ models: Areva EPR and Westinghouse AP1000 have been successfully developed.
With the exception of the generic models, all of the listed PCTRAN versions are site-specific and model each plant’s design. For site specific versions, reports were prepared to explain modeling methodologies. The reports also verified PCTRAN results using the plants’ SAR, documented operational event data and severe accident analyses using other codes.
After the 9/11 attacks, concerns were raised about possible terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants, and, in particular, on their spent fuel pools. Events at shutdown plants involving SFP draining or evaporation followed by a zirconium fire have been previously analyzed (Ref. 2). This type of event could also occur at operating plants. Conservative modeling of such events, taking minimal credit for steam and air-cooling, may predict cladding fires for fuel assemblies that have been discharged from a reactor’s core for less than five years.
Entergy Nuclear Northeast contracted Micro-Simulation Technology (ref. 6) to develop PCTRAN/SPF - a PC-based simulator to analyze the thermal-hydraulics and radiological releases caused by spent fuel pool accidents. Plant specific models were developed for the Indian Point (PWR) and FitzPatrick (BWR) plants. The plant specific models include fuel design and burnup, spent fuel pool inventory, storage rack geometry and cooling system design. Following as event such as a loss of cooling or a loss of coolant inventory, the times to bulk boiling, fuel uncovery and cladding fire are predicted. Fuel handling and criticality events can also be simulated with PCTRAN/SPF.
A graphical display of Indian Point’s spent fuel pool model is shown in Fig. 3. There is a cooling water system that transfers decay heat to the environment using heat exchangers. Regular AC-powered and emergency diesel-driven pumps are provided for coolant makeup. Simple point-and-click mouse actions on the computer display screen will disable or enable any of the components. When the fuel assemblies are uncovered and begin to and heat up, a color scale will indicate their temperatures. In addition to fission gases in the gap, damaged fuel aerosols such as alkali metals, tellurium, barium, cerium, lanthanides, etc. will be tracked. Building radiation levels are calculated and displayed on radiation monitors. Release paths through the building vents and walls are used to determine the site boundary doses.
More recently, the NRC has conducted studies using more realistic models and published significantly improved results (Ref. 7). Steam and air-cooling is very effective in preventing cladding oxidation. Increasing the heat transfer coefficients used in PCTRAN/SFP for steam and air-cooling will result in maximum cladding temperatures below those required for cladding oxidation. Since the details of the NRC study are still safeguarded, benchmarking cannot yet be performed.
Omaha Public Power District’s Fort Calhoun Station has used the generic version of PCTRAN/SFP to support “force on force” exercises.
Medical and industrial radioactive materials could be used in a radiological dispersal device or “dirty bomb”. Potential radionuclides include Co-60, Kr-87, Ru-106, I-131, Xe-133, Cs-137, Pu-238 and Am-241. Explosives could also be used to disperse radionuclides from nuclear power plant spent fuel assemblies being stored or transported. Spent fuel assemblies contain noble gases (Xe and Kr), iodines (I), rare earths (Te, Sr, Ru, La, Ce, Ba, Co, Rb, Zr, Nb, Mo, Tc, Sb, Cs) and transuranics (Pr, Nd, Np, Pu, Am and Cm). The short lived radionuclides will have decayed away during the five years or so in the onsite spent fuel pool. The assemblies are then moved into dry storage waiting until they can be transported to a permanent high level radioactive waste disposal facility. RadPuff models the atmospheric transport of these radionuclides following an explosion.
When a RDD explodes, much of the radioactive material is deposited relatively close to the site of the explosion. This material contributes to the “ground shine” dose. The rest of the material forms an aerosol that is released to the atmosphere and transported by the wind. A Gaussian puff model is used to model this dispersion and calculate downwind radiation doses. Radpuff uses a convenient user interface that downloads a map of the location of interest from the Internet. The map is used to display the results of dose calculations.
Having generated the release source term from a power plant or a RDD, the Gaussian puff model and numerical techniques (Ref. 8) are utilized to calculate the radioactive effluent dispersion. During the transient simulation, puffs are sequentially generated and dispersed in all directions governed by the Pasquill stability category, wind velocity and wind direction. The thyroid and whole body dose rate and total doses at every spatial location in the neighborhood are shown as a color-shaded plot (Fig. 4).
The releases of radioactive materials are treated as unsteady emissions in non-homogeneous dispersion conditions. The meteorological condition can vary between Pasquill stability category A (most unstable) to F (most stable), wind speed in meters per second and release elevation can vary from ground level up to a few hundred meters. The Gaussian puff model is used to predict the time-varying dose distributions. It is more realistic than the Gaussian plume model that assumes the emission is continuous and constant in steady-state meteorological conditions. The model describes the effluent dispersion in the horizontal and vertical directions.
The thyroid dose rate calculation is similar to the CEDE equation, except that it uses the thyroid dose conversion factor. During a transient, colored contour diagrams of thyroid and TEDE doses (rate and integrated) are displayed on the map (Fig. 4). Users can click anywhere in the contours and the dose rate or integrated dose will be digitally displayed in the left panel.
PCTRAN has integrated plant simulation with offsite dose projection. It goes beyond training simulators and conventional methods to cover all feasible radiological events. Having a comprehensive analysis tool for all foreseeable radiological events, power plants and others, is the first step needed to standardize the response process.
Using this tool for training and exercises gives the staff a quantitative feel and realistic appreciation for the event. Should an event occur in real life, the tool can be used to make timely and precise projections of important events such as fuel uncovery, containment failure, pool boiling or cladding oxidation. The associated radioactive releases and downwind consequences can also be projected.
For a radiological dispersal device set off anywhere in a responsible agency’s jurisdiction, the agency staff could use RadPuff to determine the area affected prior to the deposition of the radioactive materials. This would allow for timely implementation of protective actions. A package of all three modules: PCTRAN for nuclear reactors, SFP for spent fuel pools, and RadPuff for RDD forms a comprehensive accident consequence projection system.
Over the years we appreciate continued support from the following organizations: Constellation Energy, Entergy, Finnish TVO, Florida Power and Light, German TUEV Rhineland, Hong Kong Government, HSK Switzerland, IAEA, Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization, Omaha Public Power District, Taiwan Power Company and US Naval Academy. The puff dispersion model is contributed by National Tsing Hua University of Taiwan.
NRC document NUREG 0737 “Clarification of TMI Action Plan Requirements”, (1980).
L. C. Po, “Analysis of the Rancho Seco Overcooling Event Using PCTRAN, ” Nuclear Science & Engineering, 98, 154-161 (1988).
EPRI MAAP4.0.5 Users Manual (1994).
Regulatory Guide 1.183 “Alternative Radiological Source Terms for Evaluating Design Basis Accidents at Nuclear Power Reactors” (2000).
M. J. Slobodien and L. C. Po, “What about Spent Fuel Pool?” Proc. National Radiological Emergency Preparedness Forum in Milwaukee (2002).
J. S. Schaperow, NRC, “More Realistic Analysis of Spent Fuel Pool Progression”, Risk Information Conference 2007.
Y.H. Cheng, C. K. Shih et al, “Atmosphere Puff Model Development in PCTRAN”, 15th International Conf. On Nuclear Engineering, Nagoya, 2007. | 2019-04-23T12:17:52Z | http://microsimtech.com/pctran/AHS.html |
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Aiming accusunc bring its award-winning LCD products and solutions to retail and point-of-sale markets, NEC Display Solutions of America, the leading stand-alone provider of flat panel desktop displays, today announced the availability of the new AccuSync line of touch screen LCD monitors. Answered on Sep 25, Alexa Actionable Analytics for the Web.
Get the item you ordered or get your money back. This means the item has been inspected, cleaned, and repaired to full working order and is in excellent condition.
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Show More Show Less. An item that has been used previously. May have minor signs of wear of tear on the outer casing but nothing obvious.
DriverMax did find and download and install a driver. Crashes after hitting “stop capture” in Gaming. New 23 Dec 3. Intel Core i7 2. The video capture one gives me the can’t start error 10 error. At least the S-Video input works. Got a link to the actual driver download, instead of Driver Dr?
About Us Windows 10 Forums is an independent web site and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation. Why this old card? New 22 Dec 1.
The Bt87x chip’s design is largely based upon the BtA video decoder but are upgraded to also include several audio capture capabilities summarized in the table below and discussed in further detail later on. Click the link or Download button and it goes to another page with a big, green Download button.
If the driver DScaler uses could be made the permanently installed driver, there would be the fix.
Crashes after hitting “stop capture” in Gaming. Got a link to the actual driver download, instead of Driver Dr?
This page has been accessed 63, times. In addition, the chips also feature a digital audio interface.
Has anyone been able to get any bt based video capture cards working in Windows 10 x64? Forum Windows 10 Forums Drivers and Hardware. Because Leadtech told the video industry to go micturate caoture a rope, it ignores all analog copy protection systems. The two functions have different memory mappings although they have many similar registers – e.
Views Read View source View history. These ADC pins serve the following functions:. I tried Driver Dr.
Screen video capture for windows 10 in Software and Apps. New 23 Dec 2. At least the S-Video input works. On the datasheet, the relevant pins are 94, 98, and Windows 10 Pro CPU: The Bt87x chip family were the direct successors of the popular Bt family of ICs, and were used by many analog cards produced in the later part of the ‘s; which collectively help constitute the Bttv devices categorization.
DriverMax did find and download and install a driver. All that does is wants to download Driver Dr. In Linux, the two available PCI functions for the chip are illustrated by the output of the lspci command, whereby one should be returned something like: You can download the Vista 64bit driver here: This page was last modified on 25 Januaryat New 03 Jan 6.
That’s no problem because being NTSC it’s useless. Never did get it to work in 10 so I put together a different PC with 7 and found some drivers, not from Leadtek, that work, but make the tuner appear to be for some other non-US region.
However, Rockwell Semiconductor Systems was subsequently spun off from its parent company a few years later, and, under the new Conexant Systems, Inc.
Find consumables for your business printer. Best Selling in Scanners See all. Network Cameras Network Cameras. View All Camera Bags. In the event service is required for the Product during the limited warranty period, Canon USA offers two hardware support options:. Falling in love with fall. The reproduced image quality without exception was a better quality picture than I would have suspected possible looking at the original slide or at analog proofs of the color negatives.
Then when the image mode is switched to the standard bit color depth, which is the usual output mode of many scanners, the image data is fully equalized and optimally utilizes the full gamut of the bit colorspace. Full frame mirrorless lenses with unique capabilities for EOS R. This is my “Plan B” for using this scanner with a more modern computer.
So much so Cwnoscan hope Canon will accept a check in lieu of getting their scanner back. Keep up with the latest digital developments. Stylish and practical hand held, desktop, scientific and printing ranges.
This Photoshop plug-in will output 24 or bit final scans directly to the Photoshop work space. And, fortunately the subjects of these images and their characteristics were also far ranging and diverse. You might also need Autumn in New England. If the Product has had its serial number or dating defaced, altered or removed. The remainder of my scanning was equally divided between my Windows machine and my Mac G3, scanning from within Photoshop 5.
This caboscan warranty covers all defects encountered in normal use of the Product and does not apply in the following cases:. Quality output is paramount to the design of the compact CanoScan FS The physical specifications in all parameters for this new model are equal to, or extremely close to, most of the models in the top rung of 35mm scanners costing half to twice the price.
For instance, with difficult canosscan to scan like a slightly overexposed high key subject, or the opposite, an underexposed low key subject, some of the compensation for the peculiar image attributes can be made with the scanner software’s color correction tools. InstantExchange warranty program service is available only during the express limited-warranty period for your Product and only in the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii during such period.
On that note, SCSI is a tough beast for modern operating systems. Easy to use app for a great range of photo prints, gifts and more. Register a Canon product or view service info.
The software provides ample support for the novice with effective and easy automation, as well as quite professional level manual color correction tools for the most demanding and experienced users. Dimensions W x D x H. I would want to hope for this kind of performance with any scanner of canocsan, and would feel it should be expected with a high-end professional scanner.
The item may have some signs of cosmetic wear, but is fully operational and functions as intended. Grab your camera and take on our challenge. On this tab, you will find the applicable drivers for your product or in the absence of any drivers, an explanation of your fs270 compatibility with each operating system.
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The resolution was never that marvellous, hence my four not five stars, but it’s quite adequate for old slides and negs.
How long should an ink cartridge remain in my product if it’s not used often? Load Paper Release the scanner support and lower the scanner.
Does the type of paper I use really make a difference? This package supports the following driver models: Error Messages or Lights. Can I use sheet labels with my product?
Please try again later. Open the output tray and pull out the extension. Cartridges are vacuum packed to maintain reliability. The posting of advertisements, profanity, or personal attacks is prohibited.
When printing in Windows, how can I prevent an extra page from being ejected after every print job? How do I decide which resolution to select when scanning from Epson Scan? How do I change the default settings for the Scan to PC feature? Don’t have an account?
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My printout contains garbled characters when I print from Windows or my Mac. | 2019-04-25T22:41:17Z | http://shfft.online/page/1648/ |
Quality Score is the big nasty beast of PPC that everyone managing an account has to try to tame. However, it does us all good to remember that Quality Score is also the big junk yard dog that keeps the less ethical PPC bidders at bay. In the days before Quality Score, it literally was possible, if you had enough money, to hit the top of page spot on any word you put in the keyword list, as long as your bid was high enough – even totally unrelated words. You really don’t want to go back to those days do you? Me neither. So we do our best to wrangle our campaigns and web sites into compliance so as to shave every last penny off of our cost per click, because we’ve all seen the chart right?
Because your Quality Score is a factor in figuring out just how much you pay to hit a certain position in the auction, the better your QS, the lower your max bids can be and still maintain a high enough position to attract attention. But what can you do when you realize, over time, your QS has been falling and your CPC has been going up? Here are a few quick things to clean up before you panic.
Pause Ads With Ugly CTR – Over the course of time and testing, it’s easy to forget that back in the old days, you wrote some really bad ad copy. It’s also easy for us to forget that one of the strongest components in the Quality Score algorithm is the ad, because a lot of PPC managers (and their clients) think PPC is all about the keyword, when in fact, if no one ever clicks your ad, it won’t matter if you have a million keywords – your account can’t help you if the ads stink.
Check Your Ad Rotation Settings – Google’s default setting is to let Google optimize to show the one ad with the best performance pretty much all the time. This actually causes ad fatigue, so I always recommend that you at least change the setting to Rotate Evenly, Optimize after 90 Days. Additionally, if you forget that your ad settings are set to let Google show “the best ad” all the time and you do write new ads, they don’t always get a fair shake.
Review Search Query Data and Write One New Ad – write an ad that is your best stab at addressing the issue raised by the most common search queries but also bridges the gap between the query and the content on your page. Everything in PPC is relevant to everything else – the goal is to have a seamless thought process from query to landing page. You need to write really useful ads to enable this process. Useful ads are easier to write when you understand where the searcher is “coming from” – that ever-important intent. Going through the query data/best ad exercise helps get you back into your searcher’s mind, where you can do your best ad copy-writing.
If you completed the Query Data review and went through the process of writing the best ad to address the questions posed by the most common queries, you might have discovered that your ad group isn’t actually an ad group at all – if the “best ad” you just wrote is completely different from the ads you’ve been running, then you probably began your ad group with keywords, not ads. Everyone does it, and we do it without thinking about it – our culture somehow makes us gravitate more toward the idea of grabbing the prime keyword real estate, so all of our effort and planning goes into keyword strategy. I honestly believe that’s bass-ackwards. And I’m not the only one. Take a look – what’s the first operational thing you create in Google Adwords when you create an ad group? It’s not the keyword list. It’s the Ad. They’re telling you, by having you create your campaigns in this order, that the ad has particular importance here – after all, that’s the part that has to attract the click, right?
If you start your campaign and ad group creation by writing the best ad you can possibly write that will answer your most anticipated search query, then create a tight keyword group based on the wording of the expected query and the wording you used when you answered the query (wrote your ad), you might discover that your quality scores will hang around 7 or 8 without any extra attention paid to the landing page at all.
And you know what else? That’s it. Unless someone broke your URLs, it’s been my experience that these kinds of adjustments from the Ad down to tighter keyword grouping are able to pull most keyword and ad group level quality scores out of the nether regions and start shaving pennies, even dollars, off the CPC needed to maintain position.
Remember that chart up there? Quality score is a multiplier and coming up with your Ad Rank score, which determines where on the ad totem pole your ad gets put. What if you’re bidding on some really expensive keyword like “automobile insurance” and you’re capping CPC at $35 with a QS of 4? That’s an ad rank of 140. Raise your QS 2 points and suddenly your ad rank is in the 200s. (210). Ok here’s some math for ya – what if you’re already at the top of the food chain (#1 spot) with $35 CPC and a QS of 4? 140 divided by your new QS of 6 means you can lower your CPC to $23. That’s $12 per click in savings just by improving quality score!
I started off this series with a summary of the 8 main performance factors that you have to be aware of when planning and executing your Digital Strategy. Yes, I narrowed the list down to 8 – 8 things that are often considered on their own, but things that are truly interrelated to such a great extent that to me it seems simply wrong not to consider them in total with each other, and their effect on all aspects of your digital strategy.
But the factor I’m going to start with is the one that, while not overlooked, is often ignored: Technology.
The sort of technology you use and the way you use it has a direct impact on four of the six digital marketplace elements – search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, web development and social media. If you’ve looked up the chart from the original article, these are labeled as SEO, PPC, Dev and Social in the chart under the heading, Technology.
One of the first things we do at PPI when we acquire a client, or a new web site, or a new landing page, is run some standard measurement tests on it. Oddly, it seems like almost no one else ever does this or if they do, they don’t understand the implications of things like html to text ratio, or proper cannonicalization, or something as basic as load time. To put it simply, your digital property needs to be well-built. It needs to load quickly, without errors. It needs to deliver the proper layout and content for the device being used to view it. Web server settings need to be optimized to prevent duplicate content. Style sheets need to be organized and served intelligently from one location. Scripts needs to be organized, nested properly, and included in one section of the page whenever possible. You need to use closing tags, for Pete’s sake. Don’t deliver Flash objects to iPad users. All images need to load the first time. Limit how many objects you have delivered from servers other than your own. You know, it’s all those technical things in the site audit that everyone thinks someone else is in charge of fixing. Even if you think it’s something silly, if it’s showing up on an audit report, it needs attention.
Every single query issued to a rater includes a language tag. If it’s that important to Google that their page raters know the intended language of the query, don’t you think Google cares about a definitive meta tag on the page that signals what language the page is in? Trust me on this – if the language meta tag was absolutely useless, it wouldn’t be checked for in every sigle site audit tool worth a damn… and Google wouldn’t have their page raters make sure the language on the page matches the language of the query.
Many of the technological factors that affect SEO also affect PPC. For example, you can suffer low quality scores for things like slow page load time, errors in loading, or serving inappropriate content – like loading up Flash objects to someone hitting your site with an iPhone. Google includes “Landing Page Experience” as a grading factor for Quality Score. If your technology is a mismatch or if you simply haven’t paid enough attention to detail and left a few scripts hanging because the page rendered in the one browser you checked it with, you could find yourself suffering from lower than necessary Quality Scores. Low quality scores means increased cost in the form of a percentage increase in your cost per click. Don’t let stupid things like inline CSS, bloated code, or busted images from a 3rd party server kill your landing page quality.
Another aspect of technology has to do with utilizing it correctly – you have to make sure you’ve matched up the technology in use to the objectives you’re aiming for. This is why I’ve included Social Media under the technology heading. How many times have you seen a business (or representative of a business) post message after message on Facebook begging people to go follow them on Twitter? I’ve even seen users get irate because they don’t see every single one of their FB fans following them on Twitter. Here’s a news flash – those two social networks are almost mutually exclusive! Think about it – the people who are on Facebook are there because of the way Facebook works. It fits their lifestyle or their entertainment style or just plain tickles them in the right place. These people do not use Twitter! Likewise, the people on Twitter don’t stay in one place long enough to read more than 140 characters. Twitter has its own appeal and its own process for tribe-building that is unique to Twitter. Blasting “Like Us On Facebook” as your only message in a Tweet will get you un-followed if you do it often enough. If you run afoul of the natives on a social platform because you mis-marketed, it could completely ruin your continued marketing capability on that platform, at least for the short term.
Similarly, you want to make sure that all the gadgets and gizmos that you use on your site and within your social media messaging serve their proper functions without interfering with one another, and perhaps more seriously, without duplicating functions. There are an awful lot of tools out there that can really make a mess of your social messaging. Between Wordpress plugins, Facebook apps and Smartphone Apps, you could end up having an announcement for one blog article posted a dozen times in a row on Twitter – talk about spam. And guess “who” reads Twitter… not only will you piss off your followers, you risk looking like a spammer to the major search algorithms. And if you accidentally completely re-blog an article across all your social profiles and other blogs because of an overzealous Wordpress plugin, yeah, well that doesn’t actually help you at all – it creates duplicated content.
And speaking of Wordpress, you want to make sure and test all your plugins every time something on the site is updated. Those Google Page Raters will often flag a site as Poor Quality when the actual issue is that someone’s plugins are wonky and you just can’t see the relevant text on the page. Well, that’s the rub with the human raters – they gotta see it to read it to rate it. They aren’t bots and for the most part, they aren’t web developers, so they can’t (and don’t have to) troubleshoot the problem before they assign a rating. Ultimately, your site should be designed to be easily readable by a human being. The fewer gadgets and gizmos you can get by on, the better. Having a minimal number of plugins also makes keeping abreast of technology a little easier when you don’t have 47 plugins to update every 6 and half days. Then test. Then tweak.
Finally, if you think the days of cross-browser compatability are gone, think again. To begin with, Chrome, Firefox and Opera are all making significant headway not only on the desktop, but on small screens too. And just so you know, those Google Page Raters are not allowed to use any browser other than Firefox for rating pages. You also have to create sites that deliver the correct content for the platform visiting at the time – if someone’s on a desktop computer, serve the regular web site. If someone’s on a tablet, serve a scaled up mobile web site (or scaled down desktop web site). If someone’s on a phone screen, serve a mobile-optimized web site. In case you missed it, Google’s already come out and said that if your web site delivers a sub-par experience for the smartphone, your ranking in mobile search will suffer for it.
What’s This Got To Do With Interactive Marketing?
The bottom line is that if you aren’t on top of your technology, don’t establish and follow accepted best practices with your use of technology, you run some significant risks to SEO ranking, cost per click in PPC, standards compatability and delivery of your web content, and who knows what kind of damage you can do to your social media campaigns if you don’t fully understand how the platforms and tools work. This can be a tall order. Take a holistic approach to producing consistent quality by following standards, abiding by guidelines, providing a great user experience, and applying a unilateral standard of excellence to all aspects of your digital marketing strategy (no shortcuts, no hack jobs), and you’ll be golden!
One of the more difficult concepts I try to explain as a digital marketer is the concept of “holistic” digital marketing – treating the entire digital construct as a whole. It’s more than lingo, more than a catch phrase. It will take me several posts, but over the course of the next couple of months, I’ll try to explain my interpretation of an all-inclusive, everything-is-related-to-everything-else approach to managing your digital marketing strategy that ensures consistency and performance.
1. characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.
The 8 Common factors that affect these facets of your digital marketing strategy are listed across the top of the chart in blue: Relevance, Usability, Competition, Technology, Timeliness, Reputation, Standards, and Usefulness. Various combinations of these performance factors play a part in how your digital properties perform. None of them can be isolated from each other because there’s a lot of overlap – for example, SEO is affected by all 8 factors; Web Development is affected by 4 of them. What this chart is trying to tell you is that Relevancy is really important for SEO, PPC, Local Search, Web Development, Social Media and Content Generation. Online Reputation is really important for SEO, Local Search, Social Media, and Content Generation. Competitive Intel is important for SEO, PPC, Local Search and Social Media. Get the idea?
Ok, before you look at that list of factors up there and start arguing with me that Google doesn’t care about your reputation online, I’m here to tell you that yes, absolutely, Google does care about it. If you think a search algorithm can’t tell how “useful” a site is, I got news for you, buddy… it can too. “Actions speak louder than words.” Google has one of the most sophisticated web user tracking mechanisms imaginable and how people use a page speaks volumes to that algorithm about your site’s usefulness, as well as usability. And I will remind you one more time that I was a Google Page Rater – when you have an hour to kill, you can check up on the basics. I was a specialist. My specialty was rating Google SERPs – you know, the actual page of search results… yes, I worked my way up from rating web pages, to comparing and rating Google’s own pages. I’ll stop and let that sink in for a moment.
Now, if any of you have been struggling to come up with a way to demonstrate the holistic connectedness of quality factors, usability factors, appeal factors and technology factors to someone higher up on the food chain who won’t loosen up the budget to let you fix things, feel free to use the chart above to help organize and explain things. In the upcoming weeks, I will break down each of these factors and explain their effect on the digital marketing landscape. I think I will start with Technology! | 2019-04-19T14:54:27Z | http://www.pakiparkinteractive.com/ppi-blog/ |
The tear trough deformity is a natural consequence of the anatomic attachments of the periorbital tissues. A variety of techniques have evolved to address this cosmetic issue. Traditional techniques relied on surgical excision of skin, muscle, and fat as well as chemical peels. More recently, surgeons have better appreciated the need for restoration of volume of the orbit as part of an overall rejuvenation strategy. Treatment is now tailored towards specific anatomic abnormalities and often employs multiple modalities including surgery, botulinum toxin, and replacement of volume.
A numerical score was then assigned with respect to severity, depth of the tear trough, distance from the anterior lacrimal crest to the depth of the trough; each millimetre of depth is given one point.
Dyspigmentation, although not directly contributing to the depth of the trough, creates an illusion of depth; no hyperpigmentation is given one point, mild is given two points, moderate hyperpigmentation is given three points and intense or deep hyperpigmentation is given four points; subdermal dark casting caused by venous pooling can also be graded as hyperpigmentation.
Prominent prolapse of the nasal fat pad accentuates the depth of the trough and is rated as mild (one point), moderate (two points) or severe (three points).
Lower eyelid skin rhytidosis accentuates the fatty prolapse and the depth of the trough; skin rhytidosis is rated on a scale of one to four (mild, moderate, advanced and severe, according to Glogau scale) and the rating corresponds to the number of points assigned.
In 2010, Hirmand proposed a classification system of the tear trough deformity based on clinical evaluation [Figure 3], [Figure 4], [Figure 5], [Table 2].
Vitamin E, gingko biloba, aspirin and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) should be avoided at least five days before the treatment to prevent bruising.
Care should be taken in patients with a history of lower eyelid blepharoplasty without lateral retinacular suspension.
One should be cautious while injecting around the infraorbital foramen to avoid injury to the neurovascular bundle.
Careful and gentle moulding of the implant for a more homogeneous distribution of the material is encouraged after injection to obtain an even distribution of the filler in the lateral part of the hollow.
Skin quality, as patients with thick, smooth skin will have better results than those with thin extremely wrinkled skin.
Definition of the hollow, as a more defined hollow is more amenable to fillers.
The orbital fat pad, as larger fat pads are more difficult to correct due to 'puffiness' caused by the injection.
The colour of the overlying skin, as the filler may improve shadowing but will not improve dark pigmentation.
After application of an ice pack to the lower lid and cheek, a local anesthetic consisting of 0.5% lidocaine with epinephrine (0.2 to 0.4 mL) is injected into the orbicularis within the boundaries of the tear trough. Finger pressure is applied to flatten the area of injection. A half-inch, 30-gauge needle is inserted through the skin at the most lateral extent of the tear trough, advancing fully and potentially indenting the skin with the hub for full reach. The HA is then injected deep into the dermis as the needle is withdrawn. This process is repeated above and below the original site of the injection. The area is then inspected, and additional passes are made as needed to yield a smooth contour. Last, the area is massaged lightly, compressed with finger pressure, and rolled with a cotton applicator. In his description of the technique, Lambros stressed the importance of not forcefully compressing the product during massage, as this can displace the product into the cheek and exaggerate the tear trough. Postinjection care involves applying ice to the area the night of the procedure, and patients are instructed to refrain from massaging the area.
After evaluation and marking of the tear trough, betacaine topical anaesthetic ointment is applied to the lower eyelids at least 20 minutes before the injection. After preparation of skin with alcohol, a 30- or 32-gauge needle is inserted for injection. The skin of the lower lid is spread and held at some tension with the noninjecting hand. The skin is inspected carefully for visible vessels before each needle stick. The deepest portion of the medial tear trough is treated first. The needle is threaded below the surface of the skin above the orbicularis oculi. A miniscule amount of hyaluronic filler is injected at each pass. Parallel threads of the filler are injected cephalad and caudal to the tear trough. The raised area of the filler is then tapered off medially along the nasal sidewall superiorly at the most cephalad-significant rhytid, inferiorly at least abutting or immediately caudal to the thick skin of the cheek, and laterally to at least the junction of the medial and lateral third of the inferior orbital rim. If the tear trough is deep, the direction of the needle is changed throughout the injection so that the filler is applied in a cross-hatched fashion. The volume range is 0.1 to 0.45 mL per eyelid, with most patients requiring 0.2 to 0.3 mL.
To be able to teach others how to improve aesthetic outcomes in the midface and infraorbital hollows, a consensus group of European and North and South American aesthetic experts convened at an academic workshop to develop keys to optimal outcomes. The best practice guidelines for midface and infraorbital hollow injections were discussed. The consensus group recommend vertical supraperiosteal depot technique (VSDT) or linear threading for infraorbital hollow augmentation.
According to the consensus team, the filler should be injected at the supraperiosteal level along or below the orbital rim under the defect or both, protecting the edge of the rim to prevent deposition of filler above that structure. Most of the filler should be injected underneath the orbicularis oculi muscle. However, the medial part of the muscle, which attaches to the bone, requires direct injection into the muscle itself. Serial injections using VSDT, implanting 0.02 to 0.05 mL per perpendicular injection point just above the bone 2 to 3 mm apart, are recommended. The linear technique is preferred if the cheek has been augmented well, using an entry point beneath the lateral and, in some cases, also the medial canthus. The cannula (or needle) should be placed perpendicular to the skin, advanced to the periosteum, and moved forward until it reaches the top of the nasojugal fold. This technique allows for deep injection using retrograde linear threading along the orbital rim, as described above. The injected volume depends on the severity of hollowing [Table 3]. Repeated injections may be required for optimal augmentation.
Patrick Trevidic has reported the use of blunt-tipped cannulas for tear trough correction with HA fillers. Blunt-tipped cannulas are safer, because the chance of injuring vessels and nerves is smaller than with needles. It is less painful and produces less oedema.
Patients on vitamin E, gingko biloba and NSAIDs are asked to discontinue the same for a week before the treatment to prevent bruising.
All the patients are photographed with a standard powershot camera with the same settings and adequate lighting. Written informed consent is taken.
The author prefers to inject with the patient reclined at 45Ί as the tear trough deformity is better visible in this position than when the patient is lying down. Good lighting is extremely important for better visibility of anatomical landmarks. The injections should not be given in a hurry as chances of hitting blood vessels or injecting superficially are higher when in haste.
Any cosmetic makeup in the area to be treated is completely removed with a cleansing lotion. Cleansing is further done with chlorhexidine and normal saline. The area to be treated is numbed with ice cubes. The orbital rim is palpated. Due to the rich subdermal vascular plexus, the tear trough area is prone to significant bruising. Hence, the author prefers to keep the point of insertion of the needle about 1.5 cm below the orbital rim in line with the midpupillary line. This reduces the chances of bruising [Figure 6] and [Figure 7].
Cross-linked HA with lignocaine (Juvederm Ultra@ XC) is injected with a 30-gauge needle. Juvederm@ Ultra XC has a cross-linking process called Hylacross™ which provides a concentration of 24 mg/mL of HA. The 6% cross-linked composition produces a soft, viscous, nonbeaded gel which helps in smooth injection and is intended to enhance durability. It also has 0.3% preservative free lidocaine which helps in alleviating pain during and after the injection. The patient is comfortable during the procedure. Patient compliance improves as well.
The needle is directed diagonally up towards the medial canthus and plunged deep into the skin through the muscle right up to the periosteum. HA is deposited subperiosteally to a visual end point of optimal correction. Protection of the globe is ensured by palpating the infraorbital rim with the noninjecting hand [Figure 8].
The needle is slowly withdrawn and the material is not injected while the needle is being withdrawn, as superficial injections are bound to give a Tyndall effect in this area. The direction of the needle is then changed vertically up towards the midpupillary line and plunged again into the periosteum. Another depot injection is given [Figure 9]. A third injection is given only if there is loss of tissue below the lateral orbital rim. The direction of the needle is changed diagonally up towards the lateral canthus to give another depot subperiosteally [Figure 10]. Usually about 0.2 mL is adequate per depot. The area is gently massaged for an even distribution of the product [Figure 11]. This also ensures that there are no lumps or irregularities. However, vigorous massage should be avoided in this area as it can push the substance onto the globe. Care is taken to inject away from any visible blood vessels in this area. Ice packs can be applied to the treated area to reduce oedema, bruising and discomfort. The patients are asked to avoid massage or any facial treatments for a week.
The patient is asked to follow up in 15 days to see if a touch-up is required. HA is injected until the point of full correction, if necessary. The patients are asked to follow up again in 6, 12, 15 and 18 months. The observation of the author has been that a HA in the tear trough area usually lasts for up to 12-15 months [Figure 12], [Figure 13], [Figure 14], [Figure 15].
Low-viscosity HA can be safely injected to correct tear trough deformity. High-viscosity HA and nonbiodegradable agents should not be injected in the tear trough area.
Injections must be at a supraperiosteal level of the orbital rim under defect.
One should be cautious around the infraorbital foramen.
The HA filler should be gently massaged for even distribution; strong massage should be avoided.
It is often seen in darker skin types due to bruising and haematoma. It may last for a very long period and can be difficult to treat.
Though extremely rare, they can present as single or multiple erythematous and fluctuant nodules that are best treated with antibiotics active against frequent skin bacteria including Staphylococcus epidermidis or Propionibacterium acnes. Filler injections should not be performed if there is an infection in the adjacent site.
Although extremely rare, this may be an under-reported complication. According to Coleman, blindness occurs due to migration of a filler embolus in a retrograde manner via an arteriole to an antegrade flow through the central retinal artery. Hence it is important to limit the amount of filler bolus injected in one site. One way to do this is to use blunt cannulas. The possibility of blindness also can be minimised by moving the needle tip, and by injecting slowly, with minimal pressure and minute quantities of the filler at a time.
Tear trough deformity can be corrected with an HA filler. It is less invasive and there may be minimal downtime due to swelling and bruising.
The volume injected varies from patient to patient and overcorrection should be avoided. Better results will be achieved if the patient is reassessed in two to four weeks and then additional treatment is performed to achieve complete correction. Care should be taken to avoid injection through the orbital septum (by staying -1 cm below the orbital rim), to avoid accentuating pseudoherniation.
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2. Glaser DA, Patel U. Enhancing the eyes: Use of minimally invasive techniques for periorbital rejuvenation. J Drugs Dermatol 2010;9:S118-283.
3. Lambros V. Observation on periorbital and midface aging. Plast Reconstr Surg 2007;120:1367-76.
4. Goldberg RA, McCann JD, Fiaschetti D, Ben Simon GJ. What causes eyelid bags? Analysis of 114 consecutive patients. Plast Reconstr Surg 2005;115:1395-402.
5. Duke-Elder S, Wybar KC. The eyelids. In: Duke-Elder S, editor. System of Ophthalmology: Anatomy of the visual system. Vol. 2. St Louis, MO: C V Mosby CO; 1961.
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7. Flowers RS. Tear trough implants for correction of tear trough deformity. Clin Plast Surg 1993;20:403-15.
8. Haddock NT, Saadeh PB, Boutros S, Thorne CH. The tear trough and lid/cheek junction: Anatomy and implications for surgical correction. Plast Reconstr Surg 2009;123:1332-40.
9. Mendelson BC, Muzaffar AR, Adams WP. Surgical anatomy of the midcheek and malar mounds. Plast Reconstr Surg 2002;110:885-911.
10. Muzaffar AR, Mendelson BC, Adams WP. Surgical anatomy of the ligamentous attachments of the lower lid and lateral canthus. Plast Reconstr Surg 2002;110:873-84; discussion 897-911.
11. Ghavami A, Pessa JE, Janis J, Khosla R, Reece EM, Rohrich RJ. The orbicularis retaining ligament of the medial orbit: Closing the circle. Plast Reconstr Surg 2008;121:994-1001.
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17. Lafaille P, Benedetto A. Fillers: Contraindications, side effects and precautions. J Cutan Aesthet Surg 2010;3:16-9.
18. Carruthers J, Rzany B, Sattler G, Carruthers A. Anatomic guidelines for midface volumetric augmentation. Dermatol Surg 2012;38:1223-33.
19. Matarasso SL, Carruthers J, Jewell ML; Restylane Consensus Group. Consensus recommendation for soft-tissue augmentation with nonanimal stabilized hyaluronic acid (Restylane). Plast Reconstr Surg 2006;117:3S-34S; discussion 35S-43S.
20. Dover JS, Rubin MG, Bhatia AC. Reiview of efficacy, durability, and safety data of two nonanimal stabilized hyaluronic acid fillers from a prospective, randomized, comparative multicenter study. Dermatol Surg 2009;35:322-31.
21. Carruthers J, Cohen SR, Joseph JH, Narins RS, Rubin M. The science and art of dermal fillers for soft-tissue augmentation. J Drugs Dermatol 2009;8:335-50.
22. Kablik J, Monheit GD, Yu L, Chang G, Gershkovich J. Comparative physical properties of hyaluronic acid dermal fillers. Dermatol Surg 2009;35:302-12.
23. Lambros VS. Hyaluronic acid injections for correction of the tear trough deformity. Plast Reconstr Surg 2007;120:74S-80S.
24. Stutman RL, Codner MA. Tear trough deformity: Review of anatomy and treatment options. Aesthet Surg J 2012;32:426-40.
25. Steinsapir KD, Steinsapir SM. Deep-fill hyaluronic acid for the temporary treatment of the naso-jugal groove: A report of 303 consecutive treatments. Ophthal Plast Reconstr Surg 2006;22:344-8.
26. Sattler G. The tower technique and vertical supraperiosteal depot technique: Novel vertical injection techniques for volume-efficient subcutaneous tissue support and volumetric augmentation. J Drugs Dermatol 2012;11:45-7.
27. Rohrich RJ, Arbique GM, Wong C, Brown S, Pessa JE. The anatomy of suborbicularis fat: Implications for periorbital rejuvenation. Plast Reconstr Surg 2009;124:946-51.
28. Trevidic P. The use of blunt-tipped cannulas for tear trough correction. J Drugs Dermatol 2012;11:S38-40.
29. Gold MH. Use of hyaluronic acid fillers for the treatment of the aging face. Clin Interv Aging 2007;2:369-76.
30. Wang F, Garza LA, Kang S, Varani J, Orringer JS, Fisher GJ, et al. In vivo stimulation of de novo collagen production caused by cross-linked hyaluronic acid dermal filler injections in photodamaged human skin. Arch Dermatol 2007;143:155-63.
31. Vedamurthy M. Standard guidelines for the use of dermal fillers. Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol 2008;74:23-7.
32. Rzany B, Cartier H, Kestermont P, Trevidic P, Sattler G, Kerrouche N, et al. Correction of tear troughs and periorbital lines with a range of customized hyaluronic acid fillers. J Drugs Dermatol 2012;11:S27-34.
33. Sherman RN. Avoiding dermal filler complications. Clin Dermatol 2009;27:S23-32.
34. Andre P. New trends in face rejuvenation with Hyaluronic acid injections. J Cosmet Dermatol 2008;7:251-8.
35. Kim JE, Sykes JM. Hyaluronic acid fillers: History and overview. Facial Plast Surg 2011;7:523-8.
36. Brody HJ. Use of hyaluronidase in the treatment of Granulomatous hyaluronic acid reactions or unwanted hyaluronic acid misplacement. Dermatol Surg 2005;31:893-7.
37. Coleman SR. Avoidance of arterial occlusion from injection of soft tissue fillers. Aesthet Surg J 2002;22:555-7.
38. Donofrio LM. Fat distribution: A morphologic study of the aging face. Dermatol Surg 2000;26:1107-12.
39. Monheit GD, Rohrich RJ. The nature of long-term fillers and the risk of complications. Dermatol Surg 2009;35:1598-604.
40. Busso M, Voigts R. An investigation of changes in physical properties of injectable calcium hydroxylapatite in a carrier gel when mixed with lidocaine and with lidocaine/epinephrine. Dermatol Surg 2008;34:S16-23.
41. Fagien S. Variable reconstitution of injectable hyaluronic acid with local anesthetic for expanded applications in facial aesthetic enhancement. Dermatol Surg 2010;36:815-21.
42. Hirsch RJ, Carruthers JD, Carruthers A. Infraorbital hollow treatment by dermal fillers. Dermatol Surg 2007;33:1116-9.
43. Rzany B, Becker-Wegerich P, Bachmann F, Erdmann R, Wollina U. Hyaluronidase in the correction of hyaluronic acid-based fillers: A review and a recommendation for use. J Cosmet Dermatol 2009;8:317-23. | 2019-04-25T20:10:58Z | http://www.jcasonline.com/article.asp?issn=0974-2077;year=2012;volume=5;issue=4;spage=229;epage=238;aulast=Sharad;type=3 |
The European Parliament adopted by 520 votes to 68, with 79 abstentions, a resolution on logistics in the EU and multimodal transport in the new TEN-T corridors. Members recalled that modern efficient transport and logistics are essential for the effective functioning of the EUs internal market and important for ensuring competitiveness, creating new business and employment opportunities and achieving the Unions climate goals and the objectives of the COP 21 Paris Agreement. The third goal of the Commissions White Paper on Transport aims to shift 30 % of road freight over 300 km to more sustainable modes such as rail and waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50 % by 2050, requiring also the development of appropriate infrastructure. The resolution addressed the following key issues: EU freight logistics strategy: Parliament highlighted the need to formulate a renewed EU strategy for freight logistics which should: take account of the new TEN-T infrastructure policy, further reduce regulatory, operational and technical barriers, designed to ensure optimal use of resources, apply and implement new technologies that will strengthen the sectors performance and accelerate the shift towards a secure and low-carbon transport system, increase connectivity and develop infrastructure in areas where it is missing, promote and support the European rail supply industry as well as boosting a European rail reindustrialisation policy, with the win-win perspective of making EU logistics more sustainable and obtaining a better competition position for rail products on the global market, take into account from the outset drones as a future mode of transport, promote continued development of academic research and education in the area transport and logistics, present an independent scientific study detailing: (i) the extent to which road freight could be transferred to rail and inland waterways by 2030 and by 2050, the costs associated with this, and; (ii) the extent to which environmental damage such as noise and air pollution can be avoided. Promoting multimodality: the implementation of the TEN-T network, with particular emphasis on cross-border connections and within the time-frames laid down and completed by 2030, shall reduce bottlenecks, improve interoperability between the various modes of transport. Parliament called for increased involvement of multimodal platforms in Member States planning and in the further development of routes. It also stressed the importance of investments in urban nodes, as well as of the promotion of rail connections with industrial plants and improved interconnectivity of rail with seaports, inland ports and hinterland hubs. The Commission is asked to prioritise these investments in the 2017 review of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). Strengthening coordination: regretting that Member States national infrastructure plans are too often decided without reference to the TEN-T objectives, Members stressed the need to increase the coordination between the two levels of planning. The Commission is called upon to strengthen the sphere of action of the TEN-T European coordinators to look beyond the geographical scope of the corridors under their respective responsibility, and to cover horizontal policy issues such as multi-modality and efficient freight logistics Improved simplification and a new framework for digitalisation: the resolution stressed the urgency of greater simplification of documents and administrative and customs procedures across all modes and across the different stages in logistics chains. The Commission is called upon to propose, by the end of 2017, a digital framework for electronic information exchange and transport management in multimodal transport (efreight) with a view to facilitating a simplified, paperless, seamless, transparent, secured and trusted information flow between businesses, customers and authorities, building on established services (such as SafeSeaNet, etc). Investing in the European Transport System with logistics as a focal point: Parliament underlined the need to ensure enough EU funding for the implementation of the TEN-T beyond the present MFF. The Commission is expected to: propose a streamlining of measures and resources for the implementation of the priority projects in good time; urge Member States to make the requisite investments in order to finalise the connections of the EUs core corridors; take fully into consideration automation and its impact in its logistic strategy and devise a new strategy that guarantees that drones can be efficiently integrated into the TEN-T programme. Urgent and more efficient integration of transport modes: Parliament insisted on the need to concentrate major efforts on the revitalisation of railways and on the strengthening of inland waterways (IWW) as a priority for the EUs sustainable transport strategy. It called on the Commission to come forward with specific solutions to ease access to European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) funding for European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) deployment in favour of both infrastructure and locomotive installations. In view of reducing CO2 emissions in general, the Commission is asked to introduce stronger and more effective measures and incentives to encourage rail companies to tackle freight-rail noise, given the adverse health effects of noise pollution. It is also encouraged to: foster the development of electric modes of transport and the necessary infrastructure along the whole TEN-T network, and, especially in town centres; foster the development of innovative transport schemes involving, for example, the use of electric vehicles and renewable energy sources; the development of alternative fuels and the necessary infrastructure. Given the role that the digitalisation of services has to play in encouraging more environmentally friendly transport solutions, Members called on the Commission to facilitate, also through a coherent legislative approach at EU level, the access to and sharing of data concerning traffic flows along the corridors and the use of multimodal transport, especially for SMEs, and to secure greater involvement of local operators and public authorities in this sector. Better training and job conditions to attract new professionals: working and living conditions of the workforce in the logistic chain have deteriorated substantially in the past years, making this sector less attractive for new generations, in particular for mobile workers. The Commission and the Member States are called upon to: identify training and learning needs at EU level and to propose, as a matter of urgency, measures to make it more attractive to young people and to future generations; provide sufficient and safe parking space in the TENT-t corridors to avoid increasing security issues with mobile transport workers; take into consideration Parliaments recent recommendations on social-economic aspects in the transport sector and on combating unfair practices in the labour market. Lastly, the Commission is called upon to work with stakeholders to develop an EU-wide framework for multimodal transport and logistics statistical data, including developing new indicators that better reflect real freight trends.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism adopted an own-initiative report by Inés AYALA SENDER (S&D, ES) on logistics in the EU and multimodal transport in the new TEN-T corridors. This report aims to formulate the European Parliaments position and stimulate initiatives to promote the field of freight transport logistics. Logistics include the services and processes of planning, managing and carrying out the flow of goods and information between the point of origin and the point of destination. The third goal of the Commissions White Paper on Transport aims to shift 30 % of road freight over 300 km to more sustainable modes such as rail and waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50 % by 2050, requiring also the development of appropriate infrastructure. The report addresses the following key issues: EU freight logistics strategy: given the key role of logistics in relation to efficient and sustainable freight transport operations in the EU, the Commission should put forward a renewed EU strategy to: take account of the new TEN-T infrastructure policy, further reduce regulatory, operational and technical barriers, designed to ensure optimal use of resources, apply and implement new technologies and innovative solutions that will strengthen the sectors performance and accelerate the shift towards a secure and low-carbon transport system, increase connectivity and develop infrastructure in areas where it is missing, promote and support the European rail supply industry as well as boosting a European rail reindustrialisation policy, with the win-win perspective of making EU logistics more sustainable and obtaining a better competition position for rail products on the global market, take into account from the outset drones as a future mode of transport, promote continued development of academic research and education in the area transport and logistics, present an independent scientific study detailing: (i) the extent to which road freight could be transferred to rail and inland waterways by 2030 and by 2050, the costs associated with this, and; (ii) the extent to which environmental damage such as noise and air pollution can be avoided. The report stressed that the implementation of the TEN-T network, with particular emphasis on cross-border connections and within the time-frames laid down and completed by 2030, will reduce bottlenecks, improve interoperability between the various modes of transport and contribute to delivering integrated multimodal freight transport in the EU. It called for increased involvement of multimodal platforms in Member States planning and in the further development of routes. Moreover, Members regretted that Member States national infrastructure plans are too often decided without reference to the TEN-T objectives. They considered that an efficient EU logistics system requires further coordination beyond physical connectivity and an operational TEN-T network. The Commission is called upon to strengthen the sphere of action of the TEN-T European coordinators to look beyond the geographical scope of the corridors under their respective responsibility, and to cover horizontal policy issues such as multi-modality and efficient freight logistics. Improved simplification and a new framework for digitalisation: the report stressed the urgency of greater simplification of documents and administrative and customs procedures across all modes and across the different stages in logistics chains. The Commission is called upon to: analyse redundant EU legislation on transport and mobility, propose, by the end of 2017, a digital framework for electronic information exchange and transport management in multimodal transport (efreight) with a view to facilitating a simplified, paperless, seamless, transparent, secured and trusted information flow between businesses, customers and authorities, building on established services (such as SafeSeaNet, River Information System, intelligent transportation systems, etc). Investing in the European Transport System with logistics as a focal point: Members underlined the need to ensure enough EU funding for the implementation of the TEN-T beyond the present MFF. The Commission is expected to: present the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) mid-term review in 2017, proposing a streamlining of measures and resources for the implementation of the priority projects in good time; urge Member States to make the requisite investments in order to finalise the connections of the EUs core corridors; take fully into consideration automation and its impact in its logistic strategy, ensuring its smooth and efficient integration into the TEN-T, and to support research on, and investment in, the development of these key technology. Particular focus should be put on TEN-T core network corridors on the coordinated development of projects that promote multi-modality in freight logistics, in particular terminal hubs, logistic platforms and urban nodes. Urgent and more efficient integration of transport modes: the report insisted on the need to concentrate major efforts on the revitalisation of railways and on the strengthening of inland waterways (IWW) as a priority for the EUs sustainable transport strategy. It called on the Commission to come forward with specific funding solutions to ease access to European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) funding for European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) deployment in favour of both infrastructure and locomotive installations. In view of reducing CO2 emissions in general, as well as local pollutant and noise emissions in particular, the Commission is asked to: (i) foster the development of electric modes of transport and the necessary infrastructure along the whole TEN-T network, and, especially in town centres; (ii) foster the development of innovative transport schemes involving, for example, the use of electric vehicles and renewable energy sources, and (iii) the development of alternative fuels and the necessary infrastructure. Members noted that the digitalisation of services has a role to play in encouraging more environmentally friendly transport solutions. They called on the Commission to facilitate, also through a coherent legislative approach at EU level, the access to and sharing of data concerning traffic flows along the corridors and the use of multimodal transport, especially for SMEs, and to secure greater involvement of local operators and public authorities in this sector. Better training and job conditions to attract new professionals: the report noted that the working and living conditions of the workforce in the logistic chain have deteriorated substantially in the past years, making this sector less attractive for new generations, in particular for mobile workers. The Commission and the Member States are called upon to: propose, as a matter of urgency, measures to make the sector more attractive to young people and to future generations; evaluate the possibility of financial investment in dual and vocational training in the transport sector; provide sufficient and safe parking space in the TENT-t corridors to avoid increasing security issues with mobile transport workers; take into consideration Parliaments recent recommendations on social-economic aspects in the transport sector and on combating unfair practices in the labour market. Lastly, the Commission is called upon to work with stakeholders to develop an EU-wide framework for multimodal transport and logistics statistical data, including developing new indicators that better reflect real freight trends.
8. Calls on the Commission to make available more resources, especially for projects designed to improve interconnectivity with outlying regions and make more effective use of EU funding.
8b. Stresses the need, not least in view of the gradual move towards a circular economy, to integrate outbound and reverse logistics operations with a view to reducing overall vehicle movement volumes.
- strives to continue the development of the academic research and education within the transport and logistics area.
6. Considers that while the comprehensive network is mainly a responsibility of the Member States, both layers are crucial to EU logistics, bringing capillarity to the core network, feeding the corridors with traffic, and performing last- mile distribution; takes the view that secondary networks should not be left outside the European purview, including in terms of financing and regulatory measures, in particular those pertaining to access to the network, slot allocation and charges; urges that missing links in rail infrastructure in cross-border regions should be tackled in order to allow efficient and successful cross-border rail transport.
9. Notes that Member States experiencing economic and budgetary difficultiAdvocates the optimal use of the public and private funding schemes, are unable to co-finance freight projects as a result of a strict interpretation of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP); advocates a more flexible application of the SGP by excluding genuine European infrastructure projects (i.e. Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) projects) frlso in the light of blending Connecting Europe Facility and Horizon 2020 with the European Fund for Strategic Investments and other financial instruments; welcomes the promotion of more sustainable investments across sectors to further meet COP21-targets and help delivering on the transition to a resource efficient, circular and zero- carbon economy; calls on the Commission to assess the main challenges and to present a road map to overcome the calculation of the public debt;ose, concerning investments in transport and infrastrucure.
10. Considers that an efficient EU logistics system requires further coordination beyond physical connectivity and an operational TEN-T network; calls on the Commission to appoint a TEN-T European logistics coordinator that could effectively complement, coordinate and give coherence to the ongoingmake logistics an integral part of the Core Network Corridors and the work of the cEuropean Coordinators in the area of multimodality;.
10a. Asks the Commission to report back to the European Parliament regularly on the conclusions and measures taken in the Digital Transport and Logistics Forum in order to further supporting digitalisation of freight transport and logistics.
14a. Stresses the potential of automated and autonomous transport and its use for real-time multimodal information services in logistics; Is concerned of the difficulties of ensuring that new automated vehicles and systems interact smoothly with conventional vehicles and vulnerable users . Calls on the automated vehicles and other ITS solutions.
22. Notes with concern that the technologies could undermine the sector’s performance; calls on the Commission to identify training and learning needs at EU level, and working conditions, costs and barriers that discourage the workforce from entering the transport sector, and to propose as a matter of urgency measures to make it more attractive to young people and to future generations; regards this as an opportunity to increase the proportion of women and new entrants on the transport labour market, for example EU migrants;new arrivals; what is more, strategic investment in training and better work conditions should include initiatives for knowledge development within the public sector in order to include freight issues in a better manner in social planning and the development of demonstration and test arenas, where research and innovation related to freight and logistics can be applied and tested under real conditions.
22c. Urges Commission and Member States to provide sufficient and safe parking space in the TENT-t corridors to avoid increasing security issues with mobile transport workers.
The European Parliament adopted by 520 votes to 68, with 79 abstentions, a resolution on logistics in the EU and multimodal transport in the new TEN-T corridors.
Members recalled that modern efficient transport and logistics are essential for the effective functioning of the EUs internal market and important for ensuring competitiveness, creating new business and employment opportunities and achieving the Unions climate goals and the objectives of the COP 21 Paris Agreement.
The third goal of the Commissions White Paper on Transport aims to shift 30 % of road freight over 300 km to more sustainable modes such as rail and waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50 % by 2050, requiring also the development of appropriate infrastructure.
present an independent scientific study detailing: (i) the extent to which road freight could be transferred to rail and inland waterways by 2030 and by 2050, the costs associated with this, and; (ii) the extent to which environmental damage such as noise and air pollution can be avoided.
Promoting multimodality: the implementation of the TEN-T network, with particular emphasis on cross-border connections and within the time-frames laid down and completed by 2030, shall reduce bottlenecks, improve interoperability between the various modes of transport.
Parliament called for increased involvement of multimodal platforms in Member States planning and in the further development of routes. It also stressed the importance of investments in urban nodes, as well as of the promotion of rail connections with industrial plants and improved interconnectivity of rail with seaports, inland ports and hinterland hubs.
The Commission is asked to prioritise these investments in the 2017 review of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
Improved simplification and a new framework for digitalisation: the resolution stressed the urgency of greater simplification of documents and administrative and customs procedures across all modes and across the different stages in logistics chains. The Commission is called upon to propose, by the end of 2017, a digital framework for electronic information exchange and transport management in multimodal transport (efreight) with a view to facilitating a simplified, paperless, seamless, transparent, secured and trusted information flow between businesses, customers and authorities, building on established services (such as SafeSeaNet, etc).
take fully into consideration automation and its impact in its logistic strategy and devise a new strategy that guarantees that drones can be efficiently integrated into the TEN-T programme.
Traffic Management System (ERTMS) deployment in favour of both infrastructure and locomotive installations.
the development of alternative fuels and the necessary infrastructure.
Given the role that the digitalisation of services has to play in encouraging more environmentally friendly transport solutions, Members called on the Commission to facilitate, also through a coherent legislative approach at EU level, the access to and sharing of data concerning traffic flows along the corridors and the use of multimodal transport, especially for SMEs, and to secure greater involvement of local operators and public authorities in this sector.
Better training and job conditions to attract new professionals: working and living conditions of the workforce in the logistic chain have deteriorated substantially in the past years, making this sector less attractive for new generations, in particular for mobile workers.
take into consideration Parliaments recent recommendations on social-economic aspects in the transport sector and on combating unfair practices in the labour market.
Lastly, the Commission is called upon to work with stakeholders to develop an EU-wide framework for multimodal transport and logistics statistical data, including developing new indicators that better reflect real freight trends.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism adopted an own-initiative report by Inés AYALA SENDER (S&D, ES) on logistics in the EU and multimodal transport in the new TEN-T corridors.
This report aims to formulate the European Parliaments position and stimulate initiatives to promote the field of freight transport logistics.
Logistics include the services and processes of planning, managing and carrying out the flow of goods and information between the point of origin and the point of destination.
The report stressed that the implementation of the TEN-T network, with particular emphasis on cross-border connections and within the time-frames laid down and completed by 2030, will reduce bottlenecks, improve interoperability between the various modes of transport and contribute to delivering integrated multimodal freight transport in the EU. It called for increased involvement of multimodal platforms in Member States planning and in the further development of routes.
Moreover, Members regretted that Member States national infrastructure plans are too often decided without reference to the TEN-T objectives. They considered that an efficient EU logistics system requires further coordination beyond physical connectivity and an operational TEN-T network.
The Commission is called upon to strengthen the sphere of action of the TEN-T European coordinators to look beyond the geographical scope of the corridors under their respective responsibility, and to cover horizontal policy issues such as multi-modality and efficient freight logistics.
propose, by the end of 2017, a digital framework for electronic information exchange and transport management in multimodal transport (efreight) with a view to facilitating a simplified, paperless, seamless, transparent, secured and trusted information flow between businesses, customers and authorities, building on established services (such as SafeSeaNet, River Information System, intelligent transportation systems, etc).
take fully into consideration automation and its impact in its logistic strategy, ensuring its smooth and efficient integration into the TEN-T, and to support research on, and investment in, the development of these key technology.
Particular focus should be put on TEN-T core network corridors on the coordinated development of projects that promote multi-modality in freight logistics, in particular terminal hubs, logistic platforms and urban nodes.
Urgent and more efficient integration of transport modes: the report insisted on the need to concentrate major efforts on the revitalisation of railways and on the strengthening of inland waterways (IWW) as a priority for the EUs sustainable transport strategy. It called on the Commission to come forward with specific funding solutions to ease access to European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) funding for European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) deployment in favour of both infrastructure and locomotive installations.
In view of reducing CO2 emissions in general, as well as local pollutant and noise emissions in particular, the Commission is asked to: (i) foster the development of electric modes of transport and the necessary infrastructure along the whole TEN-T network, and, especially in town centres; (ii) foster the development of innovative transport schemes involving, for example, the use of electric vehicles and renewable energy sources, and (iii) the development of alternative fuels and the necessary infrastructure.
Members noted that the digitalisation of services has a role to play in encouraging more environmentally friendly transport solutions. They called on the Commission to facilitate, also through a coherent legislative approach at EU level, the access to and sharing of data concerning traffic flows along the corridors and the use of multimodal transport, especially for SMEs, and to secure greater involvement of local operators and public authorities in this sector.
Better training and job conditions to attract new professionals: the report noted that the working and living conditions of the workforce in the logistic chain have deteriorated substantially in the past years, making this sector less attractive for new generations, in particular for mobile workers. | 2019-04-20T12:18:59Z | http://parltrack.euwiki.org/dossier/2015/2348(INI) |
We’ll be taking a short break from ebooks this week to talk about one of the skills necessary for living life online: being comfortable with change.
“Nothing but change endures.” Whether we know this quote from Heraclitus or Isaac Asimov, it still rings true…and nowhere more so than online. Everything we’ve seen about online life so far – the flexibility, the social nature, the connection to technology, the possibility for innovation – are things that encourage change, and occasionally require it. Even more than with cars or electronics, the internet makes rapid and continuous change not only possible, but relatively easy to do.
For those of us used to a world made of bricks and mortar, this kind of change can be surprising and uncomfortable. When you visit a store every day, you don’t expect to walk up one morning to a completely different storefront with doors in new places, a new way of ordering, changed packaging, and brand-new (and maybe younger and faster) employees. You walk in the door and realize you don’t know where anything is, don’t know where to find what you want or how to even begin looking for it, and you feel that the staff don’t understand why you’re confused. In these brick and mortar stores, you can usually see the changes as they happen: the scaffolding and construction, the “big change coming” signs, employees saying goodbye to their regulars before they leave.
And yet, that’s precisely what it can feel like to have an online service you use all the time change its website overnight. You wake up one morning and everything you finally have gotten comfortable with has changed….again. It can be frustrating, can make you feel like you don’t know how this stuff works after all, can cause you to throw up your hands and walk away from the machine.
Don’t walk away, and don’t give up.
Take a deep breath, remember that you do know what you’re doing, and go back to basics. In our very first post on Learning for Life Online, we talked about playing with new online tools. These same skills are what will help you now.
Read the screen and see if the site has a link to a list or a video about “What’s new!, or maybe a new help section to walk you through the changes.
Once you’ve found that list of what’s new, push the button and watch the video or click on the link to the new features list. Then, try out one new thing at a time and see how it works.
Take your time and don’t be afraid. Yes, things have changed, but rarely does a website or service change absolutely everything all at once. You’ll recognize what’s familiar from the previous version and can focus on how it works differently now.
And a new one: don’t panic. It took you time to learn the old features, and it’ll take some time to learn the new ones, but probably not as much time as you think it will. All those changes will probably make the site easier to use and help you do what you want to do, so give them a chance.
Also, don’t believe the myth that the “younger kids who’ve been doing this forever” are any more comfortable with change than you are. They aren’t, and every time a service they use and have customized to be just the way they want it to be changes, they complain and get frustrated just as much as the rest of us. And then, like the rest of us, they get used to the changes and keep on going.
So, why have we taken time to talk about being comfortable with change this week? Because several major websites/services have announced updates and new features in the past two weeks that will have an effect on millions of people.
What many Facebook users didn’t realize is that these changes were the first step towards a much, much larger change, coming later in October. You can watch the full announcement and demonstration of the new Facebook Timeline, but in short, it’s a visual way to display all of your posts, photos & videos, apps, and anything else you want to share on Facebook. You can customize the look and there are new features that let you “curate the story of your life.” Mashable.com has several articles summing up the little changes and the big ones to come.
Ever since public libraries began to offer downloadable ebooks through their online branches, users have been asking, “…but can I get some books for my Kindle?” For a very long time, the answer was No, but last week, that changed. Now, Amazon Kindle users can check out library ebooks if their local library uses the Overdrive ebook and digital audiobook service. Once you find a book in your library’s ebook collection (check out the Boston Public Library’s for example), you check it out using that system and then seamless move over to your Kindle account to download it. This is a huge change because now the millions of Kindle ebook users can now check out library books. Awesome.
Earlier in 2011, the Boston Public Library got a new online catalog, and overall the response has been really positive. Just today, the company who manages that online catalog updated the page you see when you first log in, to make it easier to see the important information (what’s checked out & when it’s due) and recommendations and ratings made by the people you follow. Check out this short video about all the changes to the online catalog for more information.
One of the greatest strengths of life online is that it’s easy to update and improve on the services and tools that we use there. However, this means that those services and tools will change, and we must change with them….or find new tools. Change isn’t always easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard or scary or frustrating. We can learn to roll with changes and maybe find that the new, improved thing is actually better. But you’ll never know if you don’t give it a chance.
Click through on the links in the post for more information about the Facebook, Overdrive and online catalog changes.
This entry was posted in Basics, Big Ideas, This Week on LLO, Tips for Living Life Online and tagged amazon, basic skills, boston public library, change, ebooks, facebook, facebook timeline, keeping up, kindle, life online, new things, online library catalog, overdrive, perpetual beta, play, updates on October 3, 2011 by Jennifer Koerber.
Last week, we introduced eBooks and eReaders. Today, we’ll look at what’s needed to read ebooks on other devices. After a quick look at some free independent ebook apps, I’ll go into detail about the Kindle apps, using them as an example for how many of these services work.
Most of these apps are easy to use – all you need to do is follow the steps on the screen. They also work similarly to Kindle apps, which I’ll describe next.
Something a little different is Ibis Reader: a web-based, app-less service that you can access from any computer or mobile device. You simply create an account (by typing in an email address and choosing a password) and you can upload any ePub or PDF format ebooks, or choose from hundreds of freely-available ebooks from FeedBooks.
Originally, you could only read Amazon Kindle ebooks on the Kindle itself. Over the years, Amazon has added Free Kindle Reading apps so you can read Kindle ebooks on your computer or laptop, on your smartphone or other mobile device, and on your tablet (like an iPad). Now, you don’t even need to own a Kindle to use the Kindle Reading apps.
Before you can use any of the Kindle apps, you must have an Amazon account. Visit Amazon’s website and find any link that says “New customer? Start here.” Click the link and follow the instructions on the screen. You will have to provide your email address and a credit card number for buying ebooks. Remember, you can use a dedicated credit card for your online purchases if you want to.
Like all apps, Kindle apps are small programs that let you read your Kindle ebooks on whatever device you’d like. You can download the app either from Kindle’s app page or from the app store on your mobile device or tablet. Once downloaded, open the app and it will walk you through the steps to sign in using your Amazon account. After that, just find an ebook you want, purchase it, then open up the Kindle app on your device and choose that title to download and read. Easy!
The latest innovation from Amazon is the Amazon Cloud Reader. This web app lets you read your Kindle ebooks in either the Chrome or Safari web browsers. (The Cloud Reader doesn’t work with Internet Explorer or Firefox.) If you remember how the cloud works, this app means that you don’t have to download the ebook you want to read – you can just store it on Amazon’s Cloud drive and read it anywhere, from any computer. This is useful if you are borrowing someone’s machine or using a tablet or other device that doesn’t have an app yet.
Not to be left behind, Barnes & Noble’s Nook ebooks can also be read on different devices, though they don’t have the web app for any internet browser. Just like with the Kindle ebooks, you do need a Barnes & Noble account before you can set up the apps and download books. Also just like Kindle, you don’t need to own a Nook to use Nook ebooks – just find your preferred device on the list and download the app today!
If you have a Kobo account, you can also read your Kobo books on your iPhone, Android phone, Blackberry and Palm Pre using a Kobo app.
Apple’s iBooks works on any Apple mobile device (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch) and can read both ePUB and PDF formats. It does not work on Apple computers and laptops. You purchase books to read through the iBookstore with the same account you use for iTunes and the App Store.
In our previous lesson, we mentioned a man who never finished a book because he’d lose them 50 pages from the end. Now, he can purchase one ebook from Amazon and read it on his Kindle, on his laptop, on his work computer and on his phone. That same book is always with him, wherever he goes, and he never loses his place or the book itself. He can take notes in a reference book on his Kindle, then bring those highlighted sections up during a work meeting on his laptop’s screen. When he’s standing in line at the Motor Vehicle office, he can read the next few pages of the novel he’s working through…or maybe more. No matter where he is, his library of ebooks is there with him, ready to be read at a moment’s notice.
What isn’t useful about this?
This entry was posted in This Week on LLO, Tools and tagged aldiko, amazon, amazon cloud, apps, credit card safety, downloading, ebook formats, ebooks, ereader, ereaders, feedbooks, file formats, ibis reader, ibooks, ipad, iphone, ipod touch, kindle, kindle app, kobo app, mobile devices, online buying, online purchasing, overdrive, stanza, the cloud on September 27, 2011 by Jennifer Koerber.
With the surge in popularity of eBooks and eReaders, it’s easier now than ever before to have nearly anything you could want to read at your fingertips in moments. Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at what ebooks and ereaders are, how to read ebooks on devices beyond ereaders, and the many places to find and download ebooks.
Electronic books, or ebooks are precisely that – electronic versions of physical books. Rather than read them printed on paper, we read the content of these books on some kind of electronic device. In the US, many people read their ebooks on an ebook Reader, but other devices you can use include your computer, your mobile phone or smartphone, or a tablet device like the iPad or GalaxyTab. Note: This week, we’ll discuss just the ereaders and next week, we’ll look at reading ebooks on other devices.
eReaders are dedicated devices meant only for (or primarily for) reading ebooks on. The Amazon Kindle was the first and most common ereader for many years, but the Nook has become popular because you can also use it to surf the web. Other readers on the market include the Kobo, the Sony Reader, readers from Aluratek and PanDigital and many more.
There are two important differences between different brands of ereaders: the file formats they allow, and the way the screen works.
File Formats. There are three most-used formats for ebooks – EPUB, PDF and Amazon’s AZW (Kindle only). EPUB and PDF are what’s called an ‘open’ file format, and they can be viewed by most of the ebook readers out there. Amazon made the choice to create their own ebook file format, and those ebooks can only be read on Kindle devices and applications. You don’t need to know how the different formats work – you just need to know which formats your ereader can read, and which ones it can’t. That will let you find and download the correct format when you’re looking for your own ebooks.
eInk or ePaper screens were first used by the Kindle, and later by the original Nook and Sony eReader. An eInk screen looks just like a page of printed text, with a warm grey background and black ‘ink.’ You can change the font size somewhat, but the idea here is to recreate the experience of reading a printed book.
Color LCD screens were first used by the Nook Color, and they allow the ereader to show color images and to surf the web. With these screens, it’s possible to view magazines, picture books and comic books on your ereader.
Features on ereaders vary from model to model, but nearly all of them will keep track of where you are in a book, let you move from book to book without losing your place, and allow you to download books onto the device for offline reading. Some ereaders will let you highlight text or save notes about what you’re reading, making them useful for students, scholars and voracious readers. The Nook color and other color ereaders will let you surf the web using a basic browser, turning an ereader into a simple tablet device (far less expensive than an iPad!). For an idea of all of the features available, look at the product pages for each of the readers mentioned above.
Imagine being able to carry a small library’s worth of books with you wherever you go, available to read at a moment’s notice? You can decide at the very last minute whether you’d rather be reading the latest James Patterson or re-read that book of Carlos Casteneda’s poetry you love. Now picture being able to write in all of those books without harming them, and marking your place without the risk of losing your bookmark or ruining the corner of a page. Finally, think about all of this happening in a device that weighs less than your average paperback and that can close its cover and slip into a bag.
This is what it means to use an ereader to read ebooks. It is a different experience than reading a printed book, to be sure, and it is sometimes a better one. For traveling, especially, carrying and keeping track of a single ereader is lighter and easier than lugging around a dozen books. Just like iPods and other mp3 players changed the way we listen to music on the go, ebooks and ereaders are changing how we read.
Ereaders can also make it easier to read and finish books. One person who could never finish a book because he always seemed to lose them 50 pages from the end is reading more than a dozen books a year now, thanks to his Kindle. People who need larger text to read more easily now have many more options, because any book can become a large print edition on an ereader. Finally, while electronics are not environmentally friendly themselves, there is some good in not having millions of books printed only to end up recycled not too longer afterwards.
Since I’m not going to tell you to run out and get an ereader, let me suggest getting ahead on next week’s lesson (when we’ll talk about reading ebooks on devices other than ereaders) and take a look at Archive.org. Archive.org is a free online archive of texts, audio, video, websites and many other formats. Search through the texts archives and find something you’re interested in reading. Then, click on one of the options under View the Text – you can view it online, or download it to your computer to read whenever you’d like. PDF might be the easiest format to start with, since nearly every computer can read that format.
The Boston Public Library’s downloadable ebook collection – even if you don’t have a BPL account, take a look at a few titles and see the different formats listed for each. Also use the ebook help section to answer any other questions you have.
A thorough article on how eInk works.
This entry was posted in Basics, This Week on LLO, Tools and tagged about.com, aluratek, amazon, archive.org, barnes & noble, ebook formats, ebooks, eink, ereaders, file formats, galaxy tab, ipad, kindle, kobo, nook, pandigital, the basics on September 19, 2011 by Jennifer Koerber.
In the next few weeks, we’ll switch from talking about online audio & video to discussing ebooks – a topic getting more popular every day. To bridge the gap between them, let’s look at how you can buy and any kind of media online. For a refresher, go back and read the LLO post on what downloading is.
Note: In this lesson, we’re going to focus on buying and downloading to a computer (either PC or Mac). Our upcoming lesson on ebooks will include buying directly from your ereader device.
Create an account with that service, if required. Enter your email address and choose a password that you’ll remember. Look for any ticky boxes that you can uncheck to choose not to receive special promotions or email from this service.
Enter your billing information: credit card number, billing address, etc.
Many of these tools will let you pay using PayPal or another online payment service. If you have a PayPal account, great! Use that and you won’t have keep entering your billing information. However, it’s not necessary – you can usually just pay with a credit card.
Safety & Security Tip: If you are concerned, get a credit card to use just for online purchases. You can set a very low purchase limit – $200, say – to minimize any risk. This is especially good for buying from smaller, less well-known companies. You could also buy a Visa cash card or something similar, to use for very small purchases.
If prompted, click on a “Download” link to start the actual downloading process. This might also start automatically.
At this point, you’ll probably be asked to save the file(s) somewhere on your computer. You can save it to the Downloads folder or to your Desktop, or to a folder you’ve set up for media downloads. Sometimes, the downloader will suggest the right place for the file, but sometimes you’ll need to change the save location to the correct folder. Don’t be too worried by this – you can usually go back and fix things later if they aren’t quite right.
Once you’ve downloaded the files, you should just be able to double-click on them to play or read them in the appropriate program. Sometimes you will need to save the files to that program (such as moving music files over to iTunes or your music library software). Just find the files you saved and drag it over the program folder, or whatever folder that program stores its files in. Drop the files into the program folder and you’re done.
Don’t worry – this is one of those things that’s confusing the first time you do it, but gets easier with practice. The most important step is to remember where you downloaded the files to. As long as you know where those are, you can sort out any problems later.
iTunes is probably the easiest service to buy from, because it really does do everything for you. Simply open up iTunes on your computer, visit the iTune Store, find the items you want, click on “Buy,” enter your iTunes account information, and then iTunes does the rest. It will automatically save the files to the right places, and you can play them as soon as they’ve downloaded.
Amazon is the next easiest service to buy from, because it does nearly everything automatically. Just visit the Amazon website, find whatever it is you want to purchase, click on the orange “Buy” button and enter your account information. The one difference is that Amazon asks you to set up the Amazon Downloader, a program that manages all your Amazon music downloads for you. The Downloader will save the files to the right place, especially if you use iTunes as your music library, and then you can play your audio from iTunes with no problems.
Amazon’s ebooks are designed to be read on their Kindle ereader, but you can also get a Kindle app to read them on a computer. Follow the instructions on the page to learn more about using this service.
These sites all work similarly to Amazon, but without the Downloader or a Kindle app to help you manage your files.
All of these services also work similarly to Amazon, though you do need to move the files around yourself.
This entry was posted in Basics, This Week on LLO, Tips for Living Life Online and tagged amazon, amazon downloader, apps, archive.org, audible, bandcamp, barnes & noble, blurb, cdbaby, credit card safety, digistation, downloading, ebooks, itunes, kindle, kobo, lulu, mp3, online buying, online purchasing, paypal, reverbnation, the basics, xlibris on September 12, 2011 by Jennifer Koerber. | 2019-04-24T08:44:33Z | http://www.jenniferkoerber.com/tag/kindle/ |
I fear there is something seriously wrong with the mobirise. What is the point in making update without fixing the bugs in the previous versions first? Ijust can't get my head around it - this app would be amazing if it actually worked! Please just get a perfectly working stable version. i would pay good money for it if you did!
Is there a manner to block all those rude and selfish yelling people? They bother me more than any bug.
Wow! This one was emotional!
Can only imagine what circumstances made this ALL CAPS !!! statement take place.
I found this thing about an year and a half and it was doing nothing but simple sites with single level navigation and only the most commonly used blocks. The version was early v2 and my knowledge in web design was just a bit over the ground level - I was coming from the world of print.
In time I saw the app grow and become what it is now. Not sure how many hours you've spent with Mobirise Builder but I must share figuring out the cool CSS snippets giving me the desired appearance without breaking the block's parameters (versions 2 and 3) payed off twice - with both the desired appearance and gaining some more styling knowledge.
I do think instead of being aggressive we should appreciate these guys efforts and show them our support since in my humble opinion the capabilities of the Builder from the time I'm observing its growing have increased at least 30 times - that's for the short time of year and a half! Not to mention how many decent people from all kinds of spheres I've met around which without much technical knowledge got themselves good websites - with this very same software you're calling crappy in caps.
Yes, the sites they got might have been differing slightly from what they have initially got in mind or on their sketches (if any) due to the idea having to fit the provided blocks library but still - this does not erase the fact these people got working solutions and made their lives better!
Of course the block list is limited - it always will be for someone. No way figuring out all the possible appearance each and every user will ever need.
Of course - there are still some glitches - the work goes on and just because you or somebody else doesn't see a particular point taken care of this does not mean it's been forgotten. But let me ask you - once more - most respectfully - have you not done by yourself but even been a part of a project so vast and innovative? Have you tried out building something not done before from nothing and being brave enough to present it to the public?
If not - what gives you the right judging and being rude?
Do you know how many sites have been done by people like us not throwing tough words in all caps but putting their minds to making things work?
were forced to say what they said about the Builder?
So my friendly suggestion to you is - please try being a bit more constructive and a bit less emotional. I know sometimes the last one is a bit hard to accomplish but I also know being taken by emotions one sometimes says and does stuff he later on regrets. And I think if you just cross the lines over the Builder the loss will be only yours .
Cheers to all the fellow forum members!
I left caps lock on to make a pertinent point. Not. shout or be rude. My point was fairly clear. I was expressing my opinion that I don't see the point making an app that does not work properly.
This app could be superb. It just needs to be more stable and stop breaking all the time.
My frustration is surely justified given I have spent money buying extras that don't work properly. Then I finally get to somewhere near decent looking site and after uploading it the colours are wrong and the page speed score is Zero.
If you go into a shop to buy a product that doesn't work as it should you get your money back right? You buy a Blue car from a dealer and he gives you a red car with faults you question the guy who took your order. Right?
I think its rude to take money for a product that does not work. I know the base app is free but the extensions are not!
All I am asking for is a stable version that's reliable for making basic websites and that I am (and surely thousands of others would also) happy to pay for it.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but each time thinking the outcome will somehow be different.
For me it was and it has been a pleasure to use this software, yes, indeed it has some bugs ( a lot, if u prefer), but who's perfect? I enjoy it, and it keeps me busy, I have to learn new things (HTML, CSS,JS,JQ) and this is the charm of the life using Mobirise!
I climbed up on the webdesing's stair step by step, I remember old times with HTML 4 transitional and strict rules, when I made small site w/o any software, I used a lot of nested tables to get my design as I wanted to be, when flash was the king, and so on.... Now, with some patience, alot of work, amazing things can be done with Mobirise!
I don't want to migrate to Wordpress, Joomla, MS Frontpage, Macromedia and so on, because I want to learn and to get ready made!
You buy a Blue car from a dealer and he gives you a red car with faults you question the guy who took your order. Right?
My response, and please, don't kill me!!!
Why did u accept red color iof blue?
Berfore to buy Mobirise full package some time ago, I red this forum, I saw all the problems, and I said OK, I would be in! Why?
JFK (Rest In Peace) said on September 12, 1962, before a crowd of 35,000 people in the Rice University football stadium.
But with some time and patience I've been able to work around it. I'm not a programmer, I'm not interested in learning to code (except on occasion when need to which isn't very often) then I figure it out. Heck, my daughter, who just started a new business, had NEVER built a website did it with using SpaceM, and all her friends and associates couldn't believe how professional it was. You just figure out what works and go with it.
I see that others have tried to help and offer some encouragement, but your response is 'yawn'? Wow...so disrespectful and rude!
It's a hard world there in cyberspace, from trolls to hackers to spammers. But, there are some good corners, and Mobirise (it's free) even with no paid extensions fills a void in the dev industry that is so handy. I tried to get my head around CoffeeCup's Responsive Site Designer and Foundation Framer, (having bought them) but I still don't have a working website or much of a clue even after watching a few videos. Excellent software, but aimed over and above "little old me doing voluntary work for the local community" - so that's where Mobirise came in. Simple, elegant, and yes, still on a journey of development. But, of the numerous websites built in v3 and now the first one in v4, http://imc.cog7.org I'm not complaining, just working through any issues, studying its progress, and pleased to report a much better release now than some weeks ago.
Excellent website, John! I found it fast loading, easy to navigate and view. Amazing what a little work and inspiration can do. Congrats!
@ianmyers2008 take your time kido, you will get to this conversation in a few years (maybe) and see what the rest of us meant - eventually.
All the rest of you guys - let's admit it - a kid shouting aloud foolish offenses actually managed to do (without any sign of intention) something really good. This all caps comment lacking much sense and argumentation managed to get us all share the way we see things and maybe, just maybe - made us think about that for a while - like for many of us the Mobirise Builder has become a significant part of our workflow, so significant we sometimes just don't notice its there and just go on and use it for whatever we need to be accomplished at the moment.
And now this comment made us think for just a bit ad realize how precious the tool is. Furthermore - the ignorance of the kid made us share the way we actually think regarding the app.
I think this is good. I think we all made what was initially foolish and hatefull (maybe even payed attack - do not know) into something having actual value - being provoked we gathered some honest feedback from real life people using the thing in their everyday work.
So now the very next new user coming around wondering if the Builder is actually worth investing both time and funds will have some material to think over.
I guess that's one of the reasons I'm so glad and proud being a part of this Community.
@ianmyers2008 do note - if you're a real person - each and every member sending a word here did not use any loud tone or offensive language. I'm pretty sure we all do have this little moments when we first spoke and thought later. And just because you decided, maybe driven by an emotional moment, to spit some dirt that does not mean you will be rejected by the Community. The decision to go on with this tool or move on offending another is entirely up to you. But if for a reason things happen thins way that later on you need some help with the Mobirise Builder - do write here and I'm pretty sure someone will try giving you a tip pretty soon.
1) endless updates and no way of getting them automatically....or knowing about them.
3) I emailed support twice a month ago. I have received ZERO response. And I paid the 130 bucks for the blocks so I kinda feel like support SHOULD respond.
4) the forums are full of know it alls like everyone who jumped on someone for being LEGITIMATELY frustrated...get over yourselves!!!!!
5) I have asked questions on this forum without any response or resolution.
. I tried to get my head around CoffeeCup's Responsive Site Designer and Foundation Framer, (having bought them) but I still don't have a working website or much of a clue even after watching a few videos. Excellent software, but aimed over and above "little old me doing voluntary work for the local community"
I tried those too. Not easy, very difficult for an average person to figure out!
Not to rain on anyone's parade. I gotta say I really like the (concept of the )software .... but I have to agree with @Annmarieitalia and @Ianmyers2008 .
It can definitely try one's patience. The issue with v4 is in crafting anything with any certainty with the software. Or discovering after a great deal of work, the next update breaks all of one's previous work. Also as one who has been involved with the development of custom software, V4 should never have been released to anyone (especially in the early days) until better testing was done by the developers. The daily issues just simply wear one down when it comes to using this software with ease and in the manner it is intended.
BTW - dont get me wrong. I appreciate the developers effort. And I believe they are on to a very serious product - if they can just refine it a bit more and improve their backtesting. Also realize they are a small team. But some of these issues simply point to a serious lack of testing before sending it out to the user base.
In the meantime - the product has not been stable or fit to be released with so many bugs - and a clear lack of back testing by the developers. Imagine Wordpresss, Microsoft, or Apple releasing programming with so many issues. There are many issues with v4 still - and there is little integrity in the software because it has not been thoroughly tested. Guess we are the guinea pigs for this experiment. And that is why v3 is just a better option - and even it still has a few issues that have been ignored - even though it is far more stable than v4.
Can't read this crap from the experts anymore.
Are we here now a religious community?
The maker of Mobirise is a tough businessman who is only interested in profit.
Any criticism of this software is rejected. Some comments are confusing in their choice of words, but they do touch the problem of mobirise.
Mobirise has bugs without end.
Bugs are taken from one version to another and not fixed.
And what does this community do - it cheers.
Just as a reminder: Mobirise is free of charge - the extensions are not included. The support (probably one person) is overwhelmed.
annmarieitalia is 100 percent right.
Mobirise is creative. They are not google, not microsoft, not FB. We should always encourage small team.
You're absolutely right. But that doesn't change the problems of Mobirise.
@simonchang1108 Re: Google, MS, Apple, FB. Think you missed my point. Big or small team - there are base line standards for back testing that should be met when putting product in the marketplace that should assure a chance of the product working properly. It feels that changes are made and no testing is made to assure that the update changes do not conflict with the overall operation of other processes. There is plenty of great product in the marketplace produced by teams of less than 5-10 developers - with no where near the buggy nature. Unfortunately - v4 is two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes two steps forward - and three steps back. V3 sites still do not integrate into v4. Not good - not good at all. After how many releases?
As I said - appreciate what the team is doing. Also the product has a modest price tag - so personally I (and I believe others) do not have terribly high expectations. The product has great potential. Clearly the developers are very gifted. ANd no one is looking to demean their talents. But it is also important that users clearly communicate their concerns when the work is has issues. That is the only way the development team improves. I think this is why so many are frustrated. They see the potential - and would like to be able to implement for commercial projects - without all the hassles. If this is a commercial venture - I believe many here would believe this to be a reasonable expectation.
We are lovers of mobirise doesnt mean that we are fully happy with the unprofessional way things are heading. The developing team should take things seriously and clear bugs before going for new features. New releases with more new bugs is what is worrying at the moment. Its getting 2 years and still the software is going in beta.
But when the software started and the current situation of the software is great. The development team need to be appreciated about the concept. Bugs are annoying us. They will help us clearing it and i expect them to do it in a more professional and responsible way.
enjoy mbr's creative blocks, and ignore mbr's bugs.
instead of ignoring bugs. report it. try using workaround till it is fixed.
Sharing your experience and suggestions are really appreciated. I'll carefully look into each of them.
" the world was not built in 1 day."
I hear where you're coming from - it can be frustrating for sure as with any buggy software so here's some feedback that may help you.
First, if you're using Windows 7 or higher you shouldn't depend on Mobirise as your only design building solution - you should use Dreamweaver CS6 or CC and or Pingrow 3 - and always back up your work from the AppData local folder - the name of the folder in the local folder is called Mobirise.com - always back that up to avoid losing any work.
You will need to backup all of your Mobirise work via the AppData local folder - then uninstall the latest version and then make sure to re-install version 4.1.7 - this should fix whatever issues you are having.
Lastly, I think Mobirise will evolve into something much better and as I mentioned in my previous post Mobirise is great for creating website Mockups designs - but for finishing touches on any of my web design work I use and recommend Dreamweaver CC and or Pinegrow 3+ I have both - Mobirise is a great complimenting design tool for any web design project. It is very promising. I also purchased all of their themes/kit etc. and I was frustrated too but Mobirise Support was very helpful - so if you have any issues just reach out to support - they're attentive to their customers.
Ps Don't expect perfection with anything - even big companies from Apple iOS to Windows and every other software out there have their share of bugs and problems.
I have been using Mobirise for almost a year now and built about a dozen or so websites with it. So far, I have found it to be fairly reliable. Yes, it DOES have its foibles and occasional outright bugs, but I'll say this for the support - they DO respond to issues posed and evidently are doing their best to get through all the issues discovered. I suspect their team is not massive, and they must surely run on a tight budget, but I actually do have faith that they will continue to deliver a quality product - albeit with our help.
So it doesn't help to jump on and rant. You're much better off DOCUMENTING the issues you're facing and then reporting them both to the forums and to support via the app.
Also, it would pay you more - however frustrating your situation may be - to remember you're always dealing with people and so treating them with politeness and civility will always get you further.
if u edit mobirise after publishing then u cant bring back that site to mobirise. Mobirise had a disadvantage with the code editor usage with old versions. But with M4 , code editor is in a way it is accessible without unlocking. You can edit the codes like anything, provided you know coding. If you know coding, u can customize sites and make beautiful ones. Wait and see, if the bug side is cleared by the developers this software is going to be the best.
I have used softwares like pinegrow. It is an excellent software but not a simple one, you need to really learn. Mobirise doesnt have that learning curve. If you know basics of coding and real designing taste you can edit existing blocks in mobirise. Moreover now blocks of M4 from other themes can be saved and used in ur project.
Yes, Dentaura is correct. You need to know how to use Dreamweaver CS6 - CC and Pinegrow 3+ to really take advantage of their benefits when designing any site. Again, Mobirise is a great Mockup design tool even if it's a bit buggy - Once Mobirise takes its platform to the next level with a stable version that can easily compliment other widely used programs like Dreamweaver and Pinegrow 3+ then Mobirise will be in a class by itself - it's a promising software and happy to give it my support.
the brain behind the M4 now is really good. overall from beginning itself mobirise was outstanding.
You should ask for a refund considering you paid a ton of money for the Mobirise builder.
Well then, knock it off. Immediately.
PS - I'd highly recommend that you learn how to code and author a competing product. If you can produce 1/2 of the features I'll pay. Yes, pay. Not only will I pay, I'll pay annually for your bug free software that implements 1/2 of the Mobirise builder features. My offer is $5 per year. YES, FIVE DOLLARS A YEAR.
When can we expect your 1st BETA release?
I'm shocked at how many people are complaining. Folks, this is a FREE tool. If you don't like Free then buy something else. We are also Weebly resellers and the majority of our clients prefer Mobirise. And guess what, Weebly also has bugs.
Nobody is forcing anyone to purchase any of the upgrades, stay free but don't Shout, CAPitalize your complaints, make rude and insulting comments...just Go Away.
that is life.... but before to write some posts here, I strongly recommend to many users around here to read about html, css, js, web design, ux/ui, there are tons of free stuff.....such as w3schools, developer mozilla, css-tricks, and so many others!!!
also some time spent on bootstrap page (v 4 alpha and v 4 beta) is very indicated to be done!
stay free but don't Shout, CAPitalize your complaints, make rude and insulting comments...just Go Away.
Well said, this forum is full of whiners that paid $0 for the builder, install every single point release on their production systems (without backups!) but feel entitled to a bug free product.
If they want a bug free experience, they should use notepad++ or VIM, and SCSS, and HTML5.
Awesome software and it has great potential as a product for developing mobile responsive websites easily. I used Mobirise to create my web designing business side (http://www.emhwebs.com). I plan to start a small business and operate on a part-time basis.
Also, I hope Mobirise can offer some templates/extensions for the restaurant industry. I would certainly purchase.
And a simple alternative solution - there is a pretty cool online forms generator which comes with a simple admin panel as well where you can login and track the form submissions (reservations, orders etc) along with being notified by email each time a form gets submitted. | 2019-04-19T10:24:19Z | http://forums.mobirise.com/discussion/comment/17840/ |
There was a boy in far-away Brazil who played with his friends the game of "Pigeon Flies."
In this pastime the boy who is "it" calls out "pigeon flies," or "bat flies," and the others raise their fingers; but if he should call "fox flies," and one of his mates should raise his hand, that boy would have to pay a forfeit.
The Brazilian boy, however, insisted on raising his finger when the catchwords "man flies" were called, and firmly protested against paying a forfeit.
Alberto Santos-Dumont, even in those early days, was sure that if man did not fly then he would some day.
Many an imaginative boy with a mechanical turn of mind has dreamed and planned wonderful machines that would carry him triumphantly over the tree-tops, and when the tug of the kite-string has been felt has wished that it would pull him up in the air and carry him soaring among the clouds. Santos-Dumont was just such a boy, and he spent much time in setting miniature balloons afloat, and in launching tiny air-ships actuated by twisted rubber bands. But he never outgrew this interest in overhead sailing, and his dreams turned into practical working inventions that enabled him to do what never a mortal man had done before—that is, move about at will in the air.
Perhaps it was the clear blue sky of his native land, and the dense, almost impenetrable thickets below, as Santos-Dumont himself has suggested, that made him think how fine it would be to float in the air above the tangle, where neither rough ground nor wide streams could hinder. At any rate, the thought came into the boy's mind when he was very small, and it stuck there.
His father owned great plantations and many miles of railroad in Brazil, and the boy grew up in the atmosphere of ponderous machinery and puffing locomotives. By the time Santos-Dumont was ten years old he had learned enough about mechanics to control the engines of his father's railroads and handle the machinery in the factories. The boy had a natural bent for mechanics and mathematics, and possessed a cool courage that made him appear almost phlegmatic. Besides his inherited aptitude for mechanics, his father, who was an engineer of the Central School of Arts and Manufactures of Paris, gave him much useful instruction. Like Marconi, Santos-Dumont had many advantages, and also, like the inventor of wireless telegraphy, he had the high intelligence and determination to win success in spite of many discouragements. Like an explorer in a strange land, Santos-Dumont was a pioneer in his work, each trial being different from any other, though the means in themselves were familiar enough.
The boy Santos-Dumont dreamed air-ships, planned air-ships, and read about aerial navigation, until he was possessed with the idea that he must build an air-ship for himself.
He set his face toward France, the land of aerial navigation and the country where light motors had been most highly developed for automobiles. The same year, 1897, when he was twenty-four years old, he, with M. Machuron, made his first ascent in a spherical balloon, the only kind in existence at that time. He has described that first ascension with an enthusiasm that proclaims him a devotee of the science for all time.
His first ascension was full of incident: a storm was encountered; the clouds spread themselves between them and the map-like earth, so that nothing could be seen except the white, billowy masses of vapour shining in the sun; some difficulty was experienced in getting down, for the air currents were blowing upward and carried the balloon with them; the tree-tops finally caught them, but they escaped by throwing out ballast, and finally landed in an open place, and watched the dying balloon as it convulsively gasped out its last breath of escaping gas.
After a few trips with an experienced aeronaut, Santos-Dumont determined to go alone into the regions above the clouds. This was the first of a series of ascensions in his own balloon. It was made of very light silk, which he could pack in a valise and carry easily back to Paris from his landing point. In all kinds of weather this determined sky navigator went aloft; in wind, rain, and sunshine he studied the atmospheric conditions, air currents, and the action of his balloon.
The young Brazilian ascended thirty times in spherical balloons before he attempted any work on an elongated shape. He realised that many things must be learned before he could handle successfully the much more delicate and sensitive elongated gas-bag.
In general, Santos-Dumont worked on the theory of the dirigible balloon—that is, one that might be controlled and made to go in any direction desired, by means of a motor and propeller carried by a buoyant gas-bag. His plan was to build a balloon, cigar-shaped, of sufficient capacity to a little more than lift his machinery and himself, this extra lifting power to be balanced by ballast, so that the balloon and the weight it carried would practically equal the weight of air it displaced. The push of the revolving propeller would be depended upon to move the whole air-ship up or down or forward, just as the motion of a fish's fins and tail move it up, down, forward, or back, its weight being nearly the same as the water it displaces.
The theory seems so simple that it strikes one as strange that the problem of aerial navigation was not solved long ago. The story of Santos-Dumont's experiments, however, his adventures and his successes, will show that the problem was not so simple as it seemed.
Santos-Dumont was built to jockey a Pegasus or guide an air-ship, for he weighed but a hundred pounds when he made his first ascensions, and added very little live ballast as he grew older.
Weight, of course, was the great bugbear of every air-ship inventor, and the chief problem was to provide a motor light enough to furnish sufficient power for driving a balloon that had sufficient lifting capacity to support it and the aeronaut in the air. Steam-engines had been tried, but found too heavy for the power generated; electric motors had been tested, and proved entirely out of the question for the same reason.
Santos-Dumont has been very fortunate in this respect, his success, indeed, being largely due to the compact and powerful gasoline motors that have been developed for use on automobiles.
Even before the balloon for the first air-ship was ordered the young Brazilian experimented with his three-and-one-half horse-power gasoline motor in every possible way, adding to its power, and reducing its weight until he had cut it down to sixty-six pounds, or a little less than twenty pounds to a horse-power. Putting the little motor on a tricycle, he led the procession of powerful automobiles in the Paris-Amsterdam race for some distance, proving its power and speed. The motor tested to his satisfaction, Santos-Dumont ordered his balloon of the famous maker, Lachambre, and while it was building he experimented still further with his little engine. To the horizontal shaft of his motor he attached a propeller made of silk stretched tightly over a light wooden framework. The motor was secured to the aeronaut's basket behind, and the reservoir of gasoline hung to the basket in front. All this was done and tested before the balloon was finished—in fact, the aeronaut hung himself up in his basket from the roof of his workshop and started his motor to find out how much pushing power it exerted and if everything worked satisfactorily.
On September 18, 1898, Santos-Dumont made his first ascension in his first air-ship—in fact, he had never tried to operate an elongated balloon before, and so much of this first experience was absolutely new. Imagine a great bag of yellow oiled silk, cigar-shaped, fully inflated with hydrogen gas, but swaying in the morning breeze, and tugging at its restraining ropes: a vast bubble eighty-two feet long, and twelve feel in diameter at its greatest girth. Such was the balloon of Santos-Dumont's first air-ship. Suspended by cords from the great gas-bag was the basket, to which was attached the motor and six-foot propeller, hung sixteen feet below the belly of the great air-fish.
Many friends and curiosity seekers had assembled to see the aeronaut make his first foolhardy attempt, as they called it. Never before had a spark-spitting motor been hung under a great reservoir of highly inflammable hydrogen gas, and most of the group thought the daring inventor would never see another sunset. Santos-Dumont moved around his suspended air-ship, testing a cord here and a connection there, for he well knew that his life might depend on such a small thing as a length of twine or a slender rod. At one side of a small open space on the outskirts of Paris the long, yellow balloon tugged at its fastenings, while the navigator made his final round to see that all was well. A twist of a strap around the driving-wheel set the motor going, and a moment later Santos-Dumont was standing in his basket, giving the signal to release the air-ship. It rose heavily, and travelling with the fresh wind, the propellers whirling swiftly, it crashed into the trees at the other side of the enclosure. The aeronaut had, against his better judgment, gone with the wind rather than against it, so the power of the propeller was added to the force of the breeze, and the trees were encountered before the ship could rise sufficiently to clear them. The damage was repaired, and two days later, September 20, 1898, the Brazilian started again from the same enclosure, but this time against the wind. The propeller whirled merrily, the explosions of the little motor snapped sharply as the great yellow bulk and the tiny basket with its human freight, the captain of the craft, rose slowly in the air. Santos-Dumont stood quietly in his basket, his hand on the controlling cords of the great rudder on the end of the balloon; near at hand was a bag of loose sand, while small bags of ballast were packed around his feet. Steadily she rose and began to move against the wind with the slow grace of a great bird, while the little man in the basket steered right or left, up or down, as he willed. He turned his rudder for the lateral movements, and changed his shifting bags of ballast hanging fore and aft, pulling in the after bag when he wished to point her nose down, and doing likewise with the forward ballast when he wished to ascend—the propeller pushing up or down as she was pointed. For the first time a man had actual control of an air-ship that carried him. He commanded it as a captain governs his ship, and it obeyed as a vessel answers its helm.
A quarter of a mile above the heads of the pygmy crowd who watched him the little South American maneuvered his air-ship, turning circles and figure eights with and against the breeze, too busy with his rudder, his vibrating little engine, his shifting bags of ballast, and the great palpitating bag of yellow silk above him, to think of his triumph, though he could still hear faintly the shouts of his friends on earth. For a time all went well and he felt the exhilaration that no earth-travelling can ever give, as he experienced somewhat of the freedom that the birds must know when they soar through the air unfettered. As he descended to a lower, denser atmosphere he felt rather than saw that something was wrong—that there was a lack of buoyancy to his craft. The engine kept on with its rapid "phut, phut, phut" steadily, but the air-ship was sinking much more rapidly than it should. Looking up, the aeronaut saw that his long gas-bag was beginning to crease in the middle and was getting flabby, the cords from the ends of the long balloon were beginning to sag, and threatened to catch in the propeller. The earth seemed to be leaping up toward him and destruction stared him in the face. A hand air-pump was provided to fill an air balloon inside the larger one and so make up for the compression of the hydrogen gas caused by the denser, lower atmosphere. He started this pump, but it proved too small, and as the gas was compressed more and more, and the flabbiness of the balloon increased, the whole thing became unmanageable. The great ship dropped and dropped through the air, while the aeronaut, no longer in control of his ship, but controlled by it, worked at the pump and threw out ballast in a vain endeavour to escape the inevitable. He was descending directly over the greensward in the centre of the Longchamps race-course, when he caught sight of some boys flying kites in the open space. He shouted to them to take hold of his trailing guide-rope and run with it against the wind. They understood at once and as instantly obeyed. The wind had the same effect on the air-ship as it has on a kite when one runs with it, and the speed of the fall was checked. Man and air-ship landed with a thud that smashed almost everything but the man. The smart boys that had saved Santos-Dumont's life helped him pack what was left of "Santos-Dumont No. 1" into its basket, and a cab took inventor and invention back to Paris.
In spite of the narrow escape and the discouraging ending of his first flight, Santos-Dumont launched his second air-ship the following May. Number 2 was slightly larger than the first, and the fault that was dangerous in it was corrected, its inventor thought, by a ventilator connecting the inner bag with the outer air, which was designed to compensate for the contraction of the gas and keep the skin of the balloon taut. But No. 2 doubled up as had No. 1, while she was still held captive by a line; falling into a tree hurt the balloon, but the aeronaut escaped unscratched. Santos-Dumont, in spite of his quiet ways and almost effeminate speech, his diminutive body, and wealth that permitted him to enjoy every luxury, persisted in his work with rare courage and determination. The difficulties were great and the available information meager to the last degree. The young inventor had to experiment and find out for himself the obstacles to success and then invent ways to surmount them. He had need of ample wealth, for the building of air-ships was expensive business. The balloons were made of the finest, lightest Japanese silk, carefully prepared and still more vigorously tested. They were made by the most famous of the world's balloon-makers, Lachambre, and required the spending of money unstintedly. The motors cost according to their lightness rather than their weight, and all the materials, cordage, metal-work, etc., were expensive for the same reason. The cost of the hydrogen gas was very great also, at twenty cents per cubic meter (thirty-five cubic feet); and as at each ascension all the gas was usually lost, the expense of each sail in the air for gas alone amounted to from $57 for the smallest ship to $122 for the largest.
Nevertheless, in November of 1899 Santos-Dumont launched another air-ship—No. 3. This one was supported by a balloon of much greater diameter, though the length remained about the same—sixty-six feet. The capacity, however, was almost three times as great as No. 1, being 17,655 cubic feet. The balloon was so much larger that the less expensive but heavier illuminating gas could be used instead of hydrogen. When the air-ship "Santos-Dumont No. 3" collapsed and dumped its navigator into the trees, Santos-Dumont's friends took it upon themselves to stop his dangerous experimenting, but he said nothing, and straightway set to work to plan a new machine. It was characteristic of the man that to him the danger, the expense, and the discouragements counted not at all.
In the afternoon of November 13, 1899, Santos-Dumont started on his first flight in No. 3. The wind was blowing hard, and for a time the great bulk of the balloon made little headway against it; 600 feet in air it hung poised almost motionless, the winglike propeller whirling rapidly. Then slowly the great balloon began nosing its way into the wind, and the plucky little man, all alone, beyond the reach of any human voice, could not tell his joy, although the feeling of triumph was strong within him. Far below him, looking like two-legged hats, so foreshortened they were from the aeronaut's point of view, were the people of Paris, while in front loomed the tall steel spire of the Eiffel Tower. To sail round that tower even as the birds float about had been the dream of the young aeronaut since his first ascension. The motor was running smoothly, the balloon skin was taut, and everything was working well; pulling the rudder slightly, Santos-Dumont headed directly for the great steel shaft.
The people who were on the Eiffel Tower that breezy afternoon saw a sight that never a man saw before. Out of the haze a yellow shape loomed larger each minute until its outlines could be distinctly seen. It was a big cigar-shaped balloon, and under it, swung by what seemed gossamer threads, was a basket in which was a man. The air-ship was going against the wind, and the man in the basket evidently had full control, for the amazed people on the tower saw the air-ship turn right and left as her navigator pulled the rudder-cords, and she rose and fell as her master regulated his shifting ballast. For twenty minutes Santos-Dumont maneuvered around the tower as a sailboat tacks around a buoy. While the people on that tall spire were still watching, the aeronaut turned his ship around and sailed off for the Longchamps race-course, the green oval of which could be just distinguished in the distance.
On the exact spot where, a little more than a year before, the same man almost lost his life and wrecked his first air-ship, No. 3 landed as softly and neatly as a bird.
Though he made many other successful flights, he discovered so many improvements that with the first small mishap he abandoned No. 3 and began on No. 4.
The balloon "Santos-Dumont No. 4" was long and slim, and had an inner air-bag to compensate for the contraction of the hydrogen gas. This air-ship had one feature that was entirely new; the aeronaut had arranged for himself, not a secure basket to stand in, but a frail, unprotected bicycle seat attached to an ordinary bicycle frame. The cranks were connected with the starting-gear of the motor.
Seated on his unguarded bicycle seat, and holding on to the handle-bars, to which were attached the rudder-cords, Santos-Dumont made voyages in the air with all the assurance of the sailor on the sea.
But No. 4 was soon too imperfect for the exacting Brazilian, and in April, 1901, he had finished No. 5. This air-cruiser was the longest of all (105 feet), and was fitted with a sixteen horse-power motor. Instead of the bicycle frame, he built a triangular keel of pine strips and strengthened it with tightly strung piano wires, the whole frame, though sixty feet long, weighing but 110 pounds. Hung between the rods, being suspended by piano wires as in a spider-web, was the motor, basket, and propeller-shaft.
The last-named air-ship was built, if not expressly at least with the intention of trying for the Deutsch Prize of 100,000 francs. This was a big undertaking, and many people thought it would never be accomplished; the successful aeronaut had to travel more than three miles in one direction, round the Eiffel Tower as a racing yacht rounds a stake-boat, and return to the starting point, all within thirty minutes—i.e., almost seven miles in two directions in half an hour.
The new machine worked well, though at one time the aerial navigator's friends thought that they would have to pick him up in pieces and carry him home in a basket. This incident occurred during one of the first flights in No. 5. Everything was going smoothly, and the air-ship circled like a hawk, when the spectators, who were craning their necks to see, noticed that something was wrong; the motor slowed down, the propeller spun less swiftly, and the whole fabric began to sink toward the ground. While the people gazed, their hearts in their mouths, they saw Santos-Dumont scramble out of his basket and crawl out on the framework, while the balloon swayed in the air. He calmly knotted the cord that had parted and crept back to his place, as unconcernedly as if he were on solid ground.
It was in August of 1901 that he made his first official trial for the Deutsch Prize. The start was perfect, and the machine swooped toward the distant tower straight as a crow flies and almost as fast. The first half of the distance was covered in nine minutes, so twenty-one minutes remained for the balance of the journey: success seemed assured; the prize was almost within the grasp of the aeronaut. Of a sudden assured success was changed to dire peril; the automatic valves began to leak, the balloon to sag, the cords supporting the wooden keel hung low, and before Santos-Dumont could stop the motor the propeller had cut them and the whole system was threatened. The wind was drifting the air-ship toward the Eiffel Tower; the navigator had lost control; 500 feet below were the roofs of the Trocadero Hotels; he had to decide which was the least dangerous; there was but a moment to think. Santos-Dumont, death staring him in the face, chose the roofs. A swift jerk of a cord, and a big slit was made in the balloon. Instantly man, motor, gas-bag, and keel went tumbling down straight into the court of the hotels. The great balloon burst with a noise like an explosion, and the man was lost in a confusion of yellow-silk covering, cords, and wires. When the firemen reached the place and put down their long ladders they found him standing calmly in his wicker basket, entirely unhurt. The long, staunch keel, resting by its ends on the walls of the court, prevented him from being dashed to pieces. And so ended No. 5.
Most men would have given up aerial navigation after such an experience, but Santos-Dumont could not be deterred from continuing his experiments. The night of the very day which witnessed his fearful fall and the destruction of No. 5 he ordered a new balloon for "Santos-Dumont No. 6." It showed the pluck and determination of the man as nothing else could.
Twenty-two days after the aeronaut's narrow escape his new air-ship was finished and ready for a flight. No. 6 was practically the same as its predecessor—the triangular keel was retained, but an eighteen horse-power gasoline motor was substituted for the sixteen horse-power used previously. The propeller, made of silk stretched over a bamboo frame, was hung at the after end of the keel; the motor was a little aft of the centre, while the basket to which led the steering-gear, the emergency valve to the balloon, and the motor-controlling gear was suspended farther forward. To control the upward or downward pointing of the new air-ship, shifting ballast was used which ran along a wire under the keel from one end to the other; the cords controlling this ran to the basket also.
The new air-ship worked well, and the experimental flights were successful with one exception—when the balloon came in contact with a tree.
It was in October, 1901 (the 19th), when the Deutsch Prize Committee was asked to meet again and see a man try to drive a balloon against the wind, round the Eiffel Tower, and return.
The start took place at 2:42 P.M. of October 19, 1901, with a beam wind blowing. Straight as a bullet the air-ship sped for the steel shaft of the tower, rising as she flew. On and on she sped, while the spectators, remembering the finish of the last trial, watched almost breathlessly. With the air of a cup-racer turning the stake-boat she rounded the steel spire, a run of three and three-fifth miles, in nine minutes (at the rate of more than twenty-two miles an hour), and started on the home-stretch.
For a few moments all went well, then those who watched were horrified to see the propeller slow down and nearly stop, while the wind carried the air-ship toward the Tower. Just in time the motor was speeded up and the course was resumed. As the group of men watched the speck grow larger and larger until things began to take definite shape, the white blur of the whirling propeller could be seen and the small figure in the basket could be at last distinguished. Again the motor failed, the speed slackened, and the ship began to sink. Santos-Dumont threw out enough ballast to recover his equilibrium and adjusted the motor. With but three minutes left and some distance to go, the great dirigible balloon got up speed and rushed for the goal. At eleven and a half minutes past three, twenty-nine minutes and thirty-one seconds after starting, Santos-Dumont crossed the line, the winner of the Deutsch Prize. And so the young Brazilian accomplished that which had been declared impossible.
The following winter the aerial navigator, in the same No. 5, sailed many times over the waters of the Mediterranean from Monte Carlo. These flights over the water, against, athwart, and with the wind, some of them faster than the attending steamboats could travel, continued until through careless inflation of the balloon the air-ship and navigator sank into the sea. Santos-Dumont was rescued without being harmed in the least, and the air-ship was preserved intact, to be exhibited later to American sightseers.
"Santos-Dumont No. 6," the most successful of the series built by the determined Brazilian, looks as if it were altogether too frail to intrust with the carrying of a human being. The 105-foot-long balloon, a light yellow in colour, sways and undulates with every passing breeze. The steel piano wires by which the keel and apparatus are hung to the balloon skin are like spider-webs in lightness and delicacy, and the motor that has the strength of eighteen horses is hardly bigger than a barrel. A little forward of the motor is suspended to the keel the cigar-shaped gasoline reservoir, and strung along the top rod are the batteries which furnish the current to make the sparks for the purpose of exploding the gas in the motor.
Santos-Dumont himself says that the world is still a long way from practical, everyday aerial navigation, but he points out the apparent fact that the dirigible balloon in the hands of determined men will practically put a stop to war. Henri Rochefort has said: "The day when it is established that a man can direct an air-ship in a given direction and cause it to maneuver as he wills—there will remain little for the nations to do but to lay down their arms."
The man who has done so much toward the abolishing of war can rest well content with his work. | 2019-04-24T20:18:05Z | http://shortstories.ucgreat.com/read/006/011/951.htm |
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Stonewall Kitchen Spicy Corn Relish. Company Classic. Creators of specialty foods. This traditional yet spicy corn relish is the perfect complement to grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, fish or chicken. Wonderful served with crispy tortilla chips and burritos. Creating award-winning specialty foods Since 1991. 800-207-JAMS. stonewallkitchen.com.
Woodstock® Organic Kosher Dill Pickle Spears. Deli style! Eat because it's good! USDA Organic. Non GMO project. Verified. nongmoproject.org. Save the land. Proud supporter of American Farmland Trust. Learn more and get to know us at woodstock-foods.com. Member Organic Trade Association. Eat because it's Good®! Please recycle. Certified organic by QAI. Quality Assurance International. Certified organic. ©2014 Woodstock.
Hot & spicy. Made with all natural ingredients. www.delallo.com. All natural. No sulfites. Hot & Tangy Antipasto: A spicy Southern Italian staple, these remarkable chilies are bold and fiery while boasting a tremendous pepper flavor. Their natural heat and bright vinegary bite are an irresistible accent to pizzas, pasta dishes, sandwiches and more. Red Hot Ideas for Chilies: Amp up homemade pasta sauces, salsas, dips and spreads. Spice up roasted and grilled seafood dishes. Top salads, pizzas and flatbreads. Bring the heat to breakfast omelets, frittatas and home fries. See lid for more creative recipe ideas. Produced & packed in Italy. Made in Italy.
Roland Specialty Foods. Visit us at www.rolandfood.com.
Super select. Since 1950. The crisp fresh flavors and quality of DeLallo super select peppers and Giardiniera have been a family tradition since 1950. Create beautiful antipasti, top a sandwich or serve as an appetizer for a tasteful tradition in your home.
Delallo® Mild Super Select Giardiniera. Since 1950. Mild premium quality. The crisp fresh flavors and quality of Delallo super select peppers and giardiniera have been a family tradition since 1950. Create beautiful antipasti, top a sandwich or serve as an appetizer for a tasteful tradition in your home. 1-800-433-9100. www.delallo.com.
Creators of specialty foods. A flashback to the relish you loved as a kid, only better. This sweet pickle relish is great added to your favorite deviled egg recipe, mixed into a creamy salad dressing and of course on a hot dog! - Jonathan King, Jim Stott. Stonewallkitchen.com. Made in USA.
Creators of specialty foods. The kick of heat in this zesty relish comes from red cherry peppers. The mild onions and red bell peppers balance the flavors perfectly. Ideal for topping grilled burgers or any sandwich. - Jonathan King, Jim Stott. Proud to create the most award-winning specialty foods. Est. 1991. Stonewallkitchen.com.
Patak's® Chile Relish. Hot. Tastes of India. Original. An authentic Indian recipe. Extra hot pickled green chiles. Net wt 10 oz (283g). Indian relishes are preparations of exotic fruits or vegetables cooked in preserving agents such as sugar, salt, oil and vinegar, and finally blended with spices. They are savory in taste and are traditionally served with Indian breads or as a main meal accompaniment. Gluten free. Suitable for vegetarians. Free from artificial colors and flavors. Questions or comments call: 1 800 726 3648. www.pataks.com.
Since 1950. Italian. All natural. www.delallo.com. No artificial colors or dyes. The Castelvetrano olive, also known as Nocellara del Belice, is grown exclusively in and around the town of Castelvetrano, Sicily. These all-natural green olives are famous for their irresistible buttery-sweet flavor and crisp, meaty texture. Perfectly paired with dry cured salumi and sharp Italian cheeses. Product of Italy.
Pearls® Simply Olives™ Pitted California Olives Green Ripe Medium. Mild buttery taste! Sea salt. Fun at your fingertips!® Our delightful olives are hand-picked and "fresh cured" with only sea salt and water-no artificial preservatives. This simple process celebrates the olives' natural green color and freckled variations letting their delicious, mild, buttery flavor shine through. Nothing like the tart green pimiento stuffed martini olive. So enjoy and have fun! Contains no major food allergen ingredients. Gluten-free. Non-GMO Project Verified. nongmoproject.org. Please recycle. Guaranteed quality. Please provide code from can end with product correspondence. The "Hand With Olives Symbol", fun at your fingertips, and pearls are trademarks of Musco Family Olive Co.™ Call: 866-9-OLIVES (toll-free), weekdays 8-5 PT. www.olives.com. © 2016.
Premium. Perfect for sandwiches. Fresh. grillospickles.com. Gluten free. Certified kosher. Fat free.
Kuhne Kosher Barrel Pickles Garlic. Hand picked. Fresh picked. No preservatives. German quality since 1722. Finest taste is our tradition. Net 34.2 fl. oz. (1062 ml). USA: Grade A Gherkins from contracted farmers. Same quality - Same recipe. In case of inquires please indicate batch no. from lid. Visit: www.kuehne-international.com.
Brooklyn Brine Co™ Damn Spicy Pickles. EST. 2009. www.brooklynbrine.com.
5 servings. Here is our sun-dried tomato pesto, our best kept secret! Explore! Serve as an hors d'oeuvre, spread it on crackers or try it with cheese! Grand products simply done! maisonlegrand.com. Recyclable where facilities exist. Product of Canada.
Extra hot pickled lime. An authentic Indian recipe. Tastes of India. Indian relishes are preparations of exotic fruits or vegetables cooked in preserving agents such as sugar, salt, oil and vinegar, and finally blended with spices. They are savory in taste and are traditionally served with Indian breads or as a main meal accompaniment. Gluten free. Free from artificial colors and flavor. Suitable for vegetarians. Product of the United Kingdom.
Premium. All natural family recipe. Made fresh. I grew up in a strict Italian-style family with a backyard garden in Norwich, Connecticut. During the summertime we ate from the garden every night. These pickles were a traditional favorite made with our fresh cucumbers, garlic, dill, and grape leaves. - Travis Grillo, Grillo's Pickles. Only natural ingredients. Only 5 calories. Gluten free. Certified kosher. grillospickles.com.
Roland Green Peppercorns - Vinegar - 3.75 oz.
Creators of specialty foods. All natural. We're told cranberry relish was first served to the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. A symbol of peace; cranberries are one of three berries native to American soil. This traditional relish was created for your modern day Thanksgiving and after-feast turkey sandwich. - Jonathan King, Jim Stott. Stonewallkitchen.com.
Mezzetta® Brand Deli-Sliced Hot Cherry Peppers. Don't Forgetta Mazzetta! In the Napa Valley. Family owned since 1935. Please recycle. Gluten-free. Vegan. Cholesterol free. Kosher. I just love the color, flavor and crispiness of these peppers with a homemade pizza or Philly cheesesteak sandwich. When I share them with friends, they get hooked on them, too. At Mezzetta, we believe in sharing joy. We pour our hearts into what we do so we can share the best of the world in all its richness and color. I hope sharing these cherry peppers with your loved ones adds a little more joy to your day. Share the joy! -Jeff Mezzetta. Wonder what else you can do with these delicious cherry peppers Visit mezzetta.com for tips and recipes.
Extra hot pickled mango, lime, chile & carrot. Tastes of India. An authentic Indian recipe. Indian relishes are preparations of exotic fruits or vegetables cooked in preserving agents such as sugar, salt, oil and vinegar, and finally blended with spices. They are savory in taste and are traditionally served with Indian breads or as a main meal accompaniment. Gluten free. Suitable for vegetarians. Free from artificial colors and flavors. Visit: www.pataksusa.com. Product of the United Kingdom.
Giuliano Specialty Zesty Kosher Dill Pickles. Premium quality. Since 1959. Fresh pack. World's finest. Giuliano specialty pickles are a unique substitute for the same ol' boring pickles. Perfect on all your favorite sandwiches, hamburgers, hot dogs, and salads. These cucumbers are "fresh packed" for the best quality! www.giulianopeppers.com.
Bell-View® Select Old Fashioned Fancy Sweet Relish. Quality since 1930. Bell-View® Brand. Since 1930. www.bellview.com.
Bell-View® Select Old Fashioned Fancy Sweet Pickles. Quality since 1930. Bell-View® Brand. www.bellview.com.
Bubbies® Pickled Green Tomatoes. No sugar. Natural ingredients. No sugar, vinegar or preservatives! Get lucky with Bubbies pickled green tomatoes. Because they are gluten-free, full of live cultures and absolutely delicious. For more information go to www.bubbies.com. It's the cloudy brine that makes it "Bubbies". Bubbies® of San Francisco, Inc. "Bubbies" traditional cloudy brine contains no vinegar ...only natural ingredients are used to preserve our pure kosher taste. No preservatives. Non-GMO project. Verified. Nongmoproject.org. www.bubbies.com.
Since 1916. Fresh refrigerated. Guilt free! Calories 5. Fat 0 g.
Grillo's Pickles® Bread & Butter Chips. Premium. Sweet. Fresh. 16 fl oz (1 pt) 473 ml. Fat free. Gluten free. #Worldsbestpickle. Pat. No. US D448,291. Visit: www.grillospickles.com.
Premium. Since 1706. 5 calories per 1 tbsp. Cross & Blackwell presents perfectly sized, pearly white cocktail onions that are deliciously crisp and tart, with a delicate onion flavor! Made from the tender silver skin variety, these premium imported onions are preserved in fine wine vinegar to guarantee the peak of flavor. Call toll free 1-888-643-7219 with questions or comments. For recipes & seasonal ideas visit us at www.crosseandblackwell.com. Imported from Spain. Product of Spain.
No artificial flavors or preservatives. No colors from artificial sources. No high fructose corn syrup. Crunchy! Gluten free. Made with sea salt. GMO free cucumbers. Questions or comments? 1-800-421-3265. www.vlasic.com. Please recycle. Fresh packed in the USA.
Pastene® Roasted Peppers. Imported since 1874. Pastene Pure. Chef's Choice™. Our Roasted Peppers are "Fire Roasted" to remove the peel, bringing out their naturally sweet flavor. Our peppers are delicious on sandwiches, antipasto, and in many recipes found at www.pastene.com. Our web site is filled with valuable product and nutritional information. Visit us at www.pastene.com.
Bell-View® Dill Fancy Old Fashioned Kosher Midgets. Quality since 1930. Fresh pack. Bell-View® Brand. www.bellview.com.
Dr. Wt. 12 oz (340 g). Imported. No trans fat. No cholesterol. For a healthful snack or meal starter, toss these tender smoky peppers with olive oil and fresh minced garlic and marinate for an hour. Or make any sandwich special by using them as a delicious topper. Krinos Peppers are better tasting because they are always 100% natural. No preservatives. No artificial ingredients. Free: Krinos Greek Gourmet Cookbook. Send name, address, phone number to: Krinos Foods, LLC, Dept. 109, 47-00 Northern Blvd. LIC, NY 11101, with $2.99 check or money order for shipping and handling. www.krinos.com.
Bell-View® Sweet Chips Fancy Candied. Quality Since 1930. Old Fashioned. 16 Fl Oz (1 Pt) 473 ml. Gluten free. www.bellview.com.
Premium. Fresh. I grew up in a strict Italian-style family with a backyard garden in Norwich, Connecticut. During the summertime we ate from the garden every night. These pickles were a traditional favorite made with our fresh cucumbers, garlic, dill and grape leaves. - Travis Grillo, Grillo's Pickles. Only 5 calories. Gluten free. Certified kosher. Raw. Fat free. Vegan. grillospickles.com. All natural family recipe. Made fresh.
Since 1897. 110 calories per 1/4 cup. Purely the finest. A sweet and heat sensation. Experience the fusion of garden-fresh flavors in one of our most popular gourmet specialties. The sweet-heat sensations of red bell and jalapeo peppers are married with onions and tomatoes for a zesty medley. Delicious on sandwiches, roasted meats, in recipes and more. www.dickinsonsfamily.com.
Creators of specialty foods. Gluten free. Non GMO. It's crunchy, zesty, and the tastiest all-in-one condiment you've ever tried. Made with crisp cucumbers, flavorful green and red bell peppers, yellow and green zucchini, onion, tangy mustard and spices, it's super on sandwiches and of course, hot dogs. Creating award-winning specialty foods since 1991. Stonewallkitchen.com. Made in USA.
With olive oil. Creamy garbanzo bean dip. Gluten free. No preservatives. No cholesterol. All natural. www.wildgarden.biz. Make everyday a party! Tasty Wild Garden Hummus Dip is a perfect topping for chips, pita bread, or spread on your favorite sandwich. An all natural, healthy alternative that will satisfy even the most discriminating vegetarian. Add garlic, lemon or olive oil taste. www.wildgardenhummus.com. Product of Jordan.
Zesty relish with dill. No cholesterol. Gluten free. No fat. Low sodium. Totally pickled since 2004. All natural. Hot dog. It's a great topper. Pair and share with cheese. Made in season with vegetables from local farmers. For gift ideas, recipes and more: rickspicknyc.com.
Less than 1/2 g carbs. All natural. Dairy-free. Cholesterol-free. Product of Israel.
Miss Jenny's® Signature Salt & Pepper Pickles. A modern day pickle with an old fashioned taste! All natural. Gluten-free. Old Orchard Foods, LLC. www.missjennyspickles.com. 336.978.0041.
All natural. Classic Italian pantry staple. Recipe ready. Since 1950. No MSG. Convenient, essential & ready to use. Add a new dimension of flavor to your kitchen creations with Italy's secret ingredient. DeLallo Anchovy Paste is crafted simply with anchovies and salt, ready to bring a burst of savory, salty goodness to your favorite recipes. An all-natural Italian pantry staple, this ready-to-use ingredient is perfect for layering flavors and adding a rich depth. DeLallo Anchovy Paste is super concentrated, so a little goes a long way. With just a spoonful you can add complexity to a variety of dishes. Pasta & pizza sauces. Dressings & marinades. Anchovy butter for steaks & roasted vegetables. Flavorful dipping oil for crusty Italian bread. Pizza & flatbread topping. www.delalllo.com. Produced & packed in Italy. Made in Italy.
Delallo® Super Select Hot Cherry Peppers. Since 1950. Premium hot quality. The crisp fresh flavors and quality of Delallo super select peppers and giardiniera have been a family tradition since 1950. Create beautiful antipasti, top a sandwich or serve as an appetizer for a tasteful tradition in your home. | 2019-04-20T20:51:29Z | https://www.foodtown.com/shopping?department_id=203 |
When Jesus began His ministry, at the age of 30, after 40 days of fasting, He returned “to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread throughout the whole surrounding region. And He began teaching in their assembly halls and was praised by all” Luke 4:14-16. His popularity was spreading like wildfire, because they were excited about somebody fasting that long; surely there would be a significant revelation. He went to His home town of Nazareth, which was similar to today’s White Nationalists (who give lip service to the Creator of our race, but do not serve Him), and had the expectation of a warlike Messiah delivering them from Rome. Some of the locals remembered the birth of Christ as something scandalous; as Mary claimed to have been miraculously impregnated by the Holy Spirit.
On one of these occasions where Jesus spoke to the assembled, we read the account in Luke 4 where He stood up to read from Isaiah 61:1-2, “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the assembly were fixed on Him” Luke 4:16-20. A miracle, to give sight to the blind, is it not? Or hearing to the deaf? But that’s not what they wanted to hear. Although the clause “He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted” in Isaiah 61:1 is inspired, all of the Greek texts omit this passage in Luke (even though the KJV has added it).
Christ was reading about Himself; He not only came to heal the blind, but to open the eyes of those who were spiritually blind as well. God told Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord” Ex. 4:11. Israel has always had this blind side.
The prophet Isaiah wrote, “Who is blind, but My servant? or deaf, as My messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant? You have seen many things, but you do not obey. Though his ears are open, he does not listen” Is. 42:19. What the residents of Nazareth wanted to hear is what Jesus omitted from reading in Isaiah. He left out the part about “the day of vengeance of our God” (Is. 61:2). This is connected to “proclaiming liberty to the captives”; not only those who still had the residue of Babylonian thinking in Judea, but the future Babylon of John’s Revelation; what we are living in now! Our own Liberty Bell proclaims Leviticus 25:10. The day of vengeance is a time when our Kinsman Redeemer, who is an “avenger of blood,” will come and remove the lawlessness from the land. Which is why Paul gives us the advice to, “avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” Romans 12:19-21.
This, of course, is talking about our kindred, not the enemies of God like jews or racial aliens. It gets a little complicated with tares and those who say they’re Israel, but are not. I used to think that being nice to adversarial brethren would incinerate their mentality, but I discovered that in ancient times, coals were essential for cooking their food and sometimes it would go out; so the neighborly thing to do would be to give them some coals to restart it; they would carry things in ceramic pots on their head, hence heaping coals on his head. I was not thinking as a Christian or as Christ, by having the wrong motive. God’s wrath towards us is His remedial passion for correction, not anger or retaliation as man exhibits. God’s idea of vengeance is to send the Holy Spirit in order to comfort us and He does that, strangely enough, with the baptism of fire. “Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with fire that is not extinguished” Mt. 3:12. Our chaff, that is. The wheat and the chaff are an analogy of righteousness and unrighteousness. The parable of the wheat and the tares, on the other hand, is the difference between Israel and non-Israel; all of the noxious weeds will be gathered and burned in a furnace; “then shall the righteous shine forth” Mt. 13:43. After 9/11 we saw all these bumper stickers that said, “God bless America.” Really? In order for God to bless us, He first has to do that by burning all the impurities from our body, mind and spirit. Consequently, we have been under divine judgment for the last 12 years.
What a miracle it is to be baptized by the fire or judgment of God to consume all that is carnal in us. Therefore, to “comfort all who mourn” (Isaiah 61:2) is to “bind up the brokenhearted.” That is the great work of the Holy Spirit which Jesus sent after His ascension, sometimes known as ‘the Comforter.’ In fact, He said, “If I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you” John 16:7. During His mission on earth, He was preparing us for the second work as depicted (if you recall) in the 12th sign of the Zodiac, the Lion of Judah trodding under foot the serpent, the great adversary of our race. The fearful think there is nothing to bring down Babylon, because their hearts fail them (Luke 21:26), but the miracle will be that it does fall and it will all the greater of a miracle for those who think it impossible. The main work in the first advent of Christ was to open the blind eyes of our people in preparation for His second advent. Therefore, do we believe that God will deliver the White race from the antichrists? I do.
The mission of Jesus was prophesied in Isaiah 61:1-2, but interpreted Isaiah’s “to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners,” to mean a “release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.” Blindness is likened to a prison. Jesus saw us imprisoned in our hearts. We are released from our captivity when we have eyes to see the truth. Jesus had a shocker for the Nazarenes when He began to teach them about their own blindness and they didn’t like that one bit. Just like today where people don’t want to know the error of their ways. I sometimes have to laugh when I get irate emails from self-righteous judeos telling me I’m a racist and that I’m leading people away from Christ; not a single one of them has ever proven that racism is a sin let alone unbiblical. The Good News of the Gospels was that He did not come to destroy all of the perceived enemies of the tribe of Judah or their plans to enslave anyone outside their land, including people who were of the same race as them. Christ came to deliver all White people from the power of sin and the resulting beast systems of government. “And Jesus said to them, "No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well'" Luke 4:23. Evidently, somebody asked Jesus if He could do any miracles of healing, as He had done outside of Galilee, to prove His teachings. But Jesus knew He would be rejected in His home town, not because of His growing reputation or notoriety, but because they could not accept the racial message that challenged their hyper-nationalism. “But I have other sheep which were not from this fold; I must also bring them. They also will hear My voice, and the entire fold shall be one, and One Shepherd” John 10:16.
Conversely, today’s White Nationalism accepts just about any belief system except the one that will deliver them; to be “unequally yoked together” with pagans, cosmotheists, catholics and atheists. More blindness that refuses a Kinsman Redeemer. David Duke won’t advocate Christian Identity, because it interferes with his bottom line. Ignorance is bliss. Do you think this lends itself to a prolonged captivity in ZOG? “Jesus said, ‘I assure you, no prophet is accepted in His own country” Luke 4:24. The mission of the prophet was not only foretelling the future, but correcting the wrong ideas about God and His plan for the ages, that usually went against the local teachings of the priestcraft; today it is the state-sanctioned 501c3 religious establishment. Christian Identity faces a similar dilemma bringing the racial message to a spiritually deaf and blind kin; we no longer predict the future, but we identify the nature and business of God. When you think about turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, it’s going to take a miracle. If we do not seek that miracle, the Lord said He would, “Come and smite the earth with a curse” Malachi 4:6. That’s the last sentence in the Old Testament. A curse is something that is going in the opposite direction of a miracle. If we are to reverse the current trend, what shall we do?
The message of Christ was clear: He saw all of His kinsmen as victims of injustice, laboring as slaves to a beast system. It is our race that is in need of a Savior. And then He proposed the dynamics of a simple promise: “The truth shall make you free” John 8:32. This was also the dynamics of a simple miracle: that salvation is by Him alone. Paul was afraid the Corinthians might be corrupted “just as the serpent deceived Eve by its subtlety, so that your minds also may be led astray from the simplicity that is in Christ” II Cor. 11:3. Paul contemplated the possibility of future defections much like those who left Jesus, but for reasons of crafty wickedness from false prophets who would load up salvation with jewish fables and lies.
Jesus was not merely a Messiah, but “the God of all the earth” (Isaiah 54:5). The day of vengeance, then, was not fire coming down from heaven to destroy the Romans, but rather the baptism of fire to reconcile our sins and the injustice of the world. The town folks got pretty riled up over that one. “And they in the assembly hall had all become filled with anger hearing these things. And rising up, they cast Him out of the city and brought Him unto a brow of the mountain upon which their city was built so as to throw Him down” Luke 4:28-29 CNT. They came close to killing Him for blasphemy (allegedly), for identifying their problem that God’s Law was to be impartially applied to all White people, not just Nazarenes. Jesus miraculously walked right through them escaping execution and never returned to Nazareth. We can walk through the mob also. Democracy was first called mobocracy i.e. rule of the mob. The world is not safe from democracy. We are not conformed to the world; we are transformed by renewing our mind to the miracles of Christ.
He moved to Capernaum where He was well received. His ministry began at about the same time of John’s arrest. Even though His 3 year ministry had not yet commenced prior to the arrest of John, saying, “Mine hour is not yet come” (John 2:4) on the occasion of being invited to the marriage at Cana, nevertheless performed His first miracle of turning water into wine (John 2:11). If we reconstruct the time between His fast and the execution of John in April, then it’s likely that John was arrested right after the fast, but not before Cana. Some speculate that the wedding was in December which would put John’s arrest around January or February. We can glean from Luke that He was ministering in Galilee before teaching in Nazareth and had done some miracles. Most likely the Nazarenes had heard about the miracle in Cana, so He may have been teaching right after the wedding. But, He was restrained; for John was still preparing the way for Him; although prison prevented John from preaching the Kingdom; so Jesus picked up the slack and at about the same time started to gather His Disciples. John was executed at the time of Passover, the same time that Jesus would be crucified three years later. The Disciples buried John and reported his death to Christ. “Now when Jesus heard it, He withdrew from there in a boat” (Mt. 14:13) crossing the Sea of Galilee. A multitude of people followed Him and this is when the miracle event of feeding the 5000 with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish happened. This dates the execution of John, who was the high priest in those days and marks the transition of Jesus, his nearest relative (cousin), to the office, which enabled Him to do the work of the high priest on the Cross, as well as establishing the new priestly order of Melchisedec, replacing the old Levitical order.
“Then Jesus went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and began teaching the people on Sabbath days. The people were amazed at His teachings because He spoke with authority” Luke 4:31-32. He spoke with authority because He communicated with the power of the Spirit. When He healed people and got rid of disease (the archaic expression was ‘casting out demons,’ because they had no medical terms in those days and sick people were thus labeled by superstitions), they were healed immediately. It wasn’t like the modern junk theatrics of televangelists playing smoke and mirrors and being coached from behind the scenes. “And amazement came upon them all, and they began talking with one another saying, "What is this message? For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits and they come out" Luke 4:36. They wanted to know what kind of doctrine attends such powerful miracles. Well, Jesus received witness from heaven at His baptism, whereby “The Holy Spirit descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, You are My beloved Son; in you I am well pleased” Luke 3:22. This must have sealed the deal for John the Baptist and others witnessing the spirit of purity and innocence as symbolized in the dove. “And the fame of Him went out into every place of the country round about” Luke 4:37.
When Jesus healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, who was suffering from a terrible fever, He came to her bedside as a doctor might visit a patient and most translations say “He rebuked the fever, and it left her” Luke 4:39 KJV; other versions say He commanded, He ordered or He censored the fever, and she immediately got up perfectly restored to health. Jesus had authority over sickness. His miracles were the talk of the town; it was very exciting and the people wanted Him to stay, but Jesus withdrew, probably to pray and meditate upon the will of the Father and so He told the people that He had to move on to other cities to teach the Kingdom of God. “After these things Jesus was walking in Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him” John 7:1. As time passed, many became more hostile towards Him. Maybe for the same reasons as the Nazarenes; they didn’t like the truth He was espousing. Even His followers were falling by the wayside. “Because of what Jesus said, many from among His disciples [students] quit following Him and no longer walked with Him” John 6:66. I think that’s very similar to the parable of the sower; some of the seeds were devoured by fowls (i.e. the wicked), some fell on stony ground (i.e. hardened hearts), some fell among thorns and were choked (i.e. mongrelization or universalism); but some of the seed fell on fertile ground and became fruitful (i.e. our people being convicted of their sins and repenting and thus following Christ. The 12 Disciples remained loyal; albeit one was to be a betrayer. The unfruitful seed left Him because of His explanation about the miracle of feeding the 5000 in the last half of John 6. Most people are unaware of miracles having meaning and being more than just supernatural acts, but acting as signs, giving us a spiritual and prophetic understanding of the nature of God and His plan for the ages. Every miracle has an underlying lesson.
Put yourself in that mountainous ‘desert place’ with 5000 other people being fed by way of miracle; it was not a catered event. You’re seeing people healed of sickness. As you’re chewing on this tasty fish sandwich, it is suggested that Jesus is the true bread from heaven (John 6:50) and that we were to eat His flesh and drink His blood (John 6:53-57). Are you chewing on that one carnally or spiritually? If you’re thinking with the carnal mind, you would completely miss the point in seeing that He was the Passover Lamb; you would not digest the Law in Exodus 12:8-11, in which Israel was to eat the lamb and leave nothing left over in the morning. If you’re thinking spiritually and patiently, you would digest the marvelous sign as He was crucified as your Passover Lamb and you would accept the communion meal of the Last Supper. The carnally minded refused or were unable to receive His teaching and was a sign of things to come. The great whore of Babylon, the RCC, still doesn’t get it, turning the sacraments into a pious carnival of cannibalism. “Jesus was aware that His disciples were grumbling about this, and asked them, Does this offend you?” John 6:61. Paul suggests that they just couldn’t sink their teeth into the idea: “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Judeans a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but to those who are called, both Judeans and Greeks, The Messiah is the power of God and the wisdom of God” I Cor. 1:23-24.
As we continue reading in Luke chapter 5, the story of His ministry unfolds with another miracle-sign. Jesus gets into a boat, owned by Peter (who made his living as a fisherman) and pushes adrift from the shore and begins to preach to the crowd. Peter no doubt was handling the oars to keep the boat steady and had a front row seat to hear the sermon. Now Peter was one of those who thought Jesus should stay in Capernaum, being that he lived there and had to provide for his family. After Jesus was finished with His message to the people on shore, He told Peter to head out for deeper waters to go fishing. Peter was discouraged by the catch the previous night, but went ahead and dropped the nets as Jesus instructed. “After the men had done this, they caught so many fish that the nets began to tear” Luke 5:6. They had so much fish that the boats began to sink. The catch was so abundant that Peter had enough money to go on the road with Jesus to Judea. Peter received a sign from God, that whatever he was called to do, the Lord provides. This miracle had far greater ramifications though.
It was time for Jesus and His Disciples to launch the good news of the Kingdom in the deep waters of Judea. They would be in water that was over their heads, but didn’t Jesus walk on water… Peter too, momentarily. They would be in waters full of unclean Edomite dogfish and Pharisee sharks. The Word of God itself is compared to water, which cleanses and gives life. After the temple rituals were nailed to the Cross, they no longer baptized in water, but immersed themselves in the Gospels. What better way to train the Disciples for their Great Commission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel than by miracles? They would become fishers of men. Their lifestyles were about to take a profound change. The miracles confirmed their mission in life. They had a whole new purpose in life. “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28. Fast forward 2000 years to the present and we see the signs of miracles as relevant as ever. The revealed Word has a great impact on how we apply it to the Second Coming of Christ, dare I say it: in our own time as we live and breathe in this new year of our Lord 2014.
There may be the uncertainties of life, but that’s why we have faith to intervene, to pray intercession and to fight the good fight of spiritual warfare. Contend for the faith that was passed down to God’s holy nation; the faith of our fathers – from generation to generation. “This is what the ancients were commended for” Heb. 11:2 NIV. We devote our lives to God, but what does ‘devote’ mean? The Hebrew word is chawram (haw-rahm; Strong’s #2763) and it’s not the easiest word to translate (having a double meaning), but it meant something like “set aside” or a “devoted thing” and it could also mean “a net.” Now when Jesus gave the parable of the dragnet (in Mt. 13:47-48), they went fishing and kept the good fish and threw away the bad fish, which spoke of the wicked from the just. Just what are we to “set aside” then?
‘Chawram’ means to exterminate, to devote to destruction or set aside for destruction. These were strong words commonly used to designate people and things set aside for a religious reason. God ordered everything connected to the inhabitants of Canaan to be a divinely ordained destruction, because their contagious evil would corrupt His people Israel. Babylon, the bane of Israel, is devoted to an ultimate annihilation (Jer. 51:8). Wait a minute! If we devote our lives to God, what are we destroying? We destroy “the old man” (Romans 6:6), our carnal nature, the flesh and we become good fish caught by fishers of men. The reason for miracles is the assurance from God that the threat of destruction can be removed if we profess that Jesus Christ who came in the flesh is from God. We then become fishers of men, separating the good from the bad. And this is the progression of belief that will prepare the hearts of His people for life in the Kingdom. Not just life in the flesh, but eternal life in glorified bodies; as Adam before the Fall, as Christ after the Resurrection.
In Luke 5 the nets broke because they weren’t yet prepared for the future work, anymore than we would if we did not set aside this stupid wrestling match of flesh and blood between White Nationalists and Christian Identity (the two primary movements representing a concern for the survival of the White race), and commence to fighting spiritually the governments of man with the government of Christ. After the Disciples completed their basic training, Jesus was raised from the dead and beckoned them to again cast their nets and they did and hauled in 153 big ones and the net was not broken. They were ready to go out into the world and spread the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, giving the reason for miracles and performing miracles. After the Lord had risen from the dead, He confronted Peter one last time, who Christ prophesied would deny Him three times, but now after dining with him asked if he loved the Lord; He asked Him three times and each time Peter said yes and three times the Lord said “Feed My sheep” John 21:15-17. In other words, feed His covenant people Israel with the laws, statutes and judgments.
Matthew Henry made this commentary: “Believers may be chastened of the Lord, but will not be condemned with the world. By their union with Christ through faith, they are thus secured. What is the principle of their walk; the flesh or the Spirit, the old or the new nature, corruption or grace?... And the law, besides outward duties, requires inward obedience… By the Spirit the law of love is written upon the heart, and though the righteousness of the law is not fulfilled by us, yet, blessed be God, it is fulfilled in us; there is that in all true believers, which answers the intention of the law.” “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” Galatians 5:22-23. Are we prepared to do this work of the Holy Spirit? Having the Spirit of Christ means having the readiness to repent and be like Christ.
Jesus said, “He that believes in Me, the works that I do he shall do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” John 14:12. How many miracles will it take to lift the blindness from Israel? How many thousands will we feed with crumbs? How many will witness these miracles and still walk away from Christ? What will happen to Obamacare when the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute speak in the name and authority of Jesus Christ; when the lame are healed immediately, not by the hucksters and schemers, but by the disciples of Christ? Will they come to arrest us for curing victims of terminal cancer… of all the known diseases? Jesus didn’t have to deal with Big Pharma. Revelation 18:24, “For by thy sorceries [pharmaceuticals, drugs] were all nations deceived.” It’s been said that reality is for people who can’t handle drugs. Is it safe to say then that altered states of mind have a great deal of difficulty comprehending supernatural acts of God? And that it’s in the best interest of the cartels to keep it that way? Or verse 24 could also imply, as Marx put it, that ‘religion is the opiate of the masses.’ Wolves in sheep’s clothing pandering theological martinis.
Bringing our race out of Mystery Babylon, the matrix of the world, which is churchianity in part, is itself a miracle, considering the heavy mind control inflicted from cradle to grave. The apostate churches breed contempt for the reasons miracles happen; the stage acts are only entertainment and artificial at best. Real miracles still happen, but not like they’re going to be as we get closer to the second advent of Christ. We will not only be fishers of men, but hunters. We’ve heard of the former, but how many have heard of the latter? It’s in Jeremiah 16:16, “Behold, I will send for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall catch them; and afterward will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.” Keeping in mind that ‘devotion’ has a double meaning in not only destroying our flesh, but destroying the purveyors of flesh also.
Finally, if I may close on another note from Matthew Henry commenting on Jer. 16:16, he said, “The restoration from the Babylonish captivity would be remembered in place of the deliverance from Egypt; it also typified spiritual redemption, and the future deliverance of the church from antichristian oppression. But none of the sins of sinners can be hidden from God, or shall be overlooked by him. He will find out and raise up instruments of his wrath, that shall destroy the Jews, by fraud like fishers, by force like hunters. The prophet, rejoicing at the hope of mercy to come, addressed the Lord as his strength and refuge. The deliverance out of captivity shall be a figure of the great salvation to be wrought by the Messiah. The nations have often known the power of Jehovah in his wrath; but they shall know him as the strength of his people, and their refuge in time of trouble.” Our present day captivity is so deeply entrenched in the same kind of depravities as ancient Babylon (probably more so), that we need a miracle as great as the fire and brimstone at Sodom and Gomorrah. I saw a social commentary the other day that had a picture of two people. On the left was Paris Hilton and it said: talentless celebrity, has a net worth of $100 million dollars. And on the right was Nicola Tesla and it said: one of the most important inventors in history, died impoverished and in debt. The caption below said: because capitalism makes sure only the best and the brightest become rich and successful. Aint that the ugly truth?
Well, only miracles come from God and the rich are not high on His list for what constitutes success. From the subtle Disney refrain, “Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you’re young at heart,” we see unquestionably the largest media-entertainment conglomerate in the world. Their CEO’s must believe it. Some people call the Bible a fairy tale and accuse Jesus Christ of being a myth. However, seeing is believing for most people who have no faith, and require temporal evidence that God exists. It’s easy for me to say God exists, because I’ve seen miracles. In fact, I’ve seen thousands of things that witness to God’s handiwork and it touches my heart. Behind each and every one of them is a reason. Miracles are not benign accidents or just being lucky. By the same token, the lack of miracles, the supernatural unfulfilled in some people’s opinion, is not without reason either. I believe that we are on the precipice of great and momentous events, which some misconstrue as doom and gloom; and it may be for the merchants of the earth where weeping and wailing await them. But, things will get very dark for the faithless, and things will get much brighter for the children of Light. The largest miracle you can imagine is coming and it’s called the Second Coming. That message should leave every Christian on a positive note. The reason is because He loves you. | 2019-04-24T18:43:14Z | http://fgcp.org/content/reason-miracles |
Earlier this year, my husband and I had dinner plans with another couple in Seattle. Since we live in the suburbs, an evening in the city is a big treat for us. On the way to dinner with our friends, we all decided to stop at a wine bar for appetizers.
This spur of the moment change of plans was a big hit! We canceled our dinner reservations elsewhere and embarked on a youthful adventure of bar hopping around the city. I was eager to explore the Seattle nightlife because it reminded me of my late night tapas experiences in Spain a couple years ago.
Bastille Café & Bar, one of the hip stops on our bar hopping tour in Seattle.
At the wine bar, we started the evening with a dish of olives and a charcuterie tray (assorted cheeses and meats). To drink, I naturally ordered a glass of Spanish wine.
Before I ever stepped foot on Spanish soil in the summer of 2013, I was not a fan of olives. I would only eat them if they were buried in my food—like in nachos. And it wasn’t unusual for me to pick olives off my pizza.
My family on the other hand, were big olive eaters. I have many fond memories of my sons poking their fingers into olive holes—redefining the meaning of finger foods—and eating them like candy at the dinner table. It was a habit handed down from their father when he was young.
Real finger food, my sons, January 2001.
While living in Spain for 6 weeks, I fell in love with olives. Olives in Spain are like chips and salsa are at a Mexican restaurant in America. They often come as a free dish to start the meal. In the peak of the Spanish summer heat, the salty flavor of local olives somehow quenched my thirst.
Now olives taste so wonderful to me—the strong and almost bitter explosion in my mouth is so inviting. My new favorite—green Spanish olives stuffed with a clove of garlic. Just talking about olives makes me hungry for one now!
Even as much as I love olives, on this particular night with our friends in Seattle, it was the charcuterie tray that really got my attention. It wasn’t the customary cheese and meats that blew me away. It was the little dish of honey that accompanied the tray.
I am not a honey type of person. I don’t use it in my tea or use it to sweeten dishes. I don’t generally even like syrup. It is just too sweet for me—and not good for my low sugar diet.
I watched as our foodie friends dipped cheeses and almonds into the honey. I followed suit. Oh my word!! What an amazing taste sensation. I was hooked!
Our charcuterie tray and side of olives.
It only took a dab of honey to fill my mouth with an explosion of sweetness that seemed to carry me away. It was truly satisfying.
We hopped to two other bars for small plates and drinks over the course of the evening. It was fun to be out in the crowd with good friends.
My daily dose of honey comes in the form of the Word of God. I’ve had a major renewing of my spirit this year whereby His Word speaks to me in greater ways. He speaks to me in deeper ways. Whether it’s the Word, in times of prayer, or in quiet meditation, I have been energized by this honey that nourishes my soul. It has a sweetness that makes me want to savor it.
A single Word from the Lord is enough to turn our day or our life around. Just think how much a dedicated time of prayer and Bible reading can sweeten our attitude and dissolve our bitterness.
I recommend any of the above resources to get a dose of sweetness for your soul.
What about you? What are you doing to satisfy your sweet spot and hunger for the Word?
I can sum up 2013 in one little word, S-P-A-I-N! It changed me. It’s a part of me—past, present and future. So with that in mind, I end my year of blogging, with one final Spanish post. It is sort of a trip in review, with videos and photos that I haven’t previously shared on my blog. So I’m inviting you to join me, and a few of my friends, on a private tour of Spain.
Tourists (guests) on a private tour of Spain.
Five months to the day I left America headed for Spain, I embarked on another Spanish adventure. This time I was joined by a small group of friends who were eager to experience Spain for themselves. We didn’t physically travel to Spain, but we did all have a Spanish adventure.
Last summer I spent 42 days in Spain living with Pedro’s family—a reverse exchange program, so to speak. It was a journey three years in the making, after first hosting Pedro in our home in Seattle. Since my published story in Journeys to Mother Love included this family, my trip to Spain was avidly supported by my friends and family. So naturally I wanted to personally share my experience with them.
A table full of Spanish souvenirs.
I called this four-hour extravaganza “My Spanish Fiesta.” It was partially in celebration of my birthday, but mostly it was geared at immersing my friends and family in Spain. Together we explored the sights, sounds, and tastes of Spain.
Other notable Spanish sights for the evening were the Spanish flag hanging on the wall and a table full of souvenirs from my trip. I collected books, jewelry, clothing, hand-painted fans, ceramic pottery, religious statues and mementos, a leather purse, and much, much more.
I was good for the economy of Spain. “The economic crisis is over,” Pedro declared after seeing everything I bought.
Demonstrating the use of castanets, a familiar sound with traditional Flamenco dancing.
Most of the videos included Spanish guitar music by Narciso Yepes and Paco De Lucia, from CDs that were gifts given to me by my Spanish family a few years earlier. Two of the videos were accompanied by Pedro’s original compositions, one of which was composed while I was in Spain. When the videos weren’t playing, Spanish music was still filling our senses.
And what kind of music manager would I be if I didn’t also treat my guests to an exclusive video clip from Pedro’s first movie soundtrack, Sed de Amor (Thirst for Love). When the song “The Last Tear” played, it brought a tear to my eye, just like it did the first time I saw it at my private viewing with Pedro’s family.
Shopping for culinary treats at The Spanish Table in Seattle.
The biggest hit of the evening, and hardest part to pull off, was the food. Since I’m a novice in the kitchen, I usually defer to my good friend Stacie to make the culinary delights for my events. Using a Spanish cookbook I purchased in Madrid, we carefully chose a varied menu of tapas (small plates) to tantalize my guest’s taste buds.
My friend Stacie joined me for a successful shopping trip at The Spanish Table.
Since my husband truly is ‘el rey de la cocina’ (the king of the kitchen), especially after the recent remodel, he had a major role in the cooking as well. He made spicy gazpacho and paella to eat, and Sangria, to whet our appetites. Other tapas included Pan Amb Oli (ham, tomato, olive oil and bread), Mediterranean grilled vegetables, eggs stuffed with tuna, goat’s cheese and onion, and skewers of olives, sundried tomatoes and Spanish cheese.
Goat’s cheese with onion served on bread.
Dessert ended with an assortment of Spanish cheeses, quince spread (similar to jelly), fruit and nut breads, grapes, and chocolate turrón. It was just the light touch we needed to cleanse our palettes for the evening. Magnifico!
Fruit & nut breads with chocolate turrón.
Spanish cheeses, grapes & quince spread.
That was my fiesta in a nutshell. Imagine how it was to savor each morsel and be immersed in the sights and sounds of Spain—without the language barrier, of course. It was a lot to take in, as was my 6-week journey. There are many times that I still can’t believe I was in Spain this past summer, or that I was there for so long. It is like a dream.
Dedicating the evening with an opening prayer.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my husband for manning the fort while I was gone, and also to him and my sons who suffered through the remodel of our kitchen and two bathrooms at the same time. Of course, I am deeply indebted to my Spanish family, to whom my fiesta was dedicated.
What happened in Spain in 2013 is behind me, but that trip laid the groundwork for what lies ahead. God is aligning me with new Spanish connections and planting new visions and dreams for future trips. In the meantime, I am preparing myself internally for what God wants to do through me here or abroad, and taking one day at a time.
Thanks for joining my little tour of Spain. I hope you get the opportunity to travel there yourself someday. If you do, by all means, let me know. I’d love to compare notes.
Adiós, mi amigos. See you in 2014!
Pan Amb Oli, served with Iberian ham, a Spanish delicacy.
*Jamón Ibérico is made with an ancient breed of pig found on the Iberian Peninsula. These pigs, known as “Pata Negra,” are believed to descend from the prehistoric Mediterranean wild boar. These unique pigs are capable of storing more fat, which enables Jamón Ibérico to be cured much longer than traditional ham, resulting in an intense and complex flavor with an unparalleled note of sweetness. The nuttiness of this ‘meat butter’ comes from the pigs’ exclusive diet of acorns.
For the most part, eating is an experience in Spain. The way they approach meals is very cultural. In America, our meals are often a rushed experience. In Spain, lunch and dinner are a sit-down family experience, or one reserved for gathering with friends—especially dinner.
Americans consume vast amounts of fast food. We also use a lot of pre-packaged or prepared foods in our cooking. In Spain, the ingredients are fresh from the market. For instance with so much bread in their diet, they buy a fresh loaf almost daily. (Bread is to the Spaniard like rice is to the Chinese.) The bread comes from a bakery—no Wonder Bread, or other similar sliced and mass produced bread.
Fresh food in the local neighborhood market, Madrid.
Since olive groves are plentiful throughout the country, it is only natural that they use olive oil in so much of their cooking. The main use of olive oil in my American home is in the summer when we douse our vegetables in olive oil before grilling them on the barbeque. It is a taste sensation. In Spain, I use olive oil to fry my very American egg breakfast, to drizzle on my bread at dinner or for a vinegar and oil salad dressing.
Olive groves in the mountainous region of Andalucía, southern Spain.
The most common meat in Spain is ham. But don’t picture the traditional American Thanksgiving or Easter ham. This is a totally different type of ham (jamón). This ham has been cured in special seasonings and is then thinly sliced—like paper.
I can only remotely explain it as a sort of cross between bacon in flavor (but not cooked like bacon), and salami in consistency. It is everywhere and visible in restaurants or markets with the leg of the pig hanging upside down from the ceiling. I ate this delicacy before ever realizing how it was prepared, etc. The ham and bread (jamón y pan) are a staple of the Spanish diet.
Other popular Spanish foods are paella—a Spanish rice dish usually prepared with seafood or chicken and gazpacho—a delightful chilled tomato based soup (my personal favorite), and one that Pedro introduced to our family on his first trip to America. I occasionally add this to our American summer menus. I was delighted to find gazpacho available in refrigerated cartons in the market so I can still enjoy it while living on my own these last few days in Spain.
I’ve done a lot of traveling during my five weeks in Spain. It has given me a feel for the food in different parts of the country and lots of opportunities to have tapas. Tapas are similar to what Americans would consider appetizers. Most restaurants have a full tapa menu as people order multiple tapa dishes and share them amongst the table. It is a feast of tasting different flavors, and different types of food.
San Miguel Market, Madrid, a popular tourist location for tasting Spanish food.
I bravely decided to try everything I was offered—even if I didn’t know what it was. It made for some interesting food experiences. I’ve truly enjoyed some foods I never would’ve considered trying if I knew what they were—like black pudding. On another outing, I ordered bull’s tail for lunch. I’ve also had octopus (not sushi like in Seattle), Vichyssoise, a French soup served cold, made from potatoes and leeks and foie pate, a meat paste made from duck liver.
Sangria, a refreshing wine drink with fruit.
The Spanish also like their alcoholic drinks. I’ve sampled and routinely drank many of these. One of the main surprises to me is the way Spaniards consume their wines. I had heard wonderful things about Spanish wine. Living in the wine country of the Pacific Northwest I expected to taste many wines—as a compliment to my food, like I do in Seattle.
In the circles I traveled and parts of the country I visited, that was not the case. In other words, wine was not ordered based on what food we were eating. The alchoholic beverage most served with a meal was either cerveca (beer) or tinto de verano (summer wine). Summer wine is basically a red wine with a 7-Up type of cola added. It was very refreshing.
Drinking summer wine from a porron bottle.
Everywhere I travelled and every time I tried something new or unusual I took a photo of the food or the setting. So I’m including some of my food adventures for your virtual eating pleasure.
My last week in Spain is already here and I’m living on my own in an apartment with views of the Mediterranean. It is amazing. I am writing this at a Chinese restaurant (for a change of pace and taste) along the beach overlooking the Port of Soller and my apartment home across the water.
The food is Chinese, but the view is Mediterranean.
~ If this is your first time visiting my blog, you can start reading about my Spanish travels here.
Writing doesn’t come easy in Spain. In fact, it seems that not much of anything comes easy for me here. That isn’t at all an indictment of the family I am staying with or the Spanish life. It is just an indication of how different everything has been for me to adjust too.
Grateful to be reading chapter upon chapter of this part of the world.
Sure I am having the time of my life. I am seeing amazing historical and religious sites. I am living with a family that I adore. But with a mid-life body, an American way of life that is entrenched in me, and having a 5,300-mile and a nine-hour time difference between friends and family, it has been hard to adapt.
I have come to realize that there are so many things that we take for granted in the US. We don’t think about how different everyday life is in other parts of the world.
Most Americans don’t get an opportunity to experience living in a foreign country. Those that do are generally doing it through a work requirement, a missionary trip or as part of an educational exchange program.
In light of that, I thought it would be of interest to share some of the adjustments I had to make to live in Spain and a few differences between our two countries.
One of the biggest adjustments for me has been the food. A few months prior to my trip, I made radical changes in my diet to get healthier—doing a cleanse and eliminating allergens like wheat and milk. I was amazed at how much better I felt. I knew it would be difficult to maintain this new diet, especially since bread (pan) is such an integral part of the Spanish diet. The first few days I declined the bread, but that didn’t last.
Drinking gazpacho, a chilled tomato based soup.
Now I am embracing and experiencing all of the Mediterranean food I can, eating things I’d never dream of trying in America. I have many favorites including some that Pedro prepared for us in his previous stays in our home, like gazpacho. My food adventures will be fodder for another full blog post though. İEs muy delicioso!
Another radical adjustment for me has been adapting to the heat. Thankfully I leave for the Balearic Islands and cooler temperatures in two days.
Hace calor! 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
For me, it hasn’t been just a matter of adjusting to the heat, it has also been staying hydrated. We have been out sightseeing almost every day. I finally wised up to carrying a bottle of water (aqua) with me whenever I leave the flat. By the time lunch rolls around at 2PM—another adjustment—a chilled beer (cerveza) or glass of summer wine (tinto de verano) is in order to quench my thirst.
Unlike America, air conditioning isn’t as available–including the cathedrals and monuments I’ve visited. At night I sleep with the windows open and a ceiling fan running—the same as I would at home in Seattle. A shower doesn’t seem to help during the day either as I’m sweating as soon as I dry off.
One way women keep refreshed in the heat is by carrying a fan (abanico). I carry my fan with me everywhere I go, a gift from Rosa a few years ago. I’d probably stand out like a sore thumb in the States if I used it, but here, it is a common site.
The best way to avoid the heat though is by taking a traditional siesta (afternoon nap). The siesta doesn’t necessary require sleeping, but is used to relax in other ways as well, to read the paper, watch a movie, etc. It is a way of slowing down and not doing activity during the heat of the day.
Most shops even close a few hours in the afternoon due to siesta. Only tourists and those unfamiliar with Spanish custom would dare be out in the streets at that time of the day. I love siesta and how recharged I feel when I awake.
Hopefully that gives you a feel for some of the differences. Stay tuned for more information about the Spanish lifestyle and sights of this amazing country–my home away from home for three more weeks. | 2019-04-24T03:57:46Z | https://ardisanelson.com/tag/spanish-diet/ |
Example embodiments relate to data relay by a server. In one example implementation, a master server may load a temporary operating system and a slave server may load a temporary operating system. The master server may then receive a command from a user via a user interface of a computing device. The master server may relay the command received from the user to the slave server.
Companies with large amounts of data need many servers for storing and processing the data. The servers may need to be tested to ensure that the servers are healthy and performing properly at the time the servers are installed.
FIG. 1 illustrates a system for data relay by a master server for testing a server according to examples of the present disclosure.
FIG. 3 illustrates a system for data relay by a plurality of master servers for testing a server according to examples of the present disclosure.
FIG. 6 illustrates a method for data relay by a server according to examples of the present disclosure.
Large companies and organizations are purchasing higher server density racks to manage their data and applications. When the servers are delivered to the customer, the customer often requests that the servers be tested to ensure that they are functioning properly. As a result, rack level health checks (often times collecting hundreds of data points per server) and IT tests (e.g., CPU load tests, disk stress tests, network performance and connectivity tests, etc.) may be performed to ensure the health and functionality of each of the individual servers. The task of performing these checks and tests can be expensive and time consuming and can be even more complicated when the servers vary in configuration. For example, these heterogeneous servers may vary in operating system, software, and/or hardware configurations, making testing difficult.
In order to test these systems, traditionally, a server manufacturer may send an engineer on-site to run these tests, but this increases the costs to the server manufacturer and its customer. Current solutions require that the servers be identical (homogenous), require that a full operating system be installed on each server, and/or do not scale across multiple servers. For example, with current solutions, an engineer with an understanding of the Linux or Unix operating system may be desired. However, such engineers are expensive and in short supply.
Consequently, a simplified system designed for a local customer engineer to run the health checks and IT tests may be desired. Moreover, it may be desirable for the system to operate across a deployment of heterogeneous servers. It may also be desirable to perform the health checks and IT tests on systems without installing and configuring a complete operating system or without disturbing a pre-installed operating system.
Various embodiments described herein are directed to testing multiple servers by relaying data by and between the multiple servers and a computing device. As will be understood from the present disclosure, a computing device may be used to test multiple servers by causing the servers to install a temporary operating system from a memory device and by causing the servers to perform various system tests.
For example, in some implementations, thousands of heterogeneous or homogenous servers may be tested simultaneously. In another example, operating systems may not need to be installed on the servers prior to testing. In yet another example, the complexity of a Linux or Unix command line is avoided in order to test, diagnose, or manage the servers. These and other advantages will be apparent from the description that follows.
FIG. 1 illustrates a system 100 for data relay by a master server 110 for testing a server according to examples of the present disclosure. The system 100 may include a master server 110, a slave server 120 communicatively coupled to the master server 110 by a network 115, a computing device 130 communicatively coupled to the master server by a network 135, and a memory device 140 communicatively coupled to the master server 110. In one example, the network 115 and the network 135 may be the same network, or may be different networks in another example.
The master server 110 may include a processor 112 that may be configured to process instructions. The instructions may be stored on a non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium, such as memory device 140, or on a separate device (not shown), or on any other type of volatile or non-volatile memory that stores instructions to cause a programmable processor to perform the techniques described herein. Alternatively or additionally, the example master server 110 may include dedicated hardware, such as one or more integrated circuits, Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Application Specific Special Processors (ASSPs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), or any combination of the foregoing examples of dedicated hardware, for performing the techniques described herein, hi some implementations, multiple processors may be used, as appropriate, along with multiple memories and/or types of memory.
The master server 110 may be designated as the master by the presence of the memory device 140. When the memory device 140 is inserted into the master server 110, the memory device 140 may cause the master server 110 to load a temporary operating system from the memory device 140. In one example, if the master server 110 already has an operating system installed, the temporary operating system may be installed in conjunction with the existing operating system such that the existing operating system remains installed and unchanged. In another example, if no existing operating system is installed on master server 110, the temporary operating system may be installed.
The temporary operating system may be a Linux or Unix operating system, in one example, or may be of another suitable type. The temporary operating system may be a simple, bare-bones operating system with only minimum functionality. For example, the temporary operating system may be limited to booting up, communicating with other servers, such as master server 110 and slave server 120, communicating with a computing device such as computing device 130, and performing testing of the servers.
The slave server 120 may be any server communicatively coupled to the master server 110, such as via the network 115. In one example, additional slave servers may be present, as discussed in other examples. The slave server 120 may receive a temporary operating system from the master server 110 or from the memory device 140 via the master server 110. For example, once the master server 110 boots and installs its temporary operating system, the master server 110 may cause the slave server 120 to install a temporary operating system from the memory device 140 (or from the master server 110 directly). In one example, the master server may also assign an Internet protocol (IP) address to the slave server 120 in order to communicate with the slave server 120 via network 115. In this way, the master server 110 may relay data between the computing device 130 and the slave server 120.
The computing device 130 may connect to the master server 110 via the network 135, and the computing device 130 may include a testing application including a set of instructions for testing servers, including the master server 110 and the slave server 120. The computing device 130 may include any appropriate type of computing device, including for example smartphones, tablets, desktops, laptops, workstations, servers, or the like.
The computing device 130 may include a processor and/or a memory. The processor may be configured to process instructions for execution by the computing device 130, such as the testing application. The instructions may be stored on a non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium, or on a separate device (not shown), or on any other type of volatile or non-volatile memory that stores instructions to cause a programmable processor to perform the techniques described herein. Alternatively or additionally, the example computing device 130 may include dedicated hardware, such as one or more integrated circuits, Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Application Specific Special Processors (ASSPs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), or any combination of the foregoing examples of dedicated hardware, for performing the techniques described herein. In some implementations, multiple processors may be used, as appropriate, along with multiple memories and/or types of memory.
A user may utilize the computing device 130 in order to test the master server 110 and/or the slave server 120 (as well as any additional servers as shown in other embodiments). For example, a set of instructions for testing servers may include performing rack level health checks (often times collecting hundreds of data points per server) and IT tests (e.g., CPU load tests, disk stress tests, network performance and connectivity tests, etc.) to ensure the health and functionality of each of the individual servers. Additionally, the computing device 130 may assign IP addresses to some or all servers, such as master server 110 and/or slave server 120.
The computing device 130 may also scan for all available master servers, such as master server 110, and slave servers, such as slave server 120. Once the servers are identified, the computing device 130 may communicate with these servers as described herein. For example, a user may cause the computing device 130 to perform testing on the servers, and in response the computing device 130 may receive data indicative of the test results from the servers.
The memory device 140 may include instructions that cause the processor 112 to perform the following operations: load a temporary operating system onto a master server 110 (block 141); load a temporary operating system onto a slave server 120 communicatively coupled to the master server (block 142); cause the master server 110 to receive command data from a computing device 130 (block 143); cause the master server 110 to relay the command data received from the user to the slave server (block 144); cause the slave server to send test data to the master server (block 145); and cause the master server to relay the test data to the computing device (block 146). Additional processes also may be included, and it should be understood that the processes depicted in FIG. 1 represent generalized illustrations, and that other processes may be added or existing processes may be removed, modified, or rearranged without departing from the scope and spirit of the present disclosure.
FIG. 2 illustrates a system 200 for data relay by a master server 210 for testing a server according to examples of the present disclosure. The system 200 may include a master server 210; a plurality of slave servers 220 a,b,c,n communicatively coupled to the master server 210 by a network 215; a computing device 230 communicatively coupled to the master server 210 by a network 235; and a memory device 240 communicatively coupled to the master server 210.
The master server 210 may be designated as the master by the presence of the memory device 240. When the memory device 240 is inserted into the master server 210, the memory device 240 may cause the master server 210 to load a temporary operating system from the memory device 240. In one example, if the master server 210 already has an operating system installed, the temporary operating system may be installed in conjunction with the existing operating system such that the existing operating system remains installed and unchanged. In another example, if no existing operating system is installed on master server 210, the temporary operating system may be installed.
The temporary operating system may be a Linux or Unix operating system, in one example, or may be of another suitable type. The temporary operating system may be a simple, bare-bones operating system with only minimum functionality. For example, the temporary operating system may be limited to booting up, communicating with other servers, such as master server 210 and slave servers 220 a,b,c,n, communicating with a computing device such as computing device 130, and performing testing of the servers.
The slave servers 220 a,b,c,n may be any servers communicatively connected to the master server 210, such as via the network 215. The slave servers 220 a,b,c,n may be of various configurations or may all be of the same configuration. Additionally, the slave servers 220 a,b,c,n may be of the same or different configuration from the master server 210. Any number of slave servers may be utilized.
In one example, the master server 210 and the slave servers 220 a,b,c,n may be housed in a rack 225. The slave servers 220 a,b,c,n may receive a temporary operating system from the master server 210 or from the memory device 240 via the master server 210. For example, once the master server 210 boots and installs its temporary operating system, the master server 210 may cause the slave servers 220 a,b,c,n to install a temporary operating system from the memory device 240 (or from the master server 210 directly). The slave servers 220 a,b,c,n may all install the temporary operating system at the same time or one-at-a-time. In one example, the master server may also assign an Internet protocol (IP) address to the slave server 220 in order to communicate with the slave server 220 via network 215. In this way, the master server 210 may relay data between the computing device 230 and the slave servers 220 a,b,c,n.
The computing device 230 may connect to the master server 210 via the network 235, and the computing device 230 may include a testing application including a set of instructions for testing servers, including the master server 210 and the slave server 220. The computing device 230 may include any appropriate type of computing device, including for example smartphones, tablets, desktops, laptops, workstations, servers, or the like.
The computing device 230 may include a processor and/or a memory. The processor may be configured to process instructions for execution by the computing device 230, such as the testing application. The instructions may be stored on a non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium, or on a separate device (not shown), or on any other type of volatile or non-volatile memory that stores instructions to cause a programmable processor to perform the techniques described herein. Alternatively or additionally, the example computing device 230 may include dedicated hardware, such as one or more integrated circuits, Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Application Specific Special Processors (ASSPs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), or any combination of the foregoing examples of dedicated hardware, for performing the techniques described herein. In some implementations, multiple processors may be used, as appropriate, along with multiple memories and/or types of memory.
A user may utilize the computing device 230 in order to test the master server 210 and/or the slave servers 220 a,b,c,n (as well as any additional servers as shown in other embodiments). For example, the a set of instructions for testing servers may include performing rack level health checks (often times collecting hundreds of data points per server) and IT tests (e.g., CPU load tests, disk stress tests, network performance and connectivity tests, etc.) to ensure the health and functionality of each of the individual servers. Additionally, the computing device 230 may assign IP addresses to some or all servers, such as master server 210 and/or slave servers 220 a,b,c,n.
The computing device 230 may also scan for all available master servers, such as master server 210, and slave servers, such as slave servers 220 a,b,c,n. Once the servers are identified, the computing device 230 may communicate with these servers as described herein. For example, a user may cause the computing device 230 to perform testing on the servers, and in response the computing device 230 may receive data indicative of the test results from the servers.
FIG. 3 illustrates a system 300 for data relay by a plurality of master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X for testing a server according to examples of the present disclosure. The system 300 may include a plurality master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X; a plurality of slave servers 320 a,b,c,d communicatively coupled to the master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X respectively by a network; a computing device 330 communicatively coupled to the master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X; and a memory device 340 communicatively coupled to the master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X.
The master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X may be designated as the masters by the presence of the memory device 340. When the memory device 340 is inserted into the master server 310, the memory device 340 may cause the master server 310 to load a temporary operating system from the memory device 340. In one example, if the master server 310 already has an operating system installed, the temporary operating system may be installed in conjunction with the existing operating system such that the existing operating system remains installed and unchanged. In another example, if no existing operating system is installed on master server 310, the temporary operating system may be installed.
In one example, a single memory device 340 may be used, as it may be inserted in each of the master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X until the respective master server is loaded with a temporary operating system. The memory device 340 may then be inserted into the next master server. In another example, multiple memory devices (not shown) may be used such that they may be inserted in each of the master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X at the same time.
Like the other embodiments, the master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X, once booted and having the temporary operating system installed, may identify the respective slave servers 320 and cause the slave servers to be loaded with the temporary operating system. The master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X and slave servers 320 may all be of the same or different types and/or configurations (both hardware and/or software).
In one example, each master server 310, 311, 312, 31X may assign an IF address to each of its respective slave servers 320. In this way, the slave servers 320 may communicate with their respective master server. For example, slave servers 320 a,b,c,d may communicate with master server 310 and vice versa. Similarly, slave servers 321 a,b,c,d may communicate with master server 311, and so on. In turn, each of the master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X may communicate with the computing device 330. In this way, the master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X relay data between the computing device 330 and the slave servers 320.
As in other examples, a user may utilize the computing device 330 to perform testing on the servers, including master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X and slave servers 320. As described herein, the present disclosure is scalable in order to perform testing across instances of varying numbers of servers. In its most basic configuration, as shown in FIG. 1, a single master server having a single slave server may be utilized. However, more complicated embodiments are also provided for. For example, a single rack implementation (such as shown in FIG. 2) may utilize a single master server and a plurality of slave servers. In a more complex environment, multiple rack implementations (such as shown in FIG. 3) may utilize multiple master servers, each with its own plurality of slave servers. In each of these examples, a user may utilize the memory device and computing device disclosed herein in order to perform testing on the servers. Other configurations are possible, and these examples should not be seen as limiting but rather as merely illustrative.
As shown in FIG. 3, the computing device 330, master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X, and the slave servers 320 may be divided into three separate communication layers. For example, the computing device may reside in a command layer 350 in which data (such as commands) is broadcast from the computing device 330 in a multi-cast fashion to the master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X, which reside in a transmission layer 360. That is, the data is broadcast to each of the master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X at the same time. The master servers 310, 311, 312, 31X in the transmission layer 360 may then send data to each master server's respective slave servers 320, which reside in the endpoint layer 370, at the same time. For example, master server 310 may broadcast data to slave servers 320 a,b,c,d simultaneously. In another example, the computing device 330 may send a message to only one master server at a time, and similarly, a master server may send a message to only one slave server at a time.
At block 402, the master server boots from a storage device, such as the storage device 140 of FIG. 1, for example. This occurs when the storage device is inserted into the master server. Once booted, the master server installs a temporary operating system from the storage device.
At block 404, after the master server boots and installs a temporary operating system, the master server causes the slave server to boot and install a temporary operating system. In one example, the temporary operating system is communicated to the slave server from the storage device by the master server. In another example, the temporary operating system is installed on the slave server from the master server.
At block 406, once the master and slave servers install their respective temporary operating systems, a user may send a command to perform a test from a computing device to the master server. The command could be any number and/or variety of tests designed to test the hardware and/or software configuration of the servers or the servers operating health. In one example, the computing device may send the command to multiple master servers.
At block 408, after the user sends the command to perform a test from the computing device to the master server, the master server relays the command from the master server to the slave server. In one example, the master server may relay the command to multiple slave servers.
In one example, at block 510, in response to relaying the command to perform the test from the master server to the slave server, test data is received from the slave server. The test data may include a quantity, a pass/fail indication, or other data indicative of the test results. The test data is relayed from the master server to the computing device at block 512.
In another example, at block 514, a second slave server may be booted from the master server, as discussed above. The second slave server may be of the same or different configuration from the first slave server. Once the second slave server is booted, the command data may also be relayed from the master server to the second slave server at block 516. In one example, the command may be relayed from the master server to each slave server individually or one-at-a-time. In another example, the master server may send the command to all of the slave servers (or some subset of the slave servers) en mass such that the command is sent in a multi-cast fashion.
FIG. 6 illustrates a method 600 for data relay by a server according to examples of the present disclosure. The method 600 may be performed by the system shown in FIGS. 1-3, for example, or by another suitable system. The method 600 may include: load a temporary operating system onto a master server (block 602); load a temporary operating system onto a slave server communicatively coupled to the master server (block 604); cause the master server to receive command data from a computing device (block 606); cause the master server to relay the command data received from the computing device to the slave server (block 608); cause the slave server to send test data to the master server (block 610); and cause the master server to relay the test data to the computing device (block 612). Additional processes also may be included, and it should be understood that the processes depicted in FIG. 6 represent generalized illustrations, and that other processes may be added or existing processes may be removed, modified, or rearranged without departing from the scope and spirit of the present disclosure.
At block 602, a temporary operating system is loaded onto a master server from a storage device. The storage device may be a memory stick, CD, DVD, RAMBUS module, or other similarly suitable storage device. In one example, a temporary operating system may be loaded onto multiple master servers.
At block 604, a temporary operating system is loaded onto a slave server that is communicatively coupled to the master server, such as through a network. The master server may relay the operating system from the storage device to the slave server, hi one example, a temporary operating system may be loaded onto multiple slave servers.
At block 606, the master server is caused to receive command data from a user via a user interface, such as on a computing device. For example, the user may select on the user interface a certain test to be run on the servers. The computing device may cause the command data to be sent to the master server, or multiple master servers for example.
Once the master server has received the command data, the master server is caused to relay the command data to the slave server at block 608. In one example, the command data may be caused to be relayed to multiple slave servers.
At block 610, the slave server may be caused to send test data to the master server. The test data may be indicative of the result of the test run on the slave server as selected by the user of the computing device.
At block 612, the master server may be caused to relay the test data to the computing device from the master server. The test data may then be displayed on the user interface of the computing device to the user.
It should be emphasized that the above-described embodiments are merely possible examples of implementations, set forth for a clear understanding of the principles of the present disclosure. Many variations and modifications may be made to the above-described examples without departing substantially from the spirit and principles of the present disclosure. Further, the scope of the present disclosure is intended to cover any and all appropriate combinations and sub-combinations of all elements, features, and aspects discussed above. All such appropriate modifications and variations are intended to be included within the scope of the present disclosure, and all possible claims to individual aspects or combinations of elements or steps are intended to be supported by the present disclosure.
relaying, by the master server, the command data to the slave server.
relaying the received test data from the slave server to the computing device by the master server.
assigning, by the master server, an address to the slave server, wherein the master server and the slave server are to communicate via a network that utilizes the assigned address.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the master server communicates with the slave server using a multi-cast communication protocol.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving, in the master server, command data from the computing device further comprises receiving, in the master server, a test command to perform a test on the slave server; and wherein relaying the master server, the command data to the slave server further comprises relaying, by the master server, the test command to the slave server.
relaying, by the master server, the command data to the second slave server.
relaying, by the master server, the received data from the second slave server to the computing device.
8. The method of claim 6, further comprising installing the slave temporary operating system on the second slave server by communicating, from the master server, the slave temporary operating system to the second slave server.
relay the received test data to the computing device.
assign, by the master server, an address to the at least one slave server, wherein the master server and the at least one slave server are to communicate via a network that utilizes the assigned address.
receive, from the computing device, the test command and to relay the test command to the at least one slave server.
relay the command received from the computing device to the second at least one slave server.
relay the received data from the second at least one slave server to the computing device.
relay the test data from the slave server to the computing device.
load a temporary operating system from the master server onto a second slave server.
Intel Enterprise. Platform & Services Division-Market; "Intel(r) Deployment Assistant 3.6 Release Notes"; Aug. 24, 2010; 3 pages. | 2019-04-20T19:11:47Z | https://patents.google.com/patent/US9195475B2/en |
Collaboration between industry and academia is becoming increasingly prevalent and successful in Australia.
To encourage and foster these relationships while preventing excesses, Australia needs to act now to create ethical, legal and legislative frameworks for collaboration.
As the United States has progressed further than Australia in fostering and controlling collaboration between industry and academia, Australia has the opportunity to learn from the US experience.
To speed the pace of development, Australia needs to consider making changes to legislation and increasing the level of government funding, either directly or by the creation of incentives for investment of venture capital and superannuation funds in biotechnology.
Some time after codiscovering a law of proportions with German physician Wilhelm Weinberg in 1908, G H Hardy remarked that one of the joys of pure mathematics was knowing the results would never be applied to any human activity. Probably much to Hardy's chagrin, however, the Hardy–Weinberg law eventually became central to the study of many genetic problems. While this outcome was seemingly unforeseen, the leap between academic theory and practical application has become both more deliberate and commonplace, largely due to the growing expectation that academic institutions should become engines of economic development.
Over the past two decades, governments have strongly encouraged the commercialisation of discoveries by academics. Both parties have recognised compelling incentives to participate in industry–academia relationships, apart from the contribution that these arrangements can make to society. For example, medical institutions and investigators receive not just much-needed cash but also non-financial benefits (such as increased institutional professional recognition), which, in the long run, may prove even more important than funding. Companies that make the drugs and devices, on the other hand, gain access to research talent and an affiliation with a prestigious institutional name.
In trying to regulate industry–academia collaborations, governments have had to strike a balance between two extremes: allowing free and unfettered interaction, which can create conflicts of interest and compromise academic independence, or imposing heavy-handed regulation, which can stifle the translation of academic discoveries into commercial products. The challenge for regulatory authorities has been to design legislation that maximises potential gains from collaboration while deterring any damaging behaviour.
The United States has progressed much further than Australia in both fostering and controlling collaboration between industry and academia. In doing so, it has encountered a number of troublesome issues, such as conflicts between academic and industry priorities, and potentially dangerous compromises of academic independence. Australia therefore has an opportunity to use the US experience as an example of what to do (to foster greater interaction) and of what not to do (to avoid conflicts and compromises).
In 1999, academic institutions in the United States received about US$8 billion in biomedical funding from private foundations and US$17 billion from the federal government.1 By comparison, corporate contributions to university laboratory-based investigations (excluding clinical trials) amounted to about US$3 billion, or about 7% of industry's total expenditure on biomedical research.1 The contribution from industry increases every year, along with companies' influence on the course and conduct of academic research. Industry contributions, however, have not always been so prominent.
Conflicts arising from industry–academia collaboration fall into six categories.
Conflict of commitment. Financial conflicts usually involve the ownership of intellectual property. Academic conflicts arise from the use of university-paid time and facilities in for-profit activities. This could leave students in an uncertain position if their projects are assigned less because they are scientifically interesting or beneficial to their training, and more because the results are crucial to the company that their faculty mentor consults for or owns.4 Similar interests might inhibit publication by postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows, with a later adverse effect on their careers.
In the United States, conflict of interest has been brought to the fore recently by the tragic events that occurred in gene transfer experiments that have been linked to the deaths of research participants.5,6 In those cases, a clinical investigator and the investigator's institution held stock options in companies that sponsored the research. However, even when no equity interest is present, ethical questions arise. There is now considerable evidence that researchers with consulting relationships to drug companies are more likely to report results that are favourable to the products of those companies than researchers without such ties.6 For these reasons, the most encompassing restrictions have been proposed to guard against the clinician playing these multiple roles.
Breach of trust. Loss of confidence in the independence of universities is also a fear, which can easily evolve from actual conflicts of interest. Another concern is the appearance of impropriety as the result of an institution itself having an economic interest in a commercial entity. Safeguards against this are now under active discussion, and are focusing on ground rules that separate roles and assure independent scrutiny of both preclinical (basic) and clinical research.
Distraction from basic discovery. This is the least explored, but in the long term perhaps the most important, concern. Over time, there is the prospect of a subtle shift away from basic research on fundamental biology and disease mechanisms and towards commercially oriented, later-stage research. This has been argued to be the case in Canada, where the growing number of CEO-scientists has led the Canadian Institutes for Health Research to increasingly reject grant applications on the basis that there may be a conflict of interest. There is also the potential for the diminution of research aimed at the general public good, where no specific commercial prize may exist. While no evidence has been published to indicate whether this fear is justified, such a scenario is certainly plausible.
Compromised academic independence. Commercial arrangements can threaten the fabric of free enquiry, open discussion, sharing of materials, and prompt and unfettered publication — ideally, the principles upon which academic research and graduate education should be based. In practice, of course, the race for precedence in publication already leads some academics to act more secretively than perhaps they should. This effect has been most pronounced in the arena of basic methods used in biotechnology and tools used in the early-discovery stage of pharmaceutical research, where it is the medical schools and teaching hospitals that have remained the fount of much new practical knowledge. Commercial pressures arising from the adverse effects of disclosure are likely to exacerbate this tendency.
Different mandates. For-profit businesses are pledged to increase the value of their investors' stock. This is quite different from the mission of medical schools. Imposing industry values on research institutions could result in more research on drugs and devices and less on insights into causes and mechanisms of disease. If, for example, it skewed research towards finding trivial differences between drugs, because those differences can be exploited for marketing purposes, this would be an unwelcome outcome.
Financial and non-financial incentives should be designed to address the needs of institutions, senior investigators and junior faculty.
The authors suggest that these principles can be translated into specific remedies, such as establishing a research institute, enhancing external supervision, or creating a new entity separate from the university to hold equity and receive royalties. These measures have been tried in different settings in the United States and could form the template for solutions that minimise the risk of conflict.
The Australian scientific community has been extremely vibrant. While Australia has 0.3% of the world's population, it produces nearly 2.8% of the world's research articles (an estimate based on Australia's share of major scientific journals indexed by ISI9). In addition, 1.3% of Australian publications fall in the world's top 1% of most-cited research articles. However, Australia has not been able to make full use of its academic talent to generate commercial innovation.10 While Australia faces the same challenges as the United States in fostering industry–academia relationships, there are a number of specific local differences that have compounded the difficulties, particularly in the areas of legislation, funding and markets.
Legislative obstacles. Australia has yet to enact any law comparable to the Bayh–Dole Act, which would create a detailed protocol for technology transfer from academic institutions to industry. Institutions are still free to craft their own policies, and indeed are encouraged to do so by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which provides some broad guidelines.
Funding mix. There are two sources of non-government funding — industry and charitable institutions. In Australia, the incentives for either of these sources to provide funding are weaker than in the United States — some would argue, very much weaker. As a result, industry investment in health and medical research has remained small. As a percentage of gross domestic product, the investment of Australian industry in this area is a seventh that of Sweden, a fifth that of the United Kingdom, and a quarter that of Denmark.
In the United States, a major source of investment in biotechnology research is venture capital partnerships, which are attractive to institutional investors. In Australia, unlike in the United States, such funds are not able to employ limited liability partnerships without taxation penalty. Consequently, they face a 25%–40% lower return (depending on other taxes) in Australia than in the United Kingdom or the United States.
In the United States, around US$7.5 billion is provided by charitable institutions and foundations to medical research. To keep pace with the United States on a per capita basis, Australia would need around A$1.6 billion each year. Yet this source of funding has been largely absent in Australia, chiefly due to the absence of tax incentives. The recent government announcement of broader capital gains tax concessions for non-resident venture-capital investors is a step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go to match current US incentives.
Scale. Being a geographically isolated, sparsely populated country has meant that most Australian inventions have migrated to the United States in search of funding, larger markets and stronger legislative frameworks. In recent years, however, the Australian government has been placing a stronger emphasis on addressing some of these issues, and on defining and directing the interaction of academic departments with industry.
The NHMRC is the main source of funding for medical research in Australia. By doubling its budget, the government will provide a significant fillip to the research community. Additionally, the NHMRC has been skewing its funding towards research efforts that are likely to provide tangible benefit to the community and the economy. At the same time, it is encouraging academics to collaborate with industry through the use of matching funds.
These measures have yielded some limited but impressive results in recent years. One such Australian success story is the Bionic Ear Institute, founded in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne in 1984. After 15 years of research, the Institute now produces a commercial "bionic ear" with a speech-understanding performance exceeding 70%. This has benefited over 26 000 people in over 50 countries. The most well known Australian example of a commercially successful scientific invention is ResMed's device for delivering positive pressure to the upper airways to relieve patients suffering from sleep apnoea. The research for this project was initially funded by the NHMRC. ResMed has since commercialised this product, listing on both the New York and Australian stock exchanges and having a two-year total return of 239% to 2001. There are other examples of successful collaboration between industry and academia, such as Biotron's commercialisation of biomedical projects developed from research at the John Curtin School of Medical Research and Ozgene's production of genetically modified mice for use by biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies as well as academic institutions.
Nevertheless, it remains a major concern that Australia will not reap the full potential of its research opportunities, in the same manner that the potential benefits of the revolution in information technology were not reaped in Australia, chiefly as a consequence of Australia's delayed focus on IT research.
We conducted discussions with various people from government and non-government bodies to gauge views on industry–academia collaboration. Martyn Evans, the former Shadow Minister for Industry, said in our interview: "We missed the IT revolution — we should not miss the biotech revolution." He believes a combination of modest legislative and more pronounced fiscal reforms will be needed to transform Australia into a "knowledge nation". A similar view was echoed by the former Shadow Minister for Trade, Carmen Lawrence, who believes that "legislative protocols need to be clarified" (along the lines of the Bayh–Dole Act). Professor Alan Pettigrew, the Chief Executive Officer of the NHMRC, thinks that, unlike in the United States, "academics and managers in industry lack an awareness of each other", which needs to be remedied by "upskilling both groups". Professor Gideon Polya, an academic at La Trobe University, expressed the concern, widely prevalent in the academic community, that the growth of "managerialism" in academic research could prevent the free spirit of scientific enquiry. Professor Glen Begley, Head of the Cancer Biology Laboratory at the Institute for Child Health Research, expressed a similar concern about the wide disparity in remuneration between doing academic research and doing industry-funded research, which provides a strong incentive to opt for the latter.
improving the tax environment for philanthropy.
Australian educational institutions are currently being marketed to other nations as centres of excellence for higher education, and it is important that nothing be allowed to sully the image of these institutions. While the government tries to encourage industry–academia collaboration, it is necessary to do so in a controlled fashion so that the problems encountered elsewhere do not arise in Australia.
While there have been notable successes in collaboration between medical academics and industry in Australia, there is the opportunity for much more to be done. To encourage greater collaboration, the Australian government needs to carefully consider funding issues and protocols for collaboration.
1 The Boston Consulting Group, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
2 The Boston Consulting Group Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia.
The authors wish to thank Professors Alan Pettigrew, Gideon Polya, Margaret Thornton and Glen Begley for their comments and discussion. Numerous members of industry provided their time for interviews.
The authors serve as management consultants to many pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as academic medical centres, in the United States, Australia, and elsewhere in the world. None of the authors has a direct financial interest in this article.
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Dr A K Saluja, Department of Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Background and aim: Recent studies have indicated that prior thermal stress causes upregulation of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) expression in the pancreas and protects against secretagogue induced pancreatitis. The mechanisms responsible for the protective effect are not known. Similarly, the effects of prior non-thermal stress on HSP70 expression and pancreatitis are not known. The current studies were designed to specifically address these issues.
Methods: In the current studies pancreatitis was induced by administration of a supramaximally stimulating dose of caerulein 12 hours after thermal stress and 24 hours after non-thermal (that is, β adrenergic stimulation) stress.
Results: Both thermal and non-thermal stresses caused pancreatic HSP70 levels to rise and resulted in increased expression of HSP70 in acinar cells. Both forms of stresses protected against caerulein induced pancreatitis and prevented the early intrapancreatic activation of trypsinogen which occurs in this model of pancreatitis.
Conclusions: These results suggest that both thermal and non-thermal stresses protect against pancreatitis by preventing intrapancreatic digestive enzyme activation and that HSP70 may mediate this protective effect.
In the present communication, we show that prior β adrenergic stimulation, as well as prior thermal stress, can lead to intrapancreatic upregulation of HSP70 expression and that β adrenergic stimulation, like thermal stress, can protect against secretagogue induced pancreatitis. We show that intrapancreatic activation of trypsinogen after supramaximal secretagogue stimulation is prevented by either prior thermal stress or prior β adrenergic stimulation and that in both cases the upregulated HSP70 expression is primarily localised to the cytoplasmic acinar cell vacuoles which are believed to be the site of trypsinogen activation in this model of pancreatitis. We suggest that HSP70, which is expressed after either thermal or non-thermal (that is, β adrenergic stimulation) stress, protects against pancreatitis by preventing premature trypsinogen activation within acinar cells.
Male Wistar rats (125–175 g), obtained from Charles River Laboratories, were housed in standard cages in a climate controlled room with an ambient temperature of 23 (2)°C and a 12 hour light/dark cycle. They were fed standard laboratory chow, given water ad libitum, randomly assigned to control or experimental groups, and fasted overnight before each experiment. Caerulein, the decapeptide analogue of the pancreatic secretagogue cholecystokinin, was purchased from Research Plus (Bayonne, New Jersey, USA), collagenase from Worthington Biochemical (Freehold, New Jersey, USA), trypsin substrate (Boc-Gln-Ala-Arg-MCA) from Peptides International (Louisville, Kentucky, USA), Superfrost/Plus slides and Permount from Fisher Scientific (Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, USA), and Vectastain Universal ABC and avidin-biotin blocking kits from Vector Laboratories (Burlingame, California, USA). Antibody used for western blotting and immunolocalisation of inducible HSP70 (cat. No. SPA 810) was obtained from StressGen (Victoria, Canada). Antirabbit TAP antibody was a kind gift from D McNally, Abbott Laboratories. All other chemicals and reagents were purchased from Sigma Chemical (St Louis, Missouri, USA). All experiments were performed according to protocols approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Thermal stress was induced using rats anaesthetised with an intraperitoneal injection of pentobarbital. They were placed on a heating pad and core body temperature was monitored with a rectal probe. Their core body temperature was gradually increased, over approximately 25 minutes, to 42°C and then maintained at that level for 20 minutes. β-Adrenergic stimulation was used to induce non-thermal stress. In this case, conscious animals were given a single intraperitoneal injection of isoproterenol (0.05 mg/kg).
Pancreatitis was induced, 12 hours after thermal stress or 24 hours after administration of isoproterenol, by administration of five hourly intraperitoneal injections of caerulein (10 μg/kg). Control animals received comparable injections of saline. One hour after the final injection, animals were sacrificed by administration of a lethal intraperitoneal dose of pentobarbital.
Pancreas samples obtained immediately after sacrifice were homogenised and aliquots (10 μg protein) subjected to sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis according to Laemmli.9 The separated proteins were transferred to nitrocellulose membranes as described by Towbin and colleagues.10 Induction of HSP70 was monitored using antibody to inducible HSP70 (1:1000). Labelled proteins were visualised by the enhanced chemiluminescence method using horseradish peroxidase coupled secondary antibody (1:5000) and quantitated using a Scion Image Analysis Program.
Pancreas samples were fixed (12 hours) in neutral buffered formalin, embedded in paraffin, sectioned (5 μm), and mounted on Superfrost/Plus slides. After being deparaffinised, endogenous peroxidase activity was quenched with 3% hydrogen peroxide (10 minutes) and non-specific binding was blocked by incubation in phosphate buffered saline containing 1% bovine serum albumin (30 minutes). They were then incubated in avidin and biotin blocking solutions (15 minutes each) with washes in-between. The sections were then incubated with primary antibody (anti-mouse HSP70 5 μg/ml) overnight at 4°C. Negative control sections were incubated similarly but without primary antibody. After rinsing, the sections were sequentially treated with biotinylated universal secondary antibody from Vector Laboratories (1:200) for 30 minutes, and with Vecta ABC reagent for another 30 minutes. The antigen-antibody complex was visualised using the diaminobenzidine (DAB) method (DAB 5 mg/10 ml phosphate buffered saline plus 12 μl of 30% hydrogen peroxide, three minutes) and slides were then counterstained with methyl green (1% in 0.1 M sodium acetate, pH 4.0) for 10 minutes. After rinsing in distilled water and butanol, they were cleared in xylene and coverslipped with Permount.
Fresh pancreatic acini were prepared from control thermally and non-thermally stressed rats using collagenase digestion, as previously described,15 and amylase secretion, in response to varying concentrations of caerulein, measured over 30 minutes.16 Amylase secretion was expressed as a per cent of total amylase content.
Results are reported as mean (SEM) values obtained from multiple determinations in three or more separate experiments. In all figures, vertical bars denote SEM values and the absence of such bars indicates that the SEM was too small to illustrate. The significance of changes was evaluated using the Student's t test when data consisted of only two groups or by analysis of variance (ANOVA) when three or more groups were compared. Differences associated with a p value of less than 0.05 were considered significant.
Exposure of rats to thermal stress resulted in time dependent upregulation of HSP70 expression in the pancreas. As shown in fig 1A, HSP70 expression was increased within three hours of thermal stress, reached a peak 12 hours after thermal stress, and returned to basal levels 24–36 hours after thermal stress.
Effect of thermal stress and β adrenergic stimulation on pancreatic heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) expression. Rats were exposed to either thermal stress (A) or β adrenergic stimulation (B), as described in the text. At the indicated times, the animals were sacrificed, the pancreata were homogenised, and HSP70 expression was evaluated by western blotting, as described in the methods section. Relative optical densities are expressed as mean (SEM) values of at least three animals at each time point.
Exposure of rats to β adrenergic stimulation, accomplished by administration of a single intraperitoneal dose of isoproterenol, resulted in time dependent upregulated expression of intrapancreatic HSP70. As shown in fig 1B, pancreatic HSP70 levels were increased within one hour of isoproterenol administration, reached a peak 24 hours after administration, and then declined to resting levels over the subsequent 12–24 hours.
Pancreatitis was induced by administration of five hourly injections of a supramaximally stimulating dose of caerulein begun either 12 hours after thermal stress or 24 hours after administration of isoproterenol. As shown in figs 2 and 3, the magnitude of each of the parameters used to evaluate the severity of caerulein induced pancreatitis was reduced by approximately 50% following either thermal stress or β adrenergic stimulation.
Effect of prior thermal stress on the severity of caerulein induced pancreatitis: 12 hours after exposure to thermal stress, pancreatitis was induced by caerulein administration and its severity was quantitated, as described in the text, in control animals, in control animals exposed to hyperthermia, in rats given caerulein, and in rats given caerulein after prior exposure to hyperthermia. Results are expressed as a per cent of the increase noted in non-stressed animals given caerulein (that is, maximal increase). Results represent mean (SEM) values for at least three animals at each time point. *Significantly different (p<0.05) from non-stressed caerulein treated rats. MPO, myeloperoxidase.
Effect of β adrenergic stimulation on the severity of caerulein induced pancreatitis: 24 hours after administration of isoproterenol, pancreatitis was induced by caerulein administration and its severity was quantitated, as described in the text, in control animals, in control animals injected with isoproterenol, in rats given caerulein, and in rats given caerulein after administration of isoproterenol. Results are expressed as a per cent of the increase noted in non-stressed animals given caerulein (that is, maximal increase). Results represent mean (SEM) values for at least three animals at each time point. *Significantly different (p<0.05) from non-stressed caerulein treated rats. MPO, myeloperoxidase.
Intrapancreatic activation of trypsinogen can be detected during the early stages of caerulein induced pancreatitis (fig 4). Trypsinogen activation is manifested in two ways—that is, by the appearance of trypsin activity in the pancreas homogenate and by the rise in TAP levels in the homogenate. Both manifestations of trypsinogen activation were reduced by approximately 50% after either prior thermal stress (fig 4A) or β adrenergic stimulation (fig 4B). In contrast with its effect on trypsinogen activation, neither prior thermal stress nor prior β adrenergic stimulation altered pancreatic trypsinogen or cathepsin B content (not shown).
Effect of hyperthermia and β adrenergic stimulation on caerulein induced intrapancreatic trypsinogen activation: pancreatitis was induced in rats after prior stress induced by hyperthermia (A) or administration of isoproterenol (B), as described in the text. Trypsinogen activation was monitored either by quantitation of trypsin activity or by measurement of trypsinogen activation peptide (TAP), as described in the text. Results are expressed as a per cent of the increase noted in non-stressed animals given caerulein (that is, maximal increase). Results represent mean (SEM) values for at least three animals at each time point. *Significantly different (p<0.05) from non-stressed caerulein treated rats.
As shown in fig 5, there was virtually no HSP70 in the pancreas samples obtained from control animals (fig 5A). However, 12 hours after either thermal stress (fig 5B) or 24 hours after β adrenergic stimulation (fig 5C), when the level of HSP70 was at its peak in the respective models, as assessed by western blotting (fig 1A, B), there was profound upregulation of HSP70 expression in the pancreatic acini. Under these conditions, HSP70 expression was confined to acinar cells and localised to the nuclear/perinuclear region. Thirty six hours after thermal stress, HSP70 levels returned to control values (fig 1A) and the immunostaining pattern was similar to that seen in pancreas samples taken from control rats (fig 5D). Administration of caerulein to naïve animals (fig 5E) resulted in modest expression of HSP70 but profound vacuolisation of acinar cells and interstitial oedema. In pancreas samples taken from rats given caerulein 12 hours after prior thermal stress (fig 5F) or 24 hours after isoproterenol injection (fig 5G), the extent of both vacuolisation and oedema were reduced. Under these conditions, HSP70 was localised primarily within those cytoplasmic vacuoles which are noted in acinar cells. No immunostaining was seen when the primary antibody was omitted during the immunostaining protocol (fig 5H).
Immunolocalisation of HSP70 in the pancreas. Pancreatic tissues obtained from control rats (A), from rats 12 hours after exposure to hyperthermia (B), from rats 24 hours after β adrenergic stimulation (C), from rats 36 hours after prior thermal stress (D), or from rats given caerulein alone (E) or caerulein after prior thermal or non-thermal stress (F, G) were processed for heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) localisation, as described in the text. While there was very little HSP70 expression in control pancreas (A), exposure of rats to hyperthermia (B) or β adrenergic stimulation (C) resulted in significant upregulation of HSP70 expression. HSP70 expression was similar to that seen in control samples 36 hours after prior thermal stress (D). Administration of caerulein to control animals (E) resulted in modest expression of HSP70 with profound vacuolisation and oedema. Prior thermal stress (F) or isoproterenol treatment (G) significantly decreased caerulein induced vacuolisation and oedema. No immunostaining was seen in sections where the primary antibody was omitted (H). Results shown are representative of three different experiments for each experimental condition.
As shown in fig 6, prior thermal stress did not alter the biphasic dose dependence which characterises caerulein stimulation of amylase secretion from acini in vitro. Low concentrations of caerulein stimulated amylase secretion while high concentrations inhibited amylase secretion from acini prepared from control, prior thermally, or non-thermally stressed rats.
Caerulein stimulated amylase secretion from rat pancreatic acini. Dispersed pancreatic acini were prepared from control rats, rats pre-exposed to hyperthermia, or rats stimulated with isoproterenol and were incubated with various concentrations of caerulein for 30 minutes. Amylase release into the medium was determined as described in the text. Results are expressed as per cent of total amylase content in acini. Results represent mean (SEM) values obtained from three separate experiments.
Caerulein induced pancreatitis follows exposure of the pancreas to high doses of the secretagogue and interaction of caerulein with the low affinity cholecystokinin receptors which mediate inhibition of acinar cell secretion.30 Thus one potential mechanism for protection against pancreatitis that follows either thermal stress or β adrenergic stimulation (and, presumably, HSP70 expression) would be alteration in acinar cell responsiveness to caerulein—that is, downregulation of low affinity receptors or loss of the inhibitory response to supramaximally stimulating doses of caerulein. As shown in fig 6, that is not the case. The in vitro acinar cell biphasic response to caerulein stimulation was unaltered, even in acini prepared from animals previously exposed to thermal stress.
One of the earliest events in secretagogue induced pancreatitis involves intra-acinar cell activation of trypsinogen.7 The events which lead to trypsinogen activation during the early stages of pancreatitis are not entirely understood. In previous reports, we have suggested that it might result from colocalisation of trypsinogen and the lysosomal hydrolase cathepsin B within cytoplasmic vacuoles and the subsequent activation of trypsinogen by cathepsin B.6,7 Theoretically, active trypsin could cause activation of other zymogens within acinar cells and this could lead to both acinar cell injury and pancreatitis.
In the current report, we noted that the rise in pancreatic level of active trypsin and TAP after supramaximal caerulein stimulation was attenuated in animals previously exposed to thermal stress or given isoproterenol. Neither the pancreatic content of trypsinogen nor the pancreatic content of cathepsin B were altered by prior thermal stress or prior administration of isoproterenol. Attenuation of the rise in trypsin activity could reflect either inhibition of the active protease or reduction in activation of the zymogen. Our finding that TAP levels were also lower in animals after prior stress indicates that stress results in reduction of the activation process itself, rather than causing inhibition of the activated zymogen.
The mechanisms by which prior thermal stress or β adrenergic stimulation (and, presumably, HSP70 expression) might interfere with trypsinogen activation in secretagogue induced pancreatitis cannot be determined from our studies. It is tempting however to speculate that those mechanisms might alter either colocalisation of trypsinogen with cathepsin B or the ability of cathepsin B to activate trypsinogen in acinar cells during secretagogue induced pancreatitis. Regardless of the mechanisms involved however our studies add to the growing list of observations which suggest that agents or manipulations which cause upregulation of HSP70 expression might prove helpful in the prevention or treatment of pancreatitis.
This work was supported by NIH grant DK-58694 (AKS) and DK-31396 (MLS). JLF was financially supported by grant 81GE-50064 from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
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Saluja AK, Saluja M, Printz H, et al. Experimental pancreatitis is mediated by low-affinity cholecystokinin receptors that inhibit digestive enzyme secretion. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA1989;86:8968–71. | 2019-04-26T08:50:48Z | https://gut.bmj.com/content/50/1/78?ijkey=b18aa87e900b135554c2760a81db88a62b273e5e&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha |
The name of this corporation shall be the Idaho Dressage and Eventing Association, Inc. The initials IDEA, Inc. identify us. The Idaho Dressage & Eventing Association is a non-profit educational organization. The Association is tax-exempt under Section 501 (I)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. IDEA is a Group Member Organization (GMO) of the United States Dressage Federation, Inc. (USDF).
Section l. The purpose of the Idaho Dressage and Eventing Association, Inc., shall be to foster an interest in dressage and eventing and encourage members in the interest of furthering their education, competition, and general interest in the sport of dressage and eventing. Dressage (training and schooling), as an equitation term, means the gradual harmonious development of the horse’s physical and mental condition with the aim to achieve both the improvement of its natural gaits and a perfect understanding with its rider. Eventing develops the horse in the areas of cross-country work and stadium jumping as well as dressage.
Section 2. The program of the IDEA, Inc. shall be educational and shall be designed primarily to offer a framework in which individuals can progress with the schooling of themselves and their horses. Activities shall be directed toward a better understanding of dressage and eventing. To further this goal, the IDEA, Inc. will work closely with other local, regional and national organizations.
Section l. The corporate power to conduct the business and manage the property of the corporation shall be vested in a Board of Directors, each of whom shall be a member in good standing of the corporation.
Section 2. The Board of Directors of this corporation shall consist of at least eight (8) members. There shall be two (2) Directors from each Local Chapter, who shall be the duly elected Chairman or his/her appointed representative of said chapter, and the remaining Directors-At-Large shall be elected from the general membership.
Section 3. If more than four (4) Chapters apply for recognition by the corporation the number of directors shall be increased to include four (4) Directors-At-Large in addition to the Chapter Chairman Directors.
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Section 11. Whenever any vacancy shall occur in the office of Director, by death, resignation or otherwise, it shall be filled by appointment by the Board of Directors, and for that purpose a majority of the remaining members of the Board of Directors is a quorum, and the person so appointed shall hold office for the unexpired term until his successor is elected.
Section l. Immediately after the elections at the Annual Business Meeting, it shall be the duty of the Board of Directors to elect the following officers: President, Vice-President of Outreach and Education, Vice-President of Competitions, Secretary and Treasurer.
Section 2. The Board of Directors shall have the power to sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of the Corporation’s Certificates of Membership in any manner not inconsistent with the laws of the State of Idaho.
Section 3. The Board of Directors shall issue Certificates of Membership in such manner and under such restrictions and for such purposes as they deem best, provided that they are not inconsistent with the laws of the State of Idaho.
Section 4. The Board of Directors shall have the power first to elect, and to remove at pleasure all officers, agents and employees of the corporation, to prescribe such duties for them as may not be inconsistent with the laws of the State of Idaho, and to fix their compensation and alter some from time to time and, if deemed advisable, to require a good and sufficient corporation surety bond for the faithful performance of duties.
Section 5. The Board of Directors shall conduct all business of the corporation between meetings of the membership, and expend those funds deemed necessary to carry on the activities of the corporation.
Section l. The Officers of this corporation, all of whom shall be Directors, shall be President, Vice-President of Outreach and Education, Vice-President of Competitions, Secretary and Treasurer, all elected by the Board of Directors.
Section 2. One person may hold any two (2) offices of Vice-President, Secretary or Treasurer.
Section 3. These officers shall be elected by the Board of Directors to serve for one (1) year or until their successors are elected, and their term of office shall begin at the close of the Annual Business Meeting at which they are elected.
Section 4. These officers shall perform the duties prescribed by these By-Laws and by the parliamentary authority adopted by the corporation.
Section 1. The President shall prepare agendas for and preside over all meetings of the corporation, and of the Board of Directors, and shall conduct business of the corporation in accordance with the By-Laws, other rules and regulations of the corporation. The President shall have the power to appoint all committee chairmen and shall act as representative of the corporation.
Section 2. The Vice-President of Outreach and Education shall perform the duties of the President in the absence of the President. This Vice-President shall work closely with local chapters to coordinate local activities of the corporation.
Section 3. The Vice-President of Competition shall register riders and horses for annual awards and compile standings.
Section 4. The Secretary shall attend to all correspondence of the corporation and shall read communications at meetings of the corporation. He/she shall prepare all ballots.
Section 5. The Treasurer shall handle all funds and issue receipts and submit a financial report at each meeting. He/she shall maintain a roster of all members. Checks must be signed by either the President or the Treasurer.
Section 6. Each officer, at the expiration of his/her term of office or in the case of resignation, shall transfer all records pertaining to his office to the succeeding officer within two (2) weeks.
Section l. There shall be two (2) classes of membership: Active Members and Family Members.
Section 2. Active Members shall consist of all persons with an active interest in the purpose of the corporation as described in Article II and who have paid their annual dues and assessments.
Section 3. Family members are Active Members who belong to the same family living at one address.
Section 4. All Active Members in good standing shall be entitled to one (1) vote each and shall be eligible to hold office in the corporation.
Section 5. Each member shall pay annual dues to this corporation in the amount as set by the corporation, and all such dues collected shall be turned over to the treasurer to be added to the funds of this corporation.
Section 6. The Annual Dues shall be payable in advance on or before the 1st of December each year without incurring a late fee. Those whose dues are not paid by such date will be subject to a late fee as determined by the corporation. Those whose dues are not paid within fifteen (15) days thereafter shall be automatically dropped from membership in the corporation.
Section 7. The fiscal year of this corporation shall be from the first of November to the 31st of October of the calendar year.
Section 8. Upon the signed recommendation of one (1) member, seconded by another member and by a three-fourths vote by ballot at the annual meeting, honorary life membership can be conferred upon an adult resident of the State of Idaho who shall have rendered notable service to the corporation. An honorary member shall have none of the obligations of membership in the corporation, but shall be entitled to all of the privileges except those of making motions, of voting and of holding offices.
Section 9. Members wishing to compete in Adult Amateur classes at IDEA-sanctioned competitions must have submitted to the Treasurer a signed Adult Amateur Certification Form. Failure to submit the Certification will result in the member being automatically placed in the Open Division on the official membership roster.
(c) “Expenses” includes, without limitation, all attorneys’ fees, costs and any other expenses incurred in the defense of any claims or proceedings against an agent and all attorneys’ fees, costs and other expenses incurred in establishing a right to indemnification under this Article VIII.
Section 2. Successful Defense by Agent. To the extent that an agent of this Corporation has been successful on the merits in the defense of any proceeding referred to in this Article VIII, or in the defense of any claim, issue or matter therein, the agent shall be indemnified against expenses actually and reasonably incurred by the agent in connection with the claim. If an agent either settles any such claim or sustains a judgment rendered against him, then the provisions of Sections 1 through 5 of this Article VIII shall determine whether the agent is entitled to indemnification.
Section 3. Actions Brought By Persons Other Than the Corporation. Subject to the required findings to be made pursuant to Section 5 of this Article VIII, the Corporation shall indemnify any person who was or is a party, or is threatened to made a party, to any proceeding by reason of the fact that such person is or was an agent of the Corporation, for all expenses, judgments, fines, settlements, and other amounts actually and reasonably incurred in connection with the proceeding.
Section 4. Action Brought by or on Behalf of the Corporation.
(a) 541Claims Settled Out of Court. If any agent settles or otherwise disposes of a threatened or pending action brought by or on behalf of the Corporation, with or without court approval, the agent shall receive no indemnification for either amounts paid pursuant to the terms of the settlement or other disposition or for any expenses incurred in defense against the proceeding.
(b) Claims and Suits Awarded Against Agent. The Corporation shall indemnify any person who was or is a party or is threatened to be made a party to any threatened, pending or completed action brought by or on behalf of the Corporation by reason of the fact that the person is or was an agent of the Corporation, for all expenses actually and reasonably incurred in connection with the defense of that action, provided that both of the following are met: (1) The determination of good faith conduct required by Sect 5 of this Article VIII, is made in the manner provided for therein; and (2) Upon application, the court in which the action was brought determines that, in view of all the circumstances of the case, the agent should be entitled to indemnity for the expenses incurred. If the agent is found to be so entitled, the court shall determine the appropriate amount of expenses to be reimbursed.
(a) Required Standard of Conduct. The agent seeking reimbursement must be found, in the manner provided below, to have acted in good faith, in a manner he believed to have been in the best interest of the Corporation, and (in the case of a criminal proceeding) without reasonable cause to believe such conduct was unlawful, and (in the case of an action brought by or on behalf of the Corporation) with such care, including reasonable inquiry, as an ordinarily prudent person in a like position would use in similar circumstances. The termination of any proceeding by judgment, order, settlement, conviction or on a plea of nolo contendere or its equivalent shall not, of itself, create a presumption that the person did not act within these required standards.
(b) Manner of Determination of Good Faith Conduct. The determination that the agent did act in a manner complying with Sect 5 of this Article VIII must be made by: (1) The Board by a majority vote of a quorum consisting of directors who are not parties to the proceeding; or (2) The court in which the proceeding is or was pending upon application brought by the Corporation or the agent or the attorney or other person rendering a defense to the agent, whether or not the application by the agent, attorney or other person is opposed by the Corporation.
Section 6. Advance of Expenses. Expenses incurred in defending any proceeding may be advanced by the Corporation before the final disposition of the proceeding on receipt of an undertaking by or on behalf of the agent to repay the amount of the advance unless it is determined ultimately that the agent is entitled to be indemnified as authorized in this Article VIII.
(b) That the indemnification would be inconsistent with any condition expressly imposed by a court in approving a settlement.
Section 8. Contractual Rights of Non-directors and Non-officers. Nothing contained in this Article VIII shall diminish any right to indemnification to which persons other than directors and officers of the Corporation, or any subsidiary hereof, may be entitled by contract or otherwise.
Section 9. Insurance. The Board may adopt a resolution authorizing the purchase and maintenance of insurance on behalf of any agent of the Corporation against any liability asserted against or incurred by the agent in such capacity or arising out of the agent’s status as such, whether or not the Corporation would have the power to indemnify the agent against that liability under the provisions of this Article VIII.
Section l. Whenever ten (10) Active Members indicate by written request to the Board of Directors that any action be taken or that any action being taken be discontinued, the Board of Directors shall submit such request to the Active Membership of the corporation by ballot. Such ballot shall be submittedno less than fifteen (15) days prior to the last date on which such ballots must be returned.
Section 2. If a majority of the ballots returned declare approval of such request, then the Board of Directors shall fulfill the request.
Section 1. There shall be one (1) Annual Business Meeting of the Active Membership, to be held at such time and place as designated by the Board of Directors. Notice of such meeting shall be given to the membership as a whole ten (10) days in advance. At such meetings, the annual reports shall be presented to the membership by all officers and new Directors shall be elected to fill any vacancies on the Board of Directors.
Section 2. The President may call a business meeting of the corporation within ten (10) days’ notice.
Section 3. Any question that may come before any meeting shall be decided by a majority vote.
Section 4. Ten percent (10%) of the total Active Membership shall represent a quorum.
Section 5. The corporation shall hold not less than two (2) events each year. These events shall feature educational and/or competitive activities which further the purposes of the corporation.
Section 1. An auditing committee of no more than three (3) members maybe appointed by the President at the corporation’s Annual Business Meeting, whose duty it shall be to audit the Treasurer’s accounts at the close of the fiscal year and to report at the first meeting of the following year.
Section 2. Such other committees, standing or special, shall be appointed by the President as the corporation shall from time to time deem necessary to carry on the work of the corporation. The President shall be ex-officio a member of all committees.
Section 1. Local chapters shall be formed in order to promote educational activities on the local level and to carry out plans of the Board of Directors for local competitions.
Section 2. Local chapters shall hold at least six (6) meetings or activities each year and one (1) event to which all members of IDEA, Inc. are invited.
Section 3. Each chapter shall have a chairman elected by the local members whose duty it shall be to serve, or appoint a representative to serve on the Board of Directors of the corporation, and to encourage and organize activities at the local level which are educational for members interested in improving their riding abilities and their horses. The chairman shall also be responsible for reporting to the Vice-President of Outreach and Education thedetails of all chapter activities.
Section 4. Local chapters shall keep their finances separate from the corporation’s accounts.
Section 5. Local chapters which choose to establish by-laws must place on file with the corporation a copy of those by-laws, which must not be in conflict with the by-laws of the corporation or the laws of the State of Idaho.
Section 6. The Annual Meeting of local chapters for the election of officers and annual reports shall be held prior to the Annual Business Meeting of the corporation.
Section 7. IDEA chapter officers must be IDEA, Inc. state members.
Section 8. In order to maintain standing as a Chapter in the IDEA, each chapter must send at least one (1) representative to a minimum of three (3) meetings per year, with attendance at the Annual Meeting mandatory. Failure to comply will result in the chapter becoming ineligible to participate in any of IDEA's rebate and clinic assistance programs.
Section 2. The corporation shall encourage the development of new judges in dressage and eventing.
Section 1a. ALL SHOWS: In order for a competition to be recognized by the Corporation, the management of the competition must apply for that date or dates by the annual meeting of the year prior (first weekend in November) and submit a copy of the proposed premium to IDEA media manager by December 15th of that year. Show approval will be accepted on a case-by case basis after that date, with no shows excepted later than thirty (30) days prior to competition. Only IDEA, Inc. approved competitions will count towards IDEA Annual Awards and IDEA League Awards.
Section 1b. EVENTING: IDEA recognizes all USEA competitions, IDEA-approved unrecognized combined tests, and IDEA-approved unrecognized horse trials for eventing year-end awards.
Section 1c. DRESSAGE: IDEA recognizes two (2) dressage show formats for separate year-end awards: a.) Shows that are IDEA approved, and b.) League shows and opportunity classes at IDEA approved shows.
Section 2. US Equestrian rules for Dressage and Eventing competitions must be followed for the events which are approved by the corporation. League shows and Derbies have a few modifications that are published in the rules of these particular groups of competitions.
Section 3. Separate classes or divisions within open shows may receive IDEA, Inc. approval provided they meet the above requirements.
Section 4. The management of approved shows must submit the scores of the competition to the Vice-President of Competition within ten (10) days following the competition.
Section 5. League Shows: The purpose of a League show is to introduce a dressage rider to formal showing without the cost of showing in front of USEF licensed judges. Dressage League shows need to seek IDEA approval by the annual meeting of the year prior in order to appear in the IDEA Omnibus. League shows not approved by the annual meeting of the year prior must seek approval from the IDEA Board thirty (30) days before the date of the League show. Only IDEA approved dressage League competitions and “Opportunity” classes at IDEA approved shows will count towards annual IDEA League Awards of the Corporation. League shows must have inexpensive class fees ($25 or under) and offer class fee discounts to current Pony Club and 4H competitors. League shows must offer ribbons from first through third place at a minimum, with prizes optional. League shows may offer classes up through Grand Prix, but only Intro Level through 2nd level will count towards year-end IDEA League awards. League show attire shall be neat, clinic attire, helmet, heeled boots or paddock boots with half chaps.
Section 1. Horses competing for Champion/Reserve Annual Awards must be ridden by an active member in good standing in the Corporation and owned by an active member in good standing. Points toward year-end awards accrue from sanctioned shows and placings earned after rider and owner membership(s) are received and accepted by the association treasurer or the show secretary. No retroactive points will be awarded. Separate awards shall be offered to horses ridden by junior/young rider, adult amateur and open rider. A junior/young rider shall be a rider who is 21 years of age or younger on the first of January of the competition year. Awards shall be presented at the end of the each award year. The award year shall be the first of November to the 31st of October the following year. .
a. Awards shall be offered for each level of dressage, for a multi-level freestyle and a multi-level Pas de Deux that is held in at least three (3) IDEA approved shows.
b. Horses must be entered, shown, and judged in at least three (3) separate dressage shows approved by IDEA.
c. At each level of dressage, as well as the multi-level freestyle the three (3) highest scores received on rides completed under three (3) different judges for three (3) different rides at three (3) different shows shall be averaged together to determine the award. At least (1) dressage test score must come from the highest test of the level awarded.
d. The same horse/rider combination may not win the same level more than twice, except for the FEI Level.
a. Awards shall be offered for each USEA level of eventing: Beginner Novice thru Advanced Horse Trials. There will also be a combined F.E.I award. Horses must be entered, shown, and judged in at least three (3) separate events approved by IDEA (see table d. below for events that are eligible for IDEA award points). The rider or owner submits scores to the Competition Chair by the end of the year deadline (Usually no later than October 15th).
b. If a horse is entered, shown and judged in an event and combined test at the same show, this will be treated as two (2) separate competitions.
c. A horse may compete in more than (1) division to be eligible for a year-end awards. Points earned count only for the level in which they were earned. Points are not combined across levels.
d. Awards for each level shall go to the horse that accumulated the highest number of points throughout the year.
e. The same horse/rider combination may not win the same level more than twice, except for Preliminary and above.
Year-end Awards shall be offered for Intro through 2nd level of dressage for Junior and Adult Amateur divisions only. Awards are given to the same horse/rider combination only.
The same Horse/Rider combination must be entered, shown and judged in at least three (3) separate league dressage shows (or opportunity classes at IDEA/USDF recognized shows) approved by IDEA.
At each level of dressage the three (3) highest scores received on rides completed under three (3) different judges for three (3) different rides at three (3) different shows shall be averaged together to determine the award. At least one (1) dressage test score must come from the highest test of the level, with the exception of the Intro Level.
Horse/Rider combinations competing for Year-end Champion/Reserve League Awards must be ridden by a member in good standing in the corporation at the time scores are received. Rider may be an IDEA Regular or IDEA Junior League member (non-USDF). The owner of the horse does not need to be an IDEA member for horse/rider to take part in IDEA Year-End League Awards.
Section 1. Riders competing for Champion/ Reserve Annual Awards must be active members in good standing in the Corporation. Dressage riders must be entered, shown, and be judged in at least three (3) separate IDEA and/or USDF approved dressage shows. Event riders must be entered, show and be judged in at least three (3) IDEA approved events or combined tests. If a rider competes in an event and combined test at the same show, this will be treated as two (2) separate competitions. Award must be earned on horses owned by IDEA members in good standing.
Points toward year-end awards accrue from sanctioned shows and placings earned after membership is received and accepted by the association treasurer or the show secretary. No retroactive points will be awarded. Separate awards shall be offered to junior/young rider, adult amateur and open rider. A junior/young rider shall be a rider who is 21 years old or younger on Jan 1st of the award[t2] year. Awards shall be presented at the end of each competition year. The award year shall be the first of November to the 31st of October the following year..
a. At least three Champion/Reserve Awards, to be designated Junior/Young Rider Dressage Rider of the Year, Adult Amateur Dressage Rider of the Year, and Open Dressage Rider of the Year, shall be awarded to the rider/member with the highest average dressage score for three tests with three different judges at three (3) IDEA approved shows.
b. Up to three different horses are permitted to determine the average. At least one (1) dressage score must come from the highest test of a level.
c. If a rider is eligible to win more than one Rider of the Year Award, then she/he shall be awarded the higher award only.
a. Four (4) annual awards, to be designated Junior/Young Event Rider of the Year, Adult Amateur Event Rider of the Year, and Open Event Rider of the Year and FEI Event Rider of the Year, shall be awarded. The first three listed awards will be awarded to the rider/member receiving the highest total number of points throughout the year in events and/or combined tests at Beginner Novice level and above who have completed all phases in a minimum of three (3) IDEA-approved events. The FEI award shall be awarded to the rider receiving the highest number of points in IDEA and FEI approved competitions.
b. Up to three (3) different horses are permitted to determine the total.
Section 1: Riders competing for Champion/Reserve Annual Awards must be active members in good standing in the Corporation. Dressage riders must be entered, shown, and be judged in at least three (3) separate IDEA and/or USDF approved dressage shows. Points toward year-end awards accrue from sanctioned shows and placings earned after membership is received and accepted by the association treasurer or the show secretary. No retroactive points will be awarded. Separate awards shall be offered to junior/young rider, amateur and open rider. A junior/young rider shall be a rider who is 21 years old or younger on January 1 of the competition year. Awards shall be presented at the end of each competition year. The award year shall be the first of Novemberto the 31st of October the following year.
Section 2: a. USEF Rider Test Dressage Rider of the Year, at least three (3) Champion/Reserve awards, to be designated Junior/ Young Rider USEF Rider Test Dressage Rider of the Year, Adult Amateur USEF Rider Test Dressage Rider of the Year, and Open USEF Rider Test Dressage Rider of the Year, shall be awarded to the rider/member with the highest average dressage score for the three USEF Rider Tests with three different judges at three (3) IDEA approved shows.
If a rider is eligible to win more than one USEF Rider Test, Dressage Rider of the Year Award, then she/he shall be awarded the higher award only.
Section l. Rookie Cookie – Recognition will be made of horses and/or riders in their first year of competition in dressage or eventing receiving outstanding annual averages, or showing the most improvement. Recipients will be chosen by the Board of Directors. This award will be called the ROOKIE COOKIE, and at least one (1) will be awarded each year.
Section 2. Someone Special Award – The award recognizes an individual that showed great contributions to furthering the sport of dressage or eventing. This award may include not only competitors, but volunteers, management, (not necessarily members). The person must be nominated by their chapters.
The rules contained in the current edition of Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised shall govern the corporation in all cases to which they are applicable and in which they are not inconsistent with these by-laws and any special rules of order the corporation may adopt.
These BY-LAWS may be amended at any business meeting or by mail by a two-thirds (2/3) vote, provided that the amendment has been submitted to the membership in writing at least ten (10) days prior to such vote.
If at any time the corporation dissolves, any funds remaining in the treasury shall be distributed directly to the United States Dressage Federation, or a similar non-profit organization.
Section 1. The official publication of IDEA, Inc. will be the IDEA website.
Section 2. All active members are encouraged to contribute news of local or state interest pertaining to dressage and/or eventing to the newsletter editor. We, the undersigned, Directors of the Idaho Dressage and Eventing Association, Incorporated, do hereby certify that the above and foregoing By-Laws were adopted as the By-Laws of said corporation on the 10th day of November , 2002 .
Section 1. The President will hire a Media Manager approved by the Board to maintain, manage, update, monitor usage, and improve the IDEA website. The Media Manager will serve as a contractor to the IDEA Board and attend Board meetings. The Media Manager will report at each Board meeting regarding activities and website usage. | 2019-04-18T20:52:15Z | http://idahodressageandeventing.org/index.php/idea-by-laws |
It’s messy work, but everyone has to take action. Your gutters need to be kept tidy and free from dead leaves, like birds’ nests, along with other debris. It is only a fact of life in regards to owning a home.
And it is especially true at Portland, where summer is so dry and autumn, winter, and spring are so wet. Why? Since we have a tendency to overlook our gutters in Portland (along with the Pacific Northwest in general) until it is too late.
Dry leaves, tree branches, and other stuff could accumulate on your gutters during the dry summer and also you won’t find until your gutters start overflowing throughout the first major rain of the season. Or worse, you won’t detect in any respect.
Now I’ll answer a few questions most homeowners need to cleaning their gutters, and including why it’s necessary, how often it’s essential, and most importantly the way to clean your gutters.
When failed, specialists say gutters can turn from a necessity into your nightmare. A gutter clogged with leaves, sticks and other debris can cause a leaky roof or water damage to the exterior or interior of your property. Contractors state gunked-up gutters make nice houses for pests, rodents, mold and honeycombs from parasitic infestations.
If you let gutter cleaning go by the wayside, it may cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Gutters are a potential bomb over your head full of insects and critters, if you let them stay out of sight, out of mind.
How frequently should they be washed?
It depends mostly on where you live and, above all, the number of trees have been located in your yard.
It is strongly advised that people should wash the gutters in the autumn when all of their leaves are down or nearly all down.
It’s important to get a professional wash the downspouts also because a clogged downspout makes it almost impossible for the rain to go down which induces them to back up and overflow the gutter, which can cause damage to your dwelling.
You’ll be able to judge how frequently to clean your gutters based on how often leaves in your area collapse and the kinds of leaves.
It should really be on everyone’s to do list around every four weeks, based upon the tree climate. In a high-yield surroundings, leaves drop all year-round. You can not wait until the last leaf falls.
Leaf guards significantly decrease the demand for gutter maintenance, but they do not eliminate the need completely, Lambert states.
Instead of every four to six weeks, you may just need to maintenance gutters with either covers or covers every one to three decades. The frequency of maintenance will be based on the caliber of the cover along with the type and quantity of trees from the lawn, ” he says.
Even in the event you really do have gutter covers, then it’s nevertheless a good idea to perform a visual check every year.
A shield will not keep all of the debris out, adding:”Up to 15 to 20 percentage may still get inside, and you still need to remove the guard. Sometimes you will need an expert to achieve that.
It is important to purchase quality covers and displays if you want to effectively restrict the need for gutter maintenance.
You want to search for one that’s powerful enough to hold up and matches your kind of trees.
A gutter cover costs average between $1,500 to $2,500 depending on the size of the house and length of gutters.
Do the work yourself or hire?
If you don’t clean your gutters, the first problem to crop up would soon be clogged gutters and downspouts leading to standing water gathering on your gutters and overflowing. As lifeless leaves decompose, the water from your gutters will end up dirty and mould will begin growing.
In our moist climate, mold is not uncommon and can lead to a range of health issues when it gets inside your home. And it’s tricky (and expensive) to thoroughly clean, therefore it’s best to stop mold before it starts.
Although cleaning gutters isn’t a task most homeowners can do themselves, it may be dangerous work. According to the Consumer Products Safety Commission, falls from ladders delivered more than 240,000 Americans into hospital emergency rooms at 2009 (the latest year available).
When it concerns the quality of the structure, selecting a builder to design or build a building can make a huge difference. Every contractor in company now does not have expertise or the skills, therefore it is crucial to research each potential builder prior to making a determination. General Contractor Washington DCThere are few things to look for in a Commercial Structure Contractor.
What is your first step in selecting a contractor that is commercial? Typing”commercial builders” into Google and picking the very first site you see? While that may help you locate you a builder, it’s important to find the perfect contractor for your undertaking and you.
Your Blue Book of Contractors actual first step when looking for a industrial builder is to be aware of what they do. Sounds pretty obvious, right? A commercial builder is a general contractor who specializes in building, as its name implies. But unlike a residential builder, a commercial builder operates on projects such as builds and remodels of corporate offices, schools, restaurants, retail structures and much more.
The contractor and the business owner will spend a whole lot of time together before the job is finished. It’s important for the people to be more compatible. The business operator must ask a good deal of questions to ensure they are on the exact same page, while interviewing candidates for the job. The perfect builder will make the owner feel confident and comfortable they can complete the job in time and within budget. Having the ability to communicate with the Construction team’s head is important to making the project a success.
In many cases of commercial construction projects, the reply to this query is easy: yes, depending upon your scope of work. By regulation, most building projects, residential and commercial, require some form of contracting certification which is obtained from skills that are recognized. While the skills needed may not necessarily include supplies and design jurisdictions will need an obtained construction permit so as to start construction and a certificate of occupancy upon completion of the license to open your enterprise. Homes For sale Raford NCThis is only one of ways using a construction contractor.
Now that you’ve established that you want a contractor, your next step would be to figure out which one is right for you. When it is a large contractor at a firm or a individual builder, you need to be sure you understand what things to search for when choosing a builder and what to think about.
Tasks like acquiring permits and supervising regulations may be an overwhelming effort for those owners looking to build without having a building contractor. In all, direct and a contractor is necessary to manage the development of a make sure the effective and proper completion of the undertaking and construct so as to set up a peace of mind. A normal owner’s timeline is best used working on hiring and marketing for new or handling their organization or expanded build.
Before hiring any contractor, especially one which will be in charge of such a huge undertaking, it just makes sense to assess references. Any contractor that is honest will give a client a listing. If they ask, past clients can notify that a great deal about a Building Company to business owners.
One time a construction contractor has analyzed your job, they will draw up a list of programs and projected costs that’s referred to as a’bid’. You should be sure that the proposal is as comprehensive as possible and take into consideration what’s excluded from the bid. It may be something you really need. Ensure all your bids adhere to the scope so you’re comparing apples to apples.
Successfully managing a large construction project takes years of experience. It is vital to reassess their qualifications before hiring a contractor. The Commercial Construction Contractor with the price might not be the most appropriate for the job. When the job to start over and do things correctly after an contractor makes critical mistakes it might cost more than the cost savings.
Using a certified business contractor is essential to a successful project. Most states and/or local jurisdictions require that a contractor is licensed, carries insurance that is substantial and, in several cases, has a bond with them. Check on the internet to ensure they possess request insurance policy verification and the skilled license directly when considering a builder. Be sure to compare the coverages between contractors since it may differ.
Selecting a contractor to design or build a commercial building may make a difference when it comes to the quality of their construction. Every contractor in company now does not have experience or exactly the abilities, so it is crucial to research every possible builder. General Contractor MarylandThere are items to look for in a Commercial Construction Contractor.
What is your very first step in hiring a commercial contractor? Typing”commercial builders” in to Google and picking the first site you see? It’s essential to find the ideal builder for your undertaking and you, while that may help you locate you a contractor.
Your Blue Book of Contractors actual first step if you are searching for a commercial contractor is to understand what they do. Pretty clear, right? A builder is a contractor that specializes in building, as its name suggests. Unlike a builder, a builder works on projects for example builds and remodels of retail structures, corporate offices, restaurants, colleges and much more.
The contractor and the company owner will spend a lot of time together before the project is completed. It’s important for the people to be compatible. While interviewing candidates for your job, the business owner should ask a great deal of questions to ensure they are on the identical page. The builder will make the owner feel comfortable and confident they could finish the job in time and within budget. Having the ability to communicate with the head of the Structure team is vital to making the project a success.
In many instances of commercial construction projects, the answer to this question is simple: yes, depending on your scope of work. By regulation, most construction projects, commercial and commercial, require some form of contracting certification which is obtained from skills that are proven. Most authorities will require an obtained building license so as to begin construction along with a certificate of occupancy upon completion of the license to start your small company while the abilities required may not necessarily consist of supplies and design. Gutter Company DurhamThis is one of ways using a construction contractor will be convenient.
Now that you’ve found that you will need a builder, the next step is to figure out which one is ideal for you. Whether it’s a large contractor in a company or a small, individual contractor, you need to be sure that you know what to search for when employing a contractor and what to consider.
Tasks such as acquiring permits and supervising regulations can be an overwhelming effort for the owners seeking to build without using a construction contractor. Overall, a builder is necessary to handle and direct the development of a ensure the most proper and efficient completion of the undertaking and construct to be able to establish a peace of mind for the owners. A owner’s timeline is used working on hiring and marketing for brand new or managing their organization or enlarged build.
Before hiring any contractor, especially one which will be in charge of such a huge project, it simply makes sense to assess references. A client will be given a list by any honest contractor. Clients can notify a great deal about a Commercial Construction Company to business owners if they simply request.
Once a construction contractor has reviewed your job, they will draw up a list of programs and estimated costs which is known as a’bidding’. In a rush, you should be sure the proposal is as comprehensive as possible and take. It can be something that you truly require. Ensure your bids all adhere to the exact same extent so you are comparing apples to apples.
Successfully managing a huge construction project takes years of expertise. It’s vital to review their qualifications before hiring a contractor. The Commercial Building Contractor with the cost may not be the best for your job. It can cost more than the cost savings when the whole project to start over and do things correctly after a inexperienced contractor makes mistakes.
Having a certified commercial contractor is essential to a successful project. Most states conveys insurance and, in many instances, has a bond with them. Check on the internet to make certain they have the license and request insurance confirmation from the insurance company when considering a commercial contractor. Make sure you compare the coverages between contractors as it can vary tremendously.
By selecting a builder to design or construct a commercial building, a difference can be made when it comes to the quality of the completed structure. Every contractor in company now doesn’t have the skills or experience, therefore it is critical prior to making a decision to research each builder. General Contractor MarylandThere are things to look for in a industrial Building Contractor.
What is your very first step in selecting a contractor that is commercial? Typing”commercial contractors” into Google and choosing the very first site you see? While that may help you locate you a builder, it is important to get the perfect contractor for your project and you.
Your Blue Book of Contractors actual first step if you’re searching for a industrial builder is to understand what they do. Pretty obvious, right? There is a contractor a contractor who specializes in commercial construction, as the name suggests. However, unlike a builder, a builder works on projects such as remodels and builds of retail structures, corporate offices, restaurants, colleges and much more.
The builder and the business owner will devote a whole lot of time together until the job is completed. It’s important for the people to be harmonious. The business owner must ask a whole lot of questions to make sure they are on the same page while interviewing candidates for your job. The ideal contractor will make the owner feel comfortable and confident they can finish the job in time and within budget. Being able to communicate with the mind of the Commercial Structure team is vital to making the job a success.
In most cases of commercial construction projects, the response to this issue is simple: yes, based on your scope of work. By regulation, most building projects, industrial and commercial, require some sort of contracting licensing which is obtained from skills that are proven. While the abilities needed may not consist of supplies and design authorities will need an obtained building license to be able to start building along with a certificate of occupancy upon completion of the license to start your organization. Gutter company RaleighThis is one of the ways using a general building contractor.
Now that you’ve established that you will need a builder, the next step will be to figure out which one is perfect for you. Whether it’s a contractor at a company or a individual contractor, you need to make certain you know what things to look for when choosing a contractor that is commercial and what things to consider.
Tasks such as acquiring licenses and supervising regulations can be an overwhelming effort for those owners seeking to build without having a building contractor. Overall, guide and a contractor is necessary to manage the development of a ensure the efficient and appropriate completion of the project and construct to be able to establish a peace of mind for those owners. The timeline of A owner is used working on hiring and marketing for new or handling their organization or enlarged build.
Before hiring any contractor, particularly one that will be in control of such a massive undertaking, it just makes sense to check references. A potential customer will be given a listing of companies they’ve worked with previously by any contractor. If they only request, customers can tell that a whole great deal about a Construction Company to business owners.
Once a building contractor has reviewed your project, they will draw up a record of programs and estimated costs that’s known as a’bid’. In a rush, you should make certain the proposal is as comprehensive as possible and take. It might be something that you truly need. Make sure all your bids stick to the extent so you’re comparing apples to apples.
Successfully handling a huge construction project requires years of expertise. Before choosing a contractor, it’s critical to review their credentials. The industrial Construction Contractor with the price might not be the most appropriate for your job. It can cost substantially more than the cost savings if mistakes are made by the project to start over and do things after a inexperienced contractor.
Using a certified commercial contractor is critical to a successful job. Most states jurisdictions require that a contractor is licensed, has a bond together carries insurance that is significant and, in several instances. When considering a commercial builder, check online to make certain they have the license and request insurance policy verification directly. Make sure you compare the policies between contractors as it can differ.
You rarely think about calling a locksmith till you need you, however, knowing who to phone in advance will ensure the job is performed by a professional, educated professional. Because 1918, Robblee’s Total Security has served business owners, homeowners, and others all over the Tacoma, WA, area. You can trust that no matter the reason for needing a locksmith, they will find the job done instantly, so that you may feel secure once more.
Whether your adolescent lost their home key or an employee lost their key to your shop, missing keys depart your home or company vulnerable to vandalism, theft, and other unfortunate incidents. To renew your sense of security at home or work, a locksmith can simply re-key the lock without changing it completely. This may eliminate a good deal of strain and worry.
Keys breaking in locks are among the most frequent calls locksmiths receive. Unfortunately, a broken key can bring your evening to a screeching stop. The professionals at Robblee’s Total Security will come out immediately to remove the broken key, so you’ve got a working door once more. If needed, they can even create a new secret for you.
While classic locks and keys may give a house character, they are often impractical and make it effortless for thieves to break in. Replacing them with locks can safeguard you and your possessions.
No matter what your security requirements consist of, the locksmiths in Robblee’s Total Security may manage the job. Their experience extends well beyond locks and keys–they are also able to help you set up a home or commercial security system, gate operators, plus more. Go to the website for further info, and save -LRB-253-RRB- 627-5448 in your telephone, so you are ready the next time you want a locksmith.
Whenever you are locked out of your car or home, you want to know what to do. Your initial intuition in what to do if locked out would be to phone the authorities but instead you need to first contact a locksmith who will instantly come to your place and unlock the door to your car or house for you quickly. At Locksmith.com you will come across the ideal locksmith that can help you access your own personal property when you’re locked out unintentionally. Forgetting the keys in the car or home, or front door accidentally closing on you when it is locked from the other side, can frequently bring about a sense of panic. If you’ve got your mobile phone on you, you can call a locksmith to help start the lock for you. A key to a locked house or car isn’t necessary every time a locksmith uses specialized tools to help open the locks. A locksmith will not cost you an exorbitant charge for opening your own locks to you. When you do need to call a locksmith to start your car or house locks, make sure it is an authentic one and not a fraud, who will enter your home or car and proceed to relieve you of your valuables. If you are in a parking lot somewhere while shopping and you discover that your keys are locked in your car, you may telephone the police or security guard when there is one and have him stay with your car while you contact a locksmith. Always be in a position to have access to an accredited locksmith should you ever must get a lock opened to you personally.
A lock is a complex mechanism with many moving parts. By looking at a lock, you would have no idea that there are fine intricacies that are involved with the inner workings of a lock. Sometimes the complexity of a lock can cause for it to malfunction due to various reasons, causing the need to call a locksmith.
It is crucial to change your locks once you’ve moved into a new home. While you may trust the people who lived in the home before you, it’s better to replace your lock than to be too trusting and learn afterwards that they had a key and stole your belongings.
There are various reasons to call a locksmith and there is not any shame in doing this. A locksmith can help you in a timely manner and assist you in the process of getting back on your feet and on with your everyday activities.
This can be alarming, especially in the event that you have another little child in the vehicle that is locked inside. Perhaps you’re low on gasoline and you cannot get inside to turn off the engine. No matter what the challenge is, it is important to provide a locksmith a call straight away so they can come help you get out of the situation you have discovered yourself in. It takes more time being feverish and attempting to figure out how to get the door open by your self when calling a locksmith will take no time in any way.
Among the easiest things to keep an eye out for is really a leaky roof. If your roof sags in the center or at any given point, something is structurally wrong. There are numerous reasons for a sagging roof. Almost all are structural. Inadequate support or even a busted ray causes this swaybacked effect. A particularly harsh winter with a thick snow load, something NJ residents are all too familiar with, pushes old roofs across the border.
Have a pen or other straight thing and hold it at eye level in the curb. If your roof has an obvious breakout, this easy trick reveals it. This problem requires professional help to correct and is best left to specialists.
Asphalt shingles split down over time. Some of the little granules which constitute the shingles disintegrate within the process. Accumulated granules in your gutters or at the base of your downspouts are a warning signal dangerous to ignore. As shingles stinks, their efficacy deteriorates too. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
Several things contribute to your house’s heating and cooling bill. Bad insulation, damaged siding, and the expense of gas and compromised roofs are among them. If you become aware of a change in your home’s HVAC invoice that can’t be clarified by siding, insulation, or fuel, call a local roofer from NJ to take a peek at your own roof. Most of us know that heat increases. In summer time, this usually means that a damaged roof releases that warm air. A poorly ventilated roof, conversely, traps that warm air in the summer, increasing your air conditioning expenses.
Water out of your dripping roof leaves tell-tale signals in your attic and ceilings. Have a visit to your loft every once in a while, especially before winter months and throughout the spring, also analyze the rafters. Water stains are a clear indication of a leaking roof. Install gutters to help prevent water damage to your home. You should call a pro in to make sure this is done right.
Asphalt shingles typically last between 15 and 25 decades. Some last longer and some shorter, depending on weather and installment. A poorly installed roof doesn’t last as long as a professionally installed roof, also areas with harsh winters, like NJ, put more pressure on roofs.
Sometimes you do not even need to look up in your roof to check for issues. Take a walk around your house’s perimeter, keeping an eye on the walls. If your paint is blistering or stained at a concentrated area, chances are your roof is not ventilating properly. Accumulated moisture trapped in loft spaces causes this. If your house has vinyl siding, look out for signs of mold.
Mildew also develops on the interior of your home where the ceiling meets the walls. If you discover any of these signs, call a roofing contractor to estimate your home’s needs.
Sydney and NSW Real Estate Investing have hit many obstacles in the past 24 months. The latest obstacle has changed the ‘way the real estate investor does business.’ Petrol prices are at an all time high in NSW and travelling in Sydney has never looked so expensive! Real Estate suicide is found in prospecting for properties the old fashioned way. The savvy Real Estate Investor would have noted the more intensified utilization of the internet to obtain properties.
Real Estate sites such as realestate.com.au and domain.com.au have become house hold names amongst eve ry day Australians. Sure, it’s nice to go to your traditional Real Estate shop front and obtain brochures etc. However, most of these shop fronts have their own websites and many Real Estate companies/agents no longer have shop fronts. Many Real Estate agents run their business and promote their properties totally online.
The Real Estate Investor therefore has that option to stay home and search for their properties online. Utilizing RP Data tools and others, research can also be conducted online. Though for a small cost, the real estate investor can have detailed information concerning a particular property without have had to step foot outside or fill up their car with petrol!
But let’s take this concept a step further. What has been detailed above is perfectly fine for the average house buyer and the unlearned Real Estate Investor. However, the true Real Estate Investors in Sydney and throughout NSW will not only need to access the real estate agents websites but they will also need to obtain GREAT deals online.
This is where the average Real Estate Investor gets into a pickle. Typically, when a website is run by a real estate agent, the prices will be set at a value that realistically is too high for the investor. The investor is looking for “The Deal”, which is normally made through negotiations with the seller and not the seller’s representative. Why so? Well, Real Estate agents want their commissions and ANY creative investment or purchase strategy that the Real Estate Investor proposes – is often frowned upon by the real estate agent.
Lease options, Property options, wholesale deals, rent to buy etc. are just not looked upon favorably by the real estate agent as it poses a possible reduction from their commissions … or simply they do not understand the ‘creative ‘ side of real estate investing!
Sydney lacks a strong Real Estate Investor community. To be quite honest, it’s very weak. NSW is also run by Real Estate agents or investors entering the ‘coaching’ field. Many will charge for their knowledge, which is understandable … but not really offering a network in which the real estate investor is able to obtain exclusive deals from. Knowledge is power, and I don’t dispute that fact – however there is no denying that an investor needs the great low deal. Sadly the internet will show a lack of Real Estate Networks in Sydney and surrounding NSW.
That is where the author has offered his services to the Real Estate Investing community of NSW and Sydney. A very simple concept really. The author is able to distribute great wholesale deals for the Sydney / NSW Real Estate Investor and build a strong Investing community. The best part of this concept is that there is absolutely no cost to any one involved.
The aim and goal for the author is to be able to unite Sydney and NSW Real Estate Investors where they have an exclusive place to receive wholesale property deals. These properties will range from a home needing to be renovated (ugly house), nice average house, vacant land for development, etc.
Sydney Real Estate Investors will now be able to get a great wholesale deal, see the house or property on their computers, utilize on line tools to check its market value – all from the comforts of home. No more leaving home for the Real Estate Investor.
Wow, the rain has hit Sydney and still NSW Real Estate Investors are able to make fantastic deals!
Will buy your home for cash would be to home sellers since cheesy infomercials will be to late night TV.
You have seen the signs handwritten in all caps, pinpointed into the telephone pole as you exit the freeway WE BUY UGLY HOUSES. You’re normally running off somewhere once you view them, and that means you’ve never actually done any more study, but you are curious.
What’s this business model? Who calls for these numbers? What is the catch?
The National Association of Realtors’ estimates that about 20% of home sales are all-cash transactions. Approximately three-quarters of the cash home sales are investors, as of 2018. That doesn’t mean each of these earnings come from such flimsy signs, but it will imply that investors purchasing houses for cash then selling them for a profit isn’t a little enterprise.
Promoting your home to an investor to get money is much like investing in your car to your dealership. If you’re looking to sell your car, you can definitely do it all yourself. Do some small fixes, put it up on Craigslist and arrange your own test drives. However, it’s easier to simply take it on the exact identical dealership you’re purchasing your next car from and let them deal with it. A lot of folks opt to this hassle-free choice even if they don’t get anywhere close to Blue Book on their car.
Same goes for selling your house for money.
If your house is in need of any significant repairs until you can place it to the marketplace, a money offer may look pretty appealing because investors will often buy property as-is.
Offer is only true if the purchaser’s present house sells in just three weeks.
Offer is only good if the inspection doesn’t develop a cracked foundation.
Even when they bank gets approved, provide is only valid in the event the mortgage creditor comes through.
If you are selling your home for money to an investor, then this is just one extra obstacle it is possible to avoid.
The motive house earnings take forever is because banks get involved. If you need to borrow cash, you’re on their timeline and they don’t really care about your timeline. All-cash purchases close quickly since they don’t have to take care of creditors at all.
Financing is also where home sales have a tendency to fall apart, so promoting your home to somebody who’s buying for money means that you may bypass this hiccup. Moreover, in all-cash home earnings, the investors often pay the final costs.
Selling a house for cash is faster and less legwork.
Because you’ve got somebody considering the very start, you don’t need to undergo all the primping that goes into list your house for sale. It’s not necessary to worry about staging or hiring a pro photographer or figuring out your marketing description. You likely get out of repair and inspection responsibilities and you completely bypass the lending measures.
You call an investor, they ask you a few questions and they allow you to provide. You simply just take it don’t, and you close within a week or two. It really is that simple, however, you need to understand that you’re trading time for money.
Anyone will purchase your home for some price, however, the vast majority of investors will offer a good deal less than it’s worth. Normally these businesses plan for 65-80% Boost house for money advice from average market value, and average about 23% less cost per square foot.
Investors are not buying your home since they are interested in residing inside. They’re buying it so they can reverse it and markup that the price for a fast profit. You’re most likely to web more by hiring a top listing agent, even though your asking price is less than your house is worth. | 2019-04-23T00:08:00Z | http://www.amatulsa.com/ |
Jeff VanVonderen, an interventionist and former counselor known for his appearances on "Intervention," A&E's Emmy award-winning documentary series about addicts, recently spoke in Orlando at a town hall meeting.
He sat down with the Orlando Sentinel to talk about drug and alcohol addiction and the nation's prescription-drug epidemic.
Q. What are the biggest misconceptions about addiction?
A. People think it's just a matter of willpower, that if you just try a little harder you can stop the addiction. Using is a matter of will. But once you cross the line into addiction, I think then you have a disease, and it's not just a matter of stopping using.
Q. What are the biggest signs someone has a drug or alcohol addiction that people miss the most?
A. I think the reason people miss the signs at all is because they're not paying attention.
Q. Is there a difference between prescription drug addiction, alcohol addiction, or other illicit drug addictions? If so, what are the differences?
A. From my standpoint, there is no difference. For me, the addiction is the same and the chemical that they're using is a fill-in-the-blank. But the difference is there are some substances where people get physically addicted like opiates and alcohol….Drugs like pot for instance, or cocaine, or things like that they don't get so physically addicted but you get mood addicted. You get addicted to the phenomenon of mood altering.
Q. Is there anything unique about prescription drug addiction that makes it easier or more difficult for people to overcome?
A. One of the main rationalizations for people who are addicted to prescription medication is that they got it from the doctor, so it must be ok. When you get into the situation where someone is actually addicted, they're no longer taking it like the doctor prescribed.
Q. What's the worst thing to do when someone has an addition?
A. Ignore it. In an addictive situation…the rule, and this rule is established by the addict over and over again, is the problem's not the problem — you're the problem for talking about the problem. There wouldn't even be a problem if you didn't make such a big deal about it. And then people buy into that and they stop confronting, stop talking about it. They don't take steps to help….they feel like somehow they're in the wrong.
Q. What's the best thing to do?
A. Holding people accountable….The best thing is to not ignore the problem. The best thing is to not act like talking about it causes it. You need to remember the problem is always the problem. Talking about the problem is not the problem.
Q. How can you approach the family of a friend who is suffering from addiction?
A. People deal with the small picture of addiction, which is how do we put out the latest fire this person started? How do we smooth over the latest crisis? Treat the addict the same as you would a friend. Families give the addict, their loved one, a license to be less accountable, less responsible than they would an enemy. Family members are supposed to be more safe, more accountable, more responsible than friends, neighbors, strangers and enemies. But the whole thing flips upside down.
Q. Is battling an addiction a life-long process?
A. I think it is. There are some addicts who don't have cravings anymore and it's not an issue that they struggle with everyday. But I think that it is because if an addict ever asks a substance to do for them, what they once asked it to do, it will. Most addicts that I know, they'd say, they cannot guarantee that every time they'll start using, they will stop. So they don't start.
Q. How long does it take to develop an addiction?
A. I know people that would say that they were addicted the moment they started using. Then I know other people who maybe drank successfully without consequence for 30 years. No big deal — an appropriate social drinker. Then their wife died and six months later they lost everything. Because on that day they changed the reason why they drank…. It's different for different people.
Q. Have you seen anything like the prescription drug epidemic facing the country today?
When a drug user can't stop taking a drug even if he wants to, it's called addiction. The urge is too strong to control, even if you know the drug is causing harm.
When people start taking drugs, they don't plan to get addicted. They like how the drug makes them feel. They believe they can control how much and how often they take the drug. However, drugs change the brain. Drug users start to need the drug just to feel normal. That is addiction, and it can quickly take over a person's life.
Addiction can become more important than the need to eat or sleep. The urge to get and use the drug can fill every moment of a person's life. The addiction replaces all the things the person used to enjoy. A person who is addicted might do almost anything—lying, stealing, or hurting people—to keep taking the drug. This could get the person arrested.
They can cause problems like mood swings, memory loss, even trouble thinking and making decisions.
If you think you or someone you love is affected by addiction or a drug / alcohol abuse problem Dynamic Testing Solutions offers Drug and Alcohol testing services because you have the right to know. Drug and Alcohol testing can confirm the abuse of a substance to help you and your family know the truth and start on a path to recovery.
THE PAINKILLER EPIDEMIC: HOW IS IT AFFECTING OUR YOUTH?
The rate of prescription drug abuse among youth has increased significantly over the past decade. The misconception that prescription drugs are safer than other drugs because they are legal has contributed to the rise in this abuse. The abuse of painkillers, a common opioid or prescription drug, especially needs to be looked at since this is the most frequently abused of all pharmaceuticals, the most common being OxyContin and Vicodin. It is important that parents, health professionals and prevention specialists address this issue and help prevent our youth from becoming addicted.
Why is it that youths abuse prescription drugs? The reasons are similar to that for other drugs, commonly including being able to deal with emotions, to try and fit in with their peers and the misconception that these are safer than other drugs because they are prescribed by physicians. Youth also take painkillers for health reasons, such as a sports injury, but it’s when they don’t understand the associated addictive properties that they can get hooked very easily and become addicts. Since the human brain doesn’t fully develop until the age of 25, youth are at a higher risk of becoming addicted. With alcohol and marijuana being the two substances most commonly abused by youth, the abuse of painkillers isn’t far behind. A serious issue arises when youth combine prescription pills with other drugs to get a better high. The combination of different substances can have significant consequences, sometimes resulting in death.
Why is it so easy for youth to get their hands on prescription drugs? The simplest way for a youth to get pain pills is through a friend or family member. If the pills are left in a cabinet, it’s very easy for a youth to take a couple unnoticed. They can also get pills from their friend's existing prescription to a painkiller. There are street dealers who sell so-called prescription drugs; most of the time, these drugs are counterfeit and are not produced by pharmaceutical manufacturers. As is the case with all street drugs, the buyer doesn’t really know for sure what the drug contains.
As the number of crimes and deaths increases, it is evident that proper measures need to be taken in order to keep the youth in our communities and homes safe. Prescription drug abuse by youth shouldn’t be taken lightly; it is just as serious and popular as alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. The abuse of pain relievers by youth is six times higher than that among adults. Painkiller abuse causes health problems, affects a youth’s academic performance and can lead to illegal and dangerous behaviour.
Parents have the first opportunity of affecting their youth’s decision regarding abusing painkillers, or any other drug. Some parents talk to their youth about alcohol, marijuana and other illicit drugs, but many forget to discuss pharmaceutical drugs and the severity of using them. Sometimes, a parent may need to do some research on such drugs to be fully informed and provide the appropriate data to their youth. Another step which parents can take is to be a good role model and be sure to take their own medication as prescribed, and to not share it with others. Putting the medication in a secure place and monitoring the number of pills taken is something to remember. If there is any expired or unused medication, it should be disposed of appropriately. Lastly, parents should talk to a health professional if they have any other questions.
Physicians and pharmacists play an important and difficult role in the issue of prescription drug abuse among youth. Prescribing the proper dosage of medication to treat the pain that a youth might have is challenging. Physicians face a dilemma in trying to balance the dosage of what’s needed to help relieve someone’s pain without sending them down the path of addiction. They can be careful to take multiple steps to prevent drug abuse occurring among youth. It is important to explain in detail how to take the medication properly, the effects it may have and any possible drug interactions. If a patient is asking for painkillers more frequently and in higher dosages than usual, this may be a good sign of possible abuse of the medication.
The abuse of prescription drugs among youth will not stop without the efforts of friends, family and health professionals. Being aware of the current trends in substance abuse, especially the abuse of painkillers, is crucial. The consequences of these drugs need to be understood. The accessibility of painkillers is making it too easy for our youth to start using. Our youth need to be educated and it is only through awareness and proper knowledge that there is a chance to protect our youth from ruining their lives.
When it comes to drugs, teens are a savvy bunch. Drugs and messages about living drug-free have been part of their lives for years. They can make distinctions not only among different drugs and their effects, but also among trial, occasional use and addiction. They've witnessed many of their peers using drugs — some without obvious or immediate consequences, others whose drug use gets out of control. By the teen years, kids have also had to make plenty of choices of their own about drug use: whether they should give in to peer-pressure and experiment with drugs, or go against some of their peers and stay clean.
1.Don’t speak generally about drug- and alcohol-use— your older teen needs to hear detailed and reality-driven messages. Topics worth talking about with your teen: using a drug just once can have serious permanent consequences; can put you in risky and dangerous situations; anybody can become a chronic user or addict; combining drugs can have deadly consequences.
2.Emphasize what drug use can do to your teen's future. Discuss how drug use can ruin your teen's chance of getting into the college they have been dreaming about or landing the perfect job.
4.Encourage your teen to volunteer somewhere that they can see the impact of drugs on your community. Teenagers tend to be idealistic and enjoy hearing about ways they can help make the world a better place. Help your teen research volunteer opportunities at local homeless shelters, hospitals or victim services centers.
5.Use news reports as discussion openers. If you see a news story about an alcohol-related car accident, talk to your teen about all the victims that an accident leaves in its wake. If the story is about drugs in your community, talk about the ways your community has changed as drug use has grown.
6.Compliment your teen for the all the things they do well and for the positive choices they makes. Let them know that they are seen and appreciated. And let them know how you appreciate what a good role model they are for their younger siblings and other kids in the community. Teens still care what their parents think. Let them know how deeply disappointed you would be if he started using drugs.
Tobacco, Alcohol, prescription drugs such as Ritalin, Oxycontin, Vicodin, Valium and Xanax, Inhalants, Marijuana, Ecstasy, Herbal Ecstasy, Cocaine/Crack, GHB, Heroin, Rohypnol, Ketamine, LSD, Mushrooms.
Discovering that a teen is using drugs or alcohol can be a scary experience for parents — you may feel alone, ashamed and confused about what to do next. If you suspect or know your child is experimenting, using or has a problem with drugs and alcohol, visit TIME TO ACT! for support and answers to your questions.
Since hair growth is fed by the bloodstream, the ingestion of drugs of abuse is revealed by analyzing a small sample of hair. Our testing method measures the drug molecules embedded inside the hair shaft, eliminating external contamination as a source of a positive test result. Hair testing results cannot be significantly altered with shampoos or other external chemicals.
Studies indicate that head hair grows on the average approximately 1.3 cm (or 1/2 inch) per month.
of hair or approximately 90 to 120 strands. The thickness of different types of head hair (thick coarse vs. thinning fine) is the reason for this variation.
Enzyme-immunoassay antibodies (EIA), similar to those used to test urine, are used for the initial screening test for drugs of abuse in hair; therefore the potential for substances such as over-the-counter medications to cause a false positive screening result does exist. To eliminate the possibility of reporting a false-positive due to cross-reactivity, Omega confirms all positive results by GC/MS for methamphetamine, opiates, PCP,cocaine and marijuana.
How long are test reports kept on file?
Since hair growth is fed by the bloodstream, the ingestion of drugs of abuse is revealed by analyzing a small sample of hair. Our testing method measures the drug molecules embedded inside the hairshaft, eliminating external contamination as a source of a positive test result. Hair testing results cannot be significantly altered with shampoos or other external chemicals.
Why should a workplace look at substance abuse issues?
· psychological or stress-related effects due to substance abuse by a family member, friend or co-worker that affects another person's job performance.
This document will discuss issues such as how substance abuse problems may affect the workplace, possible costs to a business, and how a business can address such issues.
loss of interest, "nodding", overdose may be fatal. If used by injection, the sharing of needles may spread Hepatitis B, or C and HIV/AIDS.
The economic impacts of substance abuse in Canada to businesses or industry have been traditionally difficult to measure. Many costs are hidden by general absenteeism or illnesses, "unnoticed" lack of productivity, or inability or reluctance to link substance abuse directly with causes of accidents.
In general, the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA), reports that substance abuse cost the Canadian economy more than $39.8 billion in 2002. This figure includes costs for tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs.
Are there elements of work that may contribute to abuse of substances?
· easy access to substances.
Work can be an important place to address substance abuse issues. Employers and employees can collaborate to design policies which outline what is an acceptable code of behaviour and what is not. By establishing or promoting programs such as an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), employers can help troubled employees more directly or provide referrals to community services.
Workplaces are encouraged to establish a procedure or policy so that help can be provided in a professional and consistent manner. It is important for supervisors and managers to have a resource or procedure that they can rely on if the need arises. Employees need to know that everyone will be treated the same way. Pre-planning, as for many other occupational health and safety issues, is the best way to avoid confusion and frustration in times that are already difficult.
In addition, managers and supervisors should be educated in how to recognize and deal with substance abuse issues and employees should be offered educational programs.
What elements should be in a substance abuse policy?
A company substance abuse policy should emphasize that the program is confidential and be jointly created by both labour and management.
· that arrangements have been made for training employees, supervisors, and others in identifying impaired behaviour and substance abuse.
· provision for disciplinary actions.
Growing up, you have probably heard that illicit drugs can have a negative impact on your health. Do you know how specific drugs affect your brain? Or the way that a drug can impair your judgment and affect your personality?
Why would anyone use illicit drugs?
The fact is, the majority of people don't use drugs. People who do use drugs tend to make excuses for their behaviour, but do their excuses really make any sense? Read on and decide for yourself.
1."Everybody else is doing it. I want to fit in."
It's risky to take drugs to fit in. Instead of helping you to fit in, drugs could start to take over your friendships.
Drug addiction can take up a lot of your time and money, leaving little of either to spend with your friends.
The key is to think for yourself and remember that you don't have to agree with, or do all the things that your friends do in order to keep your friendships.
2. "My life is stressful - drugs help me deal with everything."
Drugs are not the answer to a happier, stress-free life. For one thing, they alter brain chemistry, which can lead to depression and other mental illnesses.
Taking illicit drugs can actually worsen the brain's chemical imbalances for those people who are already suffering from mental illnesses.
Face your problems head-on. The best way to deal with stress is to pinpoint when and how it started.
Once you've identified the cause, try to find a healthier way of handling it - for example, try exercise, and/or sports; meditation; art; music; hang out with your friends, watch television, and surf the Internet.
Still feeling stressed? Talk to someone you know you can trust (for example, visit your school guidance counsellor, confide in your best friend or maybe even sit down with your parents, or call a help-line for advice).
3. "I was curious and had nothing better to do."
It's natural to be curious, but are drugs really worth the risk?
You cannot predict what your reaction to a drug will be - serious consequences such as overdose and even death could occur.
Taking illicit drugs impairs your decision making skills and judgement, which can lead to dangerous activities, such as driving while high.
4. "I feel grown-up, more confident and cool."
The media can strongly influence what is perceived to be "cool". They often promote images of drugs in television shows and movies and avoid showing the real consequences of drug use.
While entertaining, these are not real life depictions of people or events. In real life, drug use can lead to poor school and work performance, increase conflicts with family and friends and can be deadly.
It may not seem as glamorous, but it's more rewarding for your self-image and confidence to spend your time pursuing your hobbies and passions and staying healthy.
5. "I'm not addicted - I can stop at anytime."
People who are addicted to drugs also thought they would be able to control their use.
You might also become psychologically dependent to a drug and develop a compulsion to keep using it.
Realizing you have a dependency is the first step and takes courage. Consult a medical professional for help and lean on a supportive friend or family member when it gets too rough.
6. "I need some form of rebellion."
It is natural to feel frustrated or annoyed with anyone telling you how to live your life. But do you really want drugs and their risky consequences to be a part of your life?
11/30/2011A 16 year old boy rushed to Children's Hospital from a party in Harvest Hills last Saturday afternoon...died this morning from what's being called a drug overdose. Several teens had gathered for the party at a home in the 100 block of Harvest Oak Crescent NE, and the boy ingested an unknown quantity of what was believed to be ecstasy. He was rushed to hospital in critical, life-threatening condition. Eight other teens in attendance were also taken to hospital for precautionary reasons and subsequently released. The initial investigation does not indicate that the teens were the victims of a criminal act. However, the investigation is ongoing. The boy's identity is not being released and his family has asked for privacy during this difficult time.
Police would like teens and parents alike, to take this tragic situation as a reminder of the dangers of illegal drug use.
If you are not sure about the possibility that someone you know may be abusing drugs, this may be of some help. Listed below are the most common drugs abused and the signs to look out for. Don’t, as many parents or spouses have told us, be caught completely unaware when small signs have gone unnoticed and a catastrophe occurs. The police knocking on the door or a phone call from a hospital are not the times to realize that someone has a drug addiction.
It is sometimes difficult to imagine that a loved one is using drugs and the signs of drug addiction can range from seemingly harmless lapses in judgment to involvement with law enforcement. Very often when clients go for treatment it is clear that there have been many warning signs, sometimes spanning years, which have simply been missed by the addict’s loved ones. Often if these signs had been noticed earlier the addict would have suffered fewer consequences from their drug use.
In all instances of substance abuse, watch for a tendency on the part of the abuser to refrain and shun conversation and face-to-face meetings with others. You are watching for behaviour that represents a somewhat dramatic change in character from previous experience. The signs of drug abuse and drug addiction can be and will be explained away by the person using the drugs.
Don’t be fooled. As painful as it may be, detecting the signs of drug abuse, learning about the different types of drugs and getting help can possibly save someone’s life.
If you notice any of these signs, don’t wait. Get Help! A drug addiction won’t go away by talking or wishing it away.
Drug Addict items around or hidden in the house, bedroom, etc.
- May go into fits of laughter or laugh when there is nothing to laugh about.
- Repeatedly performing the same task over and over again. | 2019-04-20T16:16:13Z | http://dynamictesting.ca/blog/page/3/ |
We stood outside the Centre and gave visitors a handout explaining that the Buddhist tradition they were visiting organises protests against the Dalai Lama.
Within 10 minutes of our arrival, once visitors had reached the Centre with copies of our handout, the Icelandic Admin director was sent down to talk to us by the Resident teacher. He asked us to move to the other side of the road. We refused as we were not blocking the pavement or the entrance to the Centre. He tried to take photographs of us. We asked him not to.
He was reminded that he would need our permission to publish photos in the public arena and that I would also ask his permission before publishing any photo. He then stood beside us while we talked to members of the public.
‘You may be interested to visit the following websites for further information about our Centre, our tradition – the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT), the WSS: Bodhisattva Buddhist Centre website: http://www.meditateinbrighton.com NKT website: http://www.kadampa.org Western Shugden Society website: http://www.westernshugdensociety.org And http://www.newkadampatruth.org for information about the NKT and our side of the story!!
When we gave a copy of our leaflet to visitors, the Admin Director of Bodhisattva Centre also gave them a copy of the letter from Kelsang Nyingpo.
One of the main reasons that we decided to inform the public was that the publicity for the centre’s open day did not mention the NKT or the NKT-IKBU and the main title on the publicity was ‘Buddhist Centre Open Day’. We felt this was misleading the public who would therefore not make any connection with the group of people protesting against the Dalai Lama.
The admin director said that the NKT weren’t the WSS. He was silent on this issue after I said that the teachers, students, etc of the NKT would not have done anything if Geshe Kelsang Gyatso hadn’t told them to.
The connection with the WSS is also obvious on this letter. We were so successful in giving away handouts that we needed to leave to make further copies.
The Centre sent down tea and cake for the Admin Director. We had tea and fruit from supporters who came to chat with us. Others stayed a while to share their stories; ex-students, ex-peers, old friends, new acquaintances.
One woman, deeply distressed, told us that she knew that something ‘was wrong’ with the NKT but she was so desperate to feel part of a community that she had continued attending classes and visiting the centre. She found it a great relief to share her difficulties and find the confidence to trust her own intuition.
She was the only person who read this letter and then did not go and visit the Centre.
Many people expressed surprise and sometimes shock that members of the Bodhisattva community could be protesting against the Dalai Lama. At first, several people thought that we were protesting against the Dalai Lama and that the Centre supported him.
There were some people who had told us that they no longer attended Bodhisattva Centre who were there at the Open Day, helping. Some came to talk to us, others could not even greet us, just came to look and leave.
Only one person was visibly angry with us – this young woman has suffered a deep personal tragedy due to her family’s intimacy with the NKT but she has maintained her own connection. She said ‘You are a member of that Survivor’s group, aren’t you?’ I replied that there were a lot of members. She looked directly at me, grabbed a handout and challenging me with her stare, ripped it in half, threw it on the pavement and hurriedly left.
I make a wish that our actions will create an opportunity for any perceived problems in the NKT itself to be more openly discussed and the lineage and actions of its practitioners be more known to the public before anyone makes any commitment to study or even just starts to rely on the benefits of an NKT community.
The text of the leaflet is in blue. The ‘refutations’ from the NewKadampaTruth blog are in black. Replies to the ‘Refutations’ , created by a group of people, are in brown.
Recently at a Bodhisattva Centre (Brighton) Open Day, two people handed out leaflets to newcomers in order to dissuade them from attending the Centre’s Buddhist meditation classes. Many of their complaints stem from their dislike of the open opposition of many New Kadampa Tradition students to the Dalai Lama over his ban of one of their spiritual practices. It is understandable that some people might wish to protest in support of the Dalai Lama and it is their freedom to do so.
1. We were not protesting in support of the Dalai Lama and we were not trying to ‘dissuade’ newcomers. We handed out leaflets in support of freedom of information so that members of the public new to the NKT would be knowledgeable of the activities of its members and able to make an informed decision about the NKT. You may note that the only websites referred to on our handout belong to the NKT and the WSS. We have no affiliations to any particular religious or spiritual group. We are concerned citizens.
Moreover, the New Kadampa Tradition and Bodhisattva Centre have not claimed to be a faultless organizations. However, the information these two people were handing out was largely incorrect and misleading, so we need to address it here. Please let us know if you have any more questions about any of the issues raised below.
This leaflet has also been copied and pasted onto a couple of other websites.
2. The publicity was specifically aimed at visitors new to the centre, therefore not including the name of the organisation on the publicity was misleading.
Geshe Kelsang’s books form the basis of the three NKT study programmes (the General Programme, Foundation Programme and Teacher Training Programme) but outside of their studies NKT students can and do read what they wish. Everyone has freedom to do as they choose. Please see New Kadampa Truth website for more information on this.
3. If you study with other Tibetan organisations you will be reading books from several Tibetan traditions and certainly not just commentaries by one teacher. If there is nothing ‘original’ in Buddhism then what is the difference between a Zen and a Theravadan text? What then is the place of Je Tsongkhapa? How can Geshe Kelsang claim to have ‘designed three special spiritual programmes’ ‘especially suited to the modern world’ [one of which is designed for people to become ‘authentic’ spiritual teachers] without producing anything ‘original’? Are you also implying that you cannot become enlightened in the west without Geshe Kelsang’s books as his instructions are the ‘most complete’?
It is your choice who your spiritual teacher is and no one can dictate this to you.
4. We are not trying to ‘dictate’ anything to anyone. We are giving information on the practices that you will be engaging in if you practice with the New Kadampa tradition.
The practice mentioned here, Heart Jewel and so on, is a traditional practice of the Gelug (Virtuous) tradition of Je Tsongkhapa, which is the tradition Kadampa Buddhists follow. This tradition has been followed for nearly 400 years by both Tibetans and Westerners.
5. Which ‘Westerner’ followed the tradition of Dorje Shugden nearly 400 years ago? When did the practice of Dorje Shugden as a ‘Buddha’ actually start? You say that the teachings should ‘be able to be traced back in their entirety to the word of the Buddha’ but he lived more than 2,000 years ago.
The Dalai Lama has requested, in order to maintain peace and harmony in the communities of all Tibetan Buddhist traditions, that practitioners of Dorje Shugden should not attend his teachings or view him as their Spiritual Guide. He has not banned the practice. This recommendation does not affect anyone in the NKT. The NKT has always emphasised its complete independence from Tibetan society even though the lineage of the teachings is given as Tibetan.
The NKT recognizes that there is a difference between Tibetan society/politics and the Buddhism that came through Tibet, just as there is a difference between politics and religion in general. Buddhism started in India with the teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni and those teachings moved through Tibet and are now in the West. Consequently, although there are many lineage Teachers of Buddhism who are Tibetan, Buddhist teachings did not originate there and do not belong to Tibet or any other country. The NKT is a global Buddhist tradition that follows the traditional teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni as transmitted by both Indian and Tibetan Masters through to our present-day Teachers in different countries.
6. The NKT follows a tradition taught by one Buddhist master.
The NKT is not a Tibetan organization and is not bound by Tibetan feudal society or politics.
7. Long term practitioners, including people ordained and practising moral discipline in the NKT, can be made homeless and/or ostracised by their previous community if the Resident teacher finds their criticism inappropriate. What difference is there between the actions of particular Centres in the NKT and the actions in India? The difference is that the British government commits to looking after people who have to leave NKT Centres without anywhere to go. Therefore your complaint should be to the governmental authorities who do not support monks and nuns who have been asked to leave their monasteries. Your complaint is to the Dalai Lama’s function as a governmental leader, not as a Buddhist teacher.
The WSS and the NKT are not the same.
8. The monks and nuns and senior teachers in the NKT who are demonstrating would not have done this if Geshe Kelsang Gyatso had not told them to do so. If any senior teachers do anything seriously against his wishes he would withdraw the ‘authority’ he has given them. Kelsang Pema, his personal assistant and the main spokesperson for the WSS, who came to Bodhisattva Centre to talk to the community to encourage them to engage in the protests, would not have done so without his permission. Also, the letter from Kelsang Nyingpo, the Resident teacher at Bodhisattva Centre, to visitors on the Open Day, written as a response to our leaflet, stated…”You may be interested to visit the following websites for further information about our Centre, our tradition – the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT), the WSS:’ This indicates that the WSS is congruent with the NKT. And if Geshe Kelsang is not appearing in the demonstrations, is this because it is against the Internal Rules of the NKT or because he does not see the need to engage in protest?
9. If you live in a residential centre of the NKT you are also not allowed to engage in the religious practices of another tradition. For instance, you would not be allowed to have a picture of the Dalai Lama on your shrine. What difference is there in this and in the situation in India? The difference is that there is a wider culture of tolerance outside the religious institution.
10. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso also does not answer many questions that are put to him in letters and emails from many students who may be under great distress when they write to him and in need of spiritual support. If there is any difficult experience or criticism of his teachers or his centres in these letters he does not generally reply at all. Would you say that this is proof that these, perhaps uncomfortable questions based on experience are therefore true? The FPMT has not replied to your comments about them on your site. You have assumed that this means that they are true. Are you saying that anyone who does not reply is automatically guilty? If so, then this would also apply to Geshe Kelsang.
11. It is reported that these loud but peaceful demonstrations have been so loud as to interrupt the teachings of the Dalai Lama. Was the intention to stop the teachings? Why continue with hours and hours of ‘loudness’ if the people you wish to reach are trying to listen to Dharma? Are you saying that no-one should listen to the Dalai Lama? That his teachings are so contaminated that you should interrupt them? Can you imagine the difficulties that this would create for the Dalai Lama himself, trying to maintain the peaceful minds of Tibetans who, understandably, are visibly upset when mostly western NKT Sangha interfere with his teachings, which they may have waited many years to receive, about a Tibetan issue which is minor compared to the problems they are having as a culture with the Chinese state authorities? It was often said that the practice of Dorje Shugden would shorten the life of the Dalai Lama. This recent tour seems to be proving that prediction to be correct as the Dalai Lama is now seriously exhausted.
Since many dedicated NKT practitioners naturally practice Dorje Shugden in accordance with tradition, of course as individuals they are supporting the aims of the WSS, along with a large number of non-NKT Dorje Shugden practitioners, inclding Tibetans. However, the NKT charity is not organizing any demonstrations.
12. As individuals, these people would not do any of this without Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s instructions. Are you saying that without Geshe Kelsang, all these people, which include the majority of the ordained and non-ordained senior teachers of the NKT, would have organised a world tour to follow the Dalai Lama, with all the transport, food and accommodation costs that this entails, including feeding the’ chorus’ who can be chanting for up to twelve hours at a time? These people are absent from their communities and their commitments as teachers, etc for long periods of time. Can this be done without the support of the NKT? Many of these people receive NKT sponsorship to be teachers, admin directors, educational programme co-ordinators. Are they not receiving their usual stipends and food, transport and accommodation costs whilst they are protesting?
13. What does the word ‘naturally’ mean in this context?
It is true that Samden and two Resident Teachers of Bodhisattva Centre have left due to an inability to keep their vows of celibacy, and this is deeply regretted. Bodhisattva Centre has indeed been far more adversely affected by this behaviour than other NKT Centres. Geshe Kelsang is aware of this and has appointed a new teacher who has good moral discipline.
14. The last three Resident teachers have left Bodhisattva Centre through problems with moral discipline. Geshe Kelsang appointed all of these teachers. Have the causes of this lack of moral discipline in very long term practitioners been addressed? The new Internal Rules require the educational programme co-ordinators to aid in creating an environment suitable for the teacher to be able to practice moral discipline. How is this implemented? Are there clear guidelines? Is it possible for a westerner to maintain moral discipline in a context where no criticism from their community is viewed as appropriate even when senior Sangha may be inappropriately developing intimacy? How can the Sangha be supported to keep their moral discipline, especially after many years of practice? Why not give training in management skills and charity law to your teams so that the centres are run within guidelines created in our society? Is moral discipline openly discussed in the NKT? What happens when a particular relationship between a student and a teacher breaks down? Are there other mentors who will support that person to keep their ordination vows?
15. Why the custom of asking nuns, often young, to be personal assistants to senior monks to help with their daily needs? Surely this method of reducing the sexism of Tibetan Buddhism, a worthy aim, is not working?
It is worth noting that, unlike many religious leaders, even within Tibetan Buddhism, Geshe Kelsang himself has never had any accusations of impropriety leveled against him in terms of his moral behavior. The overwhelming majority of the 700 monks and nuns in the NKT do keep good moral discipline, and “many high level teachers” is a large exaggeration. Please see the New Kadampa Truth website for more information.
17. Does Geshe Kelsang Gyatso have any duty of care towards the people he ordains? Is there sufficient support for teachers who may be asked to go abroad to teach in a culture radically different from their own? What systems do you have in place to support Sangha who may be physically or mentally ill or have just become elderly and may even have worked for the NKT for twenty years or more?
18. If Tibetan problems are nothing to do with the WSS then why are you protesting against the Tibetan political leader about his management of Tibetan monasteries? There is no ban on practising Dorje Shugden for NKT practitioners. Do you wish to have the approval of the Dalai Lama? Concern for the ‘Tibetan people’ is a ‘political’ cause but concern for Dorje Shugden practitioners is not?
19. You seem to be objecting more to the Dalai Lama’s function and actions as a leader of a country – with an obligation to provide social and material resources for his citizens – than as a religious leader. If a certain practice, or person, is creating a schism, then, as in NKT Centres, the dispute has to be solved by giving authority to certain persons and practices and not to others. These decisions are religious decisions generally made by the senior teachers, which in the case of the NKT, is Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and in the case of the Dalai Lama, after consideration with a group of Geshes and Lamas. As Geshe Kelsang seems to have no clear duty of care towards his Sangha he is not in the unfortunate position, as is the Dalai Lama, of having to expel Sangha from access to all economic benefits when making a religious decision. Therefore, decisions made by Geshe Kelsang are not seen to be removing ‘religious liberty’ as they do not remove all economic welfare. But those who leave or who are asked to leave NKT Centres have, until a recent change in the Internal Rules, been socially ostracised by the communities in those NKT Centres they have left, therefore on a social level, this is not so very different from the situation you describe in India.
It is not the WSS who is at fault; they are merely defending themselves against the Dalai Lama’s actions.
20. Since when has the Dalai Lama attacked the WSS?
The survival of the precious Buddhist teachings does not depend upon the survival of Tibetan culture. The WSS are principally concerned that the Dalai Lama’s politically motivated actions are destroying these teachings, and are therefore acting to stop him.
21. You are protesting that the Dorje Shugden practitioners are not economically and socially supported in the monasteries in India, when, say, a Nyimgma or Kaygu practitioner would certainly not be supported in an NKT Centre. Even practices taught by Je Tsonkhapa such as Guhyasamaja and Yamantaka, are not considered appropriate practices in the NKT. Any teacher in the NKT has made a commitment to engage in the practice of Heart Jewel, which includes the protection of Dorje Shugden, before each teaching they give, but even an ordained Dorje Shugden practitioner and NKT Dharma teacher would not be supported economically in an NKT Centre. You are using a western concept of ‘religious freedom’ to justify interfering in a situation when the institution you have committed to (the NKT) does not do what you are saying that the Dalai Lama does not do – support the welfare of practitioners of practices that are not approved of or considered valid and appropriate for the benefit of the whole community.
The Dalai Lama has brought the protests on himself by banning the practice of Dorje Shugden and refusing to engage in discussion about it. Since it is the Dalai Lama who refuses to engage in dialogue, the WSS has had no choice but to act by organizing demonstrations.
22. If the WSS is not the NKT and therefore nothing to do with Geshe Kelsang, then who would the Dalai Lama need to talk to about this? Kelsang Pema? There seems to be no address or charity registration on your websites. Who runs the WSS? Who writes the NewKadampaTruth blog?
23. If this ‘ban’ was illegal then surely some government or human rights association would be backing your claims.
24. Just as the resident teachers of the NKT centres of Geshe Kelsang Gyatso promote peace and harmony in his communities by quietening criticism and doubt, the Dalai Lama has needed to reduce the conflicts surrounding Dorje Shugden practice by, in consultation with other senior practitioners, withdrawing support for practitioners. He is supporting a majority view. For many years, even though the practice was already ‘banned’, monks and nuns who practised Dorje Shugden were still living in these monasteries.
25. If this is about religious freedom and not a political issue, why can’t the NKT itself protest against the Dalai Lama? If it is a political issue then why are members of the NKT engaging in Tibetan politics when the NKT pertains to be non-political? If your protests really were about practising Dharma then wouldn’t you also protest about the lack of freedom to practise Dharma in Tibet, where your teacher originally trained before he came to teach you? If you say that the Dalai Lama should respect the lineage of teachings he was given, then are there really no teachers alive to which Geshe Kelsang pays his respects, even as a peer?
Thanks, Carol and others. It’s amazing to see again how NKT is able to deceive themselves and the public. That they try to deny their identity to win new members was also mentioned in Bluck’s research, British Buddhism.
However, NKT can not control everybody and anything, as your and your friends brave actions show.
The criticism NKT is faced with is coming from long-term former members, including NKT teachers, not by HHDL. Until now, I’ve never read any statement by HHDL in criticism to NKT or WSS. Because NKT leadership put HHDL as the main target at their enemy list they are now a bit paranoid and see him behind all criticism.
If you’ve once chosen a respected being – who is seen by the majority of religious, political and worldly beings as upright, compassionate and wise – as your own main enemy and express your hostility and distorted projections against him, more aversion and more enemies will come soon.
At the moment they’ve set Prof. Thurman at their list, researcher Kay is already on their list. At the end there are only enemies and one feels persecuted by anybody as a result of the own hostility & pride to be so special and “pure”. My point of view is: delusion rules the NKT World and their perceptions respectively.
And I thought you were widely read! Surely you’ve read the Newsweek article that Bob Thurman is in trouble over now? If that doesn’t look like criticism, I don’t know what is!
Anyway, the Dalai Lama makes the rocks and other people throw them. He likes to distance himself from direct criticism so that he won’t be implicated. Maybe I should just censor this bit myself because you almost certainly will!
I know you won’t print this!
for you Robert Thurman is the Dalai Lama? For me they are two different individuals. Both are very intelligent.
You see rocks? Where are the rocks HHDL made?
If you look carefully you will recognize that he said nothing negative about WSS who attacks him much more and aggressive than the CCP nor did his representatives.
If you disagree – instead of mixing Robert Thurman with HHDL – give a statement/quote which disapproves my claim.
I searched for a long time to find something by HHDL about NKT, I found nothing.
Also if you read what he said about the accusations of WSS: he said, he is happy that they (WSS) enjoy freedom of expression.
Only one of his representative said to AFP or BBC: “it is not true what they say”. More than this rejection of the WSS claims wasn’t stated. Please stick to the facts. HHDL does not fuel the fire of WSS rage. I appreciate this wise deed.
If you think Robert Thurman spoke on behalf of HHDL, you may not understand that Robert Thurman is able to express his own opinion. As you can see from the ABC interview, HHDL is modest and does not “make rocks and other people throw them”, as you wrongly and misleading claim. Please, stick to the facts.
I’m not confusing the Dalai Lama with Robert Thurman. Thurman’s criticisms are at least attributed and clear whereas HHDL’s are less obvious and you have to look for them. You get the sense that he’s attacking but hiding behind others.
NKT is hostile, crass, commercial, cult….and murderers too! (but cleverly, no direct attributable quote from HHDL, he could still deny it if challenged) Where did the Reporter get these ideas from? Actually, where did he get the idea to do the article from? Perhaps he was approached by TGIE? The whole tone of the article is negative, not neutral as actual investigative journalism would be. It’s full of carping, sniping remarks about NKT and Shugden practitioners.Where else would they have come from but the Dalai Lama and his agents?
This is a downright lie by the Dalai Lama. NKT do not fleece its followers and do not pray to Shugden for better business. All this coming from the same Dalai Lama who used his celebrity to advertise Apple Computers and guest edit Vogue – who is concerned about cash?
The NKT soon flourished by promising spiritual rewards for cash-an unholy sales pitch that helped trigger confrontation with the Dalai Lama’s circle.
There are many other examples too. Why would the journalist write in this way unless he was given this view by someone else? He states the Dalai Lama’s views as if they are facts.
What to say. Because you can not find any statement by HHDL against WSS/NKT his non-existent “criticisms” is “less obvious and you have to look for them. You get the sense that he’s attacking but hiding behind others.” Sorry, but for me this sounds not that reasonable.
What Newsweek states is Newsweek’s sound and speech, there is no quote of HHDL’s speech. I agree that the whole tone of the article is negative, but this is not the fault of HHDL but Newsweek. The Dalai Lama is not Newsweek and Newsweek is not the Dalai Lama. If you ask where the reporter got his idea from you may have to ask also: if he took it (only) from TGIE, as you guess, why he didn’t take up the TGIE’s statement that the murder of Lobsang Gyatso are among Shugden fanatics – which is quite obvious?
Also your quote about HHDL from Newasweek does not make HHDL to shine in a nice light, does it? So the reporter was obviously negative with both sides and seem to have found the whole issue just strange or crude.
Of course, I guess, he received information from the TGIE, but how he uses and presents them and the tone he uses to address it, is his personal freedom and style. It is a mere unverified assumption of you that the statements – as they were put forward by the reporter – “come from but the Dalai Lama and his agents”. There is not a single quote. As I know from other instances how press works, it makes me not wonder that there are sometimes very negative and one-sided articles. Press is a business. So maybe you try to have a more broad perspective and not a narrow minded one? I don’t like this article either.
Regarding the second statement, again their is no quote. It is true that HHDL said Shugden worship and how it is practised by the majority of followers is like a cult, what is true if you look from the perspective how poor Tibetans used that practice – mainly for worldly concerns and business. It is not clear if he said it in that context or the context of NKT and the press mixed it up. The article doesn’t aim for precise and balanced information, this is clear for both sides, Shugden followers and HHDL’s. So why are you taking it so serious?
Why are you taking the most strange article to verify your claims? Why don’t you take serious neutral research? The only thing which I take serious is Prof. Thurman’s statements, because these are quotes of his speech.
BTW, also GKG expressed that Shugden helps to have material wealth and added ‘but we may not have success immediately’. Such a statement invite an understanding of that he helps for worldly success. Now this quote seems to have been removed from the NKT website.
I’m so sorry that it has come to this. My only feeling is one of sorrow. Having read all of the above I now realize that I have very little to say will be of much benefit to you. Most of the things that I was thinking of saying, some of which I have already written on my lap-top, now seem hopelessly irrelevant and naieve.
In general – please excuse the lack of modesty – I am very good at helping people who have maybe a few issues with the NKT. Who are maybe unhappy with their teacher’s example in a few respects. Things like this. This ability, if I so describe it, is based upon my own experience of having plenty of problems and issues with resident teachers, the Centre I was living at, and the tradition as a whole; and having had to work hard to try to find answers to those issues.
To summarise massively, what I found was that most of my issues were to do with having expectations – such as the expectation that my teacher should set a perfect example – and the disappointment, confusion, and frustration experienced when those expectations weren’t met. The solution therefore was to learn to let go of those expectations by changing my way of thinking about things.
I also found it very helpful to refer to ideas outside of Buddhism, and in particular to psychology, including some of the main proponents of the “analytic” schools: Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Karen Horney.
What I found was that by massively reducing my expectations, and even by looking to other sources for ideas and concepts I felt I needed, I was better able to appreciate the unique qualities that Buddha’s teachings have to offer. I don’t see this as an NKT thing. It just so happens that my experience have occurred within NKT Centres.
I do not hate His Naugtiness the Dalai Lama. Much less do I deny the truth and beauty of at least some of what he has said over the years – I myself have been inspired by some of it. However, His Naughtiness has been acting like a naughty play-ground bully in his dealings with Tibetan Buddhism – not just Dorje Shugden he precipitated the Karmapa controversy too – and I think that for everyone’s sake he needs to be shown some boundries.
For this reason I support the activities of the Western Shugden Society.
if you look where Shugden led you: you have renounced the Vinaya, the Pratimoksha, the words of the Buddha; you have separated yourself from the (ordained) Sangha community. Your organisation is rooted in split and schism, slanders the wise and respected elder, and is still performing conflict, slander and schism…, denouncing the real Sangha, the monastic order, and their rights.
C’on is it this you’ve strived for? Who led you to this point?
You follow a controversial practice the Buddha has never taught. You think this practice – which the Buddha has never taught – is more important than the Vinaya and Pratimoksha, the Buddha has taught. You think the survival of the Dharma depends upon Shugden worship and that this practice is performed. What a mess and illusion!
The Buddha never said something about Shugden worship. Are you Buddhist?
You and NKT slander the wise, the Sangha, you feel you know better and have more knowledge than them.
What proves else do you need to see there is something wrong with Shugden worship. It led NKT to be perceived as a successful cult – led by an autocrat – and to be completely separated from the mainstream Buddhist world.
“Those who have taken the Precepts must never violate them, even at the cost of life and limb. Why is this? It is because the Precepts are the root which penetrates Enlightenment. They are the supreme of the non-defilements, the path which quickly leads to Nirvana. In truth, the merits of the Precepts are timeless and without parallel and the virtues of him who keeps them are timeless and beyond compare.
Just as the ocean is the great element of water in which dwell non-humans, turtles, sea-monsters, etc., the Precepts are the element in which dwell those many great beings who reside in the three Vehicles. And just as in the ocean there are to be found gold, silver, and many precious gems like lapiz-lazuli, so in the ocean of the Precepts there are to be found precious jewels such as the cause of impermanence, the thirty-seven dharmas which lead to Enlightenment, dhyana, and samadhi.
Why does the great ocean never overflow? Because the constant fires of hell cause it to evaporate. And just as the everflowing rivers never cause it to increase, so is the ocean of the Precepts never increased by knowledge not is it decreased through the perfection of virtue.
From Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish translated by Stanley Frye.
For me this speaks of the importance of keeping, in particular and possibly because they are the only ones I can keep to any great extent, our most basic commitments such as those of our Refuge and in my case lay Pratimoksha vows. I love the way that Buddhism teacher us that moral discipline is a great and vast spiritual practice. So different from the worldly attitude that values only gain.
If everyone was doing this surely there would be no problem.
I appreciate the discussion here. I have been disturbed for some time over the fixation, for lack of a better word, on the statements in the Newsweek article, used by those inside the NKT and WSS.
When I first read the article I could detect nothing, let me repeat that, nothing, that related directly to the NKT. The journalism was shoddy, slanted and I didn’t infer anything except that there are many Shugden practitioners in the world, and some of them have faults, just like in every other group of people. It was easy to dismiss it entirely.
So when this all ignited again, and I raised concerns and started questioning some of what sounded like outrageous claims to me, my local NKT teacher told me to review this Newsweek article. I had to read it many, many times before I finally understood what was happening. Every time something was said about a ‘Shugden practitioner’ the mind of the NKT practitioner said, oh, he’s talking about me, my tradition – taking it very personally.
Given the article, sloppy work, etc., I didn’t read it this way. I read the meaning not to be about about my personal practice or the NKT, because I knew the characterizations were not true. It sounded most likely to me that multiple groups of practitioners were being referred to, and I took the interpretation, these claims are not about the NKT, but other Shugden groups.
First, it’s fascinating that we can read the same words and understand such different things, I appreciate this teaching very much. Second, I think it’s sad that so much strong negative rhetoric is pouring out as a result of an extremely flawed article. I feel like the NKT is really missing the boat here, this article should be dismissed as a journalistic mess, and a piece of history over a decade old. The meaning is vauge and you have to infer the worst intention in order to read it as demonstrating hostility specifically to the NKT. You have to be so self-invovled, in other words, that you have lost sight of the bigger picture. Focusing so much attention on it harms, rather than helps, the credibility of the NKT.
Last, if the NKT is going to hang onto this so tightly, then others will hold onto Geshe Kelsang’s statements tightly, too. How can anyone justify the demonstrations as being religious in nature, when just 6 years ago the statement was made that they were a matter of Tibetan politics? You cannot have it both ways. If you are insisting that someone be accountable for something they said a decade ago, then you, too, will be accountable for your past statements.
Thank you for providing a place to voice this. I don’t see myself as being on any side, but think it’s important to carefully consider the evidence, what is being said, and be ruthlessly honest and interpret things as they were intended. This is no guarantee of anything, disagreements will still occur. But evaluating the statement, context and source are all important. If we begin our argument from a faulty point, things can only get worse from there.
Firstly, thank you for not censoring my posts, I do appreciate it. I think it’s right to promote freedom of speech. If you choose to post on my blog I won’t censor you.
Secondly, Dorje Shugden has not led me or any other Kadampa practitioner to abandon the Vinaya or the Pratimoksha. Moral discipline is the foundation for all spiritual attainments. Do you think that the Vinaya sutra is the only place where Buddha taught and encouraged his disciples to practise moral discipline? Buddha also taught moral discipline in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (in fact, in all his teachings he advised us to carefully observe the law of karma, dependent relationship) and it is this that we follow.
We are not slandering the Dalai Lama or any other Elders, simply pointing out how his actions are not in accordance with Dharma and how they are causing suffering, admittedly in strong terms. It is the Dalai Lama who has caused a schism by separating the Shugden and non-Shugden monks and requiring Shugden monks to leave the monastery. What WSS is doing is entirely dependent upon the Dalai Lama. If he respected the practice of Dorje Shugden instead of slandering it and allowed the Sangha to follow tradition without political interference, WSS would have no need to exist and would disband. WSS exists only because of the Dalai Lama’s actions.
It’s also questionable whether, if the Dalai Lama wasn’t mixing Dharma and politics and trying to gain control over the individual traditions of Tibetan Buddhism whether the NKT would be a separate organization. It would probably be part of the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition as the FPMT is. Instead, because the Dalai Lama is causing the Dharma to degenerate through mixing with politics, NKT is completely independent of Tibetan Buddhism.
The only reason why the practice of Dorje Shugden is controversial is because the Dalai Lama has made it so in the minds of his followers. Trijang Rinpoche’s disciples don’t have a problem with it.
I don’t feel I have more knowledge than the Sangha, that’s completely untrue, but what I do wonder is if present day Sangha really understand the true meaning of ordination – it’s not simply just a list of rules from the Vinaya Sutra which is how some appear to view it.
The ASA has no valid reason for criticizing Kadampa ordination just because it is different from theirs. The motivation and vows taken are completely in accordance with the meaning and spirit of ordination as transmitted by Buddha. I have little understanding, but one thing I do understand is that Kadampa ordination is valid, no doubt whatsoever.
As I criticized you, you have the right to reply or to defend your or WSS’s/NKT’s position. However I see your and WSS’s actions as slander and hypocrisy themselves. Firstly there is nothing of what NKT/WSS accuses HHDL they do not themselves, secondly, according to my investigation and understanding, the accusation against HHDL are based on ignorance, are mere projections and they are not based on facts.
When you’re open for other perspectives than those of WSS/NKT you may have noticed that the monasteries wished for that at their dwelling places Shugden is not worshipped. Many see the practice as polluting the place, including me. Never I would live and practice were Shugden worship is performed. HHDL’s position has the support of the majority of monks and nuns and the highest Tibetan Lamas and teachers. It was a democratic decision by the majority to remove Shugden worship from the monasteries. It is their right.
There is no need for Shugden worship, there are thousands of other protectors who are not involved in controversy. Especially there are the three protectors of Je Tsongkhapa. Shugden worship is a Tibetan created practice and it came into existence under very strange circumstances. After investigating its controversial background and sectarian nature it is appropriate to stop a further influence of something not taught by the Buddha, not taught by the Indian Pandits, not even taught by Je Tsongkhapa. Those who see this different can practice at their own dwelling places – as you and any NKT member can do and as the Shugden monks in India can do and actually do.
WSS exist due to GKG’s intention. The Shugden conflict exist since 400 years. It’s up to Tibetans to resolve this issue.
It is completely misleading to claim HHDL would try to gain control over all traditions, those who are not under the sole control of Geshe Kelsang or Kundeling lama don’t see that there is just one atom of truthfulness in this claim.
HHDL promotes understanding and peace among the traditions, Shugden worship split the traditions and was used against other schools, to promote Gelug exclusivism – to establish a special unique purity of Gelug school – and to control other schools. All this can be read in independent papers by academics. If you trace the present problem back, it was Pabongkha Rp. who broke his promise to the 13th Dalai Lama. So it is not incorrect to trace the present problems back to him. If he had kept his promise, there wouldn’t have been any problems with Shugden worship nowadays. All this has already been discussed. It is a narrow minded and limited view to trace all the problems to HH the 14th Dalai Lama, no academic and no one with some understanding of Tibetan history does that. Only the followers of GKG or Kundeling or some very narrow minded Shugdenpas do that.
You may think that “the Dalai Lama is causing the Dharma to degenerate through mixing with politics” but this is factual wrong. He reduces the influence of Shugden worship because it is seen by him and others as contradicting the teachings, the Dharma, and as being in nature sectarian. If you insist on posit your position that HHDL does this due to political reasons, then you have to accept that it is also possible to posit Shugden’s inception as political motivated. There is no difference in the arguments.
It is also very appropriate to accuse NKT of “causing the Dharma to degenerate through mixing with politics”, because they lack almost every teaching of the Buddha, expelled the Vinaya, have only one Sutra, only two texts by Indian pandits and almost no work of Je Tsongkhapa. The complete order and Vinaya is inactive, and they rely entirely on the presentation of one Geshe, who was expelled from his monastery, on top of that they mix the Dharma with GKG’s politics.
How can NKT be ‘completely independent’ from Tibetan Buddhism? Is there such a thing which is ‘completely independent’? If NKT is ‘completely independent’ they should give back all what is derived from Tibetan Buddhism and should check what’s left. Not even the name ‘Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’ or the name ‘New Kadampa’ NKT could keep.
How controversial Shugden worship is can be read in acknowledged academic researches and they proof what HHDL said, not due to bias but due to historical evidence. While NKT/WSS and some Shugden followers strongly reject and actively deny this, they have only one argument: Trijang Rinpoche taught it, therefore it must be valid. This is no Buddhist approach.
As you don’t know the Vinaya and rely entirely on an expelled monk who claims NKT ordination is valid and said things about the ordination which are incorrect you certainly will believe what he says. However, those learned monks and nuns outside of NKT, like ASA or recently also Geshe Tashi, disagree with yours and GKG’s position, they do this not based on political reason but spiritual understanding and knowledge of Buddhism and the scriptures.
It is unfortunate you accuse HH Dalai Lama of playground bully-tactics but have resorted to referring to this respected leader as “His Naughtiness” in your posts. Is this type of name-calling not that of playground bullies?
You accusation of HHDL precipitating the Karmapa controversy is patently ridiculous, in fact, he mediated the dispute. The problem was in existence long before HHDL gave his input, which he gave in fact because the highest lamas of Kayu Buddhism asked him to.
Tai Situpa Rinpochey, Gyaltsab Rinpochey, (the third name I forget) – 3 out of the 4 “Heart Sons” asked HHDL to choose HH Urgyen Trinley Doje as Karmapa, with the support of many other high Kagyu and Nyingma Lamas like Mingyur Rinpochey, Ponlop Rinpoche, Khamtrul Rinpoche, Bokar Rinpoche – I could go on and on.
The only person who questioned the decision and who fielded the other candidate, of any note, is Shamar Rinpochey. It was a case of weighing the weight of 90% of the Kagyu lineage against 10%. The decision had already been made, HHDL just endorsed it and ordained HH UT as a monk. So please, stop trying to bring in this completely unrelated issue to discredit HHDL. If you have a problem with it, write letters to Gyaltsab and Tai Situ Rinpoches.
Finally, where does the cash HHDL raises go? – To feed thousands of monks, build orphanages and fund schools so the Tibetan language isn’t lost. Without his help, the Tibetans would be in far worse poverty than they are. Every single Tibetan I’ve met in India is grateful to HHDL for their education which they know comes largely through his efforts, positive image, and international travels.
Your point is right on the money. Thanks so much for making it. As a relatively neutral poster, your words carry weight.
I mean your point about the Newsweek article, not the Kadampa ordination. As someone who’s researched the different Vinayas, I have to disagree with that one from my POV.
Dear mediBuddha, thank you very much for your balanced and thoughtful post!
Also thanks to all the other who participate in the discussion.
I didn’t intend this blog for discussing and it takes a lot of time. So I decided for a pause. Therefore until Wednesday Sept 17, 2008 I will read and approve no further comments.
Since you have taken it upon yourself or been asked to represent the views of the Dalai Lama, I wish to submit six important questions that hopefully you can provide clear replies to. Since you have gone to great lengths to accommodate the questions of a concerned citizen in Brighton, then in fairness please show the same willingness to address the questions below – they to come from a concerned citizen. If you are fair and open minded as the people visiting your blogs indicate, demonstrate these qualities by providing the appropriate answers. There is no valid reason not to post these questions and let your readers draw their own conclusions.
I must confess that “His Naughtiness” was perhaps a bit naugty. It was just a bit of fun really, but since my advice to other WSS supporters is to keep it polite and friendly, I may have been breaking my own principles.
I must confess that my only knowledge of the Karmpa controversy is just a couple of letters written by Shamar Rinpochey, which appeared on the WSS blog. I did take a brief look at the Wikipedia entry. I guess I’m not really qualified to comment. You clearly know a lot more about it than I do.
As for your comments about the Dalai Lama’s fund raising activities I don’t really know what to say. I certainly don’t begrudge the Tibetans monks or orphans who benefit in this way. No one is complaining about this sort of thing are they? However, we can’t agree that it negates injustice against Shugden followers.
Someone who I do think is a lovely fellow is Karma Hardy the director of Tibet Foundation who I met in August after a video and questions in Brighton. They accept Chinese children into the Tibetan schools. I thought this was so sweet! How ironic also – little Chinese girls going to a school in Chinese controlled Tibet where they learn Tibetan!
You start your post with an incorrect assumption, neither did I take it upon myself nor was I asked to represent the views of HHDL. My blog clearly states its purpose: “This site aims to correct and balance the misinformation campaign of the Western Shugden Society.” For me, it would be very arrogant to think or to assume, I could represent the views of HH the Dalai Lama. I am a newbie in Buddhism and an ordinary being.
The first part of your sentence doesn’t invite me to answer because you start your post with and incorrect claim. Also you do not (willingly or unwillingly) understand the purpose of my Blog. Both lead me to ignore the rest of your post. That I continue and try to answer is because someone suggested it to me. Personally I do not feel a need to do so.
As my blog aim states “This site aims to correct and balance the misinformation campaign of the Western Shugden Society.” The publication of the thoughts of the Brighton people, EX-NKT, are suited to be published, aren’t it?
As you are a supporter of the WSS – this conclusion I derive from other comments you’ve sent to me and that you are the author of the text “Six Principal Reasons why the Dalai Lama is not a Buddhist” which the official WSS website published – you are clearly not a potential candidate I will support on my Blog. As a WSS follower or supporter, if your post includes no misinformation there is no reason to publish it, because it includes no misinformation which needs to be corrected. And if it includes misinformation there is also no reason to publish it, because the site aims to correct and balance the misinformation of the WSS.
If you would understand the purpose of my blog and if you would respect the rules of communication there is no need for you to post here, besides you wish to correct the misinformation of WSS.
OK, my fault may be that I allowed discussion, which wasn’t an intention when creating this blog. This fault of me may have invited you to post as well.
This is a sentence which doesn’t invite me to read even one line more because it blackmails or manipulates my free decisions. The underlying meaning of your sentence is: “If you are this you have to do this, if you don’t do, you deserve not these attitudes.” You use a certain quality you or others see, to blackmail me to answer you.
3. it is my personal decision what I approve and what not; e.g. if I wish to save my time for better purpose than to discuss with you, then also this is a valid reason to unapproved your post and saving my time by not responding to it.
If you wish to communicate with others you should base communication on sensibility and compassion – the ability to feel what your verbal action provokes in the other person – and not on blackmailing which leaves the other no space.
To respond to blackmailing is in general stupid, the more as if the person hasn’t done (from his perspective) anything wrong. So if you or WSS get no answers, whose fault is it?
I think this answers already another point you bring up in your post.
You start your first point by contorting the facts. This again leads me to not reading a single line more of your post but to ignore it. Your first sentence is full of claims ignoring the facts. So I feel not inclined to read one single sentence more.
To have a fair discussion you need a basis, by establishing a one-sided basis which ignores the facts or at least the other point of view, there is no basis for discussion. To make it clear, from my and others’ understanding HHDL gave his advice regarding Shugden. People are free to adopt it or not. If someone doesn’t adopt it, this is his business. But who wishes to have a student-relationship with him, this person should stop Shugden worship. You imply further that his decision is divisive and ignore that he and others see the Shugden worship as divisive, and that there are reasons for seeing Shugden worship as divisive. Then there is no “ban” in general – although due to recent developments one could say Shugden worship is banned in the Gelug monasteries by decision of majority, according to monastic principles.
If you do not understand this, then you cannot understand HHDL but whose fault is this, the Dalai Lama’s?
Do you think he is not patient, apologetic and conciliatory towards Shugden practitioners?
I don’t know if he is not patient, apologetic and conciliatory towards Shugden practitioners, this is your position. I am not in the position to answer this. Maybe your assertion is wrong, maybe correct, maybe only a half-truth or you are ignoring facts and certain events which lead to a situation which seems to be like this but are the process of a long-term development of different causes and conditions?
Regarding unanswered petitions: Petitions which are use the techniques of intimidation or blackmail (we’ll publicly call you a liar if you don’t answer), contort the facts or which are hostile and one-sided I would also not answer but ignore.
That HHDL does not give up trying to work with some of the stubborn CCP leadership may be due to the importance of this issue for the majority of Tibetans and Chinese. Shugden is not that important. Everyone has to balance his time and effort.
Why should I “explain the double standard of engagement”. I am not in the position or able to explain HHDL’s position nor do I see a double standard. I see clearly that for you and some Shugden followers this issue is of maximum highest importance. Who gave this importance to Shugden worship? Is this importance realistic?
The controversy has been solved so far, for those able to deal with it. Those able to let go, have let go Shugden worship. Those unable do it privately. Those who wish to practice publicly worship Shugden publicy e.g. the expelled monks debate and pray seperately, but keep their monastic buildings. Geshe Kelsang and a few Tibetans do not accept this, but this is their problem. The majority is ok with this issue. Why aren’t you ok with it?
If this statement is true then it expresses that those working with him, the TGIE, should not practice Dhogyal. This is a wish also from the Nyingmas and Kagyupas, who feel Shugden is a dangerous ghost. According to research I read, the Nyingmapas refused to work for the TGIE due to the Dolgyal issue. The TGIE should work for the welfare of the majority not a particular, specialized branch of conservative Gelugpas. Keeping in mind the sectarian nature and how Shugden worship was misused against other schools and to establish Gelug exclusivism, to express the wish that no one wishing to work with HHDL for the benefit of the majority should practice Shugden makes sense to me. As far as I know he expressed this wish, and those who disagree work elsewhere – India is a large country. I think every politician stresses certain points and asks for certain policies which should be followed.
But maybe I know too little about this to add more reasonable points. Probably you know it better. If you know it better you have to check if you know really all perspectives or just one perspective. Have you interviewed both sides, in Tibetan, in India for example? Knowing only one perspective doesn’t help to understand.
The claim of HHDL“utterly destroying the Gelug tradition” is again a mere claim. Until recently the practice could also be practised in the Gelug monasteries, the circumstance which led to the ban – in that case it is correct to speak of restrictions – in the monasteries are manifold and by far not one-sided as the narrow minded perspective of some radical Shugden followers suggest.
Check out your own freedom to practice. You have freedom. Check out the freedom of Tibetans to practice, they have freedom. There is enough information about this at my blog and elsewhere.
According to my understanding there is no “persecution” of Shugden followers. I said enough about this. If you posit such a claim please prove with unbiased evidence from a neutral source. Persecution is a very strong and serious charge.
To stop a harmful practice which is seen as supporting exclusivism, elite-thinking, pride, hostility towards other schools and sectarianism, which on top of that is not suited to be considered as a Buddhist practice one can take refuge in, is no hypocrisy, this is actual protecting others from receiving harm or being misled.
By holding the view Shugden is a Buddha, it follows one will disagree with the point of view that he is a spirit or demon and based on the own view, that he is a Buddha, defend their own position. If you portray the act of holding a different position than yours and the actions of those who act based on that view (that he is a harmful spirit) as hypocrisy (or even lying, as WSS do) then also seeing Shugden as a Buddha and defending Shugden worship can be portrayed as hypocrisy (or lying) you can use the same kind of argument you apply against HHDL to apply it against your and WSS’s position: ‘those beings seeing Shugden as a Buddha pretend to be Buddhists but actual take refuge in a spirit’; you can add: ‘by claiming Shugden is a Buddha they do lie, because Shugden had to be controlled by tantric powers (see History of Shugden) but no Buddha is controlled by tantric powers’, therefore using the same kind of argument you apply against HHDL can be applied as well against you and WSS: “You are hypocrites, you are liars, you pretend to be Buddhists but in fact you are not!”, “What a hypocrisy!” “Stop lying!”.
So when you apply the term “hypocrisy” (or “liar”) in such a deluded way you have to accept these words may also be used to describe your and Shugden followers’ views and actions, they can be portrayed also as hypocrisy and lies.
But in fact, as far as I can see it, none of this is hypocrisy or are lies. To judge something correctly as hypocrisy or lying this needs much more reasoning and investigation (see: https://thedorjeshugdengroup.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/western-shudgen-society-violates-buddhist-ethics/ ). Holding different views is just holding different views. If a mother loves her child and sees how the child out of ignorance corrupts his live with taking drugs, the mother stops forcefully the child to take drugs, is this hypocrisy? Of course a very selfish child will accuse and emotionally blackmail the mother: “You don’t love me. I suffer so much. You are a real bad and cruel and evil mother.” But is such an ignorant and selfish child correct with his perception and claims?
HHDL said different times he practised Shugden out of his own ignorance. He didn’t blame anybody other than his own mind. How he came to see it differently he has extensively explained. Have you ever read his explanations? I did, for me it is clear and correct what he did. He gave a good example of a Buddhist and Mahayana/Vajrayana practitioner.
It is the ability of a great master to see his own faults, to acknowledge them and to correct them. What do you expect more?
Your assertion “A flawless being should be able to provide a coherent, logical, and plausible explanation for this contradiction.” is wrong, even the Buddha gave advice which is contradictory. He gave it in accordance to the time and the ability of his students. You mix your own confusion and misunderstandings about Buddhism in this issue. This is the basis of your confusion not of HHDL’s.
You may read the provided two links than you will probably understand what I say here. If you don’t understand don’t accuse me, please.
This question you should ask HHDL not me. I am not the Dalai Lama. I know a Nyingma Lama who can help people to get disconnected from the D. spirit – sorry so the majority views him – he said D. is very powerful. Also Nyingmas tried to subdue him but weren’t successful. It musn’t necessarily be a weakness of those lamas but that we lack the merit or have the negative Karma to be faced with such a force. I think there is some space to bring up such questions and to speculate. I will be hard to understand it fully.
Thank you for your comments. As this blog aims to “to correct and balance the misinformation campaign of the Western Shugden Society.” it wasn’t initially intended for discussion nor do I have the time to moderate discussion, especially not in such a tricky issue and while having a lot of Buddhist studies to do, and plenitude of other duties towards my monastery and spiritual friends.
I think that as you delve further into the controversy, you will become less and less certain of Shamar Rinpochey’s behaviour being correct. If you read the other websites of his high ranking KAGYU opponents, look at his several failed lawsuits against several diffferent religious figures, and examine the behaviour in the West of his major Western disciple Lama Ole Nydahl, I think more and more questions will arise in your mind.
Even though it may seem to help the case of the WSS in the beginning, I feel by mentioning Shamar Rinpoche’s name, they align themselves with a controversial figure, (who the vast majority Karma Kagyus have distanced themselves from) and his Western student who has recently had several allegations of impropriety against him. It will not benefit WSS or NKT in any way to get involved or align themselves with his party in the dispute.
The reason I mentioned that HHDL’s money funds so many schools, monasteries and clinics is that in Ron Cook’s recent article he maligns HHDL for allowing his face to appear recently in an ad campaign. My point it that all that money went to fund charitable projects, some of them very urgent. For example, I remember during that time several of the major monasteries had a shortfall in their donations and were experiencing a food crisis, so went to HHDL for help.Other Lamas do not have as vast a responsibility as HH and I think the average Geshe or Lama in the West is so well supported they have no idea what weight is on HIs Holiness’s shoulders in terms of who goes to him to feed the hungry, help the sick and save monasteries sinking into disrepair.
Thanks for your reasoned and open participation on here Adam.
thanks for the further details about the Karmapa controversy. I don’t think I’ll bother pursuing the point further.
Yes, the controversy was a mess and the Kagyu lamas went to HHDL as a last resort to help sort it out. It was a mess many years before he was consulted about the issue. The mess started with the 4 Sons of the Kagyu lineage, the Karmapa’s main disciples.
It is inconceivable to me that HH the Dalai Lama is something other than Chenrezig (Avalokiteshvara) or at least a Bodhisattva of the highest ground (bhumi) for the following reasons.
-My first is personal experience. I observed HHDL at several teaching events over several years, and met him in India personally before I took Highest Yoga Tantra initiations from him. He has all the qualities of a Spiritual Guide according to the Lam Rim Chenmo and Lamai Zhalug (Words of my perfect teacher).
-I spoke to many monks who are close with His Holiness and they explained to me his special qualities and the role he has to play regarding Buddhism in the modern world.
-His teachings on Lam Rim and Tantra are exceptionally clear and easy to understand. He teaches without rest for hours a day, even at an advanced age – during Losar time the teachings go for 2-3 weeks where he teaches from the throne for 6-8 hours every day, I have not seen another Lama with such stamina for continuous teaching. Few are able to quote liberally from the texts without consulting a pecha.
-HHDL has exceptional links with sentient beings of this world. His image is the reason Western monks and nuns are recognized as Buddhist Monastics and accorded respect. No one has done so much to raise the profile of Buddhism in such an international way.
-I have several Tibetan friends who I knew were very sick, went to receive blessings from HHDL, and afterwards the sickness was gone. In one case, a woman had cancer and after receiving blessings and reciting some mantras HH recommended, she was completely cured.
-It is in large part due to HHDL’s awareness raising and fundraising activities that the three Great Monastic seats (Sera, Drepung and Ganden) were re-established in India with a complete study program after the PRC invasion of Tibet. In addition, His Holiness has sponsored completely or in part, the reconstruction of monasteries, nunneries, schools and temples of all 4 traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.
-Not just Gelug Lamas, but Lamas from all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon regard HHDL with the highest respect. These great beings greatly outnumber his detractors. No other Lama inspires such widespread respect and devotion across sectarian lines apart from HHDL.
-HHDL is one of the few lamas able to understand and effectively explain various systems of Buddhist thought, not just his own tradition. I have heard him or listened to MP3s of him discussing the Gelug tradition, Milarepa’s Songs, Dzogchen, Chan Buddhism (in dialogue with master Sheng Yen) and the Theravada Vinaya with complete ease and understanding. Although I have met many other great teachers from all 3 Yanas of Buddhism, none has had as wide an understanding as His Holiness.
-HHDL gives the handicapped and the heads of state equal attention. I have seen him express concern and recite prayers for the poorest handicapped or peasant person while important VIPs (in one case Barbra Walters, in the other case a high ranking INdian MP) wait.
-HHDL is able to establish affinities with people from all walks of life,and I have seen his compassion melt the heart of even the most hardened politician, fundamentalist Christian or Hindu opponent, or skeptical Scientist. I haven’t seen any other Lama capable of having such a wide variety of dialogues with such a wide variety of people.
-HHDL’s books are the most popular and widely read books on Buddhism in the world, introducing countless people to the Dharma, when previously such books were not widely available.
-HHDL initiations, especially the Kalachakra initiations, are full of wondrous events beheld by a variety of people, be they Buddhist or Hindu. Such blessings often change people’s lives and cause them to embrace Buddhism or at least, compassion and morality.
-I have spoken to several lamas with high practice who are able to see HHDL in a bodhisattva or Sambhogakaya aspect when they meet him.
-Because of HHDL’s stance on non-violence, in the 50 years of occupation there have been only a tiny number of incidents of violence against the occupiers. Compare this to the situations of occupation in Palestine/Isreal, Kurdistan or East Timor for example.
-HHDL lives very simply in Dharamsala despite his high status and security around him. (I have seen this first hand, or consult also Laird’s book).
-HHDL appears to countless people, Buddhist and non-Buddhist, in dreams to guide them in their life. The Head of the Tibet Society in london receives hundreds of letters about such dreams, mostly from non-Buddhists.
-HHDL has ordained a huge number of bhikshus to keep the Sangha strong in the Tibetan exile community. He has also ordained a huge number of nuns.
-At a funeral I chanted at on the weekend, the person who passed away, a Chinese woman, had met HHDL briefly about 20 years ago in Malaysia. In 2004 at the Kalachakra, he walked out of the crowd and greeted this woman warmly, remembering her name, despite the fact they had spoken only for a few short moments.
-HHDL pushed to have the Geshe studies available for women despite resistance from more traditional lamas.
-After receiving teachings and initiations from HHDL on a number of topics and practices, that I had received before from other teachers but wasn’t able to understand, I was able to make sense of things that had previously left me dumbfounded.
-Despite his high status, HHDL has not tried to single-handedly change Vinaya rules or teachings, and always insists on consulation with a wide variety of lamas on such issues. In the case of vinaya disputes, he said that changing the essential rules requires an agreement between all Yanas of Buddhism.
-HHDL has spread the blessings and teachings of Tantra to many who otherwise would not have received them, including Buddhist monastics from other traditions. He has greatly helped to dispel many of the misunderstandings about tantra.
-HHDL has acted as the Guru for so many wonderful and highly respected teachers of Tibetan Buddhism in the world. More than any other teacher.
-Shall I continue or is that enough?
Could this statement not be just as easily referring to either party in this dispute?
Finally, Adam, it might be good to ask yourself this question. If HHDL had not led the refugees out of Tibet and into India after the PLA invasion, would you have met your teacher Geshe Kelsang?
yes, thank you, that was quite inspiring, and even quite touching in a sense.
“A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still” is a completely neutral comment that simply makes the point that it isn’t always worthwhile to try to win at all costs where arguments are concerned if the other party isn’t going to accept your self-declared “victory” anyway – what do you achieve?
However, I have some doubts about the idea of DL supporting non-violence over the past fifty years. My understanding is that he decided to support non-violence only when the CIA withdrew their support for the Tibetan Resistance in the 1970s.
You know it really is the saddest thing to be protesting against the Dalai Lama, in a sense. As you’ve pointed out he inspires faith of a sort in so many people, and stands for them as a symbol of kindliness and goodness. I think that for me this was one of the most painful things about demonstrating – to feel like I was stamping on the faith of people who were maybe not that interested in Buddhism even, but still wanted to hear him speak in order to receive a little inspiration – very sad.
However, I can also reconcile this with a belief that the demonstrations were still justified and served a valuable purpose, and that it would have been “wrong compassion” to have not supported them on account of this.
However, anyone who wants to stop this activity, (and I guess it will stop anyway if DL doesn’t travel any more) is welcome to follow the excellent example of the five delegates of the European Tibet Support group in travelling all the way to Dharamsala in order to call for a resolution of the conflict (see Wisdom Buddha Dorje Shugden blog for details).
“Two of the Dalai Lama’s elder brothers, Gyalo Thondup and Takster Rinpoche went into exile in India and the United States after 1950. The developed covert relations with the Central Intelligence Agency… The Dalai Lama did not know of these developments with the CIA until years later.
In fact, during the height of the CIA covert activity in Tibet (which was by all accounts paltry at best) HHDL could not even meet with his brother Thondup because the Indians prevented it, not wanting HHDL to meet with the man involved in CIA operations.
Let’s also not forget how young HHDL was when all this happened, how part of the reason he was in this situation was because the Regency completely ignored all of the 13th Dalai Lama’s reforms, and maybe have some compassion for his situation?
The Wisdom Buddha Shugden blog doesn’t give a full account of what happened with the delegates. I tried to post some additional information (very neutral and respectfully stated) but, of course, it wasn’t posted.
The delegates were asking the Tibetans to resolve the conflict amongst themselves but didn’t side with either party in the dispute. I am rue to accept the Society’s “quoted statement” as they have misquoted a number of other statements (I have proof of two of these if you would like me to email them to you).
Also, the Shugden Society said the delay in the court case was a sign HHDL and the TGIE were trying to put off the inevitable. I don’t believe this is the case at all. I believe that major discussion on this issue is about to take place. You see, the court date they requested happens right after a major conference, unprecedented in TGIE history, begins.
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=22807&article=Tibet+Emergency+Meeting+In+November. It will start on November 17th giving delegates a full two days to discuss Shugden before the meeting between the lawyers in the Delhi high court.
I am confident that they will be able to reach a settlement. I think the Shugden people should be kept seperate from the rest of the monastery, as a democratic vote according to Vinaya decided the deity shouldn’t be propitiated. However, I think it would be perfectly fine to draft some resolutions making sure Shugden people are allowed free access to shops to buy essentials, and that the deeds of their seperate house buildings within the monastic complex could be signed over, for example.
For a court case to go through, unpleasant accusations being traded between both parties would only tarnish the image of Buddhism in the minds of everyone. This dispute is almost inconceivable to modern people – Shugden seems like a remnant of medieval culture and world coverage of this dispute doesn’t help either side – it only serves to tarnish the image of world Buddhism.
Even with a victory in court, the image of these Buddhists arguing over a sword-weilding image on a snow lion will hurt the image of all those wearing the maroon robe and the people who follow them.
thank you for your reply. You are certainly well informed and I appreciate your efforts in giving me this information.
I really don’t know whether DL knew about the activities of the guerilla fighters. Would you agree that it would be a blatant contradiction of Buddhist moral discipline if he did, and didn’t take steps to try to stop it?
Your post is on the Wisdom Buddha blog. I read it just before coming here. Check it out again.
I also hope some agreement is reached. Your suggestions sound reasonable, even if they aren’t ideal from our point of view. I’m sure that if you were in charge none of this would have happened.
I respect you more than I do DL, and it seems to me that many other basically decent people are being misled by this man. But perhaps this will mean that they can be part of the solution, as their only wish, no doubt, is “peace” and end to the disharmony.
Of course – we’re not so out of touch with reality as to not be aware of this. We’re not trying to convert anyone else to faith in Dorje Shugden. We’re simply trying to protect the freedom of worship for those who wish to rely upon him. This is really very simple.
Besides, very many things about Buddhism would seem strange to ordinary people, including the teachings on emptiness. On this basis we could probably just reject the whole of Buddhism.
In any case – genuine thanks for your contribution to the discussion. Let’s agree to try to keep treading the path of peace and understanding.
Adam you have freedom, of worship. There is also freedom of worship in India. The monks can practice Shugden, don’t fool us or the readers, please. It’s more complex than Shugdenpas suggest.
There is also freedom of putting restrictions on that what is seen by the great masters and the majority as being harmful. So there is freedom and there are restrictions. This is nothing new.
Freedom is a relative thing and the different interests have to been balanced. Also Je Tsongkhapa put restrictions on worship, e.g. one of his protector deities was not allowed to enter the temple or that there was a statue of it.
But Chodak’s story has a twist. He’s one of the last surviving guerrilla fighters who took up arms against the Chinese during a little-known chapter in Tibet’s history. His life has been one of war, not peace.
Starting in the late 1950s, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency trained scores of Tibetans, many of them monks, and then air dropped them back to their country with weapons and wireless radios. The linchpin of the operation was an older brother of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of 2.7 million Tibetans and today a Nobel Prize-winning symbol of peaceful resistance.
“We were fighting to protect Buddhism from those who wanted to harm it,” said Chodak in an interview, his eyes now clouded with cataracts.
He has said that he wasn’t aware of the 1950s-era armed resistance in the beginning, and that upon learning about it, he didn’t encourage Tibetans to join it. He also disavows any plan to see Tibet become independent, pressing merely for China to allow Tibetans more local autonomy to preserve their customs and language.
John Kenneth Knaus, a retired CIA officer who led a covert Tibet command center from New Delhi in the 1960s, remembers the Dalai Lama as torn — personally sympathetic to his brave compatriots but unwilling publicly to support a bloody rebellion that ran counter to his Buddhist belief in protecting life.
Gyalo Thondup, one of the Dalai Lama’s brothers and the former resistance leader, declined to be interviewed for this story. “It’s a very sensitive and inopportune time to talk, from the points of view of many different parties,” said one of his sons, Tempa Thondup, in a message conveyed from the elder Mr. Thondup. People who answered the door at Gyalo Thondup’s residences in New Delhi and Kalimpong, India, said the 80-year-old wasn’t at home.
Stories recounted by Tibetan resistance fighters, including six surviving guerrillas, demonstrate the deep involvement of Mr. Thondup in the CIA-backed operation.
Mr. Thondup came to the resistance movement with rare qualities for Tibetans of his generation — a fluency in Mandarin and an understanding of China’s history. In 1949, he was studying in the wartime capital of Nanjing when the People’s Liberation Army vanquished the Nationalist forces. Mr. Thondup and his Chinese wife, the daughter of a Nationalist general, eventually settled in Darjeeling, near the Indian border with Nepal.
When the CIA made contact with him in the early 1950s, Mr. Thondup had been organizing escape routes for Tibetans fleeing Chinese rule. His wife, Nancy Chu, helped establish the center where refugees learned handicrafts so they could make a living on Indian soil.
A spokesman for the CIA declined to comment on the Tibetan operation.
The refugees arrived with tales of misery and horror. Tsering Dakpa, a Tibetan farmer, says in 1954 he watched Chinese soldiers drag suspected rebels outside a village and force them to dig a trench filled with freezing water. The men were stripped, thrown into the trench and — when they didn’t answer questions satisfactorily — shot, according to Mr. Dakpa.
That same year, the Dalai Lama had gone to Beijing to meet with China’s leaders, including Mao Zedong, in hopes of securing more religious and political autonomy for Tibet. But back home, in the Tibetan region of Kham, an anti-China resistance had already taken root.
It was in Kham, in 1956, that one of the most violent clashes occurred, a days-long battle at the Litang Monastery. One of the Litang monks was Chodak, who now works at the refugee center in Darjeeling. He recalls a meeting in which a Chinese general urged them to abandon their weapons. The monks carried weapons to defend themselves from bandits. Chodak says the general threatened to burn down the monastery if they didn’t comply.
Instead, the Litang monks sneaked up at night and attacked a nearby Chinese camp, according to Mr. Datha and Chodak.
The Chinese army responded by charging the monastery in a pre-dawn raid. The Tibetans fought back with homemade pistols, antique rifles, axes and knives.
Mr. Datha’s younger brother, Tenlay Tenzing, managed to flee the monastery earlier on the family’s black horse. Chinese troops shot the horse, but the monk kept running. Coming upon the horse carcass later, Mr. Datha feared his younger brother had been killed — only to be reunited later at their parents’ home. When bombs from Chinese airplanes were dropped on the monastery, Chodak fled to Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, a weeks-long walk, but far from the fighting in Kham.
The events at Litang inflamed passions across Tibet and helped fuel the resistance movement. Many monks, left without a monastery, shed their robes to fight the Chinese. Warring Tibetan clans set aside grievances to unite in battle. The CIA later would gain several recruits from Litang, who wanted to match China’s soldiers with modern firepower and military training of their own.
One of the Litang monks, who went by the name Lhotse and was the older brother of Messrs. Datha and Tenzing, fled to Darjeeling, posing as a trader. When he arrived, he knocked on the door of Mr. Thondup.
The brother of the 14th Dalai Lama, Mr. Thondup was already a prominent figure among Tibetans and his political sympathies were well known. After listening to Lhotse recount the failed uprising, Mr. Thondup responded with a proposition.
The monk agreed to the secret mission, according to interviews with his two surviving brothers, whom he later told about the conversation.
In addition to Lhotse, Mr. Thondup recruited five Tibetan fighters and sent them in early 1957 for training with CIA instructors on the Pacific island of Saipan. The Tibetans learned how to operate a radio transmitter, fire modern weapons and set up ambushes.
The Dalai Lama’s oldest brother, Thubten Jigme Norbu, served as a translator on Saipan. Mr. Norbu, a retired professor of Tibetan studies at Indiana University, is now in poor health and unable to respond to comment, according to his youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal.
After six months in Saipan, Lhotse and a monk named Athar parachuted back into Tibet. Traveling with other rebels, the pair relayed radio requests for weapons and supplies and kept the CIA apprised of the resistance inside Tibet.
Mr. Knaus, the former CIA officer, testified in writing to the U.S. Congress in 1999 that the CIA made two arms drops into Tibet in July 1958 and Feb. 1959. These included 403 Lee Enfield rifles, 60 hand grenades, 20 machine guns and 26,000 rounds of ammunition. By the late 1960s, Mr. Knaus estimates, the CIA had dropped 700,000 pounds of supplies to the rebels.
China’s attempts to quell unrest around Lhasa worsened tensions. In March 1959, the Dalai Lama sneaked out of the city’s Potala Palace and headed for India on horseback. The CIA-trained rebels hooked up with the Dalai Lama, sending radio updates on his whereabouts to Washington.
As Tibet’s spiritual leader was about to cross safely into India, the rebels cheered and waved. The Dalai Lama waved back.
The Dalai Lama’s aides say that at the time the Tibetan leader didn’t have a good grasp of the resistance, or of how the CIA was involved. “His brother really kept him in the dark — for his own sake,” says Tempa Tsering, the Dalai Lama’s representative in New Delhi.
As Mr. Thondup filled out the ranks of the CIA-backed resistance, Mr. Datha and his brother Mr. Tenzing also enlisted. Mr. Tenzing recalls arriving in 1959 at a secluded training base in the Colorado Rockies called Camp Hale. He gazed at the pine forests and snow-covered peaks. “I felt I was back in Tibet,” he says. Tibetans would train secretly in Colorado until 1964, according to Mr. Knaus’s written testimony to Congress.
Mr. Thondup traveled extensively to publicize Tibet’s plight, recruit fighters and forge links with foreign intelligence agencies, according to another of his sons, Khedroob Thondup, who acted as his private secretary.
During Mr. Thondup’s rare breaks at home, the family went on picnics in the misty hills of Darjeeling. The children practiced shooting Mr. Thondup’s old Winchester rifle. He also taught them how to prune his prize roses.
But inside Tibet, the resistance was wilting. China’s superior radio communications allowed it to outmaneuver fighters. Its air power crushed Tibetan fighters. Most of the agents the CIA sent into Tibet were captured or killed.
In disarray, the rebels retreated to a mountainous base known as Mustang just beyond southern Tibet inside Nepal. Fighters at Mustang say Mr. Thondup showed up periodically to rally spirits. “You don’t have to worry about food and supplies. We have sponsors that will take care of that,” Mr. Thondup said, according to Nyima Namgyal, one of the rebels who heard the Dalai Lama’s brother speak at Mustang.
“We had an idea it was America,” added Mr. Namgyal, now 65 years old and living in a retirement home in Dharmsala.
So many arrived at Mustang that supplies were stretched thin. Chodak says he sold his sword and charm box — an amulet he wore around his neck — to buy provisions. The rebels raided farms inside Tibet for sheep that would provide food and wool to fend off the cold.
Infighting posed as grave a threat to the Mustang operation as the Chinese army. Several of the Tibetan fighters complained that the commander was pocketing funds, according to Mr. Tenzing. In 1968, disgusted with what had become of the resistance, Mr. Tenzing returned to Darjeeling and opened a dumpling restaurant.
For the Americans in the late 1960s, the operation was reaching the end of its usefulness. The CIA had closed training camps years earlier and was winding down supply runs. Mired in Vietnam, the U.S. government worried about getting drawn deeper into another Asian conflict. In 1972, President Nixon met with Chinese leader Mao Zedong, ushering in a new era of the U.S. and China relationship.
For the Dalai Lama, a new stance toward China would take shape, too. In the early 1970s, he sought to disband the rebels and end the bloodshed. Chodak says he concluded his war with the Chinese after a tearful 1972 meeting with the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala.
Not everyone agreed to leave Mustang. Some fighters shot themselves or slit their own throats rather than disobey the Dalai Lama’s orders, according to his spokesman Tenzin Taklha.
The man who would serve as the go-between with the Chinese government was someone both sides knew well. He was the Dalai Lama’s older brother, Gyalo Thondup.
I don’t see these things in such a black and white manner. From reading the passages above, we can see that HHDL had no direct knowledge of the rebels activities, in part due to the protection of his brother who kept him uninvolved, I would assume to help him protect his monastic vows. HHDL never ordered anyone to kill, and couldn’t give his support. The deep sadness of his situation is summed up in a poignant moment in the film Kundun. At this time, HHDL was a teenager, with no real political training or power, but an important figurehead uniting his people in a time of danger.
Tears stream down my cheeks every time I watch this movie (I’ve seen it 5 times I guess). I challenge any sensitive person to view the film and not feel pity for how HHDL was trapped between a rock and hard place.
If you criticize HHDL for waving to the rebels as he left India, I ask you this, would it have been better for him to condemn them, knowing their heart was in the right place, trying to defend their country and the special dharma that existed there? Would that have been the action of a bodhisattva? Should he have stopped them from trying to protect the regular Tibetans who were being killed, raped, whose crops were being stolen, by the PLA? Is the complexity and heartache of such a situation even fathomable for those of us who have grown up in the cushy and safe environment Western countries provide?
Others in Tibetan history have actually transgressed their monastic vows, and are heroes, such as the monk who killed Langdarma to revive the Sangha in Tibet. This monk is lauded by hero, especially by Shugden followers. Is this not hypocritical? In another blog a former NKT member talked about how their teacher taught that sometimes great Bodhisattvas kill to save the dharma or the great number of beings, in relation to the above story. Have you never heard this story during your time in NKT classes?
Finally, you say you feel HHDL has misled people. I don’t think I have been misled and I am not easily duped. I have lived in many spiritual communities and know how to evaluate a teacher. That doesn’t mean I agree with every single statement HHDL has ever made (nor do I have to, if you follow Guru devotion as Lama Tsongkhapa taught it), but can see him as a great and holy being, guiding countless people to better lives, and visualize him during the Guru yoga portion of my self-generation recitations. Him being the greatest exponent of Buddhism on the planet I think is beyond question.
If you respect me, who has no qualities and an ordinary being, more than HHDL, who has immeasurable qualities and is a Bodhisattva, i would venture to say you should research HHDL’s teachings and activities more.
Finally, I don’t think it is entirely accurate to say that you and other NKT members aren’t trying to convert people to Shugden worship. Many people with direct experience of your organization speak of being introduced to the practice at the very beginning of their studies, and not being informed of its controversial history. Introducing new students to protector practices is very unconventional, and I haven’t heard of it happening in any other Vajrayana organizations on such a large sale. Even during Phabongkhapa’s time, the practice was not nearly as widely propagated among laypeople as it is through the NKT. Fortunately, as more of Phabongkhapa’s statements on the issue become translated, people will have access to more material before making their decision.
That being said, NKT definitely has the right to decide on its own spiritual policies. But I think many people would be grateful for more material to research before deciding to rely on Shugden as a Buddha.
In India, the Shugden practices are continuing, within the same khangtsens (house groups), in the same buildings. The communities have seperated, but monks who have strong devotion can and do still worship in public pujas. To force the other monks to mix and share requisites with those who go against the referendum decided policies of the majority of the monks, I think, is more harmful to the Sangha than peaceful, but seperate co-existence. I think this is the solution, and that, as I said, buildings should be signed over to the Shugden houses and their access to essentials should be secured. Should the 4,000 monks at Sera, for example, who don’t worship Shugden, be forced to debate and pray with the 120 who still do, who they believe are contravening their refuge vows?
And finally, Adam, I think it is important for Shugden followers to know about and aknowledge the sectarian activities of many who propagated the Shugden practice. Because without that knowledge, they can never work to address and rectify those attitudes that some within their fold still carry. (Many whom I know have confirmed these attitudes. I spoke with several Shugden monks at Sera when I was there. When I return to India in late October, I hope to continue my research).
thank you for your lengthy response. If you read the Jataka tales, as I’m sure you may well have done, you will find many instances of stories in which the bodhisattva chose not to retaliate to harm, even when his own wife and children were in danger. It seems to me that these tales are trying to teach us an important message – that doing right is about doing what is right according to our highest principles and understanding, and not just doing what feels right.
I believe that if teachings on karma and the patience of non-retaliation are correct, then they must apply universally. The tragedy that befell Tibet and Tibetans is worthy of our compassion, but no more so than the tragedies experienced by other groups around the world – the Palestinians, the people of Darfur, etc. etc. Furthermore, as I understand it the Chinese are no worse to Tibetans than to other minority groups within China, whose plight receives no such international coverage.
I’m not trying to belittle the plight of Tibtans or the suffering they’ve endured, just to place it in context.
I’ve certainly heard the stories of Bodhisattvas who kill out of compassion, but this is the killing of an single individual carried out by someone with clairvoyance, wisdom, and compassion.
I have compassion for the Tibetan fighters but I regard their actions as having been completely misguided, as I do the military actions of both the Israeli army and those of Hamas.
As regards Shugden practise within the NKT, it’s simply the case that Wishfulfilling Jewel pujas are held at a certain time each day and people are welcome to attend them if they wish. If they wanted to they could also have a look at the commentary in Heart Jewel. You may see this as some sort of negligence, but since we don’t accept the notion of the Dorje Shugden practice being harmful we don’t feel morally obliged to make a big deal about its “controversial” nature – it is only regarded as controversial by some due to DL’s statements about it, which we regard as wrong and untruthful.
I’ve read a translation of one of Phabongkhapa’s statements on the blogs, and I found it funny because it did indeed make Dorje Shugden practice look incredibly bad! Even in our prayers there are statements that could be seen to be “sectarian.” However, these things have to be understood in perspective, and within a particular cultural and historical context (in the case of Phabongkhapa).
DL’s personal rejection of Dorje Shugden practice makes perfect sense as it contains the advice to follow one tradition without mixing it with teachings from other traditions – advice that he rejects. Whether it is right for him to hold this belief it is indisputable that he has the right to think and believe as he wishes. We only ask that he respect the right of others’ to hold differing views and beliefs to his own.
I’m still hopeful that you can be a force for moderation and am grateful that you disapprove of some of the things that have taken place. I will be interested in learning about your experiences when you go back to India, and I guess I’ll get to learn about them through the site at some point.
You compared the situation in Tibet to the situation in Palestine/Isreal for example. When one looks at the length of time of the conflicts (similar) and compares how they have panned out, the conflict in Tibet has been overwhelmingly non-violent in comparison. The primary reason for this is His Holiness’ stance against violence. I believe, along with many Tibetans I have spoken to in both Dharamsala and the Lugsam Settlement (South India, where Sera is located), that what has prevented violence has largely been the voice of HHDL. In fact, if you remember, when protests in Lhasa got ugly recently, HHDL said he would resign if any violence continued. And things calmed down. Even after years of occupation, the Tibetans in Tibet still look up to HHDL.
This is one aspect of the NKT’s campaign I found particularly disturbing. The used CCTV (PRC state television) footage of the protests, calling the people acting violent “followers of the Dalai lama” and, in fact, helping to spread CTTV propaganda from the web. I have seen pictures from Amdo of killing that took place before the incidents, and indeed at the time I was taking initations and teachings in NZ with a lama from Amdo, and because I was one of the few who spoke Tibetan, helped the lama’s attendant to call his family in their village. The stories, which I won’t go into, were horrifying. That is why I was so shocked that the NKT used the one-sided PRC footage in order to “defend” itself against the ASA statement. I e-mailed them about this, that it hurt millions of Tibetans who had nothing to do with their Shugden issue, but of course, no response to my concerns.
The plight of the Tibetans has gained international coverage. As has that of Darfur. Because they have been in exile for SO LONG, perhaps that is the reason? The Palestinians are terribly mistreated I agree, but at least there are talks towards giving them independent forms of government, and they pretty much run their own affairs in Gaza and the West Bank. The East Timorese already have an independent government. As do the Mongolians. How long have the Tibetans waited?
It seems to me from your statements (and please correct me if I’m wrong) that you feel no special connection or gratitude to the Tibetans. I think this is very sad. The Tibetans preserved a very unique and complete form of Lord Buddha’s teachings while such teachings were being wiped out in India and Indonesia, among other places. They translated the entire canon from sanskrit (not an easy task) and preserved the texts, as well as making the practices come alive through sincere cultivation, which led to many spiritual masters. Without their efforts, would we have access to these precious teachings? The answer is of course no. Only in Tibet do we find the complete corpus of Vajrayana (Shingon in Japan only preserves one class of tantra), along with pithy Mahayana instructions like the Lojong.
To say that DS practice is only regarded as controversial because of HHDL’s statements about it is also completely inaccurate. What about the statements of HH Sakya Trizin? HH Minling Trichen Rinpoche? HH Tai Situ Rinpoche? As for historical figures, what about the Panchen Rinpoche Losang Chokyi Gyaltsen? Once again WSS seems to be blaming HH Dalai lama for all and any misgivings people have against Shugden practice. This shows a lack of understanding about the history of Tibetan Buddhism and why the practice is controversial. Fortunately, now passages relevant to this controversy previously available only in Tibetan are being translated into English so people can make a more informed choice.
Your statement about Shugden practice and the seemingly sectarian aspects of it needing to be placed in context, are the exact reason i think newcomers should have access to reliable historical records about the history behind the practice and the Lamas involved in it. As I said, I don’t think we have to view a Lamas every action as perfect in order to benefit from some of their teachings. But I think we should have access to an honest history of everything so we can avoid those bits that are linked to problems.
The bit about HHDL letting people hold views different to his own seems a little odd to me considering the recent post of Ven. Jampa on this forum, which seems to indicate the NKT doesn’t tolerate much disagreement either. An argument could be made that while HHDL has allowed Shugden monks to stay in his monasteries, because of seeing another teacher (who transmitted ordination to him) Jampa was kicked out of his home (an NKT centre), and forced to live with his mother.
As I said above, the two sides are going to meet in a Delhi court so I see the protests as completely unnecessary, just a method to “rally the troops” in a way. Before recruiting its members to engage in such protests (whether as part of an ad-hoc group or not, the majority are NKT), the New Kadampa Tradition should have examined its own history honestly to see whether or not they have turned people away from their homes for having their own beliefs.
I believe Ven. Jampa’s account, I don’t think he has any reason to exaggerate and he seems sincere. Of course, if there is evidence this didn’t happen (rather than conjecture) I would welcome it.
Dear Khedrub & Adam, that close followers were asked not to go to other teachers was reported different times – also in NKS.
This policy was either established by indirect means (fearing to pollute the “pure lineage”) and using facial expressing or verbal expressions of disagreement if somebody did it or by direct order of GKG.
What happens and what means are applied depends mainly upon the NKT center and how deep the student is involved in NKT. Loose members are treated more relaxed so that they came back again.
In Manjushri Institute the policies were much more strict as far as I heard. At one time it was even not acceptable for GKG when residents had books on their shelf of other authors.
Caroline, now a follower of Gangchen Lama and once resident at Manjushri Institute, said when she left NKT they even organized demonstrations against her when she was granting empowerments with the permission of Lama Gangchen. She wanted to tell me the whole story but at that time it was to much for me to be faced with so many “bad news”. So I refused to listen to her.
He was a resident of Manjushri Center. As the Manjushir Institute serves as the role model for NKT policies it is important for understanding NKT to understand what policies they have implemented there.
I remember an Email by GKG were he expressed his disagreement that his students buy Buddha images painted by Andy Weber in Weber’s Ulverston shop. He said they should not do this and indicated Andy Weber would have no proper motivation for selling them there. So, when even shopping of Buddha images is controlled by the NKT leadership what else has to been said? Andy Weber was the main Thanka / image painter of NKT and a Manjushri resident there as well, he left some years ago.
In our center it was an unspoken rule that never ever a devoted follower, especially no NKT monk or nun or NKT teacher goes to non NKT teachers. This policy derives just directly from the policy of keeping the “pure tradition” purely and “not mixing it”. As a result even Kundeling lama was not allowed when he visited our center in 1998 to use the throne or to teach something, because he was no “Kadampa” and had not “our lineage”.
Dechen received this ‘purity policies’ from Gen Thubten, GKG’s successor, who visited many NKT centers in about 1994/95 to remove all non-NKT stuff and members who were ‘mixing the tradition’ or ‘not keeping the pure tradition’ “purely”. Many left NKT quite frustrated the other followed the ‘purity policies’. I was no witness of that process but former members I met told this to me.
Later when Dechen was expelled and the new Foundation Programm Teacher suggested a non-NKT book to read – additional to GKG’s text – one week later she was removed from her position as a NKT teacher and replaced by a devoted NKT monk. One person who followed the advice bought the non-NKT book and brought it to the FP Class, him was told that this book is not welcomed there… For me, also this speaks volumes.
Removal or installation of NKT teachers who are more devoted to NKT policies is another mean to make followers more conform. The latest instances are Lucy James, Björn Clausen etc.
So you have at least these three methods: 1. unspoken indirect rules, 2. direct orders by NKT leadership (GKG) behind the scene – which are not brought to the public eye 3. arbitrary removal or installation of NKT teachers.
May be some can add their experiences of this here for a better understanding. Of course the experience are manifold and depend on the place and local NKT teachers.
I don’t have to defend the actions of the NKT in this context and I chose not to do so. As far as I’m concerned this is a separte discussion. I’m extremely pleased that the New Kadampa Truth site has said that people are welcome to register complaints if they have any, and that they will receive replies, and I’ve even requested that they make this point a bit more clearly.
So that’s my bit as far as that’s concerned.
I must frankly confess to you that my compassionate concern for the Palestinians is greater that that for Tibetans. From what I can make out their plight is infinitely worse than that of the Tibetans. I found your statement about the Gaza strip incredible. Have you read any reports about conditions in the Gaza strip over the past year?
Having attended a talk by Karma Hardy the director of the Tibet Foundation, I’m convinced that their non-political approach is the right one. I would heartily recommend watching the video about their activities in Tibet if you ever get the chance. However, the most touching part for me was about the Chinese school girls who were being looked after. They were orphans. I thought it was wonderful that a Tibetan school accepted them. It would be nice to think of them growing up to be peace-makers between Tibetans and Chinese.
I have strong reservations about all forms of nationalism including Tibetan nationalism. I don’t think DL helps the cause of Tibetans in Tibet at all, except perhaps in so far as his status gets people donating to Tibet Foundation. From where I stand it seems like he helps to keep people clinging to an impossible dream, rather than allowing them to swim with the tide and make the most of changed circumstances – i.e. by learning Chinese and so on.
Tibet as an independent nation is a completely lost cause. Buddha’s taught us to accept the inevitability of impermanence, not to try to fight the inevitable.
Gratitude to past Tibetan masters is besides the point. The way to repay their kindness is to put the teachings into practice and attain enlightenment for the sake of all living beings – this is what they would wish of us.
Sorry if the statement sounded uninformed, I am indeed no expert on this issue. What I was saying was, at least the international community has worked with the Conservative Isrealis in order to give some form of self-government to the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Palestianians have at least some friends in the UN (several of the Arab countries and others). The Tibetans on the other hand, have no one who will stick up for them in the UN and no voice through official political channels. It is mostly HH the Dalai Lama who brings attention to their plight. This being said, I have never visited Isreal, the occupied territories, or the Gaza settlements, so I can’t speak with the authority of experience on the issue. I have, however, had extensive experience over several years with Tibetans in India and also in the commuity here in Canada. I have seen their battle scars and heard their stories.
However, to diverge entensively to the Palestinian issue on this blog I think detracts from its purpose, so perhaps we should leave it here.
HH Dalai Lama, contrary to you assertion above, has encouraged the Tibetans to learn CHinese. EVen in exile, for example, there are Chinese classes available at several of the larger monasteries. HHDL tells those monks who know Chinese to continue to study it because it is a very important language. HHDL has also contributed to a modern Chinese translation of the Lam Rim Chenmo, for example (the current one uses classical Chinese and is outdated). Also, in the film Unwinking Gaze HHDL repeatedly says he is willing to work for autonomy and not independence, and try to be a good Chinese citizen while protecting his culture. His stance is far more moderate than many of the young Tibetans who wish to attempt to take their country by force, and his middle-way approach has contributed greatly to the lack of violence in regard to this situation.
If you don’t think HHDL helps the Tibetans in Tibet at all, I recommend you view the film “What Remains Of Us” , where a Tibetan-Canadian woman went into Tibet with a recorded message from HHDL and then recorded the reactions of the Tibetans. It is clear that his presence inspires tremendous hope in these people trying to preserve at least some part of their culture. Also, if you go to Dharamsala, you will see that HHDL has many programs funneling money and support to many charitable projects in Tibet, and has also arranged for other foundations like FPMT to provide medical care in Tibet, for example through the Amdo Eye Centre.
In addition, many lamas who are students of HHDL have taken his advice to help Tibet directly and built monasteries and schools in the country, focusing on modern education, and teaching Tibetan and Chinese side by side. One of my friends runs a school in Kham that does this, and received substantial donations through the office of HHDL.
So, your statement that HHDL does little for the Tibetans in Tibet can be proven inaccurate by visiting India and seeing what types of projects are in the works. Also don’t forget that through HHDL’s monasteries, thousand of monks complete a proper traditional monastic education, and many of these return to Tibet and their communities where they can teach a complete form of the dharma, unhindered by the rigid controls of the PLA government.
thanks for your information. With regards to the Palestinian issue I would certainly recommend Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine Peace not Appartheid, which gives clear insight into the issue, and is all the more powerful for its complete even-handedness. I think if you learn a bit more you will realize that the Palestinians are a lot worse off than you seem to think.
Thanks also for the information about DL sponsered programmes in Tibet. I must admit that my statement was to some extent made in ignorance. I did really enjoy the Tibet Foundation film though as I’ve said repeatedly.
I think this particular discussion may have run its course for me so I think I’ll bow out now. No doubt we’ll talk again on another thread. I’ve given up on the idea of moving away from the site in general, as I think this sort of discussion serves a purpose. | 2019-04-23T05:00:27Z | https://buddhism-controversy-blog.com/2008/09/11/bodhisattva-centre-open-day-review-and-reply/ |
2502.4 Public reference facilities and current index.
2502.5 Records of other Agencies.
2502.6 How to request records--form and content.
2502.10 Appeals to the Deputy Director from initial denials.
2502.12 Fees to be charged--general.
2502.13 Fees to be charged--categories of requestors.
2502.15 Waiver or reduction of charges.
2502.16 Information to be disclosed.
2502.18 Deletion of exempted information.
2502.31 Production prohibited unless approved by Deputy Director.
2502.32 Procedure in the event of a demand for disclosure.
2502.33 Procedure in the event of an adverse ruling.
Authority: 5 U.S.C. 552, as amended by Pub. L. 93-502 and Pub. L. 99-570.
Source: 45 FR 47112, July 14, 1980, unless otherwise noted.
Sec. 2502.2 Purpose and scope.
This subpart contains the regulations of the Office of Administration, Executive Office of the President, implementing 5 U.S.C. 552. The regulations of this subpart describe the procedures by which records may be obtained from all organizational units within the Office of Administration. Official records of the Office made available pursuant to the requirements of 5 U.S.C. 552 shall be furnished to members of the public only as prescribed by this subpart. To the extent that it is not prohibited by other laws the Office also will make available records which it is authorized to withhold under 5 U.S.C. 552 whenever it determines that such disclosure is in the public interest.
Sec. 2502.3 Organization and functions.
and Pennsylvania Avenue NW., 20500, and in the New Executive Office Building, 725 17th Street NW., Washington, DC 20503. Regular office hours are from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Both buildings are under security control. Persons desiring access are encourged to make advance arrangements by telephone with the office they plan to visit.
Sec. 2502.4 Public reference facilities and current index.
(a) The Office maintains a public reading area located in the Executive Office of the President Library, Room G-102, New Executive Office Building, 725 17th Street NW., Washington, DC, and makes available for public inspection and copying a copy of all material required by 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(2), including all documents published by OA in the Federal Register and currently in effect.
(b) The FOIA Officer or his or her designee shall maintain files containing all materials required to be retained by or furnished to the FOIA Officer under this subpart. The material shall be filed by chronological number of request within each calendar year, indexed according to the exceptions asserted, and, to the extent feasible, indexed according to the type of records requested.
(c) The FOIA Officer shall also maintain a file open to the public, which shall contain copies of all grants or denials of appeals by the Office.
Sec. 2502.5 Records of other Agencies.
Requests for records that originated in another Agency and are in the custody of the Office of Administration, will be referred to that Agency for processing, and the person submitting the request shall be so notified. The decision made by that Agency with respect to such records will be honored by the Office of Administration.
Sec. 2502.6 How to request records--form and content.
(a) A request made under the FOIA must be submitted in writing, addressed to: FOIA Officer, Office of Administration, 725 17th Street NW., Washington, DC 20503. The words ``FOIA REQUEST'' should be clearly marked on both the letter and the envelope. Due to security measures at the Old and New Executive Office Buildings, requests made in person should be delivered to Room G-1, at the above address.
(b) Any Office employee or official who receives a FOIA Request shall promptly forward it to the FOIA Officer, at the above address. Any Office employee or official who receives an oral request made under the FOIA shall inform the person making the request of the provisions of this subpart requiring a written request according to the procedures set out herein.
(c) Each request must reasonably describe the record(s) sought, including when known: Agency/individual originating the record, date, subject matter, type of document, location, and any other pertinent information which would assist in promptly locating the record(s).
(d) When a request is not considered reasonably descriptive, or requires the production of voluminous records, or places an extraordinary burden on the Office of Administration, seriously interfering with its normal functioning to the detriment of the business of the Government, the Office may require the person or agent making the FOIA request to confer with an Office representative in order to attempt to verify, and, if possible, narrow the scope of the request.
(e) Upon receipt of the FOIA request, the FOIA Officer will make an initial determination of which officials and offices may be involved in the search and reviewing procedures. The FOIA Officer will circulate the request to all offices so identified and any others the FOIA Officer later determines should be notified.
The General Counsel or his or her designee shall have the authority to approve or deny requests received pursuant to these regulations. The decision of the General Counsel shall be final, subject only to administrative review as provided in Sec. 2502.10.
(2) It is necessary to consult with another agency having a substantial interest in the determination of the request or among two or more components of the agency having substantial subject matter interest therein.
(b) When additional time is required for one of the reasons stated in paragraph (a) of this section, the General Counsel or his or her designee shall acknowledge receipt of the request within the 10 workday period and include a brief explanation of the reason for the delay, indicating the date by which a determination will be forthcoming. An extended deadline adopted for one of the reasons set forth above may not exceed 10 additional workdays.
Sec. 2502.9 Responses--form and content.
(a) When a requested record has been identified and is available, the General Counsel or his or her designee shall notify the person making the request as to where and when the record is available for inspection or the copies will be available. The notification shall also advise the person making the request of any fees assessed under Sec. 2502.13 hereof.
(4) A statement that no agency records are responsive to the request.
(5) A statement that the denial may be appealed to the Deputy Director within 30 days of receipt of the denial or partial denial.
If a requested record cannot be located from the information supplied, or is known to have been destroyed or otherwise disposed of, the person making the request shall be so notified and the legal authority for disposition shall be cited.
Sec. 2502.10 Appeals to the Deputy Director from initial denials.
(a) When the General Counsel or his or her designee had denied a request for records in whole or in part, the person making the request may, within 30 days of its receipt, appeal the denial to the Deputy Director. The appeal must be in writing, addressed to the Deputy Director, Office of Administration, 725 17th Street NW., Washington, DC 20503 and clearly labeled as a ``Freedom of Information Act Appeal''.
writing, signed by the Deputy Director of the Office.
(c) If the decision is in favor of the person making the request, the Deputy Director shall order records promptly made available to the person making the request.
(d) A denial in whole or in part of a request on appeal shall set forth the exemption relied on and a brief explanation of how the exemption applied to the records withheld and the reasons for asserting it, if different from that described by the General Counsel or his or her designee under Sec. 2502.10. The denial shall state that the person making the request may, if dissatisfied with the decision on appeal, file a civil action in the district in which the person resides or has his principal place of business, in the district where the records are located, or in the District of Columbia.
(e) No personal appearance, oral argument or hearing will ordinarily be permitted in connection with an appeal to the Office of Administration.
(f) On appeal, the Office may reduce any fees previously assessed.
(4) Return overdue revenue to the Treasury for defraying, wholly or in part, appropriated funds used to pay the cost of disseminating government information.
(c) The term direct costs means those expenditures that OA incurs in searching for and duplicating (and in the case of commercial requestors, reviewing) documents to respond to a FOIA request. Direct costs include, for example, the salary of the employee performing the work (the basic rate of pay for the employee plus 16 percent of that rate to cover benefits) and the cost of operating duplicating machinery. Not included in direct costs are overhead expenses such as costs of space, and heating or lighting the facility in which the records are stored.
(d) The term search includes all time spent looking for material that is responsive to a request, including page-by-page or line-by-line identification of material within documents. OA employees should ensure that searching for material is done in the most efficient and least expensive manner so as to minimize costs for both the agency and the requestor. For example, employees should not engage in a line-by-line search when merely duplicating an entire document would prove the least expensive and quicker method of complying with a request. Search should be distinguished, moreover, from review of material in order to determine whether the material is exempt from disclosure (see paragraph (f) of this section). Searches may be done manually or by computer using existing programming.
(e) The term duplication refers to the process of making a copy of a document necessary to respond to a FOIA request. Such copies can take the form of paper copy, microform, audio-visual materials, or machine readable (e.g. magnetic tape or disk), among others.[[Page 389]]The copy provided must be in a form that is reasonably usable by the requestors.
(f) The term review refers to the process of examining documents located in response to a request that is for a commercial use (see paragraph (g) of this section) to determine whether any portion of any document located is permitted to be withheld. It also includes processing any documents for disclosure, (e.g., doing all that is necessary to excise them and otherwise prepare them for release). Review does not include time spent resolving general legal or policy issues regarding the application of exemptions.
(g) The term `commercial use' request refers to a request from or on behalf of one who seeks information for a use or purpose that furthers the commercial, trade, or profit interests of the requestor or the person on whose behalf the request is made. In determining whether the requestor properly belongs in this category, OA must determine the use to which a requestor will put the documents requested. Moreover, where an OA employee has reasonable cause to doubt the use to which a requestor will put the records sought, or where that use is not clear from the request itself, the employee should seek additional clarification before assigning the request to a specific category.
(i) The term non-commercial scientific institution refers to an institution that is not operated on a commercial basis (as that term is referenced in paragraph (g) of this section) and that is operated solely for the purpose of conducting scientific research, the results of which are not intended to promote any particular product or industry.
(j) The term representative of the news media refers to any person actively gathering news for an entity that is organized and operated to publish or broadcast news to the public. The term news means information that is about current events or that would be of current interest to the public. Examples of news media entities include television or radio stations broadcasting to the public at large, and publishers of periodicals (but only in those instances when they can qualify as disseminators of news) who make their products available for purchase and subscription by the general public. These examples are not intended to be all-inclusive. Moreover, as traditional methods of news delivery evolve (e.g., electronic dissemination of newspapers through telecommunications services), such alternative media would be included in this category. In the case of free lance journalists, they may be regarded as working for a news organization, if they can demonstrate a solid basis for expecting publication through that organization, even though not actually employed by it. A publication contract would be the clearest proof, but OA may also look to the past publication record of a requestor in making this determination.
Sec. 2502.12 Fees to be charged--general.
OA should charge fees that recoup the full allowable direct costs it incurs. Moreover, it shall use the most efficient and least costly methods to comply with requests for documents made under the FOIA. When documents that would be responsive to a request are maintained for distribution by agencies operating statutory-based fee schedule programs (see definition in Sec. 2502.11(b)), such as the NTIS, OA should inform requestors of the steps necessary to obtain records from those sources.
(a) Manual searches for records. OA will charge at the salary rate(s) (i.e., basic pay plus 16 percent) of the employee(s) making the search.
(b) Computer searches for records. OA will charge at the actual direct cost of providing this service. This will include the cost of operating the central processing unit for that portion of operating time that is directly attributable to searching for records responsive to a FOIA request and operator/programmer salary apportionable to the search.
(c) Review of records. Only requestors who are seeking documents for commercial use may be charged for time spent reviewing records to determine whether they are exempt from mandatory disclosure. Charges may be assessed only for the initial review; i.e., the review undertaken the first time OA analyzes the applicability of a specific exemption to a particular record or portion of a record. Records or portions of records withheld in full under an exemption that is subsequently determined not to apply may be reviewed again to determine the applicability of other exemptions not previously considered. The costs for such a subsequent review are assessable.
(d) Duplication of records. Records will be duplicated at a rate of $.15 per page. For copies prepared by computer such as tapes or printouts, OA shall charge the actual cost, including operator time, of production of the tape or printout. For other methods of reproduction or duplication, OA will charge the actual direct costs of producing the document(s). If OA estimates that duplication charges are likely to exceed $25.00, it shall notify the requestor of the estimated amount of fees, unless the requestor has indicated in advance his willingness to pay fees as high as those anticipated. Such a notice shall offer a requestor the opportunity to confer with agency personnel with the object of reformulating the request to meet his or her needs at a lower cost.
(f) Remittances shall be in the form of a personal check or bank draft drawn on a bank in the United States, or a postal money order. Remittances shall be made payable to the order of the Treasury of the United States and mailed or delivered to the FOIA Officer, Office of Administration, 725 17th Street, NW., Washington, DC 20503.
(h) Restrictions on assessing fees. With the exception of requestors seeking documents for a commercial use, OA will provide the first 100 pages of duplication and the first two hours of search time without charge. Moreover, OA will not charge fees to any requestor, including commercial use requestors, if the cost of collecting a fee would be equal to or greater than the fee itself.
(1) The elements to be considered in determining whether the ``cost of collecting a fee'' are the administrative costs of receiving and recording a requestor's remittance, and processing the fee for deposit in the Treasury Department's special account.
(2) For purposes of these restrictions on assessment of fees, the word ``pages'' refers to copies of ``8\1/2\ x 11'' or ``11 x 14.'' Thus, requestors are not entitled to 100 microfiche or 100 computer disks, for example. A microfiche containing the equivalent of 100 pages or 100 pages of computer printout does meet the terms of the restriction.
(3) Similarly, the term ``search time'' in this context has as its basis, manual search. To apply this term to searches made by computer, OA will determine the hourly cost of operating the central processing unit and the operator's hourly salary plus 16 percent. When the cost of a search (including the operator time and the cost of operating the computer to process the request) equals the equivalent dollar amount of two hours of the salary of the person performing the search, i.e., the operator, OA will begin assessing charges for a computer search.
Sec. 2502.13 Fees to be charged--categories of requestors.
(a) Commercial use requestors. When OA receives a request for documents for commercial use, it will assess charges that recover the full direct costs of searching for, reviewing for release, and duplicating the record sought. Requestors must reasonably[[Page 391]]describe the records sought. Commercial use requestors are not entitled to two hours of free search time nor 100 free pages of reproduction of documents. OA may recover the cost of searching for and reviewing records even if there is ultimately no disclosure of records (see Sec. 2502.14).
(b) Educational and non-commercial scientific institution requestors. OA shall provide documents to requestors in this category for the cost of reproduction alone, excluding charges for the first 100 pages. To be eligible for inclusion in this category, requestors must show that the request is being made as authorized by and under the auspices of a qualifying institution and that the records are not sought for a commercial use, but are sought in furtherance of scholarly if the request is from an education institution) or scientific (if the request is from a non-commercial scientific institution) research. Requestors must reasonably describe the records sought.
(c) Requestors who are representatives of the news media. OA shall provide documents to requestors in this category for the cost of reproduction alone, excluding charges for the first 100 pages. To be eligible for inclusion in this category, a requestor must meet the criteria in Sec. 2502.11(j), and his or her request must not be made for commercial use. In reference to this class of requestors a request for records supporting the news dissemination function of the requestor shall not be considered to be a request that is for a commercial use. Requestors must reasonably describe the records sought.
(d) All other requestors. OA shall charge requestors who do not fit into any of the categories above fees that recover the full, reasonable, direct cost of searching for and reproducing the records that are responsive to the request, except that the first 100 pages and the first two hours of search time shall be furnished without charge. Moreover, requests for records about the requestors filed in OA's system of records will continue to be treated under the fee provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974 which permit fees only for reproduction. Requestors must reasonably describe the records sought.
Sec. 2502.14 Miscellaneous fee provisions.
(a) Charging interest--notice and rate. OA may begin assessing interest on an unpaid bill starting on the 31st day of the month following the date on which billing was sent. The fact that the fee has been received by OA within the thirty day grace period, even if not processed, will suffice to stay the accrual of interest. Interest will be at the rate prescribed in section 3717 of title 31 of the United States Code and will accrue from the date of billing.
(b) Charges for an unsuccessful search. OA may assess charges for time spent searching, even if it fails to locate the records or if records located are determined to be exempt from disclosure. If OA estimates that search charges are likely to exceed $25.00, it shall notify the requestor of the estimated amount of fees, unless the requestor has indicated in advance his willingness to pay fees as high as those anticipated. Such a notice shall offer the requestor the opportunity to confer with agency personnel with the object of reformulating the request to meet his or her needs at a lower cost.
(c) Aggregation results. A requestor may not file multiple requests at the same time, each seeking portions of a document or documents solely in order to avoid payment of fees. When OA reasonably believes that a requestor, or on rare occasions, a group of requestors acting in concert is attempting to break a request down into a series of requests for the purpose of evading the assessment of fees, OA may aggregate any such request and charge accordingly. One element to be considered in determining whether a belief would be reasonable is the time period over which the requests have occurred.
(2) A requestor has previously failed to pay a fee charged in a timely fashion (i.e., within thirty days of the date of the billing). OA may require the requestor to pay the full amount owed plus any applicable interest as provided above or demonstate that he or she has in fact paid the fee, and to make an advance payment of the full amount of the estimated fee before the agency begins to process a new request, or a pending request from that requestor.
When OA acts under paragraph (d) (1) or (2) of this section, the administrative time limits prescribed in the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(6) (i.e., ten working days from receipt of initial request and 20 working days from receipt of appeals from initial denial, plus permissible extensions of these time limits) will begin only after OA has received fee payments described above.
(e) Effect of the Debt Collection Act of 1982 (Pub. L. 97-365). OA should comply with the provisions of the Debt Collection Act, including disclosure to consumer reporting agencies and use of collection agencies, where appropriate, to encourage repayment.
Sec. 2502.15 Waiver or reduction of charges.
Fees otherwise chargeable in connection with a request for disclosure of a record shall be waived or reduced where it is determined that disclosure is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the Government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requestor.
Sec. 2502.16 Information to be disclosed.
(a) In general, all records of the Office of Administration are available to the public, as required by the Freedom of Information Act. However, the Office claims the right, where it is applicable, to withhold material under the provisions specified in the Freedom of Information Act as amended (5 U.S.C. 552(b)).
(b) Records from Non-U.S. Government Source. (1) Upon receipt of a request for a record that was obtained from a non-U.S. Government source, or for a record containing information clearly identified as having been provided by a non-U.S. Government source, including a contract proposal or contract material, the Office will contact the source of the requested record or information requesting advice as to whether release of the record would adversely affect the source's competitive position or invade anyone's privacy. Subsequent to receipt of such advice, the Office will independently examine the requested document and will notify the requester of the final decision.
(2) OA personnel will generally consider two exemptions in the FOIA in deciding whether to withhold from disclosure material from a non-U.S. Government source. Exemption 4 permits withholding of ``trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.'' Exemption 6 permits withholding certain information, the disclosure of which ``would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.'' The source whose material has been requested will be asked to supply convincing justification for any material it wishes withheld under the Act, in accordance with the following general guidelines.
(i) For consideration under exemption 4, the supplier of the record or information should identify material that would be likely to cause substantial harm to its present or future competitive position if it were released. If a contractor, the provider should assume that the material will be released to a competitor, even if that is not always the case. A contractor must provide detailed information on why release would be harmful, e.g., the general custom or usage in the business; the number and situation of the persons who have access to the information; the type and degree of risk of financial injury that release would cause; and the length of time the information will need to be kept confidential.
(A) In this respect, the Office of Administration will--as a general rule--look favorably upon recommendations for withholding information about[[Page 393]]ideas, methods, and processes that are unique; about equipment, materials, or systems that are potentially patentable; or about a unique use of equipment which is specifically outlined.
(B) OA will not withhold information that is known through custom or usage in the relevant trade, business, or profession, or information that is generally known to any reasonably educated person. Self-evident statements or reviews of the general state of the art will not ordinarily be withheld.
(C) OA will withhold all cost data submitted except the total estimated cost for each year of the contract. Where appropriate, OA will release unit pricing data except where that information would disclose confidential information such as profit margins. It will release these total estimated costs and ordinarily release explanatory material and headings associated with the cost data, withholding only the figures themselves. If a contractor believes some of the explanatory material should be withheld, that material must be identified and a justification be presented as to why it should not be released.
(ii) Exemption 6 is not a blanket exemption for all personal information. The Office will balance the need to keep a person's private affairs from unnecessary public scrutiny with protection of the public's right to information on Government records.
(A) As a general practice, the Office will release information about any person named in a contract itself or about any person who signed a contract as well as information given in a proposal about any officer of a corporation submitting that proposal. Except for names and other identifying details, the Office usually releases all information in resumes concerning employees, including education and experience. Efforts will be made to identify information that should be deleted and offerors are urged to point out such material for guidance. Any information in the proposal which might constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy if released should be identified and a justification for non-release provided in order to receive proper consideration.
(B) The Office can protect the names of and identifying details about other staff members who are described in a contract proposal if it is clear that identification of these employees would assist competitors in raiding and hiring them away. In this regard, names and other identifying details could be protected under Exemption 4 (harmful to competitive position) and also under Exemption 6 (it would be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy to release them). In such a case, the Office would withhold names, home addresses, salaries, telephone numbers, social security numbers, marital status and, if these served to identify them, perhaps some details about past employment or professional activities of these persons.
(a) 5 U.S.C. 552 exempts from all of its publication and disclosure requirements nine categories of records which are described in 552(b). These categories include such matters as national defense and foreign policy information, investigatory files, internal procedures and communications, materials exempted from disclosure by other statutes, information given in confidence and matters involving personal privacy.
(b) Executive Order 12028 (December 4, 1977) provides that the Office of Administration shall upon request, assist the White House office in performing its role of providing those administrative services which are primarily in direct support of the President. Due to this role of providing direct support of the President, members of the public should presume that communications between the Director of the Office of Administration and the President (and their staffs) are confidential or ordinarily will not be released; they will usually fall, at a minimum, within Exemption 5 of the Act.
public except as provided by 5 CFR part 2504.
Sec. 2502.18 Deletion of exempted information.
Where requested records contain matters which are exempted under 5 U.S.C. 552(b) but which matters are reasonably segregable from the remainder of the records, they shall be disclosed by the Office with deletions. To each such record, the Office shall attach a written justification for making deletions. A single such justification shall suffice for deletions made in a group of similar or related records.
The General Counsel or his or her designee shall annually on or before March 1, submit a Freedom of Information report covering the preceding calendar year to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and President of the Senate. The report shall include those matters required by 5 U.S.C. 552(d).
Sec. 2502.30 Purpose and scope.
(c) Any information or material acquired by any person while such person as an employee of the Office of Administration as a part of the performance of his official duties or because of his official status.
Sec. 2502.31 Production prohibited unless approved by the Deputy Director.
No employee or former employee of the Office of Administration shall, in response to a demand of a court or other authority, produce any material contained in the files of the Office of Administration or disclose any information or produce any material acquired as part of the performance of his official status without the prior approval of the Deputy Director.
Sec. 2502.32 Procedure in the event of a demand for disclosure.
(a) Whenever a demand is made upon an employee or former employee of the Office of Administration for the production of material or the disclosure of information described in Sec. 2502.31, he shall immediately notify the Deputy Director. If possible, the Deputy Director shall be notified before the employee or former employee concerned replies to or appears before the court or other authority.
(b) If response to the demand is required before instructions from the Deputy Director are received, an attorney designated for that purpose by the Office of Administration shall appear with the employee or former employee upon whom the demand has been made, and shall furnish the court or other authority with a copy of the regulations contained in this part and inform the court or other authority that the demand has been or is being, as the case may be, referred for prompt consideration by the Deputy Director. The court or other authority shall be requested respectfully to stay the demand pending receipt of the requested instructions from the Deputy Director.
Sec. 2502.33 Procedure in the event of an adverse ruling.
Director, or if the court or other authority rules that the demand must be complied with irrespective of the instructions from the Deputy Director not to produce the material or disclose the information sought, the employee or former employee upon whom the demand has been made shall respectfully decline to comply with the demand. (United States ex rel. Touhy v. Ragen, 340 U.S. 462 (1951)). | 2019-04-26T10:03:17Z | https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/WH/EOP/html/other/foia/title5.html |
2011-09-15 Assigned to HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P. reassignment HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P. CHANGE OF NAME (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: COMPAQ INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES GROUP, L.P.
A method of using additives with silica-based slurries to enhance metal selectivity in polishing metallic materials utilizing a chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) process. Additives are used with silica-based slurries to passivate a dielectric surface, such as a silicon dioxide (SiO2) surface, of a semiconductor wafer so that dielectric removal rate is reduced when CMP is applied. The additive is comprised of at least a polar component and an apolar component. The additive interacts with the surface silanol group of the SiO2 surface to inhibit particles of the silica-based slurry from interacting with hydroxyl molecules of the surface silanol group. By applying a surface passivation layer on the SiO2 surface, erosion of the SiO2 surface is reduced. However, the metallic surface is not influenced significantly by the additive, so that the selectivity of metal removal over oxide removal is enhanced.
The present invention relates to the field of semiconductor manufacturing techniques and, more particularly, to slurries utilized in chemical-mechanical polishing.
The manufacture of an integrated circuit device requires the formation of various layers (both conductive and non-conductive) above a base substrate to form the necessary components and interconnects. During the manufacturing process, removal of a certain layer or portions of a layer must be achieved in order to pattern and form various components and interconnects. Generally, this removal process is termed "etching."
One of the techniques available for removal of material from a semiconductor wafer is known as the chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) process, in which a chemical slurry is used along with a polishing pad. The mechanical movement of the pad relative to the wafer in combination with the chemical reaction of the slurry provide the abrasive force for removing the exposed surface of the wafer. A variety of CMP tools are available to perform this type of polishing. Improvements are currently being sought in the areas of pad and slurry composition and usage, all to obtain better control over existing CMP practices.
One area of CMP pertains to the removal of metallic materials. CMP of metals can be used to define vertical and horizontal wiring in semiconductor wafers, such as a silicon wafer. This process requires high selectivity in removal rate of metals versus dielectric surfaces, such as a silicon dioxide layer, to insure small oxide erosion on patterned structures. Silicon dioxide (SiO2) abrasives are commonly used to polish dielectric layers. However, because alumina particles have lower chemical reactivity than silica particles on SiO2, CMP of a metal layer is predominantly accomplished with alumina slurries to provide acceptable selectivity. Without this higher selectivity, undesirable amounts of the SiO2 layer will be polished away with the metal. However, there are a number of disadvantages associated with the use of alumina slurries.
Alumina slurries are generally more costly to use as compared to silica slurries. The added cost increases the cost of manufacturing integrated circuits on wafers. Generally, alumina slurries are defect prone and are more difficult to disperse than silica slurries. The defects are the result of scratches left on the polished surface by the alumina slurry, mainly due to the polishing by larger size and harder alumina particles.
Thus, it is appreciated that reliance on silica slurries is more beneficial than using alumina slurries for polishing metals, but only if the selectivity is sufficiently high to limit the erosion of oxide layers to an acceptable level. Accordingly, the present invention addresses a way of obtaining this higher selectivity using silica-based slurries to polish metal.
A method of using additives with silica-based slurries to enhance metal selectivity is described. In polishing metallic materials utilizing a chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) process, dielectric layers (such as silicon dioxide) are eroded with relatively high rates when silica-based slurries are used. Therefore, metal removal by the use of silica-based slurries can only be achieved when metal versus oxide selectivity can be improved to an acceptable level of oxide erosion.
The present invention describes a method of using additives with silica-based slurries to passivate dielectric surfaces, such as silicon dioxide, silicon nitride, silicon oxynitride or dielectric polymers with siloxane bridges, on a semiconductor wafer so that removal rate of the dielectric layer is reduced when CMP is applied. The additive, which is comprised of at least a polar and apolar components, interacts with the surface of the dielectric layer to inhibit particles of the silica-based slurry from interacting with the surface. The additive of the preferred embodiment is an organic additive. By applying a surface passivation layer on the dielectric surface, erosion of the dielectric surface is reduced. However, the metallic surface is not affected significantly by the organic additive so that the selectivity of metal removal over dielectric removal is enhanced, allowing for silica-based slurries to be used for metal polishing.
FIG. 1A is a cross-sectional diagram showing a silicon dioxide (SiO2) layer and a metallic layer formed on a semiconductor wafer and in which silica-based slurry particles are introduced to polish the metallic surface.
FIG. 1B is a cross-sectional diagram of the layers described in FIG. 1A, but now showing an interaction of surface silanol groups of the SiO2 layer with particles of the silica-based slurry.
FIG. 1C is a cross-sectional diagram of the layers described in FIG. 1B, but now showing a release of water (H2 O) with an interaction of silica-based slurry particle with the surface silanol group of the SiO2 layer.
FIG. 2A is a cross-sectional diagram showing a silicon dioxide (SiO2) layer and a metallic layer formed on a semiconductor wafer and in which silica-based slurry particles along with an additive of the present invention are introduced to polish the metallic surface.
FIG. 2B is a cross-sectional diagram of the layers described in FIG. 2A, but now showing interactions of the additive with surface silanol groups when used with the slurry shown in FIG. 2A.
FIG. 2C is a cross-sectional diagram of the layers described in FIG. 2B, but now showing passivation of the SiO2 layer by the additive in order to reduce the removal rate of the SiO2 layer versus the metallic layer.
FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional diagram of the layers described in FIGS. 2A-C, but now with the use of a multi-functional additive as the slurry additive to passivate the SiO2 surface.
A chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) of a semiconductor wafer utilizing silica-based slurries that contain an additive to enhance selectivity of metal versus a dielectric layer is described. In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth, such as specific chemicals, structures, etc., in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will be obvious to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well known processes and chemical compositions have not been described in detail in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention.
Referring to FIGS. 1A-C (collectively referred to as FIG. 1), a problem associated with the use of a silica-based slurry to polish metallic layers is exemplified. In this prior art technique, a silica-based slurry known in the prior art is utilized to polish a semiconductor wafer 10, in which a metallic material 12 (such as a metal film) is utilized with a dielectric layer 11, such as an oxide-based (typically silicon dioxide) dielectric layer. In the description, silicon dioxide (SiO2) is specifically referenced since it is a very common material for forming the dielectric layer 11. However, it is understood that other materials can comprise dielectric layer 11 (including silicon dioxide, silicon nitride, silicon oxynitride and dielectric polymers with siloxane bridges, as well as others). The metallic material 12 is utilized to provide a conductive path, such as a vertical and/or horizontal wiring, in semiconductor devices. In the example of FIG. 1, the metallic material 12 illustrates a vertical wiring connection through the SiO2 layer 11. It is appreciated that FIG. 1 only shows one connection for the purpose of explaining the invention, but the present invention can be practiced with a variety of designs using a metallic layer as a conductive path.
When CMP is utilized on wafer 10 to polish away portions of the metallic material 12, it is desirable to polish away only the exposed metal 12 to a predefined level and not the exposed portions of the SiO2 layer 11. At most, no more than the minimal acceptable amount of the SiO2 layer should be removed during the polishing process to remove the exposed metal layer 12. Accordingly, it is desirable to have high selectivity in the removal rate of the metallic material 12 over the SiO2 layer 11. However, under current practice the selectivity of metal to SiO2 removal is not adequate for a manufacturable process when the prior art silica-based slurries are used.
The polishing mechanism of the SiO2 layer 11 is based on an interaction of the surface silanol (SiOH) groups 14 of the SiO2 layer 11 with a slurry having silica particles 13. As shown in FIG. 1, a surface hydroxyl (OH) group of some of the silica particles 13 interact with surface silanol groups 14 of the SiO2 layer 11 (as shown in FIG. 1B). This interaction ultimately results in the bonding of a silica particle 13 to the surface silanol group 14 of layer 11 by forming a Si--O--Si siloxane bridge 15 with the release of H2 O (as shown in FIG. 1C). This bonding contributes to the eroding of the exposed surface of layer 11.
Because of the erosion of the exposed surface of SiO2 layer 11 with the use of silica-based slurries, such slurries are not desirable when CMP is used for polishing metallic materials. High selectivity can not be achieved between the SiO2 and the metallic material, since SiO2 erodes along with the polishing of the metallic material. One solution in overcoming this problem is the use of alumina slurries. Because alumina particles have lower chemical reactivity than silica particles on SiO2, CMP of metals is preferably accomplished with alumina slurries to provide acceptable selectivity. However, the disadvantages of using alumina slurries have been detailed in the Background section above.
Referring to FIGS. 2A-C (collectively referred to as FIG. 2), a method of the present invention to obtain higher selectivity while using silica-based slurries to polish metal is illustrated. In accordance with the practice of the present invention, additives are introduced to improve the selectivity between metal and dielectric material (such as SiO2) when silica-based slurries are used. It is appreciated that the preferred embodiment is described in reference to a particular dielectric layer, namely an oxide layer formed from SiO2. However, the present invention can be practiced with other dielectric materials (such as nitrides) as well. Examples of silicon based dielectric materials are silicon dioxide, silicon nitride, silicon oxynitride and dielectric polymers with siloxane bridges. It is to be noted that these materials are provided for exemplary purpose and not for the purpose of limiting the invention.
The additives of the present invention are for the purpose of enhancing the selectivity between the metal and the dielectric layer, such as SiO2. The present invention is based on an observation that the removal rate of the dielectric layer can be reduced and, therefore, the selectivity of metal removal over dielectric layer removal can be increased, by modifying the surface sites of the dielectric layer with appropriate additives compatible with the aqueous environment of the silica-based slurry.
In FIG. 2A, a silica-based slurry comprised of silica particles 13, but having a chemical additive 17 of the present invention is shown. The chemical additive 17 of the preferred embodiment is an organic additive that is introduced in the aqueous environment of the silica-based slurry for the purpose of performing CMP on wafer 10 to selectively polish metallic material 12. It is to be noted that the chemical additive need not be necessarily organic to obtain the results of the present invention. The chemical additives 17, which are also referred to as reagents, are mixed with a silica-based slurry normally used in the prior art (as described in reference to FIG. 1). The additive 17 is typically combined with the slurry to operate in an aqueous environment in which CMP is performed. It is to be noted that the additive can be added to the bulk slurry for dispensing onto a wafer or, alternatively, the additive can be dispensed separately onto the wafer surface to mix with the slurry as the slurry is dispensed. The technique selected is a matter of design choice, but may depend on the "shelf-life" of the particular slurry once an additive is combined with the base slurry.
A primary purpose of the chemical additive 17 is to passivate the SiO2 surface 11 by blocking or replacing the surface functional groups so that interaction between the SiO2 11 and the slurry is reduced. A process for this passivation is based on the reaction of the surface silanol group 14 (previously discussed in reference to FIG. 1) with the additive 17. Essentially, some of the surface silanol groups 14 react with the additive 17, where these silanol groups 14 would normally react with the silica particles 13. Instead of having a potential for the silanol group(s) 14 to bond with the silica particles 13, many of these silanol groups 14 now bond with the additive 17 to passivate the SiO2 surface.
The chemical additive 17 of the preferred embodiment is comprised of one or more polar component (or group) 18 (the polarization is denoted by the letter "P") and one or more apolar component (or group) 19. For simplicity of illustration in FIG. 2, the additive 17 is shown with a singular polar component 18 attached to a singular apolar component 19. The invention is operative due to the interaction of the polar components 18 with the surface silanol group(s) 14 of the SiO2 surface. The physical interaction or chemical reaction between the polar group(s) 18 and the surface silanol group(s) 14 (as shown in FIG. 2B) results in a formation of an interacted apolar organic component 20 on the SiO2 surface 11 (as shown in FIG. 2C). It is to be noted that the polar component 18 interacts with the surface hydroxyl group of the silanol group 14 so that what was the polar component 18 is now an interacted polar component 20. The interacted polar component 20 and the apolar component 19 now form an apolar attached component or molecule 21. Thus, the Si--O-component 20 link passivates the surface of layer 11 by forming a surface layer of apolar attached molecules 21.
This passivation layer 22, comprised of molecules 21, reduces the interaction between the abrasive particles 13 and the SiO2 surface 11 due to the replacement or steric shielding of the reactive hydroxyl sites of the SiO2 surface 11. Thus, erosion of the SiO2 layer 11 can be reduced significantly by the presence of the passivating layer 22. The reduction in the erosion rate of the SiO2 to the silica slurry improves the selectivity of metal polish versus SiO2 polish, since the organic additive 17 usually has significantly weaker interaction with the metal surface 12.
As also shown in FIGS. 2B-C, some polar components 23 may bond with the silica particle(s) 13. This bonding of the additive 17 to the silica particle 13 reduces available hydroxyl components of particle 13, which potentially could bond with the SiO2 surface 11. However, it is to be appreciated that the passivation of the SiO2 surface 11 is of more significant concern in the practice of the present invention.
The specific interaction and the reaction product(s) depend on the specific polar and apolar components 18 and 19 of additive 17. Although a variety of chemical elements and/or compounds fit into the two groups 18 and 19 described above, some examples are noted below. It is to be appreciated that the listing of these components is strictly for providing examples and these components are not listed for the purpose of limiting the present invention.
Depending on the nature of the polar component 18 introduced, it can be anionic, cationic or non-ionic. Examples for each of the three categories for the polar component 18 of additive 17 are provided below. Again, it is to be appreciated that these examples are not provided for the purpose of limiting the invention.
Other typical compounds in this category are, sulfates (SO4 -), alkylsulfonates (CxHySO4 -). The positive ion can be of different alkali elements such as calcium (Ca), sodium (Na) and potassium (K).
Typical representatives of these groups are the quaternary ammonium compounds, the negative ion besides OH-, can be different halogens such as bromine (Br), fluorine (F) and iodine (I).
Several other, non-ionic polar components are amines (--NH), amides acetamide (CH3 CONH--), trifluoro acetamide (CF3 CONH--), urea (OC(NH--)2), imidazole (C6 H6 N2), glycol (--CH2 OH) and phenol (C6 H5 OH) groups.
Depending on the number of the polar components the additive can be monofunctional (one polar component) or multi-functional (more than one polar component). Monofunctional additive (as shown in FIG. 2) interact dominantly with one surface silanol group 14. A multi-functional reagent can interact with more than one silanol group of surface 11. Therefore, larger numbers of the silanol groups 14 can be replaced. The use of a multi-functional polar additive for passivating a dielectric surface is shown in FIG. 3. In the example of FIG. 3, an additive 28 having two polar components 19 is shown. In FIG. 3, both polar components 19 of the additive 28 can react or only one polar component 19 may react with surface 11. However, it should be noted that an non-reacted polar component 29 can remain on the surface, which then can become interactive sites for the abrasive particles.
It is appreciated that various polar component additives can be introduced for surface passivation in the practice of the present invention and therefore, the additive need not be limited to one chemical compound from the perspective of passivating the surface. Furthermore, although not illustrated, multiple apolar components 19 can be used with one polar component or multiple polar components. Thus, such apolar organic components can be branched or linear. Some of the typical apolar organic components for use in the practice of the present invention are: methyl (CH3), ethyl (CH3 --CH2), isopropyl ((CH3)2 --CH--), butyl ((CH3 --(CH2)3 --), phenyl (C6 H5), hydrocarbon chain (CH3 --(CH2)n), fluorocarbon chain (CF3 --(CF2)n). In general, larger apolar groups provide more efficient shielding, but provide reduced solubility in an aqueous environment.
The selection of which polar and apolar organic group(s) to use, as well as the selection of monofunctional polar or multi-functional polar component, is a design choice. So is the utilization of a combination of different additives. However, the selection of the polar component must take into consideration that those with a strong proton acceptor may hydrolyze in an aqueous solution before interacting with the oxide surface, thereby reducing the efficiency of the surface shielding effect. The selection of which additive(s) to use will depend on the particular process and the material(s) being polished. Additionally, the composition of the slurry, pH of the slurry solution, viscosity of the slurry solution and shelf life of the slurry will determine which additive(s) are best suited for a given use.
The amount of the selectivity obtained will depend, not only on the additive selected, but also on the particular metal being polished. For example, when polishing tungsten using a silica based slurry combined with a butanol additive of 3 w %, selectivity can be enhanced by as much as 3-5. With softer metals, such as copper and aluminum, similar selectivity enhancement can be obtained at a faster CMP removal rate.
Thus, a method of using organic additive with silica-based slurries to enhance metal selectivity over dielectric material when performing metal CMP is described.
performing chemical-mechanical polishing wherein said passivation layer inhibits erosion of said surface to reduce said removal rate.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of introducing said chemical additive introduces an additive having multiple polar components and an apolar component.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of introducing said chemical additive introduces an organic additive having at least one polar component and an apolar component.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein said slurry is a silica-based slurry without having metallic-oxide abrasive particles suspended therein.
performing chemical-mechanical polishing wherein said passivation layer inhibits erosion of said dielectric surface to increase selectivity of metal removal over dielectric removal.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein the step of introducing said chemical additive introduces an additive having multiple polar components and an apolar component.
7. The method of claim 5 wherein the step of introducing said chemical additive is for passivating a dielectric surface comprised of an oxide layer.
8. The method of claim 5 wherein the step of introducing said chemical additive is for passivating a dielectric surface comprised of a silicon dioxide layer.
9. The method of claim 5 wherein said slurry is a silica-based slurry without having metallic-oxide abrasive particles suspended therein.
10. The method of claim 5 wherein the step of introducing said chemical additive introduces an organic additive having at least one polar component and an apolar component.
performing chemical-mechanical polishing wherein said passivation layer inhibits erosion of said SiO2 layer in order to increase selectivity of metal removal over SiO2 removal.
12. The method of claim 11 wherein the step of introducing said chemical additive introduces an additive having multiple polar components and an apolar component.
13. The method of claim 11 wherein said slurry is a silica-based slurry without having metallic-oxide abrasive particles suspended therein.
14. The method of claim 11 wherein the step of introducing said chemical additive introduces an organic additive having at least one polar component and an apolar component.
"Chemical-Mechanical Polishing for Fabrication Patterned W Metal Features as Chip Interconnects;" Kaufman et al.; J. Electrochem. Soc., vol. 138, No. 11, Nov. 1991; pp. 3460-3465.
"Control of selectivity during chemical vapor deposition of copper from copper (I) compounds via silicon dioxide surface modification;" Jain et al.; Appl. Phys. Lett. 61 (22); 30 Nov. 1992; pp. 2662-2664.
"Effect Of Polishing Pad Material Properites On Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) Processes;" Bajaj et al.; Advanced Metallization for Devices and Circuits--Science, Technology and Manufacturability; Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. vol. 337; Materials Reserach Society; Apr. 4-8, 1994; pp. 637-644.
"FTIR Studies Of Silica Surface Passivation And Subsequent Adsorption/Desorption Of Copper Metalorganic Precursors;" Farkas et al.; Suface Chemical Cleaning and Passivation for Semiconductor Processing; Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. vol. 315; Materials Research Society; Apr. 13-15, 1993; pp. 97-104.
"FTIR Studies of the Adsoprtion/Desorption Behavior of Copper Chemical Vapor Deposition Precursors on Silica. 1. Bis (1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluroroacetylacetonato) copper (II);" Farkas et al.; The Journal of Physical Chemistry, vol. 98, No. 27; 1994; pp. 6753-6762.
"FTIR Studies of the Adsorption/Desorption Behavior of Copper Chemical Vapor Deposition Precursors on Silica. 2. (1,1,1,5,5,5-Hexafluroracetylacetonato) (2-butyne) copper (I);" Farkas et al.; The Journal of Physical Chemistry, vol. 98, No. 27; 1994; pp. 6763-6770.
"FTIR Studies of the Adsorption/Desorption Behavior of Cu Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) Precursors on Silica;" Farkas et al.; J. Electrochem. Soc., vol. 141, No. 12; Dec. 1994; pp. 3547-3555.
"FTIR Studies of the Adsorption/Desorption Behavior of Cu Chemical Vapor Deposition Precursors on Silica;" Farkas et al.; J. Electrochem. Soc., vol. 141, No. 12; Dec. 1994; pp. 3539-3546.
"Overview of Metal CVD;" Kodas et al.; Chapter 9 of The Chemistry of Metal CVD; pp. 429-499; VCH Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Weinheim (Germany) and VCH Publishers Inc., New York, NY.; 1994.
"Oxidation And Etching Of Tungsten In CMP Slurries;" Farkas et al.; Advanced Metallization for ULSI Applications in 1994; Conference Proceedings ULSI-X; Materials Research Society; Oct. 4-6, 1994; pp. 25-32.
"Passivation Of Silicon Dioxide Surface Hydroxyl Groups To Control Selectivity During Chemical Vapor Deposition Of Copper From Copper (I) Compounds;" Jain et al.; Surface Chemical Cleaning and Passivation for Semiconductor Processing; Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Poc. vol. 315; Materials Research Society; Apr. 13-15, 1993; pp. 105-110.
"Selective and blanket copper chemical vapor depositon for ultra-large-scale integration;" Jain et al.; J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 11(6); Nov./Dec. 1993; pp. 2107-2113.
"Selective CVD Of Copper On Tungsten Versus SiO2 From (B-diketonate)CuLn Copper (I) Precursors Via SiO2 Surface Modification;"Jain et al.; Advanced Metallization for ULSI Applications 1992; Conference Proceedings ULSI-VIII; Materials Research Society; Oct. 20-22, 1992;pp. 83-89.
"Tribology Analysis of Chemical-Mechanical Polishing;" Runnels et al.; J. Electrochem. Soc., vol. 141, No. 6; Jun. 1994; pp. 1698-1701. | 2019-04-25T17:01:37Z | https://patents.google.com/patent/US5614444A/en |
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It’s been a long time since we’ve done one of these posts, so let’s review. We talk a lot here. In fact, we do like 99% of the talking . And technically, I guess it’s “writing” and not “talking.” Then again, you probably hear us in your head with whatever voices you’ve imagined for us while you read our site. Joanna probably sounds like Julia Roberts, I probably sound like Michael Cera. Whatever. Point being, we love to hear more about you out there on your computer machines. It helps remind us where you’re at in life, what makes you tick, and how cool (almost) all of you are.
But really quick before we jump into the Q&A’s, here are a few other ways we love to stay in touch and hear from more of you. Follow Joanna on Instagram (lots o’ Sally, NYC, and me running away from shots), like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. And we’re kicking off a super secret email list where a few times a month, we’ll show up in your email inbox with budgeting tips, knock-knock jokes, and other stuff you won’t read here. So if you’re into that sorta thing, join our secret email list.
A friend wants a TV show to binge-watch. What’s your recommendation?
What song/audio/sounds you got on repeat?
What financial achievement from 2014 are you most proud of?
Choose one to play for the rest of your life: Oregon Trail or Sim City.
Why are you here (OFB.com)?
We’re going to talk a little bit more and tell you our answers, and then we’ll shut up. Promise.
Breaking Bad. House of Cards. Reading Rainbow. In that order.
A little The Head and the Heart, but mostly the StartUp podcast. So good.
Saving 50% of our net income. And not blowing it on LEGOs.
Oregon Trail always makes me feel guilty. Being unknowingly frugal at an early age, I would play and buy the bare minimum amount of supplies, force my family to eat sparingly, hunt buffalo all day and night, and would always choose to just float my wagon and family across the river instead of paying some river expert to get us across safely. And by safely I mean killing half my family. I’ll do without the guilt trips and get my god complex on with Sim City.
I’m here, at 1 am, because I didn’t get started on this post earlier tonight. Because football. But I’m mostly here because I dig talking money stuff.
Johnny and I both love New Girl. It’s the only sitcom we’ve ever both loved. We have seen every single episode of this show, and we still can’t get enough.
Oh, music. I used to listen to listen to you. No time no mo. My favorite audio book this last year was What Alice Forgot. And men, this is strictly chick lit, so I don’t recommend it to you.
Going into FAO Schwarz over the holidays and not buying Sally a single item in the store. She wanted it ALL.
For some reason, members of my wagon party dying of diphtheria is way less stressful than a tornado destroying one of my neighborhoods, so I’m gonna say Oregon Trail.
In case you didn’t know, OFB kinda started out as Johnny’s hobby that I was reluctantly helping with. But I really love writing and reading on this site and interacting with so many cool peeps. This is all your fault… just remember that.
This concludes all Johnny/Joanna talking. Now talk to us!
1. Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee – light, quick, and funny.
2. Not much of an audiophile these days. Current audio-book: the Camel Club.
3. Paying off our non-mortgage debt.
4. Sim City – had a hack code when I was younger for essentially unlimited money! Made it so much more fun.
Haha, you and I are the same. The unlimited money code is what I lived and died by when I played Sim City. I didn’t have the patience otherwise. Johnny sees this as a cardinal sin, so I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Uptown Funk. I can’t stop listening to it!
I know this is really weird, but taking out a student loan. It’s for the 1 year master’s I just finished abroad. I was lucky enough to have a lot of grants and scholarships for my undergrad, and my parents took care of what was left. I also bought my car second-hand. While I certainly am thankful and count my blessings, I’ve been struggling to build my credit because of it. So, the smaller student loan (well, its still about $20k but much less than most!) coming at a time when I can actually pay it off more quickly will definitely help the future.
Oregon Trail all the way. Sim City just never appealed to me. Maybe the design aspect?
I came here to learn about budgeting from people my own age (I’m sure David Ramsey is great but he’s generally talking to people in a different stage of life and it’s harder for me to relate). Also– photos of Sally. She’s just so freaking cute with her little chin dimple and all.
Just started watching Mindy Project and we’re both thoroughly entertained! Not all debt has to be bad debt, and it sounds like you’ve figured that out with your student loan, so kudos on that.
And thanks for taking a chance on us weirdos.
Awesome on the condo down payment. It’s still TBD whether we can make it work budget-wise in this crazy place called NYC, but we’re gonna give it the best we’ve got!
2. Anything 80’s! Current song would have to be Uptown Funk though!
3. Actually saving money and clearing my credit card!
5. Love love love the blog! It’s just that good! Great to hear everyone’s perspective on things and love being inspired to carry on trying to be an amazeballs saver!!
Johnny and I had TOTALLY different upbringings, but we both played those games! They’re an American childhood staple for our generation. I keep hearing great things about The Wire… Johnny and I need to get on that!
1. I rarely watch any adult tv, our tv is almost always tuned to disney jr…no recommendation.
2. Need You Now – Plumb. Heard it a week ago for the first time and can’t stop listening.
3. Sold our house in Feb and moved (our family of 4) in with my parents to save money while finding a new home, which took 8 months. Found a wonderful home for a great price!
4. Never played either, that I remember. So boring.
5. Love hearing your perspective on all things personal finance. So inspiring.
Oh man.. that’s gonna be our house someday soon, I’m sure. Already Curious George is on more than it should be. And congrats on the new home! How exciting!
2. I heard this song by The Wind and The Wave on a show on E! and I downloaded their whole album and am obsessed.
3. My husband and I got married this year and we paid for it all ourselves. We both had credit card debt beforehand, and while we didn’t make progress paying it off at all during the past year, we did manage to keep it from going up. 2015 is the year of repayment!
4. This is tough! Oregon Trail! All the memories! Honestly, though, I have to say Sim City. I used to have one family that I used the money hack for – and I bought every single thing I wanted and decorated the house to the nines – and then I had another family that I had work for it for the “real game experience”. Best of both worlds!
5. I forget how I stumbled across you guys – but I think your PF blog is one of the best out there. Lots of other ones are so technical in nature – you guys share your real lives and weave personal finance into it. Its so much more relatable than reading the same old dry, informational post about interest rates or whatever. Also, love the humor you guys sprinkle throughout!
The next time Johnny and I have a long weekend or time off (might not be until April!), we’ll have to binge on True Detective… seems to be a major favorite for everyone we talk to! I’m dying laughing at your Sims comment. I would do the exact same thing! I felt I could justify my money hacking that way haha. Amazing.
A friend wants a TV show to binge-watch. What’s your recommendation? Walking Dead and The Profit.
What song/audio/sounds you got on repeat? Anything my kids are listening to, probably Meghan Trainer and Ariana Grande.
What financial achievement from 2014 are you most proud of? Actually taking a real vacation! First one with our kids. Oldest is 14. Went to San Francisco and spent 8 days traveling back down to LA. Only have ever taken long weekend trips. The joys of being a small business owner.
Choose one to play for the rest of your life: Oregon Trail or Sim City.haven’t really played either, but am aware of both. Probably Oregon Trail because I like 1800’s history.
Why are you here (OFB.com)? Love all three almost 4! of you.
+1 for The Profit. Love that show.
We’ve added it to our “must-watch” list!
Oh man, that is an achievement! Way to go. That sounds like a super cool trip. We have failed at that one for a few years, but it’s on my to-do list for next year!
1. Newsroom, Parenthood, Gilmore Girls.
2. This American Life and more recently Serial.
3. Um, not taking out a new loan? I know, lame sauce.
I feel ya… If I didn’t have to share my TV with Johnny, I would have shows like Parenthood and Gilmore Girls on at all times!
1) Haven – I love Sci-fi, and my guilty pleasure would be Hart of Dixie.
3) Finally got the husband on board with savings and the concept of retiring early.
4) Sim City, hands down.
Guilty pleasure shows are the best. I have too many to count. And Johnny wooed me with Damien Rice music when we were dating… I’d play one of his songs on the piano, and we’d sing it together… good times!
2. Lately music is all about Ed Sheeran. And I’m constantly pondering the podcast thing, I just can’t get aboard.
3. Hitting my savings goals so I can begin the debt repayment journey but yet have a cushion incase my job decides to relocate this year.
4. Oregon Trail. I loved seeing who of my family/friends was the strongest. Because a computer game can totally tell.
5. I’m here because I have so much to learn and you have taught me using a vocabulary I can understand with examples that I can relate to my own life.
Too true. I love watching shows that make me feel good about myself! And your Oregon Trail comment cracked me up… I remember doing that, too!
1 – A friend wants a TV show to binge-watch. What’s your recommendation? Friends, obviously. But then again, there might not be anybody who hasn’t seen it at this point. I also recommend Luther, Sherlock, Broadchurch and Doctor Who. I’m a Brit living in Atlanta, so I need to get my British TV fix.
2 – What song/audio/sounds you got on repeat? At almost 40 yrs old, it’s hard for me to say this, but Blank Space by Taylor Swift. That young lady has totally mastered the art of the perfect pop song.
3 – What financial achievement from 2014 are you most proud of? This is a holdover from 2013, but living on one income and not going broke during a period of unexpected unemployment for me after our move to Atlanta. I now have a job, and it’s been surprisingly hard to readjust to a dual income. I maybe got a little spend crazy when we had extra money again. 2015 is our year to reign it back in.
4 – Choose one to play for the rest of your life: Oregon Trail or Sim City. I’m not a gamer, and have never played either one. Computers just weren’t a thing when I was growing up in England. That makes me sound really old, but we were just a little behind the curve when it came to computer games in the UK.
5 – Why are you here (OFB.com)? For real world inspiration on how to manage money and to live vicariously through you now you are in NYC. I always wanted to live there. Also, babies.
Multiple friends have recommended Sherlock to me… I need to get on that STAT! And seriously, I want to have this baby just so I can listen to Taylor Swift’s new album while running haha.
I felt the same way when Johnny was laid off in 2013 and then got a new job. We’d been on a spending freeze for a few months, and I wanted to just buy, buy, buy! So totally understand that feeling! Here’s to 2015!
3. Getting Home Budget (recommended by OFB) and then using it!
Glad you like HomeBudget! It works for us, so I’m happy other people are having it work for them, too. Man, I just want a long weekend to sit in my pajamas, eat chocolate, crochet, and watch all of Gilmore Girls. Is that really so much to ask?!
1. My favorite TV show has always been House. In fact, I was just watching a couple re-runs of it last night. So I’d definitely have to recommend this one.
2. My sister-in-law was playing T-Swift’s latest CD in her car last weekend and now it’s stuck in my head. :/ Shake it off, boo, shake it off.
3. This sounds so bad….but surviving. My husband and I made a sudden move and then he spent almost two months without any income. Being at the beginning of our savings journey made all of that really hard, and I’m just proud of us for powering through and getting back to where we started by the end of the year.
House is a good one. We were obsessed with that show as newlyweds.
I resisted it for as long as I could, but I think Taylor has us all hooked. And way to go for getting through that tough move last year. Those moments are the ones that ultimately make you stronger as a couple and financially. They’re not fun in the moment, but definitely strengthening in the long run!
It makes us happy to have like-minded couples on here, too!
2. Veggie Tales. Not by choice, obviously. If I had my choice, we’d be jammin’ to the new Blake Shelton CD I got for Christmas but have not listened to yet.
3. My husband is in grad school and when we had our daughter, we had to take out a student loan to help cover expenses. Last semester, we took out less than half of what we had the previous two years. We did have to use some of the money last semester, but we do not think we will need it this semester and we may even be able to take out $0 in loans for this coming school year (his last)!
4. Sim City. I do not want to die of dysentery every again.
5. I love reading your blog because we are similar stages of life and have similar goals. I really appreciate the real-world, real-life advice! I do our family’s finances (my husband does help, but it is just not his strength!) and I know very little, so I am always looking for the best ways to use our money! Love the site!!!
Sally hasn’t yet discovered Veggie Tales music, but I bet she’d be a big, big fan… oh the things we do for our children! And awesome job on powering through your husband’s schooling and minimizing your need for loans. Very cool.
It’s a big motivation to us to have other young families like us reading and having the same goals we have. We’re glad you’re here!
My mother bought a Silly Songs with Larry CD for our daughter. I worked Christian retail for a while and learned a lot of the songs through our kids’ department. So, I happily popped in the CD on the way to daycare one day and seriously… we have listened to it EVERY DAY since. Before we even get in the car, she’s saying “Veggie Tales! Veggie Tales!”! Maleah’s favorite song right now is “Monkey” – pull it up on YouTube for Sally! It is seriously catchy! Before Veggie Tales, though, we were hooked on “Taylor Fift”.
1) Lost. Watching it on DVD was the only way I could watch it because the suspense was too much. Waiting a week would have made me crazy.
2) Taylor Swift…guilty pleasure. Her lyrics are written so well; it’s like poetry.
3) Um…nothing comes to mind. Sad.
4) Oregon Trail all day long! FORD THE RIVER!
5) I like your realistic approach to finances. It makes sense and is encouraging. Thank you!
Oh man… to this day, I’ve never watched a more suspenseful show than Lost. I think I started biting my nails again when we watched that show. All these Oregon Trail references are wanting me to play right this second… I need to ford the river RIGHT NOW!
2. I can’t stop listening to Alana Henderson, she showed up in a Spotify playlist and she only has like four songs on her single (Wax and Wane) and I listen to it over and over. Also, Welcome to Nightvale every couple weeks, and also there was a radio play of one of my favorite books, Good Omens, that came out around Christmas and I’ve listened to several times through now because it’s only free until 1/22 and then I’d have to buy it.
3. I’m most proud that we got out of my parents basement! I’ve lived there for eight years with my daughter while going back to school (and working). Mostly because of the new better paid position at work thanks to my degree. A little bit because my long-time boyfriend moved in with us, but I did the math and could still have afforded a place of my own, I just get to live in a NICER place thanks to his contribution (clearly, learning to think in terms of OUR money rather than my money/your money is a goal for the year ahead).
4. Sim City. I like when Godzilla attacks although that rarely happens. Wait, we’re talking original Sim City, right? Not the fancy later editions?
5. I’ve been following for a few months now, because it keeps me motivated reading about other people’s budgeting and financial goals, and it gives me good ideas, and as some one else said it’s really helpful to hear it from people at a more similar stage in life as me than some of the other sources I enjoy.
I need to look into Alana Henderson… I’m a total girl singer junkie at heart, and her music sounds like it’s right up my alley.
Awesome 2014 accomplishment… there isn’t a better feeling than being in your own space again!
3) We were able to pay for the entire year of preshcool for my daughter up front and finish our basement with only a small loan.
4) I guess Oregon Trail, but I’d rather not play either.
5) To learn how others manage their budget and inspire me to make tweeks to my own. And this year, how to pay off a loan quickly!
My So-Called Life! I watched it for the first time a few years ago, and I couldn’t get enough.
Way to go on paying for preschool up front! We’re looking into preschools right now, and I’m trying to wrap my brain around what it’s gonna do to our budget!
1) The Bachelor/Bachelorette. I love reality TV!
2) Taylor Swift, she’s just so great! Plus, she’s my age so- totally age appropriate, right?
3) Proud that we put my husband through his Bachelor’s degree without any student debt!
4) What are Sim City & Oregon Trail?
5) Your personalities intrigue me, I love Sally posts (she’s a doll), and I like your take on budgeting!
3. That’s a huge accomplishment. Congrats!
4. Terri. You have missed out on so much. You now have homework: go here (https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games) and play Oregon Trail and Sim City.
1. Grey’s Anatomy. No shame.
3. Beginning to budget. Finally putting my foot down and not letting my debt get any higher. I’ve got at least a couple years to go before it’s paid off.
4. Oregon Trail, I suppose, because I liked shooting the squirrels. But if it were an option, I’d say the Sims instead, because I like to turn off their free will and create the perfect lives. It’s a good outlet.
5. I looked for personal finance blogs to help keep me motivated, and this one seemed the most accessible and entertaining. Thanks!
3. You’ll have one less year of payoff after 2015! Make it happen.
4. Without the hunting side-game in Oregon Trail, it was just a bunch of people slowly starving to death and drowning. I loved hunting.
Shake It Off… My almost 3 yr old is obsessed. Also just started Serial.
Buying our second, probably forever, home.
Oregon Trail, mostly bc I only vaguely remember what Sim City was all about.
Personal finance is oddly exciting to me, and you guys write with such personality. We are probably about the same age and in similar points of life as well, so I can relate you both easily.
2. Sally is a big fan, too. Of “Shake it Off” that is. She hasn’t really taken to Serial yet.
3. Mannnn, so jealous! I mean, we’re happy doing what we’re doing, but super envious that you think you’ve found “it.” Congrats.
2. I found a “Classical Music for Sleep” playlist on Spotify that I listen to almost every night as I go to sleep. However, last night as I was just starting to doze off, some loud inappropriate rap song came on in the middle of my playlist and it really scared me.
5.I get really excited about budgeting, and my husband doesn’t get as giddy and excited about it as me… so I come here!
2. Hahah. I used to listen to the Gladiator score to study because if I accidentally started drifting asleep the loud war parts would scare the crap out of my dozing.
3. Congrats! You did work in 2014!
1. My husband and I are obsessed with Big Bang Theory. We bought all of the seasons and watched them together. And now that we have caught up we feel like we have lost our friends. It was a big part of our evening. I also highly recommend both Sister Wives and 90 Day Fiance. I have no reasoning for this other than pure fascination.
2. T-Swift. And sometimes the How To Train Your Dragon 2 soundtrack.
3. Applying for our first credit card. We debated for a long time and decided to take the plunge.
4. I am an Oregon Trail lover. Plus, I have never actually made it to my destination, but one day I will. It’s happening.
5. I like silently picking peoples financially-minded brains and the topics you cover are things I like to read and learn from.
1. We’ve watched most of Sister Wives for the fascination factor. Not proud of it, but it feels to get it off my chest.
3. Glad to hear it’s something you debated. Those types of decisions shouldn’t come easy. And you’ll be better off and use it more responsibly as a result.
2. “Farewell” by Bob Dylan – Did I mention I’m old school?
3. Not sure this is really a “financial” achievement, but I drove under 700 miles in 2014 – which really kept the gas bill down!
5. I’m here ’cause I like your perspective – which is different from my own – plus you make me laugh.
2. Old school and into the deeep cuts. Thumbs up.
3. That’s awesome. We’re hoping to join your club in 2015, granted it’s probably a lot easier for us in NYC than CO.
1. White Collar, Suits, Parenthood.
2. I’ve always been a whatever is on the radio person.
3. Staying on a strict budget and saving approximately 65% of my income.
4.Oregon Trail, because those memories of sharing a big arm chair and playing with my sister.
1. All I know about Parenthood is every time I walked in on Joanna watching it she was crying. So there’s that.
1. pretty little liars. guilty pleasure. I may be way too old to still be watching this show, but I got hooked during my maternity leave with my first daughter. once you start you cant stop!
2. old brand new cds. once again, I am probably way too old to still be listening to hipster emo.
3. saving most of my tax return money! still have about 2k of it left and about to get this years!! woot!
4. can it be the sims? cause I definitely spent way too many nights playing that when I was younger. this post is becoming nostalgic.
5. I enjoy you guys’ honest and refreshing viewpoints on budgeting, and I feel your blog has different information than the 2348932 other budgeting blogs you can find on pinterest. also, I am due april 7.. hey Joanna ready for the third trimester??
4. High five on The Sims. Joanna and I spent one of our first few dates diving deep into our Sims strategies. We should have known we were in trouble then.
1. House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Newsroom, HIMYM, Modern Family.
2. Taylor Swift. Deep down I’m 12, and I don’t care who knows it.
3. Not blowing our wedding budget!
5. Waiting for LeVar Burton to show up. In the meantime I like the balanced perspective and humor you two bring to things as a couple, plus those adorable Sally pics aren’t too shabby.
3. Congrats again on the wedding AND the budget! Sounds like a great 2014.
5. Hahaha. I’m telling you, the day he stops by and/or retweets us, I’ll pull the plug. There really won’t be anything else to achieve at that point.
3. Having an emergency fund ready to use when I had some big/unexpected expenses come up at the end of the year (you know, like car repairs after I hit an ottoman on the expressway…). Next step: rebuild said emergency fund!
5. Great, relatable financial advice!
3. WHAT?! I guess I need be more careful for stray ottomans on the road. So lame that happened. But awesome job having that E-fund all ready to go.
1. New Girl! How have we not talked about this?? Klane hasn’t watched it but I LOVE IT. It’s one of the only shows that consistently makes me legitimately laugh out loud.
2. Taylor Swift. Don’t judge me. Okay, judge me. I can’t stop.
4. Sim city. But actually roller coaster tycoon.
5. Because I like you guys. Plus also I think you’re pretty smart and you’re teaching me stuff.
1. Tell Klane it’s Johnny-approved. Not that that means anything, but there are more than our share of bro-jokes to make it well worth the 23 minutes.
A friend wants a TV show to binge-watch. What’s your recommendation?: Depends on the friend. Girly-girl friend who doesn’t want to use brain? SATC or Gilmore Girls, Nostalgic friend? Boy meets world. Intellectual friend? The Newsroom.
What song/audio/sounds you got on repeat? We listen to satellite radio, so it varies.
What financial achievement from 2014 are you most proud of? Paying off 20k worth of principal debt and increasing my income.
Why are you here (OFB.com)? Wanted to see new site design (LOVE it :))…and I’m procrastinating.
Your nostalgic friend is in for the ride of their life — Boy Meets World is the bomb.com!
1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So old! So good!
2) Janelle Monae. And a lot of Pentatonix and Gregory Porter to keep my three year old happy.
3) Saving all of my babysitting money instead of blowing it on almond croissants and cute boots.
4) Oregon Trail, but I never played SimCity. We had SimEarth, in which you were in charge of an entire planet. My little brother used to see how quickly he could destroy the world.
5) Why am I here? I think it boils down to me still needing someone to tell me to go to bed. I mean, this is ridiculous.
Buffy! Before I started working from home, Buffy provided me with hours and hours of entertainment at my first job out of college. I will forever be indebted to that show for saving me from a boredom-induced death.
You and Johnny both on the the going to bed thing! I have to force him to go to bed every. single. night. If there were a Night Owls Anonymous, I’d sign him up.
5. I just appreciate your posts.
Well done on paying off your student loan. That is quite the 2014 accomplishment!
1. Homeland, Luther, House of Lies, House of Cards & Parenthood.
2. I, too, love The Head and The Heart (so great live!), Bleachers, The National, Ray Lamontagne, Jose Gonzalez, City and Colour.
3. Used our savings reserved for a down-payment and bought our first home- in our favorite school district, for our 9 year old!
5. Learn how to spend and save better… much better, than we have in the past!
You just named all of Johnny’s favorite musicians, not even kidding. Very cool on the first home! I can’t imagine the day when we’re settled enough to actually put our savings toward a down payment, but boy do I look forward to it!
4. I love both games so much… I guess I would pick Sim City (especially Sim City 2000). Fun Fact… archive.org now has Oregon Trail online and my wife has been playing that pretty much non-stop.
Very cool on the Dependent Care FSA… I MIGHT have had to look up what it was. We’re looking to put Sally in some part-time care before long, so it’s good to know those exist!
WHY did you tell me that Oregon Trail is online? I can never go to that site. Ever. Okay, going right now.
Hello my name is Jen.
1. Psych. Funny, lighthearted awesomeness that I can’t get enough of.
2. Currently, the soundtrack for the Musical Spamalot, because my husband and I are in the local community theater’s version of it this month.
3. Getting married without going into debt, and paying off all of our private debt in six months.
4. Oregon Trail, mostly because I feel I can actually WIN it.
5. To keep me financially motivated!
Hi Jen! Wow, what a year for you guys! A debt-free wedding and paying off your private debt? Very awesome. And congrats on getting married!
3) Keeping afloat during my second maternity leave to occur during my husband’s schooling and his new not-yet-successful job hunting… And by “afloat” I mean not going further into debt. Super excited to get back to debt-free (aside from mortgage) soon, and then chase that mortgage-free dream.
4) Sim City. I rocked at that game (definitely utilizing the money cheat!!). Oregon Trail stressed me out to the max. Plus I have an unhealthy addiction to anything that resembles a management game… too many hours of my childhood went to Roller Coaster Tycoon, Lemonade Tycoon, Sim Tower, Sim City, Sim Zoo, The Sims….
5) I’m here because we’re really trying to keep our financial goals in mind while we slog through the tough stuff and hopefully we’ll really gain some good ground when we start having more income again… I love your humour and easily applicable tips.
I feel about music the way you do about TV shows… I never listen to anything anymore! I’ll have to look up your recommendations the next time I’m on Spotify. Keeping afloat is 1000x times better than drowning, and it will make your transition to more income in the near future that much more enjoyable. Well done, and here’s to being more than afloat in 2015!
2. I have podcasts playing all day long at work. Really loved Serial and been listening to Too Beautiful To Live for about 5 years now. It’s just too guys talking about their day and life in general but for some reason so much fun.
3. Paying off all store credit cards before we had our little one in May. Paying off all our doctor bills by the end of the year.
4. Sim City. There is just so much more you can do!
5. We want a house, we want another baby, we want to be debt free. Both of you have helped me significantly in understanding budgeting and how to get started so thank you. Also love the HomeBudget app!
Crazy how having a kid helps to financially motivate us, right? It sounds like you guys are on a great path, so good work. I’ll have to look into the Too Beautiful to Live podcast… it sounds like it’d be right up my alley!
1. A friend wants a TV show to binge-watch. What’s your recommendation?
– 99% of the time when this happens we watch Friends. We have probably seen the whole series through 5 times now.
2. What song/audio/sounds you got on repeat?
– Queens of the Stone Age radio on Pandora. It’s got Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, QOTSA (obviously), and many more tunes that are good for passing the boring work day.
3. What financial achievement from 2014 are you most proud of?
– The fact that I found your blog (and a couple others) and decided to actually take control of my debt and pay that crap off. Not to say I wasn’t paying it before…but I wouldn’t have been able to make myself pay off 2 car loans in 10 months without the push from personal finance blogs. Thanks, by the way.
4. Choose one to play for the rest of your life: Oregon Trail or Sim City.
– Sim City, only because I haven’t ever played Oregon Trail. I’m terrible at Sim City, though. That’d be a pretty terrible rest of my life.
5. Why are you here (OFB.com)?
– I stumbled upon the site initially while killing time at work. I’m a financial program coordinator for a non-profit organization. I occasionally (almost every single day) have some time to kill. I figured I would look up some money type success stories…and there you were.
Well, we’re glad you’re here! Way to go on paying down those car loans so quickly! Very cool. And agreed… Friends never gets old. It will forever be an oldie but goodie.
A friend wants a TV show to binge-watch. What’s your recommendation? Peaky Blinders on Netflix. I love me some Cillian Murphy.
What song/audio/sounds you got on repeat? “Desperation” by 1st Vows – really good!
What financial achievement from 2014 are you most proud of? My husband and I bought our first home! We live in an expensive area (Fairfield Cty, CT) so it took longer to save a down payment than I would have liked but I’m glad we’re finally in!
Choose one to play for the rest of your life: Oregon Trail or Sim City. Sim City!
Why are you here (OFB.com)? I have always been a budgeter, but now that I am a home owner I’m trying to cut costs wherever I can to put extra money toward our mortgage to pay it off as early as possible. You guys provide great tips in budgeting!
Yay! Homeownership is definitely something to get excited about! I’ll live through all of you who have taken the plunge until Johnny and I actually go for it, too. I’ve never heard of Peaky Blinders… I’ll have to look it up!
1.) Firefly, The Dresden Files, and Arrested Development.
2.) 2002 Believe, 2002 Across an Ocean of Dreams. 2 new age albums that will put you in a very chilled out mellow place.
3.) 2014 was my final push to retire my debt, I am debt free as of yesterday (house and everything as Dave would say) . $140K in 6 years, 3 months on about $65K income.
4.) Sim City…but the old old one. I wonder if that even runs on Windows?
5.) Saw your story Dave vs. Suze. I watch both, too. I followed Dave’s advice, but kept the credit cards and FICO score. I know, I know. I have no idea why I still have those stupid things.
Whoa!! Super congrats to you! That is quite the achievement. Very, very, very cool. We kept the credit cards, too! Ain’t no shame in that, especially after what you’ve accomplished!
Its not Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman, but they are relevant for folks like us. My biggest beef with the show is they don’t dig into the numbers. The more current episodes are better than the older ones.
No, we haven’t heard of that show, but it looks like it would be right up our alley! We’ll have to check it out this weekend. We love seeing real-world money situations and how other people are handling them. Thanks for sharing!
2.) Shake It Off by Taylor Swift. I realize that, at almost 40, I’m not her target demographic, but that song gets me off the couch to dance around the house every time.
3.) Moving to another country without going into debt.
4.) I’ve never played Sim City but I’m a huge fan of The Sims so I’m going to go with that.
5.) Found you while Googling articles on people who budget but still use their credit cards. We’re of the idea that credit is good when used responsibly but so many people refuse to see any positives in them. I wanted experiences from people who can handle using them and still keep to a regular budget, in the same way as the cash only budgeters do.
Agreed… The perfect TV show is one that makes me laugh but doesn’t take much time. We’re currently hooked on Parks and Rec.
No shame in loving Taylor… I swear it’s on repeat in our house most nights because we all love to dance to it.
Completely forgot about Parks and Rec! Just recently started catching a few episodes and I’m definitely thinking about starting at the beginning of the series.
It’s my go-to show for decompressing and getting some stress off my chest! I don’t know about you, but I need a good laugh every night once the day is done! | 2019-04-19T18:26:33Z | http://www.ourfreakingbudget.com/about-you-11/ |
AREA FORM from Boston Landmarks Commission prepared as part of 1994 Survey of Dorchester. Dated January, 1995 and recorded by Edward W. Gordon.
The Codman Square area, for the purposes of this survey, is essentially a T-shaped node of primarily, but by no means exclusively, commercial buildings. The southern portion of the district contains the actual Codman Square cross roads which includes Washington St. as well as segments of Talbot Avenue, Norfolk Street and Centre Street. The linear southern portion borders Washington St., the main north-south artery in the area. The latter segment runs southward from Talbot Avenue to Welles and Torrey Sts., on the east and west sides of Washington St., respectively. At this writing, the boundaries for a Codman Square district have been considerably expanded beyond those recommended by Candace Jenkins and Katherine Kubie in a 1979 NR form. The earlier study recommended rather tight boundary lines drawn around the four major architecturally significant buildings at the Codman Sq. crossroads, including: The Second Church, Dorchester High School, Lithgow Building and the former Codman Square Branch Library. The present boundary lines are drawn with an eye toward including a dozen or so commercial structures that, while not on the same level of design excellence and quality craftsmanship as the aforementioned landmarks, nevertheless visually constitute a node of buildings recognizable as an historically significant commercial center. These boundaries have also been expanded to include the architecturally significant Dorchester Temple Baptist Church at the southern end of the district. Additionally, this area extends eastward along Centre Street to include the Colonial Revival Dorchester Women's Club building at 40 Centre Street as well as substantial, well designed residences including #'s 30, 34, 46 and 50 Centre St. Additionally, this area includes commercial /residential buildings bordering Talbot Avenue, between Washington Street and Southern Avenue.
The Codman Square area is situated in a dense urban neighborhood. This intersection evolved in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as an important civic, commercial and residential area. The structures in the district serve as symbols of the area's evolution from a rural Puritan community in the early 1800's to a bustling middle class streetcar suburb at the end of the century. The buildings in this area represent a wide range of architectural styles, materials and construction dates ranging from the wooden Federal style Second Church of 1806, through well rendered masonry turn of the century public and commercial buildings representing the Renaissance, Georgian and Classical Reviva1 modes. Additionally, this area encompasses rather plain c. 1920-40 cast stone and brick commercial buildings which exhibit subdued references to the Classical Revival and Art Deco styles.
The Second Church at 600 Washington Street is the most highly visible landmark on the Codman Square ?skyline? by virtue of its tall, distinctively rendered steeple. It is located on the east side of Washington Street, set back approximately 70 feet from the street on a lot which is delineated by granite posts and a wrought iron fence on its front property line. These characteristics of the landscape together with Federal style form and details reminiscent of the meeting houses of Charles Bulfinch and Asher Benjamin lend a gracious air to the surrounding urban environment. Constructed of Maine timber, the Dorchester Meeting house, as originally designed and named, was composed of three main units: the steeple tower, the vestibule, and the auditorium block. Although the west facade retains its original 1806 appearance, major additions have been made to the church and have in particular altered the massing of the rear (east) elevation. These changes occurred in 1869 and 1892, with the latter obscuring the earlier alteration. In 1929, a third addition was made to the church in the form of a 2-story, brick parish house constructed and connected to the north side and east side of the 1892 addition. The last date of a major alteration is 1960 when the entire clapboard exterior of the church was covered with aluminum sheathing. Fortunately this alteration did not include removal of original trim.
Adjacent to the church, lying southeast on a triangular parcel is the former Dorchester High School, more recently known as Girl's Latin Academy. Constructed in 1900 from designs provided by Hartwell, Richardson and Driver, this building, by virtue of its massive, yellow brick form and hipped roof has the second highest visibility in the area after the Second Church. This school, with its brick rustication, sand stone blocks and limestone trimmings represents a highly sophisticated foray into Renaissance Revival design. The school complex consists of three building masses. The two which are closely integrated and highly decorated with limestone date from the original period of construction. The less ornate 1910 addition, also designed by Hartwell, Richardson and Driver, is connected by an extension to the east end of the older structure.
Across the street, and slightly southwest of the school, sits the Lithgow Building which curves around the corner of Washington Street and Talbot avenue as its plan conforms to its wedge shaped lot. Constructed by Joseph T. Greene, a well respected local architect, this three story flat roofed building of dark brick displays many details associated with the Georgian Revival style.
Turning west from Washington Street on to Talbot Avenue are a handful of commercial and/or residential buildings whose forms, designs and materials are compatible with those of the buildings bordering the Washington Street corridor. 344-346 Talbot Avenue is a two story masonry building built to contain five stores during the 1920s by the Boston architectural firm of Eisenberg and Feer. At the center of its 10-bay main facade is an entrance bay set off by floral Art Deco detailing. The original five store fronts were obliterated by brick infill at an undetermined date. 336 Talbot Avenue is a drastically altered 3-decker which is included in the area for reasons of compatible scale. 320 Talbot Avenue is a V -shaped building which fans out from the Talbot Ave/Southern Ave. intersection and visually serves as a "gateway" building at the western edge of the Codman Square area. Built in 1913, this Georgian Revival commercial/residential property rises to a height of 3-stories and exhibits facades characterized by rusticated brick work. Across the street is a long, low multi-store front property at 305 Talbot Avenue. Its cast stone and concrete facades exhibit low key Georgian Revival accents. Next door, at 329-339 Talbot Avenue is a three story commercial/residential masonry structure noteworthy for its distinctive form. Here, a great curved wall with a low paneled parapet addresses the intersection of Norfolk St and Talbot Ave. It was designed by Henry J. Preston in 1903.
The southern portion of the district is comprised of primarily commercial structures bordering either side of the Washington Street traffic corridor. 624-638 Washington Street with its Georgian Revival detail reads visually as an extension of the Lithgow Building at Washington/Talbot intersection. Dating to the 1910s, this building has recently been treated to a successful sensitive rehabilitation. Directly across Washington St. from 624-638 Washington Street is a parking lot and modem health clinic building which are not included within the proposed Codman Square historic district. Along Washington Street, between the Lithgow and Welles Avenue/Torrey Street cross streets, are a collection of commercial buildings of somewhat uneven design merit which do, however serve to tie in the architecturally significant Dorchester Temple Baptist Church at 670 Washington Street with the rest of the Codman Square area. Moderately noteworthy within the streetscapes on either side of Washington Street are Tapestry Brick commercial blocks at 640-42 and 641-649 Washington Street (built during the 20s and 10s respectively). Residential structures adapted for the purposes of commercial re-use include 660/662 Washington Street with its Colonial Revival second floor porch treatments and 665/667 Washington Street, a double wood frame Italianate house of the 1870s. Next door at 671 Washington Street is a single family house of similar vintage which exhibits a vacant brick storefront addition but retains its original front porch with champfered posts. The southwestern side of the district culminates in an E-shaped red brick Classical Revival apartment building at 679-81 Washington Street. It was constructed during the 1910s.
Across the street from 679-81 Washington Street is the Dorchester Temple Baptist Church at 670 Washington Street. This towered and multi gabled church is an important Dorchester example of the Shingle Style as adapted for ecclesiastical architecture. It was built in 1889-92 (architect undetermined).
The Lithgow Building (620-622 Washington Street) is characterized by stone keystones above windows, a modillion block cornice, and quoins which rise from the second to third story and separate each unit of paired windows. Further decorative features which contribute to the building's strong presence on the square, are the brick piers and columns used alternately on the first floor, the limestone banding which runs the full course of the building above the first and third story, and the entranceway supported by brick columns and highlighted by a coffered ceiling. In recent years the Lithgow Building has been treated to a sensitive restoration and continues to represent a key component within the node of architecturally significant buildings at Codman Square.
Across the street from the Lithgow Building, occupying the entire triangular-shaped parcel bordered by Talbot Avenue and Washington, Epping and Norfolk Streets, is the former Codman Square Branch Library. Located on the site of the old Dorchester Town Hall (1816-1904), it presently serves the community as a medical health center. Constructed as a municipal building by city architect Charles Bateman in 1904, this one and one half story red brick structure is characterized by distinctive Georgian Revival design features including: cupola roof balustrade, gambrel roof profiles, Palladian window, dentil and egg and dart cornice molding, granite splayed lintels and a semi-elliptical enhanced by two Roman Ionic columns and a balustrade. The only noted change made to the building has been the construction in 1938 of a small 3-bay addition consisting of one story of full basement level. This wing is located at the southwest corner of the original structure.
Returning to Washington Street, the W.T. Grant Building at 583/585 Washington St. represents the northern most commercial building of any particular design merit in the Codman Square area. Built in 1927 to contain stores, its main facade was re-designed in a vaguely Art Deco manner by the W.T. Grant Department Store Co. in 1940. Continuing southward and situated across from the Second Church are two rather nondescript one story masonry commercial buildings at 587 -595 and 599-607 Washington Street. The latter building exhibits Art Deco parapet ornamentation including stylized dentils and keystone. These buildings have been included in this area because their scale and materials are compatible with their more architecturally significant neighbors.
Codman Square represents the geographical center of Dorchester. Originally called Baker's Corners, it was named Codman Square in 1848 in memory of the Rev. John Codman, the pastor of the Second Church from 1808-1847. Over the course of the nineteenth century Codman Square evolved from a rural center to a commercial and civic hub. The Codman Square area's development over time represents an excellent case study in the development of a commercial/religious/municipal center within an emerging Boston street car suburb.
Dorchester, now a large neighborhood within Boston, was originally a separate town, formally incorporated by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Its original territory included present day South Boston and Hyde Park, but by 1868 assumed its present boundaries and in 1869 was annexed to Boston. Early settlement was concentrated in the northern section of town, around present day Everett Square and Meeting House Hill. Although the Codman Square area, which lay to the South, remained sparsely developed through the mid-19th century, there were a number of large farms located along Washington Street from the late 17th century, when major road patterns were established in the town to the present day, it has been an important crossroads. In 1654, the Upper Road, now Washington Street, was laid out by order of the Colonial Government to connect Roxbury to Braintree: by the end of the seventeenth century, Centre Street emerged at present day Codman Square as a connecting road between the two major north/south arteries - Washington Street and Adams Street. Talbot Avenue, an additional secondary road, also crossed this intersection by the late 1880s.
Codman Square was originally called Baker's Corners in honor of Dr. James Baker, the proprietor of a dry goods store. He was conducting business on the site of the present Lithgow Building at the corner of Talbot Ave. and Washington St. as early as 1765. Baker's Corners at the time of the American Revolution was sparsely settled with large tracts of farmland held by the Davenports, Capens and Baker's. Through the mid nineteenth century few development patterns changed in the area. As seen in the 1830 map, it remained a rural settlement with only fourteen buildings located in the vicinity of the square. Only one of the fourteen buildings depicted on the 1830 map is still extant. Built by Oliver Warren in 1806, The Second Church at 600 Washington Street survives to provide a physical link with the bucolic Codman Square area of the Federal period. This church's founding is inextricably bound with the profound religious controversies known as the Great Schism which raged within New England Congregational churches during the first quarter of the 19th century. The Second Church was founded by the Orthodox congregationalists formerly associated with the First Parish Church. These conservative parishioners quarreled with their more liberal Unitarian brethren over traditional doctrine, opting to abandon Meeting House Hill for their own church at Codman Square. The construction of the Second Church in 1806 marked the beginnings of Codman Square as an architectural entity recognizable as a religious/commercial/municipal center. Over time, this church's prominent parishioners included chocolate factory owner Walter Baker and pewter manufacturer Roswell Gleason. Additionally, the noteworthy firm of Paul Revere and Sons cast the Second Church's steeple bell in 1816.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, as a result of annexation to the city in 1869 and the advent of improved public transportation, major development occurred throughout Dorchester and transformed it from a rural district of village clusters with a population of 8,000 in 1850 to a middle class suburb of residential enclaves with a popu1ation of 150,000 in 1900. The expansion which took place in the Codman Square area exemplifies the transition. Public transportation by means of railway lines served the area surrounding Codman Square as early as the 1850s, but it was the streetcars, initially horse drawn in the 1870s, and then electrified by the 1880s, which had a significant impact on the growth of the district. The main transportation route ran north/south along Washington Street from the Square to Mt Bowdoin, and from Roxbury, fed into lines which ran to downtown Boston. By the 1890s, the route was extended as far south as Gallivan Boulevard, and crosslines were developed which pass through the Square and ran along Talbot Avenue and Norfolk Street. Surviving from the days of the horse drawn streetcar of the 1870s in the Codman Square area are Italianate wood vernacular residences at 665/666 and 671 Washington Street. 665/667 Washington Street was originally owned by Nathaniel W. Garland of Garland and Sons, Grocers (corner of Euclid and Washington Streets, Dorchester). By the 1930s 665/667 had been converted to house the Economy Pharmacy. In addition, the Dorchester Baptist Church at 670 Washington St. provides further evidence of the growth of the Codman Square area during the last decades of the nineteenth. This church grew out of a Sunday School organized in 1884. This church's cornerstone was laid in 1889 and it was completed in 1892.
Further underlining the growth of the Codman Square area during the late nineteenth century are 1890s residences of considerable size and substance bordering Centre Street behind Dorchester High School. #30 Centre Street, for example, represents the work of noted Boston architect J. Merrill Brown, who studied in the offices of H.H. Richardson and Peabody and Stearns before embarking on a solo career. His work includes grammar schools in Newton and Woburn, many suburban houses in the greater Boston area as well as the residence of Governor Brackett in Arlington.
Before turning to watershed commercial and municipal construction projects at Codman Square around l900, mention should be made of the Dorchester Women's Club, now Whiton Hall, which was designed in the Georgian Revival Style by A. Warren Gould in 1898 at 40 Centre Street. Gould was responsible for the Classical Revival Phillips Brooks School on Quincy Street as well as numerous other Dorchester buildings including palatial residences bordering Melville Avenue and Carruth Street.
By the turn of the twentieth century, as Codman Square became a firmly established transportation center and as residential areas quickly grew in the vicinity, important commercial and civic buildings were erected at the major street corners anchoring the area as a commercial and municipal hub.
Not only was private money being invested for commercial construction, but a large outlay of public funds was being expended to construct a new high school and a municipal building which would house a branch library. In the course of five years, three prominent Classical Revival style buildings were constructed in the Square, creating, along with the church, an impressive community center.
Dorchester High School (370 Talbot Ave.) was designed in the Renaissance Revival Style by the noteworthy Boston firm of Hartwell, Richardson and Driver, known during this period for their school and municipal buildings. Perhaps Hartwell and Richardson's best known Boston building is the First Spiritualist Temple (1886), for many years known as the Exeter Street Theatre, at Exeter and Newbury Streets in the Back Bay. Dorchester High School was constructed in 1900 and opened in 1901. It was the third building to house Dorchester High School classes. Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, daughter of Boston mayor John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald and mother of president John F. Kennedy, graduated with the DHS class of 1906. T en years after its completion, a U-shaped 18 room addition was added to the original school building.
As a result of continued growth in the district, the school later became Dorchester High for Girls, with a new high school for boys having been built on Dunbar Avenue. By the mid twentieth century, the school housed the city wide selective high school, Girls Latin Academy which remained in this location until 1981.
The Lithgow Building at 618-622 Washington Street, corner of Talbot Avenue is a contemporary of Dorchester High School. It was designed in 1899 by Joseph T. Greene, a local architect and prominent Mason from Milton, generally recognized for his residential designs and the Bishpam Building in Dorchester, Lower Mills. The Lithgow Building was built to house a store on the first floor, offices on the second, and a Masonic Lodge hall on the third. It remained in the hands of the original owner, Lydia Taft, for almost 50 years, and was fully used in its intended capacity through the 1950s.
The former Codman Square Branch Library at 6 Norfolk Street is also of major architectural and historical significance within the Codman Square area. It was built in 1904 on the site of the old Dorchester Town Hall (1816), by the City's Public Building Department under the supervision of the department's architect, Charles Bateman. Prior to his work for the City, Mr. Bateman was engaged in the design of buildings for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston including Church of the Most Precious Blood (1885) in Hyde Park and the Saint Francis De Sales School (1890s) atop Bunker Hill in Charlestown.
During the first two decades of the twentieth century, Codman Square's status as a commercial center was reinforced by the construction of three story commercial/residential blocks at 316-324 and 329-339 Talbot Ave. The former is a V -shaped masonry Georgian Revival structure that was designed by Boston architect Samuel S. Levy in 913. The latter was built in 1903 by Henry J. Preston who was active in New England building trades from 1865-1912. He is credited with the design of the Coos County court House in Lancaster, N.H. (1886-87) and other Boston area commercial and residential structures. 329-339 Talbot Avenue ,although no where near as fine as the design of the Lithgow Building, is nevertheless a real "place maker" building, by virtue of its broad, curved, planar facade which presides over the Norfolk Street and Talbot Avenue intersection at a point where the land slopes down and westward from Washington Street. Also dating from this period is the Georgian Revival extension of the Lithgow Building at 622-628 Washington Street which was extant by 1918.
During the 1920s, 30s and 40s, the Codman Square area continued to expand as a commercial and retail district, especially along Washington Street, with a number of one and two story Art Deco and Classical Revival derived structures built for the burgeoning automobile owner trade during this period. Exhibiting Art Deco surface ornamentation on cast stone main facades include the c. 1930 336-344 Talbot Ave. and The W.T. Grant Co. building at 585 Washington Street (built in 1927 and redesigned in 1940). These commercial buildings were both designed by the seemingly prolific Boston architectural firm of Eisenberg and Feer.
Codman Square commercial buildings of the 1920s exhibiting modest Classical Revival detailing include 641-649 Washington Street and 651-659 Washington Street. The former blends Classical Revival design with Tapestry Brick surface treatments. By 1930, 641-649 Washington Street housed Samuel Nye's Dry Goods Store, Raymond and Joe's Fruit, Ella F. Mill's Restaurant, John Pascarello's barber shop and Samuel Kessler's Cigars. Next door to 641-649 Washington Street was the Codman Square Theatre which was built during the 1910s and defunct by the 1950s. Another commercial property of the 1920s blending the Classical Revival with Tapestry Brick is 640-642 Washington Street which originally contained the United Provisions Company.
After the Second World War, the Codman Square area's long era of growth and prosperity gradually came to a close. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, building abandonment and vacancy, as well as a decline in the retail business had become a chronic situation. During the 1980s, and continuing to the present time, a heartening trend of rehabilitation and restoration of certain key landmark buildings in the Codman Square area bas been evident. The Lithgow building and abutting residential development has been treated to a sensitive rehabilitation. The securing of the former Dorchester High School as residences has ensured the building's survival. Additionally. the Codman Square library building has been adapted for reuse as the Codman Square Health Center. Additionally, storefront churches such as the Glad Tidings Pentecostal Assembly (640-642 Washington Street) and Iglesia de Dios Church (675 Washington Street) have, in recent years, continued Codman Square's long history as a center for nurturing the spiritual life of the community which dates back to the founding of the Second Church in 1806.
Considered eligible as an area that is an excellent case study in the development of a commercial/religious/municipal center within an emerging Boston street car suburb. Representing the geographical center of Dorchester, Codman Square was originally called Baker's Corners. Named Codman Square in 1848, in memory of the Rev. John Codman, the Federal style Second Church (1806, Congregational) where he preached for many years still stands at 600 Washington Street. This area also encompasses the Shingle Style Dorchester Baptist Church (1889-1892) at 670 Washington Street; the former Dorchester Women's Club (1892) at 40 Centre Street, a Colonial Revival club house designed by A. Warren Gould; the Classical Revival/ Georgian Revival Lithgow Building (1899, 620 Washington Street) designed by Joseph Green and City of Boston architect Charles Bateman's Classical Revival/Colonial Revival Codman Square Library (1904), now a health clinic. President John F. Kennedy's mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy graduated from Dorchester High School (370 Talbot A venue) in 1906. This Renaissance Revival yellow brick building had been completed five years earlier from designs provided by Hartwell, Richardson and Driver. This area satisfies criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places and might also be designated a Boston Landmarks district.
Dorchester Community News articles by A.M. Sammarco: 4/6/1990-Church Split, Commuter Line Spurred Growth in Codman Square; 6/18/1991-The Heart of Dorchester; 2/5/93 History: Dorchester's Seat of Government, Yesterday and Today.
Here are some images from the Atheneum archive related to this topic. Click on any of these images to open a slideshow of all 56 images. | 2019-04-22T18:01:01Z | http://www.dorchesteratheneum.org/page.php?id=617 |
Blogger starts a blog > He comments on a few blogs to gain little momentum > He displays a few ads > He makes a few cents > He tweaks the ads to increase income etc. Instead of struggling to display a few ads your readers won’t bother to click why not turn your blog into a real business and start making money the old way?
You will notice from the above paragraph that I started making four-figures 8 months after starting my blog and I’ll be using this article to explain how you, too, can start making money by offering your services. The first thing we’ll be examining is the question of what makes your blog different from every other blog that talk about the same thing as you.
The number one mistake most bloggers who plan to offer their services as a freelancer make is that of not differentiating themselves. In case you don’t see the importance in this, a USP is very important because people will only hire experts to work for them. If you still don’t have an idea of how a USP works, or if you want a better idea, you might want to read these two articles over at ThinkTraffic. You need a unique service that can be tied to your blog and USP before taking any other step. If you’re a freelance writer this means you should be ready to offer a free guest post to top blogs in your niche as a way to build your portfolio and direct potential clients to your site. You need to be able to showcase your service, and not just on a dormant website but on an active top blog in your niche. You should also work on marketing your services outside your blog; this also includes inside your guest posts on other blogs, in your interviews with other bloggers and on your various social media sites.
While the above actually requires a few more effort from you it is probably something you would have done if you were blogging, and you will be able to create a new stream of income for yourself while at the same time having enough to take care of your blog. I know that Daniel from Daily blog tips made some decent money as a freelance writer before his blog took off. There are several and different reasons why people are motivated to start writing both online and offline. Whatever is the motivation behind taking the decision to become a writer, I think it can be both a good and a bad thing to get paid for that, right from the beginning of your career. However, cases are not uncommon where talented wannabe writers didn’t manage to achieve professional status, due to the fact that they lacked the patience to wait enough for their work to mature and start providing them with a good and steady source of income. John, do you happen to know a good web hosting company for wordpress selfhosted blog with 2-3 k uniques per day, mostly from malaysia, singapore , having 27 Plugins installed.
John Chow rocketed onto the blogging scene when he showed the income power of blogging by taking his blog from making zero to over $40,000 per month in just two years. Inside this short video I am going to share with you how to make a lot of money no matter what industry you are focused on. This is NOT a get rich quick strategy but a long term strategy to understand the ability to make money by focusing on one simple strategy.
The strategy that I talk about in the below video is all around you but few quantify it and explain how YOU can tap into the strategy. You’ll find it in who gets hired at a higher salary as well as what sells well on Christmas. You’ll most certainly see it in the most famous and wealthiest people and the cool thing is if you want to know how to make a lot of money, you can start doing this one strategy right from where you are, today, right now. This takes both work in a quiet room and also pushing out into uncomfortable zones, those areas where you were afraid to tread in the past. Thanks Ray for your video and all that you do to help us be better in business and to be a better person. My dad designed the big military jets like the XB70 Valkyrie and the B1 for Rockwell for 40 years. Hi Ray, thanks for your videos i,m complete new to online marketing, you always provide valuable information.Every time i listen to your videos i feel motivated to do more and start thinking positive. The progression of new people in MLM and their online activities can be traced something like this. The top, TOP people will provide value knowing some will, over time, want to work with them.
Book Repairs- Almost anyone who has small children probably has a pile of books that need pages taped back together. Boat Cleaner– Boats always need a good cleaning at the beginning of boating season and before and after each use.
Shoe Shine– Though most people don’t get around to it, almost everyone has a pair of shoes that need shining. Mom Assistant– Moms with small children always need an extra hand folding laundry, helping with homework or doing dishes.
Electrical Wire Stripper– Find wasted copper wire from electrical contractors or constructions sites , strip and sell to metal salvaging companies. Metal detecting- Use a metal detector in public places and parks to find rings, coins and other valuables and sell them to ring stores or pawn shops. Free Section from Craigslist (KSL- Utah, Idaho)- Look through the free section on Craigslist and find things that are near where you live.
Homegrown Produce- Grow your own garden and sell the produce at a farmers market or to neighbors.
Up-sell Used Goods- Find used goods on craigslist or at garage sales for cheap and sell them for a higher price. Sell School Fan Gear- When it is your local college or high school’s game day, sell school jerseys, hats, T-shirts, pom-poms and other school fan gear. Candy Machine– Find a trustworthy place and set up boxes of candy where people can buy a candy and pay on their honor. Book Repairs for Elementary Teachers- Elementary teachers collect a lot of torn paged books over the school year. These are our best ideas for how to make money as a 9 year old, 10 year old, and 11 year old. Also, visit the how to make money as a kid categories below as your kids could do everything on those lists as well. Download the entire list of over 200 ways to make money as a kid for free so you can work through all these ideas with your kids and even their friends. If you have any questions about any of these ideas join me on Periscope daily and I will answer them LIVE! When I heard this question I used to think, no way is someone going to give me a concise straightforward answer on how this can be done. Actually I think there is a paradox- all of us know how to make money, yet very few of us actually go out and do it. The problem is that someone else can see you doing this, and very easily set up a stand and do the exact same thing, taking your profits. But what if you had a SPECIAL type of drink that could quench thirst better than any of the other drinks available at a much lower cost?
MiM 2016 Cross Sector Project - The World Goes Digital Let's Talk about #Tattoo2016 London Life Going International Term One.
How to Start a Dog Walking Business - There are a lot of ways for kids to make money right in their own neighborhood. If you’re like a lot of traders, then you probably want to learn how to make a lot of money trading the stock market.
If you have travelled around Australia a few times and fell in love with the country, then buying a property there might be for you. If you are looking to make a profit from your property in the long-run, then consider your options.
Buying a property is never something you should rush into without knowing how to handle things. No matter how good the deal you get on your property is, buying a new house or piece of land will never be cheap. In essence the article said that people can easily make loads of money in the carbon trading business.
What happens is that if some company, say in Germany, wants to extend their factory, and they are going to have to produce carbon dioxide gas (CO2) in the operation of the plant, they may find that they will exceed their CO2 emission quota. So then what they have to do is to come to a country like South Africa and look for some piece of land where they can plant some plants, to take CO2 out of the air, or they have to find some factory emitting CO2 and go there and implement some clean air technology to regularly remove some tons of CO2 from the factory’s emission.
If the Kyoto Protocol collapses and the clean air requirement falls away then your investment blows away in a breeze…of ‘clean’ air.
Many people would never build their new factory on a foundation of sand, but they are happy to build it on a foundation of air.
If it turns out that man-made industrial CO2 is not leading to climate change then the whole carbon market could disappear faster than a puff of wind. Remember that measured CO2 concentration increase in the earth’s atmosphere over the last century, does not match global temperature increase very well; in fact a good correlation is distinctly absent. Dr Kelvin Kemm is the CEO of Nuclear Africa, a nuclear project management company based in Pretoria, South Africa. This is a classic scam perpetrated on gullible and ill informed peoples of the world and a big part of the tin pot dictator organization, the UN, and their Agenda 21. Why keep talking about the necessaty to deminish manmade CO2 levels, while it is 100% sure for all people with brains -thus excluding politicians and other idiots- that manmade CO2 can?t be the reason for global warming or global climate change!? Thousands of fully qualified Climate Scientists have proven beyond all reasonable doubt that the minute amount of CO2 put out by man has no effect whatsoever and cannot change the weather. They have also proven beyond all reasonable doubt that any increase in CO2 in the atmosphere occurs +- 100 years AFTER the increase in temperature of the World.
When the SUN is very active there are many solar flares which affect the temperature of the earth. All Nuclear Power Stations are extremely expensive, extremely DANGEROUS and should be BANNED Worldwide. Nuclear Power Stations have already polluted the Earth with CANCER causing Nuclear Radiation Pollution for more than 1000 years. More than 50% of all Nuclear Power Stations World Wide are leaking and have polluted the World for another 1000 years. MILLIONS have already DIED very painful deaths from CANCER and Millions more are going to DIE. Millions of Mothers are already giving birth to deformed Children caused directly by “MAN MADE” Nuclear Radiation Pollution, Depleted Uranium etc. We have major POLLUTION problems is South Africa and it has absolutely nothing to do with CO2 it is SEWERAGE and very dangerous chemicals in all our rivers, the Bay and the SEA. Please assist me in exposing this Jew Criminal Mafia COMMUNIST master plan to ENSLAVE US ALL. They blog for months and months without significant income as proof of what they are doing, it turns to years before they know what is happening and they later decide to give up and then conclude that blogging just doesn’t work. Of course, it might work for big blogs with hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors but you can be rest assured it won’t work for your blog.
It has been in existence before I knew what blogging was but my reason for classifying it as new is because a lot of bloggers are unaware of its existence and they keep on struggling with making money from ads. We write a lot of content every day and gradually we’re able to understand our audience and what they want. I was only a blogger at first but I soon began to offer my services as a freelancer using my blog as a lead engine. You don’t have to rush into this and your service mustn’t just be because you want to make money, you need to have something unique you want to contribute to those who make use of your services. Success, online and offline, takes real hardwork and sacrifice and you shouldn’t be ready to go anywhere without putting in any effort. This way you’re building your brand and portfolio, you’re being everywhere and you’re creating potential for future success for your blog. If i have to be a freelance writer maybe i won’t work 2 hours on my blog but 2 hours + another 2 hours of freenlancer. I am always up for some good advice even if it’s advice I already know… it’s good to refresh some things in my mind so I apply them. I never really thought of getting paid directly for writing but maybe I should to supplement my online income. I myself have started a thread to try and get some feedback about google adsense, Check it out!! By the way I have group in Facebook you may intrest to join is about how to make money online. Many of them dream of becoming professional writers and finally make a (comfortable) living from writing. Those who are stubborn enough and work hard enough to improve their writing style and the way they convey information and messages to readers, will finally be able enjoy public recognition; monetary rewards will follow. Naturally you will become attractive to money energy by addressing your poverty conscious tendencies. If you want more money, wealth and abundance,add more value in your Job, Business and Relationships.
If I want people to value what I have to offer them, I should be the first one to value it mysellf.
Making the leap to give value without an expectation is hard, as we want payoff for our efforts! I have got to change my mindset from thinking about what I can get to what I can give to my prospects. Children under the age of 13 are prohibited from providing any personal information on this site. Sometimes it takes more time to get the kids loaded and unloaded than the actual errand takes. Whether you’re taking one thing off their to-do list or taking over while they’re out of town, your service will be in hot demand. This is what separates those who make enough money to get by, and those who make a decent sum of cash. Uber has access to data and can process that data with an algorithm that no one else can match. Here are some ideas of how teens can make money in a fun, efficient way.Starting a Flyer Business - One of the best ways for kids to make money is to start a flyer business.
Many people fall for the Australian landscapes and sunsets when they travel around the country, but few make the move. Whatever the reason is for buying property in Australia is great value and will ensure that you have a great future. You can have a diverse experience in many areas of Australia so work out what suits your needs.
For example, choosing the right land lot in Baldivis could be a huge investment as property prices in that region are set to rise.
Instead, you need to make yourself a five-year plan of what you hope to achieve from buying your house.
Make a plan of your current finances and ensure that you can afford the property before you make a move.
When it appears easy to make a lot of money from something simple then in all probability something is wrong. If it is easy to sell a large number of hamburgers and make a lot of money, then what happens is that a competitor joins the market, and another, and another. None of the hamburger sellers really wants to be kind and sympathetic to the consumers, but they have no option but to be attentive to the customers or the else they just go to a competitor.
As soon as they, say, remove 10 tons of CO2 per day from some air in South Africa then they can put the same amount of CO2 back into the air in Germany, and hey presto, all is great because on balance the total CO2 that they emit into the air of the whole world balances out. There is also a competing theory indicating that the sun’s magnetic influence on incoming cosmic radiation seems to match the observed temperature profile of the planet a lot better.
JEW COMMUNIST New World Order stealing and hijacking all Electricity Power Stations World Wide.
Just 8 months after blogging I had my first $1,000+ month and my income from offering my services has increased ever since. When you need to service your car you don’t go to the electrician that knows a few things about car, you go to the car mechanic who specializes in fixing cars. For example, if your blog and USP is on helping people get quality design on low budget why not start offering people a custom-made design without them having to go into debt?
You should know that this is your brand and online identity so you should put enough time and effort into it. Instead, give people quality information that will make them want to return to your blog over and over again; let your articles show your readers a difficult problem and then show them the solution. Others are after the acknowledgment and promotion they will get on their work (academics), although this category relies mostly on peer recognition than mass popularity.
Everyone wants to know how to make a lot of money however most people who don’t have much are critical of those who do. Putting Value into all relationships, I always get great value from your training Ray, I mostly agree with what you say… and when I don't it challenges me to question why? If you’d like more details, leave a comment below and your’s will be at the top of our list for our next how-to guide.
If you live in an area where there are many small businesses, this could be a good way to get money to buy the things you want.How to Start a BabySitting Business - Looking for a way for kids to earn money? Here are some tips about how to get started.How to Start a Lemonade Stand - A lemonade stand is a great idea for kids who want to make a little spending money. These developments provide beautiful, modern homes to both Australians and immigrants alike.
Australia is an a vast country of unimaginable proportions, so picking the right place will be hard. If you want to rent out the property or sell it after you’ve bought it things become a little more tricky. It strikes me that the extension of the Kyoto Protocol was a case of countries not having the courage to stop it, and not actually knowing what to do next. The economic rules which govern the world usually dictate that it is not easy to make a lot of money with not much effort. Then the German company pays the South African company a lot of dollars per month to keep the South African air ‘clean’, so that the German company can put the ‘saved’ CO2 back into the air in Germany. This theory relates to varying cloud cover, influenced by the varying amount of incoming cosmic radiation. Once you’ve come up with a list of what makes your blog different the next step is to create your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and then look for a way to build it into your brand.
If you help students learn to improve their writing, why not start offering your services as a freelance writer? Now, mention your services and anyone who needs your help and wants to save time will hire you. What they don’t understand is if you have resistance or hold judgement or criticism of those who have something you do not, you will constantly sabotage yourself subconsciously from ever becoming that which you hate. Luck MAY get you some lump sum in a small percentage of cases but it very rarely will KEEP you wealthy. With this entire list you should be able to help your kids know how to make money as a kid ages 9, 10 and 11.
Here are some tips to help you start a successful lemonade stand right in your own neighborhood.Tips for Kids on How to Make Money - Wondering how to make money if you are a kid? Investing in a new development now could make you a lot of money later, as the property market is set to boom by 2015. Those cities are two rural places in the Northern Territory, which will offer exciting adventure. If you want to rent the place out you will also need landlord insurance and even an outside agency.
So the easy way out was to just extend Kyoto and also promise the developing world lots and lots of dollars for ‘climate mitigation,’ which is a sort of apology from the first world for the accusation that they messed up the planet in the first place. This is all because the natural competition forces the sellers to offer the best quality at the lowest price.
With the right USP, once anyone comes across your blog they will be able to see right away that it is different and they will spend a few more minutes to find out what you talk about. Of course, you can’t expect to have everyone as your client but this approach is guaranteed to bring you more success than just pitching your services to your audience every time.
Those who are looking for city dwelling might want to opt for somewhere classic such as Perth or Sydney. Kemm received the prestigious Lifetime Achievers Award of the National Science and Technology Forum of South Africa.
The people need it, water is pretty cheap and you can sell it to them for more than how much you bought it. Cash doesn't come easy, but with our help, you'll get the money you want.Selling Candy at School - Selling candy at school is a great way to make money if you are a kid.
We explain how a kid can make money by selling candy.Convincing My Parents To Let Me Make Money - Wondering what can kids do to make money? There are lots of ways for kids to make money, but convincing parents to let kids make money is sometimes a challenge.Basic Skills for Kids on How to Make Money - So, you need to make money for Justin Bieber tickets?
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25.01.2016 at 21:57:16 That all of our staff know.
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25.01.2016 at 19:12:43 I don't know what for a long period of time. | 2019-04-25T23:57:33Z | http://s3.amazonaws.com/right4cash/how-to-make-a-lot-of-money-with-10-000.html |
When most American families have cut up their credit cards and tightened their spending habits, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) voted to raise the nations’ debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion.
At last night’s State of the Union speech, President Obama called for a spending freeze (albeit it will take place next year after the dicey elections in November) the administration is seeking repentance after they increased spending in budgets this year by double digits.
Another component the President called for was bipartisanship. During the Senate session today Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) put a bipartisan bill forth. The bill would have imposed binding limits on total defense and non-defense discretionary spending for the next four years. Boxer nixed the idea of curtailing Washington’s spending problem.
Californians are expected to make Boxer earn their upcoming votes. There are three candidates in the race on the GOP side, Chuck DeVore, Carly Fiorina and Tom Campbell- all are within single digits of Senator Boxer.
In a press release from Senator McCaskill, Senators Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) offered an amendment proposing spending caps. The group of bipartisan Senators are calling it “A rare opportunity to impose budget discipline on Congress.
“As public scrutiny intensifies on Washington’s penchant for spending and borrowing, senators will face a clear choice this week when they consider a measure to legally limit the growth of discretionary spending over the next four years. The proposed spending caps will be considered as an amendment to broader Senate legislation needed to permit the U.S. Treasury to borrow more money,” according to the McCaskill press release.
California’s budget crisis coupled with Washington’s spending habits will certainly be on the voter’s minds in November –the question remains will Boxer be the next Senator sent home due to angry constituents?
A shaky economy, poor job reports and a Washington spending spree have mere mortals in the trenches screaming ‘the sky is falling.’ The fix is in, the American people have read between the lines and realize the ‘saved or created’ fuzzy math when it comes to jobs just isn’t flying.
The only real number an unemployed worker can rely on is the three million jobs that have been shed since the $787 billion stimulus bill was signed into law. Since then jobs have gone away, foreclosures grew and deficits approached the unsustainable title wave status.
Yet party loyalty holds true. According to a new Gallup poll, 88 percent of Democrats approve of the freshman president while only 23 percent of Republicans think Obama has stood up to the challenge.
This translates to a 65-percentage point gap between Republicans and Democrats giving Obama the largest split for any president in his first year, according to Gallup. The last Democrat President Bill Clinton enjoyed a much lower point gap of 52 points.
While Obama still enjoys a high likeability among Americans, 57 percent, the country isn’t looking for a new best friend, they are looking for a leader.
When Obama placed his hand on the bible, his approval rating was among the highest for an incoming president, according to most pollsters. However, the spending spree he endorsed quickly lost American support.
CBS puts Obama’s approval rating at 46 percent, which translates into a big loss of the Independent voting block. And nowhere was that more evident than the recent special elections.
First there was Virginia governor’s race Obama went to help his man – it didn’t go so well, the new Republican Governor Bob McDonnell will be delivering the President’s State Of The Union rebuttal speech. Up next was Obama’s campaign pitch for New Jersey’s incumbent governor- strike two a Republican was elected. And finally the midnight blue state of Massachusetts and former Democratic stalwart Teddy Kennedy’s seat, again Obama stopped by, made his pitch, insulted people who drive pickup trucks and walked away a three-time loser.
It’s settled, President Obama listened to the voters in very blue states and decided to head to the center, roll up his sleeves and work with all legislators to get Americans back to work. Not really.
Looking back to the crisp clear day a year ago at a torn country in need of repair, Obama became the 44th president and he basked in the winter sun explaining his ability to bring a broken nation together. Obama let a world audience know a new era was on the horizon, one that would work equally with its partners, a hand up not a hand out.
However, after a year of apologizing Obama has received very little from its new partners. Defiant leaders from North Korea and Iran moved full speed ahead with the nuclear programs. Saving the planet didn’t go so well either as the biggest polluters China and India gave nothing at the summit in Copenhagen.
President Obama has the lowest one-year field poll since Jimmy Carter. On domestic issues the President has lost some Democrats due to either being too progressive or not progressive enough. Republicans he never had and it is the coveted Independents that have taken their vote of confidence from Obama.
Candidate Obama made lofty promises, no more back room deals, CSPAN will be there shining the light on the process and K Street lobbyist would not be welcomed at the White House. Yet bills making their way to the President are chalked full of pork and CSPAN didn’t make it into the back rooms.
Obama also had his own ‘read my lips’ moment and told the American people he would not raise taxes on the middle class. Yet he rubber-stamped a tax increase on folks who smoke cigarettes. The largest group of voters who smoke are lower- to- middle class, this translates into a tax increase.
And finally he promised a new era of bipartisanship, he would be the guy who would reach across the isle, apparently the Democratic leadership missed that memo.
The net result of Obama’s first year is disillusionment, frustration and disappointment. The longer than usual honeymoon the media offered him is gone, the fainting at the mere sight of ‘the one’ is gone and the goodwill of many Americans has now vanished.
Looking ahead to another challenging year if the President focuses on creating jobs, reducing the deficit and treating terrorists like, you know, terrorists he has a chance to regain the trust of the American people and accomplish a lot while doing so. It remains to been seen which way the President will govern during his second year in power.
Even intergalactic super stars must rely on their job performance and the fix is in, Obama seems to be another smooth politician who captured the hope of many seeking a new era and was only successful in proving politician’s are incapable of disguising the spoils of power.
As a young girl Darlene Fitzgerald bucked the ‘norm’ when it came to the way she envisioned life. Her father encouraged her to be whatever she wanted to be. Fitzgerald’s quest into the world of boys started early, she wanted to play baseball with the boys when it was unthinkable; it would mark the start of her trailblazing ways something that has not fallen by the wayside.
Fitzgerald took on a fight against major corruption, put her life on the line for her country and ran up against a brick wall with Customs and Border Protection. This happened because there was no whistle blower protection for federal government employees and the military – the folks on the front lines of national security. Now she is taking that fight, and my fight against crony campaign financing to Capitol Hill.
Her story with CBP began by following the rules and firmly believing her supervisors would stand by her when she reported any wrong-doing by other CBP agents. Fitzgerald was wrong. In a long line of government cover-ups and corruption Fitzgerald’s no nonsense attitude was put to the test.
The country she loved and protected with everything she had turned on her. Her lamp lighting (whistle blowing) resulted in her career being stripped from her. But like her stubborn childhood tenacity, Fitzgerald picked herself up, wrote a book (BorderGate) and is now running for the United States Senate in Kentucky. Her new mission is to change the way Washington does business. Those who bet against Fitzgerald making it to D.C. don’t know how determined she really is.
The following is her accounting on the CBP, DHS and Washington-style politics, and why these agencies are wrong for America and what exactly has to change.
“Immediately following the terror attempt aboard the aircraft, Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano announced: “The system worked.” The suspect was able to bring explosives on board a flight from Europe to the U.S. and only failed in his “mission” because his bomb didn’t explode, but “the system worked.” Really? This is a clear failure not only of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), but also of the entire Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of which TSA is a component.
These agencies have long been suffering from incompetent management. The promotion system in these agencies is the “good old boy” crony club. The ‘”best and the brightest” are rarely promoted into management positions. When better-qualified agents/inspectors dare to file any type of legitimate complaint or grievance in an attempt to solve this problem, they are immediately silenced- usually with a phony investigation by the Internal Affairs Department (IA). The retaliation for anyone in these federal agencies who dare to speak truth to power is swift and painful. I know this firsthand.
Moreover, if an agent/inspector observes any behavior from his/her superiors that would cause a breach in our national security, they risk their careers if they dare to report their managers, even though DHS regulations and some federal laws require them to do so. There are thousands of government whistle blowers who have repeatedly given spine-shivering testimony about the gaping holes in our national security to both houses of Congress. I have testified before them in Washington myself. The whistle blowers are neutralized and nothing gets fixed. This happens because there is no real whistle blower protection for federal government employees or the military on the front lines of our national security.
Two of the best government watchdog organizations on Capitol Hill are the Government Accountability Project (GAP) and the Project on Government Over-site (POGO). Both have been trying for years to get real whistle blower protection to no avail. Until agencies like DHS and TSA are no longer allowed to investigate themselves and use IA as the “goon squad” on folks who try to file legitimate complaints, we all remain at risk.
I believe these agencies and others do not have the manpower or the assets to really accomplish their missions. We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan trying to fight a tactic -terrorism. You cannot wage a war against a tactic. While we have focused on military plans since 9-11, we are bleeding money away from greater investments in intelligence, improving infrastructure, and law enforcement techniques.
Most of the actual Al Qaeda terrorists who have been caught and brought to justice have been apprehended through the use of interagency intelligence such as Interpol and cooperative law enforcement and not “boots on the ground” military. The regular military (army and marines) were not trained to conduct an intelligence gathering manhunt. They are very good at what they are trained for, but it is not this.
Had our elected officials on Capitol Hill listened to the countless government employee and military whistle blowers over the last 20 years, and had placed into effect even a few of the recommendations from GAP and POGO, maybe 9-11 wouldn’t have happened. Hindsight is 20-20, but they’re still not listening. Many counterterrorism experts and top military officials agree that we are not making any real progress in our fight against Al Qaeda by escalating the war in Afghanistan.
‘Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible,’ Franklin D. Roosevelt said. There are a lot of big corporations making tons of money off of these two wars. Not coincidentally, they are also large contributors to the campaigns of our elected officials on Capitol Hill. This places many in government in a terrible bind and it is not unfair to ask if some of our elected officials are voting the interests of the funders of their campaigns in the name of national security. If we don’t fix crony campaign financing, none of the above will ever get fixed. It’s time the people take back their government from those who own it now.
In 1988 Sandra Nunn became a Special Agent with the U.S. Customs Service Office of Investigations in the Los Angeles area, like most before her she felt that she was part of an honorable organization with the highest level of integrity. Words like honored and pride were associated with being a Special Agent. During the past 10 years, Nunn served with integrity and professionalism befitting her position as a federal agent, never once shirking or abusing her position.
Nunn investigated international money laundering cases that made national headlines and were featured in TIME and Business Week. “As the case agent I was involved with the illegal smuggling activity via the Southern U.S. border that included tons of illicit narcotics.” As a key undercover operative with this particular investigation, Nunn found more than 1000 fully automatic AK-47’s.
She also served as a diplomatic representative and key investigator with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on two European tours of duty during the UN sanctions against Serbia, casework which included narcotics smuggling, money laundering, espionage, counterterrorism, arms trafficking, and national security.
Nevertheless, beginning in 1997, her career began experiencing retaliation when she chose to step forward and back-up allegations made by a fellow agent of misconduct within the CBP agency by management officials. “My support of fellow agent, Darlene Fitzgerald, by telling the truth in what at the time initially was an EEO related matter, I along with Ms. Fitzgerald, became the unwitting victims of egregious retaliatory acts perpetrated by our management as well as the Office of Internal Affairs in a concerted effort to silence and discredit us,” Nunn explains. Both agents were put under investigation, their work was heavily scrutinized in an effort to intimidate and upset them.
The threats did not end with the two female agents. Another agent who spoke out against the retaliation found two surveillance cameras pointed directly at his personal residence where he along with his family lived.
Despite all the CBP shenanigans, Agent Fitzgerald continued her work with major narcotics trafficking investigation that culminated in the seizure of more than 8,000 pounds of narcotics. Information was developed from this seizure in conjunction with an informant-based situation and it resulted in Fitzgerald locating five railway tanker cars that had entered the country. A fraudulent Customs Manifest tipped Fitzgerald and would lead her to the subsequent weigh-in of each of these respective tanker cars at the Colton Rail Yard demonstrated that these allegedly empty pressurized railway tanker cars were between 25-40 tons overweight illustrating the rail cars were potentially carrying contraband of some kind.
Yet, when both Ms. Fitzgerald and Senior Special Agent Robert Mattivi approached Customs Resident Agent in Charge Gary Pinkava to get permission to perform a simple pressure test at no cost to the Government and no extra manpower, Mr. Pinkava ordered both Fitzgerald and Mattivi not to do their job and not to return to the rail yard. Shortly thereafter, it was learned that the suspect tanker cars had disappeared into the commerce of the United States never to be seen again.
This incident becomes a clear example of screw up, move up practices the DHS and CBP continue to employ using their crony-style politics. Instead of punishing Agent Pinkava, he has been allowed to continue in his fully paid full-time position and was promoted to Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC).
“How many other managers like this are jeopardizing our national security and not being held accountable? One must seriously ponder this question. Because knowing what I know and seeing what I’ve seen, it scares me to death that even one instance of this can happen,” Nunn finished.
But, it doesn’t end there. “I was forced to resign my position in protest due to the ongoing retaliation. I suffered bankruptcy and lost my retirement. Additionally, both Ms. Fitzgerald and I, are both highly educated women, were time and time again denied employment opportunities,” according to Nunn.
Courageous individuals who take the road less traveled often reach the end of the road with well-worn shoes, tattered clothing for the thankless actions and peace of mind knowing they accomplished something bigger than themselves.
When Dr. Jeffery Wigand began his career in the medical research industry he never thought his scientific research would send tsunami-like waves throughout the lucrative tobacco industry. Dr. Wigand did just that when he took the leap of faith to right the wrongs being perpetrated by the greedy tobacco companies.
Dr. Wigand started his scientific research career in the tobacco industry with Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation (B&W) the third largest tobacco company. The $300,000 salary secured him a slot as the vice president of Research and Development. With his health care background and impressive degrees, MA, Ph.D., MAT, Sc.D, Wigand set out to establish a new life and earn a respectable living for his young family.
He began is work at B&W on the development of an engineered tobacco product, code-named Airbus, the cigarette had less “biological activity” – industry speak for a nicotine-delivery device that causes less disease.
It is through his prism that he shares his chosen and a few of the many observations and experiences that highlight the behavior of this company- and its total disregard for public health and safety. By putting profits and sales over health concerns and truth, B&W sealed their fate by hiring the young up-and-coming scientist.
The tobacco company clearly articulated the internal mantra: “We are in the nicotine-delivery business, and tar is the negative baggage.” In other words, nicotine is addictive and pharmacologically active and there is a possibility that a product could be safer but never safe.
The company’s extensive use of this technology, which is called ammonia chemistry, allows for nicotine to be more rapidly absorbed in the lung and therefore affect the brain and central nervous system.
Dr Wigand explained that coumarin is a flavoring that provides a sweet taste to tobacco products, but it is also known to cause tumors in the livers of mice. It was removed from B&W cigarettes, but according to documents, B&W continued to use it in its Sir Walter Raleigh aromatic pipe tobacco until at least 1992.
“There are times I wish I hadn’t done it (went public). But there were times that I feel compelled to do it. If you asked me if I would do it again or if I think it’s worth it? Yeah. I think it’s worth it. I think in the end people will see the truth,” Dr Wigand explains his logic behind stepping into the media spotlight and testifying regarding to dangers of the tobacco industry.
There was another report generated by independent researchers, as part of a national toxic safety program, it presented evidence that coumarin is a carcinogen that causes various harmful cancers.
In fact, many tobacco products are laced with more than 600 intentionally added chemical additives that are put into the tobacco and waste tobacco-derived materials in order to lessen the harshness generated when burning a bioorganic material. This bioorganic material that tobacco generates also uses over 5,000 toxic chemical pyrolysis compounds. These combustion type chemicals are so toxic you cannot bury them in solid-waste disposal areas, according to Dr. Wigand.
Tobacco critics often compare the dangers of tobacco products to the use of hard drugs. For example, critics point to the fact that tobacco kills more people in the U.S. than hard drugs. This is directly opposite to what the big tobacco companies were saying under oath in April of 1994. The seven chief executive officers of all the major U.S. tobacco companies appeared in Congress and stated that nicotine was not addictive and that nicotine was there for taste therefore smoking was no more dangerous to your health than eating Twinkies. This was a blatant lie.
“While employed with B&W, I began to share my negative knowledge with the FDA. I did it with the agreement that I would have a completely anonymous working relationship. I would travel to the FDA offices in Rockville, Maryland, under assumed names going through unmarked entrances,” Dr. Wigand explained.
“I needed to set my moral compass back on a true heading,” he said.
Somehow B&W learned of the interview and threatened CBS with a lawsuit based on tortuous interference, something that could be worth billions in damages. Dr Wigand was devastated to learn his interview would be withheld from the 60 Minutes original program.
At this point CBS provided the Wigand’s with 24/7 physical security by former secret service agents. “They lived with us every minute, checked and opened the daily mail, started the car in the morning, followed me to school, where I was teaching high school chemistry, biology, physical sciences, and Japanese, to check my class room, escorted my two daughters to school, play, and so forth. Ultimately, the school was forced to place physical security at my classroom door due to the recurrent daily threats. Not a fun time,” says Dr. Wigand.
Also during this time Mississippi lawmakers were looking into the ills of tobacco and were seeking retribution for all the medical costs related to the tobacco industry. They approached Dr. Wigand about testifying in court. The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that his deposition could go forward but ordered it “sealed.” Concurrently, B&W went to the Kentucky Supreme Court and obtained a contempt order against Dr. Wigand should he testify in Mississippi’s afternoon court session.
It was decision time for Dr. Wigand and after reflecting on the issues, he decided to go forward because he had already paid the price. “I would most likely never get the opportunity to do it (testify) again. B&W would tie me up in court for an eternity. I decided to go forward and have never looked back since that day. The deposition in the Chancery Court Hose was a fiasco. The tobacco industry lawyers were as abundant as sand on the beach and adamant in their efforts to prevent the proceeding from going forward with threats and constant verbal interruptions,” Dr. Wigand explained.
The turning point for many things in the war on tobacco began in 1996 when the sealed deposition from Mississippi found its way to the Wall Street Journal.
After that B&W spent millions for a smear campaign by using private investigators, a publicist and large law firms. Luckily for Dr. Wigand it did not succeed in discrediting him in the court of public opinion because the Wall Street Journal refused to print a story without assessing the validity of the accusations.
On the other hand, the local paper in Louisville published the B&W orchestrated smear campaign without investigating any of the allegations. Adding fuel to the fire, someone managed to put a live bullet in his mailbox and threatened his daughters- despite having two armed-security personnel on duty.
The ordeal culminated with a divorce notification from his wife of ten years on their 10th wedding anniversary. Not much more could happen. “It was not what I expected and it is the most disappointing aspect of this whole journey,” Dr. Wigand said.
The journey into the spotlight ended with a major motion picture “The Insider” that starred Al Pacino and Russell Crowe. Although it marked the beginning of the end for Dr. Wigand’s voyage of sharing the evils of the tobacco industry with the world, it would mark a new beginning on his quest to ensure children steer clear of the highly-addictive drug called tobacco.
The blockbuster movie was about the truth; will and can big tobacco use its might to intimidate the guardians of free press? That is the chilling relevant take-away message from the film, one that can transcend the passage of time.
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) has been around for 30 years and while the decades may have focused on different red herrings throughout the country the nonprofit public interest group’s mission has remained steadfast. The GAP organization promotes government and corporate accountability by advancing occupational free speech, defending whistle blowers and empowering citizen activists.
Another organization offering support to those who decide to pursue the lamp lighting method to shine the spotlight on private and government wrong-doing is the National Whistleblower Center. They have supported Americans who are willing to step outside the company line in order to ensure wrongs are righted since 1988.
Their attorneys have been associated with it and supported whistle blowers in the courts and before Congress. They have achieved victories for environmental protection, government contract fraud, nuclear safety, government and corporate accountability.
In addition to defending the jobs and careers of a number of lamp lighters, NWC’s victories include the following: National Whistleblowers Center using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel government agencies to release hundreds of thousands of pages of information documenting government misconduct; Exposing misconduct at the World Trade Center and the 9/11 crime scenes, including theft by FBI agents and the mishandling of evidence.
NWC has been successful in documenting deficiencies in the FBI’s counterterrorism program, requiring the FBI to create whistle blower protection for FBI agents (the first time in U.S. history).
The organization has worked closely with Congress to ensure passage of critical whistle blower protection laws, such as the No-Fear Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Whistleblower Protection Act and the Civil Rights Tax Relief Act.
Other issues tackled by NWC include prevention of federal agencies from gagging employee free speech critical of agency policies, banning “hush money” payments for all environmental and nuclear federal safety cases and the recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars for the United States taxpayers from corrupt government contractors.
Working with employees the NWC forced the Department of Justice to review thousands of criminal convictions resulting in the release of innocent defendants from prison, exposed the illegal no-bid contract between Halliburton and the Army Corps of Engineers for the reconstruction of Iraq after the 2003 invasion and subsequent war.
By establishing numerous legal precedents to strengthen whistle blower protections for public and private sector employees NWC increased rights of lamp lighters, including expanding the scope of protected whistle blower speech, enjoining government regulations which restricted whistle blowing and expanding the use of the Privacy Act to prevent the government from smearing its critics.
For those who take the journey into the spotlight they can expect whistle blower retaliation. This unacceptable behavior takes on different shapes and forms, including; denial of rights and benefits, isolation by peers, demotion, loss of promotion, libel, slander, defamation of character, cut in pay, public scrutiny, privacy violations, blown cover (for under-cover agents or informants), job termination, harassment, stress, death threats, baseless investigations, malicious prosecutions and attempts on the whistle blower’s life (like Frank Serpico).
While there is a long way to go in this country regarding the treatment of courageous citizens who step out on that ledge and risk it all in the name of right verses wrong, with the support of whistle blower organizations the road is a little more traveled and can be easier for defenders of truth to reach the finish line.
This is part two of a week long series.
When one thinks of the term whistle blower, most think about Frank Serpico of NYPD fame. Serpico’s tough, gritty persona allowed him to turn the tables on corrupt cops and his no nonsense, take no prisoners attitude forced the NYPD to take a good hard look at the way they conducted police business. His harrowing “Lamp Lighting” story eventually became a Hollywood major motion picture starring Al Pacino, another Hollywood tough guy.
Whistle blowers or “lamp lighters” as Serpico refers to them as often to do not make the big screen, but their stories are just as compelling and very hard to read about. Julia Davis’ experience is one such story; Blackhawk helicopters, sneak and peeks, eaves dropping, multiple agents tailing her every move and finally two false arrests.
It seems unimaginable for someone who emigrated from Communist Ukraine hoping to leave behind the corruption and make a fresh start in America would experience such a plight. Little did she know her journey to the U.S. would be meet with the same Draconian government policies Davis thought she was leaving behind. Davis made the trip to America with the hopes of becoming a special agent in the FBI. After she completed her college education in Russia’s equivalent of the NASA program, Davis packed her bags with stars and stripes in her eyes.
Davis is a former Customs and Border Protection Officer, who was born in Kiev, Ukraine, educated as an Aviation/Spacecraft Engineer with a Masters degree, who speaks several languages fluently. Davis’ inquisitive mind and lifelong interest in the criminal justice system prompted her to apply for federal employment. She scored 100 percent on her tests to become a federal agent with the Department of Homeland Security and received an offer of employment with Department of Homeland Security as a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent.
As an immigrant herself, Davis sought her American dream by striving to serve her new country. In early 2002, Davis graduated with honors from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, receiving an Outstanding Achievement Award. She reported to her duty station at the San Ysidro, CA Port of Entry in San Diego and quickly learned her new job. She built good relationships with coworkers, received outstanding performance reviews and started to move up the ranks within CBP.
But her American dream was shattered when she reported a series of ongoing national security breaches pertaining to deficient processing and subsequent entry of subjects from countries with terrorist ties, into the United States, as well as her concern over the removal of metal detectors and X-ray equipment from the Port inspection areas and the reduction in the security staff.
Davis noted that she found these developments “alarming and disturbing” given the “very high-security level and risk” involved at one of the busiest and largest points of entry into the country. Not wanting to let this go she filed a report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Joint Terrorism Task Force about another potential security breach at the Port. She noting that an unusually high number of individuals from suspect, or “Special Interest Countries” entered the United States over a ten-hour period on a national holiday, known to be a potential entry time for terrorists.
Davis noted that she raised the issue with the Port Director and was told to contact the Intelligence Unit Office. However, in what appeared to be a further breach of security, there was not a single Intelligence officer on duty in the Intelligence Unit despite the heightened risk of entry of terrorists over the summer holiday. This failure and deficiency was pointed out by Davis and directly reflected on the Office of Professional Responsibility within the DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
It would be the same agents that should have been on duty to handle this matter and whose absence was called out by Davis in her report to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, which included ICE/OPR Agents Jeffrey Deal and Herbert Kaufer. Her whistle-blowing activities garnered media attention and embarrassed the DHS. Former CBP Commissioner Robert Bonner was approached by a Los Angeles Times reporter with respect to Davis’ report to the FBI/JTTF.
The Agency responded by subjecting her to multiple investigations (as many as 19 during her employment and over 34 after she involuntarily resigned from the CBP agency), aircraft, land and vehicular surveillance and referred to her as a “Domestic Terrorist,” raided her house with a Blackhawk helicopter and a Special Response Team (with a total of at least 28 armed agents involved in that operation). This caused Davis and her husband, BJ , to be maliciously prosecuted, falsely imprisoned (twice) and actively interfered with her potential employment.
The Davis’ found that these actions were spearheaded by the same ICE/OPR personnel that were embarrassed by Davis’ report to the FBI/JTTF and media scrutiny that followed.
All criminal charges against Davis and her husband were dismissed, including a finding of factual innocence. Additionally, the court ordered the government to return all items taken in the two warrantless searches of the Davis’ residence and office.
To date, the CBP agency has not complied with that court order. The government’s attack on Davis, following her reports of national security lapses at the Port of San Ysidro, was clearly motivated by the government’s desire to chill Davis’ free speech and to incapacitate her at any cost before she could do any more damage to the reputation of her former employer.
It was also undoubtedly meant to improperly deter other officers from coming forward with allegations of discrimination or whistle-blowing disclosures. In light of the years of false allegations the Davis’ brought a lawsuit against the United States, ICE/OPR Agent Kaufer and CBP/OPR Agent Deal for their misconduct, abuse of government resources and selective prosecutions. The trial is currently scheduled to take place in March of 2010.
30 days – The time limit for environmental whistle blowers to make a written complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA].
45 days – The time limit for federal employees to file a complaint of discrimination, retaliation or other violations of their civil rights laws with their agency’s equal employment opportunity (EEO) officer.
90 days – The time limit for airline workers and corporate fraud whistle blowers to make their complaint to OSHA.
180 days – The time limit for nuclear whistle blowers and truck drivers to make complaints to OSHA and for victims of retaliation against union organizing and other concerted activities to improve working conditions to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
During the entire Bush administration, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) ruled in favor of whistle blowers in only two cases. Since 1994, Federal whistle blowers have lost more than 98.5 percent of cases at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) offered praise for two MSPB appointments by President Obama. Unlike the Bush administration appointees who compiled a 1-44 track record against whistle blowers, these leaders are seasoned veterans with a proven track record of commitment to the merit system throughout their careers.
Last year, June of 2009, Washington, D.C. issued a MSPB ruling in Robert J. MacLean v. Department of Homeland Security Agency. MacLean blew the whistle on the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Agency (TSA) plan to improperly remove U.S. Air Marshals from long distance flights during a heightened terrorist alert.
MacLean was concerned that the TSA’s plan posed a serious threat to public health and safety. After MacLean’s internal warnings were ignored, he made a public disclosure that was protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subsequently fired MacLean in flagrant violation of the law. The MSPB declined to review this retroactive relabeling and upheld MacLean’s termination.
Agencies through the country continue to work with whistle blowers or lamp lighters across the country for the brave actions of everyday Americans in reporting wrong doing by governmental or law enforcement agencies. One such group is the Law Enforcement Advocates Council. Davis is determined to help other government whistle blowers and recently joined the Board of Directors for the (LEOAC) as a Vice President.
“I am most humbled that we were able to add former CBPO Julia Davis to our board as a Vice President. Julia brings a wealth of knowledge and experience as a former law enforcement officer, entrepreneur, writer, producer, and scientist. We share a vision for what needs to be done to improve the security of America, and improve the the protections and civil rights of our law enforcement officers, especially whistle blowers who just want to do their job and protect our nation,” said founder Andy Ramirez.
“I first learned of her case about two years ago, and included it as a key aspect of my report, Unjustifiable & Impeachable, which addressed DOJ, DHS, and the Courts. Anyone who is not familiar with Julia’s story needs to take the time to learn her story as her case demonstrates everything wrong with how our government abuses their powers to cover-up their security compromises. Our government failed Julia and has given her their worst. She, being a person of high integrity and honor, has stood tall in the finest traditions of America’s best and brightest. In my opinion, her case should be textbook reading for all law enforcement officers who will learn from a heroic and courageous patriot.
Julia brings a fresh perspective to our board, especially given her incredible life story having been born behind the Iron Curtain. She knows what governments can do to a society’s citizens firsthand. I know she will do all she can to help restore the rule of law, a sense of justice, and fair play, which is a hallmark of America. We share the goal of ensuring that officers can do their job without the fear of false charges being brought against a citizen as a form of retaliation and retribution, or political intrigue, or to cover up a crime and gross incompetence,” Ramirez finished. | 2019-04-22T06:51:16Z | https://thekdreport.me/2010/01/ |
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At the end of 2016 and lasting a few months into 2017, I completed a proof of concept port of a large Enterprise Application that had been running on the Amazon Web Service Cloud to Linux for System z. This was a Docker based application written in Java…so of course, it would be trivial to port. WRONG. While the application is in Java, it called many pieces of open source code. Much of that code hadn’t been ported to System z yet or wasn’t widely adopted. What I thought was a very simple exercise turned into a six month effort.
What I’d like to do, via a series of blog entries, is share my experience in the hope this might help some other organization decide to do a similar porting task. While I’ve been working with mainframes for decades, this was my first Linux porting experience. So I’ll be describing how this experience helped me to Master the Mainframe, though that title seems reserved for university students.
This could be a book, but by breaking it up, it might be easier to understand.
The Basics: High level overview of the application, the development environment, the system set up required to begin the porting exercise and the scope of the port.
The Good: The people who assisted and taught me, the things that ported easily and the simplicity of getting started via the Linux Community Developers system.
The Bad: the new open source for System z, the modifications necessary to open source to run on z, the debug experience and the time necessary to complete the porting process.
The Future and Value. Regardless of the bad experience, there is a great business value in getting these types of Enterprise Apps on System z.
This entry is more about the basic desktop development environment and targeted production on x86 based cloud servers. This is the traditional development environment and primary target of the applications. I needed to fit in and work with this environment before I could ever consider doing the unique activities necessary for success on Linux for System z.
Because of the proprietary nature of the application and intellectual property, I’m not going to name the vendor or application. This overview of the workflow is simplistic, at best, so as to not give away any trade secrets. The vendor is an early start up with an application to handle biometric authentication in a marvelous way. This application has a callable interface to start a request and then, using cloud based services, does some communication with the end-user, does some analytics based on a number of system defined characteristics, logs a number of things for diagnostics, audits and future analytics, provides a go/no-go decision back to the original caller and has a number of applications and user interface applications to manage the cloud deployment. Finally, they have an enormous test suite to emulate and automate the entire end to end workflow.
This vendor was doing all of their development for the x86 platform and originally with any Linux version supported by Amazon Web Services. This included Centos/Red Hat versions. Their first development environment used Maven tooling and pom.xml scripts that targeted deployment into Docker containers. They used Github capabilities to clone and manage the source code libraries within their business.
The first major effort was for me to establish a development environment on my computer and prove that I could work with and build a workable x86 version of the code. My computer of choice was a MacBook Pro 2010 model running the latest MacOS at the time. First thing to do was turn my MacOS into a real developers machine. I installed xcode, Atom, SourceTree, Filezilla and Docker which enabled me to look like a Linux system, edit source files intelligently, manage access to the source files, facilitate cloning of source and execute the code. There were other local variant software that I needed to install using a script that was provided to me. I love the Mac, as did the vendor, who’s entire team used it, so that was really helpful. I then needed a VPN into their system and I was off and running. I used this set up for about two months. One thing I learned, painfully, that the 2010 Mac was SLOOOOOWWWW. What would take 15 minutes to do for them might take me over an hour. So I decided to upgrade to the MacBook Pro Touch Bar quad-core 16GB memory laptop. Now my work completed faster than their 15 minutes, which was a blessing. I can’t stress enough the value of a good starting point on the desktop or laptop for this type of development! It was life changing to me.
The first version of the vendor code used Centos/Red Hat as the target deployment environment. This code runs over 50 Docker containers. Each container is intended to be as small, memory wise, as possible, so it is scalable in a largely virtualized environment. As mentioned earlier, they also used Maven and pom.xml scripts to do their container builds. Each container had a script that would gather necessary pre-requisite open source parts, their Java code and then do the build so there was an executable container. Naming conventions, versioning and more were part of these Maven scripts. 90% of the open source code used was available in a binary form as either an RPG, ZIP or TAR file. Those binaries were either copied into the vendor’s library system or accessed via a URL and dynamically downloaded from the internet during the build process. I’ll get into the System z ramifications of this in the Good and Bad blog entries.
This is the development environment I began my first phase of the port. The prototype I was building was only for a functional test to prove the code could work. We intended to accomplish our test goal with only 40 of the 50 containers being ported. We completed what we thought was a good test level of code after a few weeks of my porting. But then we identified some critical test containers were missing. Unfortunately, the vendor didn’t use the same library management rigor for their test suite and I was going to have to re-base my code.
Unfortunately, that was the tip of the iceberg in changes. I mentioned this was a startup vendor. They had two very large customers that were testing the code when I started. They realized they had a scaling problem, early on. They also realized they had some development inefficiencies. When you get a RedHat, SUSE or Ubuntu distribution, there is a lot of software in the package, like getting the z/OS operating system, MacOS or Windows. As such, the kernel of the large distribution Linux systems can start at 250MB and easily be over 750 MB’s. When you add 100’s of virtualized containers, each having that size as the basic footprint, the overall system runs out of memory pretty quickly. However, if the kernel can start at 18MB and run about 50MB, then greater scale is possible. As development of this application began, the Alpine Linux distribution began and it met the small size requirement. The vendor began to rebase all of their test code and as much of the open source code as they could on Alpine to take advantage of this reduced memory benefit. That was and is an excellent business decision on their part.
Maven is a fairly complex environment for building docker containers. It works. Both the vendor and I proved that it could work. However, in addition to open source code, there are now open docker containers that can be leveraged, as is, to be included in place of an open source binary. However, in order to do that with Maven, the Docker definition files of these open containers must be cut and paste and then modified as part of the Maven script syntax. And each time the container definition changes in the open source world, the Maven scripts need to be hand modified. So the vendor dropped Maven as the base for their container build environment and switched to using Docker build definitions directly. Again, I applaud the vendor for doing this. It simplified the development environment, it gave them access to additional open source code repositories and made everything easier to manage.
The unintended consequences of the vendor’s change from Maven to pure Docker and Centos/RedHat to Alpine was I had to start all over on the port. I’m going to save the details of that for the Good and Bad statements as they are directly applicable to System z.
As far as Linux for x86 cloud environments, this vendor has a world-class development environment, working to create the most reliable, secure and efficient application possible. Ultimately, those attributes must apply to System z deployment as well. I’ll be covering that status in the other blog entires.
I provided a simplistic overview of what I intended to port to Linux for System z in Part 1. The original application was built for x86 systems. As such, all binaries are built to run on x86 systems. The Docker containers that these applications run in are x86 binaries as well. So my job was to create the Linux for System z (aka S390X) binaries, with as little change as possible.
I also mentioned that this was a start up vendor with whom I was working. I had done some business work to show them the value of porting the application to System z, but they were neither skilled in, nor able to afford their own System z. So I gave them the challenge to let me prove to them this could be successful and they took me up on it and agreed to work with me.
While a small development organization, they still had over 25 very proficient programmers and testers. I was extremely fortunate to have their lead developer as my mentor. He and I would meet at the same time, for an hour every day to check on progress, educate me or diagnose any problems I might have so that I could make progress for the next day. Most important is he was learning about the mainframe and intrigued by the possibility of business success as I was, so it was a great experience for both of us. I greatly appreciate the time and effort he put in to make this a success.
Where do you find a mainframe? You ask the Community Development team. Eva Yan at IBM was instrumental in approving the vendor and I to get access to Docker containers on the mainframe. Cindy Lee at IBM was fantastic, with her team, to help show me where all the open source for z was available in the community and Martha McConaghy at Marist College, the host for vendor access to the LCDS was terrific in helping me to keep the system running.
Docker is a great place to work with portable code. My development environment was an x86 Docker container environment that pointed to the S390X Docker on the LCDS system as the target deployment environment. I’m not going to spend time giving you the details on the set up, but suffice to say it all works well.
I didn’t mention before that the vendor is on a different continent. So imagine from my laptop, a VPN to the vendor’s libraries where some code is downloaded, merged with code on my desktop, Docker on my desktop puts all the parts together, ships it securely to the Docker on the mainframe image, does the build and sends results back to me. So if this process took 10-15 minutes to do on my laptop, suffice to say, when you add up the networks and bulk distribution of code between systems and do the build, it’s going to take more time than a single system. Doing a single container build, for the first time, was never correct. My mantra, for years, has been “Next time for sure!”. I’d fix what needed fixing, get a little farther the next time, repeat the mantra and try again, until finally, I’d get a successful build. The time or performance isn’t a problem when building a single container. It’s when you build 40-50 containers at once, or as I liked to call it “The Big Bang”. Then it was hours to do the build on the mainframe, instead of an hour on x86. You’d think that was the bad, right? It was good, because a call to Eva, requesting some more memory and processors and I moved to a very competitive deployment environment. For just like my MacBook 2010, which was under configured for this scale of development, the initial Linux system I was given was an under configured virtual machine. With a simple config change, within moments of my request, and literally no down time, I was up on a larger Linux image, due to the magic and wonders of the underlying scalable z/VM server image.
The LCDS virtual images came with RedHat kernel as the base, with some optional software included, but that was all. I need several dozen pieces of open source software to add to my environment to build my S390X binaries. Again, I don’t want to spend the money to buy a supported Linux distro for this Proof of Concept. I’m directed to Sine Nomine Associates, and in particular to Neale Ferguson. He could not have been a better ally in this effort. First and foremost, he pointed to libraries on their servers where I could retrieve many of the binaries that were necessary. It was such a relief to find many of the rpm’s I needed on their website. As mentioned earlier, I was a newbie to this kind of porting. He spent considerable time mentoring me on both basic Linux and System z specifics to keep me moving along. As important, Neale was on the Docker band wagon. He’d begun building docker containers with specific functionality. I was able to take several of his containers and imbed them into the containers I was building to simplify my deployment.
The Linux Community also has Github repositories of System z ready open source code. I bookmarked those pages and visited them often. I’m pointing links in a Bibliography in Part 4.
The real dilemma came when the vendor switched from Centos to Alpine as the base Linux kernel. Alpine was so new in late 2016, early 2017. While both are Linux derivatives, the syntax of packaging applications is different. As such, Docker builds for Centos are different from Alpine. Because I was doing a proof of concept, it really didn’t matter whether I used Centos or Alpine. However, the longer my porting took, the faster the vendor was converting their code to Alpine, so now, I would have to make “throw away” changes to support Centos.
Worse than that, there was only one person even trying Alpine on the mainframe and that was “some college kid” as a research project. How could I build an enterprise application on a system that one unpaid person was supporting? That person was Tuan Hoang and I am indebted to him. He was a Marist College student. I began contacting him late in 2016. While he had the kernel ported, there were very few packages for Alpine ported to S390X. He was quickly up to the task. I gave him a list of high priority packages. Each night, I’d get an update of what he completed. Each day, I’d build some more containers off his evening’s work. It got to the point that only third-party open source packages were not done by him. This really got my development effort going. But the best news of all was at the end of my project. Tuan had worked so hard to get his “prototype” of Alpine for System z going that the Alpine community accepted S390X as a primary target platform. All Alpine packages would be available on S390X, simultaneously to their deployment on other hardware architectures. It was painful, but it was wonderful at the same time.
What I found throughout this porting effort is there is a wonderful community of people dedicated to the support and value of System z. They were very accommodating and helped reduce my efforts greatly.
In Part 1 The Basics, Part 2 The Good and Part 3 The Bad, I’ve explained I did a proof of concept port of an Enterprise Application from Amazon Web Services on x86 to Linux on System z in 2017. The good news was I got to the point I needed to, the bad news was it was more than difficult to get there. But why did I go there in the first place?
The vendor for the Enterprise application was targeting the Financial Services industry for their initial deployments. This is the primary customer for IBM System z. Their beta customer is running z/OS transaction processing via CICS, but wants to authenticate customers using this vendor’s product running on Amazon Web Services. In order for CICS to call the AWS Cloud, it has to launch Websphere on z/OS to call the vendor’s service on AWS. The vendor’s application has to do it’s task of authenticating users and get all the way back to CICS in less than 18 seconds so the transaction doesn’t time out. It’s a really powerful use of the vendor’s application and valuable to both the consumer and financial institution to avoid potential fraud or cybersecurity scams.
I was told this vendor wrote all their code in Java, so I immediately began a plan to get this running within z/OS, since Java runs so well there, especially on the z14 systems. I also knew that in the time allotted to run on AWS for those 18 seconds, only three biometric/analytic tests could be completed on behalf of the consumer. I hypothesized that if the vendor app ran within z/OS perhaps up to ten analytic tests could be completed using the outstanding analytics and Java performance. However, once I learned of the number of open source middleware programs required and the complexity of porting them to z/OS, I went to Linux on System z as the target port.
Using RDMA as the memory based communication between z/OS and Linux LPARs, I know it will take a bit more time than running inside z/OS, but much less time than going to a public cloud, so I hypothesized that eight analytics tests could be done instead of the three on AWS. And regardless of z/OS or Linux on z implementation, the vendor agreed that the software price would be the same as AWS. The net is, z would have additional analytic value, and given it’s hardware and software integrity and reliability, it would offer better security and business resilience than any public cloud provider.
So that’s what I set out to prove. Sadly, I got so close and the vendor changed their mind on their business strategy. They received a significant new round of venture capital investment, signed up several new financial firms to try their code and they decided to stick to their current cloud plan and stay off the mainframe, for now.
I still believe that my hypotheses as to the performance and value were correct. But the activity ended just before I was able to prove that. However, the exercise did confirm the possibility of getting the product on the mainframe successfully.
Docker inside z/OS? That would simplify things!
But what else is possible? I said in Part 3 that Docker containers are not portable across architectures. However, they are portable within the same architecture. There are some prototypes underway for Docker to run within z/OS. Given the way Docker works on other platforms, it would infer than any Linux on z containers could run unmodified within z/OS. If Docker for z/OS were to run on a zIIP processor, there would be no software license hits for z/OS. If that all comes to pass, that could lead to significant transaction and analytic value within z/OS and greatly simplify the system management requirements for these types of hybrid workloads, while improving the overall security, resilience and performance and reducing the operational costs. I would hope that a public announcement of this capability is not too far in the future.
That, my IT friends is a win for everyone. Any of the bad associated with a slightly more complex development environment can quickly be eradicated with a greatly reduced operational expense that has greater operational benefits than any alternative architectures might try to demonstrate. This type of workload makes for a very compelling end to end benchmark comparison as well. So while I didn’t succeed in getting the enterprise application to market, that was because of a business decision rather than a technological impediment. And the business decision was tactical, based on their new financials.
I learned a lot and documented many of the short cuts I took and set up required to make this development effort possible. I’m happy to share the experience if you’d like to undertake your own development effort. While I thought the end of the project was a failure, it’s unintended consequence, with the efforts of the great Linux for z community identified in Part 2, is that this will be easier porting for everyone that follows.
GitHub repository to S390X open source scripts From this page, search for the package you are interested. | 2019-04-18T22:21:29Z | https://jimporell.com/tag/private-cloud/ |
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Precious objects made of silver and/or its alloys tarnish and become black when exposed to ambient atmospheres containing moisture and ppb-amounts of H2S. Such objects usually contain small but variable amounts of copper as alloying constituent and this affects the corrosion process due to a preferential oxidation of copper. However the visual appearance of the formed tarnishing layers on different types of silver alloys is very similar. Therefore, conservators-restorers are confronted with the problem that in some cases certain cleaning techniques are very effective while in other similar cases the removal of tarnishing layers is unsatisfactory. Since cleaning experiments are not allowed on genuine objects, many investigations use artificially corroded dummies instead. In order to evaluate the representativity and reproducibility of this often used methodology, differences in morphology, microstructure and composition of the sulfide layers on sterling silver generated by different sulfidation methods were analysed.
Sterling silver samples were artificially aged in five different environments. The samples exposed to uncontrolled ambient air at different locations (e.g. residential and laboratory environments) showed different corrosion rates and corrosion colours. Three accelerated ageing methods were executed in a gaseous or liquid environment under controlled conditions. These tests showed different results in morphology, microstructure, composition, thickness and the interface between bulk and corrosion layer. A first accelerated sulfidation procedure in a Na2S solution alternated with exposure to air, resulted in a fast corrosion rate and an even corrosion layer formation with several S-species. A second series of sulfidation in a controlled gas environment of H2S and SO2 developed a thin but uneven corrosion layer, mainly consisting of oxides. A third corrosion methodology used was based on the thioacetamide method. This resulted in an even and relative thick corrosion layer, comparable to the Na2S/aeration sulfidation system. However, the interface between the corrosion layer and the bulk is importantly different, showing severe voids.
The corrosion layers generated by five different experimental sulfidation series on identical prepared sterling silver coupons were clearly different from each other. Analyses demonstrated that the composition and microstructure of the corrosion layers were strongly dependent on the sulfidation method used and copper was found to be an important element present in all sulfide layers analysed. Therefore, artificially corroded sterling silver is not necessarily representative for naturally tarnished historical objects and the extrapolation of the cleaning results obtained on dummies to historical objects must be performed with care.
Many historic silver objects are not made of pure silver but rather of silver alloyed with small but variable amounts of copper. For example, a typical alloy used in jewellery is sterling silver (Ag: 92.5 w%; Cu: 7.5 w%), which consists of an Ag-rich matrix containing Cu-rich inclusions. It is well known that small amounts of Cu play a crucial role in the corrosion process of silver alloys due to the preferential oxidation of Cu . As a result of this, the composition, microstructure and physical properties of tarnish layers formed on top of pure silver is substantially different from the ones formed on silver alloys, although all advanced forms of tarnish layers have a very similar visual appearance: black and dull.
Unsatisfactory cleaning performances It is known that electrolytic techniques , laser or low temperature atmospheric plasma afterglow cleaning techniques [4, 5] exhibit certain difficulties on the removal of sulfide films on sterling silver contrary to pure silver on which the corrosion products can easily be reduced.
Unpredictable future corrosion When using a new cleaning technique; it is not possible to predict the future behavior of the surface without performing chemical analysis or without extensive practical experience.
In order to solve the problems described in the list above, cleaning experiments are needed. However, the Venice Charter of 1964 clearly states in article 10 that experimental techniques can only be used when the efficacy has been shown and proven by experience or the ECCO Guidelines in article 9 that ‘The Conservator-Restorer shall strive to use only products, materials and procedures which, according to the current level of knowledge, will not harm the cultural heritage, the environment or people. The action itself and the materials used should not interfere, if at all possible, with any future examination, treatment or analysis. They should also be compatible with the materials of the cultural heritage and be as easily and completely reversible as possible’ .
For this purpose, cleaning experiments are usually performed on artificially sulfidized silver or sterling silver coupons. According to literature rather extreme corrosion conditions were used to generate sulfidized coupons which were considered by the authors as an imitation of the natural corrosion of silver such as immersing silver in hot aqueous solution of 0.1 M CuCl2, hot (50–60°C) Na2S·xH2O 2.5 g/l or low concentration H2S vapours (10 ppm) for 7 days [8, 9]. This suggests that some authors assume that the underlying corrosion mechanism for artificial corrosion is identical to the natural corrosion process and that the only difference would be the speed at which the process takes place. However, artificially tarnished dummies are not necessarily representative for natural tarnishing layers: (1) morphology, microstructure and composition of the corrosion layer might be dependent on the corrosion method used, and (2) there is no reason to assume that natural tarnishing layers can be described as a single corrosion state and the presence of a set of natural corrosion states must not be excluded. Moreover, objects may have different microstructures and copper distribution at the surface, may have underwent different use and storage conditions leading to a variation of corrosion layers, etc. [8–10].
The work presented here focuses on the influence of different tarnishing procedures to the obtained surface states on identical polished sterling silver coupons. The results and the knowledge gained from of this study will be beneficial for the testing of new cleaning techniques, for the understanding of the results obtained by certain cleaning techniques, and for the development of proper mitigation actions to reduce future corrosion.
The numerous analyses conducted over decades about corrosion rate, underlying mechanisms and the subsequently formed corrosion products, demonstrate that the corrosion process of silver alloys is affected by several parameters such as temperature, moist content, concentration of H2S [11–28]. Compared to pure silver, alloys have several additional properties (e.g. silver-rich and copper-rich phases, grain boundaries precipitation) that affect the corrosion process from the very first steps in the making of an object. For example, production methods such as casting, hammering, coinage, rolling or annealing have a considerable impact on the distribution of copper rich phases in the bulk and at the surface and influence the corrosion process [1, 8, 29].
Another parameter that must be emphasized is the finishing procedures which has been applied during alloy manufacture such as silvering, copper depletion, burnishing as a polishing technique, etc. [1, 29–31]. Such procedures had the intention to generate a silver-rich top layer just beneath the surface. Therefore, the copper content at the surface of a silver object does not always have a direct relation to the copper amount of the bulk. As an example, pickling is a well-known technique where the previously heated and oxidized object is immersed in a hot sulfuric acid solution in order to dissolve the formed oxide-products at the surface. After the pickling, the silver rich surface is burnished to obtain a surface with high gloss. In the use of the object, along with the wear and tear, it also has to be remembered that repeated cleaning alters the surface finish and removes also possible earlier formed copper corrosion products from the surface, since Cu-inclusions corrode preferentially. This results in a silver-rich top layer. However, extensive cleaning can also again remove this silver-rich layer. Therefore, the presence of silver-rich top layers or the amount of Cu-particles in a top layer can hardly be predicted on various objects.
For this research, in order to obtain a set of coupons with a very similar microstructure and copper distribution at the surface, all samples were cut from the same plate and polished in such a way that the surface state can be considered nearly identical to each other.
Sterling silver sheets with a composition of Ag: 92.5 w%; Cu: 7.5 w% and dimensions of 100 mm × 200 mm × 1.0 mm were purchased at Schöne Metals Corporation. Smaller coupons with a surface area of 20 mm × 50 mm were cut from a single sheet using a parallel metal cutting guillotine. In order to standardize the corrosion tests and to study the influence of copper rich inclusions at the surface, the top layer of the sterling silver coupons was grinded and polished before weathering. Polishing steps were performed with a soft cotton rotating wheel (1,850 rpm, radius of the wheel was 60 mm) with 3 M Finesse-IT water soluble liquid polishing paste followed by 3 M Imperial lapping water soluble liquid. Each polishing step took about 1 min. This method complies with historical abrasive polishing techniques. The cleaning of the polished surface was performed according to NBN EN ISO 8891:2000 by immersing the coupon in an ultrasonic bath with ethanol for 2 min. Afterwards, the coupons are rinsed with deionised water and dried with oil- and water-free compressed air. The visual appearance of the surface is very similar to that of silver objects, finished with a traditional mechanical and abrasive polishing technique as described in technical handbooks [32, 33].
Freshly polished sterling silver coupons were exposed to five different sulfidation environments. The most important features and differences between these procedures are summarized in Table 1. According to the visual change of the surface appearance, it is possible to rank the sulfidation methods from slow to fast (indicated in Table 1).
Method 1 A series of polished sterling silver coupons was exposed to an ambient atmospheric indoor environment at a private residence just outside the historical center of Antwerp (Belgium) with successive prolonged exposure times for each coupon. The average indoor conditions were 17–22°C and 40–60% relative humidity.
Method 2 A similar experiment as in method 1 was performed in a chemical laboratory environment in the historical center of Antwerp (Belgium) with average conditions of 22°C ± 2 and 35–70% RH. The laboratory is fitted with a continuous ventilation system without filtration. For both methods 1 and 2, H2S concentration in indoor situations ranges from 86 to 600 ppt , which is below the detection limits of most sensors. Therefore, these values could not be recorded and the corrosion conditions must be considered as (partially) unknown.
Method 3 A series of samples were exposed to a H2S containing environment following the NBN EN ISO 4538:1995 thioacetamide (TAA) procedure: a saturated Na2SO4 solution in the desiccator generated a constant relative humidity at 91% while the TAA powder distributed across the horizontal plate in de recipient slowly decomposes to H2S due to presence of moist. Three coupons were sulfidized with exposure times of 24, 72 and 168 h respectively.
Method 4 In this method, a single sample was exposed in a gas tight weathering chamber to a well-defined atmosphere. A gas mixing unit provided the corrosive atmosphere, where synthetic air is mixed with any amount of relative humidity (0–95% RH) and acidifying gas (H2S, SO2) to simulate real world atmospheric corrosion conditions [34, 35]. In this method, a polished Ag925 coupon was exposed to a controlled gaseous atmosphere consisting of synthetic air, 90% RH, 500 ppb H2S and 500 ppb SO2. For the first 24 h of weathering the samples were exposed to 90% RH and 500 ppb H2S followed by 90% RH and 500 ppb SO2 for another 48 h, leading to a total weathering time in sulfur containing environment of 72 h.
Method 5 A series of polished sterling silver coupons were corroded by immersion in a 0.1 mol/L Na2S solution, combined with aeration following the norm NBN EN ISO 8891:2000. More specific, every cycle of 1 min consisted of an immersion of 12 s followed by an aeration of 48 s. The number of cycles needed to obtain a black tarnish layer was set to 60 (i.e., 60 min).
The surfaces of the untreated and treated coupons were characterized using a multi-analytical approach.
UV–vis spectra were collected with an Avantes spectrophotometer consisting of an AvaLight-DH-S-Bal light source combining a halogen-tungsten lamp for IR and visible light and a deuterium lamp for UV-light and the Avaspec-2048 spectrometer. Light source and detectors were coupled to a 50 mm integrating AvaSphere using fibre-optic cables. The surface was illuminated with an angle of incidence of 8°, while the partially reflected light was measured at 90°. This instrument was also used to determine the surface colour from a zone of 10 mm diameter by measuring the L*a*b*-values. The Avasoft software allows selecting a D65 illuminant and a CIE standard observer of 2° in order to calculate the L*a*b*-values from the collected UV–Vis spectrum. Colour variations were evaluated by calculating ΔE = [(ΔL*)2 + (Δa*)2 + (Δb*)2]1/2. Measurements were taken as a function of time, except for method 4 since this is not possible with the specific experimental setup.
A SEM-EDX FEI Quanta 250 was used for the measurements on the samples of methods 1 and 2. The instrument is equipped with an Everhart–Thornley secondary and backscattered electron detector and an Oxford EDX detector (for semi-quantitative element analytics). For methods 3, 4 and 5, a Focused Ion Beam (FEI Quanta 200 3D) equipped with detectors for secondary and back scattered electrons and an EDX detector was used to obtain cross sections of the thin corrosion layers applying Ga-ions for the bombardment. The obtained FIB crater size was approximately 30 × 10 µm.
For surface topography images (secondary electron detection), elemental distribution images (backscattered electron detection) and cross-section analyses SEM-EDX measurements were performed applying a Philips XL 30 ESEM-FEG equipped with a detectors for secondary electrons, backscattered electrons, a large field detector for secondary electron measurements in low vacuum conditions, an electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) detector (soft. OIMDC 5.1 fa. EDAX) and an energy dispersive X-ray detector.
Ag925 coupons were exposed to two different uncontrolled indoor environments (method 1 and 2) for 6 months. Colour measurements were performed every month to track the change over time. During exposure in residential environment (method 1), visual changes could hardly be observed, while exposure of the coupons in laboratory environment (method 2), lead to a visually brownish tarnish layer which gradually darkened over time.
For every coupon the colour after exposure was compared with the colour just after polishing by L*a*b* measurements. This change in colour is shown in the scatter plot in Figure 1a. For the residential conditions, the colour change was considerably smaller (ΔE < 5) than for the laboratory environment (ΔE > 15). Moreover, the colour changes much faster in laboratory environment. As shown in Figure 1b, the residential series show a more bluish, while colour appearance of the series in laboratory environment exposed samples is more reddish discolouration. This difference in colour was observed as well the early and the more advanced stages in the corrosion process.
Calculated colour change of Ag925 coupons exposed to residential and laboratory environments in comparison with a freshly polished Ag925 coupon. a Change in colour (ΔE) over time; b the colour as described by a* and b* values, indicating a more yellow (Residence environment) and a more reddish corrosion colour development (Laboratory environment); values with numbers 1–6 correspond to the exposure time in months as in a.
Figure 2 shows SEM images of surface corrosion features formed after 6 months of exposure. The sample from the residential environment (Figure 2a) shows developed corrosion grains with submicron dimensions (0.1–0.8 µm), whilst the sample from the laboratory environment (Figure 2b) shows much larger grains (up to 3.0 µm).
Corrosion on the samples after 6 months of exposure; a residential environment, b Laboratory environment. (Images AXES, Antwerp).
Since the air quality and conditions are different for the two locations and cannot be considered as constant over time, this tarnishing technique is considered as examples for natural corroded objects. Therefore, the sulfide layers obtained are hard to be reproduced in an accurate way. This is illustrated by the difference in colour, colour evolution (Figure 1), morphology of the sulfide layer (Figure 2), the difference in oxygen in the spectra (Figure 3). In addition, the spectra suggest that the surface endured a copper enrichment during corrosion, that oxygen is present but that sulfide compounds are not yet developed. Such copper enrichment has been observed by others as well [1, 29, 36, 37]. It seems that the natural corrosion process traverses intermediate states. This suggests that a set of different natural corrosion states must be considered. Besides the fact that this method is probably only representative for an early stage of natural corrosion, the time needed to generate dummies this way is considered too long to be practical.
EDX spectra collected on the general area of the presented images (Figure 2) show in both cases no S but an enrichment in Cu and O, moderate in the residential environment (Cu 9.6, O 1.2, S 0.1 and Ag 89.1 wt%), but strong in the laboratory environment (Cu 20.8, O 15.7, N 2.5, S 0.1 and Ag 60.9 wt%). Reference values for a non-exposed sample is Cu 5.3 and Ag 94.6; O, N and S: 0.0 wt%). A summarizing table is given at the end of the ‘Results’ part.
The visual appearance of a silver coupon exposed to the H2S environment using the TAA procedure for 1 week turned into a grey and matt surface state. Visually, it is close to that of the coupons exposed for 5 months in the residence environment, described in the previous paragraph. As shown in Figure 4b, the change in colour over time did not show a clear trend. In contrast to the results obtained by the natural corrosion process (method 1 and 2), where the surface colour follows a subsequent change, here the grey coloured surface state is achieved within 24 h of weathering.
Change in colour relative to the polished metal as a function of exposure time.
From the obtained visual appearance, no information about the chemical and physical evolution of the sulfide layer can be stated. Therefore, SEM analyses of the surface and of FIB cross sections have been performed. The secondary electron images of the surface and the FIB cuts in the surface in Figure 5 illustrate the complexity of the bulk, the interface and the surface of the sulfidized sample. The black arrows in Figure 5a show the presence of 3 different phases. The layered structure analyzed is as follows: (1) A bulk silver with copper inclusions (Cu-rich inclusion at arrow 1 and Ag-rich matrix at arrow 3 in Figure 5a), (2) a porous interface between bulk metal and sulfide layer and (3) a compact sulfide corrosion layer (arrow 2) with a thickness of about 0.3 µm. The spherical voids seen in Figure 5a and b (at the black arrows) must be due to the preferential corrosion of copper but in a later stage the amount of voids at the interface is so substantial that it cannot be explained by solely corrosion of copper. Apparently, the corrosion of the Ag-rich matrix goes along with Ag-migration. Also clearly visible is the filament consisting interface which must result in a rather poor adhesion of the surface corrosion film to the bulk metal. Since the formation of voids at the interface appears to continue, the adhesion of the sulfide layer to the bulk is gradually lost. Indeed, at prolonged sulfidation it is known that the tarnish layer starts to peel off . Figure 5b shows the cross section at a higher magnification where the presence of smaller light coloured grains in the sulfide layer become visible. The presence of such grains in the sulfide layer might be caused by the applied analysis method and therefore has to be interpreted with care . The amount of voids at the interface has to be considered during the evaluation of a cleaning procedure.
SEM–FIB investigations of an Ag925 coupon after an exposure of 168 h according to method 3. In these FIB-cross-sectioned samples, the bulk metal is located at the bottom of the image and the sulfide layer is located between the bulk metal and the platinum evaporated on top of the surface. a the FIB cut showing different phases in arrows 1 and 3 in the metal (bottom of the image) and the sulfide layer (arrow 2); b high magnification image showing a compact sulfide layer with brighter inclusions. (Images CEST, Wr.Neustadt).
Figure 6 shows SEM images of surface corrosion features formed during the TAA corrosion process over time. The morphology of these features clearly changes from rough flaky to a finely needle shaped surface with increasing exposure time. A solid state transition is probably occurring. Although the surfaces appear to have different extents of roughness, the corrosion layers all appear to be compact films in the FIB-cross-section. With increasing exposure time, the amount of voids at the interface increases, leading to a filament interface structure. Method 3 is a normalized procedure, performed under well controlled conditions and therefore enables the surface state to evolve from one state to another at well controllable rates. The variations shown in Figure 4 might influence the cleaning evaluation and therefore, it is recommended to perform the tests on a set of dummies corroded in the same environment and the same exposure time.
Secondary electron images of the tarnishing/corrosion layer obtained by method 3 (TAA procedure), illustrating the change in morphology on the surface, left column. The right column shows the corresponding FIB-cross sections, showing the increase in voids at the interface. (Images CEST, Wr. Neustadt).
X-ray spectra taken at the surface of the sample after 168 h of sulfidation shows a very large increase of Cu concentration to 30.9 wt%; O 2.7 wt%; S 12.7 wt%; rest Ag 53.1 wt% (Table 2). This shows that Cu-rich sulfide compounds are formed besides Ag-rich sulfide compounds. The presence of sulfur makes this method different from the natural corrosion methods 1 and 2.
Here a corrosion process is executed under well controlled laboratory conditions (synthetic air, 90% RH, 500 ppb H2S and 500 ppb SO2) but using higher pollutant concentrations compared to most normal ambient air circumstances (c. 1 ppb). The calculated ΔE value after 72 h of weathering was 18.9.
Figure 7a and b show the obtained SEM results from an Ag925 coupon exposed for 72 h to the above mentioned atmosphere. Visible is the formation of agglomerated corrosion product islands which seem to be on top of a uniform crystalline corrosion layer. Figure 7b indicates at arrows 1, 2 the EDX spectra values for the corroded surface, giving average results of Cu 11.1 wt%, O 14.4 wt%, S 0.4 wt% and Ag 73.8wt%. Arrows 3 and 4 indicate the EDX spectra for the agglomerated corrosion products, showing average results of, Cu 35.4 wt%, O 39.1 wt%, S 0.0 wt% and Ag 25.6 wt% (Table 2). This means that mainly Cu oxides are formed. Also this method suggests that in the early stages of corrosion the formation of oxides dominates the formation of sulfides.
Secondary electron images of the surface of polished sterling silver after exposure to synthetic air, 90% RH and 500 ppb H2S for 24 h, followed by 90% RH and 500 ppb SO2 for another 48 h (Images CEST, Wr.Neustadt).
Figure 8 shows the FIB cross sections of the weathered Ag925 coupon at different magnifications. By this approach, a sulfide layer with an irregular thickness and with a maximum of 0.15 µm thickness was formed. Visible is the formation of agglomerated corrosion product islands which seem to be on top of the corrosion layer. Energy-dispersive measurements at the spots indicated in Figure 8b revealed that the bulk metal consists of Ag (analyzing spot 2) with spherical shaped local confined copper inclusions (analyzing spot 1). Further visible is a very thin corrosion layer which tends to separate from the surface (Figure 8a, b) and the energy-dispersive measurements in these areas (analyzing spots 3 and 4) showed high signals of Cu, Ag, O originating by the formed Cu/Ag-corrosion products with no detectable S. Noticeable is the fact that contrary to method 3 here fewer voids are formed at the interface, but larger in size and less uniform distributed.
FIB SEM-EDX Analyses of Ag925 exposed to synthetic air, 90% RH and 500 ppb H2S for 24 h, followed by 90% RH and 500 ppb SO2 for another 48 h. a SEM SE image ×40,000of FIB cut cross section, b BSE image and EDX measuring point analyses of FIB cross section, ×20,000 (Images CEST, Wr.Neustadt).
The samples treated by this method (showed a drastic change in gloss and colour within very short time periods (3 min). The gloss value of the samples relative to the original surface decreased within these 3 min by 92%. Figure 9 depicts the change in colour (ΔE) as a function of the exposure time. After this initial fast decrease in the first minutes of the tarnishing procedure, the colour change remains constant for a period of approximately 20 min and afterwards it increases again to constant values in the range of 47–50. The step function shows that the sulfidation process is not a continuous process. At around 20 min of exposure, there is a sudden change in colour. This suggests that the first initial products on the surfaces caused by the immersion process transformed in other products.
Figure 10 shows a FIB cross sectioned sulfide layer for sterling silver exposed for 60 min to Na2S solution/air (method 5) corresponding to a final colour change value of approximately 47–50. Figure 10a shows a region where the bulk metal does not contain considerable Cu amounts. Nevertheless, the corresponding X-ray spectrum collected at arrow 1 shows the presence of both Cu and Ag. There the sulfide layer (arrow 1) had a thickness of about 0.15 µm. In the bulk large empty voids (arrow 2) and Cu-rich inclusions can be found (arrow 3). Other regions in the sulfide layer have considerable amounts of Cu- species and the shape of this layer is presented in Figure 10b. There, the sulfide layer had a thickness of about 0.6 µm and the collected X-ray spectrum at arrow 4 shows the dominant presence of Cu. The voids close and below the interface appear to contain products with irregular shape, possibly remnants of the copper inclusions. X-ray spectra taken at the surface of the sample after 60 min of sulfidation shows a very large increase of Cu concentration to 35.8 wt%, O 3.6 wt%, S 10.1 wt% and rest Ag 50.5 wt% (Table 2). The presence of Cu-rich compounds in the tarnish layer has to be considered as a main constituent.
Backscattered electron images of a FIB cut of sterling silver sulfidized with the Na2S method for 60 min: a a surface area with moderate Cu content in the sulfide layer; b an area with a higher Cu-content in the sulfide layer. (Images CEST, Wr.Neustadt).
The secondary electron images in Figure 11 illustrate how the sulfide morphology changes over time. In the early stage of the sulfidation process (3–9 min) the surface became irregular, explaining the sudden drop of gloss. As the sulfidation proceeded, the crystalline corrosion products increased in size. The crystals have a coarse compact and geometrical shape.
SEM images of the evolution of the tarnish layer over time after 3 min (a), 9 min (b), 60 min (c) and 300 min (d). (Images CEST, Wr.Neustadt).
The results of the FIB-cross section not only show that the thickness of the sulfide layer increases, it also became more heterogeneous (see the white spots in the sulfide layer in Figure 12d) and the amount of voids increased as well. The analyses suggest that when the sulfide layer is growing the adherence of the sulfide layer to the metal below is gradually lost. The main advantage of this corrosion procedure is that it is not only standardized, but also the corrosion conditions can easily be controlled, although the succession of surface states during the corrosion process must be considered in the production of artificially corroded dummies.
Evolution of the tarnishing layer as function of time with SEM-FIB. The images correspond to the ones in Figure 11. (Images CEST, Wr.Neustadt).
For the corrosion of sterling silver in ambient atmospheric conditions (method 1 and 2), the laboratory environment resulted in a much faster corrosion than for the residential environment. These corrosion processes are regarded to be too slow for the practical use of sulfidizing coupons to perform cleaning experiments. Short production times, controlled conditions and reproducible samples are important issues and therefore, artificial corrosion methods 3, 4 and 5 seem to be more convenient to produce sulfidized sterling silver coupons. However, the sulphidation environments for the 5 methods are completely different: (1) the TAA method 3 is governed by the acid gas H2S while the Na2S immersion method 5 occur in a strong alkaline solution of pH = 14, or (2) some methods occur in a gaseous environment other ones in a liquid environment.
For the artificial corrosion methods 3, 4 and 5, the surface of the resulting sulfide layers appear with the naked eye very similar. However, at a microscopic level both surface and cross section show significant differences. The surface topography shows important differences between the different sulfidation environments with a needle-like structure for method 3 (Figure 6c), small grains on the surface (Figure 7a) and coarse grains, obscuring all surface features for method 5 (Figure 11d). The corrosion state is highly dependent on the exposure time. Also, the morphology and thicknesses of the formed corrosion surface layers formed by the method 3, 4 and 5 show significant differences in cross-section. This means that when corrosion conditions are not well controlled, dummies with a variation in corrosion states are obtained.
In addition, the chemical composition of the corrosion layer differs between the methods used. As shown in method 1, 2 and 4, the corrosion process can involve a strong formation of oxides. The chemical composition of the corrosion layers also shows a substantial Cu enrichment. This means that cleaning evaluations should not be focused on Ag2S removal only.
The cross-sections of the sulfidized samples demonstrated that the microstructure of the region just below the surface is more heterogeneous than expected. Within our studies we could clearly show that sterling silver samples treated by the accelerated tarnishing test methods 3 (TAA) and 5 (immersion method) show the formation of voids during the sulfidation process. It is known that copper is oxidized preferentially and oxidizes faster than silver. Therefore, the larger voids located in the vicinity of the interface (Figures 6, 10, 12) must be the result of a migration process (oxidation) of copper inclusions. These oxidized copper species diffuse towards the surface and react subsequently with the environment. The sulfide layer in the cross sectioned samples appear to be compact with a uniform thickness, suggesting that the corrosion products grow laterally over the surface. The residual gaps are in general not completely filled with bulk material or corrosion products within the monitored time frame although some solid material appeared to be present in these voids (see Figure 12). This shows that artificial corrosion procedures might affect the cleaning performances and evaluation.
It is a common practice that new cleaning techniques are tested and evaluated on artificial corroded dummies. For pure silver, several corrosion procedures have been used because they all appear to produce Ag2S. However, for sterling silver the tested corrosion procedures seem to generate variations in morphologies, compositions and voids below the surface. Therefore, it is possible that the cleaning performance might be affected by the corrosion procedure used. Moreover, several indications suggest that the natural corrosion state of sterling silver cannot be considered as a single corrosion state but merely a set of corrosion states. The variation between artificial corrosion procedures and within natural corrosion processes complicates the representativity of the cleaning tests for genuine historical objects.
Due to the complexity of the examined corrosion states of sterling silver in different sulfidation environments, there is no indication that the corrosion methods are identical. There were clearly differences between the corrosion methods used and between different exposure times of the same corrosion method. The most notable differences were: (1) the difference in morphology of the sulfide layer, (2) the absence or presence of sulfur in the tarnish layer, and (3) the presence or absence of voids.
From a conservation-restoration point of view, the results indicate that cleaning experiments on artificially sulfidized sterling silver coupons is indicative for historical results but should not be directly extrapolated to historical objects. For that reason, cleaning experiments on artificially sulfidized sterling silver coupons can be expected to be different in regard to genuine historical objects. The introduction of new cleaning methods (e.g. cold atmospheric plasma cleaning) goes along with a continuous learning process and gradual gain in experience where the complexity of dummies and genuine objects is increased step by step.
Precise measurements of the silver objects surface are necessary to identify elements and corrosion products prior to treatment, especially for the use of non- or low-invasive cleaning techniques, in order to increase the chances of attaining a predetermined target of treatment result. However, as shown in this article, surface measuring techniques (e.g. UV–Vis, SEM-EDX) are not always capable of revealing all of the relevant aspects that might influence the cleaning performance, such as voids or intermediate layers. To reveal the latter, cross sections should be taken. Moreover, the presence of metastable corrosion states and the presence of voids suggest that the corrosion process of sterling silver in insufficiently understood which also may hamper cleaning test evaluations.
PS: Acquisition and interpretation of data, drafting the manuscript, accountable for all aspects of the work. OS: Acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the manuscript and revising it critically, accountable for all aspects of the work. RW: Acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the manuscript and revising it critically. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
The authors are grateful to the EU-project PANNA (FP7, no 282998) for funding, The Centre for Electrochemical Surface Technology CEST for the use of instrumentation and The Institute of Science and Technology in Art of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna for the cooperation. More in particular, we thank the following persons: Christoph Kleber, Centre for Electrochemical Surface Technology, Viktor-Kaplan-Strasse 2, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Austria; for the acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data. Manfred Schreiner, Institute of Science and Technology in Art, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Schillerplatz 3, 1010 Vienna, Austria; Supervision of a contributing research group. Joost Caen, University of Antwerp, Conservation Studies, Blindestraat 9, B-2000 Antwerp, Belgium; Supervision of the contributing Heritage & Sustainability research group. Karolien De Wael and Gert Nuyts. University of Antwerp, Chemistry Department, Groenenborgerlaan 171, 2020 Antwerp, Belgium; Supervision of the contributing AXES research group for SEM-EDX measurements. | 2019-04-23T14:29:20Z | https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40494-015-0054-1 |
Last year we acknowledged that the Honor 8 had qualities of a real killer flagship. However, one flagship in particular had to watch out: the Huawei P9 from the same manufacturer, which offered very similar qualities in many respects, but was 100 Euros (~$118) more expensive than the Honor 8. How did Shirley Bassey say it in her song? "It's all just a little bit of history repeating." And so this year once again, the story repeats itself. The Huawei P10 appears and is compelling in the test, and then the direct-sales subsidiary company Honor brings the Honor 9 to the market, offering a model with similar features that is clearly more affordable by more than 100 Euros (469 Euros/~$553 recommended price, but currently the manufacturer itself sells it for 429 Euros/~$506; around $470 in the US). The SoC is similar and the display resolution, battery capacity, and according to the specifications the dual cameras appear suspiciously similar. However, the Honor camera has to make do without the Leica branding.
Does the Honor 9 come even closer to the Huawei P10 this year? We will out in the test and in addition will compare it with last year's predecessor, the Honor 8, which you can currently purchase from the Internet for less than 300 Euros (~$354). The Sony Xperia XZ and Asus ZenFone 3 are additional comparison devices, as well as the OnePlus 5, which can also only be purchased via direct sales.
Update 11/28/2017: new firmware B150 released. Details can be found in the Software section.
Compared to the Honor 8, there are only detail changes in the case. The fingerprint sensor has moved from the back to the front below the screen, and the back is now rounded at the edges, which is pleasing to the eyes and also improves the handling. The Honor 9 fits well into the hand and with just 2 grams extra, has the same weight as the predecessor, but is slightly heavier than the Huawei P10. The color variations are the same as the predecessor: black or blue, and according to the manufacturer, the silver-gray is a new color. The design highlight in all colors variants is again the back, which distributes light reflections around the back. The small bezels on the front continue to please.
The battery remains built-in and the device cannot be opened. The case is once again very stable and can only be twisted minimally, if at all, making a slight audible creak. Pressure on the back does not reach the liquid crystal in the front, but strong pressure on the front becomes visible as waves on the screen.
The storage equipment is sized similarly to the Huawei P10. The standard version of the Honor 9 has 4 GB of working memory and 64 GB of storage. Supposedly, for about 50 Euros (~$59) extra, there will be a premium variant with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB storage. However, the 64 GB ROM in our test unit were only eMMC flash, and not fast UFS-2.1 storage as in the Huawei P10, even though for a long time it was a matter of luck which kind of storage you would receive.
The Honor 9 handles two SIM cards. However, you will need to decide between the second SIM card and a microSD card of up to 128 GB, since both cards use the same slot. Although the microSD card can only be formatted as external storage, you can still move apps to the SD card.
The USB-C port at the bottom now also supports USB-OTG, but it can still only communicate at USB-2.0 speeds.
On the Honor 9, Android 7.0 is installed and overlaid by Huawei's EMUI 5.1 surface. During our testing, there was an update which installed the security patches from July 5, 2017. This makes the patches relatively current at the time of testing. Huawei adds a global search, which extends over the whole device, including the settings, files, and data and online content, so that only one search screen is needed. Machine learning is also supposed to improve the storage utilization and make scrolling more smooth. You can display an automatic slide show in the Gallery app or search the photos for a particular person.
Unfortunately, Huawei has also pre-installed many additional and advertising apps, such as games or the app of a large travel portal. Anyone not wanting these apps will be busy for a while, uninstalling them. Among the useful tools are the Phone Manager, which can perform a virus scan and clean the storage, a separate app for applying various designs, and HiGame, an additional shop for new mobile games. Huawei's own VMall online shop is also linked to an app.
Update 11/28/2018: Honor has released firmware STF-L09C432B150 (3.13 GB) with user interface optimizations as well as support for VoLTE (Voice over LTE) and VoWifi (Voice over Wifi), assuming respective support by the network operator. Google’s security patches have been updated to 08/05/2017, and the new firmware comes with the Quik app as well as a video editor by GoPro preinstalled. Both can be uninstalled if necessary.
The featured LTE bands show a first clear difference to the Huawei P10. While Huawei's flagship shines with the support of a multitude of LTE bands, the Honor 9 shows itself as more conservative. The European version supports merely six LTE bands, so you should not go too far from the European continent, if you still want to use the LTE net. Similarly priced smartphones such as the OnePlus 5 are more compelling with 19 LTE frequencies. There are conflicting reports on the speeds on the Internet, and there are no official specifications by the manufacturer. Upon our request, Honor tells us that the smartphone receives data at 300 MBit/s and sends at up to 50 MBit/s. This corresponds to LTE Cat. 6 and is considerably slower than the Huawei P10 with LTE Cat. 12. In the well-developed German D2 net, we also had a decent reception indoors. At least half the signal strength was available most of the time.
All the usual current WLAN standards are supported, which includes the fast 802.11 ac networks and the 5 GHz band. The speeds are slower than the Huawei P10, and during sending they were even reminiscent of the P10 speeds before Huawei applied a patch that increased the speed considerably. Even though the Honor 9 also does not reach the speeds of the very fast OnePlus 5 overall, the WLAN speeds are okay by and large. We also check the reception and site rendering speeds near and at 10 meters (~33 ft) away from the router in our practice test. Near the router, the reception is fully there and the sites are also rendered quite fast. Further away from the router and separated by three walls, both values remain the same – perfect.
Even indoors, the GPS module locates us quickly down to an accuracy of 8 meters (~26 ft). Outdoors it is still slightly more accurate at up to 6 meters (~20 ft). That is an average value.
Now we look how accurately the smartphone can trace our route with its GPS module. We pack the Honor 9 into our backpack, also taking the Garmin Edge 500 professional navigation device, and take our mountain bike for a spin. After 11.8 km (~7.3 miles), our trip ends and we check how both devices have measured: the route measured by the Honor 9 is 90 meters (295 ft) shorter. Over a distance of 11 kilometers, this is a deviation that is not too high. You have to look for the detail differences with a magnifier: from time to time the Honor 9 measurements are slightly less exact and it draws a straight line where the Garmin Edge 500 displays the route more accurately. However, this is only the case in some specific, very short sections of the path. Elsewhere the accuracy is really good for a smartphone. Thus, the Honor 9 can be used for navigation purposes without a second thought.
Huawei has adjusted the Phone app slightly compared to Google's original, but all in all the operation is very similar. Contacts and Favorites can be selected via two tabs in the top right section, and at the beginning the list of recent calls and a keypad are displayed.
The voice quality in the Honor 9 cannot really convince us. Even though the earpiece and the speaker are sufficiently loud, there is an audible boom in the earpiece at maximum volume. Moreover, our conversation partner always sounds quite far away and not as clear as we would like. The microphone also records our voice when we speak quietly but booms when we talk too loud. In addition, we come across as slightly muffled and with little presence at our conversation partner's phone.
As with its predecessor, there is an 8-Megapixel camera in the front. Given the right distance, the sharpness is decent, but in the detail the color areas do not appear cleanly. The color representation appears quite cool. The quality is sufficient for a quick selfie, but there are better front cameras. If you like, you can activate a Bokeh blurring effect for the background and a Beauty filter which softens skin blemishes for portraits.
At a first glance, there is only little that has changed in the back as well. The dual camera with the 20 MP black-and-white lens and 12 MP color lens that is familiar from the predecessor and also the Huawei P10 and P9 still remains. The combination of phase and laser auto-focus also continues to be present, the same as the dual-LED flash. The software offers all the options that you get in the Huawei P10, such as a mode with blurring effects in the background or a manual mode. There is also a 2x optical zoom, which is made possible by the different focal distances of the two lenses. In addition, the black-and-white sensor collects more information about the image in order to improve the images of the color sensor.
As with the Huawei P10, we like the pictures of the main camera, the image sharpness is compelling; the colors merely appear slightly cool. Even in enlargements the edges fray only minimally, and the dynamic in dark and bright areas are also pleasing. In weak light, the Honor 9 cannot keep up with more expensive smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S8+. But the performance is decent and still extracts something from the available light.
Videos can be recorded in 4K quality with the main camera. However, then you will have to forgo the image stabilizer, which only works up to Full HD and 30 FPS. The video function brings good results, colors appear vivid, and the exposure adjusts to the light conditions well and quickly. Anyone who likes to record short videos will be pleased about the cooperation with GoPro. Via a special function, short videos can be recorded when you press the shutter release and can be automatically combined into a longer video later via the appropriate software.
The main camera also has to prove itself under controlled light conditions in the lab. Here, we notice that the image sharpness is reduced slightly towards the edges, while it is very good in the center. Text in front of a colored background is not reproduced completely cleanly, but now we are nit-picking. The color reproduction is slightly spotty and too oversaturated from time to time, but overall, we also like the representation of the main camera very much.
ColorChecker: the target color is displayed in the bottom are of each field.
The box includes a quick charger and a USB cable, and there is also a tool for opening the SIM tray. Currently, you cannot find any special accessories for the Honor 9 in Huawei's VMall.
Honor or Huawei offers a 24-month warranty on the Honor 9, which is another small difference compared to the Huawei P10, where you can extend the warranty to 36 months free of charge. Please see our Guarantees, Return policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.
The Honor 9 uses SwiftKey as its keyboard app, but you can change to Google's GBoard or install a new keyboard without any trouble. SwiftKey is a very widespread and well-liked keyboard app which you can also download yourself from the Google Play Store. As well as many setting options, it also offers extensive statistics on the past inputs. You can use several languages with the keyboard at the same time, change the size, adjust word predictions, and so forth.
The touchscreen is very pleasant to the touch and can be operated smoothly. It is also very responsive at the edges. There is also an option for a glove mode, which allows you to operate the touchscreen with thin gloves in winter. The navigation keys for the Android system are touch-sensitive areas below the screen, and the fingerprint sensor is used as the Home key. If you like, you can also only use the fingerprint sensor, where a long press activates the Home screen, a short tap goes back one step, and a swipe activates the overview of all the open apps. After a brief familiarization, this works very well, so it is a matter of taste as to which way of navigation you prefer.
If the screen is too big for your hands, you can activate one-handed operation, or you can use movement gestures to take calls by raising the phone to your ear, or mute the phone by turning it over.
Huawei provides the Honor 9 with a Full HD display with the slightly unusual diameter of 5.15 inches, which is 0.05 inches larger than that in the Huawei P10. The screen is based on the LTPS-IPS technology, which is energy saving but also quite expensive. The OnePlus 5 is the only one of the comparison devices that has an AMOLED screen with organic light diodes, which can be completely turned off and manage without a background light.
With an average of 535 cd/m2 the Honor 9 can be quite bright, but the Huawei P10 and Asus ZenFone 3 can shine even brighter. At 92%, the brightness distribution is quite even, so that even large color areas are lit up evenly.
The black value of 0.42 cd/m2 is decent, but of course the OnePlus 5 with its AMOLED screen and absolute black value has an advantage here. At 1310:1, the contrast ratio is very good, and colors appear vibrant on the display. The white balance can be manually adjusted with an onscreen slider, but you can also select one of three profiles or activate an eye-saving blue filter.
We are testing the display in more detail with our spectral photometer and the CalMAN software, and for our tests we use the AdobeRGB and sRGB color spaces and the DCI-P3 color space that is used for movie projections. In the Standard setting, we measure a clear blue tint, but it disappears to a large extent through the Warm white balance setting and the color deviations are also considerably less. In the Warm mode, the color space coverage of the DCI-P3 is quite good, and also almost 92% of AdobeRGB are still covered in the Standard mode.
For outdoor use, the brightness sensor can be made more sensitive via the settings, which can make the brightness slightly brighter when it detects bright sunlight. In general, due to the very bright display, outdoor usage is easily possible.
If you tilt the smartphone, the image becomes slightly darker, but in general the viewing angles are good from any angle.
As with the Huawei P10, the Honor 9 also uses a HiSilicon Kirin 960 SoC, developed by Huawei. It has 8 cores and a maximum clock speed of 2400 MHz. With that, the Honor 9 is on the same high performance level as the P10, and the Honor 8 predecessor is in parts clearly surpassed. Apparently, the OnePlus 5 can pull ahead, but you should also bear in mind that OnePlus has optimized its smartphone here for many benchmarks, so that the results do not necessarily speak about everyday usage.
In terms of graphics unit, an ARM Mali-G71 MP8 is used. It also has 8 cores and a maximum clock speed of 900 MHz. In graphics intensive benchmarks, the Honor 9 is capable of a similar performance as the Huawei P10, and with that it can keep up with many current smartphones of the high-end.
However, while surfing on the Internet, the Honor 9 is slightly slower than the Huawei P10 and also slightly slower than the Honor 8 predecessor. At the same time, it is considerably faster than a mid-range smartphone such as the Asus ZenFone 3. Demanding HTML5 games such as those at letsplay.ouigo.com do not need long to load and then also run quite smoothly.
We test the read and write speed of the microSD reader in the Honor 9 with a Toshiba microSD card, the Exceria Pro M501, which has very high maximum transfer rates. The result is okay and even slightly faster than in the Huawei P10, but the card would even allow for considerably faster access rates.
During access of the internal storage, the difference to the Huawei P10 which has the fast UFS-2.1 storage becomes quickly apparent. Huawei's flagship can read and write data considerably faster. Yet the Honor 9 with an eMMC flash is still above the level of its predecessor and reads data fairly quickly. Overall, the loading times are not too long.
At this point we would not want to 100% affirm that the Honor 9 is a real games smartphone, since in "Asphalt 8: Airborne" it only achieves frame rates of 29 FPS, even in very low detail settings. On the other hand, in "Dead Trigger 2" it achieves 45 FPS on average. So it probably depends on the game, whether you can play smoothly or not. Of course simpler games such as "Angry Birds" run without any stutters, as you can expect from a smartphone of this price range.
Operation via position sensor and touchscreen works without a hitch.
At 36.9 °C (~98 °F) already in idle mode, we can detect a slight warming in the area of the fingerprint sensor. The back remains cooler. However, under load noticeably higher temperatures are reached: up to 45.4 °C (~114 °F) on the back during the maximum. In summer, this can become uncomfortable if you put the smartphone into your pant pocket.
Can the SoC maintain its performance even during prolonged load? We test this with the GFXBench-Manhattan battery test. In fact, the initial good calculated frame rates drop significantly to about half the performance. There, they remain there with a continued slight downward trend. Thus, anyone who puts high loads for prolonged periods on the Honor 9 should not count on the full performance.
(-) The average temperature for the upper side under maximal load is 43.9 °C / 111 F, compared to the average of 33.1 °C / 92 F for the devices in the class Smartphone.
(±) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 45 °C / 113 F, compared to the average of 35.6 °C / 96 F, ranging from 22.4 to 51.7 °C for the class Smartphone.
(±) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 34.1 °C / 93 F, compared to the device average of 33.1 °C / 92 F.
In terms of sound, Honor has made quite an effort cooperating with the Monster headphones manufacturer and inviting the Grammy winner Rainer Maillard who produced many classical recordings to optimize the sound. The Huawei Histen technology bundles all the setting options such as the equalizer and also adds an option for 3D sound. However, all this is only valid if you connect a headphone or speaker to the smartphone via a cable. There are no setting options for the internal speaker included.
The small mono speaker on the bottom edge has improved slightly in comparison to the predecessor as our test with the ARTA software shows. There are clearly more low mids and the sound reproduction is linear in general. The speaker is also slightly louder. And indeed you can listen to a piece of music at times, the sound is well mixed, not emphasizing the highs too much, and does not boom even at maximum volume.
But now we would like to see how all the improvements benefit the sound of the headphones. You can either select the 3D sound or use the equalizer, and there are profile presets for various headphone types, but unfortunately not for speakers. The sound output is good and very warm. It is hard to see whether all the cooperating is more than an advertising stunt, but at least the 3.5-mm audio output produces clear sound that is not distorted. The audio signal is also output cleanly via Bluetooth.
Overall, the power consumption is a bit higher than in the predecessor and slightly lower than in the Huawei P10. Under load in particular, the Honor 9 uses considerably less power than Huawei's flagship. The OnePlus 5 is also slightly more power hungry under load, but uses less power than our test unit in idle mode. Perhaps Huawei could have optimized the overall power consumption of the Honor 9 even a little more. However, it achieves values typical for its class and is quite efficient, particularly under load, but then throttles the performance after a short time, as we saw before.
Even though the Honor 9 comes with a larger battery which can now offer 3200 mAh or 12.16 Wh of power, the runtimes are only slightly above those of the Honor 8. The Huawei P10 with a similarly powerful battery can clearly move ahead in the WLAN test in particular, where it achieves a runtime that is 87% longer than our test unit. Overall, the Honor 9 remains within the standard of its class and achieves a solid result with 8:36 hours in the WLAN test. During regular usage, you can get through the workday without any problems, and when using it frugally, you can even get through two days. There is also an Ultra-Power-Saving mode, which can significantly prolong the runtime.
Super Charge is also supported and recharges the smartphone completely within a little over an hour.
In the test: Honor 9. Test unit provided by Honor Germany.
Yes, that is life with beautiful daughters: sometimes the mother can become jealous. At least, Huawei does not make it easy for its P10 flagship to stand up against the slightly slimmed down Honor 9. For over 100 Euros less (~$118, depending on the price of the day), you really get a lot for your money with the Honor 9. Even the OnePlus 5 has to watch out.
Compared to the Honor 8, the pretty case has improved again, the performance is at the same level as that of the Huawei P10, and the cameras also take pictures that are almost as good. Only in the fast storage, the battery life, and the multitude and speed of the LTE connections, the Honor 9 remains behind Huawei's flagship. In addition, Huawei offers a 36-month warranty for the P10.
You could blame Huawei for not giving more attention to the call quality, since that is mediocre at most. The high case temperatures and the throttling SoC during prolonged loads are annoying. However, other than that, we have to pay tribute to the Honor 9. It is a great offering in the mid-range that those interested should not pass.
For those who want to save, the Honor 8, which basically offers the same camera modules and is not far behind in terms of performance, is a great bargain for about 100 Euros (~$118) less. | 2019-04-20T12:36:42Z | https://www.notebookcheck.net/Honor-9-Smartphone-Review.243422.0.html |
Not to be confused with Gross national product or Gross domestic income.
Gross domestic product (GDP) refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living.
Gross domestic product is related to national accounts, a subject in macroeconomics.
GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934, who immediately said not to use it as a measure for welfare (see below under limitations).
The most direct of the three is the product approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The expenditure approach works on the principle that all of the product must be bought by somebody, therefore the value of the total product must be equal to people's total expenditures in buying things. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the productive factors ("producers," colloquially) must be equal to the value of their product, and determines GDP by finding the sum of all producers' incomes.
Note: "Gross" means that GDP measures production regardless of the various uses to which that production can be put. Production can be used for immediate consumption, for investment in new fixed assets or inventories, or for replacing depreciated fixed assets. "Domestic" means that GDP measures production that takes place within the country's borders. In the expenditure-method equation given above, the exports-minus-imports term is necessary in order to null out expenditures on things not produced in the country (imports) and add in things produced but not sold in the country (exports).
Gross Value Added = Value of output – Value of Intermediate Consumption.
Value of Output = Value of the total sales of goods and services + Value of changes in the inventories.
The sum of Gross Value Added in various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost.
GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products is GDP at Producer Price.
Subtracting each sector's intermediate consumption from gross output, we get sectoral Gross Value Added (GVA) at factor cost. We, then add gross value of all sectors to get GDP at factor cost. Adding indirect tax less subsidies in GDP at factor cost, we get GDP at Producer Prices.
This method measures GDP by adding incomes that firms pay households for factors of production they hire- wages for labour, interest for capital, rent for land and profits for entrepreneurship.
In economics, most things produced are produced for sale, and sold. Therefore, measuring the total expenditure of money used to buy things is a way of measuring production. This is known as the expenditure method of calculating GDP. Note that if you knit yourself a sweater, it is production but does not get counted as GDP because it is never sold. Sweater-knitting is a small part of the economy, but if one counts some major activities such as child-rearing (generally unpaid) as production, GDP ceases to be an accurate indicator of production. Similarly, if there is a long term shift from non-market provision of services (for example cooking, cleaning, child rearing, do-it yourself repairs) to market provision of services, then this trend toward increased market provision of services may mask a dramatic decrease in actual domestic production, resulting in overly optimistic and inflated reported GDP. This is particularly a problem for economies which have shifted from production economies to service economies.
I (investment) includes business investment in equipments for example and does not include exchanges of existing assets. Examples include construction of a new mine, purchase of software, or purchase of machinery and equipment for a factory. Spending by households (not government) on new houses is also included in Investment. In contrast to its colloquial meaning, 'Investment' in GDP does not mean purchases of financial products. Buying financial products is classed as 'saving', as opposed to investment. This avoids double-counting: if one buys shares in a company, and the company uses the money received to buy plant, equipment, etc., the amount will be counted toward GDP when the company spends the money on those things; to also count it when one gives it to the company would be to count two times an amount that only corresponds to one group of products. Buying bonds or stocks is a swapping of deeds, a transfer of claims on future production, not directly an expenditure on products.
A "production boundary" that delimits what will be counted as GDP.
This leaves non-market output. It is partly excluded and partly included. First, "natural processes without human involvement or direction" are excluded. Also, there must be a person or institution that owns or is entitled to compensation for the product. An example of what is included and excluded by these criteria is given by the United States' national accounts agency: "the growth of trees in an uncultivated forest is not included in production, but the harvesting of the trees from that forest is included."
Within the limits so far described, the boundary is further constricted by "functional considerations." The Australian Bureau for Statistics explains this: "The national accounts are primarily constructed to assist governments and others to make market-based macroeconomic policy decisions, including analysis of markets and factors affecting market performance, such as inflation and unemployment." Consequently, production that is, according to them, "relatively independent and isolated from markets," or "difficult to value in an economically meaningful way" [i.e., difficult to put a price on] is excluded. Thus excluded are services provided by people to members of their own families free of charge, such as child rearing, meal preparation, cleaning, transportation, entertainment of family members, emotional support, care of the elderly. Most other production for own (or one's family's) use is also excluded, with two notable exceptions which are given in the list later in this section.
Nonmarket outputs that are included within the boundary are listed below. Since, by definition, they do not have a market price, the compilers of GDP must impute a value to them, usually either the cost of the goods and services used to produce them, or the value of a similar item that is sold on the market.
Goods and services provided by governments and non-profit organisations free of charge or for economically insignificant prices are included. The value of these goods and services is estimated as equal to their cost of production. This ignores the consumer surplus generated by an efficient and effective government supplied infrastructure. For example, government-provided clean water confers substantial benefits above its cost. Ironically, lack of such infrastructure which would result in higher water prices (and probably higher hospital and medication expenditures) would be reflected as a higher GDP. This may also cause a bias that mistakenly favors inefficient privatizations since some of the consumer surplus from privatized entities' sale of goods and services are indeed reflected in GDP.
Renovations and upkeep by an individual to a home that she owns and occupies are included. The value of the upkeep is estimated as the rent that she could charge for the home if she did not occupy it herself. This is the largest item of production for own use by an individual (as opposed to a business) that the compilers include in GDP. If the measure uses historical or book prices for real estate, this will grossly underestimate the value of the rent in real estate markets which have experienced significant price increases (or economies with general inflation). Furthermore, depreciation schedules for houses often accelerate the accounted depreciation relative to actual depreciation (a well built house can be lived in for several hundred years – a very long time after it has been fully depreciated). In summary, this is likely to grossly underestimate the value of existing housing stock on consumers' actual consumption or income.
Agricultural production for consumption by oneself or one's household is included.
GDP can be contrasted with gross national product (GNP) or gross national income (GNI). The difference is that GDP defines its scope according to location, while GNP defines its scope according to ownership. In a global context, world GDP and world GNP are, therefore, equivalent terms.
GDP is product produced within a country's borders; GNP is product produced by enterprises owned by a country's citizens. The two would be the same if all of the productive enterprises in a country were owned by its own citizens, and those citizens did not own productive enterprises in any other countries. In practice, however, foreign ownership makes GDP and GNP non-identical. Production within a country's borders, but by an enterprise owned by somebody outside the country, counts as part of its GDP but not its GNP; on the other hand, production by an enterprise located outside the country, but owned by one of its citizens, counts as part of its GNP but not its GDP.
To take the United States as an example, the U.S.'s GNP is the value of output produced by American-owned firms, regardless of where the firms are located. Similarly, if a country becomes increasingly in debt, and spends large amounts of income servicing this debt this will be reflected in a decreased GNI but not a decreased GDP. Similarly, if a country sells off its resources to entities outside their country this will also be reflected over time in decreased GNI, but not decreased GDP. This would make the use of GDP more attractive for politicians in countries with increasing national debt and decreasing assets.
The raw GDP figure as given by the equations above is called the Nominal, or Historical, or Current, GDP. When comparing GDP figures from one year to another, it is desirable to compensate for changes in the value of money – i.e., for the effects of inflation or deflation. To make it more meaningful for year-to-year comparisons, it may be multiplied by the ratio between the value of money in the year the GDP was measured and the value of money in some base year. For example, suppose a country's GDP in 1990 was $100 million and its GDP in 2000 was $300 million; but suppose that inflation had halved the value of its currency over that period. To meaningfully compare its 2000 GDP to its 1990 GDP we could multiply the 2000 GDP by one-half, to make it relative to 1990 as a base year. The result would be that the 2000 GDP equals $300 million × one-half = $150 million, in 1990 monetary terms. We would see that the country's GDP had, realistically, increased 50 percent over that period, not 200 percent, as it might appear from the raw GDP data. The GDP adjusted for changes in money-value in this way is called the Real, or Constant, GDP.
The factor used to convert GDP from current to constant values in this way is called the GDP deflator. Unlike the Consumer price index, which measures inflation or deflation in the price of household consumer goods, the GDP deflator measures changes in the prices of all domestically produced goods and services in an economy–including investment goods and government services, as well as household consumption goods.
Constant-GDP figures allow us to calculate a GDP growth rate, which tells us how much a country's production has increased (or decreased, if the growth rate is negative) compared to the previous year.
Another thing that it may be desirable to compensate for is population growth. If a country's GDP doubled over some period but its population tripled, the increase in GDP may not be deemed such a great accomplishment: the average person in the country is producing less than they were before. Per-capita GDP is the measure compensated for population growth.
The level of GDP in different countries may be compared by converting their value in national currency according to either the current currency exchange rate, or the purchase power parity exchange rate.
Current currency exchange rate is the exchange rate in the international currency market.
The current exchange rate method converts the value of goods and services using global currency exchange rates. The method can offer better indications of a country's international purchasing power and relative economic strength. For instance, if 10% of GDP is being spent on buying hi-tech foreign arms, the number of weapons purchased is entirely governed by current exchange rates, since arms are a traded product bought on the international market. There is no meaningful 'local' price distinct from the international price for high technology goods.
The purchasing power parity method accounts for the relative effective domestic purchasing power of the average producer or consumer within an economy. The method can provide a better indicator of the living standards of less developed countries, because it compensates for the weakness of local currencies in the international markets. For example, India ranks 11th by nominal GDP, but fourth by PPP. The PPP method of GDP conversion is more relevant to non-traded goods and services.
GDP per capita is not a measurement of the standard of living in an economy. However, it is often used as such an indicator, on the rationale that all citizens would benefit from their country's increased economic production. Similarly, GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income. GDP may increase while real incomes for the majority decline. The major advantage of GDP per capita as an indicator of standard of living is that it is measured frequently, widely, and consistently. It is measured frequently in that most countries provide information on GDP on a quarterly basis, allowing trends to be seen quickly. It is measured widely in that some measure of GDP is available for almost every country in the world, allowing inter-country comparisons. It is measured consistently in that the technical definition of GDP is relatively consistent among countries.
The major disadvantage is that it is not a measure of standard of living. GDP is intended to be a measure of total national economic activity— a separate concept.
Proponents of GDP as a metric of social well being argue that it is a value neutral measure and expresses what we can do, not what we should do. This is compatible with the fact that different people have different preferences and different opinions on what well-being is. Competing measures like GPI define well-being to mean things that the definers ideologically support. Therefore, they cannot function as the goals of a plural society. Moreover, they are more vulnerable to political manipulation.
Non-market transactions–GDP excludes activities that are not provided through the market, such as household production and volunteer or unpaid services. As a result, GDP is understated. Unpaid work conducted on Free and Open Source Software (such as Linux) contribute nothing to GDP, but it was estimated that it would have cost more than a billion US dollars for a commercial company to develop. Also, if Free and Open Source Software became identical to its proprietary software counterparts, and the nation producing the propriety software stops buying proprietary software and switches to Free and Open Source Software, then the GDP of this nation would reduce, however there would be no reduction in economic production or standard of living. The work of New Zealand economist Marilyn Waring has highlighted that if a concerted attempt to factor in unpaid work were made, then it would in part undo the injustices of unpaid (and in some cases, slave) labour, and also provide the political transparency and accountability necessary for democracy. Shedding some doubt on this claim, however, is the theory that won economist Douglass North the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1993. North argued that the encouragement of private invention and enterprise due to the creation and strengthening of the patent system became the fundamental catalyst behind the Industrial Revolution in England.
Underground economy–Official GDP estimates may not take into account the underground economy, in which transactions contributing to production, such as illegal trade and tax-avoiding activities, are unreported, causing GDP to be underestimated.
Asset Value–GDP does not take into account the value of all assets in an economy. This is akin to ignoring a company's balance sheet, and judging it solely on the basis of its income statement.
Non-monetary economy–GDP omits economies where no money comes into play at all, resulting in inaccurate or abnormally low GDP figures. For example, in countries with major business transactions occurring informally, portions of local economy are not easily registered. Bartering may be more prominent than the use of money, even extending to services (I helped you build your house ten years ago, so now you help me).
Quality improvements and inclusion of new products–By not adjusting for quality improvements and new products, GDP understates true economic growth. For instance, although computers today are less expensive and more powerful than computers from the past, GDP treats them as the same products by only accounting for the monetary value. The introduction of new products is also difficult to measure accurately and is not reflected in GDP despite the fact that it may increase the standard of living. For example, even the richest person from 1900 could not purchase standard products, such as antibiotics and cell phones, that an average consumer can buy today, since such modern conveniences did not exist back then.
Sustainability of growth– GDP is a measurement of economic historic activity and is not a necessarily a projection. A country may achieve a temporarily high GDP from use of natural resources or by misallocating investment.
Nominal GDP doesn't measure variations in purchasing power or costs of living by area, so when the GDP figure is deflated over time, GDP growth can vary greatly depending on the basket of goods used and the relative proportions used to deflate the GDP figure.
Gross national happiness (GNH) – GNH measures quality of life or social progress in more holistic and psychological terms than GDP.
Gross national happiness – The Centre for Bhutanese Studies in Bhutan is working on a complex set of subjective and objective indicators to measure 'national happiness' in various domains (living standards, health, education, eco-system diversity and resilience, cultural vitality and diversity, time use and balance, good governance, community vitality and psychological well-being). This set of indicators would be used to assess progress towards gross national happiness, which they have already identified as being the nation's priority, above GDP.
OECD Better Lives Dashboard - The better lives compendium of indicators produced in 2011 reflects some 10 years by the organisation to develop a wider of set of indicators more closed attuned to the measurement of wellbeing or welfare outcomes. There is felt to be considerable convergence (in 2011) in high income countries about the kinds of dimensions that should be included in such multi-dimensional approaches to welfare measurement - see for instance the capabilities measurement research project capabilities approach.
Australian Bureau for Statistics, Australian National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Mathods, 2000. Retrieved November 2009. In depth explanations of how GDP and other national accounts items are determined.
United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Concepts and Methods of the United States National Income and Product AccountsPDF. Retrieved November 2009. In depth explanations of how GDP and other national accounts items are determined.
^ United States Bureau of Economic Analysis, A guide to the National Income and Product Accounts of the United StatesPDF, page 5; retrieved November 2009. Another term, "business current transfer payments," may be added. Also, the document indicates that Capital Consumption Adjustment (CCAdj) and Inventory Valuation Adjustment (IVA) are applied to the proprieter's income and corporate profits terms; and CCAdj is applied to rental income.
^ BEA, Concepts and Methods of the United States National Income and Product Accounts, p 12.
^ Australian National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2000, sections 3.5 and 4.15.
^ This and the following statement on entitlement to compensation are from Australian National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2000, section 4.6.
^ Concepts and Methods of the United States National Income and Product Accounts, page 2-2.
^ Australian National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2000, section 4.4.
^ Concepts and Methods of the United States National Income and Product Accounts, page 2-2; and Australian National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2000, section 4.4.
^ a b Concepts and Methods of the United States National Income and Product Accounts, page 2-4.
^ Concepts and Methods of the United States National Income and Product Accounts, page 2-5.
^ Lequiller, François; Derek Blades (2006). Understanding National Accounts. OECD. p. 18. ISBN 978-92-64-02566-0. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pXpJL6f8b3wC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Understanding+National+Accounts%22&source=bl&ots=_6_lHq-McY&sig=YqWljozkylpi4IFspFnjGwPicPw&hl=en&ei=4g7GTLT7OJCQjAfXiZ11&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22To%20convert%20GDP%20into%20GNI%22&f=false. "To convert GDP into GNI, it is necessary to add the income received by resident units from abroad and deduct the income created by production in the country but transferred to units residing abroad."
^ United States, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Glossary, "GDP". Retrieved November 2009.
^ "U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of Economic Analysis". Bea.gov. 2009-10-21. http://bea.gov/national/nipaweb/SelectTable.asp?Selected=Y. Retrieved 2010-07-31.
^ "National Accounts". Central Bureau of Statistics. http://www.central-bureau-of-statistics.an/SNA/sna_intro.asp. Retrieved 2011-06-29.
Some of the complications involved in comparing national accounts from different years are suggested in this World Bank document.
^ "Eric Zencey-G.D.P. R.I.P.". Nytimes.com. August 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/opinion/10zencey.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&emc=eta1. Retrieved 2011-01-31.
^ "First European Quality of Life Survey". http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/htmlfiles/ef0591.htm. | 2019-04-21T02:33:46Z | http://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/7496 |
posting using only emoticons are not allowed.
^^^ thanks for reminding me sir.
07. Observe the use of emoticons. Putting too much emoticons in your post is not allowed. Posting more than 2 emoticons continuously is not allowed. Using only pure emoticons for your post is a heavy indication of spamming. Same rules apply for Smileys.
but kaito sir what about the 1st image i post? what's the rule stated that is spamming?
The topic is about where one can find SCANDAL CDs in the US, so that should be what the discussion is about, so even thought that's the topic title, what the author wants to discuss is what will it be about. So as you can see you post has no relation to the topic whatsoever therefore considered a SPAM.
This can be a lesson to the repliers to always read the first post as it is the most important and also a lesson to topic starters to make a more clear topic title to avoid confusion.
Well yes you only posted an emoticon which is a violation of the rule you posted, though there's a quote there, that's still considered the quoted person's post and not yours.
I'm still a bit iffy on the spam system. I mean, rules like "don't cross the intersection on a red light" are easy to follow. But judgment calls like spam prevention, coupled with no clear guidelines and a simple "don't spam" order are not.
Belz... wrote: Hey. I also got a bit emotional at the end of Armageddon... I knew Tomo and I were made for each other !
Is not. I'd think that an endless string of "thank you"s in a thread would be considered spamming, at least by the original definition of the word. Now, you might say that my post was a bit off-topic, but spam ? It wasn't any more content free than most posts in that thread.
And now I learn that the spam status NEVER returns to normal ? The only way to clean it is to get banned for a week ? That's positively bizarre.
I mean, some sort of actual guideline would be nice. Sorry for the bother, but I'm a rules guy so, to me, rules have to be clear and moderation has to be transparent. It's hard to know what to avoid, especially since most posts on this forum are relatively light-hearted and content-free.
Thank you in advance for some clarification.
To be perfectly honest, I wasn't too fond of the system here.
All of this (I believe) is because of our current forumotion limitations.
I don't know if mc~ has any plans in the future to find a better solution than what we currently have, so I'll let him reply to this.
Most of the "spam" meters/notifications are completely done manually by us mods right now.
When I said completely, I mean almost everything.
I'd agree if we had a Thank you button, then there would be no need to write a post saying thanks, but since we dont, I think its fair enough to thank whoever helped/shared something you wanted with a post.
I cant help you with the other issue though, I dont usually mark posts as spam unless its completely off topic.
Well first of all there is no stable way of putting up a thanks system here so there would really be posts like that. Like Noodles said, thanking the contributor because of his/her post is fair enough. Though clear intention of spamming "thanks" just to increase post is an exemption.
As for your post, I also believe it can't be considered a SPAM. For now I don't know who placed SPAM on you since the moderator did not left any name on it like what I always do. I apologize for not guiding them properly to always do it that way. Reporting what moderators did that you think is not right is appreciated as it helps us to see our mistakes.
As for the rule that it cannot be restored. I've seen a lot of forum before that has the same warning system that cannot be restored as well. On my count, ever since the SPAM prevention system was made, there has been no member who has been permanently banned because he/she totally ran out of SPAM bar. It's because it's really easy not to spam. There are some who spammed once or twice and never did again. There are also members who didn't received a SPAM even once, so I don't see why we should be afraid of losing all the SPAM bar.
And as for everything else you said, thanks for voicing it out. I'll be needing a talk with the staffs regarding what needs to be done in this system.
Are we informed if our post is a spam? like a mail in our inbox so that we are aware?
Man this not good... I'm losing it.... O_O how do we get the bar back to clean is there anyway? Or does it always stay like it?
I can more or less understand why my posting is marked SPAM but how come the posting after mine that just says 'Love Haruna' is OK but mine is not ?
I'm not sure if you still see it, but it is there.
tonymiller wrote: I can more or less understand why my posting is marked SPAM but how come the posting after mine that just says 'Love Haruna' is OK but mine is not ?
Remember that the SPAM are marked manually, so if the mod who marked your post marked yours and not the one after it, he was probably not online when that post was made.
Considering that most posts outside of the "talk" sections are of that nature, I'd say 80% of everything on SH should be marked SPAM as well.
Topics are created to ensure people know the information and know what the bands are doing, not inviting people to go in and have a great chat and make comparisons or such. if you want to say, stay within the topic, and staffs like us won't do anything, or just come shoutbox and say. we don't create shoutbox for nothing.
by claiming that 80% of the posts will be marked SPAM, you need to think carefully. cause basically, I won't do that as most of our members here understand the rules and understand what is OFF TOPIC and what is ON TOPIC, and it can be clearly seen from here.
Can be not considered as spam, while a thoughtful one with content, discussing a picture in the very same thread, can be.
As for your comment, we obviously have differing understandings of what "on topic" means. I have the impression that the moderating team is willing to neither discuss the issue nor make the rules clearer; and the reason why most members evade the spam policy is because they're not actually having discussions, here. Which is odd, considering that this is a web forum.
I've honestly never encountered this situation on other forums, and I find it terribly unfortunate, as we have a fine community, here.
for those comments, yes, i will apologize for not marking the comments as SPAM, since it is my over-negligence, cause they are indeed SPAMs.
like i said, when we create a topic, yes, you can comment. but stay on topic. or if you feel you really need something, go to SCANDAL Talk, and say it out.
what for like an example, the recent media show, from a talk, it can lead to civil war, corruption. that is obviously off topic. and is not the 1st time i should say.
But take for example some innocuous comment on, say, the Mami picture thread. If someone wants to comment on the picture, ask a question or answer one... the idea to create a thread about it seems nice at first.
But that amounts to creating a whole thread, linking back to that picture, making a post, and hoping to get more than 2-3 replies. Would such a thread really be worth it ? I would think that, so long as the conversation doesn't go on for more than a very short number of posts, or goes woefully off-topic as you have illustrated, such an independent thread would be unnecessary.
The result, of course, is that no one ever creates those mini-threads. And since they don't, they get warned. In effect, discussion is therefore prevented. This is what I am finding unfortunate.
I saw what Tony post in the Haruna thread and I have to say: I'm with Tony and Belz on this.
Maybe yes, but remember that was the context of the topic that led the conversation toward that side. The spirit is always maintained, I think. Just about different criteria for the same thing.
Since we're all talking about this topic, I guess I should talk about it too.
I'm going to dissect this now. The topic was originally about the video, and the video was pretty much an interview. Okay, let's move on. Page 1, users start off talking about Mami, the hosts, and "what a man prefers". I have no problem with this, as it all relates back into the OP.
Right after this post, everything just split apart. That one post was the catalyst of the off-topic afterwards, and you can even say it's like the butterfly effect.
Right after, users talk about other celebrities visiting other countries, and then the civil war post. I actually don't mind the other stuff about the beaches, the dark side, etc. But you can see from where the thread originally was, to what it deviated to.
Rinaland wrote: Maybe yes, but remember that was the context of the topic that led the conversation toward that side. The spirit is always maintained, I think. Just about different criteria for the same thing.
I'm not sure how a civil war is a different criteria for Mami having a nice body, the hosts, or any context of the interview. If I missed anything, please point it out.
You're basically saying, if we're on the Haruna picture thread (I'm using your signature for example), and we talk about that orange chair. And then end up talking about furniture, then all of a sudden talk about orange dinosaurs, does that on-topic since the "spirit of orange" is still there?
Belz, I'm not sure what you're saying. But let's say you're in the Mami picture thread, you see some shampoo or something that she uses, and want to question about that. Okay sure I don't mind. But don't go talking about some other random shampoo you use or stylist you go to.
I'm not sure if you understood it all since we have different meanings of spam. If you still are not sure with what we deem "off-topic" or "SPAM worthy", don't hesitate to ask so I can continue to clarify.
No, Plutonium. I was definitely not talking about that topic, but about Tony's post and the forum in general.
Obviously, Dul7's post was quite obviously off-topic, and very personal to him. (Although I probably wouldn't moderate it since there was no follow-up).
But I've gotten warnings and PMs about discussions that were clearly related to whatever was the topic of the thread, mainly pictures and videos, and this is what I was referring to.
Okay, do you think you understand the system a little more now?
As for the warnings you've gotten that have SPAM marked on them, send me copies of them in a PM and I'll look into those.
And like I've said, forumotion limits us to do everything manually. Lots of problems can be caused by this.
Since I've been busy with school, I'm not really that active as I was before. So I'm not really updated with these threads you guys are talking about, but I made the staff fill me in and did some research myself as well.
What we're saying here is stay on-topic. Spam are post that are out of topic or does not help the topic at all, I dunno what part of that is hard to understand. Forum is where topics are created for it to be discussed, not post random things. Posting random things will just invite more random post like from the example Pluto mentioned above, that will just make the thread a chat box which is not. Say a member wants to find good info in the form of discussions in the thread, so he reads the thread, then he sees those random post that has no relation with the topic, will that help? No, he'll just waste time scrolling down these spams.
The random post I'm talking about here includes the "discussion" you are talking about. When I updated myself with the LOVE SURVIVE and the BABY ACTION thread, I saw there discussions that are supposed to be discussed in a forum and it helped me a lot. Not a random comment or a random joke that clearly does not help. I've been here for the longest time and I've seen a lot of good discussions and some "discussions", some because we do our best to prevent it. So if you say 80% of the post here are spam? Then that's clearly wrong.
Chat box are made for a reason inside forums. Take there random discussion and not look for a topic and start a random discussion.
About that creating a new thread just to ask something about a picture or comment on it, I find it stupid just from the start. If you want to ask something or make a comment then do so in the thread, I made those threads in one so that everything is there already and not make different threads for every picture. But if you're comment is "HARUNA KAWAII", then that's clearly a SPAM, should be marked, deleted, and warned. I can say "HARUNA KAWAII" or "Love Haruna" anytime I want, I can say it in the chat box anytime I want, but I don't see how those kinds of post will help a thread progress, therefore they are spam.
And guys, why post here if you see these kinds of post and rant "why my post marked spam when this post is supreme spam?", don't you see a REPORT button?
There are only 8 staffs and we're not full time with the forum, we have school and work as well. I'm extremely busy with school, Eugene with the army, kono with work. So it's not always we'll see every post made here everyday, there are times we might miss something, the reason that Report button is there is for you to help us.
I've been a lot of forums and I've been in two who has been also tight when it comes to preventing spam. So if you've never encountered one then that forum is light on preventing it.
This system will continue as it is, it's a lot of job for us but it's needed to clear the forum from spam. And as Pluto said, everything is done manually. If only there's something in the settings that say "Automatically mark spam and warn member", then I would really love that. But there's none, so it's manually done and there are always disadvantages of doing things manually.
And again if you see a post that you think is SPAM, don't post here or make a new thread, use the report button. Thank you.
mc~ wrote: The random post I'm talking about here includes the "discussion" you are talking about. When I updated myself with the LOVE SURVIVE and the BABY ACTION thread, I saw there discussions that are supposed to be discussed in a forum and it helped me a lot. Not a random comment or a random joke that clearly does not help.
I'm not sure I understand, then, if you think that my discussion with aron94 about the single was on-topic or not.
So if you say 80% of the post here are spam? Then that's clearly wrong.
You should check the picture gallery from time to time. Most posts do not add pictures and do not contribute to the thread. Personally I have no problem with this, but when thoughtful posts are marked as SPAM, then I disagree.
About that creating a new thread just to ask something about a picture or comment on it, I find it stupid just from the start. If you want to ask something or make a comment then do so in the thread, I made those threads in one so that everything is there already and not make different threads for every picture.
Good. But then I'm even more confused about the warnings I've personally gotten in the past.
Because I personally see nothing wrong with those posts. Are you saying that Tony's post was reported by someone ?
Belz... wrote: I'm not sure I understand, then, if you think that my discussion with aron94 about the single was on-topic or not.
He said it helped him catch up while he was gone.
Belz... wrote: You should check the picture gallery from time to time. Most posts do not add pictures and do not contribute to the thread. Personally I have no problem with this, but when thoughtful posts are marked as SPAM, then I disagree.
I mark the posts spam when I see utter non-sense posts. Never have I marked your post once. Ever.
Belz... wrote: Good. But then I'm even more confused about the warnings I've personally gotten in the past.
As I said earlier, send me a PM and I will look into these for you. Human error is always there when the things are done manually. You will have to understand that. If you disagree with your warning, PM me and we'll go over it.
Belz... wrote: Because I personally see nothing wrong with those posts. Are you saying that Tony's post was reported by someone ?
I went through the report logs and it was not. Again, human error due to the fact that it was done manually by one of the mods. Issues? PM me and I'll look into it for you.
I can say this, not once have I ever received a PM about member's posts that are marked spam, because I've PMed them before hand about the reason. If you disagree with one mod, take it on to another mod and see where that stands. | 2019-04-18T11:23:11Z | https://www.scandal-heaven.com/t1163p50-spam-prevention-system |
Economists invariably cop the tag of belonging to the pessimistic science since jokingly it is oft said by way of an introductory welcome to the podium …….Please welcome .......... who has successfully predicted 14 of the last two recessions.
Economic reputations suffered a further blow since most failed to predict the global financial crisis or identify sufficiently the consequences of the prior rising bubble.
There are notable exceptions but invariably their prior records are patchy enough to reasonably conclude this was the one prediction they just happened to get right at the right time. This patchiness is not surprising since bubbles don’t figure in economic or monetary theory nor are they included in the sophisticated economic models. Economics was never a science but is the art in dealing with the erratic human behaviors which can routinely make miserable fools of economic forecasters based upon rational outcomes. You spend most of your time looking in the rear vision mirror for any reflections indicative of the way forward.
I remember early student days full of debate on contemporary issues such as tariffs, subsidies, basic wage increases, international trade and regulatory issues for a banking system and so on. Today there is far more complexity and global interaction to consider, but I remember then many appalling decisions made in Australasia when life was simpler. Neverthless there are always lessons you can learn from studying past trade cycles, even to go far back to the great depression.
One aspect worth noting about the great depression is the assumed degree of speculation attributed by governments of the day and subsequent commentators. But if you undergo a thorough analysis of the prior trading conditions you find speculation was not nearly as rife as is commonly assumed. By way of example if you take the various PE ratios ( earnings to stock price ratios) for companies in the various industry sectors just before the massive fall in stock values you find a degree of normality that today would not cause undue concern. Lurking behind the bland facade however was the leveraged investment companies with their investments in overly valued utility companies which caused all of the havoc. Once values and profits fell in that one industry sector alone highly leveraged investments companies had to sell their shares to pay the margin lender. The same pattern happened with the individual investors in the Management Investments whose worthless investments meant they had to sell their remaining stock holdings in other sectors to cover their margin lending. Then the government talked simplistically about all of the greedy speculators as the only cause for an overvalued market which helped perpetuate the next downward spiral famously known (and still fearded )double dip. Most of the self perpetuating downward spirals were driven by leverage and subsequant sentiment but not substance that culminated in a collective fall of 89% with all of its accompanying misery.
After my studies and during my subsequent career I have almost always been responsible for forecasting economic indices and have endeavored as far as possible to follow economics which I have found both to be very interesting but equally frustrating.
When I first studied Keynes and Samuelson dominated our textbooks.
Keynes was one of the first philosophical economists who insisted economic theories must lead to fairer more ethical outcome for everyone. Keynes’ views were no doubt forged from his desire to avoid a repeat of the great depression where he held onto his shares and subsequently lost his fortune along with many others. Throughout his life he remained a colourful witty character devoted to the arts, nature and conservation to the extent he was miles ahead of his time. His highly developed mathematics gave way to theories suggesting the need for the creation of a strong regulatory regime to prudently effectively use both monetary (supply of money and interest rates) and fiscal policy (government spending and taxation) to help iron out inevitable economic imbalances were adopted in Australia.
In the USA Economics was to eventually turn away from Keynes to a different route with the rise in power of the economic monetarists who suggested you only need to vary the volume of money in circulation (money, bank deposits in demand and related interbank deposits with overnight liquidity)and interest rates to effectively control imbalances between supply and demand.This suited successive governments and business since it involved less regulatory resources and ensuing compliance as was proposed by Keynes and others. These ideas inevitably filtered through to Australia as the economy in the USA seemed to be traveling well.Subsequently the USA rode out the Savings and Loan fiasco and the Dotcom bubble but only at the expense of a burgeoning debt burden.
However fortuitously our economy in Austrtalia was to benefit enormously from increased taxation revenue derived from a mining boom wisely squirreled away in reserves for a rainy day,( some since released for a number of stimulatory measures) our close ties to the expanding Asian region and because we invested in a more effective regulatory regime following our largest corporate collapse in Australia - the demise of HIH.
At that time officials at APRA – The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority correctly concluded that any large bank, financial, insurance or related entity could fail and with sufficient negative sentiment bring down the entire economy with them. They set about regularity changes to improve and more closely monitor solvency ratios and risk management practices with quarterly reporting requirements for all of our major institutions which caused a considerable amount of angst within the business community. These factors, inclusive of the tyranny of distance aspect which separated us from the sharper end of the pencil where all of the sub prime action was taking place ensured our lucky escape so far to date.
Recently in the US I was disappointed to see mooted bank regulatory changes are to be confined to increasinging capital requirements rather than ensuring unregulated derivatives are separated out and excluded from cover under their banking licenses.
Even Hedge fund billionaire George Soros and Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Manager are calling for urgent limits on credit-default swaps- one of the prior subprime culprits. These instruments are unnecessary since there already exists regulated conventional insurance products able to cover risk. The current banking structure leaves those large institutions in the same vunerable position as existed prior to the crisis. I hope there is change in heart.
Longer term my prediction is for continued weakness in the USA dollar to ultimately lead to higher inflation and inevitably higher interest rates. But in the medium term as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke (who co incidebtally did his PHD on the trade cycle which involved studying Keynes and the great depresion effects )correctly points out U.S. interest rates will be kept low for quite some time, because of prolonged weakness.
Meanwhile if the American economy does stabilize and begin to give grounds for some genuine hope of a rebound, which I earnestly hope it will, then I also predict there will be an abundance of born-again Keynesians to poke up their heads from under a winters burrow.
Socialists, charity workers, care givers, people who volunteer to help others; they're all in reality mean spirited bastards, self-deceiving bastards or - for their own filthy left-wing reasons - deliberately trying to destroy the self-esteem of normal, healthily ambitious people like them. If everybody is nakedly ambitious and selfish, everybody knows where they are and those who have clambered to the top of the pile can feel pride rather than shame.
Being extremely wealthy and powerful is rather like living on top of a very high mountain. You don't look down to see the people on the ground because clouds get in the way - clouds of toadies and synchophants who serve to flatter and weasel whatever benefits they can grab for themselves.
I'm afraid what we've got nowadays is a very nasty disease.
everything financial was modeled by factoring various risk scenarios; the theory was you could quantify risk and price debt accordingly.
the problem, it turned out, was in the improper setting of worst-case parameters. it was all quite logical from a narrow point of view, for a while.
by focusing solely on the trees, the model lost sight of the forest.
all sense of scale was lost.
the sadness and misery that followed for so many people is astonishing.
Hi Susan – thanks for dropping by.
In attempting to complete your event registration we wish to advise that session Professional and Ethical Standards update" has been cancelled due to low interest. Please refer to our micro site for a description of the other available sessions Please note: Places for computer-based sessions are limited, please respond ASAP to this email to ensure your place at these sessions.
I hope that’s not a sign of the times here.
I agree that excessive desire for wealth is evident everywhere and is possibly symbolized in the executive remuneration for US employees which I think can be up to 5 times the rate of mangers in other countries who do similar work. This was also true of American executives in the 1980s, but C.E.O.’s compensation in large companies has since grown more than six fold since. You would know more about the extent of greed in the US than me but I think maybe you have painted about the gloomiest picture I have ever read about what you imagine the wealthy people you have in mind actually think.
We always had the impression – maybe erroneously – that there were equally a large number of wealthy Americans who freely gave very generously of their time and resources to support their communities and carers. My involvement is limited to working with larger corporations who always had extensive US interests and apart from being amazed at the need to pay larger salaries (or so we were told) the people themselves – wealthy or otherwise- didn’t give me grounds to share such a gloomy assessment. But no doubt working in the private health industry however you have come across some pretty vitriolic attacks from self engrossed private health providers who fear losing a good deal of wealth in the event of improved regulatory and much needed fairer community health outcomes.
From my perspective Australian companies are adopting more socially environmental responsible and ethical business practices into their operations - albeit that much more needs to be done! I agree however such action is somewhat of a misnomer and it is an indictment of our civilized state to have to emphasize now what should have always been the case.From what i know it's also occurring in some industries in the US as well.
Yes –thanks for your thoughts which summarize what happened in a nutshell combined with excessive leveraging. There is also a strong case for limiting remuneration within the financial industry. A manager’s remuneration is currently dependent on the total value of money managed with added incentives to invest in highly leveraged risky assets to yield higher average returns to compete more favorably with other funds. This is a dangerous cocktail which exposes everyone to a much larger systemic risk.
We always think that the future is fresh and we need fresh ideas – that is true to a large degree – but we can also learn from past history. What went wrong with the highly leveraged management investment companies and leveraged investors in the great depression is not that much different to the subprime malaise you have just witnessed with its attendant misery.
In fact the only really big difference is there was a lot more misery back then then now and hopefully it went on for a lot longer than what will happen on this occasion.
Thanks for your kind response to my rant of last evening. You're right that I sometimes do get very distressed and angry about my day to day dealings with the medical insurance industry and every so often I surprise myself by expressing my own frustration in terms that I hope are at least lucid, if not necessarily completely true.
Just yesterday a very bright and well educated young colleague in the business office asked me if there were any countries with single payer health coverage then went on to say - oh yes, Canada, right? I think I may have actually spluttered before telling him that every first world country except the US had it.
I can very well imagine your own surprise in getting that email about the Professional and Ethical Standards update having been cancelled due to a lack of interest. I hope it's not a general sign of things changing there since we certainly need more courses being taught in ethics while there are still people who know the meaning of the word.
Next time I feel an urge to write such scathing prose I'll try to leave it in the claws of my sardonic friend, Crow (who knows better than I to keep it light).
Keeping my fingers crossed, I send you best regards.
You’re welcome to make a rant at any time in the future especially if it helps clear your head following a frustrating day at the office. I am sure there is elements of truth in what you say and my responses was more a matter of thoughts from afar which naturally enough will not be tinged by any day to day experiences at the coal face so to speak.
Meanwhile I notice the debate continues as to whether or not the Fed is in the best authority to oversee intended consumer protection laws to help reduce the likelihood of the previous abusive practices involving mortgages, credit cards and other financial products from reoccurring.
You cannot legislate morality but I think there is plenty of room to ensure Financial Service providers are better regulated in the future, to be required to maintain a working document – subject to audit - setting out and explaining how risk and client appropriateness is linked to the services offered and supported by product disclose statements. Such an approach usually necessities a massive additional training impost within a firm’s staff to ensure standards of accreditation are maintained. It is impossible to implement such training requirements without encountering ethical questions about ultimatedly what everyone is trying to achieve – integrity/ transparency/ understanding – in addition to profit.
I find it difficult to understand how your Fed, given its present structure, can meet that challenge unless it restructures itself into separate compliance divisions. But ultimately, of much greater importance I fear a huge underestimation of the extent of the task ahead after many decades of regulatory laxity. It’s a matter of changing a culture and changing culture is a dam side harder than most realize and invariably takes a lot longer and more resources than you think. . But that is just my perspective from afar – maybe there is more work being undertaken that I can gauge so I would like to hear about a contrary viewpoint.
if economists have forecast 14 of the last 2 recessions, perchance their prediction of a long, anemic recovery is equally overstated.
Excellent point Sera –as you are no doubt aware even the veritable Dr Doom himself - Noriel Roubini started talking about “light at the end of the tunnel, ” only to confirm in his next breath “The recovery is going to be extremely anemic” and talk about the dreaded graphical U bends.
In think the risks are real enough but I’m not sure it helps to keep emphasizing that point to enshrine what may become a self forfulling prophesy.
Interestingly enough, just today more announcements were made about the American dollar being in imminent peril of losing the status it's held since Bretton Woods as the world reserve currency. No more Petro dollars. Will the new one be called a bric or will we be looking for yuan to buy our daily bread?
"peaks of glory with noble gasps of exertion"
i like that lindsay! thank you. brave words indeed.
Susan –True –maybe the US$ is safe enough just for now, but long term only a rebalance from the previous huge imbalances will save the day. The way forward is for China to place more reliance on internal infrastructure spending rather than continued overreliance on consumer type exports. The US would have been much better served to have engaged in more dialogue with China to discuss their mutual economic objectives. The latest move to jack up tariffs on imported Chinese tyres, risks further retaliatory measures.
China is currently holding $4 trillion in US denominated debt securities – e g mainly in Treasuries –and for China to avoid a devaluation requires a change in policy to readdress the current massive imbalances.
Hence I think any success in maintaining the value of the US dollar will have much more to do with the action of China and other developing nations than on the US. Meanwhile the US government just ran a record $US1.4 trillion ($A1.5 trillion) budget deficit for 2009 fiscal to surpass all previous records.
hey i saw australia recently RAISED interest rates! congratulations. that means things must be pretty good there.
our rates are projected to stay at nearly zero for a bit longer, in an attempt to keep the economy limping along.
We should not hide our talents. Show it to them and make use of it. It would be great if you have your own investment and use your talent on it. It would be a pleasant idea for your property investment. | 2019-04-19T10:18:08Z | http://lindsaylobe.blogspot.com/2009/09/economics-in-australia-compared-to-us.html |
This section of the Grodno Yizkor book deals with the history of the community from the Nazi invasion until the ghettoization of the community. The time period covered is from June 23 to November 2, 1941. The Hebrew is quite difficult, and the sentence structure and choice of words in the original Hebrew are somewhat awkward. I have done my best to balance the conflicting needs of a near literal translation with readable English prose, however, I may have erred on either side of the equation.
In the darkness of the night of June 23, 1941 an infernal fire from the heavens suddenly rocked Grodno. Grodno was one of those cities in the Russian zone which was the first to be the victim of the lightning air raid by the Nazi warplanes. Wave after wave of air raids stormed down upon Grodno, spreading a hailstorm of bombs, explosions and fires. The first bombs fell in the area of the bridge by the Nieman river, near the army barracks. A paralyzing panic overtook the distraught residents, who at first did not realize the extent of their tragedy, and had no idea as to how and where to find refuge.
Half of the residential dwellings in Grodno were destroyed by the fires caused by these raids. In the suburbs, all of the areas south of Lipova Street were destroyed, including the old wooden synagogue. In the city itself, everything above the Neman, from "Podol" to Batori Square, all the way up to the corner of the Street of the Fortress "Zamkova", and from the intersection of Mieszczanski and Bonifraterska Streets ("the New Marketplace") until the water pumpstower was destroyed.
On the previous day, the Soviets authorities had arranged a "cleansing", and expelled from the city all people who were felt by them to be "undesirable elements". However now, even the men of the armed forces fled the city for their lives, and left the residents to their fate.
The roads to the east were filled with groups of Jews fleeing from the enemy, who had destroyed everything behind their backs. The preying bombers left everything burning behind them, caught up to the fleeing columns of people, and spread destruction among them just as they had done in the city. Anyone who remained alive would have no choice but to retrace his steps, in the midst of the confusion, and to make his way amongst the strewn corpses and the wounded who were abandoned and left wallowing in their death throes. Only very few of our people of Grodno were lucky enough to be able to succeed in their escape to the interior of Russia, on the other side of the war front, even with whatever would be in store for them there.
As soon as Grodno was captured by the Nazis, the local antisemites began to outwardly express the full measure of their hatred of their Jewish neighbors, that up until that time they had kept in their hearts. With public proclamations, the Germans presented themselves as redeemers who came to "free the Poles from the Jewish-Masonic yoke". When a severe food shortage began to overtake the city, and everyone would wait in long lineups in order to obtain a small morsel of bread those consumed with hatred would push out from the lineup with force anyone who even resembled a Jew.
Two days after the invasion by the German troops, all Jews between the ages of sixteen and sixty were conscripted for hard labor from than time and onward, without any payment in money or food. Everyone was required to assemble each morning in the courtyard of the great synagogue, and from there they were sent to their work assignments. Everyone was required to have a "work certificate", upon which would be recorded whether and in what manner they fulfilled their daily work quota.
In the outlying regions, Jewish wayfarers, including women, were hunted down and conscripted for "labor". This purpose of this "labor" was generally merely torture. In the "Royal" caf?, where the German field police set up office, the Germans would dish out death blows to these conscripts, issue libels against them, spread them with excreta, dunk them naked into pools of water and order them "soap" each other with brick shards. All of this would take place to the rhythm of music, as the Nazi sadists would prod them on, and take photographs of this "delightful show".
The Jewish women who were forced to work in backbreaking labor, would be commanded to remove their clothes, use them to scrub the floor, and then put them back on again, now covered with the dirt and grime. The onlookers would not be satisfied with this spectacle until they poured the dirty wash water upon them. On one occasion, the Jewish women were brought to the vegetable gardens, and ordered to remove the weeds without crouching or kneeling, but only by stooping over.
As of June 30, the Jews were forbidden to enter the markets and to walk on the sidewalks. The Jews were only permitted to walk on the right side of the paved roadways, and they were permitted to walk only as individuals. They were required to remove their hats before any uniformed German officer, to tie a white band with a blue Magen David on their left arms, and to mark their houses with a Magen David. After some time, a command was issued that the band should be replaced with a yellow patch in the shape of a Magen David, which would be sewn to the outer garment on the left side of both the chest and the back.
After about twelve days from the time that the Germans entered the city, the Jews were required to register, and their identity cards were stamped with the word "Jew". Radio receivers were confiscated, and it was forbidden to listen to any broadcast. Beating of Jews on the street, attacks upon them and their houses, pillage, and other such acts of terror became daily occurrences.
Approximately two weeks after the Nazi invasion of Grodno, the army field headquarters ordered a certain Jewish interpreter, David Brayer, who had previously been the director of the "Tarbut" Hebrew education system, to set up a Jewish representation in the city, and to act as the chairman. This "Jewish council", i.e. "Judenrat", was to consist of ten members at the outset, and was to be put together within 24 hours.
It is related that there was a difference of opinion among the various communal leaders whom were invited by Brayer to decide whether to comply with the command to set up the Judenrat. Some of them felt that this was simply a ploy on the part of the Nazis to have the Jewish leadership help them carry out their murderous designs. However, the majority felt that it was necessary to set up a committee which would lead the community, and would be able to intervene to blunt the severity of the decrees. Furthermore, it would be inconceivable not to be in a position to be able to deal with, immediately and with full effort, those who had been burnt or orphaned during the raids, the poverty stricken ill people, as well as all others who were living in misery, whose numbers were increasing rapidly in the Jewish community of the city.
Brayer managed to set up a committee that included representatives from all the various streams and currents within the community, with the exception of the communists. The ten members of the Judenrat were as follows: David Brayer, who was appointed as "Head of the Jews" of Grodno; The lawyers Yitzchak Gozansky and Avraham Zadai; from among the Jewish business leaders and their representatives in the communal structure, Avraham Lifschitz, the chairman of the Cooperative Merchant's Bank, and its director Yaakov Efron; the manufacturer Asher Kosovsky; the economist and expert in financial matters, who was the previous vice mayor Yehushua Suchovlansky; Tzvi Tarlovski; the Orthodox communal leader Reb Zeev Wolf Berman; and Dr. Sh. Bik.
The number of members of the Judenrat later grew to 24. The additional members included: the "Tarbut" teachers Dr. Tzvi Belkow, Yisrael Landau, Zeev Yekel, and Yisrael Grob; the industrialist Aharon Jezersky; the physician and Bund leader Dr. Yehuda Lipnick; the lawyer Y. Fuerstenberg; and after some time the lithographist Leizer Meilachovitz, who later resigned from his post. From individual testimony we also note that additional members of the Judenrat included the lawyer Yehoshua Neubauer, and also Avramovitz, who was a textile businessman in the suburbs.
In the beginning of July, a branch of the "Gestapo" arrived in Grodno. (Gestapo is the "Geheime Staatspolizei", i.e. the Nazi State Secret Police.) They ordered the Judenrat to provide them with a list of "respected Jews" of the city. It was well known that any order of the Nazi authorities, and of the Gestapo in particular, would be accompanied by a threat that the non-fulfillment of the order at its set time would result in the deportation for execution of a certain number of Jews. Furthermore, at that time, the Jewish communities could not even fathom the demonic events that were yet to come. Therefore, the requested list was presented to the authorities.
Immediately thereafter, the oppressors arrested 80 members of the intelligentsia and leadership of the city, and deported them without leaving any trace. Only after some time did it become known that they were all murdered in cold blood in the neighboring fortresses. This was the first organized slaughter perpetrated by the Nazi scum upon the Jews of Grodno. Grodno was not the only community that suffered in this manner, however no community was aware of what the murderers perpetrated upon any sister community, since all communities were sealed off from each other, having being surrounded by the murderous enemy.
Thus were bound and sacrificed the choicest citizens of Jewish Grodno, may their blood be avenged. Among them were the youthful Rabbi Reb Tzvi Hirsch the son of Michel David Rozovski; the lawyers Moshe Glicksfeld and Refael Lobman; from amongst the respected teachers the historian of Grodno Dr. Chaim Wolitzker, and also Kaminsky (both were from the Real Gymnasia; Yehoshua Fruchterman and Yosef Wigdorovitz, and others.
At the beginning of August, Grodno was annexed to the region of White Russia. An evil monster by the name of Beker was appointed as the regional governor. He later became the governor of Minsk, and was responsible for the annihilation of its Jewry. This despot would instill the fear of death on any member of the Judenrat who came into contact with him. He immediately imposed a heavy levy of utensils and clothing upon the Jews, accompanied by severe threats. Later, this levy was extended to include money as well.
The Judenrat had no choice but to fulfill this requirement, and to satiate the Nazi lust for extortion. Two departments were set up for this purpose, one for expropriation of property, and one for financial matters. The first department was responsible for the collection from the Jewish homes of furniture, table cloths, sets of serving utensils, and whatever other objects were desired by the German command. The first task of the financial division was to collect the ransom money of the community for the Nazi government. Special one time levies were imposed for this purpose on anyone who was financially able, and after some time, and organized taxation system was set up. During the course of several weeks, approximately 200,000 dollars was extorted from the Jews of Grodno half of whom already had been burnt to death during the air raids, and the other half of whom had become impoverished during the time of Soviet rule.
The most important task of the Judenrat, over and above its obligatory tasks for which it was founded, was to insure adequate provisions for the Jews of the city, and especially to do what could be done to relieve the hunger of the many indigents of the community. The social assistance division was set up, and began to function immediately. A collection was taken up on behalf of the needy, and the Jewish community responded generously with an open hand and provided in particular clothing and shoes. In the attic of the former communal offices on Hodwera Street, where the Judenrat was now located, a temporary laundry service was set up, and volunteers would come to wash, fix, and iron sheets and clothing that would be distributed to the needy. Bread and money was also distributed to them.
At the same time, the Judenrat set up a registration division, and after some time, a division for supply and work assignment. Afterward the "Ordnungsdienst" ("Jewish guard" so to speak) was founded. This was the militia, or Jewish police.
At the end of September, the Jews who resided on the main streets Dominikanska and Orzeszkowej, and the residents of "Slobodka" were ordered to vacate their premises within a matter of hours. Those expelled lost not only their real estate, but also most of their moveable property, since they were not permitted to move their belongings or to make any other arrangements.
After some time, Grodno was transferred from the boundaries of White Russia, and annexed to the eastern portion of the Third Reich as part of the Bialystok region, at first de jure, and as of March 1942 de facto.
Very quickly thereafter, the holocaust which the Nazis inflicted on the multitudes of the Jews of Vilna, replete with all of its atrocities, came upon Grodno as the tidings of Job. News arrived of slaughter in the towns neighboring Grodno, of the burning of houses of study, and the frightful atrocities perpetrated our brethren of the House of Israel. However, the vast majority of the Jewish community of Grodno, and also Bialystock, maintained the false hope that the evil would not reach them, since in the "Third Reich", if the residents were "compliant" "such things would not be done".
At that time, rumors were spread that the Jews of Grodno would imminently be confined to a ghetto, and that a specific area was being set aside for the ghetto. Nevertheless, this rumor could not yet be verified, and there were different opinions in the community. Those who had faith claimed: "In the Third Reich, things would not come to this point", and they thought that most probably, the enemy simply wished to prevent the Jews from doing business or visiting those who were not Jewish. They could not imagine that tens of thousands would be locked up behind a barbed wire fence, and they certainly could not imagine that this would be a step toward the annihilation of an entire people. On the other hand, the Jews were already getting tired of the barging in of the Nazis into their homes, and the other endless atrocities that were perpetrated, and they thought that if they would be concentrated together and shut off from the outside perhaps they would be better protected.
Even so, the grinding suspicion in the heart and the fear of what was to come embittered the lives of the Jews, and did not grant them any respite. The news from the battlefronts also did not give any reason for positive hope, since the Nazi soldiers were at the height of their success, as they stood at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad.
Many began to feverishly prepare for the days that were coming by stockpiling food, and selling at a reduced price their furniture and other belongings that would not be readily transportable at a time of danger. Thus, the neighbors of the Jews seized the unusual opportunity to profit from the tragedy of the Jews, and to acquire with mere pennies the fruits of their years of labor. The zealous farmers would make the rounds in the city, and return to their villages in great joy, with their wagons overflowing with goods purchased from the homes of the Jews, which came into their possession for mere near worthless coins. Christian "friends" would come to their Jewish acquaintances to request hypocritically that they be allowed to watch over some of their property "until the time of danger passes". There were also those who "invited" victims to their homes, threatened to betray them to the Gestapo as "profiteers", and then took from them the clothes off their back and their last coat as they chased them away.
Rumors began to circulate in the community that there would not be one ghetto for the Jews of Grodno, but rather two ghettos. This news caused great trepidation, particularly among those who were familiar with the situation in Vilna, and the frightful end of one of its ghettos. At that time a decree was issued that all Jews who were working at jobs were required to obtain an "worker's card", that could be obtained from the government for a hefty price. Everyone regarded such a card as a certificate of salvation, since it was clear that the Nazi war machine required workers and professionals, and those who held such a card would certainly not be first in line on the day of judgement. Everyone who had any sellable belongings attempted to sell them at any price, and then to hurry to the Judenrat offices in order to wait in line with the throngs who were struggling for the opportunity to obtain this card. They would then be regarded as a glassmaker, baker, electrician, or other such tradesman, and would then be guaranteed a longer life.
The distribution of these cards ended on a Friday, and the Sabbath had not yet spread its wings upon Jewish Grodno, when a frightful proclamation was issued: The Germans requested two work groups to present themselves on the Sabbath with spades and axes. Some thought that this was a preparation for a mass slaughter, and others thought that this was in preparation for the establishment of the ghetto. In the early hours of the Sabbath of November 1st 1941, signs in large black letters surrounded by a wide red border appeared all over, announcing the "decree to prepare a Jewish section in Grodno".
The next day, Sunday November 2, the Jews were ordered to move into two quarters which were set aside for them. The first, "Ghetto A", was reserved for the workers. Its center was "Shulhauf", and it included the area surrounding the great synagogue until Vilna St. on one side, and from the banks of the Gorodnitzanka River until the northern side of Zamkova Street, and the yards of the houses whose fronts faced Dominikovska street on the other side. "Ghetto B" was reserved for the rest of the Jews, those who were "non productive". Its place was in "Slobodka" from the slope above the railway track to the highway to Pogulyanka on one side, and from the supply road to Sdikel to the Christian cemetery on the other side.
The Jews were commanded to move into the ghettos not earlier than 12 noon, and not later thanl 6 in the afternoon, from which time it was forbidden to them to leave these areas. Anyone violating this command would be punished in the most severe fashion.
The work groups went out to their work, and set up posts two meters high around the ghettos in the areas set off, and set up barbed wire fences between these posts. Only one gate was provided for each ghetto.
During the course of the Sabbath, some people tried to smuggle their belongings into the ghetto. However, there was a large network of German and Polish police in all corners of the city, who would confiscate any items from the Jews who were passing by, and would dish out death blows in return. The local Christians also participated in the hunting down of Jews, and they displayed a special enthusiasm for turning them in to the guards.
That night, the first snowfall fell upon Grodno. In the morning the snow began to melt, and the ground became covered with puddles of water, as well as deep, sticky mud. At the set time, the Jews began to take to the streets in large multitudes and migrate toward the ghettos, with their packages over their shoulders, in wheelbarrows or in baby carriages. The use of vehicles of any other means of transportation was forbidden to them. Most of them did not know to which of the two ghettos they were supposed to go, and there was a great deal of confusion and aimless wandering. Everyone tried to get into the ghetto as quickly as possible, so that they would be able to find some type of shelter for themselves and their household. Polish and German guards were stationed on the routes to the ghetto to keep order, so to speak. In reality, this only added to the confusion and perplexity. They would search the belongings of the Jews who were moving along in haste, and pillage anything that they wanted. The "aryan" neighbors also assisted them, so to speak, and took for themselves anything that they desired.
Prior to entry to the ghetto there was an "inspection", and the gate to the ghetto was very narrow. On that rainy day, the multitudes of the people of Israel of Grodno, 15,000 people, from the aged to the suckling child, stood in that place of suffering in a line that extended the full length of Batori Square and Zamkova Street, all the way to the entrance to the narrow slaughterhouse lane, which was "Yatke Gesel". They waited and hoped that they would be permitted to enter their prison.
This was a frightful scene to behold, as related by one eyewitness: an entire nation found itself in a state of confused haste, laden with their remaining "belongings" on their backs, just as the nation was during the exodus from Egypt, which seemed like a child's game when compared with this entrance to the ghetto. In the arms of many of them were children who were wailing, frozen from the cold, and all of them were pushing and crushing each other to the point of danger. They were confounded and quivering, and many picked fights with each other due to their frustration. One would have the idea to return quickly to his house, which he had just abandoned, in order to take one more item of his belongings, or to take some sticks for firewood, while his friend would be seized with worry that he would tarry too long, and would no longer be able to find shelter for himself and his family.
The evil Nazis, ever greedy for booty, who were in charge of the "inspection" of the luggage, were mulling about in a frenzy, spreading chaos and confusion as they were wont to do, and thereby increasing the panic and suffering. Any item of value which their hearts desired was "confiscated" and added to their own belongings. Any other object which they wished to pillage from the Jews was simply cast into the mud where it was ruined.
A crowd of local Poles, as well as civilian Germans gathered around, including the "Sisters of Mercy", daughters of the Teutonic "Master Race", who worked at the nearby military hospital. They "assisted" in the inspection, so to speak. They did not skip over one man, they did not recoil from searching the pockets and even the private parts of any person, and they did not hesitate to seize anything that their hearts desired, even small and insignificant items.
Heaps of remnants of the hard earned belongings of the Jews including footstools, their last pillow, furniture and couches were piled up in front of everyone just outside of the barbed wire fence of the ghetto, with nobody to care for them.
Such was the entrance to the "privileged" ghetto A, which was reserved for those working people who were able to acquire a "worker's permit". Such was also the entrance to ghetto B, which was set aside for the remainder of the Jews, including those professionals who were not fortunate enough to be able to redeem their imaginary "certificate of salvation".
At six o'clock in the evening the gates were locked. The Jews of Grodno were now locked in their prison.
is the Judenrat headquarters. Waiting in line to enter the ghetto.
On the way to the ghetto. Nazis search the Jews as they enter. After the "search". On right, marked by an X is Yehudit Lapin. | 2019-04-20T10:15:00Z | https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/grodno/gro519.html |
WWE Wrestling – The Thing You Might Have To Understand When You Like It!
The WWE Wrestling is actually a globally activity which has come to be a phenomenon currently. Each kid and adult is familiar with and it is aware on the latest happenings on the planet of WWE Wrestling. It is a very popular activity which has been far more popularized by its use in motion pictures, audio films and tv exhibits. Not simply do individuals appreciate seeing this merely to assistance their favourite wrestlers nonetheless they also enjoy it mainly because this can be something that provides them an adrenaline hurry. The joy and also the rush that you just come to feel if you view a WWE Wrestling match is incomparable. So, the number of fans is rising daily and so are definitely the dedicated followers on the matches. In actual fact, youngsters even try to emulate their favourite stars and check out and dress up like them. You can find lots of merchandise accessible out there similar to Wrestlemania 2019 Live Stream that is definitely extremely preferred not just along with the little types and also with all the grown ups.
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You will discover various locksmith companies which include set up and fix of locks, replacing misplaced keys or producing duplicates of current ones, furnishing your home and safety using the variety of safety devices that fulfill all of your necessities, aiding you in unexpected emergency predicaments where you have to dismantle or break down locks as a way to achieve access to your own home or car or truck in addition to for setting up safes more help.
Locksmiths now are well equipped to handle enhancements in technologies which requires them to concentrate on the workings of electronic locks and this kind of. A lot of them are experienced about programming this kind of locks which might be utilised mostly in motels or in business institutions that call for greater levels of safety.
The conditions to currently being a locksmith apart from a flair for mechanisms and instrumentation are acquiring superior eyesight and a steady hand having a willingness to learn while you go alongside. Dependability and trustworthiness tend to be the other hallmarks of the occupation.
A locksmith is 1 that is entrusted with setting up locks and preserving your possessions from theft or even a split in and hence really need to be incredibly have faith in deserving them selves. When you might be tainted having a undesirable reputation there isn’t any future.
The most important part of a locksmiths function in olden times used to be making locks. That is not the situation any longer since the producing of locks is done with a massive scale by companies who specialize in them. Nowadays the locksmith is limited all other expert services that are demanded by men and women who use locks.
Essentially the most frequent locksmith expert services which are rendered is duplicating keys or producing new ones. When you drop a crucial to the lock or need a replicate designed to make sure that two or even more individuals can acquire access, you visit a locksmith. It is possible to either provide them which has a important in case you have one particular and even when you do not, a great locksmith can certainly recreate a key for you personally. Locksmiths also mend faulty or weakened locks.
Vascular Surgical Procedures – Precisely What Is This Healthcare Technique?
The health practitioner who focuses primarily on this industry of medication treats blood vessel difficulties, apart from individuals connected to the guts. These doctors could deal with sufferers who’ve experienced ailments or traumas, and those that have broken blood vessels and want blood flow restored to some particular spot in the system. This can be prevalent with those people which have diabetic issues. A affected individual might start off to have blood flow challenges within their extremities and might be referred to the professional to find out if vascular surgical procedure would help the problem.
Vascular surgeons obtain education and learning and education to deal with clients who are suffering from these health care conditions. Many of the treatments they administer contain stenting of veins and arteries, negligible invasive balloon angioplasty, and reconstructive methods. They also supply their clients counseling to help you them to cope with the problems they can be struggling with.
Many of the instances these surgeons choose on are emergencies that call for speedy interest. Other individuals are urgent conditions that needs to be referred to the vascular surgery professional inside each day or two. You will also find some non-urgent circumstances such as asymptomatic carotid artery narrowing, leg pain as a result of lousy circulation, and continual leg inflammation on account of lymphatic or venous problems that need to have interest, but usually are not immediate concerns.
Not every single affected person that is referred to this type of specialist is looking for radiological or surgical intervention. Some of them need to have guidance about transforming the way in which they stay, for example slimming down and commencing an training system. Patients require reassurance with regard to the value of having the ideal steps to reduce their possibility of cardiovascular disease or stroke. This will likely contain hypertension regulate or antiplatelet and lipid-lowering remedy. Cigarette smoking is usually a important induce of ailments that adversely have an impact on the blood vessels. It is estimated that in excess of eighty p.c of individuals with vascular circumstances are smokers or previous smokers.
Some individuals who’re referred to specialists by their primary care physicians will require being referred to more professionals for example radiologists or medical vascular experts. They might would like to discuss with the personal the prospect of radiology, whilst some men and women will require to own vascular surgical treatment.
As you can see, several fields are available for you personally to undertaking in coaching enterprise but it’s advisable to select your knowledge – the key space in which you are extremely good at.
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3. Understand the step-by-step overview of how you can perform a coaching session – you shouldn’t be intimidated for getting new into the enterprise. All you might have to perform should be to study the step-by-step means of conducting a coaching session. You could do that by inquiring a everyday living coach or by consulting guides about coaching. Even so, it’s far more recommended to talk to anyone who’s within the exact same enterprise. You’ll definitely get strategies you ought to start out with this particular type of business.
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In regards to free on the fortnite hack , numerous parents are certainly not so keen about introducing them to their young children. On the other hand, you can find positive aspects in these online games at the same time. To begin with, lots of instructional video games above the online world could be enjoyed through their spare time. These are generally the type of games that may increase a person’s standard awareness and memory abilities.
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Absolutely free on the internet games promote a person’s thoughts in this type of exclusive way no other mastering resources can. Video games can enrich one’s memory without tiring it similar to learning could well be. Pointless to mention, everyone demands a dose of them every single day so as to make their intellect function a lot quicker and far better. In case your body needs physical physical exercise, so does your brain. And there is no far better method to get it done than while getting fun!
The workout that psychological online games give in your mind keeps it centered and sharp. Pick a web-based game that is certainly both equally entertaining and stimulating to help you prepare your brain definitely properly. One example is, enjoying term online games is often a excellent strategy for strengthening your vocabulary. An easy video game of Tetris, then again, can improve your spatial skills. Additionally, you will discover a host of trivia and memory games on line that will definitely make an intellectual away from you.
Free on-line video games may be performed possibly alone or versus an additional participant. Pick the one that ideal suits your situation any supplied working day. Additionally it is attainable for you as well as your little one to play like a group and struggle it up against a pc. Pool in initiatives and beat your opponents. You can also find a lot of networked video games that pit you versus other players in other parts of the globe.
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Exactly what is Laser Hair Elimination?
A medical procedure utilizing a laser to get rid of unwelcome hair. It’s develop into one of probably the most widespread beauty procedures carried out while in the United states, in the majority of important towns like Las Vegas Nevada.
So how exactly does it do the job?
Takes advantage of beams of highly concentrated mild to selectively penetrate into the hair follicles. The sunshine is then absorbed by pigment while in the hair follicles, destroying the hair in just the follicle which inhibits foreseeable future hair development.
Though the treatment method successfully slows hair development, it would not assurance long-lasting hair elimination. It generally usually takes various solutions to offer relief from undesirable hair. Periodic routine maintenance solutions might be needed as well.
Many kinds of lasers have been formulated and therefore are used. Essentially the most common of which are alexandrite, diode, neodymium YAG and intense pulsed gentle resources.
Applied mostly to get rid of unwelcome hair with the experience, legs, underarms, higher lip, chin and bikini line. Lasers can selectively focus on hairs with terrific precision though leaving the surrounding pores and skin undamaged. Just about every pulse from the laser normally takes merely a fraction of a next and will handle many hairs with the same time.
Whilst it is attainable to treat undesired hair in practically any place, laser hair removing isn’t really suggested to the eyelid or surrounding place, due to risk of critical eye harm.
Just like any health-related technique, this procedure need to be carried out by experienced personnel, these kinds of to be a health practitioner or physician’s assistant. Be wary of spas, salons or other services that allow non-medical personnel to complete this treatment.
Hair color and pores and skin form influence the good results of laser hair removal.
By way of example, this is often simplest for people who have light skin and dim hair mainly because the laser beam targets the pigment (melanin) from the hair. Nonetheless, developments in technology have manufactured laser hair removal risk-free and productive for individuals with darker pores and skin and people of color.
Locksmithing is described as the artwork of making and beating locks. Locksmith companies incorporate shifting locks, rekeying doorway knobs restoring destroyed locks and in many cases cracking safes open up (lawfully obviously). Staying a locksmith demands a lot of skill and training due to the fact it can be very important to be aware of several intricate mechanisms of contemporary working day locking devices Locksmith.
A locksmith needs lots of creative imagination to design stability units. Locksmithing sounds very straightforward but to achieve this position requires a person having a ton of persistence as well as a good offer of interpersonal techniques. Turning out to be an apprentice having a area locksmith is a wonderful means to determine no matter if this can be the appropriate vocation path for you. Get the many vital facts on how to enroll for precise classes and over the methods to getting an accredited locksmith. Classes could possibly be carried out at a area university of or by enrolling within an online training course. No matter what manner of review you choose make sure to test that it is accredited because of the Connected Locksmiths of The united states. This is actually the finest way of acquiring accredited.
Starting to be a locksmith is not really that challenging as you will find different vocational colleges offering certificates with this subject. Depending on how briskly you are the class is often done in two semesters. A certification in locksmithing contains of four to five courses and highschool college students seeking to go after this for a career ought to choose programs in math, physics, electronics and mechanical drawing. The U.S regular salary for a locksmith is close to $44,000 for every 12 months.
To become a locksmith only needs a extremely little financial investment meaning its functional for those with tiny entry to cash but nonetheless desire to be self utilized. Currently being a locksmith is an excellent occupation opportunity for somebody wishing to work versatile several hours or seeking for component time work to substitute their usual supply of earnings. There are actually many distinct parts of specialty in locksmithing including automotive locksmithing and Upkeep Locksmithing. Modern day working day locksmiths really don’t only take care of lock and keys however they also do stability evaluations on qualities, review any weaknesses then set up steps to combat any probable complications.
The Involved locksmiths of The us gives out unique accreditations for locksmiths together with Certified Registered Locksmith (CRL), Registered Locksmith (RL), Certified Learn Locksmith (CML), Accredited Qualified locksmith and certified Automotive Locksmith (CAL). These accreditations assure you have the necessary talent and expertise to operate being a locksmith. In addition it provides likely clients or employers’ confidence within your qualities. Any locksmith hunting to carry out authorities or agreement perform ought to become insured or bonded. Bonding businesses do history checks on all applicants and demand you to definitely pay back a payment that kind of works like insurance policies. Staying a bonded locksmith makes certain the employer that you’re not a fraud and reimbursement incase of shoddy get the job done.
You could possibly think that turning out to be an attorney may be very quick but it is far rough instead. It calls for hard work of constant 6-7 several years after which you can only you qualify to be a lawyer. You must get in to 4 years of school and after that 3 yrs in to law faculty. Even further, you might have to adhere to the apply law test in which you really need to excel. So below, we are with all the course of action of getting to be a lawyer in bruno calfat .
You’ll want to start with a bachelor degree just right after ending your schooling. Take a bachelor diploma system from any college and university. This bachelor degree program need to be four-year application. In case you believe you can find absent with associate degree plan then no, it would not be fixing any concern. W hen you desire to have in to law school, there is absolutely no necessity that you simply ought to have majors in law topic only. In truth, your big subject wouldn’t be bothering using your degree plan. You could be from any review background. What exactly is important is your GPA in class which will determine the way you will be transferring in to any legislation college.
Now, while you complete your 4 a long time bachelor diploma system, you should get Law Faculty Admission Check, generally known as LSAT. This examination may be very similar to SAT and ACT.This law exam helps in assessing your efficiency in the direction of gearing up in any regulation faculty. This is the half-day examination and that incorporates multiple-choice issues. People who are pretty severe to variety their occupation, as a law firm should take up this check and apparent it. You will discover research products and exercise exam that you choose to have to endure. Additionally you get LSAT preparing course and also you can start off making ready from every one of these resources. There are actually numerous guides that should also information you to turn out to be a fantastic law firm like ‘Becoming a lawyer: Human and viewpoint way on legal instruction and professionalism by Elizabeth Dvorkin”, “Law of faculty confidential (revised version): Full guideline to legislation university knowledge by Robert H Miller”, and “Careers in legislation by Garry Munneke”. You are able to obtain a number of your know-how by means of these publications. You can even opt for your own personal highway in direction of starting to be a prosperous attorney within a phase wise manner.
Driving visitors to your internet business directory is crucial to developing a thriving directory https://connect.data.com/company/view/m8thBiyJQx4LcCnp7gtFYg/spinnenweber-builders. No one will write-up should they don’t know that the directories exist. There are actually quite a few straightforward solutions to maximize visitors to your online business directory. Under can be a quantity confirmed solutions to help you you deliver visitors to your business directory.
1. Online search engine Indexing of the Listing: It truly is critical that you submit your on-line directories to all the look for engines being indexed, even the lesser known search engines. As well, have your directories validated to make sure that the main search engines will much better index you URL.
2. Build a Favicon: A Favicon is often a compact icon shown within your browser next to the URL within the handle bar as well as on bookmarks. It is going to distinguish your directory from rivals on the bookmarks’ listing. You may down load an existing Favicon or produce your own.
three. Publish Small business Marketing Article content: Create content about enterprise and online business directories and submit them to posting directories. Make certain you consist of your directory URL. The article content must relate to internet business internet marketing.
3 Produce a singular Listing: A unique listing is likely to make your directories stand out through the opponents. Standard enterprise directories will receive fewer business listings than if you made certain directories that focused on a specific specialized niche. Usually do not generate group dumps or lookup engines will categorize your web business directory as duplicated content material.
four. Distribute the Word: There are many choices out there to distribute the term on the web regarding your internet business listing. Establish a marriage with other listing owners to help you trade promotional ideas and strategies. Exchange back links with pertinent directories, not your rivals. As well, post reviews of small business weblogs and discussion boards. Ensure that you make use of a forum signature that includes your listing URL on community forums and blogs exactly where you participate. Respond to questions and put up thoughts on websites like yahoo solutions.
5. Make Your own personal Site: When you have your own personal Weblog, you can article pertinent reviews linked to your on line directories. Also, you location your listing URL and listing description with your Website. Advertise unique categories and subcategories of your respective web business directory.
6. Social Book Marking: You can enhance internet site traffic to your on-line directories by using social book marking websites. A small widget from the internet site may also be placed on your website in order that visitors can share your information with some others. As well, turn out to be a social networker. Make use of your Twitter, Joined In, MySpace, Fb, MySpace, and Friendster to advertise your directories. The greater good friends and followers you have, the more very likely you will be to get folks to submit on your business enterprise directories.
7. Make Information: Use RSS (Wealthy Internet site Summary) engineering. Give RSS subscription towards your directory’s site visitors. Deliver newsletters to those that subscribe for your news feed. Frequently provide new written content regarding your directory working with this feed.
What exactly is attraction marketing and the way can it assist your business? Attraction advertising and marketing is undoubtedly an approach to reaching prospective clients by attracting them to you personally and to the services and products which you give self employed ideas. There are many techniques to obtain this, nevertheless it requires a particular philosophical technique so as to be reliable and many efficient.
Just one from the major benefits of attraction marketing is your great shoppers will self select and be drawn to you. No extra chasing potential customers and trying to provide you. Clientele will likely be attracted to you based on your concept, the worth that you just provide, in addition to a built-in have faith in in the experience. Attraction marketing might be very potent, and can improve your online business considerably.
You can not be almost everything to every person, so cease attempting. Why do you think you’re in enterprise? Have you been striving to unravel a problem? Why do individuals do company with you, and if they do not, why must they do organization with you? That are your rivals, and exactly how are you presently various? Do you have consumers who refer business enterprise to you personally? Have you ever questioned them why they refer organization to you?
They are all questions that you simply really should be asking, for those who are not positive from the special or added benefit you deliver to your consumers. This really is how one can figure out your “extra benefit proposition”, or your EVP.
You’ve got a contract that must be signed in order to move forward on a quite valuable job. You will find several means that you choose to can accomplish this. It can save you a number of dollars and send it by priority mail. You may send it by UPS. But,- when it absolutely, positively has to be there right away? Saving a handful of dollars would not enter the equation. It’s to get Federal Categorical. See how the EVP performs that can help a client “self select” your companies? Certainly, Federal Specific also has powerful branding, steady symbol and colours, however it is the EVP, knowing precisely who they may be and what they have to give, that pulls their fantastic buyers.
To the other hand, “What can Brown do in your case?” I am not sure. I just recognize that UPS has significant brown trucks, but without the need of an EVP, I have no idea what will make them uniquely precious as being a supply company. Begin to see the variance? Once you know just who you happen to be, you are going to start to entice a shopper which is a lot more appropriate for your enterprise, and that’s prepared to spend additional for your further worth that you simply present.
Since you realize exactly who you happen to be, you have to know exactly who your purchasers are. In case you are merely commencing your business, this could be the first step, not the second. Assuming that you’ve been in business enterprise for a minimum of several several years, let us detect your best purchasers, and how to attract additional of these.
In figuring out and establishing your EVP, you need to have talked to your sampling of the clientele. Your very best purchasers have informed you why they continue to keep coming back and why they refer business enterprise to you personally. Your occasional consumers plus your previous customers, instructed you why they don’t come about a great deal, or why they may have taken their company elsewhere. This facts is a must have. It could tell you the way to improve your services for larger charm, or it might notify you of precisely which kind of client try to be attempting to appeal to much more of.
Integrating the information of the EVP into all your marketing and sales processes, will quickly reactivate the shoppers that should still be using your products and services. It is going to also reinvigorate your existing clientele and crank out much more referrals. This is actually the essence of attraction marketing and advertising.
So, now you recognize accurately who you happen to be, and also you know specifically who your best shoppers and potential customers are. Getting this data ought to routinely notify you accurately whatever they require and want. This helps make it quick to help make them an offer they cannot refuse.
Based on the nature of the small business, individuals use your products or services in order to address a dilemma or to improve their life in some way. It is actually constantly about reducing discomfort or rising satisfaction. They arrive to you personally mainly because you know how to unravel the condition. They both really don’t have the expertise or it truly is much too labor intensive to resolve it on their own.
The provide they can not refuse should be so useful that it triggers your purchasers to want a lot more within your services. It need to be so worthwhile that prospective clients will want extra information regarding your products and services and can gladly agree to have interaction with you in an effort to get that facts.
Info is actually a effective software for attracting new clientele and for reinvigorating latest customers. It is actually specifically impressive for reactivating previous customers. This tends to effortlessly be the present they can’t refuse.
This facts might be shipped in several approaches. You may supply an online mini program shipped by e-mail. It is possible to present a totally free report or book. You can present a absolutely free webinar education or even a weekly teleseminar. We’ve been not referring to junk freebies in this article. This has to be serious education to ascertain your abilities also to give severe value to your clients and prospective customers. This offer will make trust and self-confidence and may bring about extra business enterprise and more longterm associations together with your purchasers.
These are typically the primary a few laws of attraction advertising and marketing. When you only do these a few items, you may see a serious shift in your company. You might see a shift within the style of customer that you just appeal to. You’ll see a change inside your guide conversion. And you will see a change within your profitability.
While using the getaway year right around the corner, it is really vital that you are aware that wine golf equipment may be the perfect present you are already seeking. A wine gift membership to why you should consider joining a wine club is usually supplied to just about anybody, producing them incredibly adaptable. Nonetheless, they are really exclusive enough that you just won’t be outdone by any other gifts, and also your current is bound to generally be remembered fondly and utilized joyfully. This is a quick manual to getting gain of wines to the holiday seasons.
You can find an infinite collection of golf equipment featuring good wines that you can just take advantage of to implement as provides. Among the great issues relating to this kind of present is the fact that it is basically the present that retains on offering. To get a few months or as many as a calendar year, your reward receiver will continue obtaining bottles of wine. It’s an awesome technique to unfold some cheer through the long yr, making certain the present receiver has a ton of terrific use out of the gift that you choose to buy.
When searching for a club, keep in mind that there are a number of alternative ways you may create a selection. A method is usually to buy a general club, which will aspect most likely all reds, all whites or maybe a mix. In this way you might be relying on the club’s top rated rated picks throughout all categories and they are certain to turn out with some superior quality wine.
On the other hand for those who are more precisely informed about wine or while using the person’s preferences, it is possible to pick clubs from their favourite region, favourite generate or favourite varietal. As an example when you have a relative who loves California Chardonnay or Rioja from Spain, you are able to get golf equipment personalized to individuals preferences. Alternatively you may decide on just the varietal, this kind of as being a Riesling wine club, and finish up sampling different alternatives of your similar wine from all around the planet.
Really don’t fret about wine clubs breaking the bank either. You are able to scale them up or down to match any spending budget. By way of example, you could deliver a person bottle at a time, and pick from a range of top rated rated, cost-effective picks. Otherwise you can deliver two, a few and even a complete situation at the same time, selecting from any varietals, areas or rankings. This provides you numerous of versatility and makes certain that you never ever devote additional than you want to.
Owning open up coronary Heart Transplant in India may be horrifying, but at times there is not any other selection. Heart surgical procedure can solve several coronary heart ailments that could if not be lethal. There are various alternatives to appropriate defective heart valves, restore aneurysms, unclog or bypass arteries, implant stents, and in quite possibly the most essential conditions switch a whole coronary heart. A lot of people are diagnosed with a heart situation and strategy their open up heart surgical procedures on their own phrases while some are subjected to emergency surgical treatment to save lots of their lives. People have diverse viewpoints on which conditions are even worse psychologically; to have the foresight of surgery ahead of time or to become thrust in to the problem with no the perfect time to ponder it. In some cases the sufferers who understand about the surgical treatment in advance of time can sense afraid, restless, indignant, or frustrated within the times top up to the surgical procedures. These healthier people that are diagnosed unexpectedly by using a heart ailment appear to have the hardest time coming to conditions with eminent open up heart operation. It’s harder for them to wrap their head about then by way of example a smoker that has not taken care of by themselves. Age can also impact how a affected individual specials using a analysis. Younger adults seem to have a harder time coping with it psychologically than elders. Also noteworthy is usually that survivors of unexpected emergency open up heart surgical procedure can generally possess a tougher time psychologically in restoration than individuals who experienced a planned operation.
Everyone is different, but beneath is usually whatever you can be expecting with open heart surgical treatment. You can expect to desire to get the affairs if you want in advance of your time and approach in advance to acquire a worry absolutely free restoration. Numerous heart individuals experience a period of deep introspection from the days in advance of open heart surgical procedure. You could concern the meaning of daily life, why this occurred to you personally, so you will without doubt choose to shell out good quality time with the family. The night prior to your open up coronary heart surgical treatment is a crucial the perfect time to be used quietly and intimately using your loved ones.
You’ll skip breakfast over the early morning of one’s open coronary heart surgery and will not consume anything at all. You are going to also shower which has a particular “sanitizing” cleaning soap supplied by your surgeon. If you arrive at the medical center you might report back to an administrative check-in the place you are going to be needed to fill out some files. You can then have your vitals taken, and soon thereafter you are going to be sent on the cardio-thoracic surgical treatment device. Inside a superior medical center your loved ones will likely be allowed to accompany you. If you get there there’ll be many physicians and nurses current, together with your anesthesiologist. They can take your vitals once more, and once your surgeon arrives they may short both you and your household about the information with the precise open up coronary heart medical procedures. The anesthesiologist will show you how things will select putting you to sleep, together with what to anticipate when you awaken afterward. Your surgeon offers you a rundown of everything and provides you a chance to request any remaining concerns you may have. When they are concluded speaking to you and your loved ones, your anesthesiologist will possible set an IV in each arm if you are however awake. They use these to administer anesthesia and other drugs after you happen to be about the working desk.
Truxedo gives a wide wide range of every kind of tonneau covers on your truck. Please review our useful report, to help you make the top selection of brand name and kind to your truck now https://wheelstips.com/best-truck-bed-covers.
Truck bed tonneau addresses are available a variety of customized designs by TruXedo, which can be produced exclusively for your make and calendar year within your truck.
TruXedo Soft Roll-Up truck bed covers are produced by a firm with a long time of practical experience in creating tarps that made use of by tractor-trailers who tested their longevity in hard environments. Shur-Company analyzed their merchandise from Arizona to Alaska in that fashion they could be sure that the Soft Roll-Up Tonneau Cover is resilient ample to very last in a variety of weather.
The product is industrial-strength, vinyl-coated, leather-grain fabric that can handle the extremes in every kind of weather, which gives it a benefit more than other truck addresses. The cover installs very quickly and simply in fifteen minutes by having an uncomplicated clamp-on layout alternatively drilling which takes extended. The TruXedo Gentle Roll-up tonneau cover matches most every single bed cap and quickly secures when latched at rear and locks with locking tailgate for further cargo stability.
The price today for gasoline will make the truth that the aerodynamic structure can help improve gasoline mileage. The frame and tarp backed by a hassle-free Life span Guarantee, that makes your high-quality truck bed cover, as often, a product you may believe in.
Simplicity in transportation medium has permitted us to provide bouquets everywhere in the entire world. As opposed to earlier, when ships were being the one resource to transport issues to other locations on the environment, these days you can find several mediums serving to us to deliver things to any element from the environment. Apart from, the net evolution has manufactured the supply procedure of flowers less difficult. On the internet flower supply facility is starting to become preferred in the Uk in addition as throughout the planet. The net strategy has certainly one of by far the most reputable and effective means to provide bouquets anywhere on this planet. Yet, you will find lots of individuals that are both not conscious of the strategy or maybe when they are informed they’re not assured about applying exactly the same ramos florales.
To take pleasure in the facility of on the web flower shipping and delivery with none stress, it’s essential that you appear to know regarding the stuff you must just take treatment of. The primary point about currently being a consumer is you’ll need to try to look for a very good value to the flowers you would like to deliver. Far better even now, you ought to do superior lookup more than the internet, and review the costs of different on line florists. The greater levels of competition among a number of on the net florists could final result in discounted rates on the bouquets. The next thing is always that you ought to examine credible sites, through which you are going to be availing the providers of on line flower procuring. The most effective way should be to chat in person prior to you lastly make the payments.
Payments solutions are a crucial issue that you have to keep a superb eye on. Check out out whether the payment technique is protected, which is accomplished through PayPal, WorldPay, and so forth. whilst availing flower delivery as a result of on line services. Another point to deal with is whether the deliveries are now being sent on time. As flowers are delicate things that have to be dealt with with treatment, look at regardless of whether the flowers sent in your close friends and kin are new and not crushed.
Skin Treatment Cream – Must You Go Normal?
The skin is probably a part of your self that you just generally choose for granted. We forget, that with the amount of money of pollution, UV rays, dust and mud the pores and skin is uncovered to everyday, as a way to have stunning skin, one particular has got to choose appropriate treatment of it. While using the availability of skin treatment product products, looking after your skin has grown to be much easier.
A goji cream ervaringen is more than just any moisturizer. Although it does raise the level of moisture within your skin, it can also support to take care of and handle the level of sebum exuded from the sebaceous glands on the pores and skin. Applying a pores and skin treatment moisturizer product would make pores and skin smooth and supple and diminishes the indicators of aging.
Be extremely careful though deciding on a pores and skin treatment product. You need to, at first uncover what your skin kind is then pick a product that goes best with it. Keep in mind that pores and skin is definitely an absorbent and far of whatever you apply towards your skin gets into your bloodstream.
Sad to say too lots of persons select chemical primarily based pores and skin treatment merchandise which happen to be harmful towards your pores and skin. No matter how beautiful the sound of the chemical dependent skin care product is, steer clear of acquiring it. They include toxics and sometimes incorporate ingredients originating from petroleum which can be carcinogenic and will be prevented.
The wrong option of skin care product, additional so those people with sweet scent and captivating colour can provide you with allergic reactions. Usually do not get tempted into buying merchandise that have artificial shades in them. There is absolutely no restriction concerning what a maker can incorporate to some pores and skin care cream or moisturizer however you as being the client should be extra cautious.
In order to have stunning pores and skin, you will need to also guide a healthful lifestyle. Reduce down and when feasible quit smoking and drinking. Try to eat balanced and drink lots of h2o. Consider not to expose your skin to extreme solar light because it has a tendency to age your skin more quickly and is particularly a significant cause of skin cancer.
Make use of a all-natural skin care cream and you may start out noticing a marked variance within your skin. A fantastic skin care moisturizer cream will also reduce fine facial lines and wrinkles. These lotions frequently contain organic extracts and critical oils to give you the best possible effects. Try to remember that not merely should a skin treatment product diminish signs of growing older, and also mend and nourish your skin. Skin treatment cream should really rejuvenate your skin, crank out new skin cells, cleanse pores, maintain the pH stage, strengthen texture and suppleness when making sure that age spots, wrinkles and great lines are decreased considerably.
Taking good care of the skin isn’t as simple as you believe it truly is. But this guideline line ought to assist you to take treatment within your skin superior. The initial issue to help keep in your mind would be to know the skin well plenty of before you purchase any skin treatment cream!
As auto manufacturers continue on to fight during the electric powered motor vehicle race, a handful of have started out questioning, where will the batteries go the moment they’ve got attained the end in their automotive beneficial lifestyle? Merely disposing on the batteries in some sort of landfill won’t help the ecosystem and may most unquestionably not appeal to either automobile manufacturers or customers. To address this worry, quite a few major car or truck manufacturers during the electric powered vehicle race have teamed up with firms experienced about energy and strength to plan tips on how to recycle and reuse outdated electric powered Car Battery Replacement Service In Singapore and their electrical power.
Typical Motors has announced it is going to collaborate using the Swiss enterprise ABB, a frontrunner in electrical power and automation systems as well as world’s premier provider of ability grid methods, to plan a prepare for re-using batteries with the Chevrolet Volt. The companies will produce quite a few pilot tasks and look at the Volt’s 16-kWh lithium-ion batteries to determine how the second-life vehicle batteries might be utilized to offer electrical grid storage units. All through the pilot assignments the companies will research renewable power storage, grid load management, back-up energy supplies for communities, and time of use management.
In line with GM Govt Director of Electrical Units, Micky Bly, ‘Volt’s battery could have sizeable capacity to retail outlet electricity, even right after its automotive lifetime.’ Which means following the eight calendar year or 100,000 mile guarantee made available about the Volt, the battery will even now have electricity which can be used for other uses if the auto battery is recycled. Thus, GM’s final goal via its ABB partnership is usually to find a cost-effective option that may improve the entire lifecycle with the battery and will strengthen the effectiveness from the country’s electrical grid.
One more auto maker which has begun learning electric powered battery recycling options is Nissan. Nissan has entered into a joint venture with Sumitomo Company to carry out investigation on employed lithium-ion batteries. The joint venture, referred to as 4R Energy, contains a intent to ‘Reuse, Resell, Refabricate, and Recycle’ the electrical batteries that electricity the Nissan Leaf.
The corporate is anticipated to perform demonstration exams and undertake a commercialization review mainly because it operates towards building a company for second-life usage of lithium-ion batteries.
Finally, the California electrical car maker Tesla Motors, has entered into a investigation venture with SolarCity, a national leader in solar layout and set up, plus the University of California, Berkley to analyze outdated electric auto battery prospects. The trio is producing a method that should merge Tesla’s electrical motor vehicle battery procedure with SolarCity’s checking platform to provide a sophisticated grid-interactive photovoltaic (PV) and stationary storage solution that may have the capacity to be put in in structures. The concept is the battery storage produced will accumulate surplus PV ability which the utility can use in lieu of working with ability crops with larger sized emissions.
Everybody has read that to generally be Pain you may have to training, take in very well, get a excellent night’s slumber and equally as importantly be content. These are generally four cornerstones of fine wellness. The lifestyle of a truck driver is just not often conducive to being wholesome. Truckers awaken early, consume, generate, take in, push some extra, then snooze for a number of hours and begin all over again – not necessarily the healthiest lifestyle! Many common wellness problems while in the standard inhabitants involve coronary heart ailment, cancer, diabetic issues, back again discomfort, despair and fatigue, which are affected by our way of life. Straightforward lifestyle changes might help cut down these issues.
So as to recognize the significance of great overall health, it is very first important to have a correct definition of health and fitness. The earth Overall health Group (WHO) defines wellness as “a condition of entire actual physical, psychological, and social well-being and never basically the absence of illness or infirmity.” There are lots of people who think that if they are not ill or in agony, then they can be wholesome – but considering the WHO’s definition of health and fitness, this isn’t essentially legitimate. Remaining healthful is often a point out through which everything (bodily, mental and social) is in sync and the body is working to its ideal possible.
Fantastic health allows us to appreciate existence on the fullest. A few of the critical rewards of becoming nutritious consist of, improved vitality, a lot less stress, much less exhaustion, the chance to combat off bacterial infections and usually emotion physically much better and happier. The every day stresses from the trucking life-style can from time to time be overwhelming. The healthier that you are, the greater you’ll have the ability to deal with the daily grind of everyday living about the highway. That seems great to me! Hence the subsequent time that car cuts you off, consider about your wellbeing, acquire a couple of deep breaths and imagine positively, your body will thank you.
It is actually in no way as well late to start earning adjustments to become healthier. Smaller alterations, for instance, like feeding on a salad as an alternative to french fries; getting water rather than Coke and a grilled rooster sandwich as opposed to a burger a few of times every week; undoubtedly are a good start. Walk a bit far more, slumber a little bit much more and smile a tiny bit additional. These are definitely compact variations which can be easy to make and that may have a big impact on the total wellness and perfectly becoming. The good information is always that when you start you will not have the capacity to halt, as you will experience so excellent!
1. Noticeable indicators of wear and tear and tear. Because no bag is really indestructible the primary detail to search for are indications of noticeable don and tear. According to the age of your little one, he / she may not consider the most beneficial care of your lunch bag she or he utilizes each day. Some youngsters manage to be capable of take much more care of their things and some undoubtedly are a small rougher on them. Think about that meticulously if you’re wanting for the high-quality lunch bag, and you’ll should buy a new just one significantly less normally. In the event the bag begins to become ratty, although, it truly is time and energy to see that it will get changed.
two. The bag no more keeps its promises. Some bags say they will hold food items cold (or hot) for just a selected amount of several hours, or that they possess a leak-proof thermos, as an example. Should you be discovering the bag just isn’t trying to keep up with what it truly is created to do because of its age or other factors, receiving a whole new one could be the only option to suit your needs and to your boy or girl. Baggage that do not do the things they guarantee could conclude up allowing cold foods get also heat, or warm food items get as well neat. That could bring about your son or daughter having ill, and it is so easy to avoid by obtaining a whole new bag for their lunch.
3. Other youngsters are commenting. Though in the ideal globe it would not make a difference, graphic is very important to young children. They will often get teased about things grown ups may probably not think about. If your child has an “out of date” lunch bag and also the style and design or people on it have waned in reputation, it is time for you to take into consideration a further one particular, which has a a lot more well-known glimpse.
There are other aspects you can contemplate, but all those three would be the principal troubles when selecting lunch baggage for youths. You may have picked out an incredible bag past time, but when it can be time for the adjust you can know it. You can find a further excellent new lunch bag and send out your kid off to school joyful.
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Diener Violettas und Floras - Kostümierte etc.
Im Haus der bekannten Halbweltdarne Violetta wird ein Fest gefeiert. Der von Vicomte Gaston eingeführte Alfred bewundert schon länger die Dame des Hauses, die ihn nur flüchtig begrüsst. Da Baron Douphol, Violettas augenblicklicher Verehrer, auf die Gastgeberin keinen Trinkspruch ausbringen kann, singt Alfred ein feuriges Lied, das alle Gäste und Violetta leidenschaftlich beantworten (Libiamo ne'lieti calici). Als Violetta, die an Tuberkulose leidet, einen Schwächeanfall bekommt und sich zurückzieht, nähert sich Alfred ihr und gesteht seine Liebe (Un dì felice). Violetta, überrascht und mit sich uneins, überreicht ihrem Verehrer eine Kamelie, nach deren Verblühen er sie wieder besuchen dürfe. Nachdem die Gäste und Alfred gegangen sind, denkt Violetta an ihr bisheriges Leben (È strano!). Sie sehnt sich zwar nach dem Glück der reinen Liebe (Ah, fors è lui), verwirft dann aber den geheimen Wunsch zu Gunsten ihres bisherigen Lebens in Lust- und Festtaumel (Sempre libera).
Alfred hat sich mit Violetta auf ein Landgut in der Nähe von Paris zurückgezogen, um ganz ihrer Liebe leben zu können (De' miei bollenti spiriti). Von Annina erfährt Alfred eines Tages, dass Violetta nichts mehr besitzt, um ihren Lebensunterhalt bestreiten zu können. Er will die finanzielle Situation bereinigen (O mio rimorso). Während Alfred nach Paris fährt, um Geld zu holen, erscheint überraschend sein Vater und verlangt von Violetta auf den Geliebten zu verzichten, weil sonst seine Tochter, Alfreds Schwester, von ihrem Bräutigam verlassen werde. ( Pure sicome un angelo). Schweren Herzens nimmt Violetta von Alfred Abschied, kehrt heimlich nach Paris zurück und lässt durch einen Boten bestellen, dass sie ihr früheres Leben wieder aufnehmen will. Alfred erfasst rasende Eifersucht, auch sein Vater kann ihn nicht beruhigen (Di Provenza il mar). Er vermutet, dass Violetta zu ihrem früheren Verehrer zurückgekehrt ist und folgt, blind vor Wut, seiner Geliebten nach Paris.
Alfred trifft Violetta, wie angenommen, in Flora Bervoix Salon wieder, als sie am Arm des Barons den Saal betritt. Vergebens versucht Violetta Alfred, der beim Glücksspiel ständig gewonnen und den Baron beleidigt hat, zu überreden, das Fest zu verlassen. Sie deutet ihm an, dass ein Versprechen sie hindere, sich zu erklären und dass sie Angst um ihn habe. Alfred ist überzeugt, dass Violetta lügt und fordert sie auf, ihm zu sagen, wem sie geschworen hat, auf ihn zu verzichten. Nach schwerem inneren Kampf gibt Violetta vor, Douphol Treue gelobt zu haben und diesen zu lieben. Vom Zorn überwältigt, ruft Alfred die Gesellschaft zusammen und wirft Violetta die im Spiel gewonnenen Banknoten für die geleisteten Dienste vor die Füsse. Alle sind starr vor Entsetzen, auch sein Vater, der seinen Sohn mit Würde zurechtweist (Di sprezzo degno). Während Douphol Alfred zum Duell fordert, sinkt Violetta bewusstlos zu Boden.
Einige Wochen sind vergangen. Violetta, deren Krankheit sich durch die Aufregung verschlimmert hat, ist mit Annina in ihrer Wohnung allein. Todkrank und fast mittellos nimmt sie Abschied vom Leben, obwohl ihr der Doktor baldige Genesung in Aussicht gestellt hat (Addio del passato). Ein Brief von Alfreds Vater wird überbracht, aus dem Violetta erfährt, dass Alfred das Duell überstanden hat und zu ihr zurückkommen wird, um Verzeihung zu erbitten. Doch es ist zu spät, Alfred findet eine Sterbende. Noch einmal kehren Violettas Kräfte zurück, die beiden Liebenden sehen die Zukunft in herrlichsten Farben, ein neues Leben soll beginnen (Parigi, o cara). Als auch Alfreds Vater kommt, um das Mädchen als Tochter anzuerkennen, muss er erschüttert sehen, wie sie in den Armen seines verzweifelten Sohnes stirbt.
A brilliant party is in progress and Violetta is receiving her guests. One of them begs leave to introduce a friend, Alfredo Germont, who has long admired her from afar. Baron Douphol, Violetta's current protector, takes a dislike to Alfredo and refuses to propose the toast when the wine is poured. Instead Alfredo proposes the toast - to love. Violetta answers that love, like all things, must fade: it is best to enjoy the pleasures of the fleeting moment.
The guests move into another room to dance but Violetta, who had been ill, suddenly feels faint and begs them to go on without her. Only Alfredo remains, anxious about her. He tells her he has loved her from the moment he first saw her a year ago. Violetta warns him not to look to her for love, since she has never experienced it. She tells him to leave and think of her no more, but gives him a flower with permission to return it when it has faded. "That will be tomorrow!" exclaims Alfredo, and she agrees. Alfredo goes, followed shortly afterwards by the other guests.
Left alone, Violetta begins to wonder whether she could love Alfredo, but rejects the possibility. A woman in her position cannot afford such luxuries. She will keep her place in the social whirl of Paris and forget about serious affairs of the heart. Under the balcony Alfredo's voice can be heard repeating his declaration of love.
Alfredo's passion has won the day. Three months later he and Violetta, deeply in love, have cut themselves off completely from fashionable. life. Alfredo's joy is disturbed one morning when he learns from Violetta's maid Annina that Violetta has had to sell her last possessions, because they have been living on her money which is now all gone. He rushes off to Paris to see what he can do to raise some money, leaving a message for Violetta. She comes in with an invitation from Flora, one of her fashionable friends, which she puts aside laughing, not intending to accept.
Alfredo's father suddenly appears and accuses her of having ruined his son. When she proves to him that all the money spent has been hers he is more polite, but goes on to ask her to give up Alfredo because the liaison is spoiling his daughter's marriage prospects. Broken-hearted, she agrees - thereby winning his deep admiration. They agree that the only way she can convince Alfredo that their idyll is at at end is to tell him she no longer loves him.
Telling Germont to wait in the garden to be ready to comfort Alfredo, she begins a letter to him telling him of her decision. He arrives back before she has finished. Somewhat to his astonishment she bids him a tearful farewell, telling him to love her always as she loves him.
A few minutes after her departure he receives her note by a messenger and understands that she has left for ever. His father appears and tries to comfort him, reminding him of his happy childhood in far Provence. Alfredo refuses to be comforted and, seeing Flora's invitation, assumes that Violetta will be returning to her former life and to the baron. He determines to follow her.
Another party is taking place. Dancers dressed as matadors and Spanish gypsies entertain the company and tell their fortunes.
Alfredo arrives alone, followed shortly afterwards by Violetta accompanied by the jealous baron who forbids her to speak a word to Alfredo. The men begin to play cards and Alfredo wins, remarking bitterly that he is unlucky at love but lucky at cards. Drawn by their mutual antagonism he and the baron begin to play against each other. Their rivalry increases as Alfredo continues to win.
Violetta watches, full of anguish. When the guests retire to another room for supper she begs Alfredo to stay for a moment and entreats him not to anger the baron. Alfredo refuses to believe that her concern is for him rather than the baron, particularly when she refuses his request to leave at once with him. She tells him she has sworn to avoid him and he assumes that only the baron could have had the power to extort such a promise from her. To avoid telling him the truth she says she loves the baron.
Desperate, Alfredo calls the others back and throws his winnings at Violetta, calling them to witness that he has now repaid all his debts to her. Everyone turns on him for his unkindness to Violetta and even his father, who comes in at this point, reproves him for insulting a lady. Coming to his senses Alfredo himself is horrified by what he has done. The baron challenges him to a duel for his discourtesy.
Violetta, overcome by weakness and emotion, assures Alfredo that she does not deserve his scornful treatment; she still loves him and one day he will be filled with remorse at what he has done.
Violetta is alone except for her maid Annina. She is practically penniless and dying of the consumption which has been racking her. A carnival is taking place in the streets outside while she lies in bed.
She has had a letter from Germont which she reads through again: Alfredo has wounded the baron in a duel and had to leave the country for a while. Germont has told him of Violetta's sacrifice and he is coming back to ask her forgiveness. But Violetta knows that she has little time left and that her days of love with Alfredo are over.
He arrives and they have an ecstatic reunion. Their love is stronger than ever and they declare their intention of leaving Paris forever. But all this emotion is too much for Violetta and she collapses. Alfredo, looking at her closely for the first time, realises the terrible truth that she is dying. She tries to pretend that this is not so by getting up and dressing, but she is too weak and falls to the floor, crying out bitterly against the cruel fate of dying so young just when her hopes had been about to be fulfilled.
Germont arrives with the doctor, ready to embrace her as a daughter. When he too realises her real condition he is struck by remorse at having caused her so much unhappiness. She gives Alfredo a portrait of herself as a keepsake and tells him to marry some pure young girl and be happy. She rises to her feet, feeling a strange new strength, but it is only the last remission of her illness which precedes death. She collapses lifeless, surrounded by those she holds dearest in the world.
Après le prélude qui superpose les thèmes de l'amour, de la mort, et de la vie futile, nous assistons à une réception à Paris où la demi-mondaine Violetta (soprano) entonne avec son nouveau soupirant Afredo (ténor) un brindisi (Libiamo), et se laisse émouvoir par sa sincérité (duo: Un di, felice) contrastant avec le caractère superficiel de ses autres relations et l'indifférence de ses hôtes aux symptômes de phtisie qu'elle manifeste. Elle rêve d'un véritable amour partagé (È strano ... Ah fors'è lui), et tente de se reprendre (Follie … Sempre libera) alors que la voix d'Alfredo se fait entendre au loin.
Depuis trois mois, Alfredo vit avec Violetta un bonheur sans nuages à la campagne (Lunge da lei... Dei mie bollenti spiriti), et revient soudain à la réalité lorsqu'il apprend que Violetta a dû, pour subvenir à leur train de vie, vendre ses bijoux (Oh mio rimorso). Violetta reçoit, seule, la visite de Giorgio Germont (baryton), le père d'Alfredo (duo: Madamigella Valery?), qui, pour éviter la mauvaise réputation de la courtisane ne porte un préjudice irréparable non seulement à Alfredo, mais à sa sœur, dont les fiançailles risquent d'être rompues, demande à Violetta de cesser cette liaison (Pura siccome un angelo). Violetta se résout au sacrifice (Dite alla giovine) et, sans lui révéler son départ, dit un adieu bouleversant à son amant (Amami, Alfredo). Alfredo reçoit la lettre de rupture de Violetta. Son père revient, le console (Di Provenza il mar), et l'exhorte en vain à le suivre (No, non udrai).
Lors d'une fête donnée par Flora (soprano), Alfredo trouve Violetta accompagnée par le baron Douphol (baryton) et se croit plus que jamais trahi; il la supplie de reprendre la vie commune, mais Violetta doit rester fidèle à la parole donnée a Germont. Alfredo l'injurie publiquement en lui jetant de l'argent au visage (Questa donna conoscete?): le baron le provoque en duel, et Germont, survenu, prend la défense de Violetta qui, dans l'ensemble final, confesse son amour intact (Alfredo, di questo cuore).
Dans sa maison presque vide, dévenue pauvre, oubliée par ses amis, Violetta se meurt de la phtisie. Elle relit la lettre de Germont (Teneste la promessa... Addio del passato) qui a révélé son sacrifice a son fils. Alfredo accourt, implorant son pardon; les deux amant rêvent d'une nouvelle vie loin de Paris (duo: Parigi, o cara), mais, en présence aussi de Germont et du fidèle Médecin le docteur Grenvil (basse), Violetta expire dans les bras d'Alfredo.
Un’affiatata compagnia di gaudenti aristocratici e compiacenti damigelle si è riunita per trascorrere l’ennesima notte di piaceri, dove «L’amistà s’intreccia al diletto». Novizio, e un po’ disorientato fra tanto vortice di parole e di musica, è Alfredo Germont, fattosi introdurre dall’amico Gastone col deliberato proposito di conoscere personalmente la padrona di casa, oggetto di segreta passione. Violetta si fa celia di tante attenzioni, e per sdrammatizzare la scena propone un brindisi collettivo (“Libiam ne’ lieti calici”). La festa prosegue: nel salone contiguo si aprono le danze; gli invitati accorrono, ma un accesso di tosse frena l’uscita di Violetta, che si trattiene assistita da Alfredo. L’eco dei valzer giunge sino al proscenio, fungendo da sostegno sonoro alla conversazione appartata dei due: alle profferte amorose dell’uno (“Un dì, felice, eterea, / mi balenaste innante”) si mescolano le ricuse divertite dell’altra, che a un uomo non può promettere altro che amicizia (“Ah, se ciò è ver, fuggitemi... / solo amistade io v’offro”). Catturati nuovamente dal turbinio della festa, che sta per volgere al termine, i due si danno appuntamento per il giorno seguente. È ormai l’alba e Violetta, rimasta sola, medita turbata sull’effetto sortito in lei dalle parole di Alfredo: che sia forse giunto il giorno del suo primo vero amore, il momento di «essere amata amando»? (cantabile “Ah, fors’è lui che l’anima”) No di certo (tempo di mezzo “Follie... follie... delirio vano è questo”). Il destino di Violetta è ben altro: continuare nella sua condizione di gaudente indipendenza sociale (cabaletta “Sempre libera degg’io /folleggiare di gioia in gioia”).
Fra tali propositi era calato il sipario dell’atto primo; ma il riaprirsi della tela, su una casa di campagna presso Parigi, ci rivela contro ogni aspettativa un Alfredo perfettamente inserito in un tranquillo ménage di coppia con la donna (cantabile “De’ miei bollenti spiriti / il giovanile ardore / ella temprò col placido / sorriso dell’amore”). La serenità conquistata ha tuttavia vita breve. La servetta Annina, testé giunta da Parigi, rivela di esservi stata inviata dalla padrona – privata ormai delle munifiche elargizioni di tanti protettori – per alienare i beni restanti e finanziare così la nuova esistenza. Alfredo non ci sta: aperti finalmente gli occhi dopo tre mesi di estasi beata (“Dell’universo immemore / io vivo quasi in ciel”) corre egli stesso a Parigi, per cercare una soluzione adeguata (cabaletta “O mio rimorso, o infamia, / io vissi in tale errore”). Ignara di tutto, rientra Violetta; sorride di un invito che le giunge dai vecchi amici per la sera stessa: non è più vita per lei! Ed ecco piombare inatteso il padre d’Alfredo che, in un memorabile duetto con Violetta, chiede alla donna una netta recisione della convivenza peccaminosa: il futuro genero, già sul punto di sposare la sorella di Alfredo, venuto a conoscenza dell’onta che grava sulla famiglia Germont, minaccia l’abbandono della giovane (“Pura siccome un angelo / Iddio mi die’ una figlia”). Violetta, in una disperata requisitoria, oppone tutto il suo autentico e disinteressato amore per Alfredo a quello ipocrita dei matrimoni combinati fra l’alta società, ma il vecchio Germont è irremovibile nel suo cinismo: torni, finché è giovane, alla vita gaudente di prima; l’uomo è volubile e, quando la bellezza sarà svanita, anche Alfredo si rivolgerà altrove. Votata al martirio, la donna cede (“Dite alla giovine – sì bella e pura / ch’avvi una vittima – della sventura”). L’accordo è presto fatto. Inutile dire ad Alfredo che l’amore è finito: non lo crederà; sarà piuttosto Violetta a concertare la cosa, dietro la promessa che, quando il dolore avrà sopraffatto la sua ormai cagionevole salute, la verità venga rivelata all’amato (cabaletta “Morrò!... la mia memoria non fia ch’ei maledica”). Rimasta sola, Violetta si appresta a scrivere la lettera mendace per Alfredo; da questi inopinatamente sorpresa, scoppia in un’eccitazione crescente, che culmina nella più straziante richiesta d’amore della storia dell’opera (“Amami Alfredo, amami quant’io t’amo”). Violetta fugge verso Parigi; la lettera viene recapitata all’amato pochi minuti dopo: questi l’apre, la legge e cade disperato fra le braccia del padre, rimasto opportunamente in agguato per cogliere l’attimo più propizio alla riconquista del figlio. La paternale è immediata (“Di Provenza il mar, il suol – chi dal cor ti cancellò?”); Alfredo si stacca adirato dall’abbraccio paterno, tutto intento a scoprire chi possa essere la causa dell’improvviso voltafaccia di Violetta (forse il barone Douphol?), mentre il padre torna all’attacco sul suo fronte moralistico (cabaletta “No, non udrai rimproveri”), senza riuscire più a catturare l’attenzione di Alfredo. È invece un foglio abbandonato sul tavolo a colpirlo: l’invito per la sera stessa al solito festino gaudente; è lì che l’offesa verrà vendicata. Repentino il cambio di scena, ed eccoci al centro di un ballo mascherato: zingarelle e toreri invadono il salone coi loro canti festosi (“Noi siamo zingarelle”; “Di Madrid noi siam mattadori”). A poche ore dal fatto, la notizia della separazione fra i due amanti circola già in società, e l’ingresso disinvolto di Alfredo alla festa in cui la donna apparirà a braccetto del nuovo amante viene salutato con approvazione. Ecco infatti giungere Violetta, accompagnata dal barone Douphol. Alfredo sbanca tutti al tavolo da gioco: anche il rivale, in una sfida a carte che assume inevitabilmente connotazioni ben più personali. La tensione viene tempestivamente interrotta dall’invito alla cena: i convitati si allontanano, tranne Violetta, che in un disperato quanto fallimentare tentativo di evitare il peggio ha fatto chiamare a sé proprio Alfredo. Il dialogo è impossibile: lei si vede costretta ad ammettere di amare Douphol, pur di non svelare il vero, e lui, chiamati i presenti a raccolta, con ira crescente ne denuncia pubblicamente la condotta, gettandole ai piedi una borsa di danaro in segno di pagamento per il periodo trascorso insieme. La situazione precipita nel concertato finale, aperto dall’ingresso inatteso di Germont padre che, invece di giustificare il comportamento della donna svelando la verità, continua le sue querimonie contro il comportamento indecoroso del figlio (Largo concertato “Di sprezzo degno se stesso rende / chi pur nell’ira la donna offende”), cui si accodano le espressioni di rimorso di Alfredo, le dolenti rimostranze di Violetta, i moti compassionevoli di tutti gli astanti.
Ed eccoci alla conclusione del flashback , come ci ricorda il preludio che si apre con le identiche note dell’inizio, ma senza più deviare verso i toni della passione e della frivolezza: il presente è solo dolore – fisico, oltre che morale e affettivo, in quanto la tisi ha ormai condotto l’eroina sul letto di morte. Al capezzale l’assistono ancora la fedele Annina e le cure pietose del medico, già testimone di tutti i precedenti eventi. La sofferenza e l’indigenza di Violetta contrastano con l’opulenza del carnevale parigino, che fa giungere dalla strada i suoi canti festosi. Unica consolazione in tanta solitudine è una lettera che la donna ha ricevuto da Giorgio Germont: l’informa del duello, in cui il barone è rimasto ferito, e della partenza di Alfredo dalla Francia; ragguagliato finalmente dal padre sulla verità degli eventi, sta ora facendo rapido ritorno per farsi perdonare dall’amata. Purtroppo è ormai tardi: Violetta rilegge lo scritto per l’ennesima volta, e ancor non giunge alcuno, mentre le forze la abbandonano giorno dopo giorno (romanza “Addio del passato bei sogni ridenti”). Ma ecco Annina entrare tutta eccitata nella stanza: Alfredo è arrivato, e corre fra le braccia di Violetta per l’immancabile duetto. Alla rappacificazione immediata (tempo d’attacco “Colpevol sono...so tutto, o cara”), seguono i più ottimistici progetti per il futuro (cantabile “Parigi, o cara, noi lasceremo”); Violetta vorrebbe uscire (tempo di mezzo), correre in chiesa per ringraziare Iddio della nuova gioia, ma le forze non la reggono più: si chiami pure il medico, ma se non riesce a salvarla il tanto sospirato ritorno di Alfredo, nessun altro lo potrà in terra (cabaletta “Gran Dio, morir sì giovane”). Anche Giorgio Germont sopraggiunge per l’ultimo conforto: le voci si uniscono nel concertato finale avviato dalla protagonista (Largo “Prendi; quest’è l’immagine / De’ miei passati giorni”), cui seguono i soli pochi istanti di apparente vigore che sogliono cogliere i malati di tisi, prima del crollo definitivo. Vana illusione: Violetta cade esanime.
Salon im Hause Violettas. Im Hintergrund führt eine Tür zu einem anderen Saal; zwei weitere Türen sind an den Seiten; links ein Kamin mit einem Spiegel darüber. In der Mitte ein reich gedeckter Tisch.
Violetta sitzt auf einem Sofa und unterhält sich mit dem Doktor und einigen Freunden, während andere auf die zugehen, die neu hinzukommen; unter diesen befinden sich der Baron und Flora am Arm des Marquis.
Verspätet habt Ihr Euch . . .
und beim Spiel verging die Zeit im Fluge.
Und Ihr werdet Euch daran freuen können?
mit dieser Arznei das Übel zu lindern.
Ja, das Leben wird durch die Freude doppelt lebenswert.
Die zuvor Genannten, der Vicomte Gaston de Letorières, Alfredo Germont.
Diener sind um die Tafel herumbeschäftigt.
wenige Freunde sind ihm gleich.
Mein lieber Vicomte, Dank für dieses Geschenk.
Sie drücken sich die Hand.
Die Freundschaft paart sich hier mit dem Vergnügen.
Die Diener haben inzwischen die Speisen aufgetragen.
dem festlichen Mahl möge jeder zusprechen.
Sie setzen sich so, dass Violetta zwischen Alfredo und Gaston bleibt; ihnen gegenüber Flora zwischen dem Marquis und dem Baron; die anderen nehmen nach eigenem Belieben Platz. Es tritt ein Moment des Schweigens ein; inzwischen werden die Gerichte herumgereicht, Violetta und Gaston sprechen leise miteinander.
Alfredo denkt immerzu an Euch.
in Sorge hierher und fragte nach Euch.
Ich bin nichts für ihn.
Es ist also wahr? ... Wie kommt das? . . . Ich verstehe es nicht.
Ich kenne Euch erst seit einem Jahr.
Und er erst seit einigen Minuten.
Es wäre besser gewesen, Ihr hättet geschwiegen.
Dieser junge Mann ist mir lästig . . .
Mir dagegen ist er sympathisch.
Und du machst nun den Mund nicht mehr auf?
Ich werde wie Hebe sein, die kredenzt.
fällt Euch in dieser vergnügten Stunde ein?
Bist du nicht ein Experte?
Ja?…Mir ist schon etwas eingefallen.
Ja, Aufmerksamkeit für den Sänger.
durch das Trinken noch heissere Küsse erlangen.
länger kann man sie nicht geniessen.
Im Feiern liegt das Leben.
Wenn man sich noch nicht liebt.
Sagt das nicht der, die das nicht kennt.
Möchtet ihr jetzt nicht tanzen?
Oh, eine nette Idee! ... Wir sind alle einverstanden.
Sie begeben sich zur mittleren Tür, aber Violetta wird plötzlich ganz blass.
Sie macht einige Schritte, muss aber wieder innehalte und sich setzen.
O Himmel! … Was ist das?
Ich werde gleich kommen . . .
Alle gehen in den anderen Saal ausser Alfredo, der zurückbleibt.
Ein Herz? ... ja ... Vielleicht ... warum fragt Ihr danach?
Ach, wenn es so wäre, könntet Ihr nicht scherzen.
Ich mache Euch nichts vor.
Liebt Ihr mich seit langem?
Ach ja, seit einem Jahr.
glücklich und himmlisch vor mir.
Qual und Glückseligkeit für das Herz.
Nun also? ... Was zum Teufel macht ihr?
Ha! Ha!… ist ja gut . . . bleibt da.
Von Liebe also nichts mehr… Gefällt Euch die Abmachung?
Er wendet sich zum Gehen.
Sie nimmt eine Blume von ihrer Brust.
Sagt Ihr noch immer, dass Ihr mich liebt?
Violetta und alle anderen, die vom Tanz erhitzt aus dem Saal zurückkommen.
Sie gehen nach rechts ab.
haben sich mir jene Worte gegraben!
Wäre eine ernsthafte Liebe Unglück für mich?
Wie entscheidest du dich, meine verstörte Seele?
als er mich zur Liebe erweckte.
Qual und Glückseligkeit des Herzens!
Aberwitz! ... Torheit ... eitler Wahn ist das!
in den Strudeln der Lust untergehen.
soll mein Sinn gerichtet sein.
Landhaus in der Nähe von Paris. Salon im Erdgeschoss. Im Hintergrund dem Zuschauer gegenüber befindet sich ein Kamin, über dem ein Spiegel und eine Uhr hängen, zwischen zwei geschlossenen Glastüren, die in einen Garten führen. Im ersten Stock zwei andere einander gegenüberliegende Türen. Sessel, kleine Tische, einige Bücher Schreibzeug.
Fern von ihr gibt es für mich keine Freude!
vergesse ich bei den Freuden mit ihr die ganze Vergangenheit.
Der zuvor Genannte und Annina in Reisekleidung.
Wer trug dir das auf?
Es war die gnädige Frau.
was sie noch besitzt, zu veräussern.
Nun geh ... Ich werde nach Paris fahren.
Dieses Gespräch soll die gnädige Frau nicht erfahren.
Noch kann ich alles in Ordnung bringen.
O wie ich bereue! Wie schändlich von mir!
Ich lebte in solcher Verblendung!
diese Schmach werde ich tilgen.
Violetta tritt mit einigen Papieren auf: sie spricht mit Annina; später Giuseppe.
Er fuhr gerade nach Paris.
Geschäftsmann erscheinen ... Er soll sofort hereinkommen.
Annina und Giuseppe gehen ab.
Violetta, dann Herr Germont, von Giuseppe hereingeführt, der zwei Sessel vorrückt und abgeht.
Und sie lädt mich heute abend zum Tanzen ein!
Sie wirft das Blatt auf den Tisch und setzt sich.
Alfredos Vater seht Ihr in mir!
mehr in Eurem als in meinem Interesse.
Sie wendet sich zum Gehen.
Allen ist dieses Dokument unbekannt . . .
Euch soll es das nicht sein.
Ach, Eure Vergangenheit, warum nur macht sie Euch zur Angeklagten?
und Gott tilgte sie, weil ich bereute.
Das ist es nicht, was ich verlange.
Himmel, was wollt Ihr noch mehr? ... Ich bot schon viel!
tief und unermesslich in meinem Herzen brennt?
keine Freunde, keine Verwandten habe?
dass ich in ihm all das finden werde?
von einer unheilvollen Krankheit geschlagen ist?
Dass ich schon mein Ende nahen sehe?
Ich soll mich von Alfredo trennen?
dass ich lieber sterben will.
Ihn allein will ich lieben.
noch wäre es die rechte Zeit.
gibt einem Vater diese Worte ein.
keine Stimme der Hoffnung, sich jemals wieder aufzurichten!
den es jetzt ihr opfert, und das dann sterben wird!
es ist das grösste Opfer, das ich jetzt von dir verlange.
Nur Mut ... und das edle Herz wird siegen.
Sagt ihm, dass Ihr ihn nicht liebt.
Er wird es nicht glauben.
Sie zeigt auf den Garten und geht, um etwas zu schreiben.
Was gedenkt Ihr zu tun?
Wenn Ihr es wüsstet, würdet Ihr Euch meiner Idee widersetzen.
Ihr Grossherzige! ... Und was kann ich für Euch tun?
meine schrecklichen Qualen wenigstens erzählt.
so edle Tat stolz sein.
Germont geht durch die Tür zum Garten ab.
Violetta, dann Annina, darauf Alfredo.
Gib mir Kraft, o Himmel!
Sie setzt sich, schreibt, dann läutet sie.
sieht die Adresse und zeigt sich überrascht.
Kein Wort darüber … Geh sofort.
Was sage ich ihm? Wer gibt mir dazu den Mut?
Welche Verwirrung! … Wem schriebst du?
Verzeih mir ... ich mache mir Sorgen.
Aber ich erwarte ihn; er wird dich gern haben, wenn er dich sieht.
Hält kaum die Tränen zurück.
weil du mich liebst, Alfredo, nicht wahr?
Ach wie sehr ... Warum weinst du?
Ich werde dort zwischen den Blumen dir immer nahe sein.
Liebe mich, Alfredo, so sehr, wie ich dich liebe ... Leb woh1.
Sie läuft in den Garten.
Alfredo, dann Giuseppe, später ein Dienstbote.
Er setzt sich, nimmt aufs Geratewohl ein Buch, liest etwas, dann erhebt er sich, sieht nach der Uhr über dem Kamin.
mein Vater nicht mehr kommen.
Man sieht in der Ferne den Vater den Garten durchqueren.
Er gibt Alfredo einen Brief erhält einige Geldstücke und geht.
Alfredo, dann Germont, der vom Garten hereinkommt.
Wie vom Blitz getroffen schreit er auf.
Kehre als Stolz und Ruhm deines Vaters zurück.
Das Meer und das Land der Provence - wer tilgte sie in deinem Herzen?
Welches Schicksal raubte dich der strahlenden Sonne deiner Heimat?
und dass allein dort noch Frieden über dir leuchten kann.
Als du fern warst, zog Trostlosigkeit in sein Haus ein. . .
Erwiderst du nicht die Liebe eines Vaters?
Also habe ich dich umsonst wiedergefunden!
eine so grosse Freude nicht.
Was sagst du? Ach bleib doch stehen!
Galerie in Floras Palast, reich dekoriert und illuminiert. Eine Tür im Hintergrund und zwei an den Seiten. Rechts mehr im Vordergrund ein Spieltisch mit allem, was dazugehört; links ein Tischchen mit Blumen und Erfrischungen, verschiedenen Sitzgelegenheiten und einem Diwan.
Flora, der Marquis, der Doktor und andere Gäste treten von links ein und unterhalten sich.
Auch Violetta und Alfredo habe ich eingeladen.
Kennt Ihr die Neuigkeit nicht?
Violetta und Alfredo haben sich getrennt.
Sie wird mit dem Baron hierher kommen.
Ich sah sie noch gestern ... sie schienen glücklich.
Man hört von rechts Lärm.
Die zuvor Genannten und viele als Zigeunerinnen kostümierte Damen, die von rechts hereinkommen.
die Zukunft aus der Hand.
Sie ergreifen Floras Hand und betrachten sie.
Sie tun dasselbe beim Marquis.
Spielt Ihr noch immer den Galan?
Gut, Ihr sollt mir dafür bezahlen . . .
oder ich lasse es Euch bereuen.
Flora und der Marquis schütteln sich die Hand.
Die zuvor Genannten; Gaston und andere, die als Stierkämpfer und spanische Picadores verkleidet sind, kommen lebhaft von rechts herein.
werdet Ihr erfahren, was für Liebhaber wir sind.
Mit Vergnügen werden wir es hören .
ist er Herr der Turniere.
bei deiner Rückkehr Hand und Herz schenken.
auf diese Weise seine Liebe bewies.
in den Armen der Liebe.
die Stierkämpfer die Schönen zu erobern!
Die Männer legen die Masken ab; die einen gehen umher, und die anderen schicken sich an zu spielen.
Die zuvor Genannten und Alfredo, dann Violetta mit demBaron, später ein Diener.
Von ihr weiss ich nichts.
Ganz schön abgebrüht! ... Bravo! ... Nun los, man darf spielen.
Du bist mir sehr willkommen.
Ich folgte der freundlichen Einladung.
Ich bin Euch dankbar, Baron, dass Ihr sie angenommen habt.
Ihr dürft kein einziges Wort an diesen Alfredo richten.
Setz dich zu mir; erzähl mir… Welche neue Situation sehe ich da?
Der Doktor nähert sich ihnen, während sie sich leise unterhalten. Der Marquis hält sich mit dem Baron abseits. Gaston hebt ab, Alfredo und die anderen setzen; andere gehen umher.
um das gewonnene Gold auf dem Lande zu verprassen!
Ihr habt ein solches Glück, dass Ihr mich zum Spiel reizt.
Und auf die linke Seite hundert.
Ein As ... ein Bube ... du hast gewonnen!
Der Sieg ist wirklich mein!
Ich sehe schon, der Baron wird den Landaufenthalt bezahlen.
Bei dem Spiel, das Ihr mögt.
Es wird sein, wie Ihr wünscht.
Alle gehen durch die mittlere Tür.- Die Bühne bleibt einen Augenblick leer.
Violetta kehrt atemlos zurück; dann Alfredo.
Ihr rieft mich? Was wollt Ihr?
Und Ihr haltet mich für so feige?
Erschreckt Euch ein solches Unglück?
Aber wenn er es ist, der tötet?
das ich als verhängnisvoll fürchte!
Ach, geht und auf der Stelle.
Vergiss einen Namen, der mit Schande bedeckt ist.
Der volles Recht darauf hatte.
Die zuvor Genannten und alle Vorherigen, die verwirrt zurückkehren.
Ihr rieft uns? …Was wollt Ihr?
dass ich sie hier bezahlt habe.
Er wirft mit wütender Verachtung eine Börse zu Füssen Violettas, die ohnmächtig in Floras und des Doktors Arme sinkt. In diesem Augenblick tritt der Vater auf.
Die zuvor Genannten und Herr Germont, der bei den letzten Worten auftritt.
du erweckst in uns Abscheu.
der, wenn auch nur im Zorn, eine Frau beleidigt.
In dir kann ich Alfredo nicht mehr finden.
(Ach ja! …Was tat ich!…Ich fühle mich schrecklich.
zerreissen mir die Seele…lassen der Vernunft keinen Platz.
Sie wird mir nicht mehr verzeihen.
Ich wollte sie fliehen…ich hab es nicht vermocht!
Vom Zorn angestachelt, bin ich hierher gekommen!
den Preis deiner Verachtung bewiesen habe!
auch noch im Tode werde ich dich dennoch lieben.
dass ich diesen Hochmut brechen werde.
trockne die Flut deiner Tränen.
Germont zieht den Sohn mit sich fort; der Baron folgt ihm. Violetta wird vom Doktor und Flora in ein anderes Zimmer geführt; die anderen zerstreuen sich.
Schlafzimmer Violettas. Im Hintergrund steht ein Bett mithalb zugezogenen Vorhängen; ein Fenster, verschlossen durch nach innen gehende Fensterladen; nahe dem Bett ein Schemel, auf dem eine Wasserflasche, ein Kristallbecher und verschiedene Medikamente liegen. ln der Mitte der Szene ein Frisiertisch, daneben ein Kanapee; weiter entfernt ein anderes Möbelstück, auf dem ein Nachtlicht brennt; ver-schiedene Sessel und andere Möbel. Die Tür ist links; dem Zuschauer gegenüber befindet sich ein Kamin, in dem Feuer brennt.
Violetta schläft auf dem Bett. Annina sitzt neben dem Kamin und schläft gleichfalls.
Gib mir einen Schluck Wasser.
Annina führt den Auftrag aus.
Sieh nach; ist es schon heller Tag?
Sie erhebt sich und fällt wieder zurück; dann geht sie mit Unterstützung Anninas langsam zum Kanapee; der Doktor kommt rechtzeitig herein, um ihr zu helfen, sich dort hinzulegen. Annina bringt Kissen herbei.
Die zuvor Genannten und der Doktor.
Ja, wie fühlt Ihr Euch?
Mein Körper leidet, aber meine Seele ist gefasst.
Gestern abend sprach mir ein frommer Priester Trost zu.
Religion ist Trost für die Leidenden.
Wie geht es ihr, mein Herr?
Die Schwindsucht gewährt ihr nur noch wenige Stunden.
Zehn gibst du selbst den Armen.
Sie betrachtet sich im Spiegel.
Oh, wie verändert ich aussehe!
Ach, mit einer solchen Krankheit ist jede Hoffnung verloren.
ach, verzeih ihr; nimm sie auf, o Gott, nun ist alles zu Ende.
das Grab ist für die Sterblichen das Ende von allem!
kein Kreuz mit dem Namen, das die Gebeine deckt!
ach, verzeih ihr; nimm sie auf, o Gott.
Nun ist alles zu Ende!
für den Triumphzug des Boeuf gras.
jedes Metzgers . . .
Die zuvor Genannte und Annina, die eilig zurückkommt.
Versprecht Ihr, ruhig zu sein?
Ja, was willst du mir sagen?
Alfredo! ... Ach, du sahst ihn? ... Er kommt! ... Treib ihn zur Eile an.
Annina nickt bejahend und geht die Tür öffnen.
Alfredo erscheint bleich vor Erregung; beide fallen sich um den Hals und rufen.
Ich bin schuldig ... ich weiss alles, meine Liebste.
ohne dich leben könnt' ich nicht mehr.
musst du glauben, dass der Schmerz nicht töten kann.
verzeih mir und meinem Vater.
kann mich jemals wieder von dir trennen.
deine Gesundheit wird wieder erblühen.
die ganze Zukunft wird uns hold sein.
Sie lässt sich erschöpft auf einem Sessel nieder, ihr Kopf fällt nach hinten.
Es war nichts ... Annina, gib mir etwas zum Anziehen.
Nein … ich will ausgehen.
Annina legt ihr ein Kleid vor, das sie anziehen will; durch ihre Schwäche gehindert, ruft sie aus.
Grosser Gott! Ich kann es nicht!
Sie wirft ärgerlich das Kleid hin und fällt auf den Sessel.
Hol den Doktor .. .
kann mich keiner auf Erden retten.
ich, die ich so sehr gelitten habe!
Violetta sinkt auf das Kanapee.
Die zuvor Genannten, Annina, Herr Germont und der Doktor.
Ach, zu spät kommt Ihr!
Oh, ich unbesonnener alter Mann!
Ach, all das Übel, das ich tat, sehe ich erst jetzt!
Komm näher her zu mir… höre mich, geliebter Alfredo.
erinnern, die dich so sehr liebte.
soll sie deine Ehefrau sein ... ich will es so.
für sie betet und für dich.
der Tod nicht von dir trennen.
wird mit dir auch mich aufnehmen.
die ich deinem guten Herzen bereitete.
Gott ruft dich zu sich.
Sie fällt aufs Kanapee zurück.
A room in Violetta's house. Violetta is seated on a sofa talking to the Doctor and other friends, who come and go. Some of the guests turn to meet a group of new arrivals, amongst whom are the Baron and Flora, on the arm of the Marquis.
Time flies when one is playing.
Let's raise our glasses and enjoy ourselves.
Can you be so gay?
As a cure for all my ills.
Yes, pleasure adds zest to life.
Gaston, Vicomte de Litorières, entering with Alfredo. The servants prepare the table.
And one of my most valued friends.
Thank you, Vicomte, for sharing such a gift.
In this house joins hands with pleasure?
The servants, meanwhile, have laid the supper table.
That puts secret sorrow to flight!
They sit down with Violetta between Alfredo and Gaston.
Let's open our hearts to each other.
Alfredo thinks of nobody but you.
Be quiet! I'm nothing to him.
Is it true, But why should you?
You never did as much for me, Baron.
I've only known you a year.
He's only known me a few minutes.
You'd have done better to keep quiet.
This young man annoys me.
Why? I find him charming.
You haven't so much as opened your mouth, yet.
It's the lady's privilege to loosen his tongue.
I'll be Hebe, who pours the wine.
To mark this happy moment?
The Baron shakes his head.
Yes, yes, a drinking song!
The Muse doesn't smile on me.
Yes? You put heart into me.
Yes, let's hear the singer.
That does not give us pleasure.
And can be enjoyed no more.
Brilliant summons lures us on.
Dawns on us in paradise.
But there lies my fate.
Dawns on this paradise of ours.
Music is heard from the other room.
Would you like to dance now?
Oh, what a pleasant thought!
The guests move towards the centre door, but Violetta turns suddenly pale.
She takes a few steps.
She is obliged to sit down.
They all go into the other room except Alfredo.
Oh, how pale I am!
Do you still feel upset?
You should take more care of your health!
Who cares what happens to me?
I'd forgotten that grand passion.
But all the same, you have a heart.
You wouldn't make fun of me.
Then how long have you loved me?
For more than a year.
The torment and delight of my heart.
If that is true, then leave me.
Friendship is all I can offer you.
I couldn't feel so great an emotion.
Well now? What the devil are you up to?
Ha, ha! Splendid! Go on!
So no more about love.
I'll do as you say. I'll go.
So it's come to that already?
She takes a flower from her corsage.
So that you can bring it back to me.
Do you still say you love me?
How much, how much I love you!
I'm happy ... oh, so happy!
All the others come in from the ballroom flushed with dancing.
For such a splendid party.
Pleasure rolls on its way.
The zest for further joys.
How strange it is … how strange!
Those words are carved upon my heart!
Would a true love bring me misfortune?
What do you think, o my troubled spirit?
No man before kindled a flame like this.
To love and to be loved!
For a life of sterile pleasure?
Into the burning flame of love!
It's madness! It's empty delirium!
What can I hope? What should I do?
Of pleasure and drown there!
That make my spirit soar.
Free and aimless, I must flutter … etc.
A country house near Paris. A ground?floor room.
There's no pleasure in life when she's away!
Where she forgets everything for me.
Forgetting the past in present delights.
"I want to live, faithful to you alone!"
Annina enters in great agitation, dressed for travelling.
Annina, where have you been?
And all her other things.
It's very costly living here on our own.
But why didn't you tell me?
Mustn't? How much do we need?
All right, you may go ..
I'm going to Paris, myself.
There's still time to put things straight.
Oh, my remorse! Oh, disgrace!
And I lived so mistaken!
Has broken my base sleep!
I shall wash away this infamy.
Ah, yes, I shall wash away this infamy!
Alfredo goes out. Violetta enters with some papers in her hand, talking to Annina. Behind them is Giuseppe.
He's just gone to Paris.
A man will be coming on business.
Show him in at once.
Annina and Giuseppe go out. Violetta opens the letter.
She invites me to a dance this evening!
She throws the letter on to the table and sits down.
She'll wait for me in vain.
Giuseppe comes in and approaches Violetta.
It'll be the man I'm expecting.
Because of his infatuation for you.
More for your sake than mine.
She turns to go out.
He wants to make over everything to you.
But you shall know the truth.
Heavens! What are you telling me?
Is this how the past reproaches you?
God has wiped out the past.
He knows of my repentance!
Your feelings do you credit.
How kind your voice sounds now.
Of those noble feelings of yours.
Don't tell me your terrible demand!
That was to bind them in their happiness.
Love to flowers of sadness.
The prayer I utter now.
That's not what I'm asking.
Heavens! What more do you expect?
So much I've offered, already!
That burns in my heart!
I have no friends, no family still living.
That I should find them all in him.
Is threatened by a fell disease?
That already I see the end is near?
Why yes, much rather die!
I want nothing but to love him!
But men are often less faithful.
What will happen then? Think!
Had not been blessed by heaven.
You still have time for that.
The words this father speaks.
The hope of rising is for ever gone!
Man will never forgive her.
Is a sacrifice made for her.
Tell me what I must do.
Say you don't love him.
So you may give me strength.
But more unhappy than words can tell.
She goes to the writing-table.
And what can I do for you?
What can I do for you who are so generous?
Heaven will repay you for these tears.
Till I draw my last breath.
Of so great a love.
Someone is coming, you must go now.
I thank you from my heart!
We may not meet again.
May you be happy! Farewell!
Germont goes to the door.
Her tears stifle the words.
Germont goes through the door into the garden.
And now a note to him.
Who will give me the courage to say it?
She writes and seals the letter.
Why are you so confused?
Who were you writing to?
But he left me an angry letter.
I shall wait for him.
He'll love you when he sees you.
He won't want to part us any more.
So very much, but why are you crying?
You see ... I'm smiling ... you see?
Love me as I love you! Farewell!
She runs out into the garden.
He sits down and picks up a book, reads for a mo ment, then gets up and looks at the clock above the fireplace.
It's on its way to Paris now.
I know, don't agitate yourself.
But Annina will stop her.
His father is seen in the distance, crossing the garden.
There's someone in the garden?
He turns to go out.
Gave me this note for you.
He gives Alfredo a letter, receives a tip and goes out.
From Violetta! Why am I so disturbed?
Perhaps she suggests my joining her?
I'm afraid! Oh, heaven! Give me courage!
He opens the letter and reads.
He finds himself in his father's arms.
I know how much you suffer!
Alfredo, in despair, sits down near the table with his face in his hands.
The dear sea and soil of Provence?
The bright sunshine of your native country?
It was God who brought me here!
What pain your old father has suffered!
His home has been desolate indeed.
What, no response to your father's love?
A thousand serpents devour my breast.
Then I have found you in vain?
To those who have suffered till now.
Hasten to console a father and a sister.
Freeing himself, he sees Flora's letter on the table.
He reads is hastily and exclaims.
She's gone to the party!
I'll have my own back for that!
What's that you say? Stop!
A brilliantly lighted, richly furnished room in Flora's house. A door at the back and one on each side. Downstage right is a table where guests are playing cards; on the left another table decked with flowers, where refreshments are set out. There are chairs and a sofa.
Flora, the Marquis, the Doctor and other guests come in left, talking together.
The young vicomte at their head.
Violetta and Germont have parted?
She'll coming with the baron.
But I saw them only yesterday!
There is a sound of new arrivals, off right.
A crowd of guests wearing masks and gypsy costumes enter right.
We can reveal to you.
You, Madame, Have several rivals.
Are no model of faithfulness.
Are you at your games again?
Believe me, I shall make you pay!
What the deuce do you mean?
But he doesn't forget his tricks.
Or you may be sorry for it.
Let us welcome what's to come.
Flora and the Marquis press each other's hands.
Gaston comes in right, with a lively band of guests in masks, dressed as Spanish bullfighters and picadors.
And would like to know how we can love!
Yes, yes, you splendid fellows, tell us!
We are eager to hear you!
He's the lord of the arena.
You shall have my heart and hand."
Stretched lifeless upon the sand.
The kind of love yours is.
In the strong arms of love.
Know how to win the fair.
We make do with fun and games!
The men take off their masks. Some move around and some get ready for gambling. Alfredo enters.
Now, let's have a game!
Violetta enters on the arm of the Baron.
Here's the one we've been waiting for.
I couldn't refuse such a lovely invitation.
Germont is here! Do you see?
Ah, why did I come?
It was rash of me!
Heaven, Have mercy on me!
Flora makes Violetta sit beside her on a sofa. The Doctor approaches them; the Marquis talks to the Baron. Gaston cuts the cards; Alfredo and the other stake their money, Guests pass to and fro.
And tell me about this new turn of events.
Flora and Violetta talk together.
He stakes again and wins.
He's winning all the time!
Until she ran away from me.
Remain calm, or I leave you.
Did you speak to me, Baron?
Really? I'll take you on.
Ah! I feel like death!
Bravo! Alfredo has all the luck.
the country … I can see that!
What's going to happen? I feel like death!
If you'd like to go on?
I'll have my revenge later.
At any game you like.
I'll be at your service.
Everybody goes out, the stage is empty for a few moments.
I've asked him to follow me.
Will he come? Will he heed me?
You called me? What do you want?
So you think I'm a coward?
It's a question of life and death between us.
Doesn't such a fate terrify you?
But if he should be the killer?
My death? What do you care about that?
Please go, go at once!
Forget a name that's without honour!
Go, leave me this minute.
Who to? Tell me, who could make you?
One who had every right.
Come here, all of you!
The rest of the company rush in.
You called us? What do you want?
But you don't know what she's done.
For me this woman lost all she possessed.
To clear myself from debt.
That I've paid her back!
Contemptuously, he throws his winnings at Violetta'sfeet. She swoons in Flora's arms. Alfredo's father arrives suddenly.
What you have done is shameful!
So to strike down a tender heart!
You have insulted a woman!
We've no use for you!
We've no use for such as you!
What have I done? Yes, I despise myself!
Ravaged my soul, destroyed my reason.
How can I ever gain her pardon?
I feel nothing but a deep remorse!
That's vowed so cruelly to silence.
I shall find a way to humble your pride!
Alas, what have I done?
All the love that's in my heart?
Even at the price of your contempt?
When you'll admit how much I loved you.
God save you then from all remorse!
Even after death I shall still love you.
Germont leads his son away with him; the Baron follows. Flora and the Doctor take Violetta into the other room as the rest of the company disperses.
Violetta's bedroom. Violetta is asleep on the bed; Annina, seated near the fireplace, is dozing.
Were you asleep? Poor Annina!
Give me a sip of water.
Look and see if it's daylight.
Let's have a little light.
What a good friend he is!
I must get up, help me.
She rises but falls back, then, with Annina's help, moves slowly over to the couch. The Doctor arrives in time to help her.
To think of me so early!
Religion's a great solace when one's ill.
Convalescence is not far away.
Good?bye, I'll see you later.
It's the carnival, Paris is running wild.
Suffering while the people enjoy themselves!
How much have we left in the drawer?
And give them to the poor.
You won't have much left.
Go and see if there are any letters for me.
Annina goes out. Violetta draws a letter from her breast and reads it in a low voice, speaking in time to the music.
I have told him of your sacrifice.
You deserve a better future.
I wait and wait, but they never come!
She looks at herself in the glass.
But the Doctor still urges me to hope!
The roses in my cheeks already are faded.
To comfort and uphold my weary spirit.
And may God pardon and make her his own!
To the Fat Ox's triumph.
Will you promise to keep calm?
I must warn you of a joy you don't expect.
Annina nodds in confirmation, goes to open the door. Violetta goes to the door.
Alfredo appears, pale with emotion, and they fall into each other's arms.
But now, dearest, I know everything!
I only know I have you back!
From the beating of my heart!
I can live no longer without you!
Means that sorrow cannot kill.
Forgive me and my father.
When I'm the one to blame?
But it was love that made me so.
Shall ever part you from me again.
Together we'll go through life.
You'll bloom into health again.
All the years to come will smile on us.
I shall bloom into health again.
And give thanks for your return.
When one has been sad at heart.
She falls, exhausted, into a chair.
It's the way the illness takes me!
Annina, help me to dress.
No! I want to go out.
Annina brings Violetta's clothes, which she tries to put on, but nearly falls from weakness.
She falls back on the chair.
To see her like this!
Go and get the Doctor!
Tell him I want to live again!
No one on earth can do it.
After the long night of tears!
My hope and my belief!
Was constant all in vain!
I need your true devotion.
To our love and my life!
Is worse to me than death!
Alas, you come too late!
But I'm grateful, all the same.
Of those I hold dearest in all the world.
Whatever are you telling me?
Heaven help us! It's true!
You see how it is with her, Father?
Her every word strikes me like lightning!
Violetta opens a drawer and takes out a medallion.
Torment inflicted on your fair heart.
Let her be your wife, for such is my wish.
Prays always for her and for you.
I shall weep for you.
For God calls you to Him!
Shall enclose me with you!
The spasms of pain have ceased!
I feel I'm coming back to life!
She falls back on the sofa.
Oh, heavens! She is dying!
Oh, God, she needs help!
Salotto in casa di Violetta. Nel fondo è la porta che mette ad altra sala; ve ne sono altre due laterali; a sinistra, un caminetto con sopra uno specchio. Nel mezzo è una tavola riccamente imbandita.
Violetta, seduta sopra un divano, sta discorrendo col Dottore e con alcuni amici, mentre alri vanno ad incontrare quelli che sopraggiungono,tra i quali sono il Barone e Flora al braccio del Marchese.
Col tal farmaco i mali sopir.
Sì, la vita s'addoppia al gioir.
Pochi amici a lui simili sono.
Mio Visconte, merce' di tal dono.
L'amistà qui s'intreccia al diletto.
È al convito che s'apre ogni cor.
Sempre Alfredo a voi pensa.
Qui volò, di voi chiese.
Nulla son io per lui.
Vero è dunque? onde è ciò?
Le mie grazie vi rendo.
Vi conosco da un anno soltanto.
Ed ei solo da qualche minuto.
Meglio fora se aveste taciuto.
A me invece simpatico egli è.
E tu dunque non apri più bocca?
E non se' tu maestro?
Sì? L'ho già in cor.
Né più si può goder.
Ne scopra il nuovo dì.
La vita è nel tripudio.
Nol dite a chi l'ignora.
Non gradireste ora le danze?
Oh, il gentil pensier! tutti accettiamo.
Ridete? e in voi v'ha un core?
Un cor? Sì forse e a che lo richiedete?
Da molto è che mi amate?
Ah sì, da un anno.
Ah! ah! sta ben restate.
Ch'io non conobbi, essere amata amando!
Per l'aride follie del viver mio?
Casa di campagna presso Parigi. Salotto terreno. Nel fondo in faccia agli spettatori, è un camino, sopra il quale uno specchio ed un orologio, fra due porte chiuse da cristalli che mettono ad un giardino. Al primo piano, due altre porte, una di fronte all'altra. Sedie, tavolini, qualche libro, l'occorrente per scrivere.
Scordo ne' gaudii suoi tutto il passato.
Io vivo quasi in ciel.
Mi fu il silenzio imposto.
Or vanne andrò a Parigi.
Questo colloquio ignori la signora.
Il tutto valgo a riparare ancora.
e vissi in tale errore?
Per Parigi or or partiva.
giungerà un uom d'affari, entri all'istante.
Ah, ah, scopriva Flora il mio ritiro!
E m'invita a danzar per questa sera!
Ah! sarà lui che attendo.
D'Alfredo il padre in me vedete!
Più per voi che per me.
Tratto in error voi foste.
Ah, il passato perché, perché v'accusa?
Lo cancellò col pentimento mio.
Mi suona il vostro accento!
Non voglia il vostro cor.
Non è ciò che chiedo.
Cielo, che più cercate? offersi assai!
Volete che per sempre a lui rinunzi?
Vivo, immenso m'arda in petto?
Io non conto tra i viventi?
Che in lui tutto io troverò?
D'altro morbo è la mia vita?
Che già presso il fin ne vedo?
Ch'io mi separi da Alfredo?
Ne siete in tempo ancor.
Tai detti a un genitor.
Di più risorgere - speranza è muta!
Che a lei il sacrifica - e che morrà!
È il sacrificio - ch'ora io ti chieggo.
Coraggio e il nobile - cor vincerà.
Sapendol, v'opporreste al pensier mio.
Generosa! e per voi che far poss'io?
Vi sia chi almen gli dica.
Dal cielo un giorno avrete.
Ah, grato v'è il cor mio!
Non ci vedrem più forse.
Dammi tu forza, o cielo!
Che gli dirò? Chi men darà il coraggio?
Qual turbamento! a chi scrivevi?
Mi perdona son io preoccupato.
Però l'attendo, t'amerà in vederti.
Perché tu m'ami, Alfredo, non è vero?
Sarò là, tra quei fior presso a te sempre.
Amami, Alfredo, quant'io t'amo Addio.
Ah, vive sol quel core all'amor mio!
Più non verrà mio padre.
Di Violetta! Perché son io commosso!
o tremo! Oh ciel! Coraggio!
"Alfredo, al giungervi di questo foglio"
Di Provenza il mar, il suol - chi dal cor ti cancello?
Al natio fulgente sol - qual destino ti furò?
E che pace colà sol - su te splendere ancor può.
Né rispondi d'un padre all'affetto?
Galleria nel palazzo di Flora, riccamente addobbata ed illuminata. Una porta nel fondo e due laterali. A destra, più avanti, un tavoliere con quanto occorre pel giuoco; a sinistra, ricco tavolino con fiori e rinfreschi, varie sedie e un divano.
Violetta ed Alfredo anco invitai.
Violetta e Germont sono disgiunti.
Ella verrà qui col barone.
Li vidi ieri... ancor parean felici.
Quali amanti noi siamo saprete.
Delle giostre egli è signor.
Mano e cor ti vò donar.
In tal guisa egli provò.
Or via, giuocar si può.
Grata vi son, barone, d'averlo pur gradito.
(Ciel! gli è vero). Il vedo.
Meco t'assidi: narrami quai novità vegg'io?
Poscia a goder tra' campi ritornerò beato.
Che al giuoco mi tentaste.
Un asse un fante hai vinto!
Pur la vittoria è mia!
Bravo davver! la sorte è tutta per Alfredo!
E sì vile mi credete?
Ch'io pavento a me fatale!
La mia morte! Che ven cale?
Scorda un nome ch'è infamato.
Chi diritto pien ne avea.
Che qui pagata io l'ho.
Chi pur nell'ira la donna offende.
In te più Alfredo - trovar non so.
(Ah sì che feci! ne sento orrore.
Mi strazia l'alma più non ragiono.
Da lei perdono - più non avrò.
Volea fuggirla non ho potuto!
Dall'ira spinto son qui venuto!
Me sciagurato! - rimorso n'ho.
Del tuo disprezzo - provato io l'ho!
Io spenta ancora - pur t'amerò.
Che tanto orgolio - fiaccar saprò.
Rasciuga il pianto - che t'inondò.
Camera da letto di Violetta. Nel fondo è un letto con cortine mezze tirate; una finestra chiusa da imposte interne; presso il letto uno sgabello su cui una bottiglia di acqua, una tazza di cristallo, diverse medicine. A metà della scena una toilette, vicino un canapé; più distante un altro mobile, sui cui arde un lume da notte; varie sedie ed altri mobili. La porta è a sinistra; di fronte v'è un caminetto con fuoco acceso.
Osserva, è pieno il giorno?
Quanta bontà pensaste a me per tempo!
Soffre il mio corpo, ma tranquilla ho l'alma.
Mi confortò iersera un pio ministro.
Religione è sollievo a' sofferenti.
La tisi non le accorda che poche ore.
Giorno di festa è questo?
Dieci ne reca ai poveri tu stessa.
Attendo, attendo né a me giungon mai! . . .
Ma il dottore a sperar pure m'esorta!
Ah, con tal morbo ogni speranza è morta.
La tomba ai mortali di tutto è confine!
Non croce col nome che copra quest'ossa!
A lei, deh, perdona; tu accoglila, o Dio.
Al trionfo del Bue grasso.
Alfredo! Ah, tu il vedesti? ei vien! l'affretta .
Colpevol sono... so tutto, o cara.
Io so che alfine reso mi sei!
Senza te esistere più non potrei.
Credi che uccidere non può il dolor.
A me perdona e al genitor.
Ma solo amore tal mi rendé.
Mai più staccarti potrà da me.
Tutto il futuro ne arriderà.
Fu nulla Annina, dammi a vestire.
A niuno in terra salvarmi è dato.
Io che penato ho tanto!
Il mio sì lungo pianto!
Armato avrò il mio cor!
Non chiudere il tuo cor.
Ah, tutto il mal ch'io feci ora sol vedo!
Più a me t'appressa ascolta, amato Alfredo.
Sposa ti sia lo vo'.
Prega per lei, per te.
Morte non può da me.
Recato al tuo bel core.
Iddio ti chiama a sé. | 2019-04-20T15:36:53Z | http://www.opera-guide.ch/opera.php?id=396&uilang=en |
Genetic pollution is a controversial term for uncontrolled gene flow into wild populations. It is defined as “the dispersal of contaminated altered genes from genetically engineered organisms to natural organisms, esp. by cross-pollination”, but has come to be used in some broader ways. It is related to the population genetics concept of gene flow, and genetic rescue, which is genetic material intentionally introduced to increase the fitness of a population. It is called genetic pollution when it negatively impacts on the fitness of a population, such as through outbreeding depression and the introduction of unwanted phenotypes which can lead to extinction.
Conservation biologists and conservationists have used the term to describe gene flow from domestic, feral, and non-native species into wild indigenous species, which they consider undesirable. They promote awareness of the effects of introduced invasive species that may "hybridize with native species, causing genetic pollution". In the fields of agriculture, agroforestry and animal husbandry, genetic pollution is used to describe gene flows between genetically engineered species and wild relatives. The use of the word “pollution” is meant to convey the idea that mixing genetic information is bad for the environment, but because the mixing of genetic information can lead to a variety of outcomes, “pollution” may not always be the most accurate descriptor.
Some conservation biologists and conservationists have used genetic pollution for a number of years as a term to describe gene flow from a non-native, invasive subspecies, domestic, or genetically-engineered population to a wild indigenous population.
The introduction of genetic material into the gene pool of a population by human intervention can have both positive and negative effects on populations. When genetic material is intentionally introduced to increase the fitness of a population, this is called genetic rescue. When genetic material is unintentionally introduced to a population, this is called genetic pollution and can negatively affect the fitness of a population (primarily through outbreeding depression), introduce other unwanted phenotypes, or theoretically lead to extinction.
An introduced species is one that is not native to a given population that is either intentionally or accidentally brought into a given ecosystem. Effects of introduction are highly variable, but if an introduced species has a major negative impact on its new environment, it can be considered an invasive species. One such example is the introduction of the Asian Longhorned beetle in North America, which was first detected in 1996 in Brooklyn, New York. It is believed that these beetles were introduced through cargo at trade ports. The beetles are highly damaging to the environment, and are estimated to cause risk to 35% of urban trees, excluding natural forests. These beetles cause severe damage to the wood of trees by larval funneling. Their presence in the ecosystem destabilizes community structure, having a negative influence on many species in the system. Introduced species are not always disruptive to an environment, however. Tomás Carlo and Jason Gleditch of Penn State University found that the number of invasive honeysuckle plants in the area correlated with the number and diversity of the birds in the Happy Valley Region of Pennsylvania, suggesting introduced honeysuckle plants and birds formed a mutually beneficial relationship. Presence of introduced honeysuckle was associated with higher diversity of the bird populations in that area, demonstrating that introduced species are not always detrimental to a given environment and it is completely context dependent.
Conservation biologists and conservationists have, for a number of years, used the term to describe gene flow from domestic, feral, and non-native species into wild indigenous species, which they consider undesirable. For example, TRAFFIC is the international wildlife trade monitoring network that works to limit trade in wild plants and animals so that it is not a threat to conservationist goals. They promote awareness of the effects of introduced invasive species that may "hybridize with native species, causing genetic pollution". Furthermore, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, the statutory adviser to the UK government, has stated that invasive species "will alter the genetic pool (a process called genetic pollution), which is an irreversible change."
Invasive species can invade both large and small native populations and have a profound effect. Upon invasion, invasive species interbreed with native species to form sterile or more evolutionarily fit hybrids that can outcompete the native populations. Invasive species can cause extinctions of small populations on islands that are particularly vulnerable due to their smaller amounts of genetic diversity. In these populations, local adaptations can be disrupted by the introduction of new genes that may not be as suitable for the small island environments. For example, the Cercocarpus traskiae of the Catalina Island off the coast of California has faced near extinction with only a single population remaining due to the hybridization of its offspring with Cercocarpus betuloides.
Increased contact between wild and domesticated populations of organisms can lead to reproductive interactions that are detrimental to the wild population's ability to survive. A wild population is one that lives in natural areas and is not regularly looked after by humans. This contrast with domesticated populations that live in human controlled areas and are regularly, and historically, in contact with humans. Genes from domesticated populations are added to wild populations as a result of reproduction. In many crop populations this can be the result of pollen traveling from farmed crops to neighboring wild plants of the same species. For farmed animals, this reproduction may happen as the result of escaped or released animals.
Aquaculture is the practice of farming aquatic animals or plants for the purpose of consumption. This practice is becoming increasingly common for the production of salmon. This is specifically termed aquaculture of salmonoids. One of the dangers of this practice is the possibility of domesticated salmon breaking free from their containment. The occurrence of escaping incidents is becoming increasingly common as aquaculture gains popularity. Farming structures may be ineffective at holding the vast number of fast growing animals they house. Natural disasters, high tides, and other environmental occurrences can also trigger aquatic animal escapes. The reason these escapes are considered dangers is the impact they pose for the wild population they reproduce with after escaping. In many instances the wild population experiences a decreased likelihood of survival after reproducing with domesticated populations of salmon.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife cites that "commonly expressed concerns surrounding escaped Atlantic salmon include competition with native salmon, predation, disease transfer, hybridization, and colonization" A report done by that organization in 1999 did not find that escaped salmon posed a significant risk to wild populations.
Crops refer to groups of plants grown for consumption. Despite domestication over many years, these plants are not so far removed from their wild relatives that they could reproduce if brought together. Many crops are still grown in the areas they originated and gene flow between crops and wild relatives impacts the evolution of wild populations. Farmers can avoid reproduction between the different populations by timing their planting of crops so that crops are not flowering when wild relatives would be. Domesticated crops have been changed through artificial selection and genetic engineering. The genetic make up of many crops is different than that of its wild relatives, but the closer they grow to one another the more likely they are to share genes through pollen. Gene flow persists between crops and wild counterparts.
Genetically engineered organisms are genetically modified in a laboratory, and therefore distinct from those that were bred through artificial selection. In the fields of agriculture, agroforestry and animal husbandry, genetic pollution is being used to describe gene flows between GE species and wild relatives. An early use of the term "genetic pollution" in this later sense appears in a wide-ranging review of the potential ecological effects of genetic engineering in The Ecologist magazine in July 1989. It was also popularized by environmentalist Jeremy Rifkin in his 1998 book The Biotech Century. While intentional crossbreeding between two genetically distinct varieties is described as hybridization with the subsequent introgression of genes, Rifkin, who had played a leading role in the ethical debate for over a decade before, used genetic pollution to describe what he considered to be problems that might occur due the unintentional process of (modernly) genetically modified organisms (GMOs) dispersing their genes into the natural environment by breeding with wild plants or animals.
Concerns about negative consequences from gene flow between genetically engineered organisms and wild populations are valid. Most corn and soybean crops grown in the midwestern USA are genetically modified. There are corn and soybean varieties that are resistant to herbicides like glyphosate and corn that produces neonicotinoid pesticide within all of its tissues. These genetic modifications are meant to increase yields of crops but there is little evidence that yields actually increase. While scientists are concerned genetically engineered organisms can have negative effects on surrounding plant and animal communities, the risk of gene flow between genetically engineered organisms and wild populations is yet another concern. Many farmed crops may be weed resistant and reproduce with wild relatives. More research is necessary to understand how much gene flow between genetically engineered crops and wild populations occurs, and the impacts of genetic mixing.
Mutations within organisms can be executed through the process of exposing the organism to chemicals or radiation in order to generate mutations. This has been done in plants in order to create mutants that have a desired trait. These mutants can then be bred with other mutants or individuals that are not mutated in order to maintain the mutant trait. However, similar to the risks associated with introducing individuals to a certain environment, the variation created by mutated individuals could have a negative impact on native populations as well.
Since 2005 there has existed a GM Contamination Register, launched for GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace International that records all incidents of intentional or accidental release of organisms genetically modified using modern techniques.
Genetic use restriction technologies (GURTs) were developed for the purpose of property protection, but could be beneficial in preventing the dispersal of transgenes. GeneSafe technologies introduced a method that became known as “Terminator.” This method is based on seeds that produce sterile plants. This would prevent movement of transgenes into wild populations as hybridization would not be possible. However, this technology has never been deployed as it disproportionately negatively affects farmers in developing countries, who save seeds to use each year (whereas in developed countries, farmers generally buy seeds from seed production companies).
Physical containment has also been utilized to prevent the escape of transgenes. Physical containment includes barriers such as filters in labs, screens in greenhouses, and isolation distances in the field. Isolation distances have not always been successful, such as transgene escape from an isolated field into the wild in herbicide-resistant bentgrass Agrostis stolonifera.
Another suggested method that applies specifically to protection traits (e.g. pathogen resistance) is mitigation. Mitigation involves linking the positive trait (beneficial to fitness) to a trait that is negative (harmful to fitness) to wild but not domesticated individuals. In this case, if the protection trait was introduced to a weed, the negative trait would also be introduced in order to decrease overall fitness of the weed and decrease possibility of the individual’s reproduction and thus propagation of the transgene.
Genetic In a 10-year study of four different crops, none of the genetically engineered plants were found to be more invasive or more persistent than their conventional counterparts. An often cited claimed example of genetic pollution is the reputed discovery of transgenes from GE maize in landraces of maize in Oaxaca, Mexico. The report from Quist and Chapela, has since been discredited on methodological grounds. The scientific journal that originally published the study concluded that "the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper." More recent attempts to replicate the original studies have concluded that genetically modified corn is absent from southern Mexico in 2003 and 2004.
A 2009 study verified the original findings of the controversial 2001 study, by finding transgenes in about 1% of 2000 samples of wild maize in Oaxaca, Mexico, despite Nature retracting the 2001 study and a second study failing to back up the findings of the initial study. The study found that the transgenes are common in some fields, but non-existent in others, hence explaining why a previous study failed to find them. Furthermore, not every laboratory method managed to find the transgenes.
A 2004 study performed near an Oregon field trial for a genetically modified variety of creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera) revealed that the transgene and its associate trait (resistance to the glyphosate herbicide) could be transmitted by wind pollination to resident plants of different Agrostis species, up to 14 km from the test field. In 2007, the Scotts Company, producer of the genetically modified bentgrass, agreed to pay a civil penalty of $500,000 to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA alleged that Scotts "failed to conduct a 2003 Oregon field trial in a manner which ensured that neither glyphosate-tolerant creeping bentgrass nor its offspring would persist in the environment".
Not only are there risks in terms of genetic engineering, but there are risks that emerge from species hybridization In Czechoslovakia, ibex were introduced from Turkey and Sinai to help promote the ibex population there, which caused hybrids that produced offspring too early, which caused the overall population to disappear completely. The genes of each population of the ibex in Turkey and Sinai were locally adapted to their environments so when placed in a new environmental context did not flourish. Additionally, the environmental toll that may arise from the introduction of a new species may be so disruptive that the ecosystem is no longer able to sustain certain populations.
"Invasive species have been a major cause of extinction throughout the world in the past few hundred years. Some of them prey on native wildlife, compete with it for resources, or spread disease, while others may hybridize with native species, causing "genetic pollution". In these ways, invasive species are as big a threat to the balance of nature as the direct overexploitation by humans of some species."</ref>.
It can also be considered undesirable if it leads to a loss of fitness in the wild populations. The term can be associated with the gene flow from a mutation bred, synthetic organism or genetically engineered organism to a non GE organism, by those who consider such gene flow detrimental. These environmentalist groups stand in complete opposition to the development and production of genetically engineered organisms.
"Uncontrolled spread of genetic information (frequently referring to transgenes) into the genomes of organisms in which such genes are not present in nature."
"...imply either that hybrids are less fit than the parentals, which need not be the case, or that there is an inherent value in "pure" gene pools."
"Mixing" need not be value-laden, and we use it here to denote mixing of gene pools whether or not associated with a decline in fitness.
"If you take a term used quite frequently these days, the term "genetic pollution," otherwise referred to as genetic contamination, it is a propaganda term, not a technical or scientific term. Pollution and contamination are both value judgments. By using the word "genetic" it gives the public the impression that they are talking about something scientific or technical--as if there were such a thing as genes that amount to pollution.
Thus, using the term “genetic pollution” is inherently political. A scientific approach to discussing gene flow between introduced and native species would be to use terms like genetic mixing or gene flow. Such mixing can definitely have negative consequences on the fitness of native populations, so it is important not to minimize the risk. However, because genetic mixing can also lead to fitness recovery in cases that could be described as “genetic rescue”, it is important to distinguish that just mixing genes from introduced into native populations can lead to variable outcomes for the fitness of native populations.
^ a b Rhymer JM, Simberloff D (1996). "Extinction by Hybridization and Introgression". Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 27: 83–109. doi:10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.27.1.83.
^ Competitive Enterprise Institute staff (2004). "What's Wrong with the Environmental Movement: an interview with Patrick Moore". Environment News. The Heartland Institute. Archived from the original on 24 November 2006.
^ a b c Boffey PM (December 13, 1983). "Italy's Wild Dogs Winning Darwinian Battle". The New York Times. Although wolves and dogs have always lived in close contact in Italy and have presumably mated in the past, the newly worrisome element, in Dr. Boitani's opinion, is the increasing disparity in numbers, which suggests that interbreeding will become fairly common. As a result, genetic pollution of the wolf gene pool might reach irreversible levels, he warned. By hybridization, dogs can easily absorb the wolf genes and destroy the wolf, as it is, he said. The wolf might survive as a more doglike animal, better adapted to living close to people, he said, but it would not be what we today call a wolf.
^ Ellstrand NC (2001). "When Transgenes Wander, Should We Worry?". Plant Physiol. 125 (4): 1543–1545. doi:10.1104/pp.125.4.1543.
^ "the definition of genetic pollution". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
^ Waller, Donald M. (June 2015). "Genetic rescue: a safe or risky bet?". Molecular Ecology. 24 (11): 2595–2597. doi:10.1111/mec.13220. ISSN 1365-294X. PMID 26013990.
^ a b c Butler D (18 August 1994). "Bid to protect wolves from genetic pollution". Nature. 370 (6490): 497. doi:10.1038/370497a0.
^ a b Potts BM, Barbour RC, Hingston AB, Vaillancourt RE (2003). "Corrigendum to: TURNER REVIEW No. 6 Genetic pollution of native eucalypt gene pools—identifying the risks". Australian Journal of Botany. 51 (3): 333. doi:10.1071/BT02035_CO.
^ Haack, Robert A., et al. Managing Invasive Populations of Asian Longhorned Beetle and Citrus Longhorned Beetle: A Worldwide Perspective. vol. 55, Annual Review of Entomology, 2010, Managing Invasive Populations of Asian Longhorned Beetle and Citrus Longhorned Beetle: A Worldwide Perspective.
^ 2011, Invasive Plants Can Create Positive Ecological Change.
^ a b "When is wildlife trade a problem?". TRAFFIC.org, the wildlife trade monitoring network, a joint programme of WWF and IUCN. The World Conservation Union. Archived from the original on 24 December 2007.
^ Effects of the introduction of invasive/non-native species - Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), a statutory adviser to Government on UK and international nature conservation. Accessed on November 25, 2007. : "Occasionally non-native species can reproduce with native species and produce hybrids, which will alter the genetic pool (a process called genetic pollution), which is an irreversible change."
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^ a b Gressel, Jonathan (2014-08-15). "Dealing with transgene flow of crop protection traits from crops to their relatives". Pest Management Science. 71 (5): 658–667. doi:10.1002/ps.3850. ISSN 1526-498X. PMID 24977384.
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^ Zaid A, Hughes HG, Porceddu E, Nicholas F (26 October 2007). Glossary of Biotechnology for Food and Agriculture - A Revised and Augmented Edition of the Glossary of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering. A FAO Research and Technology Paper. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. ISBN 978-92-5-104683-8. Archived from the original on 30 November 2011. | 2019-04-19T13:27:21Z | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_pollution |
I first started building electrical and electronic circuits from about the age of 7. I started building all sorts of interesting circuits with Electronic kits using the supplied instruction manuals. I quickly graduated to taking broken electronic items apart to see how they work, this also provided me with a vast array of switches, components and meters I could use in my own projects. I was always heading in to town to buy components or those really interesting Babani books full of Electronics circuit ideas and projects. I also bought Everyday Electronics magazine and marvelled at the circuits that I could afford to build, and the ones that were too big or which were out of my price range, but it was still interesting to see how they worked.
I was entirely self taught in electronics until I was 14, when I attended a set of after school ‘Build a Radio’ classes run by a teacher at Evesham High School in the 70’s. In these after school classes we built our own working radios from discrete components. Later I supplemented my knowledge by attended a TV and Radio Repair night school class. This helped me to make money by repairing televisions for neighbours, and repairing CB’s for the local CB Radio enthusiasts (of which I was one). Although I had served my apprenticeship as a motor mechanic and HGV Fitter, it now looked like my career would be in electronics…. until I bought my first computer.
I had my first brush with programming at school in the 1970’s when I attended an after school course in programming an electrical/mechanical calculator/machine/device, I am not sure what the machine was but I still have a printout from the device. This printout (which is about an inch wide) was the program I wrote to calculate the distance travelled by a falling object under the influence of gravity. Following this I became a HGV fitter and spent every Monday away from my work in a garage on day release, studying for my Motor Vehicle apprenticeship in a local technical college. I discovered the college had a mainframe computer, so I would spend my dinner time in the computer room, using the terminals connected to the mainframe, there were no monitors at that time, the output was on to rolls of paper.
I got my first computer when I bought a ZX81 on 7th November 1982 and played the breakout game I bought with it, I then read the manual that came with the computer and was hooked, I taught myself programming from the ZX81 manual. I did not know of anyone in the area who even owned a computer or knew what they could do, so I had nobody to discuss computers with, they were a bit of a specialist subject back then. I started working flat out learning how to write software I then graduated to the Sinclair Spectrum, and then to the Sinclair QL.
In 1985 I went in to WH Smiths in Preston and saw a typing tutor for sale for £29.95. I told the shop assistant who I regularly chatted to, that the software was over priced and that I could write something better myself, he challenged me, and I set about writing Touch Typist to prove my claim.
Two weeks later, after working flat out, I took a program in to show him and he was amazed that it was better than the one he was selling, he said that I should market it. I then set about writing new features and expanding the software until it was ready for sale.
I managed to get an Enterprise Allowance grant of £40 per week for one year to start up self employed, writing software. I started my business from home in October 1985, later on that year I attended a computer show in London as an exhibitor selling my one product, I was please that I sold about 19 copies that day.
Back in the 80’s, before Microsoft wrote Windows my company had our own multitasking/task switching front end for the Sinclair QL called Taskmaster, this gave you multiple programs running in their own windows, all the programs multitasked, this meant that they all ran at the same time, you could set your database printing out labels and still use your wordprocessor or any other programs at the same time. Also included in the package was a file handling program similar to Windows File Manager, a pop up notepad and pop up calculator which once closed with a two key combination transferred the text out of the notepad or the result from the calculator to the underlying program. This allowed, for example, the ability to be working in your accounts package and, with a simple keypress up popped up the calculator, you could perform your calculations and then by pressing two keys the calculator closed down and as it disappeared it typed the result to the input box on your accounts package, the notepad worked the same way. This software also gave you a macro recorder and player language which could operate ANY program running in your machine thus automating common tasks. A software based printer buffer which was configurable to use spare ram saved customers the cost of buying the only other alternative at the time which was hardware printer buffers which were expensive. When you switched on your QL, Taskmaster remembered what programs you were using when you closed it down and they were loaded up ready to go.
In 1987 my company Sector Software released a spelling checker for the Sinclair QL by the name of Spellbound, this checked your spelling in real time as you typed, this is a feature that many thought that Microsoft invented in their recent Microsoft Office software, we were doing this ten years earlier than Microsoft. Spellbound spelling checker did not only work within a wordprocessor though, by linking itself in to the keyboard input queue it worked exactly the same in ANY program running in the computer, for example you could be in your accounts package, spreadsheet or even a game and still turn on the spell checking by simply pressing a two key combination, all your spelling from that point onwards being checked as you type, pressing two keys switched it off.
I noticed an increase in the demand for tuition from people wanting to learn to write their own programs, in the 80’s this became an integral part of the services I provided. It would later lead to a lifetime of teaching computer skills.
After realising that many people were experiencing difficulty programming databases, Sector Software released Flashback, this was a pop up database which could be called up at any time with two key presses, it was very simple to use and configure. When it was closed down Flashback would either simply disappear, or it would transfer the current record in to the underlying program at the programs cursor position.
In 1987 I started my own Bulletin Board. For those who do not know the term, this is a system where my computers answered the phone. My bulletin board ran from 6pm (after the close of business) through to 9am the following morning. This allowed people to use their computers to log on to my computers, leave messages, talk to others and download software. This was an online meeting place for computer users with modems to dial up in a similar way to the way the Internet is used nowadays.
In the mid 1980’s I attended ZX Microfairs at the Horticultural Halls, Westminster, London as an exhibitor. I then decided to hold my own shows in the North West. Seven very successful computer shows were held at Stokes Hall, Leyland, Lancashire at the rate of two or three per year. These were the first computer shows in the area. I did not continue organising computer shows due to many others getting on the bandwagon and starting competing shows in the area, these were box-shifter shows as they still are today, my shows were attended mainly by the people who wrote the software, you could chat to the authors direct as they sold you the programs.
The first computer show in the North West was big news, it was featured in the Lancashire Evening Post as well as other local newspapers, Radio Lancashire brought their outside broadcast van to the show because it was something so new. They interviewed me live on the radio amongst the stalls before they went around the show with a radio microphone, talking to people asking them questions like “what it was like to attend a computer show” and “what have you bought”. Little did I know how from these first beginnings that computer shows would swamp the area. The first show I organised was attended by about 2000 visitors, which at the time was an amazing response.
In 1988 I bought a Commodore Amiga and started converting my typing tutor ‘Touch Typist’ to this machine, Touch Typist was a best seller on the Sinclair QL and soon became even more so on the Amiga. I later converted Touch Typist to run on the Atari ST and the Acorn Archimedes. I became a regular exhibitor at computer shows from Scotland to Germany and Belgium. I was exhibiting at Schloss Bedburg (Castle Bedburg) in the town of Bedburg in Germany one year and saw a Sinclair C5 parked outside the castle, I could not resist the temptation to take it for a quick spin around the castle grounds, luckily I was not caught before I parked it up where I found it.
I had one of the first Z88 computers in the country when I was asked by Clive Sinclairs’ company Cambridge Computers to beta test their machine. After a trip down to Cambridge to sign the non disclosure agreement and take possession of a Z88 I set about testing the machine and wrote the first QL to Z88 link kit, this was followed by an Amiga to Z88 link kit. These were file transfer and print spooling programs which allowed you to transfer your data to and from your laptop computer.
The Z88 was similar to a modern tablet device, it was A4 in size, rand on its own internal batteries, had software built in such as a wordprocessor, database, spreadsheet and Z88 BASIC programming language.
After obtaining a licence from British Telecom, I released STD Index on the QL, Amiga and IBM PC, this was British Telecom’s dialling code database of UK and foreign numbers on computer disk with my own search engine, this was very useful for reverse searching numbers.
Demands for formalising the computer skills of my students led to my home office becoming an RSA (Royal Society of Arts) registered Test Centre in the early 1990’s. This allowed me to deliver courses run by RSA, the CLAIT (Computer Literacy and Information Technology) course was ideal as a starter course in computing and was adopted for my students.
My next software release was Wordsmith on the Amiga, this was a crossword, anagram and puzzle solver for crossword and competition addicts. I found out that this software was also being used in schools to help children find rhyming words or words on a particular theme.
Because of a personal need for an instant reference to the contents of technical articles I wrote Shopper Index . This was a database of Amiga Shopper magazines contents in a very fast 100% machine code stand alone search engine. This gave readers of this magazine instant access to years of Amiga Shopper magazine articles, letters, reviews and tutorials all wrapped up in my very fast search program. As well as being on sale to the general public, the editor and staff at the magazine also used my software to keep track of their own content!
Tandy’s educational arm Intertan contacted me to arrange for me to write a link to their WP2 computer. This worked in a similar fashion to my Z88 link, allowing up and downloading of data contained in the WP2 for archiving on a home computer or spooling the documents to the printer.
After being sent a digital camera by Fuji in 1997 and one from Sanyo in the same year I set about writing software to link these to a computer. By this time I had become known as a person to go to for communication links between various pieces of technology.
I wrote software to calculate prisoner sentences and release dates according to HM Prison Service rules. This software calculated a prisoner’s release dates for either consecutive, concurrent or mixed consecutive and concurrent sentences. This took into account time spent in custody (police or otherwise), ADA’s(additional days awarded) ADAp’s and a host of other variables. Data entry was simple and fast, the calculations were even faster, taking no more than a few seconds to calculate a complicated record, something that would sometimes take hours when done manually.
This program was originally written on the Commodore Amiga and was converted to run on IBM compatible machines after major problems in the Prison Service with doing the calculations manually ( You may remember the time when 500 prisoners were let out early when they found out that they had been calculating their release dates wrongly). The software knew all the rules and the amendments to the rules issued over the years. Output was to the standard sentence calculation white/pink/or blue forms complete with a sentence chart. The Home Office had originally said it was too complicated to computerise, which is how I ended up writing the software (I like a challenge).
I rewrote my best selling software Touch Typist for the IBM compatible market. The software was converted from the Amiga version of the program by the same name. Touch Typist is a typing tutor which sold over 100,000 copies on the Commodore Amiga, Sinclair QL, Atari St and Acorn Archimedes. One magazine reviewer said that “compared to Mavis Beacon and Intellitype (it’s closest rivals) Touch Typist is a lot more straightforward and rewarding to use”, need I say more.
Touch Typist was released on CD ROM for Microsoft Windows and a short while later was released as a software download. This was released as an automated online payment/download system at a time when paying for and automatically downloading software online was not a common thing to do.
Since the 1980’s I have written various custom software packages for local businesses to handle customer details, invoicing and data conversion. I am usually called upon when a business has large amounts of data that needs conversion from one format to another. I design and write custom software to handle the job automatically.
I do some website design work but that is not one my main activities, it was in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, but then the market became saturated with designers, so instead I specialise in gaining visitors to existing websites by a multitude of techniques from simple Search Engine Optimisation through to operating my own specialist software to market websites. My office staff now handle all the website, server, seo and online work for our customers, allowing me to get on with other projects.
I have been operating in the virtual world of Second Life since January 2007. I use Second Life to organise meetings and training sessions, I build, write software and generally learn all there is to know about Second Life. This platform is excellent for some businesses and I have made many new friends, customers and business contacts through this medium. I was the first person in the UK offering Second Life courses back in 2007.
I have done a lot of filming, editing and producing online training content for myself and for other people over the years. Although I first had video on my website in 2001, I only started producing podcasts (for Itunes etc) in January 2010. From an early date I used to deliver talks to local companies telling them that videos, podcasts or Internet TV was the future medium for businesses wanting to make an impact on the web. Today my content is consumed in online courses via my own and other websites.
With the growth of mobile phones came the growth of software developed for phones. In 2010 I started writing software for mobile phones, this was mostly internal use software but I currently have a few projects on the go for the Android operating system and now make a living from adverts in mobile phone applications and games.
Because I found it difficult to be in many places at once, I decided to move some of my courses online. This allows me to train a greater number of people, and not be restricted to where I can train based on geography. The first of these courses to be released was my Online Photoshop Course to replicate the content from my Photoshop classroom training. This led to the development of various online courses in programming, computing, games design and GCSE courses for teacher training.
I have developed courses for teachers to learn about the Raspberry Pi, Scratch, Visual Basic, and Python programming languages. I am also very busy delivering courses on GameMaker Studio.
Nowadays I get a lot of my work from www.codecollege.co.uk website, and I work freelance for other training organisations who require my skills. You may meet me on a programming course, when I am exhibiting at an education show such as the BETT Show, or maybe as an attendee of Techcamp, where I am a lead instructor.
I have always been interested in flying (I used to work in the flying school at Blackpool Airport at weekends). So I decided to become CAA licenced to do commercial video and photography with my DJI Inspire. This craft weights 3kg and can travel at 50 Miles Per Hour. it is an idea craft for producing aerial shots for websites, film companies, businesses, for creating 360 degree panoramas, site mapping for archaeologists and much more. Working with the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) makes life more interesting as well as providing a good income from film and related work and aerial photography for customers websites.
I have released three skills(applications) for the Amazon Echo, Amazon Fire TV and other Alexa enabled Devices and have several more in development. Writing for voice interfaces is interesting and the devices that support it have given me some great ideas for future applications. I have written two skills to help GCSE Computer Science students learn and revise at home and have written one for accordionists. This is an interesting market, and I am developing my skills in it when I have time.
A part of my work that I really enjoy, is delivering face to face and online courses in Gamemaker Studio (from YoYo Games). I have used Gamemaker for many years and I really like its ease of access for beginners and its power for advanced users. I was a beta tester for the new Gamemaker Studio 2 from early 2016 onwards and deliver regular training sessions in the use of Gamemaker Studio for rapid game development.
This has been a short overview of what I have done and what I get up to, I will update this in my spare time, if I have any !!!
and on computers, then afterwards I enjoy my hobby… which is working on computers! | 2019-04-23T10:36:12Z | https://www.davidbatty.com/about/ |
Name a really epic third part of a trilogy, one that’s the defining part of its trio of movies. It’s harder than you think. Apparently Lord of the Rings is as good as it gets for a part three, but I’ll have to take the internet’s word for that and present Back to the Future III for the prosecution’s case.
So let’s consider this, the climax of our own three-part series on the Mercedes-Benz A-Class, before AMG gets involved and takes over with the excellent A35. To recap, we started life with the entry-level A180d diesel model in mid-range Sport trim before switching to the A200 petrol model in the plusher AMG Line specification. And now we’re in the A250, again in AMG Line but with three key differences we’ll examine.
First, the A250’s turbocharged 2.0-litre petrol engine, which, in this state of tune, produces 221bhp and 258lb ft. The A200 has a 1.3-litre with 161bhp and 184lb ft, so that’s quite a jump in capacity. There’s also an A220 that splits this pair, which gets a 187bhp version of the 2.0-litre, for the sake of completion.
Second, we welcome the interior’s show-stopper for the first time: the twin 10.25in screens for the MBUX infotainment system. This dominates your eyeline in the cabin with its rich graphics, mixing infotainment in the centre of the dashboard with driving information on the right screen, which replaces an instrument binnacle.
We’ve gone from two smaller screens in the A180d, to one large and one small in the A200, but now we have the full ‘do you want to go large?’ option. Lovely it is, too, both visually and in its functionality. But worth the extra £2000-plus cost over the lesser systems? Let’s see.
Third, that £2000-plus cost (£2200 to be precise) isn’t just for the larger instrument screen but is the price of the Premium Plus package (£3595) over the Executive package (£1395). So you get plenty of bells to go with its whistle, including some fancy ambient interior lighting, a better sound system, adaptive LED headlights, memory heated seats and a panoramic sunroof, which arrives just in time for the spring. That’s some 15% of the car’s list price on one option alone, so assessing its value will be intriguing.
I was amazed at the A200’s easy-going economy, with 50mpg frequently popping up on the trip odometer on my 30-mile-each-way mixed-road commute, I enjoyed the extra agility and fleet of foot the lighter engine brought to the handling over the A180d and was pleased to report the body control improved somewhat with the adoption of a multi-link rear axle, even if the low-speed ride issues weren’t completely solved.
I will miss it, although there’s now a sense of excitement to try the kind of car you don’t see enough of these days: the cooking petrol. Most buyers switched to higher-powered diesels instead of the likes of the A250 in the past decade to get a good slug of the performance mixed with more favourable economy and taxation, but given diesels are apparently all evil these days (don’t get me started…), petrol power is making a comeback.
It’s early days, but I’m enjoying the greater muscularity of the 2.0-litre engine in the mid-high rev range, as well as a useful improvement in the-gap-in-the- traffic-exploiting 0-30mph performance that’s so useful in the real world. And none of this is at the expense of economy too much, with the car returning 40-42mpg on my commute.
The seven-speed automatic gearbox’s application in the A250 has been the most impressive yet. You’ll remember it has been one of the few black marks against the A-Class elsewhere. While still not completely cured of that low-speed hesitancy, you can trust the ’box to listen to your right foot in a more acceptable timeframe. Bodes well for helping see the car at its very best in its remaining time here.
AMG-like looks This has plenty in common with the A35 AMG at first glance, which is a good thing for kudos.
Active lane keeping assist Still grates. Now gets confused by old painted-over lines from roadworks and tugs the wheel.
The quality and design of this A-Class is class leading and it hasn’t been done at the cost of usability. Front door bins are deep and cavernous. No handbrake or gearlever means the centre tunnel is also handed over for more storage. The glovebox is a decent size. Rear passengers get nets on the front seat backs and door bins of their own. Impressive.
Some option packs are better value than others. The A-Class’s £1395 Executive Package certainly works. It includes heated seats (essential in winter), the excellent 10.25in larger central infotainment screen, front and rear parking sensors, electrically folding mirrors (those last two are vital in our HQ’s tight multi-storey), and the ability to park itself, which I’ve yet to try.
Now we’re onto our second Mercedes-Benz A-Class – this A200 AMG Line following the original A180d Sport – the different ways in which an A-Class can be specced to create cars with such different characters are really starting to manifest themselves. Each difference between the two A-Classes is big enough on its own, but combined they create a car that feels like something new again.
The most obvious distinction between this A200 and its A180d predecessor is, of course, the engine – and the fuel station pump at which you fill it. The A200 uses a turbocharged 1.3-litre petrol unit to the A180d’s 1.5-litre diesel. The 161bhp/184lb ft engine, co-developed with Renault-Nissan, feels of far greater displacement than its official 1332cc figure suggests, offering plenty of torque at low revs and surprising muscularity at higher revs. You can’t say that about too many downsized turbo petrol units, although it does share its zingy soundtrack when under loads with its small-engined cousins.
Impressive everyday economy was a strong suit of the A180d and surprisingly – given that downsized turbo petrols are typically among the worst performers in the real world – you can easily get upwards of 40mpg in the A200, and even push 50mpg if you drive parsimoniously. That’s within spitting distance of the official claimed figure of 53.3mpg. Bravo, Mercedes.
One piece of the driveline the two cars do share is their seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. Its performance at step-off and low revs was the worst part of the A180d. The transmission is better in the A200, but not perfect. More work is needed to better integrate it with the engine, and ensure faster and more responsive getaways to get you through gaps in the traffic and roundabouts.
The chassis is the other big mechanical change. As discussed previously, the A180d uses a torsion beam set-up for the rear suspension, while the A200 AMG Line gains a multi-link rear axle (non-AMG Line A200s get the torsion beam). Jumping into the A200 for the first time, it felt much more alive in the way it went down the road and engaged the driver. I was surprised at just how much more agile it felt, but put this down to the lighter petrol engine over the front axle helping the handling feel more nimble more than the rear suspension offering greater body control.
Comparing the ride between the two cars is a more subjective thing, as it’s not as simple as torsion beam versus multi-link. The A200 comes with the larger 18in AMG alloy wheels, as opposed to the 17in rims of the A180d, and associated lower-profile tyres (225/45 in the A200 plays 205/55 in the A180d). The A200 does feel a touch firmer than the A180d, but the ride is more sophisticated, less ploddy and with better body control. We’re going to keep experimenting with different wheel and suspension set-ups to see if a sweet spot can be found, but it’s advantage A200 AMG Line in the chassis stakes so far.
The interior is also a step up in class and sophistication from the already impressive A180d Sport. You’d expect that in a pricier, range-topping trim, but the AMG Line does deliver. The sports seats grip you well and are pleasing to the look and touch, while the optional £1395 Executive Package provides a further boost in perceived quality. Among its additions is a larger 10.25in screen for the central display, the highlight of which is the crispness and clarity of the graphics. A map has never looked so good.
I’d grown rather fond of the A180d. As an entry-level ‘real-world’ model (ie the best value you can get for both spec and running costs), it felt like the kind of car to do 20,000 fuss-free motorway miles in each year. The A200 shows just how differently the A-Class can be flavoured, with no less pleasing results.
Sleek styling This A-Class isn’t pretty from every angle, but it’s never looked better than in black with AMG Line trim.
Transmission response Step-off is better in the A200 than the A180d, but still not as smooth as it should be.
The A180d we started this test with has been replaced by the A200 you see here. The A200’s 161bhp 1.3-litre turbo petrol, on first impressions, revs nicely and helps improve the overall drivability compared with the A180d’s 1.5-litre diesel. AMG Line brings a leap in toys and perceived quality over the A180d’s Sport and the more sophisticated suspension subtly improves agility.
By the time you read this, A-Class number one of three in this series of back-to-back tests will have returned to its maker. This A180d is to be replaced by a petrol-powered A200, meaning the diesel leg of this trilogy is over and the first set of conclusions can be drawn.
What’s worth noting straight from the off is just how relevant a diesel engine of any type remains if you do big miles. When you’re doing just shy of 2000 miles a month, as we were averaging in our short stint in the car, diesel makes the best sense of all.
Our average economy figure has slipped from the 60mpg around which it had hovered in the early days. The weather has cooled and the number of shorter journeys has increased, but we’re still mightily impressed by a 55mpg average. That will make for interesting comparison number one as we switch from our 1.5-litre four-cylinder diesel to a downsized 1.3-litre turbocharged petrol in the A200.
Just what will our wallets make of the switch? From previous experience, downsized petrols are some of the least impressive for real-world economy. We’ll have the calculator out over the next couple of months and let you know.
One thing I won’t miss about this A-Class is the transmission. The seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox’s step-off is the single worst thing about the car. There is simply no go when you ask for it with your right foot, no matter how gentle or hard you are on the pedal. It takes a good second for drive to appear, which is as unimpressive as it is baffling: just how did Mercedes sign off the car like this?
It’s a shame, because for the most part the transmission makes for an easy-going counterpart to the A180d once you’re on the move. It kicks down with minimal fuss when required and offers impressive drivability in the 30-50mph acceleration bursts that are a part of everyday driving.
The seven-speed dual clutch auto also appears in the A200, so it will be intriguing to see whether the issue is one related to the transmission itself or one caused by its integration with the diesel engine.
The next big difference between this A180d and the incoming A200 is the rear suspension. Both the A180d and A200 use the torsion beam rear suspension option – unless you spec your A200 in AMG Line trim, which our car will include to add an extra element to this story.
On the standard suspension set-up and with 17in alloys in this mid-range Sport trim, the A180d rides well but not with class-leading status. There is greater sophistication in the way a Volkswagen Golf or Ford Focus rides. The A180d’s body control comes unstuck over higher frequency surfaces and can set the cabin shaking. Intriguingly, there were a couple of big dissenters among the Autocar staff on the way the A180d rides on this standard set-up.
The final big change we’ll be noticing is with the MBUX infotainment system. Our A180d has the dual 7in screens, one centrally for the infotainment and another for the driver’s instruments.
Others who have experienced the larger 10.25in options in other A-Classes have smirked at how small it is, yet I’ve never had an issue with the graphics, legibility, size or functionality. I’m looking forward to seeing if bigger does mean better when we upgrade one of the two screens on the A200.
SEAT COMFORT Not one fidget, tweak of the back or numbing of a bum cheek on even a 400-mile journey.
ACTIVE LANE KEEP ASSIST If you don’t want it on, you have to turn it off every single time you restart the ignition.
Having spent much of the past year in a Golf, I thought it’d take more than a month or two to familiarise myself with the A-Class. Wrong. Last week I jumped back into a Golf and was surprised by how dated the VW felt. The A-Class has greater material richness and its technology and slickness surpass the VW’s – a car that’s likely on the podium for its class alongside the Audi A3.
When did mainstream cars become so expensive? Was it about the same time that the premium players came down to more mainstream segments such as the family hatchback class to try and steal the established players’ lunch?
After a month or so quickly piling on the miles in our recently acquired Mercedes-Benz A-Class and getting to know it rather well for the months of this test that lie ahead, I thought it best not to let the chance slip by and do similar with the Ford Focus.
After all, it’s the likes of Focus buyers who have fallen under the spell of that Mercedes badge and saved a few extra pennies.
The Focus and our A-Class share very similar mechanical specifications. Both use small-capacity four-cylinder diesel engines (1.5 for the Focus, 1.3 for the A-Class) closely matched on power, torque and 0-62mph time (118bhp, 192lb ft and 10.2sec in the Ford plays 114bhp, 221lb ft and 10.5sec in the Merc).
Both use automatic gearboxes (an eight-speed torque convertor for the Ford, seven-speed dual-clutch auto for the Merc). They also both have MacPherson strut front and torsion beam rear suspension.
And the cost? There’s less than £1000 in it, in the sporty ST-Line X trim in the Focus, and the sporty, erm, Sport trim of the A-Class. By the time you fiddle with the various standard kits and options, you end up with quite literally just a few extra pennies for the Mercedes. Translate that to a PCP deal and a monthly payment, and diddly-squat becomes the numerical value.
The point? For however brilliant the Focus is to drive, and it is that, the quality of Mercedes and its overall package are of huge appeal, and the best example of how the premium players are squeezing the middle-market mainstream brands with cars such as the A-Class. Ask the average car buyer whether they’d have a Ford or a Mercedes for the same money, and we can all guess the answer.
It’s working for Mercedes, too. The A-Class is perhaps the most commonly spotted new car I’ve seen on the roads this autumn, after the ubiquitous Ford Fiesta. Hardly surprising, when it was the third bestselling new car in the UK in September. Third bestselling? Crikey.
Like me, all those owners will be discovering more about what an interesting car it is to live with. The Mercedes’ interior and technology are in a different league from anything else the segment has seen.
The MBUX infotainment system may be ‘only’ the entry-level one with the two 7.0in screens rather than the full S-Class-style widescreen treatment across the whole dashboard, but it’s wanting for nothing in functionality.
I’m continuing to be bowled over by the effortless efficiency of the A180d. The economy has settled around 60mpg now the weather has got colder, a quite extraordinary figure and in another league again to the 45mpg or so average I got from a similar drivetrain in the Focus. That’s another part of the financial argument in the Merc’s favour.
Yet there’s a negative point on the transmission, specifically at step-off. It’s just so darn slow to react. Take this example. There’s a T-junction on my commute on the edge of town. You have to pull across the traffic to join a lane that has just come around a blind corner. Gaps in the traffic can be only a second or two, so once you add in your reaction time and the time for the transmission to engage and then to pull away, the gap could well have gone.
Manual gearboxes are coming soon to the A-Class and I suspect its overall quality will only increase more when that day comes.
Quality feel Classiness and quality run through the A-Class. Solid door thuds are as pleasing as the crispness of the interior screen graphics.
Ride quality ‘Loathe’ is strong, but the ride is proving divisive. It’s too firm for some, lacking sophistication for others. I’d call it okay.
So the cheaper torsion beam suspension will be a bigger issue for rear seat comfort. I hope you test the car with passengers aboard to test this fully.
Mercedes are currently advertising these as available from £269 per month with a £4700 or so deposit, plus you will not own the car at the end of the term. What a collossal waste of money.
I'll sort you one for £250PM 47M + 1x£1500, inc VAT, 10k per year, plus my fee of £240. How's that sound? Or perhaps the Merc isn't for you.
Interesting to see it without the massive screens. Is it just me, or is there no rev counter? | 2019-04-23T19:04:54Z | https://cdn.autocar.co.uk/car-review/mercedes-benz/class/first-drives/mercedes-benz-class-2018-long-term-review |
This paper discusses control of multichannel sound diffusion by means of motion-tracking hardware and software within the context of a live performance. The idea developed from the author’s previous use of motion-tracking technology in his own artistic practice as a composer and performer. Various motion tracking systems were considered, experiments were conducted with three sound diffusion setups at three venues and a new composition for solo performer and motion-tracking system took form.
The goal of this project was to explore the potential of electronic music that combines production, performance and diffusion into a single integrated creative process. In pursuing this goal I hoped to develop intuitive ways of controlling sound in space that might be relevant not only for my own practice as a composer and performer but also for other artists facing the challenges of creating spatial electronic music within the context of live performance.
Since 1995 I have explored the use of motion-tracking technology as a means of controlling musical parameters in live performance. This exploration began with the DIEM Digital Dance project, which focused on tracking the motion of dancers, allowing them to control musical elements. Custom motion-tracking hardware using flex sensors was developed and two interactive dance performance works were created: Movement Study and Sisters. In 2008 I continued my work with interactive dance using other types of hardware, including camera-based technology and accelerometers, in collaboration with dancers and choreographers in what was called The Pandora Project . The camera-based technology that I used consisted of digital cameras mounted in front of and above the stage for tracking the movement of the dancers. I developed interactive software using the cv.jit (computer vision) library in the Max/MSP programming environment. For testing mapping between movement and sound I used my laptop computer with its built-in camera.
In the process of testing and experimenting with this setup I found myself waving my hands in front of my laptop, controlling the sounds intended to be controlled by the dancers. It dawned on me that this activity was both enjoyable and musically interesting with obvious parallels to historical electronic music interfaces such as the Theremin (1920) and The Hands (1984) . I decided to use this system in a new composition, which led to Two Hands (not clapping) for solo performer and motion-tracking performance system, a work commissioned by the Dark Music Days Festival and premiered in Reykjavik in 2010.
The mapping used for this work was quite direct. The image from the webcam is divided into a matrix of twelve rectangles. The amount of movement in each rectangle is calculated in software by comparing each video frame with the previous video frame. Using this mapping algorithm I can control twelve sounds individually and dynamically: the more I move in each rectangle the more sound is heard. Multiple sounds can be controlled by moving in more multiple rectangles. The closer my hands are to the webcam, the more they fill the image, which means that by moving my hands closer to the webcam I can control all twelve sounds at once, while more subtle control of individual sounds can be achieved by moving my hands farther from the webcam.
One important difference between working with dancers and working as a performer was that I could make greater demands on controlling the music and concern myself less with the visual content of the performance. Dance is a visual medium and any aspect of interaction that requires specific gestures or movements will limit a dancer’s freedom of movement and might interfere with the visual performance. For my solo work, sound was the main focus. Visual content is certainly an important part of experiencing a live musical performance, but the main focus is on sound, not on visual appearance . By comparison, gesticulations of a conductor do not constitute a visual performance but are rather means to the end of making the orchestra perform in a certain way.
In 2011 I was invited to work with the sound system at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. The building, known as the Black Diamond, includes a large public space with a glass facade overlooking the harbor. Permanently installed in this space is a powerful 12-channel sound system with four large speakers (Meyer UP1) on each of the three levels and two subwoofers on the second level.
By coincidence, Two Hands (not clapping) used 12 independent audio channels or voices mixed down to stereo output. It seemed natural that the 12 voices could be routed directly to the 12 loudspeakers in the Black Diamond to create a 12-channel version. In testing this setup I found that the result was fascinating. When I moved my hands higher, the sounds activated were routed to the upper speakers. When I moved my hands lower, the sounds activated were routed to the lower speakers. By moving my hands I could very intuitively control not only which sounds I wanted to hear but also which of the 12 speakers I wanted to hear.
The experience of performing Two Hands on this 12-channel sound system inspired me to create a new, site-specific 12-channel work entitled No Water, No Moon, which was commissioned by the Danish Composers Union to commemorate its centennial anniversary and premiered at the Black Diamond on May 4th, 2013.
The use of computer vision to control sound had become an intuitive means of musical expression for me. I wanted to expand this live composition environment to include live control of sound diffusion. Up to this point I had routed each of the 12 channels of my setup to one of twelve speakers. I wanted to be able to control sound diffusion or live panning using motion-tracking technology. My criteria for choosing hardware and software to control sound diffusion were 1) the system must be intuitive and fairly easy to learn how to use and 2) the system must not inhibit or interfere with body movement already being used to control sound. I experimented with three different types of motion-tracking hardware for controlling sound diffusion.
Created by Jean-Marc Pelletier, cv.jit is an object library for Jitter that includes tools to assist users in tasks such as image segmentation, shape and gesture recognition, and motion tracking . As mentioned, I have used some of these objects extensively in working with camera-based motion tracking in interactive dance and in my solo works that use motion tracking.
I considered using these same techniques to control sound diffusion but decided against this at an early stage. My main concern was that using the same motion tracking techniques to control both sound production and sound diffusion during a performance would make it difficult or impossible to control these two aspects of the performance independently.
Leap MotionTM is a commercially available hardware interface designed for gesture tracking for use as an alternative to a mouse or touch screen. The device is placed on a table in front of the computer and uses built-in infrared LEDs and two cameras concealed behind its glass incasing. The gesture tracking is software based. Information about exactly how the software works is not publicly available. The software can track both hands when held above the unit including discrete finger position in a skeletal image. Several object libraries are available to allow integration with Max/MSP, including Masayuki Akamatsu’s aka.leapmotion and IRCAM’s skeletal tracking software , which is based on aka.leapmotion. After some testing I was discouraged by the discrepancy between what my fingers were doing and the screen image of the test software. I also felt that that using the unit required a great degree of dependence on visual feedback. Reading product reviews and Han’s & Gold’s informative paper on the subject left me no less discouraged. I decided not to use the Leap Motion.
The Hot HandTM USB is a commercially available MIDI-controller manufactured by Source Audio . The controller consists of two units: 1) a 3-axis (X, Y, Z) accelerometer embedded in a plastic finger ring with a built-in bluetooth transmitter and a built-in battery and 2) a separate receiver unit, designed to be connected to the USB-port of a computer. This type of accelerometer is commonly used in various controllers, including smartphones. For my purposes, the main advantage of the Hot Hand over other accelerometers is that it is well integrated into a ring, completely wireless and easily configurable with any music software.
Motion-tracking hardware can be used in connection with gesture recognition . Both cv.jit and Leap Motion include tools for gesture recognition. The MuBu software platform developed at IRCAM can be used to record sensor data for use in gesture recognition . I chose not to work with gesture recognition for this project because I was interested in mapping motion-tracking data directly to sound diffusion parameters.
After testing these three systems I decided to use two Hot Hand controllers, one worn on the middle finger of each hand. The use of accelerometers did not interfere directly with the computer vision tracking already in use and I found the interface to be stable and intuitive.
The Hot Hand outputs 3 controller parameters: X, Y and Z coordinates. I began experimenting with a single Hot Hand controller, but found it difficult to map these three parameters independently to sound diffusion parameters. For example, rotating my hand changed at least two parameters simultaneously. For this reason I decided to use two Hot Hands, mapping only one parameter from each: X-axis on my right hand and Z-axis on my left hand. For my right hand, the “neutral” position was holding my hand with my palm facing left in relation to myself. By rotating my right hand counter-clockwise I could increase controller values, by rotating my hand clockwise I could decrease controller values. For my left hand the neutral position was with the palm facing down. By raising my left hand (palm facing forward) I could increase controller values, by lowering my left hand (middle finger pointing down) I could decrease controller values.
The tradition of sound diffusion dates back to the late 1950’s and Musique Concrète, a concept originally conceived by Pierre Schaeffer and others working at GRM (Radio France) in Paris and further developed there and elsewhere. Important sound diffusion systems include the Acousmonium, developed at GRM in the early 1970s, BEAST (Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre) developed by Jonty Harrison at the University of Birmingham and the GMEBaphone, developed at IMEB in Bourges . Many different approaches to sound diffusion have been taken by different composers and institutions over the years, including the creation of a great diversity of speaker setups as well as the use of various types of hardware and software for controlling sound diffusion. .
One musical advantage of controlling sound diffusion live is that the performer can create a site-specific spatial interpretation of a work adapted to the actual listening space. This type of diffusion is often performed by a composer or interpreter moving faders on a large mixing consol.
One of the problems of controlling sound diffusion with multiple faders is the difficulty of controlling many faders independently. We have 10 fingers, but moving all ten of them dynamically in difference directions and at different speeds simultaneously is no easy task. To address this problem various software solutions have been developed, two of which will be discussed below. For my purposes, the problem was greatly complicated by the fact that the motion of my hands was already being mapped to sound control.
Zirkonium is software developed at ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie) in Karlsruhe, Germany, designed for programming trajectories of sound in space in relation to the Klangdom: a 47-channel speaker array permanently installed at ZKM . Zirkonium software allows a composer to create an independent multichannel panning track for each audio track. The system was designed for programming off line and used for fixed media playback. Some parameters can also be controlled in a live situation using external controllers.
Spat Spatialisateur in French) is a group of software tools developed at IRCAM in Paris and designed for spatialization of sound signals in real-time intended for musical creation, postproduction, and live performances . Spatis suitable for creating virtual placement of sounds in a virtual acoustic environment. For example, using ambisonics, surround sound or a binaural configuration, sounds can be projected to virtual positions and distances in relation to the listener. Spatcan also be used for live sound diffusion in a large space with a multichannel setup. Spatcan be controlled in a live situation by means of external hardware.
Both Spatand Zirkoniumwere constructed within the Max/MSP programming environment. I found both to be powerful and sophisticated diffusion tools. Other more specific diffusion tools have also been designed within this environment. For various reasons I found it practical not to use either of these but instead to create my own panning objects and integrate them into the Max/MSP performance patch that I was already using.
The concept that I chose was a simple one that I call rotational panning. Instead of thinking in terms of panning individual sound sources between speakers, I imagined the whole room rotating left and right, or back and forth. All 12 voices rotated as a group. Each of the twelve channels or voices of my setup were routed to one of twelve fixed speakers. Values transmitted by the two Hot Hand controllers were mapped to panning functions. When I rotated my right hand clockwise all of the speaker positions would rotate to the right, as if I was floating in a fixed position while the whole room rotated clockwise. When I raised my left hand all of the speaker positions would rotate backwards, as if the whole room was rotating backwards.
Intuitive control of sound diffusion is a complex issue. It can be difficult to imagine, realize or even perceive multiple audio sources moving in various patterns and at various speeds at the same time. Controlling complex spatial movement in a live situation can be a great challenge.
I had an opportunity to experiment with live diffusion in three very different spaces. My approach was experimental and site-specific. I viewed the multichannel sound systems embedded in these three spaces not as vehicles for linear sound reproduction but rather as acoustic environments, each with its own unique characteristics.
My first experiments in working with live control of diffusion took place at ZKM in September 2015.
The Klangdom at ZKM is a small concert hall equipped with a digital mixer and 47 independent speakers. The setup is made up of four rings of speakers. Channels 1- 14 constitute an outer/lower ring, channels 15-28 constitute a slightly higher ring, channels 29-36 constitute a more centered, higher ring, channels 37-42 constitute an even more centered, still higher ring, channel 43 is at zenith and channels 44-47 are subwoofers (one in each corner) .
My laptop computer was connected to the mixer in the Klangdom via a MADI interface, allowing direct access to all 47 channels from my Max/MSP patch. Much to my delight, this setup was up and running perfectly in less than an hour.
At ZKM I tested my concept of rotational panning using two different configurations. The first configuration can be called 12-12 routing and used only 12 (out of 43 possible) discrete speakers. Rotational panning consisted of changing panning positions between the 12. The second configuration can be called 12-42 routing and used a total of 42 speakers, plus subwoofers (only the zenith speaker was not in use). With 12-42 routing each of the 12 voices was by default routed to a single speaker, but the voice could be panned to six other speakers. This allowed each voice to be panned to any of a total of 7 speakers (original position, left front, right front, left center, right center, left rear, right rear).
Two of my existing works were used for testing at the Klangdom: Outside-In and No Water, No Moon.
Outside-In is a permanent, site-specific sound installation that I created for the Black Diamond. The installation is heard in this public space 3-4 minutes every day at 1:00 PM. Audio is played from a computer connected to an audio interface with 12 discrete outputs: one routed to each speaker. The work consists of about 100 sections, each 70 seconds in length. An algorithm based on Markov chains determines the section order and amount of overlap between sections.
I set Outside-In to play continuously so that I could concentrate on using the two Hot Hand controllers for rotational panning of the 12 output channels in the Klangdom. I found that 12-42 routing worked quite well. I could create a feeling of spatial motion with simple and intuitive hand movement. The 12-12 routing configuration worked fine as well, but tended to sound less coherent. Panning with only 12 speakers was not as seamless and subtle as panning with 42 speakers.
The next step was to try to perform No Water, No Moon live using motion-tracking via a webcam to control sounds and two Hot Hand controllers to control rotational panning. A few challenges immediately became apparent. Both the Hot Hands and the camera-based system react to movement. At first it was difficult to control them independently. After practicing I discovered that it was possible to integrate the motion required to control rotational panning with the motion required to control sound. I stumbled across a few tricks while practicing: 1) I could take my hands “off camera” (for example off to the sides) for a moment to use the Hot Hand controller without affecting the camera-based controller, 2) I could move my whole hand at a fixed angle (for example palm facing down) to affect the camera-based controller without affecting the Hot Hand controller, 3) I could forget about the Hot Hand controllers on one or both hands, making rotational panning less controlled but not necessarily less interesting. After spending some time experimenting I was convinced that this setup was both artistically and technically viable, although it would require some hours of practice on my part. I felt that the panning effects that I could achieve with the Hot Hand controller could be worked into the piece and that the use of live diffusion could influence the performance in a positive way without interfering with the character of the performance. All in all my first impression was extremely positive and practicing No Water, No Moon in the Klangdom was a good experience.
After my visit to ZKM I had an opportunity to conduct further experiments at the Black Diamond as composer in residence at the Royal Library. The permanent 12-channel sound system at the Black Diamond has 12 main speakers and 2 subwoofers hidden in the ceilings on three levels of the main foyer or atrium. The speaker setup is asymmetrical in correspondence with the asymmetrical architecture. The 12-channel setup consists of three trapezoids on three different floors or levels. Distances between the speakers in each trapezoid range from about 10-14 meters. Ceiling height is about 5 meters, with the second level speakers about 11 meters above the ground floor and the third level speakers about 17 meters above the floor. When performing I stand on a bridge on the second level overlooking the harbor (figure 1).
I tested live rotational panning of Outside-In using 12-12 routing described in section 5.1. This configuration was easily adapted to this 12-channel sound system. In fact I found that it worked better here than it did in the Klangdom: the panning seemed smoother. This is probably due to the large size and lively acoustics of the space. The acoustics tend to blur panning, making movement between speakers less obvious, even with a lot of panning motion. Because of the large size of the Black Diamond it is in fact difficult to pinpoint exactly which speaker a sound is projecting from.
I found that the intended rotational effect was not readily perceptible. Instead I had a general sense of sounds moving without being able to pinpoint the exact location of a particular sound at a particular moment or the precise path of the panning motion. I also found that the original 12-channnel mix had great influence on how clear or blurred the live diffusion was perceived.
I tested No Water, No Moon with the same setup. Again the panning seemed smooth and less obvious than I had imagined. The type of sounds being played had great influence on how rotational panning was perceived: for example the panning of sounds with sharp transients in the higher frequency spectrum was more perceptible than panning static, drone-like sounds in the lower frequency spectrum. Again the rotation of the room was not immediately obvious. My experience was probably influenced by the fact that No Water, No Moon, was conceived and composed for performance in the Black Diamond. The 12-channel sound system is part of the concept of the piece. Although I did not feel that live rotational panning detracted from the performance and experience of the work, I was not completely convinced that it added a new dimension, either. But using rotational panning in the Black Diamond was fascinating and did incubate new ideas for future work.
Finally I experimented using a 12-channel speaker setup at Symphony Hall in Aarhus, a hall with a seating capacity of 1,200 that was acoustically designed for symphonic music (Figure 4). There is no permanent sound diffusion system in the hall, so I was at liberty to place the 12 speakers wherever I wished. I chose a flattened setup, using only two levels: 1) stage/ground and 2) balcony (the balcony surrounds the entire hall including behind the stage, the sides and the rear). Speakers were place on stage (narrow stereo pair plus subwoofers) above/behind the stage (wide stereo pair), two on each side of the audience on the ground floor, two on the side balconies and two on the rear balcony.
The concept of rotational panning was not easily adapted to this hall, mainly because of the elongated and flat speaker setup. I concluded that a new method of group panning needed to be designed and implemented for this hall. I was also not satisfied with the speaker arrangement that I had chosen. I feel that it will be necessary to develop a new rotational panning system designed specifically for the Symphony Hall in Aarhus and create a new speaker setup layout with more speakers in front of the audience and fewer on the sides. One idea is to control circular panning rather than left/right panning with my right hand. At writing a new work session in the hall has been planned but has yet to be carried out.
Working with various types of motion tracking for controlling sound diffusion has provided me with insight and inspiration in relation to creating spatial electronic music within the context of live performance. Based on my experiments I found that using two accelerometers to control rotational panning could be combined with camera-based motion tracking to provide a flexible and intuitive interface for controlling live diffusion. I ultimately chose this configuration for a new work for solo performer and motion-tracking system.
This work, entitled Ritual, employs both camera-based motion tracking using the webcam of a laptop computer as well as a pair of accelerometers, one worn on each hand. The webcam controls sound in two different ways: 1) altering the amplitude envelope of continuous looped samples and 2) triggering single samples when movement in any given zone increases beyond a fixed threshold. The accelerometers are used to control live rotational panning using only one control parameter from each accelerometer.
The simplicity of this mapping has made the interface fairly easy for me to learn to use. In spite of this simplicity, I have found that complex sound textures can be created by combining and mixing 12 voices and that subtle and musically relevant multi-channel sound diffusion can be controlled during a performance. The potential of creating varied sonic textures and multi-channel panning by means of a few simple parameters controlled by motion tracking hardware and software continues to fascinate me, and this fascination has inspired me to create a new work that explores the idea of conducting sound in space.
I would like to thank the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, the Royal Library in Copenhagen and ZKM in Karlsruhe for supporting this project. I would also like to thank the Danish Arts Foundation and the KUV fund of the Danish Ministry of Culture for financial support.
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T. Carpentier, M. Noisternig and O. Warusfel, “Twenty Years of Ircam Spat: Looking Back, Looking Forward,” Proceedings of the 2015 International Computer Music Conference, Denton, Texas, USA, 2015, pp. 270-277. | 2019-04-20T20:12:32Z | http://waynesiegel.dk/?page_id=2644 |
My work crew and I had wilderness first aid today. I took the opportunity to open up and tell everyone about Addison’s Disease and what it means for me working in the field. I showed them my injection kit and my medications, talked about symptoms and consequences, and levelled with them all about the risks I face. It was difficult and I felt immensely exposed.
People had many questions. Would I be able to help someone else in an emergency? Would our employer back them up if things didn’t go well? What was the process to decide if I was capable of this position? How do they inject me?
Every question I answered truthfully and honestly. I bluntly said that, if I die, I don’t blame anyone, and neither does my family. I assured them that I’m well aware of the risks I take, and I deal with with my illness everyday but still want to live my life. Some seemed very nervous, and I told them all that it was their choice if they went in the field with me or not, that I won’t blame them and their mental health is just as important as my physical health.
I feel sick. What would happen if everyone decided they won’t work with me? Is the instructor right? She’s a search and rescue technician, she knows the reality of medical evacuation. Should I really be working by myself at this job? What would I do if I wasn’t a hydrometric technologist?
But also, the well known feeling of loss is overwhelming. Grief about my illness and the effect it has on my life is strong today, and the sadness that comes with it. I know it will subside, and become once again just a part of my complicated life, but today, again, it hurts.
I just wish I could cry. I’ve spent the week recovering from the crisis. I didn’t go to work, the camping gear still isn’t unpacked, we ate mostly salads for dinner, and the laundry is backed up. I made time to take my son to counselling, which he didn’t really end up needing after all. He talked to her alone for an hour and she gave me the all clear, saying that he was excited to go on other camping trips and wasn’t negatively affected at all.
I’m trying to get back into my new routine; I did my regular weekly walk with a friend this morning, ran some errands, cleaned house, etc., but all with the threat of breaking down crying hanging over my head. It’s so hard to just have to get back on the horse again and again and again. When I didn’t have a chronic life-threatening illness an episode like the one last weekend would have been a big deal, one that was unexpected and worthy of time to work through. When it’s just a semi-normal part of your life it doesn’t feel right to dwell on it or give it any time. I don’t want to worry my friends and family any more than they already are, so I feel I have to minimise it, even though I’m having a really hard dealing with it myself.
I wish I could cry about it all and get it over with, but the tears just won’t flow. There’s an emotional block in me that won’t let me be that vulnerable. Instead I’m tired and short tempered. I’m trying to avoid my husband and son as much as I can, since generally the people closest to you are the ones that annoy you the most when you feel like this. It doesn’t work. I swear they both get less independent the more I need them to be.
This weekend was my second camping trip of the summer. In Canada, for the 150th anniversary, all National Parks have free vehicle admission for the entire year, so back in March we made a reservation to go this weekend with our closest couple friends. We went to Grasslands National Park, which is a native prairie preserve known for its rolling hills, deep coulees, badland features and stunning vistas. With the new prednisone regime that’s been working out so well I was excited to bike and hike and get to see things I was once worried I’d never get to see again.
I’ve always consider weather just a part of life, and you need to accept it, dress and plan for it and move on. It’s not something that should stop you from enjoying life outside. When you live in a place with seasonal changes of 70 degrees Celsius you learn to work around it. Unfortunately my theory didn’t pan out in that particular location in this particular weather.
There was a heat warning. We planned our best for it, leaving for the backcountry bike ride earlier in the morning, using tons of sunscreen and reapplying often, choosing a trail that had a point halfway that we could turn around at if it got too strenuous, bringing full hydration packs plus extra water bottles on our bikes, high calorie snacks, appropriate clothing: everything our collective wilderness and survival training had dictated. The other couple, my husband and my sons’ bodies could handle the extra stress from the heat but my Addisonian body couldn’t. In addition to all the regular planning I had made sure to hydrate the night before and the morning of more than usual, and instead of up doseing my prednisone by the more typical 1mg had decided on an extra 5mg before the ride. I carried extra steroids, my injection kit and a bottle of Gatorade in my pack.
It wasn’t enough. I started to feel weak so I took 1mg more of prednisone. Then my 5 year old son stepped on a cactus and started crying and complaining that he didn’t like the bike ride. I want him so deeply to love nature as much as my husband and I do, so I ignored myself and focused on him. Of course I first took the cactus spikes out of his sock and shoe, gave him some of my Gatorade, and told him I would push his bike up a hill so he could get some rest. My husband had been doing that for him, and for me at times, but at that particular point he and our male friend, J, had taken a side trail for the view. I told my son about how, during the Great Depression, the farmers would burn cow patties because there were no trees to burn to keep their houses warm. He’s five, so the poop history was a big hit as we walked along dried buffalo poop.
And then the symptoms hit hard. I slowed to a halt and my legs wouldn’t listen. My heart rate jumped to 180 and I started slurring my words. I was confused. J and my husband caught up with us and J started biking towards the truck while my husband took our son and trudged along up the valley. My female friend, C, stayed with me. I asked her to get me my pills but couldn’t count or read the bottle to see the dose. I needed my emergency injection. I lay down on the dry prairie grass and C read the instructions and prepared my shot. It was terrifying. I’ve been in crisis before but this one was perilous. I knew how far the truck was and I knew I couldn’t make it there. For the approximately 5 minutes it took C to get the shot in me I lay down in the blistering heat and felt like I was drowning in hot air. I’ve been hypothermic which is I think a nice way to die. You feel very calm, relaxed and sleepy; as if after you close your eyes and take a nap everything will be perfect when you wake back up. Hyperthermia on the other hand is terrifying. As an atheist I don’t believe in Hell, but I can see why the church would use it to scare people into submission. You feel like you’re breathing through a straw into an oven, sweat is beading off your skin and your muscles are twitching on the inside. You want to keep your eyes open to help stay conscious, but the light from the sun is blinding. I did not want to die, but more particularly I did not want to die there. Dinosaurs died there and left their fossils and I felt immense pity for the massive beasts. I could picture my skin burning to a crisp on my corpse while my friends and family stood by helplessly.
The shot started to work. Slowly I made my way, one foot in front of the other, out of the Valley. I didn’t know the truck was heading down there, but even if I did I had to get out of that place no matter what. I was not dying there while I still had a choice. Slowly, ever so slowly, we made it up the steep hill. I was feeling better, relatively anyway. I knew the shot wouldn’t last long and that I needed medical attention, but it seemed possible to make it to the truck and buy my malfunctioning body some time in the air conditioning.
I burned through the medicine like the rope on a piece of dynamite as we half-walked, half-rode in the direction of the truck. After what seemed like hours but was probably 20min I saw the silver hood of the truck peaking up from a hill. A wave of relief washed over me and I immediately sat down to conserve the energy and medication I still had.
From that point on the danger kept decreasing. We loaded me and my son, who we had shielded remarkably well from the severity of the situation, into the cool truck and started heading towards the trailhead. We had to stop to reconnect an electric fence J had disconnected and I took the alone time with my son to see how he was doing and tell him the plan. Although I was slurring my words I was able to explain to him that I needed medicine that I could only get from a doctor and that I was going to have to go get it. The next hill we went over our luck increased even more. There, in this remote corner of the park was the park warden parked on the road. No doubt he saw an unauthorized vehicle on the trail and stopped to issue a fine, but I knew he would have radio or Satellite phone access to 911, since cell coverage was spotty to non existent.
We quickly established the severity of the situation and what my medical needs were. At this point I was safer than I had been at the bottom of the valley, but my low cortisol symptoms were strong and still increasing. I wondered if we would have to administer my back-up shot as well. I got in his truck, he started driving towards the main roads and radioed for dispatch to call an ambulance. I told him it was an Addisonian Crisis and I needed both IV Saline and Solu-Cortef. Because of the remote nature of the area, a first responder team started heading towards us from one direction while a proper ambulance started heading towards us from another. The plan was to transfer me to the first responders, who had some tools, equipment and training, but were not as qualified as the Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s) in the ambulance. The first responders were able to make me comfortable, administer oxygen and gather information to relay to the EMT’s and hospital. They could not administer an IV.
When the meet up with the ambulance happened the EMT grabbed his bag and joined us in the first responder van. He hooked me up to a bolus IV, we started on the way to the hospital and very quickly my condition improved. I still badly needed IV steroids, but I knew I would get the treatment I needed in time. We were still 85km from the hospital, having already traveled 80km. Throughout the ride I tried to stay conscious but it was very difficult. I was very weak and wanted to sleep. My heart was still racing and the EMT relayed that the monitor showed Sinus Tachycardia. I was confused and had a hard time answering questions, but I had all the information they needed in my emergency kit, the medical screen on my phone as well as my medic alert bracelet. My pupils were sluggish and I was extremely nauseous. My skin was cold but I was feverish. Breathing, even with the oxygen, was laborious and I took fewer breaths because of it. Plus, I had to pee so badly I feared I wouldn’t make it without voiding on the stretcher. That prolapsed bladder really adds insult to injury at times.
We made it to the hospital, I made it to the bathroom, and I almost immediately saw a doctor and was hooked up to IV steroids, fluids and anti-nausea medication. My condition improved more and more over the next hour. Unfortunately it didn’t last and I started to feel weaker and more nauseous. I told the nurse, she got the doctor and, after she consulted with the internist, I was admitted overnight in order to receive more of the same IV medications. I was disappointed of course, after all I was camping, one of my favourite things to do, but I didn’t have much fight in me.
The rest is all minor details. My husband went back to the campground to join J, C and our son, I was admitted and received the medications, slept poorly and continued to get better, although not really as better as I had thought I would get. I spoke with a wonderful internist, who commended our initial plan, our evacuation process and even the fact that I’m still continuing to do adventures and live my life, although he recommended skipping days with heat warnings. I strongly agreed. He did say that I may have worsened my outcome by drinking too much water and flushing out my electrolytes. Staying hydrated was definitely the right thing to do, but I should have supplemented with more Gatorade and less water. We spoke about Addison’s disease, he praised my knowledge of it and together we decided I could go home and treat myself as it was the best choice for my family on a Sunday night, but with strict instructions to go to ER if my symptoms started flaring up. He ordered me one more IV of steroids and in a few hours I was on my way home with my brave husband and loving son.
We’ve been home for a few hours now and I’m ready for bed. My son is emotional and had a hard time calming down and getting in bed. I promised I’d bring him to my bed when I go to sleep. I’ve already emailed work and cancelled for tomorrow (and possibly Tuesday) and plan to spend the morning watching TV and cuddling with my boy before I take him to daycare. The afternoon I’ll rest in bed. I spoke to him about what a counselor is and I’ll be calling to get him an appointment. We all did the best we could for him as far as explaining what was going on without giving too much details, but it was a major event that I’m not sure we can handle on our own.
While laying with him to calm him down he asked if he would get Addison’s Disease since he got Celiac disease too. It’s proof he has thoughts deeper than I know how to access and go through with him, and my husband and I need help to learn how to guide him through, or just to give him an alternate place to share those feelings.
I’m very emotional now and I know I will be for a few days. My husband and best friends saved my life yesterday. I’ve had other crises but they were in the city, and handled by medical professionals whom I couldn’t put a name or face to now. These were people who love me, care for me, and had to work together in a remote emergency situation. The ironic part is that of all of them I have the most formal training in those situations. They did an absolutely incredible job and me being here is the result of their combined efforts. I can never repay them for what they did for me on that trail but I know it’s not necessary. They did it out of love for me and to know people care for you that much is a feeling words can’t possible explain.
I’ve been so well, uncharacteristically well, for almost 4 weeks! Every day I’ve gone for a walk, as well as kept up with the household chores and taking care of my son. I’ve done extra things like painting a dresser, de-owning more possessions, baking, meal prep, and social visits. I’ve done favours for friends and it’s made me feel so good to help loved ones. This is the best I’ve felt, continuously, in over 2 years.
It must be the prednisone. 5 weeks ago I finally got around to testing it out instead of hydrocortisone. I’m on a fairly large dose for adrenal insufficiency, 12.5mg split into two daily doses, but it’s wonderful. I don’t feel like I’m constantly crashing. I wake up groggy and weak, but within an hour I feel ok, and it generally lasts for the rest of the day. My chest pain was almost non existent for a while, but as I feel better and increase my exercise, it creeps back in. Not nearly at the level it was before though.
It’s definitely time to try working. The process is difficult though, and I feel like I can’t trust my manager because of his change in plans, and general unprofessional emails about it. I know I can do some office work, but am worried about what that looks like, and I don’t want to put myself in a position that will negatively affect my future. I’m most afraid of getting fired if I can’t do the job. If I go back with the proper supports and protocols in place that can’t happen, but if I forgoe those and do what my manager is suggesting, I’m afraid that’s a possibility. I believe his motives are pure and they just need me back because of increased workload, but I still have to protect myself. It’s unfortunate that it’s happening. It’s be nice if it was just easy and I could trust the system, but my priority is my and my families’ future.
I see my endocrinologist in a week and a half. I plan to stay in the prednisone for at least the next 6 months to see how I feel. He may adjust it, but I’m okay with that. For now I’m just enjoying feeling this way. It’s been so long since my life wasn’t dominated by weakness and fatigue and in a way I feel reborn.
I’ve been back at work for 2 weeks now, working 15 hours per week. It’s felt both natural and odd at the same time. It feels normal to be back in an office, in front of a computer like the majority of adults everywhere. I’m comfortable in the building and have no problems asking for the things I need (new chair, light bulbs changed, passwords for the printer, etc.) but at the same moment feel completely separate from the people around me.
I don’t have much in common with my coworkers anymore. My priorities have changed so much and my outlook on life is drastically different than it was before. My career is only a small part of me now, and I hope to keep it that way. I want to do a good job and have my work be something I can respect, but I do not want to bring it home, either physically or emotionally. I do not want to sacrifice my health for a job anymore. I want to remember that, if I need to recover from an illness or injury, I can take a couple weeks off to do so. I do not want to wake up in the morning feeling like death, or fear falling in the street on the way to my car. I don’t want to give all my energy into something that doesn’t matter at the end of the day, and isn’t appreciated or noticed by my superiors.
I don’t have much to say during coffee and lunch breaks, when everyone seems to be bragging about their material possessions or planning a new purchase. I sound like a fool when I mention something I don’t have (and don’t want) to a group that equates success with excess.
I like how low stress my life is and I want to keep it that way.
Another chapter is beginning. I have a conference call tomorrow morning with my manager, disability management advisor, and labour relations advisor to determine my next step. I’m going back to work. I will start in the office, and part time, and then will see what I can do.
I saw my endocrinologist as well. I’m staying on the prednisone, up-dosing with it for activity, lowering my thyroid replacement, and increasing my Florinef. Hopefully all those changes will bring about a healthy me, or at least as healthy as I can get. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around this being Addison’s all along, a flare-up and insufficient steroid coverage leading to near crisis for over 2 years. Or maybe it was all steroid myopathy brought on my mistreatment in the hospital. Perhaps I’ll never know what really happened. Perhaps it will happen again.
I guess I’m just supposed to trudge on as if it’s all over; live life like I’m normal, forget about my fears. I’ve made a start by unfollowing any Facebook support group that doesn’t apply to me. It’s hard to move on. It’s hard to attribute symptoms to my pre-existing conditions and then try to manage them. My life is hard because my body is complicated.
Now though, even when it’s hard I have a window to a better way. I’ve been biking and walking. Spending time outside actively is so refreshingly normal and rejuvenating. I’d like to say I feel like myself again, but I’m no longer sure who that is. I don’t know what to strive for or who to try to be. I no longer know if I care.
This experience has taught me to live in the moment, because the next isn’t promised. For now, I just want to simply be.
For three of the past four Easters we’ve vacationed at a Provincial Park in the South west corner of the province. We go with two groups of friends and share a condo with one of them. There’s so many things to do here and so many adventures to be had: mountain biking, hiking, off-roading, catching minnows and insects in the creeks, walking around, etc. There are countless opportunities for active fun, and with my newfound energy I don’t want to miss out on any of them.
But my body is fighting back. I’ve taken a bump of steroids before each excursion but I can’t really keep up. After my walk around the lake this morning in the freshly fallen snow I was panting and sweating profusely. I had taken an extra 10mg hydrocortisone before we started, about 10minutes into the walk I took another and I’m still not sure if it was enough.
Everyone is telling me to rest but it’s driving me mad. Why do they feel like they can tell me what to do? And why, if they see that I’m struggling, do they not just ask what they can do to help? I don’t want to rest, I want to do! It makes me feel very isolated and misunderstood. What I could give up though, is doing the dishes, tidying up, or entertaining my son. Any of those chores could be done by others before I get to it, and then maybe I’d be okay. It’s partly my fault I know. I have a hard time relaxing in general, and it’s close to impossible for me to do it when there’s a mess around.
I’m in another adjustment and acceptance period on the chronic illness timeline. If it was Addison’s all along, then I have to learn how to handle it all over again. I never really did try just pumping my body full of steroids so I could do whatever I wanted. I don’t know if it’s healthy or not, but I’m sick of missing out on things. That line of thinking is close to denial I know.
Chronic illness is hard. Every stage of it is hard and you never get away. You can take a vacation from your job, family, city and responsibilities but you can never leave your defective body behind.
I’ve felt good for almost three weeks now. I’ve felt normal, almost healthy even. I’ve been walking my son to school, I walked around the lake, I’ve done home projects and I’ve hardly napped. The house is clean, we’ve eaten well and the laundry is done. Some afternoons I’ve even been bored. | 2019-04-20T13:16:56Z | https://chronicallybeing.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/ |
Business challenges are human challenges, and humans are complicated.
Brandtrust is a research and strategy firm that utilizes applied social and behavioral sciences to solve complex business challenges. Our methodologies are designed to unlock the nonconscious needs and desires of customers, providing insight-driven strategic direction for brand development, innovation, customer experience and behavior design.
Nearly 20 years ago, we set out to change a harsh reality: No one could explain why one particular brand succeeded when another flopped. It didn’t take long for Brandtrust to realize our most successful brand work was, in fact, rooted in deep insights—human insights. We discovered that a single human truth could profoundly change our beliefs and our cultures, and that human behavior and persuasion are driven primarily by emotion.
Brands, we determined, are about feelings, not facts. We had to change the way we think.
We are marketers, but through the years we became committed social scientists who leverage powerful methodologies to reveal the nonconscious mindset of the customer. Time and again, client after client, we proved that human truths not only solve complex business challenges, but fundamentally change lives. By offering clarity on the decision drivers and experiences that matter most, we help you change the way you think about your customers and your business.
We help you change your world.
As a Brandtrust researcher, Andy Akester uses his experience in business, professional counseling and—uniquely—improvisational theater to better understand the inner workings of the people he interviews. He considers it an honor to represent their voices and takes pride in assisting clients like Kellogg’s and Wrigley to meet the needs and demands of their consumers.
“I love that I get to step into people’s stories,” Andy says. “There’s analysis going on, and some great critical thinking that this wonderful team applies to the work, but at the end of the day, I get to hear stories about what matters most to people.” As a licensed professional counselor, Andy has been trained, in a wide variety of settings, to seek the truth inside those stories and apply it to finding solutions. He has also spent over a decade working in clinical practice and case management, although his specialty and true interest lies in assessment.
When she was a young child, AJ was instructed to never again ask her father the question, “Why?” for fear that he may lose his mind from her incessant questioning. Good thing she’s a rebel: She’s been driven by her curiosity and problem-solving skills ever since. Holding a Marketing degree from the University of San Diego, AJ gained early media and advertising experience through working at the Chicago Tribune and Forbes Magazine. At Brandtrust she uses her client-focused background combined with a penchant for detail and results-oriented mindset to bolster her reputation as a holistic research mind.
During her off time, AJ enjoys practicing hot yoga, walking along Lake Michigan, and catching a live show whenever she can. She’s a Chicago girl through and through and loves a good Italian Beef, but also prides herself as being an avid doughnut connoisseur.
Lindsey’s curiosity and positive energy are infectious within the walls of Brandtrust, and great assets to the clients she works within her role as Senior Analyst. Her background allows her to excel in her demanding role: she has a bachelor’s degree in Decision Science and Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon which she puts to good use when working on a project.
With seemingly endless energy, Lindsey is also a runner, completing one marathon, four half marathons, five Tough Mudders, and numerous other races. When she’s not traveling for work or for fun, you can find her in hometown of Pittsburgh, cheering on the Steelers with her pup, Wallace.
Dr. Sandra Bauman brings her 20 years of experience in marketing research and consulting to her role as founder and principal of Bauman Research & Consulting, LLC, a woman-owned enterprise. During her career in research, Sandra has designed and managed over 250 studies for corporate and nonprofit clients in the areas of corporate image and brand positioning; employee communications and commitment; strategic marketing; publicity and public affairs; and customer satisfaction and loyalty. She is an expert in quantitative methodologies, including telephone, Internet, and mail surveys, and her analysis skills include multivariate techniques such as segmentation and regression. She is also adept at qualitative research; she is a trained and experienced focus group moderator and facilitator for brainstorming, ideation and strategic planning sessions with executives. Prior to starting her firm, Sandra was Vice President at Wirthlin Worldwide, where she founded and led Wirthlin’s e-Solutions division, focusing on Internet, technology and ebusiness research and consulting.
Having worked with many clients on branding, positioning and customer loyalty issues, Sandra’s client list includes Stryker Orthopaedics, OrthoBiotech, Samsung, Bayer Pharmaceutical, Pfizer, Thomson Healthcare, Honeywell, Nielsen, Roche and WebMD.
Sandra has testified before Congress about public opinion toward privacy issues. In addition, she is the author of numerous book chapters and white papers and is a frequent conference speaker. Sandra began her career as a reporter and editor for several major metropolitan daily newspapers. She completed her B.A. in journalism at Drake University, and her M.S.J. at Northwestern University. She holds a Ph.D. in communication research from Northwestern University.
Sandra is active in the New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners and is a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.
As Accounting Assistant, Vicky keeps the wheels turning by supporting all things accounting related. She brings with her a unique background in accounting and marketing, having previously held roles at American Airlines, VF Corporation, Weiss CPA, and SSPR.
Of working at Brandtrust she says, “The entire team inspires me to be a better person and live a better life.” She volunteers nearby at the Ronald McDonald House and enjoys the exercise she gets commuting to and from work.
Originally from Michigan, Vicky always knew she would land in Chicago and hasn’t looked back. Her greatest passions are traveling, reading, bike riding and cheering on the Chicago Cubs (she got engaged at Wrigley Field). Proud parents of two daughters who currently attend the University of Missouri, she and her husband are also proud members of the quarter century club having been blissfully married for over 25 years.
With a background in journalism and psychology, and an insatiable curiosity, Kristen was a natural fit for Brandtrust. She began her career at a local Chicago P.R. firm, where she gained experience in identifying clients’ challenges and solving their difficult brand issues. At that position, she earned a Publicity Club of Chicago Golden Trumpet Award, and now at Brandtrust, Kristen has continued to build upon her impressive resume by managing research for and advising some of our largest clients, both domestically and abroad. Her impressive tenure includes Eli Lilly, Amgen, 3M, Masco, and Brown-Forman, to name a few.
Outside Brandtrust, Kristen enjoys yoga and skiing – both on water and on snow. She also flies with the greatest of ease during flying trapeze classes she takes on the lake in Chicago each summer. Kristen lives in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, and with a natural passion for traveling, is always planning her next trip.
Dan has been a long time partner of Brandtrust. He has a diverse background, having studied Industrial Engineering, Communication, and Social Entrepreneurship. His undergraduate work and early career experience in engineering has prepared him to bring order to chaos with a proficiency for translating ideas into reality. In conjunction with our team, Dan has led many clients through a process of uncovering the psychological and emotional insights about their consumers and other stakeholders, and assisted them in translating those insights to actionable marketplace strategies.
Dan also has a deep personal passion for the power of a great business to create value in multiple dimensions. This is why his graduate work also focused on blended value business models, and his master’s thesis convinced his university to develop a program in the field. Dan is committed to delivering not only excellent strategic brand consultation, but also the benefits of a partner with true passion for businesses that make their stakeholders’ lives better. Dan loves all things related to cuisine and travel, and looks forward to every chance he has to gather for a meal with friends and strangers alike.
Meghan is a proven performer with a stellar track record of success in all of her endeavors, a truly fearless and outgoing personality with a natural penchant for forging personal connections. In her role as a Senior Manager of Client Development, Meghan leverages those skills and attributes as she sets out to understand client needs and then helps Brandtrust craft thoughtful solutions that will best allow those clients to achieve their objectives.
At home, Meghan revels in raising her daughter Blake with her husband, Dan, in Chicago’s historic Gold Coast neighborhood. She is also deeply interested in all aspects of food. Since childhood in a historic small town in upstate New York, she would go to the library to check out cookbooks about different world cuisines, and then drag her mother off in search of exotic ingredients. And while little has changed since those days, living in Chicago affords her many more outlets for her food passions.
Kathryn’s role is Client Development Manager. As she sees it, “it is code for spreading the Brandtrust love and empathy all while being a problem solver!” If you can’t tell already, she has a deep passion for her work that causes her to constantly go that extra mile to create lasting friendships with partners across industries.
She excels in any role that allows her to use her gift of gab, so it’s no surprise then that she has a long resume of sales and successful client relationship building. She even has technical back-end experience communicating between IT teams and clients. Her diverse experience and unrivaled energy makes her the perfect fit for Brandtrust.
Gillian wants to tell you something. Actually, many things. She is bursting at the seams to let you know all that Brandtrust does, and can do. It’s good she has an outlet to do this. As the Senior Marketing Manager, Gillian is responsible for sharing Brandtrust’s knowledge and insights with the world. She takes it upon herself to build awareness of the unique services Brandtrust offers and the impact our work has made globally. She manages speaking engagements, media relations, the company website, social media communications, and educational opportunities in the marketplace. If this wasn’t enough, she also is one of the designated facilitators for Brandtrust’s Workshops.
Outside of work, she doesn’t slow down. She is a lover of the outdoors, and carries her adventurous spirit with her as she attempts to explore every National Park with her husband. She sees her biggest reward in life as “spending time with those I love and playing outside. I live by the words of John Muir, “The mountains are calling and I must go.”” With such a positive spirit, it is no wonder that Gillian dreams of being a contestant on The Amazing Race. Gillian plays both the trumpet and piano, and loves to dance. Fair warning: she is always prepared, at any moment, to have a dance off. Challenge her, she double dog dares you.
Jonathan has spent most of the last ten years striving to better understand the emotional motivations that cause consumers to behave the way they do. An expert in consumer psychology, he has put his distinctive style of Emotional Inquiry® to work for Brandtrust clients such as Eli Lilly, Nestlé, Discover, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Intel and Ace Hardware.
At Brandtrust, Jonathan helps clients understand this distinction so they can make—and keep—meaningful brand promises to their customers.
In addition to his work with Brandtrust, Jonathan has applied his interest in qualitative research methodologies toward helping political candidates get the upper hand in elections. He’s worked in this capacity with congressional candidates, grassroots nonprofits, and government organizations.
Jonathan lives in a picturesque and often snowy small town with his wife and three young children.
Keri brings a positive energy and academic expertise to her role as a Consultant at Brandtrust. Whether she is helping clients discover inspiring insights through research or guiding her team through meaningful strategy, Keri draws on her wealth of experience to deliver the best possible outcome for everyone involved.
As a graduate of UCLA’s bachelor program in Pyschobiology and University College London’s master program in Neuroscience, Keri has an academic grounding that allows her to see clearly the insights that matter most to clients and consumers. Her professional background as a researcher on psychological and physiological projects gives her a unique understanding of how to translate deeply human insights toward organizational goals.
Her enthusiasm and drive don’t stop with her professional life. Like many of her fellow consultants, Keri also has a serious case of wanderlust: she has lived in San Diego, Los Angeles, Barcelona, and London—to name a few. When she isn’t working or traveling, you can usually catch her reading a book or sipping a latte in a local coffee house.
At Brandtrust, we all strive for truth. And as truth seekers, we are carefully attuned to the words people say and the way they act. So, when we describe Jenny as the person at Brandtrust who “keeps it real,” then you know we are serious. Always known for her design prowess and ability to take a concept from an idea to a fully realized, beautiful visual product, Jenny’s discerning eye and whip-smart wit are valued commodities.
Jenny has worked on countless projects at Brandtrust, and along with her experience, her varied interests make her stand out. She seems to always sprout new hobbies, and currently she is heavily invested in reading, knitting, and playing the piano. She also won the state title in track two years in a row, was a carriage driver, and studied journalism, fine art, and massage therapy in college. Ask her about any topic and you are sure to learn something.
Annie is an Associate Consultant at Brandtrust, meaning she helps clients discover new insights by learning and walking with them toward the low hanging fruit in projects and engagements. During her time in this role, Annie has had a bevy of experiences across industries that she puts to great use in her day-to-day role.
Annie’s background has prepared her for her people-centered work. She graduated from Harvard with a degree in Psychology, and has worked with several psychology labs during her time in college. She also worked in chemical engineering at a major aerospace company for three summers during her busy undergraduate tenure.
When she isn’t at work, you can usually catch Annie taking in the sights all around the city of Chicago, from the beach to downtown to everywhere in between. And, while she (only sometimes) wishes life were more like Downton Abbey, her own life would make anyone jealous. She even beat an Olympian at Badminton.
A recent graduate from Wheaton College with a degree in political science, Fedhii has a passion for traveling and engrossing himself in different cultures. In fact, he spent his past two summers abroad in Ethiopia learning from business executives and working in youth hostels across Northern Europe.
Dave is a leader who brings together curiosity with drive to make the world a better place. As with most of us at Brandtrust, Dave’s background has some interesting twists. He combines his undergraduate degree in Psychology with a Masters of Divinity and over two decades of leadership experience in both the for-profit and non-profit space.
Since joining Brandtrust, Dave has worked on projects for clients in a variety of industries including health care & pharmaceuticals, financial services, consumer packaged goods, B2B/Service, technology and more. Dave leads our team of consultants, ensuring our clients receive the rigorous thinking and strategy they deserve to drive results.
When not working, Dave volunteers with International Justice Mission, where he produces their annual conference. He and his wife Ann have two children, Joshua and Abigail. He loves the diversity they benefit from living in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago, where Dave resides.
Studying sociology and anthropology in school, Chris began his career in the world of standardized testing and measurement. During this time, he came to realize there was more to understanding someone (and their potential) than a few questions. Searching for a way to use his love of the social sciences, Chris found Brandtrust and realized a unique opportunity to dig deeper into the psychology of consumers.
Chris lives with his wife in the Roscoe Village neighborhood of Chicago. Together they enjoy traveling, exploring new restaurants and frequenting the great beer bars and breweries the city has to offer.
Ed has been with Brandtrust since the company’s earliest days, in 1998. He works to make sure that everything that leaves our office reflects beautiful design and supports the clear and simple communication of meaningful ideas. Having studied Marketing and Design in school, he also leverages the rich and deep experience he earned during his time as Senior Art Director at Leo Burnett, working on accounts such as Sony, McDonald’s, Nintendo, Kraft, M&M/Mars, and HP.
Ed fills his free time by listening to all types of music and playing drums, and he admits to being a huge PBS addict. He shares his life with his lovely wife Mimi, and two daughters, Sara and Eden. He says the girls still think “Papi can fix anything.” He hasn’t let them down yet, and his goal is to never have to.
As the younger of two children from the Chicagoland area, she is naturally drawn to water. She grew up boating with her family, and values whenever there is time to be on or near the lake. Alyssa has also been practicing yoga for over ten years, and loves it for its “unique ability to create both personal space and community. Yoga helps me to navigate a challenging and socially demanding profession.” When not on the water or practicing yoga, she can be found zip lining in Costa Rica, hiking in the southwest, or exploring one of the different cities she is dropped into as part of her work.
No one could be more perfectly equipped than Erin to serve as Brandtrust’s Group Director, Client Development and Marketing. She came to Brandtrust with a balanced combination of experience in consulting services, marketing and business development. Erin has spent many years advising Fortune 500 clients in marketing and consumer research, yet she also has rich and deep experience in managing and leading marketing and business development staff, nurturing client relationships and coaching highly performing teams to collaborate effectively.
Erin’s always on the leading edge of what’s new and effective in marketing. Her marketing prowess was responsible for creating buzz-worthy online campaigns before it became a standard. Her successes include such groundbreaking concepts and campaigns as the first Internet Film and Music Festival, which caught the attention of–and was acquired by–the Sundance Institute.
Outside of work, Erin and her husband Pete are devoted parents to McKenzie and Nick. Erin is also an avid runner, is always looking for new physical and intellectual challenges and somehow finds the time to read a variety of books on a wide and eclectic range of topics.
Bailey’s passion to learn and eagerness to build strong relationships is what she is admired most for at Brandtrust. As a Consultant, she assists clients to better serve consumers by better understanding their stories. She has had the opportunity to work with a variety of clients, including Eli Lilly, AbbVie, and Mutual of Omaha.
A graduate from The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia with a bachelor’s of business administration and double major in Marketing and Hispanic Studies, Bailey has the unique honor of calling Thomas Jefferson one of her fellow alumni. Prior to Brandtrust, she focused her insightful mind working for Collage Group, a subscription-based market research and consulting firm in Washington D.C.
Bailey was born and raised in the land of Skyline chili and Graeter’s ice cream: Cincinnati, but moved to Chicago to enjoy the city’s rich history, layered architecture, and fervent pride. One of her many hobbies is being an aficionado of all things stationary products and is known around the office for her impeccable handwriting. Like many of the Brandtrust team, she has a passion for exploring new corners of Chicago and traveling abroad—Argentina, Chile, and Asia are on the docket for her next adventures!
As Associate Consultant, Mary has a passion for logistics and a keen eye for details. In her role she is dedicated to making sure that each project is on track and on budget to delight her team and her clients.
Mary finds inspiration in the various relationships she has formed with her colleagues and clients. In her words, she loves “working among a talented and dynamic group dedicated to delivering impactful results to our clients.” Mary is a crucial part of delivering those results to clients and Brandtrust team alike.
Her giving nature keeps Mary invested in what is going on around her. A native of Chicago, her greatest passion is spending time with her family and friends. She rarely has a negative word about her home city, but if you press her, she might kindly ask the sun and warmth to come out and stay around a bit longer.
With a unique background that led him to earn degrees in both marketing and architecture, Christian brings a keen sense of precision and a creative awareness to his projects with Brandtrust. His focus lies in helping clients glean powerful insights from customer research and then leverage these insights to craft tangible branding, marketing and communications strategies.
During his time with Brandtrust, Christian has helped craft brand solutions for Hewlett Packard, Nestlé, Honda, Kraft, Amgen and General Mills, among others.
A multi-dimensional thinker both at work and at home, Christian often shatters people’s preconceptions of him. He’s an avid (if not rabid) sports fan, yet can occasionally be coaxed to play classical violin at a friend’s wedding. Christian and his wife Kelly have a passion for running marathons, but are now busy caring for their children, Micah, Reid, and Gemma.
Stephan loves a good challenge, and for that, has been well loved at Brandtrust for over a decade. As Director, Customer Experience and Innovation Strategy, Stephan has brought his passion for problem-solving and process, keen observation and translation skills, and committed work ethic to delight such clients as Eli Lilly, Kraft, Jack Daniel’s, Lincoln Financial, Abbott Nutrition and Johnson & Johnson.
During his tenure at Brandtrust, Stephan has been instrumental in the development and facilitation of many of Brandtrust’s Human Truth Workshops, including A More Beautiful Question Workshop, Essentials of Empathy Workshop, The Art of the Question Workshop, and Emotional Listening Workshop.
In his personal life, Stephan is an amateur musician and is interested in anything having to do with sports, playing in tennis tournaments and softball and basketball leagues as the seasons and his work schedule allow. He and his lovely wife, Liz reside in Salt Lake City and are proud parents of two young children.
Lacey has always been fascinated by people and why they do the things they do. It’s a passion that led her to a formal education in psychology and to her initial role with Brandtrust as a consumer researcher. In her current role, as a Senior Consultant, Lacey helps clients discover new ways of seeing consumer drivers to achieve critical competitive advantage. She has worked for a wide array of clients, including Coke, Honda, Eli Lilly, Kraft Foods, FedEx, Intel and General Mills.
Outside of work, Lacey and her husband drive their budding performer Mary to various classes, rehearsals and shows. When not busy at work, Lacey enjoys cooking and relaxing up to a good book.
His motivation doesn’t just stop at branding. In 2012, he achieved his longstanding goal of sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. When he isn’t helping the best brands become even better, you can find him enjoying his other passions: baseball, books and, of course, boating.
Nicole Potoshnick knows how people work, inside and out. Before coming to Brandtrust, her experiences as a Reunions and Special Events Specialist at Duke University, an Account Manager at a staffing firm and a mental health counselor have given her a wealth of knowledge about the needs and desires of others from very diverse backgrounds.
While Brandtrust’s research is designed to provide clients with insights, Nicole acknowledges that she also loves watching respondents discover things they didn’t know about themselves, and hear them say, “Aha! That’s why I do that!” Her international experience—living, working and traveling throughout Europe, in particular—has allowed her a depth of global understanding that has proven invaluable in her time with Brandtrust.
While not trying to prompt those “aha!” moments, Nicole lives just outside of Chicago with her husband, their twin toddlers and a cuddly toy poodle named Moses. She never thought she’d enjoy having a white picket fence in suburbia but has found that her little corner of the world is quite charming.
As a Senior Associate Consultant at Brandtrust, Jamie always brings a passion for human truth and understanding to her work. She delights her teams and clients by keeping projects moving smoothly, with a keen eye toward keeping her team on track and managing details.
When not pursuing her work passion, Jamie can be found turning her attention to detail toward the kitchen. She loves to cook and bake, and is always looking for new recipes to add to her ever-expanding collection.
Curiosity is common within the walls of Brandtrust. So is drive. Among her accomplished colleagues, though, Leigh stands out. As Brandtrust’s Director of Operations, she believes that everyone should be equipped with the necessary resources to succeed in their role, feel smart, and shine.
In order to equip the Brandtrust team with the tools and training they need, she leads the company’s Knowledge Management Initiative, which puts logical, structural and cultural tools in place to capitalize on Brandtrust employees’ natural desire to learn, share what they know and to make processes, methodologies and Brandtrust overall a better organization. In addition to this responsibility, she is also in charge of the Privacy and Compliance department, which was built to ensure each employee securely carries out client projects. These two critically important roles put Leigh in the unique position of supporting both Business Development and Client Relationship teams.
She also believes that learning and improvement should not stop within the walls of the office. With a passion for learning and adventure, Leigh is constantly reading (about two books per week), surfing and sailing (when near bodies of water), and managing Judge, her chocolate lab (a full-time job).
Maggie Sams comes to Brandtrust by way of the University of Wisconsin, Madison with a degree in journalism and strategic communication. Maggie’s lively spirit and unstoppable work ethic have made her an essential asset to the Brandtrust team. She is always striving to be one step ahead so that she is able to surprise and delight her team and clients. Her impeccable organization skills and passion for building relationships allows her to successfully manage each of her projects while helping her clients discover deep insight into their brands and customers.
Maggie has had the pleasure of working alongside clients such as Kimberly-Clark, Moen, Eli Lilly and Kraft. In her spare time, Maggie can be found cheering on her beloved Wisconsin Badgers or sweating it out in a hot yoga class.
As a Proposal Manager, Jill’s role is to corral Brandtrust’s best and brightest thinking, wrangle it onto the page, and delight clients with proposals that can inspire a new way of thinking about how to solve their business challenges. Her work spans across numerous industries and clients, and she loves that diversity, having spent most of her career in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.
Jill has a background rich in communications, proposal and content development, and project management experience in the healthcare and pharma industries at Kaiser Permanente and Eli Lilly and Company, and in the agency world at Weber Shandwick and Ogilvy Public Relations, where she was a consultant for world-class companies including Genentech, Pfizer, Bayer, and GSK, to name a few.
Outside of Brandtrust, Jill enjoys cooking, exploring the robust dining scene, and traveling the world. Originally from Indiana, this domestic nomad has also lived coast to coast with stints in the Big Apple, San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. Thrilled to be back in the Midwest and closer to family, Jill has found the perfect balance between working in the big city and residing in the enchanting natural beauty and small-community feel of Chicago’s North Shore.
Diane is an Industrial Psychologist with over 10 years of experience in helping organizations achieve their strategic objectives in the areas of employee assessment and selection, leadership development, organization design and change management.
Diane holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Wisconsin and both a Master’s and Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from DePaul University. Diane has applied her expertise to both internal and consulting roles in a variety of industries. Her projects have included management coaching, and organizational change efforts including team development, culture change, communications, and mission and team building.
Diane states, “My client work requires an ability to communicate with members of all levels within an organization and the ability to determine the necessary course of action by asking the right questions, observing and listening to people. I am delighted to partner with Brandtrust® as they use the same approaches to helping their client organizations succeed.” She has partnered with Brandtrust® on projects for Alberto Culver, Frito-Lay, General Mills, Kraft and BUNN.
Outside of work, Diane is a world traveler with a particular interest in ancient cultures. She’s also an avid cyclist and spent an entire week on her bicycle a few summers ago, though she admits that she still finds it challenging to change a flat tire. Diane studies and attempts to practice meditation and Buddhism, and visits the library once a week with her daughter.
Carmie Stornello is the glue that holds Brandtrust together. It is no exaggeration to say that she oversees the smooth and efficient operation of, well, every last little thing. In her role as the Director of People Operations in charge of operations and resource management, Carmie ensures that each project is manned with the most appropriate personnel, that everyone is in the right place at the right time, armed with the right information and tools to do an excellent job. Carmie’s challenges transcend the sphere of mere logistics, incorporating significant doses of finance, business strategy, negotiation, psychology, persuasion and tough love.
Throughout her career, Carmie has managed million dollar projects in a wide range of industries. She brings over 20 years of agency management experience to her role. Carmie began her career in a pharmaceutical advertising agency, managing the process of developing breakthrough creative for clients including Procter & Gamble, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Abbott Laboratories. She went on to a management position in Abbott Laboratories’ internal advertising agency, and during the pioneering days of the Internet, helped build a small interactive advertising boutique agency that was later acquired. This led to a stint as an Account Director with the new parent company on consumer products such as Tombstone Pizza, Abreva and Postopia, the kids’ website for Post Cereals.
Carmie spends her free time enjoying life in Chicago with her husband and their two precious children, fending off requests for a dog or a pony, and checking email. She also maintains her mental health in balance by running and practicing yoga.
Sophia is no stranger to challenge. With a bachelor’s degree in Russian language and literature, and a Master’s in Marketing Analytics and Communication, she is constantly striving to test her limits and grow her already impressive resume. She speaks three languages, was inducted into the Beta Gamma Sigma international honor society for business programs, and moved halfway around the world to pursue her dream job in Chicago.
Outside of her work, Sophia loves to cook authentic Chinese cuisine. She is proud to be a cat lover, and enjoys the companionship of two cute cats that she rescued.
Throughout his extensive career, Daryl has advised many of the largest and best brands in the world. His latest groundbreaking book, Little Things Big Returns, explores what really motivates people and how to deliver experiences that matter most to your customers.
A colorful and engaging storyteller, Daryl speaks frequently on the power of insights and the critical need for marketers to change the way they think about how people think. He explains how research can lead us astray or help us to gain a competitive edge. “Most research discloses what happens,” he says. “However, it often fails to reveal why it happens or the underlying emotional drivers that are critical in creating an effective strategy.” Daryl’s guiding mantra is The NINA Principle®:—No Insight—No Advantage®.
Passionate about learning and understanding more about how people think, Daryl is always reading a new book—more than one hundred each year. His voracious reading helps leverage recent breakthroughs in the social sciences to improve the consumer research process, tapping into the deeper underlying emotions and nonconscious motivations critical to revealing insights.
Daryl and his wife Donnita extend his continuous learning passion as active members of Chicago’s philanthropic community, volunteering time and resources to support education and literacy programs for underprivileged children throughout the city.
David’s passion to forge strong relationships, coupled with his continued eagerness to learn, is what he is most appreciated for at Brandtrust. As an Associate Consultant, he assists clients and our team with all the logistics of a project; anticipating the needs of others and keeping every project moving like a well-oiled machine. David’s curiosity and thirst for knowledge have shined since day one–traits that truly prove he has Brandtrust in his DNA.
David graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a Bachelors of Business Administration in Marketing. Prior to Brandtrust, David has experience working with a small non-profit, helping build their brand and marketing initiatives on an international platform.
David grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago but has always considered himself a prideful Chicagoan. His favorite thing about Chicago is the beautiful summer months, which motivates him to bear the treacherous winters every year. Having been bitten by the travel bug after a semester in Madrid, Spain studying business and learning to love the Spanish lifestyle, David shares the same passion for travel and exploration as the rest of the Brandtrust team.
Beth knows what it means to be accountable. As Brandtrust’s Director of Finance, she is responsible for making sure all finance and HR related tasks run as smoothly as possible. This is no easy task in our dynamic environment. With everything from preparing proposals to sending clients the final invoice for a project, Beth is involved in every step along the way for Brandtrust operations.
An avid traveler, Beth has been to five continents and over thirty states and intends on finishing the list in her lifetime, her most exotic destination to date being Ethiopia. She also owns eighteen chickens on her farm in Wisconsin with her husband and two teenagers. Around the Brandtrust office, anyone can come to her for financial advice or chicken eggs.
As a Senior Associate Consultant at Brandtrust, Valerie brings her passion for the human story, her positive outlook on life, and creativity to her role to ensure every project runs smoothly and on track in order to delight her clients and support her team.
Valerie’s natural curiosity and background have uniquely prepared her for such a pivotal human-centric role. After graduating from University College Dublin with a Masters of Arts in Cultural Policy and Arts Management, she worked as an arts administrator for a non-profit and as an independent consultant for startups and creative professionals.
Valerie has returned to her hometown of Chicago to be closer to family and work and to enjoy her favorite piece of the Midwest city—the Lake Michigan lakefront parks. However, with a deep seeded passion for travel and history, you’ll most likely find Valerie planning her next great adventure. Be it solo-hike summiting mountains, singing, or indulging in an exquisite charcuterie board, Valerie’s journey is just getting started. | 2019-04-24T03:14:27Z | http://brandtrust.com/about/ |
I rarely read your online edition, but did see the interview with Paul Crespo. It reassures me that my decision to stop my subscription to the print edition of your magazine was right. Instead of defending Americans right to their own memory, customs and identity, you eagerly shilled for the browning of America. Having chosen treason, you should not whine when the day of reckoning for traitors arrives.
That’s exactly the sort of soft shoe so many of us learned to spot during last year’s immigration battles.
No, Mr. Crespo, I do NOT agree that all immigrants should become American citizens. On the contrary, I think that only legal immigrants should have that opportunity.
Regarding Paul Crespo — brilliant! McCain needs to be looking at him for a Cabinet spot or some position of responsibility in his administration. He’s got more gravitas than Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton combined. Semper Fi!
I disagree with the author that Americans don’t understand the difference between legal and illegal immigrants. We do. We welcome legal immigrants and are understandably unhappy with illegal immigrants.
As a U.S. government worker I worked with many Americans of Hispanic heritage. They loved their country and spoke excellent English. I enjoyed working with them and appreciated their friendship.
The problem that has arisen is with the illegal immigrants. Many have no intention of staying here. They want to make money and leave. They don’t play by the rules by learning the English language and don’t know anything about American culture. I watched a Hispanic driver almost get hit by an ambulance because he didn’t know enough to give way to it.
I’m glad Civica Americana is trying to help Hispanics to become part of America. That is what we need. We don’t need divisive multiculturalism. We need more patriotic Hispanic Americans who can participate in both a Hispanic culture and our joint American culture.
I would like to thank The American Spectator and Shawn Macomber for bringing this man and this organization to light. Frankly, here in New England, I had never heard of this man or organization. Let me say that I totally believe, with Teddy Roosevelt, that hyphenated Americans are not Americans at all. That is as true today as it was when old Teddy uttered it. This article seems to be informing us that Mr. Crespo is, indeed, doing the Lord’s work in this regard. I respect him very highly for what he and his group are attempting to accomplish. I also respect him for being a Marine. He was probably a better Marine than I was, but than that would not have been extremely difficult. I mean my separation from the Corps was fairly amicable and definitely honorable. It is just that the only way I would have ever made Marine of the Month would have been for me to be the only Marine left alive in the world at large.
I do think that it is unfortunate that Mr. Crespo and his group have taken the view that they have regarding what is, and is not, something that they should get involved in. Mr. Crespo notes the pool of folks that exhibit, in his opinion, xenophobic characteristics. Yet, he seems oblivious to the great degree to which folks like Mr. Crespo could counter, and indeed refocus these individuals. Mr. Crespo seems to be saying that it is someone else’s job. His job, he says, is to explain America to Hispanics the world over, not particularly the ones already here.
Sir, many of us, and I am one of them, are livid regarding the virtual invasion of our supposedly sovereign country from Mexican territory by mostly Hispanics. An invasion that is totally illegal. I refer to those of us that have no beef whatever with LEGAL immigrants. Heck, we would even agree with you that the immigration rules need a serious reworking. That said, that does not give anyone carte blanche to invade my country. Mr. Crespo, you would gain uncountable allies among the non-Hispanic heritage citizens if you would consistently, loudly, publicly, and frequently stand up to La Raza and the other pro-open borders folks, and the folks that really do want to “take back” parts of America for Mexico. The ones that demonstrate waving Mexican flags in American cities. All I can say to you, sir, is that your silence would seem to indicate agreement with those folks, or at least consent.
Sir, many of us, and I am one of them, are livid at the extra taxes that we have to pay so that the official documents of our various levels of government can be printed in Spanish as well as English. Sir, I think it completely wrong that we have to print voting instructions and the ballots themselves in Spanish. If you cannot speak, read, and understand English, then you should not be voting for our officials until you can. Mr. Crespo, I have not seen you on TV or heard you on radio standing up to the “Hispanic activists” consistently, loudly, publicly, and often against the abuse of our societal tolerance to the detriment of our tax rates and our blood pressures due to irritation levels.
And, Mr. Crespo, why should I have to press any button on my phone to continue in English when I call a commercial enterprise in America? Why would it not be better for Hispanics to press a phone button to switch to Spanish? After all this is NOT a Latin American country — yet.
Mr. Crespo, do you not find it extremely rude for those of Hispanic roots to cluster together at work and in general public restaurants and speak Spanish exclusively? I have personally been into Mickey Ds, Wendy’s, Burger Kings, in the Miami area where I was literally the ONLY one that spoke English. I have had a hard time ordering a burger and fries for lunch because the counter help had such a poor grasp of the English language. Now I would fully expect that if I was in Mexico. I think it is entirely rude and wrong in a city in the United States.
Mr. Crespo, let me sum up. Silence indicates acceptance and/or agreement. For all the good work that you seem to want to do on behalf of what it means to be truly an American, you undermine your credibility when you refuse to publicly chastise the Hispanic activists, agitators, and multiculturists that are tearing this country apart and driving a wedge between our citizens, those that are seeking to Balkanize our society. Sir, our DIVERSITY is NOT our strength. Our unity is our strength, and our lack of that unity, that assimilation, that homogenization will be our death warrant as a once great country.
Thank you for what you are doing, sir, but please consider trying to do that part of the job that you are not presently doing. A job half done is a job not done at all.
Shawn, outstanding, enlightening, and very helpful to me. In the America of today, one has to stay constantly on guard not to get swept up in the politics of the moment. I do want to make sure our boarders are secure, but I do not want to ever lose sight of what America stands for. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, it has always been men and women like Paul Crespo that have sacrificed and contributed greatly toward making America the great nation that it is today.
Also, I saw one of the first responses to your article. Whining? Browning of America? Based on the content of your article, I am not sure where that came from.
If you have the opportunity to speak to Paul again, please tell him that as an American, I appreciate his efforts and I am very glad he lends his numerous talents to improving our country.
Shawn, take care, and keep up the excellent work.
Why is it ridiculous, why is it wrong, and why does a law, passed by the Congress — the people elected by the American people to represent them, and signed into law by the President–also elected by the American people — need to be “fixed”? Because Mr. Crespo doesn’t like it? He always has the option to go back to Cuba if he doesn’t like it here. Nobody will stand in his way, unlike in Cuba.
Why you can’t ask such fundamental question invalidates your, or Mr. Macomber’s, claim to be a journalist. Propaganda artist, yes. Sickening.
who choose to employ it.
Didn’t Al Franken already cover this in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them?
Mr. Tyrrell — Thanks for yet another great article on the Clintons, and their “understanding”(?) of the truth. In this political season you may never run out of material to continue this thread your words are part of.
In her campaign speeches in Iowa (and elsewhere), Mrs. Clinton claimed that she was instrumental in crafting and then helped pass the SCHIP legislation that created a national health insurance program for the children of low-income families. This more than deviates from the truth. Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch were the prime movers of this legislation. Bill Clinton initially lobbied against this program, much to the surprise and anger of Kennedy. Mrs. Clinton claims she has been an advocate for children’s issues for 35 years, and the SCHIP program is a key event in that advocacy. This is malarkey.
“As the Clintons enter their 17th year at the center of the national stage, some Washington pundits are running out of patience with them.” News flash to the punditocracy: Many, many, many of us ran out of patience with them a very, very, very long time ago.
As for HRC’s claim that she can only remember “misspeaking” once in the past 12 years? Brassy.
But couple her prevaricating with Barack Obama’s whoppers, the Dems have two really trustworthy wannabes. Not.
In publicly held companies most executives, including CEOs, are bureaucrats having risen through the ranks by not making mistakes. They all can easily be replaced by similar people in the talent pool. Executive compensation has become excessive because the board of directors, and shareholders, do not do their job. Boards are generally too friendly, too incestuous and too lazy. Shareholders are too distant and handcuffed by both lack of funds to defeat an incumbent board and corporate by-laws.
Maybe a requirement by shareholders that the CEO cannot be paid compensation greater than 20 times the lowest paid hourly worker would be appropriate? A rising sea lifts all boats.
The economy is also tied with the energy industry, which is currently a mess in the U.S. because of overhyped environmental concerns. The president should use whatever bully pulpit he has left to expose the shameless Democrats who are blocking the exploitation of our own resources. Releasing the oil and gas resources in Alaska and on our coasts for exploitation would initially provide a boost in American confidence because it let the public know that our government is truly concerned about energy independence and not just giving it lip service by subsidizing always-too-late-too-little alternative fuels. Together with more nuclear power plant licenses, it would be a sign that less of our money will go to oil-rich countries in the future. Currently, we have no hope for ever even approaching energy independence. Instilling some hope, not the vague Obama-in-the-sky hope, would go a long way to help us out this mess.
Good idea, Quin, good luck.
You write; “A benevolent dictator who implemented just those mentioned in this column, though, would surely catalyze the strongest, most lastingly solid economy the world has ever known.” That is the ONLY way you will ever get your good program implemented.
There was much, much more to the John Profumo scandal that just sleeping with not one, but two, young women with ties to a Soviet agent.
It was more than just coincidence that the Soviet Yankee class ballistic missile submarine was an almost exact copy of the U.S. Ethan Allen class ballistic missile submarine. John Profumo could have given more details on this strange ‘coincidence’ had the English wished to be further embarrassed.
The two major difficulties, aside from avarice and cowardice of our elected officials, are the magnitude of the dollars and the time horizon. Most people cannot begin to fathom numbers like trillions; the term remains, at best an abstraction. 75 years from now is beyond the average life expectancy of any who is even beginning to contemplate the meaning of Social Security. Neither of these excuses our citizenry from its responsibility of understanding and controlling these costs, but our elected officials are supposedly, though not demonstratively, smarter than the average bear. (Living off the government dole does not take intelligence, but it helps.) American tax dollars are transferred from the personal income of the many to pay a few (but growing) to manage our affairs intelligently. Apparently, we are not getting our money’s worth.
In the words of Bob Dylan, “Steal a little and they put you in jail. /Steal a lot they make you a king.” Our boys inside the beltway have their own little fiefdoms. It is time, not 75 years from now, for the American people to wake up and demand action from our leaders. The money they are burning up is ours and will remain so for generations to come. If we don’t stand up now, we will be handing our great grandchildren a heavy burden and no fair explanation.
Having now worked in the Northern Virginia area for a couple of months, I feel Elizabeth Terrell’s pain. And not just on the inability to mount the traffic mirror, but on the increasingly confiscatory burden the local pols are placing on the backs of the good people of Arlington County.
Ms. Terrell, having been unsuccessful at a proper permitted mounting of the safety mirror, should remember a slightly worn and paraphrased adage often credited to my heroine, Admiral Grace Hopper: it’s often easier to gain forgiveness than get permission. I say mount the mirror, earn the gratitude of those who benefit, and force the bureaucrats to make you take it down. Perhaps a revolt with torches and pitchforks by the bent-fender crowd will change their minds.
I have nothing to say pro or con Susan Jacoby and her book about our anti-intellectual nation. But in his review, Christopher Orlet sneers that any teen with an iPod could refute her theories. (Which are not theories, actually, but, rather, opinions).
In fact, if that were so, no one would be writing books deploring American anti-intellectualism.
Trying to prove a moral equivalence between Democrats and Republicans (as Mike Roush and desperate Democrats are doing) is impossible. Democrat history of manipulating racial issues to advance the party’s political fortunes is an ongoing saga. Never has the national Republican Party supported racial prejudice or openly discriminated against African-Americans. For those who think challenging Democrat voters at the polls is a racial issue it isn’t. It is about keeping Democrats who play fast and loose with voting honest (I’ve done it in predominately white voting places myself when Clinton and Perot voters were indifferent to election laws).
In this year’s election as always it is Democrats making race a major factor. Obama is using it to secure votes and Northern white Democrat politicians who back Hillary are saying Northern white Democrats will not vote for a black. When race, ethnicity and religion are used in politics to attack individuals it is normally Democrats doing it to people like Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Judge Brown, Miguel Estrada, Alberto Gonzales, Justice Alito, etc… It wasn’t Republicans asking if “Barack Obama was black enough?” Republican antipathy for Hillary and Obama has nothing to do with gender or race, but everything to do with their lack of ability and radical agendas.
As for the ministers cited none are racially divisive like Jeremiah Wright. There may be differences in matters of theology and ecclesiology between Protestants and Roman Catholics, but that is a spiritual not political matter. Falwell’s and Robertson’s post 9/11 ill-chosen words were theological and not political. They only became political, because the media chose to make them so. Unlike Jeremiah Wright they both apologized for their intemperate remarks. Wright on the other hand refuses to repudiate his slurs against the US and his racially insulting or divisive statements. In fact, his spiritual protégé Barack Obama has gone out of his way to defend and justify Wright while the liberal media and Obama’s supporters have continued to condone such hate speech.
On race and religion the differences between Democrats and Republicans are significant and pronounced. While the GOP is not the party of God (Joshua 5:13-14 illustrates God doesn’t take sides per se) it has more often been on the side of the “angels” regarding race relations in the U.S. than its counterpart.
As a mixed race (Irish-Native American) baby boomer, there are few subjects more depressing and tragic in boomers’ lives than the discussion of race relations. I have been to more race seminars, lectures, organized discussions, controlled confrontations, sensitivity trainings, etc than I can remember since kindergarten. Yet, it all has been unproductive and unrewarding. After 45 years, given the contemporary unyielding resentment and anger, I have given up hope — at least for this generation.
In spite of all the sound bites from the politicians and talking heads about a need for a “national dialogue on race” in this country, it will never happen nor should it happen. Having such as dialogue would stand only to make things worse. The racial waters have become so corrosive and toxic that even sincere exchanges will alienate considerable portions of the citizenry.
I have given up any hopes for genuine reconciliation between all the races in contemporary America. Real progress may be made after this generation passes away. Perhaps even after the next generation or two. But for now, I have come to believe it is not humanly possible for all of us to “like” each other. What is possible and necessary is to treat each other with civility and respect. Yes. This is meeting a serious issue with low expectations. This is far from the wishes of Martin Luther King and the other men and women of the Civil Rights Movement — no denying it. But it is attainable and to a large degree it can be enforced.
Time is on the side of the ideals of the Declaration. It is an affront that we get it so wrong for now. But it is an error to believe we can do all the time what we can only do some of the time. As they say in psychiatry, start where the behavior is at — not where you want it to be. | 2019-04-19T06:49:44Z | https://spectator.org/43862_hispanic-integration/ |
3. Amendment of section 13 of Principal Act.
5. Discontinuance of death benefit — parents.
6. Discontinuance of State pension (transition).
7. Increase in pensionable age.
8. Amendment of section 144 of Principal Act.
9. One-parent family payment — amendments.
10. Supplementary welfare allowance — amendments.
11. Amendments to Principal Act relating to assessment of means.
12. Information to be supplied by claimants and beneficiaries.
13. Amendment of section 250 of Principal Act.
14. Allocation of personal public service number in certain circumstances.
15. Cancellation and surrender of public services card.
16. National internship scheme — amendments to Principal Act.
17. Repayment of amounts due to be deferred, suspended or cancelled.
18. Repayment of amounts due arising from false or misleading statements or wilful concealment of facts.
19. Supplementary welfare allowance — calculation of means.
21. Exclusion resulting from membership of either House of the Oireachtas, European Parliament or local authorities.
22. Amendment of National Minimum Wage Act 2000.
23. Reduction in national training fund levy in certain circumstances.
24. Disapplication of section 7 of Official Languages Act 2003.
26. Amendment of section 2 of Principal Act.
27. Amendment of section 40 of Principal Act.
28. Amendment of section 41 of Principal Act.
29. Amendment of section 43 of Principal Act.
30. Amendment of section 49 of Principal Act.
31. Amendment of section 50 of Principal Act.
33. Amendment of section 51 of Principal Act.
34. Amendment of section 51A of Principal Act.
35. Regulatory Own Funds Schemes.
36. Amendment of section 54 of Principal Act.
37. Amendment of section 55 of Principal Act.
38. Amendment of section 56 of Principal Act.
39. Amendment of section 64D of Principal Act.
40. Amendment of section 48 of Principal Act.
41. Certification of certain policies or contracts of assurance.
42. Amendment of Part IVA of Principal Act.
AN ACT TO AMEND AND EXTEND THE SOCIAL WELFARE ACTS AND THE PENSIONS ACTS 1990 TO 2010, TO AMEND AND MODIFY OTHER ENACTMENTS AND TO PROVIDE FOR RELATED MATTERS.
2.— In this Part “Principal Act” means the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 .
(ii) at the rate of 10.05 per cent of the amount of the reckonable earnings in that week to which that payment relates where those reckonable earnings exceed €356 (or the equivalent thereof in the case of an employed contributor remunerated otherwise than on a weekly basis).
(2) This section comes into operation on 2 July 2011.
“(k) widow’s (contributory) pension, widower’s (contributory) pension and surviving civil partner’s (contributory) pension,”.
Discontinuance of death benefit — parents.
5.— (1) Section 80 of the Principal Act is amended by substituting “sections 81, 83 and 84” for “sections 81 to 84”.
(2) Section 82 of the Principal Act is repealed.
(b) in paragraph (f) by substituting “section 81 or 83” for “section 81, 82 or 83”.
death benefit under section 82 of the Principal Act shall be payable for so long as the person continues to be entitled to the benefit under the Principal Act and regulations made thereunder as if subsection (2) had not been commenced.
Discontinuance of State pension (transition).
“(9) Notwithstanding the provisions of this Chapter, State pension (transition) shall not be payable to a person who attains the age of 65 years on or after 1 January 2014.”.
7.— (1) Section 2(1) of the Principal Act is amended by substituting “67 years” for “66 years” in the definition of “pensionable age”.
(2) Subsection (1) comes into operation on 1 January 2021.
(3) Section 2(1) (amended by subsection (1)) of the Principal Act is amended by substituting “68 years” for “67 years” in the definition of “pensionable age”.
(4) Subsection (3) comes into operation on 1 January 2028.
Amendment of section 144 of Principal Act.
“(4) For the purposes of this section, a reference to ‘jobseeker’s allowance’ shall be read as including a reference to pre-retirement allowance.”.
9.— (1) Section 2(3)(b) of the Principal Act is amended in sub-paragraph (i) by substituting “174(1), 178(4), 178(6), 178A(3),” for “174(1),”.
(c) the civil partner of the surviving civil partner;”.
(3) Section 172A (inserted by section 25 of the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2010 ) of the Principal Act is repealed.
(e) in subsection (6) by substituting “person” for “qualified parent” in each place in which it occurs.
“Entitlement to one-parent family payment when relevant child attains age of 14 years.
and where the surviving spouse, surviving cohabitant or surviving civil partner is the parent, step-parent, adoptive parent or legal guardian of at least one child who normally resides with that surviving spouse, surviving cohabitant or surviving civil partner and the youngest child has, on the relevant date, attained the age of 14 years.
(2) For the purposes of this section, the reference to 14 years in subsection (1) shall be read as a reference to 16 years where the youngest child is a child in respect of whom a payment under Chapter 8A of Part 3 is in payment.
(b) the period commencing on the relevant date and ending on the date that the youngest child attains the age of 18 years.
Entitlement to one-parent family payment in certain circumstances.
and where the surviving spouse, surviving cohabitant or surviving civil partner is the parent, step-parent, adoptive parent or legal guardian of at least one child who normally resides with that surviving spouse, surviving cohabitant or surviving civil partner and the youngest child has, on the relevant date, attained the age of 12 years but has not attained the age of 14 years.
(2) For the purposes of this section the reference to 12 years and to 14 years in subsection (1) shall be read as references to 14 years and to 16 years, respectively, where the youngest child is a child in respect of whom a payment under Chapter 8A of Part 3 is in payment.
(3) Subject to subsections (6) to (8) of section 178A, where one-parent family payment is payable to a qualified parent who is a surviving spouse, surviving cohabitant or surviving civil partner referred to in subsection (1), that payment shall, notwithstanding section 172(1), continue to be payable for a period of 2 years commencing on the relevant date.”.
175.— A person referred to in section 173(1) shall not, if and so long as that person is a cohabitant, be entitled to and shall be disqualified for receiving payment of one-parent family payment.
one-parent family payment shall continue to be paid for 4 weeks after the release of that person’s spouse or civil partner from a prison or place of detention.
(d) a person is to be regarded as being a prisoner’s spouse or civil partner.”.
(f) in 2016, until the youngest child attains the age of 14 years.
(b) subsection (6)(f) shall be read as if ‘16 years’ was substituted for ‘14 years’.
continue to receive that payment immediately after 27 April 2011, one-parent family payment shall continue to be payable to that person up to the end of an academic year which commences in 2012, where the youngest child who, having attained the age of 18 years, is under the age of 22 years, and is receiving full-time education, in such circumstances as may be prescribed.
“(10) Subsections (6), (6A) and (8) shall cease to have effect on 31 December 2016.”.
in the State and whose body has not been claimed for burial.
(2) A designated person may, in any case in which he or she considers it appropriate, bring into and make arrangements for the burial in the State of the body of a person eligible for supplementary welfare allowance who has died outside the State.
(3) A designated person may defray all expenses necessarily incurred in the burial of the body of a deceased person under this section.
(b) from any person who was liable to maintain the deceased person immediately before his or her death.”.
(2) Section 244A(1) (inserted by section 12 ) of the Principal Act is amended in paragraph (a) by substituting “a designated person” for “the Executive”.
“Repayment of amounts due to be deferred, suspended, reduced or cancelled.
in accordance with this Act, an officer of the Minister authorised by him or her for this purpose may, subject to the conditions and in the circumstances that shall be prescribed, defer, suspend, reduce or cancel repayment of any such amount.”.
(4) Section 11(1) of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2010 , insofar as it relates to the amendment of section 241(1A) of the Principal Act specified at reference 9 of Schedule 2 to the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2010 , is repealed.
(5) Sections 11 (2)(c) and 11(3) of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2010 , insofar as they relate to the amendment of section 300(2)(b) of the Principal Act, are repealed.
(6) Section 18 (2) of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2008 , insofar as it relates to the amendment of section 342 of the Principal Act specified in column (2) of Schedule 1 to the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2008 opposite the mention of section 342 in column (1) of that Schedule, is repealed.
(7) Section 359 of the Principal Act is repealed.
Amendments to Principal Act relating to assessment of means.
“(g) any contribution payable under Part 18D of the Act of 1997 and known as universal social charge.”.
(B) any amount deducted from reckonable earnings under section 13 and regulations made under section 14, and”.
Information to be supplied by claimants and beneficiaries.
12.— (1) Section 241 of the Principal Act is amended by deleting subsections (1A) and (1B) (inserted by section 9 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2009 ).
“Information to be supplied by claimants and beneficiaries for profiling and activation purposes.
(b) in assessing the training, education or development needs appropriate to the circumstances of the claimant or beneficiary.
Amendment of section 250 of Principal Act.
(c) an office of the Minister.
(b) the address at which the person ordinarily resides.
(12A) A person who fails to comply with a written request to produce records under subsection (12) within 21 days following the date of issue of that request is guilty of an offence.
(ii) require such person, where the social welfare inspector reasonably suspects that the vehicle is being used in the course of employment or self-employment, to give to the social welfare inspector any record relating to the employment or self-employment of such person which such person has possession of in the vehicle.”.
Allocation of personal public service number in certain circumstances.
(II) his or her guardian or guardians.
who uses a personal public service number or seeks to have a personal public service number disclosed to him or her is guilty of an offence.”.
Cancellation and surrender of public services card.
“Cancellation and surrender of public services card.
(c) the Minister is notified by the person, or by another person who has been appointed to act on behalf of that person in accordance with regulations made under section 244(1)(b), that the public services card has been lost or stolen.
(2) Where a public services card issued to a person is cancelled under subsection (1), the Minister shall inform the person by notice in writing of the cancellation and the grounds for it.
(3) Where a public services card issued to a person is cancelled under subsection (1), the person shall, if he or she is in possession or control of the public services card, surrender it as soon as practicable to the Minister.
(4) Where a public services card is cancelled under subsection (1), the Minister may, if appropriate, require by notice in writing the person who is in possession or control of the public services card to surrender it as soon as practicable to the Minister.
(5) A person who, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, has a public services card other than a public services card that was issued to him or her in his or her possession or control shall, as soon as practicable, surrender it to the Minister.
(6) A person who is required by subsection (3), (4) or (5) to surrender a public services card to the Minister, but without reasonable excuse, does not do so in accordance with the requirement, is guilty of an offence.”.
National internship scheme — amendments to Principal Act.
16.— (1) Section 2(2)(a) (amended by section 15 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2010 ) of the Principal Act is amended in subparagraph (v) by inserting “or the scheme administered by An Foras Áiseanna Saothair and known as the national internship scheme” after “the Industrial Training Act 1967 ”.
(b) by substituting “the scheme referred to in section 298A(1)(b) (inserted by section 16 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2011)” for “the programme referred to in paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of section 298A (inserted by section 27(b) of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2010 )”.
shall, for the purposes of any enactment or rule of law (other than the Tax Acts and the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 ), be deemed not to be an employee of the other person or to carry out such work or perform such duties pursuant to a contract of service.”.
(b) by deleting paragraph (aa) (inserted by section 27 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2010 ).
(5) Schedule 3 to the Principal Act is amended in paragraph 13 of Table 2 by inserting “or the scheme administered by An Foras Áiseanna Saothair and known as the national internship scheme” after “the Industrial Training Act 1967 ”.
(6) The Principal Act is amended in the manner specified in the Table to this section.
Repayment of amounts due to be deferred, suspended or cancelled.
may, subject to the conditions and in the circumstances that shall be prescribed, defer, suspend, reduce or cancel repayment of any such amount.”.
Repayment of amounts due arising from false or misleading statements or wilful concealment of facts.
“Repayment of amounts due arising from false or misleading statements or wilful concealment of facts.
the amount to be repaid in such circumstances shall not be reduced by the amount of any other payment referred to in paragraphs (a) to (g) of section 342 to which the person would otherwise have been entitled in the period to which the overpayment relates had he or she not been in receipt of the payment which gave rise to the overpayment.”.
Supplementary welfare allowance — calculation of means.
“(iva) any moneys received by way of guardian’s payment (contributory), guardian’s payment (non-contributory), domiciliary care allowance or respite care grant, and”.
(b) “Sustainable Energy Ireland — The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland,” after “the Road Safety Authority,”.
Exclusion resulting from membership of either House of the Oireachtas, European Parliament or local authorities.
“Exclusion resulting from membership of either House of the Oireachtas, European Parliament or local authorities.
he or she thereupon ceases to hold office.
he or she thereupon stands seconded from employment by the Board and shall not be paid by, or be entitled to receive from, the Board any remuneration or allowances in respect of the period commencing on such nomination or election, or when he or she is so regarded as having been elected, or when he or she becomes a member of a local authority, as the case may be, and ending when such person ceases to be a member of either such House or such Parliament, or such local authority, as the case may be.
(3) A person who is for the time being entitled under the Standing Orders of either House of the Oireachtas to sit therein or who is a member of the European Parliament or a local authority shall, while so entitled or such a member, be disqualified from becoming a member of the Board, the chief executive or an employee of the Board.
(4) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (2), that subsection shall be read as prohibiting, inter alia, the reckoning of a period mentioned in that subsection as service with the Board for the purposes of any superannuation benefits.
on or after 1 July 2011.”.
“(1) The Minister shall, by order, declare a national minimum hourly rate of pay for the purposes of this Act of €8.65.”.
Reduction in national training fund levy in certain circumstances.
(b) at the rate of 0.7 per cent of the amount of the reckonable earnings in that week to which that payment relates where those reckonable earnings exceed €356 (or the equivalent thereof in the case of an employed contributor remunerated otherwise than on a weekly basis).
(iii) by deleting subsections (5), (6) and (7).
Disapplication of section 7 of Official Languages Act 2003.
24.— Section 7 of the Official Languages Act 2003 does not apply in relation to this Act. The text of this Act shall be made available electronically in each of the official languages as soon as practicable after its enactment.
25.— In this Part “Principal Act” means the Pensions Act 1990 .
‘relevant scheme’ means a scheme to which Part IV applies by virtue of section 41;”.
27.— Section 40 of the Principal Act is amended by deleting the definitions of “actuarial funding certificate”, “funding standard” and “relevant scheme”.
(iii) a small scheme of the type referred to in paragraph (b) of subsection (1) which is a regulatory own funds scheme,”.
(1C) While a relevant scheme to which this Part applies remains a regulatory own funds scheme each actuarial funding certificate submitted after the appropriate effective date referred to in subsection (1B) shall have an effective date not later than one year after the effective date of the immediately preceding certificate.
“(3A) Subsection (3) shall not apply in relation to an annual report prepared under subsection (1) of section 55 where, on the last day of the period to which the report relates, the relevant scheme was a regulatory own funds scheme.
“(4) The Board, on application to it in that behalf by the trustees of a scheme, may extend the time limit within which an actuarial funding certificate shall be submitted to the Board under subsection (2), (3) or (3B), as the case may be, for a period not exceeding 6 months where the Board considers the extension is appropriate having regard to the circumstances of the application concerned.”.
(c) in subsection (3A) by inserting “(other than a regulatory own funds scheme)” after “the trustees of a scheme”.
(b) in subsection (1A) by inserting “(other than a regulatory own funds scheme)” after “The Board may, by notice in writing, direct the trustees of a scheme”.
Amendment of section 50A of Principal Act.
32.— Section 50A(1) of the Principal Act is amended by inserting “(other than a regulatory own funds scheme)” after “Subject to this section and section 50, the trustees of a scheme”.
Amendment of section 51 of Principal Act.
(b) in subsection (2) by inserting “or regulatory own funds trust RAC” after “scheme” in each place where it occurs.
(f) regulatory own funds certificates prepared by an actuary in accordance with section 53J.”.
‘undertaking’ has the meaning assigned to it by the Insurance Act 1989 .
(e) a scheme or trust RAC the only benefits under which are payable in respect of the death of a member where those benefits are fully secured under a policy or policies of assurance with one or more than one undertaking.
Regulatory own funds trust RAC technical provisions certificate.
(2) While a trust RAC remains a regulatory own funds trust RAC each subsequent regulatory own funds trust RAC technical provisions certificate submitted after the appropriate effective date referred to in subsection (1) shall have an effective date of not later than one year after the effective date of the immediately preceding certificate.
(3) Subject to section 53M, a regulatory own funds trust RAC technical provisions certificate required under subsection (1) or (2) shall be submitted to the Board by the trustees of the regulatory own funds trust RAC within 3 months of the effective date of the certificate.
(4) The regulatory own funds trust RAC technical provisions certificate shall be in such form and contain such information and particulars as the Minister may from time to time prescribe.
(5) The Minister may by regulations require an actuary when calculating the technical provisions of a regulatory own funds trust RAC to comply with the applicable professional guidance issued by the Society of Actuaries in Ireland and specified in the regulations or with any other guidance prescribed by the Minister.
Requirement to hold additional resources.
(b) additional resources over and above the resources referred to in paragraph (a) to serve as a safety capital to absorb any discrepancies between the anticipated and actual expenses and profits of the regulatory own funds scheme or the regulatory own funds trust RAC.
(2) The additional resources required under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) shall be the amount of the regulatory own funds requirement referred to in section 53I, free of all foreseeable liabilities.
(3) The trustees of a regulatory own funds scheme or regulatory own funds trust RAC shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that the regulatory own funds scheme or regulatory own funds trust RAC complies with the requirements of this section.
Amount of regulatory own funds requirement.
(b) a percentage which shall be prescribed and which shall be not less than 0.3 per cent of the capital at risk for the members of, or other persons entitled to benefits under, the regulatory own funds scheme or regulatory own funds trust RAC in respect of which the capital at risk is not a negative figure and where the capital at risk is as calculated in accordance with subsection (2).
less the regulatory own funds scheme’s or regulatory own funds trust RAC’s technical provisions in relation to those persons.
C is the amount of the resources of the regulatory own funds scheme or the regulatory own funds trust RAC.
(4) In respect of any calculation to be made for the purposes of this Part, the resources of a regulatory own funds scheme or a regulatory own funds trust RAC shall exclude investments in excess of such a percentage as may be prescribed by the Minister, within such a class or description of investments as may be prescribed by the Minister.
Certification of regulatory own funds requirement.
(b) the regulatory own funds scheme or regulatory own funds trust RAC does not satisfy the regulatory own funds requirement.
(b) a regulatory own funds trust RAC shall be the same as the effective date of the regulatory own funds trust RAC technical provisions certificate prepared for the regulatory own funds trust RAC under section 53G.
(3) The trustees of a regulatory own funds scheme and a regulatory own funds trust RAC shall submit the regulatory own funds certificate to the Board within 3 months of the regulatory own funds certification date.
(4) The Minister may by regulations prescribe the form and content of a regulatory own funds certificate.
(5) The Minister may by regulations require an actuary when completing a regulatory own funds certificate, to comply with the applicable professional guidance issued by the Society of Actuaries in Ireland and specified in the regulations or with any other guidance prescribed by the Minister.
Notification of regulatory own funds status.
53K.— (1) Subject to section 53N, the trustees of a scheme or trust RAC which becomes a regulatory own funds scheme or a regulatory own funds trust RAC shall so notify the Board on or before the regulatory own funds notification date.
Failure to satisfy funding standard, technical provisions requirement or regulatory own funds requirement.
they shall submit to the Board a proposal (in this Part referred to as a ‘regulatory own funds proposal’) in accordance with this section.
(b) where paragraph (b) of subsection (1) applies, the regulatory own funds requirement within 2 years of the regulatory own funds certification date applicable to the certificate referred to in that paragraph.
(3) A regulatory own funds proposal shall be submitted to the Board by the trustees within 4 months of the regulatory own funds certification date applicable to the certificate referred to in paragraph (b) of subsection (1).
within 2 years of the regulatory own funds certification date applicable to the certificate referred to in paragraph (b) of subsection (1), it shall approve the regulatory own funds proposal or, if it is not so satisfied, it shall reject the regulatory own funds proposal.
the Board may by notice in writing direct the trustees in accordance with subsection (6).
(b) to take, by such date as the Board may specify, such one or more of the measures specified in subsection (7) as the Board considers appropriate in the circumstances, either indefinitely or for a specified period.
equal to the whole or a specified portion of the regulatory own funds scheme’s liabilities.
(8) Where the trustees fail to take the measure or measures specified by the Board under subsection (6)(b) by such date as the Board has specified, the Board may direct the trustees to wind-up the regulatory own funds scheme or the regulatory own funds trust RAC with effect from such date and subject to such conditions as the Board may consider appropriate.
(9) An appeal to the High Court on a point of law from a direction of the Board under subsection (6) or (8) may be brought by the trustees of the regulatory own funds scheme or the regulatory own funds trust RAC within 21 days of the date of the direction of the Board.
Supervisory regulatory own funds certificate.
(b) in the case of a regulatory own funds certificate, such a regulatory own funds certification date as is specified in the notice.
De facto regulatory own funds scheme or regulatory own funds trust RAC.
53N.— (1) If at any time it appears to the Board that a scheme or trust RAC is a scheme or trust RAC to which this Part applies but that the trustees of the scheme or the trust RAC have not made the notification required to be made under and in accordance with section 53K, the Board may by notice in writing to the trustees of the scheme or the trust RAC determine that the scheme or trust RAC is a regulatory own funds scheme or a regulatory own funds trust RAC with effect from the date specified in the notice.
(2) Where the Board determines that a scheme or a trust RAC is a regulatory own funds scheme or a regulatory own funds trust RAC and gives written notice of such determination to the trustees of the regulatory own funds scheme or the regulatory own funds trust RAC pursuant to subsection (1), the regulatory own funds notification date for that scheme or trust RAC shall be the date falling 4 weeks after the date specified in the notice referred to in subsection (1).
(3) An appeal to the High Court on a point of law from a determination of the Board under subsection (1) may be brought by the trustees of the regulatory own funds scheme or the regulatory own funds trust RAC within 21 days after the date of determination of the Board.”.
“(7) Subsections (1) to (6) do not apply to a small trust RAC, other than a small trust RAC which is a regulatory own funds trust RAC, but the trustees of a small trust RAC other than a small trust RAC which is a regulatory own funds trust RAC shall furnish to the Board such statistical information as is prescribed for the purposes of this subsection.”.
“(7) Subsections (3), (4), (5) and (6) shall not apply to a regulatory own funds scheme.”.
“(7) (a) Subject to paragraph (b) this section shall not apply to a small trust RAC.
(b) This section shall apply to a small trust RAC which is a regulatory own funds trust RAC.”.
Amendment of section 64D of Principal Act.
39.— Section 64D(1) of the Principal Act is amended by inserting “which is not a regulatory own funds trust RAC” after “other than a small trust RAC”.
(c) in subparagraph (ii) of paragraph (b) by substituting “certified by the Board” for “by the Board”.
Certification of certain policies or contracts of assurance.
41.— The title to Part IVA of the Principal Act is amended by substituting “CERTIFICATION OF CERTAIN POLICIES OR CONTRACTS OF ASSURANCE” for “APPROVAL OF CERTAIN POLICIES OR CONTRACTS OF ASSURANCE”.
“Certification of certain policies or contracts of assurance.
(ii) has reached normal pensionable age.
(2) For the purpose of obtaining certification under subsection (1) an undertaking shall furnish to the Board such information in such form as may be prescribed for the purposes of this section.
(b) securities issued under the laws of a Member State (other than the State) that correspond to securities referred to in paragraph (a).
“Register of policies or contracts of assurance certified under section 53B.
(c) by repealing section 53D.
43.— Section 59(3) of the Principal Act is amended by substituting “certified” for “approved” in both places where it occurs. | 2019-04-22T00:07:46Z | https://www.global-regulation.com/law/ireland/398518/social-welfare-and-pensions-act-2011.html |
I doubt anyone is very happy with the tone of political discourse today. Certainly I am not, the press is likely not, the president is not and neither are most in Congress, possibly on both sides of the aisle. And principally, the folks who read and write columns such as these are particularly disgusted.
Hiding behind icons, avatars and screen names, they are in no small way responsible for that; it is now very common to have profanity and ridicule as the norm in the Comments section of news articles. I assume that the people who write that way are happy to have an outlet for their upset and their venom, but it is not a "happy" I would be comfortable with.
I have written a few times about my very liberal grand-niece, a Ph.D. candidate and Bernie Sanders supporter, and probably will be until she has to earn a living. She is the child of conservatives, at least one set of grandparents were conservatives, including the surviving grandmother, and her grand-uncle and aunt are certainly conservatives. We disagree with her on so many things.
But we are not able to communicate that. The past few years, when the family was together, she would declare that she was not going to talk politics, although the rest of the clan certainly would. She did not want to have the conversation. I don't want to presuppose anything, or put words in her mouth, but it struck me that she did not feel capable of having a persuasive argument with people a generation or two her senior.
As I wrote once, I believe this is exacerbated by the associations on social media that such youngsters have, that evolve to where only like-minded people talk to each other. My best girl closed her Facebook account recently, after posting a reasonably-presented counter to a relative's statement of assumed (leftist) fact, and being condemned for her opinion with venom far higher than imaginable, since her counter had been presented without anger at all.
That refusal of my grand-niece to engage at all is likely the exception to the rule, I fear. More frequently, such encounters as with my best girl erupt into arguments that cannot be won once the anger rises to a certain point.
And so it was with great interest that I received a lengthy email from Kevin, a classmate in college, fraternity brother, and also a roommate for a year. We had not especially kept up a great deal over the ensuing years, an occasional message but that was about it as we went through our respective careers. I had not seen him for 40 years when we got together at our college reunion and spent some time at some of the scheduled events and talking with the other few brothers of our class who had attended.
Kevin's email brought up a piece I had written a few weeks ago, and was intended to ask if what I had written expressed a true feeling, or was rather a literary exaggeration-for-effect to make a point. More importantly, it was indeed lengthy, and included several questions intended to break down the content I had written and get to what I was actually saying.
I think I can comfortably say that he felt differently from the way I did on that particular topic. That fact is relevant, since for the first time in I-don't-know-when, there was the case of people disagreeing on a specific topic, actually asking the other person, ever so politely, to explain the root of their feelings in regard to that topic. Now, I suspect that Kevin and I agree on other things, possibly many. If memory serves, we were of a fairly common mind back in college, so although there was real difference on this issue, there might still be fundamental agreement on other areas. Possibly, but I don't know.
It doesn't matter. What does matter, and I hope you will apply this to your own daily dealings, is that differences on an issue were addressed by trying to understand the nature of the other's points. Obviously therapy, such as marriage counseling, tries to get married couples to try to understand each other's perspectives, to listen, to ask, to try to divine the source of the other's opinion before trying to argue them out of it, and certainly before belittling them because of their view.
Let us imagine ... what kind of astronomically better world would we be living in, if it were populated far more by people who asked what lay behind your opinions, and far less by those quick to anger, quick to belittlement or, sadly, quick to avoid the discussion in the first place, lest they actually learn something from it.
I am strongly for the world with more Kevins in it. And I will point out that since his initial inquiry, I did respond -- not quickly, though. Thoughtful questions deserve thoughtful answers, and it took some real thought to get into the fundamentals behind my own opinion (!). I didn't change my view, mind you, but I was able to clarify the connection between my experiences and my views, and communicate that. We have had a slow and careful discussion on another issue, since. And my first reaction is invariably how good and pleasant it is to talk about an issue without raising arms.
Good. Pleasant. Nice thoughts to get a week going.
#600: Where Have You Gone, CNN?
Back in the '90s, I had to travel around to military headquarters in different locations in the world for my assignment. This was in 1992-93 or so.
One thing that was a fairly common sight back then were the war rooms, or situation rooms, where the brass would meet to brief and be briefed. They were pretty high-tech for the time, with large TV screens around an otherwise normal conference room type of setting.
Obviously it was a bit intimidating to be in such a space while a war was going on, or at least winding down, although I was never that close to any of it. Well, I was in Panama less than a year after their internal war, and there were still bullet holes in the outside walls. That wasn't fun and it defined "intimidating", although Panama City then was certainly safer than south Chicago now, or south Chicago in 1968 when I lived there.
In each one of those situation rooms, one of the television screens would be running the Cable News Network, known then and now as CNN. Twenty-five years ago, CNN was the McNews of the traveler, in the same sense that USA Today was called "McPaper."
The point was simple. For pretty much ever, news was delivered locally even when the content was national. If you watched an affiliate of a network in the evening, you got a half-hour or so of local news followed by the anchor of the local affiliate's network doing a half-hour or so of world and national news. But you watched Channel 6, or whatever, in your town, to get it.
The print media were the same. The Herald, or the Times, or the Post, or the Press, or the Times-Picayune, or the Register, of whatever city or town, well, they carried world and national news but were delivered locally. They were associated with their locality and were loyal to their locality. The larger ones had bureaus in Washington and other places to represent them and deliver customized reporting, but they were the reporter or bureau chief of the Springfield Whatever, not of a press service.
All that changed with CNN and with USA Today.
These outlets had no locality to represent. They vaguely resembled AP or UPI, the news services, except instead of being news services that fed the working press, they were their own outlets. USA Today put kiosks in every airport for their paper, and stuffed one under hotel doors all over the place, a perk for guests, or at least guests with frequent-traveler status.
And CNN, ahh, CNN. They, too, were all over, on the screens in airports, hotel rooms and all manner of "non-local" places. We of a certain age grew up in the '50s and '60s when "news" was available first thing in the morning, and 6-7pm at night. That was it. CNN brought to us the concept of news being updated all the time, a 24-hour news cycle wherever you were, and the same news in Idaho, Texas, New Jersey, Maine and Alabama.
Some of that is the same 25 years later. It is still there, CNN is, still delivering "non-local" news. But so is Fox News Channel, and so is MSNBC, possibly (we're not sure if it actually is, as this column has not found anyone who actually watches it). CNN is owned by Time-Warner, and while we can't really say that has mattered, and I don't want to go all post hoc, ergo propter hoc on you, what we know is that their reporting is unabashedly to the left, or at least anti-Republican.
I expect that what bothers me most about whither CNN has drifted -- and I don't have to remind you of stories they have recently filed that are factually incorrect but reliably anti-Trump -- is that they had a position they could have staked out. CNN built its reputation as a non-local news provider, practically the inventor of the 24-hour news cycle.
It could have been an essentially neutral provider, as it was in the 1990s. It could have reported Barack Obama's warts and failures along with whatever good he might have done (I have forgotten if there was any, but I'm not pretending to be neutral). It could have critiqued the Democrats in Congress for their fruitless stalling of Cabinet appointees with the same vigor that it criticized Mitch McConnell for holding up any hearings on the Supreme Court nomination last year of ... of ... gaack, I've already forgotten his name.
It could have been a reliably unbiased provider of 24 hours a day worth of news, a position that its origin allowed it to be. I know that news virtually everywhere else is reported with bias, in some cases with a lot of it. CNN had set a position for itself where it could have been a respected journalistic beacon.
It is now something quite smaller than that. It has become advocacy journalism, unabashed Hillary supporters frustrated by their backing of the wrong side. They appear to be solely inclined to enhance the political position and power of establishment Democrats, and to minimize the political power and position of Republicans, currently by their corrupt bashing of President Trump.
By doing so, they have sacrificed their standing as a respectable outlet, and their journalistic endeavors, which are at their highest when they are neutral and unbiased, are compromised everywhere. MSNBC is to the left, we get that. Viewers, if any remain, expect that and want that. Fox News is to the right, and we who do watch it expect that point of view as well.
I didn't watch CNN that often, but I used to. I trusted that their purpose dictated that they would tell us what happened, no more, no less.
I asked too much. CNN ran away from me.
I have mentioned that I am a member of the Barbershop Harmony Society, although my quarter-century of world competition is now behind me, and although it is not the actual topic of this piece. Having competed for decades at the highest competitive level of the art form, I am as aware of anyone how amazing well-done barbershop is at its best, which I link to, and how awful it is at its worst, which I won't hurt you with.
Of, course, I have often been asked to speak about the art form, and when I do I try to separate out the more complex musical attributes from the entire "other part", which is the story-telling nature of barbershop songs. Barbershop is both. It is the musical complexity of three male voices harmonizing to a melody in such a way as to produce a blend wherein you regularly hear more than four notes. It is also the capacity to bring an audience inside the story that the lead singer is telling in his rendition of the lyrics.
Those stories are often unhappy ones, some of lost love, or lost family. They are popular, at least among the singers, because they allow the performer to plumb the deep emotions that he has felt for an analogous situation in his own life -- in fact, we advise and coach performers to find that analogy to make them better at delivering the emotional impact of the song.
Accordingly, I have always made the point that barbershop singers value our emotional "lows" as well as our highs, because it is a form of exercise to experience the entire emotional spectrum and react viscerally to it. So although this piece is not at all about singing, I wanted you to know where I am coming from; that I think it is valuable to experience real breadth of emotion.
What it is about is actually a television show airing on the TLC channel on cable. The show is called "Long Lost Family", and is hosted by Lisa Joyner and Chris Jacobs.
Long Lost Family is an adoption show, an adaptation of a BBC production of the same name. Both hosts were, themselves, adopted. An episode typically consists of two stories, one handled by each host, in which an individual seeks a blood relative separated since birth (or extreme youth) by an adoption. It may be a child seeking biological parents, or parents seeking children given up at birth for adoption -- both scenarios are common.
In each case, the subject has reached out to the show producers, having failed on their own to find the person or couple they seek to connect with, or being uninformed and incapable of doing the search themselves. Early in the show, the subject shares with Miss Joyner or Mr. Jacobs everything they know or have found in their own unsuccessful attempts. The assigned host then goes back to work to find the people sought.
The tools for finding people, even with only a first name and a date of birth, are pretty sophisticated in the hands of someone determined enough. I may have mentioned, for example, that I am the secretary of my class of 1,000 at M.I.T. from 44 years ago. In 2013, I started trying to find the 75-odd classmates whom the college had lost touch with. Within 18 months I had found all of them, including one who didn't want to be found (I counted speaking with his sister as a form of success). So it can be done.
But I digress, probably quite a bit. These stories are all deeply emotional, not the least of which reason being that the parties themselves are emotional about it. Imagine having to have given up a child for adoption when you were a teenager, loving the child for 40 years without any idea where he might have been all that time, or even if he wanted to see you. Then Lisa Joyner comes to see you and tells you, softly, "We found him. Yes, he wants to meet you."
The reunion scenes are amazing and touching. I can't say if they have many failed reunions and select out the successful ones, or don't do stories on the ones where the found person doesn't want to meet, but it would be OK if they did. Even produced and edited to highlight the drama, you can see the amazing, happy, stressful wonder is real, and amazingly tear-inducing.
The stories are striking even at their least. In several cases the person sought has been within a few miles of the seeker all that time. In one amazing case, a woman was seeking the mother who had given her up for adoption at birth over thirty years earlier. She discovered not only that they had worked at the same hospital in Rochester, NY, but they had worked together and knew each other! I can still remember when the host brought the picture of the mother over for the daughter to see, and she said with a shock "I know her!"
How would you feel watching that, knowing that the story was not a movie plot, but absolutely real -- the whole thing is quite real, and the flaws of the characters are quite there on display, where in the movies they would be played by glamorous and attractive stars?
How would you feel being the son in another case on the show, a young man living in Idaho, given up by a teenage Texas high school couple at birth? You are contacted by the show, and discover that the couple stayed together after you were given up, married and had several other children -- your full-blooded siblings! That reunion was a truly special moment, especially when the young man, now married, introduced his natural parents to their daughter-in-law -- and grandchild -- they never knew existed.
The producers of this show, to their credit, have been doing "follow-up" episodes from previous years' stories, to show what has been happening since the initial reunion. I say "to their credit" because the stories don't always work out the way we wish they would have happened. Remembering that in most cases, the person sought was surprised to have been found, we have someone searching for years for a relationship with someone unaware of their being sought. That's not an ironclad recipe for success.
I confess that this show regularly brings me, a 65-year-old mature adult, to tears. I also confess that it is why I watch it -- back to barbershop songs for a moment -- because the exercise of extremes in our emotions is a valuable practice, and seeing real, actual stories like these definitely taps emotions as extreme as it gets. I have already learned that such extremes are healthy to explore. So I value the situations -- whether a barbershop ballad or a TV show about adoptive family reunions -- where we can do that.
I do urge you to watch the show in its various iterations. It is quite well done, and the situations are dealt with real sensitivity and without added drama -- the situations and stories are more than dramatic enough. I'm not a celebrity, so I can't be a celebrity endorser, but this one rings a lot of bells with me.
President Trump has made a point of addressing the problem of cities whose mayors and city councils refuse to turn over illegal alien criminals to Federal authorities. Now, we know that even non-criminal illegal aliens are already criminals by virtue of being in the USA without authorization, but this isn't it. The president is not actively trying to deport those people anytime soon.
He is, as those who give him the benefit of the doubt can see, a compassionate man, and is reluctant to come down hard on people such as those brought here illegally at a young age by their parents. Those people have nothing to do with this piece.
He is far less compassionate for those who, on top of being here illegally, are doubly criminal by virtue of having committed serious crimes while here. Those people he intends to deport as soon as they can be found, given that they are not entitled to the due process granted to the US citizen by the Constitution. Come here illegally, commit a serious-enough crime, and you're out of the country.
Apparently a number of cities don't follow that reasoning. Calling themselves "sanctuary cities" (pass on the Hunchback of Notre Dame references), they have declared that they will protect such criminals by refusing to notify the Department of Homeland Security or the Customs and Border Protection people to come get them for deportation.
"You're safe here", they say to criminal aliens, which should make criminal US citizens wonder what's in it for them.
"Not so fast", says President Trump. Not surprisingly, the Federal government sends billions of taxpayer dollars to local governments for any number of purposes. In the largest cities, the order of magnitude is in the mid-to-high hundreds of millions, each. US cities certainly get their share.
So the president, who has campaigned in opposition to the notion of sanctuary cities and stressed their illegality, is planning to implement a policy cutting off funding for sanctuary cities. Already Miami, to note one city, has dropped its "sanctuary" policy rather than lose its funding.
In the meantime, we have had plenty of reactions to the policy of cutting funding to such cities. And, needless to say, I have one as well.
You see, here's the thing. The Federal government does not "have money", per se. It has the funds that it has taken through taxes to fund its budget. That budget, as we know, has for many years authorized spending of money that the government does not have. You and I can't do that, but the government can.
The result is that while the government spends the taxpayers' money, it is, without our consent, borrowing money and spending it, leaving us, the taxpaying class, holding the credit card bill. So accordingly, it ought to be a heck of a lot more careful what it borrows money from places like China to spend on.
Think about it, and you don't have to think hard. If San Francisco, which gave us fog, more fog, and Nancy Pelosi, but I repeat myself, takes money from the Federal government, it is actually taking from you and me, who don't live in California at all, to give to them. San Francisco, a sanctuary city, then uses my money to allow serial illegal alien criminals to commit crimes, be deported, commit more crimes, be deported again, ad nauseam, until one of them murders an innocent person like Kate Steinle.
If San Francisco's elected officials choose to ignore Federal law, there are consequences that they should not be surprised at. If President Trump pulls Federal funding from San Francisco, or Chicago, he is also saying that he respects every penny the IRS seizes from hardworking Americans. He is saying that such cities have no "right" to that money, and accordingly are subject to punishment if they disobey the law. They certainly don't have the right to break Federal law and be rewarded by being given money from taxpayers in other parts of the country to fund lawbreaking public officials.
Very little is given by the Constitution to the Federal government, as far as authorizing it to take on. All else, per the Tenth Amendment, is the responsibility of the states. Border security and immigration law are among those precious few duties reserved for Washington. If Washington is being thwarted in doing one of the few things it is supposed to do, there are indeed consequences.
I can't wait for the citizens of one of those cities to react to losing Federally-funded city services by asking why they voted for the clowns in charge in the first place. I can't wait for the next city that calls "BS" on their perpetually failing leadership -- Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York, Baltimore (Washington, DC is hopeless) -- and starts electing conservatives to help clean up their cities.
I'll bet you can't wait either.
"No Trump (beat, beat) no K-K-K no [unintelligible] ..." Yep, that's what was being chanted, rhythmically, at some protest march a few days back in some city somewhere. It wasn't near me, so I wasn't exactly put out very much, but it did get my attention.
Back when I was in college, we were in the peak of the Vietnam War, and I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts (I actually lived in Boston, but classes were in Cambridge; it didn't matter). Lots of protests, lots of riots. Occasional shooting of firearms outside the MIT range. Screaming at servicemen in uniforms.
While there was a lot of screaming and protesting about different things, it was centered on the Vietnam War, at least much of the time. And while I was not an opponent of the Vietnam War, I will at least give the protestors of the day this: They were asking for something.
They wanted the Vietnam War to be over. Oh, sure, there were lots of other things, but that was fairly central to the protests and rallies and what-all else they were doing. It was at least something.
This became fairly obvious when you looked at the signs at the rallies, and really obvious when you hear the protestors' representatives talking. For example, on Monday night there was a protest leader interviewed by Fox News's Tucker Carlson on his eponymous TV program.
I don't know the kid's name, but it didn't take long for Carlson to ask what he was protesting about. I mean, there's a lot of made-up angst around the nation since the election and thereafter, when the Clintonistas' fans panicked at not being able to fathom not winning (typically called "losing"). So the kid was asked "why the protest."
He started in on platitudes for a short bit, and when asked by Carlson to get specific, he mentioned that he was gay, and that there were issues with the LGBT community and an executive order that they had heard might be considered. He then went back to the platitudes, meaning that he couldn't cite anything they actually wanted changed, you know, specifically.
Carlson immediately stopped him, and took him back to the gay thing. What particular thing about President Trump, he asked the kid, was he afraid of regarding gay people. At that, the protest leader said two words about a possible executive order, without any detail, and went back to the platitudes ("This is a movement, blah blah blah ...").
If you have ever watched Tucker Carlson, you can't sneak that kind of thing past him. Back he brought the conversation to this mythical executive order planned ... "What executive order?", he asked, "What is it supposed to do?" In reply, nothing but platitudes -- he was being pressured by Carlson on being gay, he insisted, when there were so many important issues. "But you brought it up!", Carlson replied. "Tell me what you are afraid of!"
Finally the allocated time had expired without a single tangible thing having been aired as a reason to go for a walk, let alone to have a "Not my president" rally.
Let us step back and think for a moment. Conservatism, when actually implemented, works. It rewards effort, talent, motivation and intelligence. Our concomitant compassion motivates us to take care of the helpless at the same time. Socialism, on the other hand, has never worked, certainly without a dictatorship to force people to accept it for a period of time. Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, Red China, North Korea, Vietnam -- it doesn't work.
So the callow and idealistic youth, with their signs, are too young to look broadly enough and recognize that it is abject failure for the government to own or run everything. Now, absent a model of success for them to want to emulate and declare that they want to emulate it, their protests -- and youth always protests -- inherently lack anything to be for.
Lacking that, the passion flies out the window along with the content. This is why you can see that the organized protests are indeed organized, recruited in newspaper and online ads we have now seen, and are led by paid mercenary protesters. There is no substance, because these are people without a mission. Opposition is fruitless without a tangible goal.
This was followed last night when the ever curious Mr. Carlson brought yet another protest leader on the show and gave her air time. Again, after a few minutes of copious Hitler references (remember that whoever mentions "Hitler" first loses the argument), Carlson found himself unable to get her to answer the same "What do you want?" question. Finally, after being unable to get her to shut up enough to ask her a question, he ended the segment with her ranting in the background.
It's so ironic. People with no mission but a few more dollars in their jeans are shouting "No Trump, no KKK" as if the two were somehow remotely related. They may have missed, among the rather modest number of explicit issues requiring solutions which Trump spoke to in his campaign, that unlike his opponent, he had made a commitment to helping the inner cities, working to update their schools and provide private-sector job opportunities to help them recover. The protestors screaming "KKK" may have missed the fact that Trump's predecessor (and opponent, by the way), literally said and did nothing for black inner cities.
The kid on the Tucker Carlson show was claiming to fear some kind of anti-gay "executive order." But it would come from the guy who stood in front of the nation in Cleveland and accepted his nomination for the presidency, declaring his intent to protect the LGBT community (while, if the kid was old enough, he doubtlessly voted for the previous president, the one who for years opposed gay marriage).
There is nothing to protest, whether or not you're upset. President Trump said he would do X, Y and Z in regard to some pillar issues in the country. He is trying now, as he finally gets his Cabinet and senior executive-branch people, to start to do those things he said he would. The people voted for his solutions.
It's a representative democracy we have, with a very sound Constitution. Under it, we have chosen a leader for the next four or eight years, same as always. If he implements something, actually implements it, and you want something different, well, our representative democracy is a free country -- have at it, as you ask for a different solution.
But if you march through the streets, at least know what you want.
An hopefully it isn't just your protestor's paycheck from George Soros.
Although this piece strays far from the realm of politics, it does at least provide a touching reminder that the world of Federal contracting, the one that occupies my working hours, has its "competitive humor", at least when you look from the perspective of time and a little distance.
The genesis of this piece was from a previous one about the amusing reaction during the S*per Bowl by Google voice-responsive devices around the country, to a commercial featuring those devices. A bit hard, it apparently is, to demonstrate a voice-response system in a TV commercial without having thousands of such devices within earshot all go off and respond.
Well, I laughed. At any rate, I compared the issue to the 1999 "Y2K" situation that we all remember, and for which I had managed a group that worked to fix programming code that was subject to the "bug" of Y2K. A reader brought it up, and it all reminded me of the most memorable story of those years in the late '90s.
I was working for Litton Industries at the time, Litton having acquired the fairly large firm called "PRC", an information technology contractor for whom I had been working a number of years at the time. Such acquisitions were as common then as they are now; Litton had in fact purchased PRC from Black and Decker in 1996, which had acquired it as a component of a company called Emhart in 1990, who in turn had bought PRC in the mid '80s.
One of PRC's larger contracts was with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as an IT support contractor, covering a few hundred people. A big element of that was COBOL programming. Even then, COBOL was a "very old" programming language, meaning that the people who used it were pretty much, well, old. I programmed in COBOL for years, if that tells you anything.
With the Y2K bug having started to be the subject of alerts in 1996, PRC decided the next year to form a group to "remediate" older programs, meaning to overhaul them to make all the date fields four-digit, and to test that they did what they were supposed to do thereafter. Much of that was COBOL code, meaning that there was a big need for COBOL programmers capable of doing the work, and that meant, politely, older software engineers.
PRC's five-year contract with the Patent and Trademark Office was coming to an end in 1997. Although PRC was confident of winning the recompetition of the work, having done a really good job and gotten high review scores, government contracts are almost invariably price sensitive, and a solid-performing contractor can lose to one who slashes their prices, even if the latter is at risk of not being even able to hire people at the salaries they bid.
Now that brings up a peculiar aspect of contracting. When you have a hundred people working full-time on a project, they have almost all of what is called "institutional knowledge." In other words, after five years of managing, developing and fixing code, those 100 people know everything about the code and no one else knows anything.
So if a different company is competing for that work, they would normally expect, if they win, to try to hire all, or most, of the people working for the current employer, the "incumbent." That's often difficult, since the challenger has to get their price down below the incumbent while still planning to hire the same employees already there.
To do that with the already-thin profit margins in such work, you have to plan to pay the people less, or give them poorer benefits. Essentially, you "hope" to keep them and learn everything you can from them before they quit for a higher-paying job. I believe the past eight years showed how good "hope" is as a strategy.
Obviously the employees, even old COBOL programmers, are not stupid. They know what's going on, but there has to be an alternative for them. Typically there isn't, so they just stay on the project for the new contractor, at lower pay or weaker benefits or both.
That was the tack taken by CSC, yet another three-letter contractor. In their bid, they cut the price of the proposed workforce, while declaring that they would hire the incumbent team. USPTO assumedly never asked how CSC could be so sure that they could retain much of the work force while paying them less, looked at their proposed price and awarded them the contract in 1997.
But a funny thing happened on the way to that award, though. Y2K happened.
Now from the perspective of the programming staff PRC had on the USPTO contract, well, they were not excited about changing companies, and even less excited on learning what would happen to their salaries and benefits. And at just about the same time that award was being worked out, PRC's brand-new Y2K organization was looking for a mess of COBOL programmers for a new task with some of its other customers, to fix old COBOL code.
That meant that, at just the time CSC was looking and ready to hire all those PRC programmers about to come off the USPTO task as it expired, PRC had alternative work for them, allowing them to stay with their company, and keep their salaries and benefits. Needless to say, a large percentage of them decided to stay and not go over to CSC.
I would have felt sorry for CSC had they not been PRC's competition, and had they not won away an important PRC contract by bidding a price so low that they were going to have a tough time living up to it. Plus, I was running the services part of the Y2K group at PRC, and I needed those programmers just as much. So each one we kept was good for me -- and we kept about 50 of them.
Our competitor was not so lucky; they quickly found themselves obligated to deliver on a contract for which they had fewer than half the staff members they expected to have, and all that institutional knowledge they expected to get from them, well, they didn't get it. USPTO was not particularly happy, although they might have wanted to have looked in a mirror and evaluated how they determined contract awards and to what extent price should have been a factor.
My Y2K team did excellent work, and for a couple years, until just after January 1, 2000, most all of them were busy and productive. I accepted a good offer and left PRC a month or so before that, and the rest is history. CSC had a rough time at USPTO and lost the recompetition in 2003. In fact, if memory serves, USPTO had to execute a sole-source contract to PRC just to get some of that institutional memory available to them.
For the record, the above is certainly not a slight against CSC, as much as a historical reckoning; they did nothing out of the ordinary for the time (or since). If anything, the blame falls squarely on the contracts people at PTO for accepting a bid so fraught with risk if the contractor failed to hire enough incumbent staff.
A lesson in there somewhere? I don't know, except for the suggestion that Federal contracting officers look a bit harder at bids for services that charge a lot less than what the agency had been paying. Hopefully they will, but don't hold your breath.
Just a nice, non-political tale for the day.
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Let's start the week, if we may, with a question for the left.
A surprising amount of flak has been received by President Trump from the left and from the overwhelming left-dominated media in regard to a campaign occurrence. This was back in November of 2015, early in the campaign, when Trump did a contemptuous reference to a reporter.
Mocking the words of the reporter, he waved his arms around and parodied him. This was turned into a "mocking the disabled" narrative by the media since this, of course, was a reporter with a disability. It survived even to this day, and was part of Meryl Streep's acceptance speech at some recent theater-people-celebrating-other-theater-people awards ceremony.
Of course, as it turned out, while mocking the reporter's words, Trump was simply using the very same arm-waving mocking gesture that he had used to mock all manner of non-handicapped people, including Donald Trump himself, Senator Ted Cruz, and an Army general in the same speech as he mocked the reporter.
Evidently, Trump's capacity for mocking includes a rather limited repertoire of gestures. But that wasn't quite good enough for the left.
That would be the ever-friendly comedy writer-turned-senator from Minnesota, good old Al Franken. Al Franken was the fellow who was as nasty as you please (or should we say "indignant" and thus by his definition, "unattractive") at the hearings for a couple of President Trump's Cabinet nominees.
Those words about the "unattractiveness of people who live to be indignant", of course, were in a 1996 book written by none other than Al Franken himself. Wow, who would have thought that he would not have learned about how he looks when he lives to be indignant.
But the important part is that the quote was from a book entitled "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot." I'm not kidding; that was the title of the book. I remember when it came out; Limbaugh was pretty much the same level of fame and wide audience that he is now, meaning that the indignant left thought they needed to try to minimize his credibility by ... well, in this case, body-shaming.
I don't think the term "body-shaming" was used in 1996. But since then, it has been as in vogue to bash people who make fun of the overweight, as it used to be to make fun of them in the first place.
You can follow the scandals involving critiques of so-called "plus-size" models, and the associated criticism of the critics, as evidence that overweightness (?) is the next protected class among us.
As an example, I've been curious about the oddly high level of attention (in the form of articles in the media) about the very obese actress Chrissy Metz, who plays one of a set of triplets in the very good TV show "This is Us." Her part is no bigger (sorry) than any of the rest of the ensemble cast, but they, as they say, get "no ink" by comparison -- for example, I know her name, and do not know the names of the other two triplets off the top of my head.
She is, in fact, on the cover of People magazine, with a caption quoting her as saying "I'm Proud of Who I Am", whatever that means. I'm sure she is a very nice person, but she might be a bit upset to think that she and her story are being "used."
My inference is that the media are making her prominent -- putting her forward, as it were -- as bait to attract body-shamers to make fun of her and add another protected class of victims. Those who comment negatively on her weight are positioned right up there with the likes of their image of Donald Trump, who was supposed to have made fun of "the handicapped."
So where, then, was the indignation in the portrayal of Rush Limbaugh in the crudest terms, blatantly using the term "big, fat" right there in the title on the cover? I mean, I thought when the book came out it was a bit of an over-the-top choice of words, given that Limbaugh, at least at the time, was indeed notably overweight.
I've been searching a bit, for the purposes of this column, for the first left-leaning type who criticized Franken when the book came out for the 1996 equivalent of "body-shaming." I haven't found a word yet, but I sure am trying. Readers need to know.
But we know nothing will ever come up. Franken can be indignant in Senate hearings (despite his professed and printed distaste for such posturing), without mainstream media quoting his words to him. He can body-shame someone, since the recipient of the shaming is a conservative radio commentator, and thus subject to such ridicule without hesitation.
And the left will find new classes of victims and continue to seek redress of their grievances in as many ways possible, as long as it will somehow generate more voters sympathetic to their "plight."
But Donald Trump will continue to run the country in the way he said he was going to, and do the things he promised in the campaign to do, and eventually the left will run out of victims.
And Minnesota will wise up soon enough and send a non-hypocrite to the Senate.
Oh, this one will be fun. As you know, Texas is associated with many, many things, not all of which are particularly big. But one of the biggest is football, as the home of "America's Team", the Dallas Cowboys, as well as the Houston Texans, which also were a playoff team this year and which city hosted the S*per Bowl just completed.
As this article relates, the Senate of the State of Texas is currently processing a bill which would mandate that people use the bathroom of their gender at birth, or some definition of the like, essentially requiring that transgender folks go into public bathrooms suitable for their, er, equipment.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told the [AP] that if a “proposal that is discriminatory or inconsistent with our values were to become law there,” it would be a factor in awarding future events. Simply put: If the bill becomes law, that will be included in the discussion of whether Houston or Dallas gets a Super Bowl in the future.
“The NFL is walking on thin ice right here,” Abbott told conservative radio host Glenn Beck [citing the Texas Tribune]. “The NFL needs to concentrate on playing football and get the heck out of politics.” We are assuming he said "heck", but not much.
I was particularly bemused when looking at the NFL spokesman's words, specifically "... inconsistent with our values." "Our" values, he said.
I am immensely curious as to whose values are defined as those of the NFL. Roger Goodell's values? The majority values of the league's franchise owners? The players? Brian McCarthy didn't say. I would be very interested in what the answer would be if someone -- and Greg Abbott might just do that -- were to ask the NFL exactly how it determined what the values of the league were, and if they are perhaps written down somewhere.
I say that because even now, as the champion New England Patriots are planning their ceremonial trip to the White House, several of the players are exhibiting their "values" by saying they won't show up (though I cannot possibly see what it is they are complaining about, based on less that four weeks of the current administration).
Others of the players, most of the team, will of course make the trip. What are their "values"? We know that Tom Brady is a Trump man, but Trump hasn't really even commented on the Texas bill and its North Carolina predecessor, and specifically made supportive LGBT statements in his acceptance speech. So we don't know his take on it and how it jibes with his values.
We also know that many others who are going to the White House -- really, the rest of the league, champions or not -- are all over the gym as far as bathroom laws are concerned. These are rather large, testosterone-driven men, and anyone who has been in a locker room knows that transgender people are not exactly the source of sympathy when such players are talking about them.
Here is the comparison. Hobby Lobby is a privately-owned company, that we know to be owned by people with certain Christian values, that oppose abortion, and just recently won a case to allow them not to have to provide a type of medical insurance policy for employees, one that pays for certain services they oppose on religious grounds.
We know that when someone speaks to "Hobby Lobby's values", we know we are referring to the owners. I don't think that every employee necessarily subscribes to the same beliefs, of course, but the owners do, and theirs count. We know who they are and who speaks for them.
No one "owns" the NFL, although we could say that the team owners in fact do. Were they polled as to their opinions before the league spokesman popped off, assuming the league had those values that he said it did? Did they poll the players? Coaches? Sideline marker holders? Cheerleaders?
I hope you get where I'm going. I find it very questionable that an organization, a league with some alpha-male owners, an alpha-male commissioner and some serious alpha-male players and coaches, all agree enough on an issue that doesn't affect them at all, to where they have any right to have a spokesman give the impression of agreement.
But I can speak for my own consulting company.
Last week, I wrote what apparently was a prescient column about the fact that the "swamp" in DC included not only Congress and the Federal Government as a whole, but specifically the tens of thousands of Federal employees working there. Those employees overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton (we know that because of DC's voting record), so that they innately dislike the man at the top for whom they work.
That dislike gets particularly pernicious at the upper levels of agencies, where more of the staff live in the suburbs, and policy is directly implemented and there are decisions that are significant enough to affect you and me.
I am well aware of how that all plays out. Several years back I was hired as the Senior VP of Operations for a government contracting firm. My three direct reports, who had each been there before I was hired, were clearly resentful of having a layer of management and oversight placed between them and the owners of the company.
I was hired to make some change and bring a more industry-standard management process to the company's operations. That did not go over well with the three of them, who wanted to do things the way they always had, and particularly were not interested in participating in developing new business, which is one of the things I was brought in to help them do.
So at every step of the way, I was stonewalled and ignored, when even one of them could have risen in the company by signing on to what the new owners wanted. Even now, as I think of my frustrating year there, I can see the parallels that match to this situation, except it's a lot bigger, and the person being subverted is the leader of the free world. I sympathize.
All those swamp denizens who are doing as little as possible to help, and as much as possible to thwart President Trump, well, those are bad enough. When the thwarting is being done by our intelligence community mid-level leadership, it is pretty sad.
So we have a situation where Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, until recently the National Security Advisor to the president, was forced to resign after having had a conversation with the Russian ambassador prior to his appointment. It may or may not have involved the sanctions against Russia instituted by Barack Obama as punishment for their alleged attempt to interfere with our elections.
Now, of course, we have Democrats gleefully biting at the still-alive Gen. Flynn's corpse, because it constitutes an opportunity to subvert President Trump (when they should be figuring out how to work together). They are calling for an "investigation into Gen. Flynn", a special prosecutor, whatever.
And you know what? I say "Go ahead!". And if I'm the president, I say that I want a full investigation, that includes what Gen. Flynn may have said -- and how it came to be known to the public. You see, the process was that at some point after the conversation with the Russian ambassador, the nature of the call was leaked to the Washington Post by the people in the intelligence community who had been wiretapping the ambassador.
So while we are investigating the whole matter, let's make sure that the actual criminal acts are investigated and prosecuted. That may include whatever Gen. Flynn said (he was a private citizen at the time), but also the fact that the disclosure of what was said by Gen. Flynn to the ambassador was utterly illegal! Because he was a private citizen at the time, his words were covered by Federal wiretapping law that forbids such disclosure without a court order prior to the wiretap, of which there was of course none.
Yet someone -- and it appears multiple "someones" -- from the intelligence community leaked the information to the Post, who blithely published it with press impunity. That information was highly classified, since it involved sensitive communications and, you know, the fact that we were successfully wiretapping the Russian ambassador in the first place. So in that investigation, we are talking about the actual leaking of classified information inside the USA.
However bad or illegal Gen. Flynn's actions were, which we don't know (and that's why there should be an investigation of it), we know that there was a criminal leak of classified information by people inside the CIA. We know that. A crime was committed.
So yes, I believe that this should be investigated and, like any investigation, it should be taken where the evidence leads. And as soon as they track backwards from the Post to how the information got from the phone call to the newspaper and the public, the nature of the criminal act will need to point to the actual criminal actor. If they're in government, the need to be fired and prosecuted, and their co-conspirators also sacked.
The above may seem like the sacrifice of a decorated general officer, but no punishment from the investigation will be beyond what any action on his part warrants. What is necessary are two things. First, those who took it upon themselves to attack the president by illegally releasing classified information are punished, and given the boot from the Agency.
More important, the Federal Government and every senior employee needs to get on board the train, whether they like it or not. Their orders are coming from a very different place right now, and if they don't like the orders, they need to find another job.
America did not elect them.
You Want Sean Spicer's Job?
If you happen to watch Saturday Night Live, which I don't, you may have seen Melissa McCarthy, the comic actress, portraying Sean Spicer, the president's press secretary. Now I like Melissa McCarthy in her various roles, so this has zero to do with her and everything to do with Mr. Spicer.
By the way, there are two reasons I don't watch Saturday Night Live, not that you asked. OK, maybe three. First, it's on past my bedtime, although it could be DVRed if I were so inclined. Second, it is far too "New York" for me. I can't stand New York, which I regard as the epitome of the idea that you have to follow trends, however stupid they might be. The Emperor's New Clothes, made into a city, as it were. The "music" on the show shows that in spades.
The third, of course, is that finding humor in SNL is an often frustrating experience. Melissa McCarthy may make an awfully funny satiric portrayal of Mr. Spicer, but wading through the rest of an hour, or however long it goes, is simply not worth it. I don't know if their writers are still as coked-up as they were thirty years ago when the humor was squeezed out of the show, but in the rare times I've recorded the show to see what it's like, well, two laughs don't warrant an hour's worth of DVR bytes.
All of which brings us back to Sean Spicer.
I don't know if he is a basically good guy or not, although we've no reason to doubt that he is. What he is, however, is one amazing person.
I have never served in the Federal Government, let alone the White House. But I have had a very close friend who did; he was a Cabinet-level appointee (head of a non-Cabinet agency), so he reported to the president, in this case President Bush 43, and his office was right across the street from the White House.
My best girl and I were invited to join him for lunch at the White House back then, and chatting with him over lunch, well, it became quite easy to identify with what it was like being in the very inner circle of the White House. There was a lot to it. The work is fairly unforgiving, and there is so much to know just to speak to your own agency, well, knowing the entire operation of the executive branch enough to face the press on a daily basis is just beyond reasonable.
And yet, there is always a press secretary; there is a daily briefing; there are members of the press who have been looking for raw meat since January 20th (after eight years of rolling over and asking Obama's press secretary what his favorite color was). When the press is that aggressive, you need to know your facts, because you don't know what they're going to ask. And don't expect to get paid that much. The salary is $179,700, which sounds like a lot until you figure it by the hour.
We'd very much like to know whether Spicer actually wanted that job in the first place. Let's suppose he did, or at least was honored to be offered it, enough to accept.
The daily briefing is, of course, on television, and is in the background while I'm working each day. So I have to tell you, even if I'm not paying rapt attention to it at all times, I see and hear enough to be able to imagine trying to manage that.
I'm not talking about the shouting herd of reporters screaming to be recognized. I'm talking about the fact that it is almost never acceptable to answer "I'll check with the President and get back to you." You had better be able to have an answer to 95% of the questions, or you are failing your job, which is essentially to answer everything so (A) the president doesn't have to, and (B) so the press doesn't make up their own answers, not that they would ever do that.
To answer the questions, you have to know everything, especially the issues of the day. And you have to have practically instant recall. My wife will occasionally start a conversation with a sentence that could be about any of two dozen contexts. I over-complicate things to begin with, so I have to wait for a few sentences to figure out what the topic is. Then I have to figure out what the answer is, once I finally figure out what the question was.
That is what I project onto Sean Spicer. Now, the press questions are usually fairly pointed -- reporters are good at asking specific questions there, because they have one shot at getting an answer -- so that part is less of an issue. But the press secretary doesn't have time (or the opportunity) to ask "What are you even talking about?". He has to answer, promptly, accurately and compellingly, and his job is to present the president's view in the face of an almost entirely antagonistic media who want to nail your president because they didn't vote for him.
That, of course, means that you have to know the president's view on pretty much everything, as expressed since the last press conference. How, on earth, do you get that when the president is working 20-hour days and you, well, can't. You are, after all, human, and this president is a very different being from the rest of us.
You do five of those press conferences a week, and then innumerable interviews all day, with all manner of media outlets, doing exactly the same thing you did in the press conferences. If you only screwed up 25 times during the week, you are reasonably successful.
And then on Saturday night, you get to watch (if you can stay up past eight) Melissa McCarthy portraying you as a wild man, pushing your podium around like a battering ram and satirizing you, knowing full well that in America she has every right to do so and is actually pretty funny doing it.
And you want that job, eh? I don't. I don't envy anyone who has it, I respect them greatly. I can't imagine anyone not burning out in two years, after burning through maybe ten years of life span in those two years.
That's what I was thinking about yesterday as I heard Spicer deal with the whole odd General Flynn story. You want that job?
How Long Does a Collaborative Tantrum Last?
"How long does a tantrum last?" That was the question my best girl asked me here a few minutes ago, and it struck a chord with me.
The "tantrum" she was referring to was by the comedy-writer-turned-curmudgeonly-senator representing the state of Minnesota, the friendly Al Franken. Franken had gone off on President Trump in a CNN interview, calling him a liar and impugning his capacity to lead the nation, saying we shouldn't have a president like that, wah, wah, wah. Then he pointed out that some people (presumably Democrat senators) thought he was mentally ill.
Now let's get this out of the way right off the top. You lost! Get over it!
Ahhhhh. That feels better. So what the missus was talking about, of course, is the continued vitriolic unwillingness of the left, as borne out by the actions of Democrats in the House and Senate, to move forward and try to be a part of what the country said and did this past election day.
Think about it for a moment. Donald Trump won the presidency, though not in the "landslide" he occasionally refers to. We know that only a finite number of states (fewer than 50) were part of the campaign (several, like California and New York on the left, and Texas on the right, were conceded to the other candidate and were almost absent from the campaign entirely).
Trump overwhelmingly won the count of contested states; his "landslides" can only be regarded as having won all the contested states, save Virginia and perhaps one or two others. That doesn't mean that those who did not vote for him are irrelevant. Their elected representatives should be expected to carry the views of all of their voters, of course, but certainly Democrats in those districts and states are the primary voices of that side of things.
I surely cannot speak for Democrats, their proposals do not work; they have no fiscal sense in the sense that they do not recognize the need for the Government to balance its budget; worst of all, they do not understand that "The Government should pay ..." means "The taxpayer should pay ..." And don't get me started on identity politics, or their unwillingness to admit their failures.
But they voted, and their elected representatives should indeed represent them.
So I think it is not just that words like Franken's and Elizabeth Warren's and Chuck Schumer's are far over the top. It is that they are not trying to work with the new president on his solutions. I think it was unfortunate that the Obama people refused to allow the Republican minority in 2009-10 to participate in designing bills like Obamacare. I have not heard at all, and I think I would know, that the Trump Administration had come across as not being open to soberly-delivered input from Democrats.
There simply is no such input. What has come from the Democrats has been vitriol, over-the-top language and condemnation. They have delayed and delayed and delayed in allowing Trump's appointees to Cabinet positions to be given a vote -- solely to delay, not for any productive investigatory reason. There has been, with pretty much the sole exception of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), no effort to be part of the solutions.
They're going to get left behind. Donald Trump is a builder and a CEO. He has high-level goals and solutions and he is not waiting around to get started. He is pushing Congress to get going (and it should be noted that Speaker Paul Ryan, who had definitely not been a Trumpist, has seemed positively giddy about the opportunity to step past gridlock and actually work on legislative solutions, knowing his president would sign them).
The Democrats should be trying to be part of that. But no, they are protesting until it gets old, they are resorting to calling names and rioting in the streets, all when Chuck Schumer could pick up the phone, call the president and say that he is ready to be a part of the solution and the next two years. Wouldn't that be easier? Trump and Schumer go back a long way. If Schumer were to stop the rhetoric and get his caucus in line, and tell them that they could get more done for the country if they equated "loyal opposition" with "participation", Trump would happily allow their input.
But no; that would entail "leadership", and a party that has leaders like Schumer, Warren, Bernie Sanders (whose words against Trump have been equally vitriolic and contemptible) and Nancy "You'll have to pass it ..." Pelosi, who has long since ceased to know what she is talking about, is not a party that wants to work together.
The collective tantrum is easier than actually reaching out to help. And you know what? The voting public, the ones who came forward in November 2016, they see it. They already made their statement once about the kind of politics are playing now.
They -- we -- can do it again.
Sometimes I go back to read things I wrote in a few of the past nearly-600 pieces on this site. It is amazingly instructive; since I force myself, out of a sense of discipline, to write a piece every day, the library of essays becomes a reflection of the -- what, "mini-zeitgeist"? -- the thinking on that day about the issue of the day, at least when the piece was political.
In this case, I went back to something I wrote last September, right before the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
I was trying to define what would constitute candidate Trump as having "done well", since as a complete novice in campaigning barely a year before, it was hard to decide what would qualify as a good debate performance. He had done a fair number of them in the primary campaign, but this was going to be the first one-on-one, where everything was to be about Trump vs. Clinton.
My thesis was that Trump needed to look calm, presidential and under control. He needed to make it clear that he would surround himself with advisors and a Cabinet full of recognized experts, people who might not come from politics but from the "real world". that he would listen to them, accept their guidance and make his decisions -- much like Ronald Reagan did.
Now that the election is over, Donald Trump is now President Trump (still getting used to that) and some, although not enough, of the Cabinet is now in place, I can look back at the piece -- and the debates -- and realize how wrong I was.
I would apologize, but it isn't that I'm sorry. I wrote what I thought at the time, which is what I truly thought Trump would have to do in order to capitalize on the debates.
Wrong? Oh, you know it. Certainly, as far as Trump was concerned. I was dead right about Hillary, whom I said would be rehearsed, full of planned zinger lines and completely plastic. And she was all of that and less.
I thought that success for Trump in the debates would be dependent on composure, that he needed for the voting public to see the man in such a way, to look like a president. However, he was anything but; he was combative, not substantively different from his performance in the primaries, and I think it would be pretty hard to say that he did a good job.
Maybe I was more wrong about what would have constituted a successful performance for him. After all, he won the election but, truth to tell, he did not have a single debate where you could look back and say he was compelling and clearly "won." Sure, his advisers and inner circle of spokesmen said he did, but I didn't believe them.
More interesting, it was instructive to look at Hillary Clinton and her performance. Against a backdrop of her usual over-scripted set of talking points, I noticed an expression on her face that I can recall to this day.
I can only describe it as her feeling mid-debate that she had already won, that the voting public couldn't possibly miss the fact that Trump was such a terrible debater and they'd all vote for her now. He would repeat one of his typical slogans or statements lacking obvious insight. "Yes", she thought, a smile on her face, "I only have to answer the questions and show my command of the issues and that I know exactly where Yemen is. I can't possibly lose to this guy. And I will win."
You saw it, too. I was thinking "How is this performance going to win for Trump? He isn't going to attract anyone who wasn't already going to vote for him. Maybe his supporters, the ones stuffing 20,000 people into 18,000-seat arenas twice a day, maybe that performance was what they would see as authentic and the kind of non-politician they wanted after, well, the swamp had governed the past eight years." I really was thinking something like that.
Apparently I wasn't convinced, since I sat there on Election Night expecting the worst. I had set a standard for his success during the debates, and he had not complied with my standard. Then the states started falling, one by one ... Ohio, then Florida and North Carolina ... then Wisconsin came out of the blue (literally!), and suddenly there was no route left for Hillary to win.
I thought back the next morning, after the concession speeches and all, about the debates and how I thought that Trump could not possibly win with that performance. Like everyone else, I was so far wrong it was just silly.
In four years he will have to do the whole debate cycle all over again, and I'm thinking that I will not have learned a blessed thing.
Elizabeth Warren, the senator from the People's Republic of Massachusetts (where I spent eight years of my life, including college), is certainly trying to make a name for herself, eh?
This week, she had to be sent into the dunce corner of the Senate for having violated Senate rules. In this case, she tried to read into the record the content of a letter of some thirty years ago, from the late Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King, Jr.. The letter purported to have called the now Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, a bunch of things, but mainly tried to portray him as a racist, the "go-to argument" for Democrats who can't argue on merit.
Let us point out something. First, the letter came from Coretta Scott King, not Martin. Last I looked, her celebrity was based on whom she married, which makes her 30-year-old letter worth as much as my 30-year-old letters. And truth to tell, Alveda King, Martin's niece, condemned Sen. Warren for "playing the race card." So we're pretty much even, at least on what people named "King" think.
Jeff Sessions, as you know, was until yesterday the senator from Alabama, where he served some time back as its Attorney General before being elected to the Senate, where he served his state for several few terms.
To the extent that we saw at Sessions' hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the charge of racism rang pretty hollow. The testimony before the committee, the words of black attorneys and clerks who worked with Sessions as Alabama attorney general were pretty compelling, as each one described him in glowing terms. In every case, the depositions of people who had actually worked with him on a daily basis described a man who painstakingly sought to develop the careers of those who worked with him.
Considering that these people actually worked with him, and had been helped by him, and of course the fact that they were indeed black, not only black but happy to testify for Sessions, well, the Democrats had a pretty weak argument. In fact, if you watched the committee hearings, the testimony alternated between Republican senators yielding their time to guests who had worked with Sessions in Alabama and spoke glowingly about him, and Democrats calling him a racist. Given that all the guests were black, those accusations of racism looked beyond petty.
But even after that, old Elizabeth Warren wouldn't stop calling Sessions a racist. Truth to tell, she looked pretty pathetic doing it. The same Democrats who defended their pet Klansman, Robert Byrd (D-WV) as being "able to change", well, even with plenty of evidence, they were unwilling to afford the same consideration to a man they had been working with in the Senate for years.
It is that kind of thing that makes me happy that Elizabeth Warren is so prominently touted as a candidate for president in 2020, here while Donald Trump has served about 0.00001% of his (first) term. As I write this, she is on the news again, with her whatever it is that gets into a high dudgeon, in a high dudgeon.
I tend to think of Elizabeth Warren as representing the kind of politics and policies that are why Donald Trump was elected in the first place. Rather than trying to work with the new administration to get things done in a collaborative, collegial way, she is among those forcing the confirmation debates of every Cabinet appointee to go the whole allowed 30 hours, as if by putting off the inevitable, she is somehow doing something good.
Rather, she and her cohorts and assorted Schumers are simply spitting in the wind. More than that, they are blowing a phenomenal opportunity. The one time that the Republicans have the White House and both houses of Congress, the president happens to be not an ideologue, but rather someone with whom Democrats could actually work -- if they chose to.
Three and a half years hence, if she is actually the candidate to oppose President Trump's reelection, he will be able to state, in his own truly inimitable way, that she blew an opportunity to be part of the change that the nation asked for in the 2016 election. By helping make them the Party of No, she led the Democrats into irrelevance.
And by the way, she will be 71 then. It needs to be said; not so much because she'd be "too old" although she'd be the oldest person ever elected (President Trump was 70), but because she would have at least 40 years removal from the heartbeat of the left.
You may recall that in 2009, the Republicans declared themselves opposed to Barack Obama's platform. But they at least voted-in his Cabinet, and the fact was that their efforts to be a collegial part of the legislative process were blocked, by Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy "You'll have to pass it to see what's in it" Pelosi.
What this is all doing now is portraying the Democrats as absent of ideas, and only able to be political beings -- precisely the "swamp" that the nation voted in Donald Trump to drain. So as unlikable and personally annoying as Elizabeth Warren appears to be, well, bring her on.
At this moment, I can't imagine anyone I'd rather see running against Trump 2020.
Those of you who are regular readers of this column know that my wife and I were the subject of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service in regard to a business, one we owned for several years but closed in 2013.
Our bizarre tale with the IRS was summarized here, but I'll give you the upshot before getting into this column. An IRS auditor sent us a bill for over $29,000 in back taxes two years after the business closed, claiming that we had failed to report revenue of the business for tax year 2013. One year later, about $10,000 in accountant's fees out-of-pocket, and after lots of free lessons to the auditor about how to read tax law, the entire audit was dropped without our owing one cent.
For tax nerds, the bottom line was that the revenue they thought we hadn't reported for 2013 had actually been reported for tax year 2012, because of the way our business consistently reported revenue. Once the auditor's supervisor recognized that (A) the auditor had no idea of the proper application of the law, and (B) we had indeed legally reported all the revenue we were supposed to, and that it was actually in a way that paid IRS sooner, he shut it down and dropped their claim.
Of course, it is a sad statement on the way the IRS does business -- well, the first of two such statements I'll give you -- is that their "final" letter to us does not state explicitly that their previous claim had been dropped; it does not state that we owe no further taxes; it does not even mention the fact that all $29,000 was no longer due. The fact that their letter was free of content is plot material.
The second sad statement will not astonish you, I'm sure. We were residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia at the time of the audit, and for two years thereafter. Virginia also has an income tax. So the IRS, in their infinite wisdom, sent a notice to Virginia at the same time they sent the original $29,000 bill, telling them that ooh, ooh, the Suttons owe you state income taxes, too!
Now, IRS audits are routinely challenged, and routinely the original figure owed is reduced or, as in our case, eliminated. So you would think that IRS would wait until a final disposition of the audit before sending a notice to the state of the victim's residence. OK, no, you wouldn't think that; after all, it is the IRS.
But sure enough, on Tuesday we got a note from our accountants that the Commonwealth of Virginia, acting on an old audit statement sent them by IRS, was asking for a healthy check, including interest and penalties, for unpaid back state taxes. They quoted the $29,000 figure sent them by the IRS in their letter, meaning that even though the final disposition of the audit, with us owing nothing, was over a year ago, no one from IRS had sent an update to Virginia to tell them that!
I do not yet know how Virginia will act. I called the Virginia tax department first thing yesterday to tell them what had happened, wanting to explain that I had in my hot little hand the final letter from IRS, which said exactly nothing and therefore could not be used in defense of our contention that we didn't owe anything.
And by the way, our CPA who defended us in the audit passed away in November. In coelo quies est.
The nice lady from Virginia who sent me the original bill answered her phone the first time. I described the situation, and mentioned that the IRS letter was useless. She said, bless her, that she herself would call IRS and verify the disposition, and then write me back. So I'm hopeful that it will take one simple phone call to drop Virginia's claim.
But in the meantime, I am sitting here wondering why, in the three years since the audit started, did IRS never once think to undo their damage by notifying Virginia that they had dropped their claim? Would it have been that hard?
Tax reform ... a necessary step. I'll keep you posted.
I know that California is the land of fruits and nuts, and where "creativity" takes on new meaning. A lot of very nice people must live there, given that a lot of people live there and some reasonable percentage of them are decent folks. Maybe even most of them. We'll stipulate that for today.
But boy, do they have some strange habits when they go to the polls. I'm sure of that, because not only did they just elect a certified oddball to the U.S. Senate, they've reached new heights with their president pro tem of their State Senate, a person named Kevin De Leon. Because if he is to believed, obedience to the law is an optional exercise, perhaps depending on the way you feel when you wake up and have your grass smoothie.
"I can tell you half of my family would be eligible for deportation under [President Trump’s] executive order, because if they got a false Social Security card, if they got a false identification, if they got a false driver’s license prior to us passing [the state law letting illegals have driver's licenses], if they got a false green card, and anyone who has family members, you know, who are undocumented knows that almost entirely everybody has secured some sort of false identification. That’s what you need to survive, to work. They are eligible for massive deportation."
I don't know how a "someone" can be subject to a "mass deportation", but let that ride for the nonce.
“The vast majority of immigrants — hard working immigrants — have done that. I can tell you I have family members specifically who came here as undocumented immigrants, and they did the same thing. That’s what you need to do to survive in this economy.” Challenged on that from the standpoint of it being often done through identity theft, De Leon declared that it was "not the same as Russian hacking."
This is the temporary leader of the California State Senate. He declared in public that what "you need [to do] to survive in this economy" is to commit a felony, carrying a fraudulent Social Security card that often is done through identity theft, a second felony.
So here's what I think. If immigrants, specifically illegal ones but not exclusively, have to commit felonies to "survive in this economy", then maybe the economy of the USA isn't the one they ought to be living in! I'm sure they weren't coming from a real happy economy in Central America or wherever they're coming from, but if they have to commit a felony to live here, on top of the laws they broke by being here illegally in the first place, then why are we burdening American citizens by allowing them here?
As I write this, Sean Spicer, the president's press secretary, is using the term "people coming to do us harm" to describe those we are trying to keep from entering this country. I have to tell you, people who come here and commit identity theft are coming here to do us harm, or at least needing to do us harm in order to stay here.
Where does it stop? Listen to what De Leon was getting at, and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt by actually considering his words. He is trying to make the case, though, that possession of a fraudulent Social Security card is not grounds for an illegal alien to be deported.
But being here illegally is already grounds for being deported. It is only exacerbating the situation by having them defraud the citizenry by using fake documentation, whether identity theft or just made up from whole cloth.
Some strange views they have out there in California, I have to tell you. They have to, if they're electing House members like Maxine Waters, who literally cannot tell Crimea from Korea. Of course, they probably think that my view that "borders should be under the control of the Federal government" is strange, too.
Maybe they should secede. Then they can open their borders like crazy until they go bankrupt.
I am not sure you know what happened Sunday night at the S*per Bowl (I think you have to pay the NFL if you say that term out loud, or write it with all the letters).
Sure, you know that the New England Patriots came back from being down 25 points in the second half -- and needing two 2-point conversions -- to roar back to tie the game with essentially no time left, and then score a touchdown on their first drive in overtime, to win the game and the NFL championship.
If you're like everyone else, you also saw all the commercials. If you could wade through them, and some of them were really a waste of millions of dollars of stockholders' money, then you'll remember them. Well, most of them.
So an aside ... remember the Y2K bug? I sure do, and that's because I worked on the Y2K bug for a couple-three years before it was supposed to strike like a predicted earthquake. The idea was that billions of lines of computer code, that was still operational in 1999, had been written with date fields of only two digits. That meant that when the clock turned to the last year of the 20th Century on January 1st, 2000, the code wouldn't know it from January 1st, 1900, and the results were not at all predictable.
Lots of things happened those last couple years. I was the director of services for a group at Litton Industries, whose only mission was trying to fix our clients' Y2K bugs. Before long, that made me an expert on Y2K issues, and I flew around to a lot of places talking about it. A fellow named Peter de Jager, a computer consultant from Canada, made an inordinate amount of money flying to a lot of places doing the same thing; we actually spoke to some audiences together. He was independent, so he got paid -- I just got my normal modest salary from Litton.
I was reasonably qualified to do those lectures, and not only because I had spent more time than most people speaking out about it. As a matter of fact, I had personally written over 250,000 lines of code that were still in use in 1998, all of which was written with two-digit date fields. I had tested some of it in 1998 and, sure enough, it had some pretty odd results when I told it the date was 1/1/2000. So there was at least something real about it, at least for some pottery manufacturers in eastern Ohio.
But as you know, January 1st, 2000 came and went, and the whole Y2K bug also came and went, with hardly a peep. Computers kept running, planes kept flying. Whether or not all the reprogramming that got hastily done in the waning months of 1999 helped, we know that, 17 years later, Y2K is mostly forgotten as a bug.
But not completely forgotten, which brings us to advertising on the Sup*r Bowl or S*per Bowl or whatever we're allowed to call it. Our good friends at Google decided they were going to pay their $5 million for a fractional slice of time to advertise their new product, which is one of those newfangled do-hickeys.
Not any run-of-the-mill do-hickey, mind you, but one that does what you tell it to, like turn off the lights, or turn on the TV, or any number of imaginable things you can do to or with an electronic device. Just program some stuff into the device, and you can talk to it! How neat is that?
Well, Google couldn't wait to do a big-game commercial featuring their devices in use. They were, after all, so simple that all you had to do was say "OK, Google, turn off the TV!" and bingo-bongo, your TV would shut off. "OK, Google, turn on the fan" and ta-da, your ceiling fan would turn on and you'd be cool which, given that it is early February, might not be an attractive attribute this moment.
In order to demonstrate that a product is "voice-activated", you have to use an actual voice, right? So Google's ad people designed this nifty commercial showing people saying "OK, Google, do this", whereupon the device in the commercial would turn off something or answer you.
The little problem was this -- Mr. Google, or whatever they call it, may be a "new" product, but it isn't brand new, there are people who already have it. And, son of a gun, a lot of those people happened to be in their homes hosting Super Bowl parties. Guess what happened next?
You guessed it. The commercial came on and sure enough, Google's device worked like a charm. Now it could have been bad; the person in the commercial could have said "OK, Google, turn off the TV" and the TV would have gone off -- the TVs in people's homes, homes which happened to have the Google device already installed. As soon as the voice in the commercial told the Google device to shut off the TV, it would have worked like a charm all over the USA in the middle of the S*per Bowl.
Fortunately, they didn't say "OK Google, turn off the TV", they asked Mr. Google something about some spice. Otherwise, TVs all over the USA, televisions that were connected to already-sold-and-installed Google devices, unable to distinguish between the commercial's voice and the voice of the person right there in the home with the 25 now-angry people wondering what the heck had happened to their TVs, would have been missing the game. Mr. Google would have blithely shut off their TV too.
I'm sorry, I think the whole thing is just hysterical. Having spent almost three years of my life trying to prevent a disaster from ancient, 20-year-old software with Y2K bugs in it, I had to laugh when a Google device, one of the most modern of conveniences, almost barfed all over S*per Bowl parties from coast to coast.
Yep, it was a fun night. My TV stayed on, after all. | 2019-04-26T01:42:46Z | http://uberthoughtsusa.blogspot.com/2017/02/ |
I write as a resident of Kushi district, the site for the planned construction of a Futenma Replacement Facility (the projected Henoko base). Ever since it first surfaced I have been struggling against the plan for construction of a base that would foreclose the future of the children of the district. I am joint representative of the “Association of the 10 Districts North of Futami Who Do Not Want a Base” (formed by the residents of those 10 districts in October 1997) and General Secretary of the “Association of Women Supporting the Inamine City Government” (commonly known as “Iinagu Association”) formed in April 2010. As an investigator for the project to compile Nago City’s History, I have been involved in an oral history project into the nature-rooted daily life and history and culture of this region, in particular of the Kushi district. I am also a member of the “Northern Limits Dugong Investigation Team” and I participate in the Okinawa Citizen’s Biodiversity Network.
For 17 years, without letup, I have been opposing the construction of a base at Henoko. The citizens of Nago, including the residents of my district, warding off all the pressures applied by the government, carried out a citizen referendum in December 1997 that plainly showed our resolve to say “No” to the Base that had suddenly descended on our quiet backwater. Despite this, our district has been riven by “carrot and stick” policies carried out by a government determined to foist the base upon us come what may, dividing parents and children, family members and relatives, and rupturing human relations that once were warm and close. In inverse proportion to the new facilities built with Ministry of Defense subsidy, local small-scale businesses lapsed into bankruptcy and Nago’s remoteness and backwardness deepened.
However, in 2010, realizing that base-related monies had neither enriched their lives or opened any future for the region, residents and citizens chose as mayor Inamine Susumu (a native of Mihara district) who pledged “not to allow any base to be built, whether on land or on sea.” We take great pride in the Inamine city government for responding to the will of citizens and consistently opposing the base project, especially “for the sake of the future of our children.” That is because we believe that what we adults must bequeath to our children and grandchildren is nature and peace. That is the responsibility of those who live today.
Even in the Districts north of Futami, on the part of residents whose lives had been torn apart by the base problem, a mood of unified resolve to promote our region was born. Steps in the direction of an independence that did not rely on base-related money earned the support of the city and eventually began to come on track so we could look to the future with great hope. We cannot help being consumed with anxiety that reclamation of the bay and construction of a base would bring these efforts to nought, dividing the region once again so that our days would be spent in a nightmare of anxiety.
In our seafront tent, on days of blazing heat or with cold winds sometimes blowing, we have maintained, and continue to this day to maintain, our occupation, joined by people of good will from throughout Okinawa and Japan, and from all parts of the world, who have fought side by side with us against the unjust and violent imposition of environmental investigation by the Ministry of Defense. Despite from time to time feeling isolation and helplessness, driving off the despair that threatened to engulf us, our efforts bore fruit in keeping the flame of “opposition to the base” alive and unextinguished. It is to the great happiness and hope of us local residents that an “all-Okinawan” “No” to base construction movement has been plainly established, which includes even the Okinawan prefectural association of the Liberal Democratic Party, the current ruling national party. Nevertheless, we find it hard to contain our deep anger that the government has ignored these developments, brushing them aide and proceeding by force to the point of requesting that the Governor authorize reclamation works, which is the final stage preparatory to construction. Such strong opposition (hostility) on the part of Okinawans is exemplified by Governor Nakaima saying “Base substitution outside Okinawa would be faster.” As a result, even after 17 years the government has not been able to hammer in a single exploratory peg. It remains fundamentally impossible to implement its plan to construct the base.
The Governor, in his response to the environmental assessment on the Henoko Base construction project, declared clearly that it would be “impossible to protect the livelihood environment and the natural environment.” It goes without saying that he should make a judgement of “non-allowance” of the reclamation in response to the present request for reclamation based on the Environental Impact (EI) report, for the sake of the residents of the district, the livelihood of Okinawans and to protect the natural environment that is an Okinawan precious treasure to be handed onto future generations.
However, of late the Abe government has been desperately attempting to press ahead with the Henoko transfer, striving to shift the Governor by sending a succession of cabinet ministers on pilgrimage to Okinawa and making a great fuss over development policies, or by conducting secret meetings with Okinawan supporters of the transfer project. We cannot help feeling profound unease at such movements.
In these circumstances, we appraise highly the Okinawan prefecture’s inquiry to the Nago City mayor inquiring of his opinion and Nago Ciy’s widely canvasing the opinions of citizens and people originating in the city in order to reflect them in his mayoral statement. This “citizen perspective” is the true strength of the Inamine city government. Believing that the Nago mayor’s opinion will constitute strong backing for the Governor to decide on “non-allowance of the reclamation” and so supporting it, below I set out my views on a number of points.
The matter goes back to the idea of returning Futenma Airport (the “world’s most dangerous base”) in order to reduce at least a little the burden deriving from the excessive weight of the bases on Okinawa. The Futenma base is one that was constructed illegally on village or agricultural lands whose residents had taken refuge at the time, which had been seized by the US forces who had landed in Okinawa in April 1945; it should be unconditionally returned. The notion of “transfer [of Futenma] within Okinawa is extremely unjust and improper and amounts to increasing rather than diminishing the burden, and the fact that the chosen transfer site, Cape Henoko, is one that according to Okinawa’s “Guidelines for Environmental Protection” should be given the highest ranking as “calling for the strictest environmental protection,” makes it even more unjust and improper.
Military analysts have already raised serious doubts about the deterrence value of the US Marine Corps and about Okinawa’s importance in geographic terms. Reinforcing military strength is out-dated, and the trend in international society is henceforth for the exercise of diplomatic strength by engaging in discussion, not for the construction of international relations through military force. Bases, and areas occupied by armies, are the most dangerous places, and it is the bitter lesson of the Battle of Okinawa from which survivors continue to suffer today that armies do not protect people, but cause great bloodshed. Those with experience of the Battle of Okinawa feel a growing sense of crisis that the construction of a new military base at Henoko might raise Asian tensions even higher and lead to a repeat of the catastrophe of war on these islands.
Furthermore, Okinawans know deep in their bones that base transfer within Okinawa would not “lessen the burden” and that, when governments of Japan or the United States talk of “burden lessening” it is just so much words. When governments of Japan or the United States talk of their “maximum concern for the natural realm and for the living environment” at the projected site they treat us residents of the area as stupid, since it is clear that both the natural environment and the human livelihood environment would be radically changed. I cannot contain my anger at this.
The agreement between former Nago mayor Shimabukuro Yoshikazu and the national government on the construction of a “V”-shaped coastal design is taken to be a definitive mark of Nago acceptance. But he was elected mayor in 2006 on an “opposition to a coastal design” pledge, so this is plainly a breach of that pledge. He betrayed the citizens of Nago. Such an agreement is counter to the wishes of the citizens of Nago. The will of the people of Nago was made clear in the citizen referendum of 1997 and, as many opinion polls have shown, that will remains unchanged today.
The “Reasons Why Reclamation is Necessary” or the reasons why base construction is necessary, are all bankrupt. What we citizens want is a base-free, peaceful, and nature-rich Okinawa.” There absolutely cannot be any “need” for reclamation or for base construction.
The natural environment is the basis for human life and we cannot live if it is destroyed. We who live today have no right to destroy the basis of livelihood for future generations.
The experience of raising children, nurturing life with the fruits of the sea after the land had been devastated by war, sustained in those women and men two fundamental beliefs, the strong sense that the misery of the battlefield should never again be visited upon their children and grandchildren and a deep gratitude towards the sea, or nature. It is our responsibility to bequeath to future generations the richness of Cape Henoko that still brings colour to their cheeks as they speak of it, and its fruits. To permit its destruction would, I believe, constitute a crime against generations unborn.
We adults must assure our children of an even better natural environment and livelihood environment and we must bear a responsibility for our children’s future. Reclamation would inevitably mean destruction of nature and an increase in noise, accidents, and incidents caused by US soldiers accompanying the “base construction,” thus greatly changing the livelihood environment. The educational environment of children would also be damaged and it would become impossible for us adults to carry out our responsibility. Above all, I fear that construction of the new Henoko base will serve as an invitation to war and our children and grandchildren will again find themselves wandering on to the battlefield.
The above paragraphs state my reasons why, in consideration of responsibility to generations yet unborn, we must not allow reclamation or base construction. “Peace” and “nature” are precisely the conditions for human beings to live healthily and must be passed on from generation to generation.
It is no exaggeration to say that nature in Okinawa has suffered greatly from the Battle of Okinawa, from post-war base construction and from post-reversion, rampant development policies. The US military that occupied the islands after their reduction to scorched earth in the land fighting forcibly constructed the bases at point of “bayonet and bulldozer,” brooking no dissent and causing destruction of nature and environment. This is because, post-reversion and counter to the wishes of Okinawans, the bases were steadily reinforced and because a level of destruction of nature said to be even greater than that caused by the “storm of iron” during the Battle of Okinawa was caused by excessive development under high-level subsidy and development policies adopted as compensation for having the bases.
In this situation, because of its preservation of mountain, river, and sea interconnectedness, the Oura bay zone is an exceptionally important place. Seven rivers, including especially the Oura and the Teima, carry nutrients from the forests into Oura Bay. A continuous ecology links each system and its diverse life forms, from the river-mouth mangrove forests to the wetlands, sea grass and laver fields and coral reef.
Furthermore, the seaweed and laver fields, feeding grounds of the dugong, that extend through the Henoko coastal area and are said by researchers to be Okinawa Island’s largest and richest, are the core living zone of the endangered northern limit dugong. Based on such nature, our ancestors in this region built a lifestyle and culture. The oldest remains found to date in this district, the Umuibaru and Abe shell heap middens on Cape Henoko are estimated to date to between 2,200 and 800 years ago, the late Okinawa shell midden era. The Umuibaru remains are in a site that would be destroyed if the projected new base was to go ahead.
There are many traditional shrine rites and rituals that have been preserved in this district from ancient times. I think this is related to the fact that nature remains. Traditional rites and rituals are deeply connected to mode of production and livelihood and include rites of thanks and invocations to the gods of sea and mountain – to nature – that sustain it.
In this way, the nature and biodiversity of Henoko and Oura Bay has sustained the lives and livelihood and culture of the people living in the coastal region. Construction of a new base is completely unacceptable because it would destroy all of this.
(a) The Henoko dam vicinity is said to be the projected site for extraction of landfill for the reclamation, but according to the 2011 investigation of cultural properties in the Henoko dam vicinity carried out inside Camp Schwab base as part of the Nago City Education Committee’s detailed study of archaeological remains within the city, various remains were identified that were thought to be those of roads, stone walls and ditches probably built for drainage, reckoned to date from the Yatori settlement era.
There may be cases when facilities or works are conducted for public welfare and regional development in which it is enough just to preserve the records of cultural properties, but US military bases are a completely different matter. They can only be considered a threat to local residents and harmful to the district. It would be extremely improper for important cultural properties left by our ancestors in this region to be lost for the sake of extracting landfill for reclamation to construct a base.
Furthermore, the ecology of the Henoko dam vicinity contains many wetland plant species that, within the Yambaru region, are to be seen only in Onna village and Nago City and, according to the Environmental Appraisal Investigation Committee of Okinawa Prefecture, a sense of crisis attaches to the endangered Nagabaarinotougusa [Haloragis micrantha] a grass so rare that it might be considered the “dugong of the land” (according to the Committee’s Yokota Masashi of Ryukyu University, it might already be extinct).
Henoko dam is also an important catchment area for local communities. Significant deleterious effects would be inevitable if landfill was taken from here. Nago City’s position is that it will not permit the use of city lands in the vicinity of Henoko dam, but landfill extraction should not be allowed even from privately owned lands.
(b) As for the extraction of landfill from the vicinity of Okinawa island, already various ill-effects such as shrinkage of beaches, erosion, changes in the configuration of lagoon bottoms, deterioration of ecology, have resulted from uncontrolled extraction. Local residents have a sense of crisis about this. Even if it were for the sake of industry I do not think that any further extraction should be allowed here, and the case is so much stronger when it concerns extraction for purposes of reclamation in order to construct a base.
It is a matter of particular concern that the projected site for landfill extraction is on the dugong’s perambulatory route. The dugong is a very sensitive creature, which dislikes contact with human activity. Ever since the marine disturbance to do with the Bowling study carried out in 2004 in the Henoko vicinity, they have tended to keep away from it even though till then it had been their largest and best feeding grounds. It could be said that it was the forceful prosecution of its activities, including the environmental impact study, by the Defence Agency (now the Department of Defense) that drove the dugong away.
There is a concern that the noise and disturbance to the marine environment caused by soil extraction and transport would disrupt their life and ecology and further worsen their living environment.
(c) Purchasing landfill is also very problematic. In order to avoid the EI process, the government referred to the use of purchased soil and sand, but in many districts the ill-effects on the environment caused by the extraction of soil and especially sand are problematic. Local residents are strongly opposed and, as is evident in the fact that the documents attached to the request for reclamation do not specify the site of extraction, it will not be easy to obtain. Even if they can secure it, the problem of introduced species contained in the introduced landfill, especially in that brought in from sites with an ecology completely different to sub-tropical Okinawa, would create a system disruptive crisis. It would also be in contravention of the Government of Japan (Department of the Environment)’s policies to seek registration of Okinawa as a World Natural Heritage site.
In connection with purchase of landfill, it is also impossible to dismiss concern over nuclear waste pollution from the Fukushima nuclear plant accident. To the extent that questions such as the site for extraction, its ecology, the contents of its soil and sand, whether soil or sand from other sites might be included, are not made clear, what kind of investigation and checking has been done, whether it is possible to avoid introduced species and harmful substances, importation of soil and sand from foreign countries must not be permitted.
Many parts of the minutes of the March 11 Nago Fishing Cooperative’s special general meeting that consented to the reclamation of Cape Henoko [by a 94:2 vote] have been blackened out [in the documents publicly posted by Okinawa prefecture]. That is in breach of the spirit of the public notification and consultation process (kokuji juran) designed to seek widest publication of information and, even if there had been a request for confidentiality from the Fishing Coop, it was not in accord with the public interest for that request to be met.
There are quite a few members of the Nago Fishing Coop in our district and we know that especially those of the east coast have grave doubts about the base construction.1 The fact is that many of them worry as to whether they can continue making a living as fishermen and are tortured over the fact that they want to oppose but cannot go against the current in the organization. I would guess that very few of them gave their “consent” positively.
The Okinawan fishing industry has suffered greatly from the direct damage caused by red soil runoff pollution from the construction of bases during the US occupation period and from rampant development since reversion, and it suffers recurrent harm from incidents and accidents in the coastal zone provided to the US military. The serious problem henceforth is to reveal the process that is driving the Okinawan fishermen to the point of having reluctantly to accept compensation to go with reclamation and of taking back the sea so that fishermen can make a living as fishermen and can cultivate their successors. For that reason too, reclamation and base construction, that would deliver a major blow to the sea and fisheries, must be stopped.
Recommended citation: Urashima Etsuko, "A Nago Citizen's Opinion on the Henoko Marine Base Construction Project," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 47, No. 2, November 25, 2013.
Urashima is a local Nago City writer and environmentalist, involved from the outset in 1997 in the movements opposing the construction of a new military complex in Henoko, On the occasion of the previous, 2010, election, the Asia-Pacific Journal also translated an Urashima article (“Electing a town mayor in Okinawa: Report from the Nago trenches,” 25 January 2010). She is the major chronicler and historian-participant of struggles in Northern Okinawa during the past two decades, author of a series of books and articles on them (in Japanese). For a brief note by Urashima on her thinking, see Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States, Rowman and Littlefield, 2012, pp. 243-248.
1 Translator Note: Five days after the Henoko meeting, a mass meeting attended by 150 members of the fishing Coops of neighboring Ginoza, Kin, and Ishikawa (total members: 316) demanded immediate cancelation of the construction plan. (“Ginoza nado gyokyo, Henoko isetsu ni hantai,” Okinawa taimusu, 17 March 2013). Local newspaper articles cast some light on the apparent “pro-base” sentiment of the earlier Henoko meeting, quoting opinions among the participants such as “we cannot fish because of US exercises,” “If the country determines something, how can we resist?” and “It resembles the situation in which [in the Battle of Okinawa] people were collectively driven to group suicide.” In the past, according to the three-part analysis in Ryukyu shimpo, it was possible for fishermen to earn in excess of five million yen per year, but now – with “US amphibious vehicles tearing up the mozuku (seaweed) fields” – only about one-third of that. “Hinuku umi de ikiru – Henoko umetate doi no shinso,” Ryukyu shimpo, 13, 14, and 15 March 2013. | 2019-04-24T21:57:30Z | https://apjjf.org/2013/11/47/Urashima-Etsuko/4035/article.html |
We all know there is a great need for cyber awareness. We have heard this on TV, read it on Facebook,posted about it, tweeted about it and done many other things about it. But why do we need it? Don't know. Well don't worry, I'll try to make you understand it in an easy way at least that's what I'm trying to accomplish here. But first, let's take a scenario. Consider this. You've recently bought a new house and that includes things that you consider valuable. So, if you do not secure valuables there is a risk that they will get stolen and you'll get cranky,sad and many other similar emotions then take over your subconscious. So to avoid this situation altogether you employ some security measures which is done by professionals who keep in mind the ongoing trends and gadgets that the thieves are using because let's be honest,if we don't do that then it is the same as giving the keys of your precious homes to intruders personally. Now if you've read carefully till now you, must have noticed that the main point was keeping in mind the current trends that the evil guys are using. So, if we take such precautionary measures to secure our homes then why can't we keep ourselves aware of the current trends in Cyber Security when we are living in a digital age where we are surrounded by electronic devices 24/7 throughout the year.
So the biggest attack of 2017 is Wannacry and it could have easily been avoided if we all had been aware in terms of Cyber Security of course as in April 2017, Shadow Brokers released an SMB vulnerability named “EternalBlue” which was part of the Microsoft security bulletin MS17-010. The recent WannaCry ransomware takes advantage of this vulnerability to compromise Windows machines, load malware, and propagate to other machines in a network. The attack uses SMB version 1 and TCP port 445 to propagate and it mainly affected systems which were still using Windows XP for which Microsoft had stopped releasing it's security updates since a long time ago. If we take some time and Google the reasons behind the destruction ensured by a cyber attack then we can find the main ingredient was always lack of awareness.There is an age old saying, "Prevention is better than Cure" and the letter P in this saying stands for awareness because how can we prevent Something from happening if we don't know even have the slightest idea about it.
Author's Comment: People will keep on writing articles like this maybe better or less better than this. There are countless more on the web but let's face it the hackers will keep on hacking systems for a long period of time. The reason is there is a tendency in a human beings to not learn lessons until they have suffered and we already know that time is the worst teacher there is as it first takes your test and then it teaches you your lesson. We can keep on writing countless articles this but it's of no use as the people who will probably read it may remember it for some time and then forget about it which is literally how we live.
What is the difference between Nessus and OWTF ?
First of all Nessus is a Vulnerability Assessment Tool and OWTF is a penetration testing tool.
Secondly Nessus is proprietary to Tenable and OWTF(made by OWASP) is open source and free.
OWTF has both CLI and Web based UI whereas Nessus just has a Web UI, does not have CLI(but it has NASL- Nessus Attack Scripting Language).
Nessus is the world's most popular vulnerability scanner whereas OWTF is relatively new.
Nessus has more than 15000+ plugins whereas OWTF has more than 100+ plugins.
Nessus is available for Windows,MAC,Linux but OWTF is only available for Linux especially OWTF is designed by keeping in mind Kali Lnux.
OWTF runs tools like the Harvester,Nikto,W3AF , Arachini,etc.
Nessus rates the vulnerability as Critical, High , Medium, Low or Info by using the CVSS score whereas in OWTF the user has to manually rate the vulnerabilites.
Nessus can also be used for auditing purposes whereas OWTF cannot.
Now, to understand this we must first understand that Vulnerability assessment is a part of penetration testing,so what nessus does is find the vulnerabilities of a host whereas OWTF is a tool which is present to automate the task of penetration testing as it will use a number of tools which the penetration tester would have to do manually.
For example, a pen tester would do port scanning to find the open ports in a host using a tool like NMAP and then find the version of the services running in that host , then he vulnerabilities in that service version, then he would try to exploit those vulnerablities using a tool like Metasploit, so what we see here is that the penetration tester is getting output from one tool which he is using as input to other tool.
OWTF does this automatically , runs a tool to get a output , uses that output as input to other tool to move forward in the penetration testing process.
The OWASP OWTF is made in terms of OWASP Pen Testing Guide, Penetration Testing Execution Standard and National Institute of Standards and Technology.
A Russian cyber attack around July 25 shut down the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff’s unclassified email system for 11 days and affected around 4,000 military and civilian personnel who work for the Joint Chiefs. No classified information was taken or put at risk. Only unclassified email accounts were infiltrated.
At a news briefing, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters that the attack did not threaten military operations since it was limited to the unclassified network. Until the system is resolved, the Joint Staff is operating on an alternative, classified system. The network remains offline; it is expected to be back online before the end of the week.
The US military officials believe that the complexity and advanced nature of the hack strongly suggests that state-sponsored Russian hackers were behind the intrusion on sensitive US government computer networks. The Defense Department disclosed the attack shortly after it occurred but only in recent days have investigators traced it to Russia.
“This attack was fairly sophisticated and has the indications . . . of having come from a state actor such as Russia,” said a US official on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the investigation.
According to NBC, the sophisticated cyber intrusion relied on an automated system to download large amounts of data and distribute it to thousands of different accounts on the Internet. It’s suspected the hackers used encrypted social media accounts to coordinate the attack. According to The Daily Beast, hackers broke into unclassified email networks by sending emails that initially seemed legitimate, but ended up being malware or ‘spear phishing‘ attempts.
In April, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had confirmed that Russian hackers had briefly broken into the Pentagon’s unclassified networks. The hackers, believed to have Moscow backing, penetrated both the State Department and White House networks in October 2014. US President Barack Obama’s personal schedule was among the sensitive data that was compromised.
A worker is pictured behind a logo at the IBM stand on the CeBIT computer fair in Hanover February 26, 2011. The world's largest IT fair CeBIT opens its doors on March 1 and runs through March 5.
Rapid7, LogRhythm and Mimecast are joining a growing list of cybersecurity firms planning to go public in 2015 to capitalize on investor interest following a spate of hacker attacks, according to people familiar with the matter.
Shares of publicly traded cybersecurity firms have outperformed the market in recent months, as high-profile data breaches at Sony Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Anthem Inc prompt businesses to spend more to secure their computer networks.
"The cybersecurity market is in the early innings of a massive growth opportunity," said FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives. "There are many innovative private security vendors. Tech investors' eyes are glued to who has the 'magic solution.'"
Boston-based Rapid7 provides software and services that help businesses assess and monitor security risks. It has more than 3,500 customers, including Amazon.com Inc, American Express Co and Bank of America Corp.
Mimecast, also based in Boston, is an email security firm with 10,000 customers. According to its website, revenue rose 30 percent in 2014 to $88.4 million. LogRhythm Inc, based in Boulder, Colorado, provides technology to help companies monitor activity across their networks.
All three companies are planning to sell shares to the public and seeking valuations in excess of $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because the plans are not yet public.
Rapid7, whose investors include Bain Capital Ventures and Technology Crossover Ventures, has chosen Morgan Stanley and Barclays to assist with an initial public offering, the people said.
LogRhythm, whose investors include Access Venture Partners, Adam Street Partners, Grotech Ventures and Riverwood Capital, has chosen JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley for an IPO in the second half of the year, the sources said.
Mimecast, whose investors include Insight Venture Partners, Dawn Capital and Index Ventures, has spoken to some investment banks about an IPO later this year but has not hired any firms, the sources said.
Representatives from the three companies and the banks working with them all declined to comment.
With global spending on IT security set to increase 8.2 percent in 2015 to $77 billion, according to market research firm Gartner, the shares of publicly traded cybersecurity firms have done well.
FireEye Inc shares have risen 38 percent so far this year, while Qualys Inc is up 24 percent and Palo Alto Networks Inc has climbed 19 percent. The PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF has gained 9 percent over the same period, while the S&P 500 Index is up 1.9 percent.
But investing in cybersecurity is not without risk.
FireEye's share price plunged more than 70 percent in less than three months last year, after Chief Executive Dave DeWalt and other insiders sold shares, spurring investors to take a more critical look at the firm's finances and valuation.
The stock had more than quadrupled in the first six months after its September 2013 IPO, even though FireEye later reported losses of $121 million in 2013 and $444 million in 2014. Analysts do not expect FireEye to post a full-year net profit until 2018, though they are forecasting rapid revenue growth, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Amid investor enthusiasm for the cybersecurity industry, FireEye has recovered this year though at around $42 a share, the stock remains far below its March 2014 high of $97.35.
Rapid7, LogRhythm and Mimecast are not the only cybersecurity firms planning to tap public markets this year.
Veracode, which protects Internet applications from hackers, has selected banks to lead a potential IPO that could value the company at between $600 million and $800 million, Reuters reported in December.
Another company widely expected to debut this year is Bit9 + Carbon Black, whose software protects computers from malware. The firm has not yet hired banks, according to people familiar with the matter. It declined to comment.
According to FBR's Ives, emerging cybersecurity companies could earn a combined annual revenue of $15 billion to $20 billion in three years. That excludes the slower growing but larger market for traditional cybersecurity technology, such as anti-virus software.
Venky Ganesan, managing director at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, said average corporate spending on cybersecurity will rise from about 0.25 percent of total revenue to as much as 2 percent of revenue in the coming years.
"The window is wide open for cybersecurity companies. We have a perfect storm of opportunity," said Ganesan, who had invested in Palo Alto Networks while at Globespan Capital.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has argued that the safety of citizens trumps privacy and that the government should be able to monitor any communications if warranted. If Cameron succeeds," said tech analyst Charles King, "UK citizens can take comfort in their government acting with all the foresight and wisdom of other beacons of freedom, including China, Russia, Egypt and Iran."
UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who is standing for re-election, has vowed to ban personal encrypted communications apps such as Snapchat and WhatsApp if he is voted in.
He also will allow UK government security agencies to monitor communications, with warrants signed by the Home Secretary.
"The first duty of any government is to keep our country and our people safe," Cameron declared earlier this week.
Cameron's proposal triggered a storm of criticism.
"We've seen proposals similar to this before, but never as unbelievably shortsighted," commented Joseph Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology.
The FBI has been arguing for years that it needs backdoors into encrypted communications and devices, but Cameron is "going even further to demand no one can have walls," Hall told TechNewsWorld. "He seems to want to ban confidential communications entirely."
The proposal "is particularly boneheaded," because to ban applications such as SnapChat and WhatsApp, the UK would "effectively have to ban mathematics," Hall continued.
"I can write the equation for how to protect a message from government surveillance on a piece of paper, and it's not really hard to write or distribute code that does this," pointed out Danny O'Brien, international director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Without strong cryptography, anyone can intercept content, O'Brien told TechNewsWorld, so governments can "either mandate that no one has secure messaging, except for criminals who are going to use it anyway, or that because we need a secure financial and communications infrastructure, we should work on other ways to fight terrorism."
One of the other ways to fight terrorism is to keep a close eye on suspected terrorists.
The French authorities in 2010 reportedly placed under surveillance members of the Islamic extremist cell linked to the gunmen who committed the Charlie Hebdo massacre, but they slacked off after a while.
Intelligence officials have made the argument that increased surveillance of suspects and perhaps even the imposition of widespread surveillance of the general population are crucial in the fight against terror.
However, such widespread surveillance by the NSA has been notoriously fruitless in the U.S.
Further, the UK's Government Communications Headquarters has spoofed LinkedIn pages to target engineers at a Belgian carrier and apparently aims to be able to track mobile phones worldwide, according to Der Spiegel.
GCHQ reportedly has worked with the United States National Security Agency to make a secret map of the Internet and Web users, The Intercept reported.
The NSA tracks 5 billion cellphone locations worldwide, and since it shares a lot of data with GCHQ, it's possible the UK intelligence agency also has access to much of that data.
Further, German researchers recently demonstrated that vulnerabilities in Signaling System 7 (SS7) telephony signaling protocols let third parties listen in to cellphone calls and intercept text messages despite encryption.
"I doubt many governments, especially the U.S. government, would agree that [Cameron's plan] is a good idea," the CDT's Hall said.
If they did, the open source nature of much of the pieces of apps like SnapChat and WhatsApp make it easy for people to create such applications themselves, and that could lead to a black market for them, Hall argued.
"Anyone in the UK or out of it could use freely available alternatives" like PGP and OTR to secure their communications, the EFF's O'Brien noted. Banning encrypted apps "would devastate their industry's trust in online communications, leading to a mass exodus of those sectors out of the UK."
Other governments have proactively limited or killed innovative communications applications and methodologies, Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told TechNewsWorld.
"If Cameron succeeds," he said, "UK citizens can take comfort in their government acting with all the foresight and wisdom of other beacons of freedom, including China, Russia, Egypt and Iran."
Google has decided not to fix vulnerabilities in WebView for Android 4.3 and older, sparking heated discussions among developers.
Those versions of WebView run on the WebKit browser. Fixing them "required changes to significant portions of the code and was no longer practical to do so safely," Adrian Ludwig, lead engineer for Android security, explained last week in a post.
Ludwig recommended steps users and developers can take to mitigate the potential exploitation of WebView vulnerabilities without updating to Lollipop, or Android 5.0.
The decision will leave 930 million users of Android devices in the lurch, Tod Bearsley warned earlier this month.
Users should employ a browser that has its own content renderer and is regularly updated, Ludwig suggested.
Chrome and Firefox are securely updated through Google Play, he pointed out. Firefox is supported on Android 2.3 and higher, while Chrome is supported on Android 4.0 and higher.
Consumers should load content only from trusted sources, Ludwig advised.
Developers should "confirm that only trusted content ... is displayed within WebViews in their application," he said. They should consider providing their own renderer on Android 4.3 and earlier so they can update it with the latest security patches.
"With the advances in Android 4.4, the number of users that are potentially affected by legacy WebKit security issues is shrinking every day as more and more people upgrade or get new devices," Ludwig observed.
However, Google's own statistics tell a different tale.
Figures from a seven-day period ending Jan. 5 posted on the Android Developers Dashboard indicate Jelly Bean had 46 percent of the market and KitKat 39 percent. Ice Cream Sandwich had 6.7 percent and Gingerbread 7.8 percent. Lollipop didn't make the cut for the dashboard, which doesn't display any versions with less than 0.1 percent distribution.
In other words, a good 60 percent of Android users are at risk from WebView flaws.
Still, "generally speaking, Google can't go back and support all the old versions," said Al Hilwa, a research program director at IDC.
"You have to have a cutoff at some point and go forward," he told TechNewsWorld. "That's pretty normal for the industry."
"Telling app developers to just provide your renderer rather than you guys handling your own screw-ups? What a joke," wrote Jake Weisz in response to Ludwig's post. Stating the fix is expensive or difficult "is not an excuse because it's Google's responsibility."
Also, "as a developer of an app that renders content from the open Web, I feel like [the suggestion devs provide their own renderer] badly misrepresents and underestimates the work involved in such a task," Chris Lacy wrote. "Building and shipping a Web render is an absolutely massive task."
From a developer perspective, "it isn't right for Google to not provide backward compatibility or at least a support library for most of the vulnerabilities," said Anirudh Pothani, head of Android development at Copper Mobile.
"This isn't the first time Google has done something to make developers' lives hard by not providing backward compatibility," he told TechNewsWorld.
In most cases, developers "might require a custom implementation of the WebView" to patch the vulnerability, Pothani said.
Health insurer Anthem Inc , which has nearly 40 million U.S. customers, said late on Wednesday that hackers had breached one of its IT systems and stolen personal information relating to current and former consumers and employees.
The FBI had warned last August that healthcare industry companies were being targeted by hackers, publicizing the issue following an attack on U.S. hospital group Community Health Systems Inc that resulted in the theft of millions of patient records.
U.S. business lobbies called on the White House this week for help to overturn new Chinese cybersecurity regulations they say would hurt market opportunities abroad and jobs in the U.S.
Cybersecurity has been a significant irritant in U.S.-China ties, with both sides accusing the other of abuses. U.S. tech groups wrote to the Chinese administration about the same policies on Jan. 28.
New cybersecurity regulations would force technology vendors to Chinese banks to hand over secret source code and adopt Chinese encryption algorithms.
The policies would have a "significant negative impact" on U.S. ICT companies’ market opportunities in China and ultimately crimp investment in research and development back home, hurting U.S. jobs, the groups said.
U.S. manufacturers would also suffer as the policies would restrict cross-border data flows and create another market barrier for foreign financial services and telecommunications companies said the letter, which was also signed by the National Association of Manufacturers.
President Barack Obama's budget proposal for the 2016 fiscal year seeks $14 billion (9 billion pounds) for cybersecurity efforts across the U.S. government to better protect federal and private networks from hacking threats.
The budget, released on Monday, calls for deployment of more intrusion detection and prevention capabilities, greater sharing of data with the private sector and other countries and more funding to beef up the government's ability to respond to attacks.
"Cyber threats targeting the private sector, critical infrastructure and the federal government demonstrate that no sector, network or system is immune to infiltration by those seeking to steal commercial or government secrets and property or perpetrate malicious and disruptive activity," the White House summary said.
Among various requests, the White House sought $227 million for construction of a Civilian Cyber Campus, meant to spur public-private partnerships, and $160 million for information technology and cybersecurity of the weapons programme at the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.
The Pentagon's budget alone called for $5.5 billion in funding for cybersecurity. The agency's chief weapons tester last month told Congress that nearly every U.S. weapons programme showed "significant vulnerabilities" to cyber attacks, including misconfigured, unpatched and outdated software.
Increased funding for protection of government networks would be good news for big weapons makers like Lockheed Martin Corp, General Dynamics Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp and Raytheon, which already play a big role in cybersecurity, encryption and analysis for defences and intelligence agencies.
A range of medium-sized and smaller companies is also poised to benefit, including Science Applications International Corp, Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI International and Computer Sciences Corp.
In the private sector, where companies have grown increasingly concerned in the wake of attacks on retailers, banks and others, higher spending is likely to boost companies like Hewlett Packard, which offers cybersecurity services.
The White House's budget for most agencies referenced their cybersecurity efforts, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Personnel Management. Obama also asked for at least $28 million for the Agriculture Department's Chief Information Officer to improve the agency's cybersecurity and $15 million for the FBI's grants, training, and technical assistance programme that helps local law enforcement fight economic, high-technology and Internet crimes. | 2019-04-20T18:20:44Z | http://www.lapercygo.com/search/label/cybersecurity |
Dutch air crash investigators have announced they will release next Tuesday a preliminary report into what brought down flight MH17 over east Ukraine, killing 298 passengers.
“The preliminary report will present factual information based on sources available to the Dutch Safety Board (OVV),” investigators said in a statement on Thursday.
The highly-anticipated first report will be released on the OVV’s website at 10.00am (1800 AEST) on Tuesday, but there will be “no press conference”, it said.
“In the months to come further investigation is needed before the final report is written,” added the OVV, which earlier said it hoped to have a final report “within a year”.
The Netherlands is in charge of probing the crash of the Malaysia airlines Boeing 777, which exploded over strife-torn Ukraine on July 17, killing all on board, including 193 Dutch citizens and 38 Australian nationals and residents.
The West has blamed Russian-backed separatists for shooting down MH17, while Moscow blames Kiev.
Air crash investigators returned to The Hague from Ukraine in early August without being able to visit the crash site due to the deteriorating security situation in the country’s volatile east.
Ukrainian air crash experts – who now form part of the OVV team – did however visit the scene shortly after the crash.
The aircraft’s black boxes were shipped to Farnborough in Britain to be examined by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.
The search for body parts, however, has been suspended since early August because of heavy fighting between Kiev and pro-Moscow rebels in the area.
The OVV has already announced that its preliminary report will include not only the black box findings, but also information gathered from satellite and other images, and radar information.
In a question-and-answer section on its website, the OVV posed the question whether it would be publicly releasing the content from the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, which comprise the two black boxes.
The answer given by the board was: “Investigative materials and sources of information used by the OVV in its investigations are protected by law.
“Only information relevant to determining the cause of the MH17 crash will be included in the final report.
A senior executive working for a long-time Liberal donor referred to the Free Enterprise Foundation as a “diversionary” organisation, emails obtained by the NSW corruption watchdog reveal.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is investigating claims the foundation was used to disguise back-door donations to the NSW Liberal Party in the lead-up to the 2011 election.
Among the high-profile donors under investigation is Nathan Tinkler, who has told the inquiry he believed the foundation was synonymous with the federal Liberal party, not the NSW party.
Property developers have been banned from making political donations in NSW since 2009, but are free to donate at the federal level.
Robert Millner, the chairman of Brickworks, told the ICAC on Thursday that the firm was a long-time Liberal supporter and that in 2010 he was asked to direct donations via the foundation.
“They just asked could we give part of the donation to the Free Enterprise Foundation,” Mr Millner said.
Lindsay Partridge, the managing director of the publicly-listed company, said Brickworks regularly gave donations via the foundation because it was more “discreet” than handing money straight to the Liberal Party.
“It kept it out of the press’s eyes until after the official declaration was done, which was usually after the election,” Mr Partridge told the inquiry.
“Giving money to the Liberal Party was like giving a hot chip to a bunch of seagulls.
One email he sent on July 29, 2010 to senior NSW Liberal fundraiser Paul Nicolaou makes direct reference to a $50,000 donation for the state.
“Via the diversionary organization there is $50 for NSW, $250k in total,” Mr Partridge wrote to Mr Nicolaou, who was then running the NSW Liberal Party’s fundraising arm, the Millennium Forum.
He said it wasn’t till 2011 that he began asking his staff questions about NSW legislation restricting political donations “to see whether it affected us as such”.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has met for over two hours with Palestinian negotiators for “constructive” talks on future relations with Israel, a US official says.
The talks come just days after Israel announced its biggest grab of Palestinian land since the 1980s, and as a new showdown looms at the United Nations with the increasingly frustrated Palestinians planning to push a resolution setting a three-year deadline to end the Israeli occupation.
It was Kerry’s first face-to-face talks with Palestinian negotiators since the US found itself sidelined from the Gaza ceasefire talks in July, when the top US diplomat failed to broker a truce in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
“Kerry met with Saeb Erekat and Majid Faraj for about two hours this afternoon,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
“It was a constructive conversation that covered a range of issues, including Gaza, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and recent developments in the region,” she said, adding they had agreed to talk again in coming weeks.
Kerry had also spoken on Tuesday by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he expressed his concerns about new Israeli plans to confiscate about 400 hectares of land in the occupied West Bank for settlement building.
The US has called on Israel to reverse the decision.
State Department officials say the Palestinians had requested Wednesday’s meeting “to brief the secretary on current Palestinian plans on the way forward and next steps in Gaza”.
More than 2100 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, nearly 70 per cent of them civilians, which ended last week with an open-ended ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups, brokered by Egypt.
A Queensland woman who was bashed and robbed in a sleepy island town by young men she knew is still too scared to leave her house.
It’s been more than two years since Stradbroke Island couple Brian and Hetty Conlon’s post office and adjoining home were razed by fire and Mrs Conlon was kicked in the head during a violent robbery.
Five men charged over the July 21, 2012, incident at Dunwich appeared in the District Court in Brisbane on Thursday for sentencing.
The Conlons weren’t there because Mrs Conlon was still too traumatised by the cowardly attack, crown prosecutor Ron Swanwick told the court.
Her husband’s victim impact statement said the couple had put their business on the market because Mrs Conlon no longer felt safe in the town.
“She’s now constantly afraid of several young adolescent males that roam the streets of our township with no parental control,” he said in the statement read by Mr Swanwick.
The attack sent shock waves through the community and widened racial divides in Dunwich, home to a large indigenous community to which the offenders belong.
Tiege Lanczy Kalen Burns, 26, Tama Moearara Teoting Edwards, 25, Jacob Warren Martin, 20, Hunter Gabriel Murray-Costelloe, 19, and Bruce Issiah Walker, 20, must wait until Monday to learn their punishment after Judge Terence Martin reserved his judgment.
The court heard the gang was high on ice, cannabis and alcohol when they hatched the plot to set fire to a school in the early hours and lure Mr Conlon, a citizen firefighter, from his house.
With faces masked, Burns, Edwards, Murray-Costelloe and another man, Michael Coghill, broke into the home and forced the terrified Mrs Conlon, 45, to open the post office safe.
As the gang made off with about $23,000 in notes and coins, Murray-Costelloe kicked the slightly built, Indonesian-born woman hard in the side of her face and Burns used petrol to torch the house.
Mrs Conlon escaped, but suffered serious injuries to her face and eye from the attack, which Mr Swanwick said started out as “a nasty version of a Secret Seven adventure”, but ended as a “heavy duty crime”.
Coghill was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment last year.
Burns, Murray-Costelloe, Edwards and Walker have pleaded guilty to robbery and arson-related charges, while Murray-Costelloe has also pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm.
Martin has pleaded guilty to damaging evidence.
Their respective barristers told the court the men were sorry for their crime, with several submitting that substance addictions played a role.
Men who gorge on bacon, ham and sausages could be damaging their hearts and heading for an early grave, new research has shown.
A large study of more than 37,000 men found that processed meat significantly increases the risk of death from heart failure.
Those consuming the most – 75 grams per day or more – were twice as likely to die from heart failure than those who ate 25 grams or less.
Every extra 50 grams of processed meat, the equivalent of one or two slices of ham, increased heart failure risk by 8 per cent and the chances of dying from the condition by 38 per cent.
Last year, a study of half a million people from 10 European countries concluded that diets high in processed meat raised the risk of heart disease, cancer and early death.
Processed meat has also been linked to an increased risk of bowel cancer.
The new research conducted in Sweden is the first to distinguish between the effects of processed and unprocessed red (non-poultry) meat.
It found that while processed meat had a big impact on heart failure and death rates, the same was not true of unprocessed meat.
The authors defined processed meats as those preserved by smoking, curing, salting or adding preservatives.
Examples included cold cuts, such as ham or salami, sausages, bacon and hot dogs.
Study participants completed questionnaires asking about diet and other lifestyle factors and were monitored for almost 12 years.
“To reduce your risk of heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases, we suggest avoiding processed red meat in your diet, and limiting the amount of unprocessed red meat to one to two servings per week or less,” Polish lead scientist Dr Joana Kaluza, from the Department of Human Nutrition at Warsaw University of Life Sciences said.
The findings are reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Heart Failure.
Although the study only involved men, the researchers say the same trends are likely to be seen in women.
Heart failure, which often follows a heart attack, occurs when the heart becomes too weak to pump blood around the body efficiently.
Although not necessarily fatal, it can lead to death from fluid in the lungs or an irregular heart beat.
Men taking part in the study were aged 45 to 79 with no previous history of heart failure, heart disease or cancer.
Over the 12-year follow-up period, 2891 of the men were diagnosed with heart failure and 266 died from the condition.
Earlier this week, US researchers who studied 89,000 women aged 24 to 43 said that consuming a lot of red meat in early adult life may slightly increase the risk of breast cancer.
But experts urged caution over the report, in the British Medical Journal, because the link was weak.
Published online by The Los Angeles Times at 10.
25am Eastern Australian time, the piece spoke broadly on the discussions between the two leaders which took place during Mr Abbott’s visit to Washington this week.
Pointing to the recent 70th anniversary of the D-day landings at Normandy, Mr Abbott and President Obama highlighted ongoing collaborations between Australia and the US on issues of economics and security.
“Australia and the United States have consistently stood together, not just for our own security but for the well-being of people far beyond our borders,” they wrote.
The piece also detailed challenges facing both countries, including regional instability in Asia and potential conflict.
It stated that neither the United States nor Australia had a position on territorial disputes, but noted that they “both strongly oppose the use of intimidation, coercion or aggression to advance any country’s claims”.
“If we want to live in a prosperous region, international disputes must be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law,” they wrote.
The piece did not mention conflict in Iraq, despite the developments featuring in one hour discussion between the two leaders.
Mr Abbott told the Nine Network that he hadn’t ruled out Australian involvement in any military action.
“This is a serious situation,” he said.
Climate change was not mentioned, though in comments made to media separately, Mr Abbott said the matter had been discussed between the two leaders.
The prime minister said that despite a vastly different approach to the US on carbon emissions his government was treating the issue “with great seriousness”.
“It was raised and we had a very good discussion because Australia is taking very serious action on climate change,” Mr Abbott told Nine Network.
The comments come after a difference in opinion between the two leaders, with Mr Obama having described climate change as the most significant long-term challenge facing the planet.
Mr Abbott said earlier this week, ahead of talks with Mr Obama that while climate change was “a significant global issue”, he did not believe it was the most important issue facing the world.
The prime minister has been resisting a push by US officials to have climate change included on the agenda for the G20 leaders meeting in Brisbane in November.
The piece also pointed towards the upcoming G20 summit, which the leaders said would focus on boosting economic growth and creating jobs.
“The Brisbane summit in November will be an opportunity to put in place strong measures to strengthen infrastructure investment, promote energy efficiency, fight tax avoidance and evasion, and complete the financial regulatory reform agenda outlined by the G-20 (sic) in response to the global financial crisis,” they wrote.
“The challenges our nations face in the world today are numerous and complex. The partnerships we need among nations for common approaches to shared problems are not easily forged.
Described by Brazil’s government as “the Cup to end all Cups,” the tournament kicked off on Thursday to a backdrop of controversy and concern.
The world football organisation, FIFA, is facing corruption allegations over how Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup as well as match-fixing claims, fewer countries are keen to host big events and even some sponsors are starting to question the “halo effect” of associating with them.
Ever since the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, which set the gold standard, large sporting events have been increasingly used to drive infrastructure projects and try to regenerate cities.
Sports economists and sources inside FIFA say Brazil, the most expensive World Cup ever at an estimated cost of $11.3 billion, has shown both the limits and the risks of this model.
Although the nature of the bidding process means countries able to splurge on state-of-the-art stadiums will still attract support, there is a growing sense among the populations of cities and nations considering being hosts for major sporting events that bigger is not always better.
“I think we are at a turning point in the history of mega-events and I think the turning point will lead to a very much reduced ambition towards infrastructure connected with these events,” said Wolfgang Maennig, a professor at Hamburg University who specializes in sports economics.
For Maennig, who won Olympic gold at Seoul 1988 as a German rower, big sporting events have become so political and controversial they risk losing both corporate sponsors and countries willing to host them.
He points to the IOC’s difficulty in finding a country to hold the 2022 Winter Olympics. Germany’s Munich and Switzerland’s St. Moritz-Davos both withdrew planned bids when people in the two places voted ‘no’ in referendums, leaving the IOC scrambling for a suitable candidate.
In Brazil, which will also host the 2016 Olympics, protests and strikes have dominated the public mood since millions took to the streets during a World Cup warm-up last June to bemoan poor public services.
“The positive to be taken out of Brazil is that we have learnt from it and will do things differently next time,” one FIFA source said. The source added that FIFA should have insisted that Brazil cut the number of host cities from 12, which would have reduced the number of potential problems with unfinished infrastructure, and made good on the threat to move games if venues weren’t quite ready for prime time.
Football’s European body UEFA has already got the message – reducing the burden on any one country for its European Championship, with the 2020 tournament to be played in 13 cities across Europe.
For sponsors the equation may be changing too, as negative headlines have swelled from the usual trickle to a flood.
Sponsors took the rare decision to speak out on the corruption probe into Qatar’s bid, with Adidas saying the negative debate around FIFA “is neither good for football nor for FIFA and its partners.” Coca-Cola was similarly outspoken.
“The minute football moves from the sports pages to the political pages I think sponsors have to get concerned because their message is getting crowded,” said David Carter, director of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California.
Carter said the price FIFA commands from sponsors was at risk of going down if they saw less benefit from being directly connected with FIFA and the World Cup. Still, that is unlikely to happen anytime soon given that sponsorship deals are usually organized over many tournaments – Adidas for example has signed up as a FIFA sponsor until 2030.
And the mega-events remain very healthy on some levels. For example, the prices for television rights have continued to rise with little sign of abating.
Brazil may have exploded with street parties as its team won the opening game on Thursday but scattered violent protests were a reminder that many locals remain angry over the cost of the tournament.
One source working at a leading World Cup sponsor said the firm had been forced to change its marketing strategy in response to public negativity surrounding this year’s event.
However, Andrew Sneyd, an executive at World Cup sponsor Budweiser responsible for marketing, was more upbeat on Brazil, saying it was Budweiser’s largest campaign to date and no adjustments had been made in response to local opposition.
Changing the way these events are structured is not easy.
In countries other than the most advanced football economies like Britain or Germany, stadiums have to be built and infrastructure improved to put on events like the World Cup.
The challenge is how to make them less ambitious and less controversial without excluding developing nations who almost always need to invest heavily to get venues up to standard.
A different FIFA source said there was a growing awareness of the social and economic responsibility that came with putting on the World Cup but that the bidding process remained one of faith – you have to trust the country chosen will deliver on its promises.
Still, the tide seems to be turning because of growing popular resistance to huge spending on sporting events.
For Maennig the answer lies in bids that are more collaborative with the local population.
“I am pushing my home city Berlin to have a completely different Olympic bid (for 2024) by asking residents to participate in an Olympic concept they would be in favour of,” he said. | 2019-04-21T18:48:20Z | http://www.uggsclearance4us.com/2019/01/ |
2004-05-12 Assigned to DELPHI TECHNOLOGIES INC. reassignment DELPHI TECHNOLOGIES INC. ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: CAPPS, CHARLES P., JOHNSON, BRIAN W., GLOUDEMANS, JEFFREY M., LANE, JOHN A.
Passive balanced probes are disclosed for use with a signal analysis device. The probes are very low cost relative to typical commercially available probes and provide an extremely flat response over a frequency range of approximately 0 to at least 1.5 gigahertz. The probes include a probe body constructed primarily from conventional components, a first surface mount resistor electrically connected between a probe tip and a center conductor, and two surface mount resistors electrically connected and parallel between the center conductor and a conductive shield. The probes further include a coaxial cable for connection to an instrument combiner or other instrument connection device.
The present invention generally relates to high frequency measurement equipment, and, more particularly, the invention relates to wideband differential voltage probes.
Oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, and other signal analysis devices are generally used to measure a voltage signal between two points with one of the points often being referenced to earth ground. However, in many cases it is advantageous to measure the voltage between two points in a circuit with neither of the points being the ground to which the signal analysis device is referenced.
If the ground of the signal analysis device is connected to the ground of the circuit under test, a ground loop may result. The ground loop may act as a secondary transformer winding, thus producing a magnetic field and creating a signal in nearby conductors, such as the probe used to connect the signal analysis device with the circuit under test. Additionally, current and impedance within the ground loop may produce a signal component in the signal analysis device measurement.
Floating the ground of either the circuit under test or the signal analysis device may open the ground loop; however, floating the ground may result in an electrical shock hazard as one of the devices no longer has a connection to ground through which an electrical short could be carried. Additionally, even with a floating ground, high frequency signals may still act as if they were coupled to ground by creating a ground loop with stray capacitance relative to earth ground, for example, capacitance introduced by the operator's hand holding a probe.
Another problem with probes, including high impedance FET probes, relates to input impedance. While some conventional passive probes utilize a high input impedance, for example 10 megohms in parallel with 10 picofarads, such probes are not high impedance at higher frequencies and generally have significant measurement error at higher frequencies because of the resonance generated between the probe's input capacitance and the inductance of a ground lead. This resonance results in a significant reduction in input impedance near the resonant frequency and often introduces ringing on the measurement waveform.
A typical method of overcoming the above problems while measuring the voltage between two circuit nodes is to replace the conventional probe with a passive, predominantly resistive, balanced differential probe pair. A typical commercially available balanced probe pair includes a pair of coaxial cables having a probe end and an output end. The output end of the coaxial cables are generally fed to a 180° combiner in order to provide a differential input into a single oscilloscope channel or spectrum analyzer. However, parasitic capacitances and inductances are critical to probe performance, and typical commercially available balanced probe pairs and lower capacitance FET probes are very expensive, costing between $250.00 to over $2,400.00.
The lower-cost commercially available probes tend to have a limited useful frequency range because of parasitic electrical characteristics. The more expensive probes having improved wideband response are cost prohibitive for many applications.
The present invention provides passive balanced probes for use with a signal analysis device, for example an oscilloscope or spectrum analyzer. The inventive probes are very low cost relative to typical commercially available probes and provide an extremely flat response over a frequency range of approximately 0 to at least 1.5 gigahertz. The probes include a probe body constructed primarily from conventional radio-frequency (“RF”) connector components, and a termination resistive input network, including a first surface mount device (“SMD” or “surface mount”) resistor electrically connected between a probe tip and a center conductor, and one or more SMD resistors electrically connected in parallel between the center conductor and a conductive shield end closest to the probe tip. The probes further include coaxial cables for connection to a signal analysis device. For use with signal analysis devices having a single input, such as a spectrum analyzer, the coaxial cables may be connected to a broadband 180° RF combiner.
Each probe in a balanced probe pair includes matched impedance components and is coupled with a matched impedance coaxial cable, for example standard 50 ohm components and coaxial cable; however, other impedance values may alternatively be used, for example, 75 ohms. Additionally, other types of coaxial structures may be substituted for the RF connectors. The outer conductive shields of the coaxial cables are electrically joined along the cable length in order to reduce parasitic inductance. The cables may include a commercially available matched impedance adapter at an end opposite the probes, in order to couple the balanced probe pair to a signal analysis device input or combiner. Use of matched impedance components and component interfaces throughout minimizes standing waves and thus measurement error.
The probe body may also include an outer conductive probe body and a distal probe tip housing supporting a conductive probe tip which protrudes from the probe housing. The probe tip housing may be a non-conductive sleeve housing a center conductor which is electrically coupled through the first SMD resistor to the coaxial cable center conductor. The outer conductive probe body electrically couples the outer shield of the various probe body components to keep impedance low, mechanically stabilizes the probe body, and increases the outer diameter of the probe body in order to minimize stray capacitance introduced by holding the probe. The probe body construction facilitates placement of the termination resistive input network at the very end of the controlled impedance coaxial portion of the probe.
The use of SMD resistors and the location of the SMD resistors minimizes parasitic inductance and capacitance, thereby providing enhanced performance over a wide bandwidth. Specifically, using surface mount components that are soldered to the probe tip and/or center conductor and outer conductor or shield, avoids component leads that typically introduce additional parasitic inductance and capacitance.
Additionally, the use of commercially available connectors, for example coaxial BNC connectors, and other adapters to construct the probe and cable apparatus minimizes the cost of producing an impedance matched and balanced probe pair with a desirable signal-to-noise ratio (“SNR”) while not sacrificing the desired performance across a wide frequency range.
A first exemplary embodiment provides a passive test probe apparatus for use with a signal analysis device, including a conductive probe body, a conductive probe tip supported by and protruding from the probe body, a center conductor supported by and substantially electrically insulated from the probe body, and a first surface mount resistor electrically connected between the probe tip and the center conductor.
Another exemplary embodiment provides a balanced test probe apparatus, including a first probe body having a first surface mount resistor electrically connected between a first probe tip and a first center conductor, a first coaxial cable electrically connected to the first probe at a first end, a second probe having a second surface mount resistor connected between a second probe tip and a second center conductor, and a second coaxial cable of substantially equal length with the first coaxial cable, the second coaxial cable electrically connected to the second probe at a second end, the second surface mount resistor having a resistance value equal to the first surface mount resistor.
Yet another exemplary embodiment provides a passive test probe apparatus for use with a signal analysis device, including a probe body, a conductive probe tip supported by and axially protruding from the probe body, a center conductor supported by the probe body, a first surface mount resistor electrically connected between the probe tip and the center conductor, an outer conductive shield coupled to the probe body, the outer shield insulated from the probe tip and the center conductor, and a second and a third surface mount resistor electrically connected in parallel between the center conductor and a distal end of the conductive shield.
Advantageously, the present invention provides a low-cost ultra-broadband probe having an extremely flat response characteristic over a frequency range of approximately 0 to at least 1.5 gigahertz. The probe may be constructed of commercially available components selected and assembled to minimize parasitic inductance and capacitance and to maximize the amount of power carried from the point of measurement to the signal analysis instrument.
FIG. 4D is a graphic illustration of the 10 MHz to 3 GHz frequency response of a balanced probe pair according to the present invention.
Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views. Although the drawings represent an embodiment of the present invention, the drawings are not necessarily to scale and certain features may be exaggerated in order to better illustrate and explain the present invention. The exemplifications set out herein illustrate an embodiment of the invention and such exemplifications are not to be construed as limiting the scope of the invention in any manner.
The embodiment disclosed below is not intended to be exhaustive or limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed in the following detailed description. Rather, the embodiment is chosen and described so that others skilled in the art may utilize its teachings.
Referring to FIG. 3, balanced probe pair assembly 10 includes probes 12, coaxial cables 14, and may include ground lead 16. Assembly 10 may be coupled to input channel connector 22 of signal analysis device 18 using, for example, combiner 20. Referring to FIG. 2A, each probe 12 includes probe body 24, probe end 25, body sleeve 13, and base connector 15.
Referring to FIG. 1, each probe end 25 includes a probe tip sleeve 26, a coupling probe end connector 50 and a probe tip 27. Probe tip 27 includes an elongate tip 28, a threaded sleeve 29, a distal tip thread 30, and a proximate tip thread 31. Threaded sleeve 29 engages a distal tip thread 30 and proximate tip thread 31 engages a distal sleeve thread 32 of probe tip sleeve 26. Probe tip 27 is constructed of a highly conductive material, for example, nickel-plated brass, and probe tip sleeve 26 is constructed of a nonconductive material, for example, ABS plastic. Probe tip 27 is electrically connected to a center conductor 34 through a wire 36 and a first surface mount resistor 40, for example, by soldering. Wire 36 may be, for example, 30 gauge copper wire. Probe tip 27 and center conductor 34 are generally electrically isolated from an outer conductor shield 38 which circumscribes center conductor 34; however, the termination resistive input network is electrically connected between center conductor 34 and outer conductor shield 38.
The resistive input network includes first surface mount resistor 40, for example a 475 ohm surface mount resistor, which is electrically coupled in series between conductive probe tip 27 and center conductor 34 of probe end connector 50. Additionally, one or more SMD resistors may be electrically connected between center conductor 34 and outer conductive shield 38 of probe end connector 50. For example, two 100 ohm resistors, first and second surface mount resistors 42 and 44, may be electrically coupled in parallel between center conductor 34 and the outer conductive probe body, which includes outer conductive shield 38, providing appropriate termination for 50 ohm matched impedance components. The combination of the 475 ohm first surface mount resistor 40 with the two 100 ohm first and second surface mount resistors 42 and 44 provides a probe attenuation factor of approximately 20×; however, other factors may be achieved with values other than 475 ohms. Additionally, other resistor values may be used for first and second surface mount resistors 42 and 44 to provide a matched impedance value other than 50 ohms.
The electrical connections between surface mount resistors 40, 42 and 44 and probe tip 27 and conductor 34 and shield 38 may be, for example, a soldered connection 41. Additionally, resistors 40, 42 and 44 may also be glued, for example epoxyed, in place within outer conductor shield 38 of probe end connector 50. Depending on fit, resistors 42 and 44 may also be canted at an angle between center conductor 34 and shield 38. Advantageously, using surface mount resistors for providing input termination at the distal termination of coaxial shielding in a balanced electrical probe pair minimizes parasitic inductance and capacitance, thereby improving response characteristics over a wide frequency range.
The exemplary probe end 25 includes male BNC connector 58 and oppositely located probe end connector 50 having female SMA adapter 56 forming a portion of outer conductor shield 38 and center conductor 34. Center conductor 34 in the exemplary embodiment is a hollow cylindrical pin. Insulator 37 may be located between center conductor 34 and outer conductor shield 38. In the exemplary embodiment, resistors 42 and 44 rest against insulator 37. Probe end connector 50 may be, for example, Part No. 16N2740, manufactured by SPC Technology of Chicago, Ill. Probe tip sleeve 26 and probe tip 27 may be, for example, Part No. 35N776, manufactured by SPC Technology, Inc.
Assembly of probe tip 27 and probe end connector 50 is facilitated by a non-conductive structure, probe tip sleeve 26. Sleeve 26 is secured internally at opposite ends with proximate sleeve thread 33 engaging female SMA adaptor 56 and distal sleeve thread 32 engaging proximate tip thread 31. Alternatively, a different or additional fastening structure may be used, for example, epoxy. Wire 36 transits the hollow interior of sleeve 26 and couples resistor 40 and probe tip 27.
Referring to FIG. 2B, each probe 12 may include a plurality of commercially available connectors and adapters that each form a portion of probe body 24, are impedance matched, and conduct and shield the electrical signal received at elongate tip 28. Specifically, probe body 24 may include coaxial BNC type connectors 50, 52 and 54 for coupling probe end 25 with base connector 15. Connectors 50, 52 and 54 may be constructed primarily of a conductive material such as nickel-plated brass and are impedance matched, for example, 50 ohms.
BNC connector 52 may include female BNC adapter 60 and 62 at opposite ends, for example, Part No. 20C3275, manufactured by SPC Technology. Female adapter 60 of BNC connector 52 may be coupled with male adapter 58 of BNC connector 50. BNC connector 54 may include male BNC adapters 64 and 66 at opposite ends, for example, Part No. 20C3274, manufactured by SPC Technology. Male adapter 64 of BNC connector 54 may be coupled with female adapter 62 of BNC connector 52.
Finally, base connector 15 may be, for example, an RF bulkhead adapter, such as Part No. 93F1409, available from Amphenol, of Wallingford, Conn. Exemplary base connector 15 includes female BNC adapters 68 and 70 at opposite ends. Female adapter 68 of base connector 15 may be coupled to male adapter 66 of BNC connector 54. Alternatively, types of low cost impedance matched components that minimize parasitic capacitance and inductance may be substituted for connectors 15, 50, 52, and 54.
Probe 12 may also include body sleeve 13, for example, a 3 1/4-inch long and ½ ID metal pipe such as copper which, as shown in FIG. 2A, may be securely received over connectors 15, 50, 52 and 54. Body sleeve 13 provides an outer conductive shield as well as structural rigidity and a smooth cylindrical shape for probe body 24. The increased diameter of probe body 24 formed by sleeve 13 minimizes parasitic capacitance introduced by a user's hand holding probe 12. Probe body 24 may also be insulated, for example by nonconductive heat shrink or another suitable material or coating.
Referring to FIG. 3, coaxial cables 14, for example Part No. RG-223, available from Alpha Wire of Elizabeth, N.J., may be used to couple probes 12 to combiner 20, or to an input port of measurement device 18. Cables 14 may include male BNC adapter 72 for coupling to female BNC adapter 70 of probe 12 and female BNC adapter 73 of combiner 20 or input channel connector 22. Alternatively, other suitable connectors may be used at opposite ends. It is very important that probes 12 and cables 14 be virtually the same materials and dimensions in order to provide proper electrical balancing of the electrical characteristics of probe pair assembly 10. Variations between probes 12 or cables 14 may cause phase errors, signal amplitude errors, and other electrical errors in the measured signal. Between opposite ends of cables 14, the insulative coating around the outside coaxial sheath of cables 14 may be stripped away and the exposed outer shielding conductor can be electrically coupled at adjacent locations, for example, at junctions 75, periodically along the cable length, for example every 3 inches. The central but substantial portion of cables 14 may then be insulated with shrink-wrap 74, or another suitable insulating material, for insulating solder junctions 75 therealong.
The balanced probe pair assembly may be coupled to combiner 20 or another suitable input device of signal analysis device 18. As shown in FIG. 3, combiner 20 is coupled with input channel connector 22, thereby providing a differential input of the circuit nodes probed by probes 12 of balanced probe pair assembly 10. Although ground connector 16 may be included with probe pair assembly 10, ground connector 16 would generally only be utilized for single probe measurements, very high common-mode voltage measurements, for example, electrostatic discharge testing, or other similarly indicated measurement circumstances.
Referring to FIG. 4A, a typical frequency response for a commercially available balanced probe pair is shown for the purposes of comparison with FIG. 4B, which under the same test conditions and illustrative chart display shows the much flatter response of the lower-cost inventive balanced probe pair assembly 10. The frequency range for FIGS. 4A and 4B is 10 MHz to 500 MHz and the attenuation setting is 10 dB. FIGS. 4C and 4D also demonstrate the performance of probe pair assembly 10. FIG. 4C illustrates 10 MHz to 2 GHz for 30 dB and FIG. 4D illustrates 10 MHz to 3 GHz for 30 dB. FIGS. 4B–4D illustrate that probe pair assembly 10 has a flatter response characteristic up to at least 1.5 GHz than prior art probes.
Although described in the exemplary embodiments, it will be understood that various modifications may be made to the subject matter without departing from the intended and proper scope of the invention. Accordingly, it will be understood that other embodiments may fall within the scope of this invention, which is defined by the appended claims.
at least one second surface mount resistor electrically connected between said center conductor and said probe body adjacent a distal end of said probe body, said at least one second surface mount resistor being soldered to an outer surface of said hollow cylindrical center conductor.
2. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 1, wherein said first surface mount resistor is approximately 475 ohms.
3. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 1, wherein said first surface mount resistor and said at least one second surface mount resistor are directly connected to said center conductor.
4. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 3, wherein said first surface mount resistor and said at least one second surface mount resistor are glued to said probe body.
5. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 4, wherein said outer conductive shield is insulated from said center conductor by an insulator, said at least one second surface mount resistor resting against said insulator.
6. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 1, wherein said conductive probe body and said center conductor include a coaxial connector having an inner conductor and an outer conductor, said inner conductor forming said center conductor and said outer conductor forming said outer conductive shield.
7. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 6, further comprising a probe tip housing having a substantially cylindrical nonconductive sleeve coupling said probe body to said probe tip.
8. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 7, further comprising a conductive wire within said probe tip housing, said wire coupling said probe tip and said first surface mount resistor.
9. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 6, wherein said conductive shield includes a metal tube located coaxially around said at least one coaxial connector.
10. The passive test probe of claim 6, wherein said at least one second surface mount resistor forms an impedance match resistive termination for said coaxial connector.
said second probe including at least one fourth surface mount resistor electrically connected between said second center conductor and a distal end of said second outer shield.
12. The balance test probe apparatus of claim 11, wherein said at least one third and at least one fourth surface mount resistor each has a total resistance providing impedance match resistive termination for said first and second coaxial cables.
a second outside conductive shield coaxially coupled around said second probe body, said second outside shield insulated from said second probe tip and said second center conductor.
14. The balanced test probe apparatus of claim 11, wherein said first and second probes each include a plurality of coaxial connectors' impedance matched with said first and second coaxial cables.
second and a third surface mount resistors electrically connected in parallel between said center conductor and a distal end of said outer conductive shield.
16. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 15, further comprising a coaxial cable having an inner conductor and an outer conductor, said inner conductor electrically connected to said center conductor and said outer conductor electrically connected to said outer conductive shield.
17. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 16, wherein said probe body comprises a probe tip housing having a substantially cylindrical nonconductive sleeve supporting said probe tip.
18. The passive test probe apparatus of claim 15, wherein said probe body and said center conductor comprise a plurality of impedance matched coaxial adapters.
two 100 ohm second surface mount resistors electrically connected in parallel between said center conductor and said probe body adjacent a distal end of said probe body.
Fischer Custom Communications, Inc.; High Performance Differential Voltage Probe. Retrieved from www.fischercc.com.
Sekel, Steve, Differential Oscilloscope Measurements A Primer on Differential Measurements, Types of Amplifiers, Applications, and Avoiding Common Errors, Tektronix, In., 1996, pp. 1-16, Textronix Publications, USA.
Smith, Douglas C., Balanced Prode Extends High-Frequency Measurements, IEEE Circuites & Devices, The Magazine of Electronic and Photonic Systems, Nov. 1994, pp. 19-21, vol. 10, No. 6, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Los Gatos, CA, USA. | 2019-04-23T13:11:02Z | https://patents.google.com/patent/US7015709B2/en |
Wholesale Marble tile related answers to the common questions that our customers ask about wholesale marble pricing, natural stones, designs, stone care and shipping.
There are various types of stones that are used for flooring and decorative purposes. The most well known ones are marble, granite, travertine, limestone, and slate. We wholesale marble tile and stone.
Mountains are the largest source of natural stone. Rriverbeds and sea are also the sources of natural stone.
What are the shinny flakes inside the stone?
Each type of natural stone has unique characteristics that make them harder, softer or shinier. Depending on your application, there are some design preferences of some type over another. For example, limestone tiles are not suitable for high traffic areas but will be perfect for wall applications.
StoneTileDepot.com only carries stone tiles and decorative natural stone products, which are suitable for interior or exterior floors and walls.
Are some countrie’s stones better than others?
There is a general misconception that some countries produces better stones than other. Natural stones come from the nature itself; they are raw materials for tiles and slabs industry. The manufacturing processes will bring out the beauty of the natural stone. StoneTileDepot.com manufacturers have state of the art manufacturing facilities capable of producing high quality natural stone products.
Finishing stone is similar to sanding process: smaller grit and longer sanding gives stone more shinny polished look, whereas less will make it look more natural. Finish is a design preference. Usually polished surfaces are used where a modern look is sought. They require more delicate care and handling compared to antiqued or tumbled surfaces which have a natural patina and will take a better wear and tear over time.
Straight cut or SC: Tiles are sawn and has a sharp edge. Preferred by customer in Southeast and Southwest for seamless floors without any grout joints.
Exotic stones come from very remote parts of the world; they require extra care in production and handling. Due to the weather conditions, seasonal limitations, transportation restrictions, those stones are available in small quantities, therefore they are exotic.
Do you know a plastic surface that looks fascinating after couple of years? Natural stone is natural and creates a unique atmosphere everywhere it is used. They will not let go of their beauty even after thousands years. Man-made stones are esthetically repetitive and have artificial look. They can wear easily over time and will quickly loose their appeal. In addition natural stones might not need constant maintenance: Take a look at the Lincoln Memorial, or The Pyramids they still look good after all these years, don’t they?
Commonly used tiles are 4×4 to 24×24. The tile size is also a design preference however, larger the area you want to cover you might consider using larger dimensions. Most of the interior stone tiles are 12X12 or 18X18, standard thickness is 3/8” on 12X12 and ½” on 18X18.
We do not recommend tiles thicker than ½ “ unless you have a concrete floor and have a cement mud installation. Please consult your installer for more information.
What is the temperature of the stone? What are my options on heating floors?
In general natural stone retains heat and cold. It is cooler than room temperature. If you prefer heated floors, please consult your installer for your options.
Not exactly. The price of natural stone depends on the capacity of its quarry and its production volume. The higher the production, the less expensive the price is. On the other hand, some of the World’s best stones like carrara or travertines are less expensive due to their enormous reserves.
Is it better to get a lighter color than darker color?
Why would I want to use a porous travertine?
Travertine is a wonderful natural material that gives warm, old world look at affordable prices. Also it is easy to maintain. If you don’t like holes, you can have your tiles grouted by your installer.
As a type of limestone, marble is made up of thousands of tiny grains deposited over the centuries into the stone. For this reason, different marbles mined in areas all over the world will have different densities. Some types of marbles that are exceptionally dense create a natural sealant that does not allow them to stain, while less dense marbles are more porous and susceptible to staining. Even if your marble does not stain, a spill left on its surface for a long time will etch into the stone, which is why sealing marble tiles is always recommended.
Granite is a remarkably dense and strong stone, and therefore, it is naturally resistant to stains. Liquids that are spilled on its surface do not penetrate the stone if cleaned up within a few minutes. Water-based stains that are left on its surface also leave no lasting effect, though homeowners may notice a slight discoloration where the stone has temporarily absorbed the water. Do not panic, this is perfectly normal and once the water evaporates the stone’s color will return to normal. However, non-water based stains, like cooking oil, will eventually be absorbed by the granite if left on its surface. If this happens, apply a paste solution over the stain that will draw the oil out of the stone.
Like marble, travertine is also a type of limestone. By its nature, travertine is highly porous and not as dense as other stones, which means that it can be stained easily. Even slightly acidic liquids like fruit juices and soft drinks can stain and etch travertine tiles within a few minutes. For this reason, it is recommended that travertine tiles always be sealed to prevent staining and that they should not be installed as kitchen countertops, though they can be used as kitchen floors.
Limestone refers to natural stones that have been fashioned together, grain by grain, over thousands of years. While some limestone rocks, like certain marbles, are dense enough to resist staining, most are so porous that they easily absorb liquids. A prime concern for limestone stains are acidic solvents like lemon juice, which can also etch the underlying stone in a matter of minutes. Because it can be so easily stained, it is highly recommended that limestone tiles be sealed to prevent them from being ruined. Most experts also recommend against using limestone in a kitchen because of its strong reaction to acids.
Onyx is a crystallized stone banded with silica quartz minerals. It is a highly delicate stone, and even scratches against its surface will cause parts to flake off. Like limestone, onyx is a naturally porous stone that easily absorbs liquids. While a water stain will eventually evaporate if left on its own, other stains will damage and discolor the underlying stone. Therefore, it is highly advisable that onyx stones be sealed to protect their natural beauty against stains and scratches. They should also not be used in high traffic areas and any spills need to be immediately cleaned.
Slate is a very dense metamorphic rock. Because it is not terribly porous, it cannot be easily stained. However, despite its density, slate tends to be soft and therefore is susceptible to liquid stains, particularly oil-based ones, but even water can soak into the stone and do damage. Therefore, it is recommended that slate be sealed with a non-glossy sealant that does not rob the stone of its natural beauty. If materials are spilled on slate, they should be cleaned up immediately to prevent any damage.
Marble is one of the least porous types of limestone, but its surface is soft. It can easily be scratched or chipped, especially by metal knives and pots. It also etches easily, which means that any acidic-based material will eat into the stone and create small scratches. Common kitchen items like lemon juice, soda cans, and coffee cups can easily etch a marble countertop. While tumbled or antiqued marble holds up better against scratches, expert do not recommend using polished marble for kitchen counters unless you are willing to live with some scratches on its surface.
Granite rocks are known for their strength. Not only is this stone incredibly dense, it is also unbelievably hard. In fact, the only thing that can scratch granite is either another piece of granite or a diamond. For this reason, granite is an excellent choice for high traffic areas and kitchen countertops. Even knife blades that slip while cutting will not damage the granite counter, though it may chip your knife.
Travertine has some of the same issues as marble does when it comes to scratching. As a type of highly porous limestone, travertine is extremely soft when it comes to durability. It is primarily made of calcite, which only has a 3 rating on the Mohs scale of hardness. This means that a knife blade, which has a rating of 5.5, could easily cut into the stone. Another source of scratching on travertine comes from etching, where the stone is exposed to acidic content. Many common kitchen products are slightly acidic, and if they are spilled on the stone they will quickly eat away at its surface. For this reason, travertine is not recommended for kitchen countertops.
Limestone is a soft and porous stone, which means that its surface can be easily scratched. Since it too is primarily made from calcite, it is at a 3 on the Mohs scale of hardness. Again, this creates problems in the kitchen, since cutting utensils are rated quite higher and a single slip of the knife can lead to scratches. Like both marble and travertine, limestone is weak against acidic liquids. Any spills left on its surface that contain slight amounts of acid, like fruit juice, can quickly eat into the stone, creating additional scratching. Therefore, this stone is not recommended for kitchen countertops, though it can be used for kitchen floors.
Onyx is made out of bands of chalcedony, a silica-based mineral. While the chalcedony in onyx is rated at either a 6 or a 7 on the Moh’s hardness scale, the rest of the stone is considerably softer. This means that onyx can easily be scratched, causing it to flake and ruin the overall appearance of the natural stone. Do not use onyx tiles in high traffic areas like kitchen counters.
Slate is a particularly dense stone, but at the same time it also has a soft, uneven surface. This means that it can be scratched easily by commonplace things like the dog’s nails and metallic toys. However, because it is so dense it is not susceptible to acids, which means that etching is not a concern. While it would not work as a countertop, slate is durable enough to be used for kitchen flooring.
Generally, it is better to use lighter color stones where you don’t have a lot of natural light exposure.
Why do I want to use natural stone on the wall? Can I use slabs for my wall?
Stone tiles can also be used for bathrooms, showers, and backsplashes where your walls are exposed to a lot of wet and slippery elements. It is also easy to clean and repent water.
Yes, you can. However, it is recommended that you use materials from the same parts of the world to keep some similar characteristics. You can still use different colors.
Decorative natural stones are mostly used to accentuate your tiles, floor and walls.
What is the purpose of using a base moulding?
Stone mouldings are used to enhance your floors and give a custom stone look. It will also provide a deep 3D feel to your room.
Is a polished stone good to use in a bathroom floor or foyer?
Yes, almost every five star hotel uses polished marble in their bathrooms and showers.
Can I do my countertop using tiles or other natural stone products?
Yes, you can use our tiles and mouldings to get a natural stone countertop. With minimal grout joints, it will be like natural stone countertop at the quarter price of solid countertop.
Will my stone stain? What type of stones are resistant to stain?
We recommend sealing all natural stone with a good sealer like Miracle Sealants. Once sealed, all stone will be stain resistant. Please see your sealers instructions for recommended sealing procedures.
Different sealers have different degrees of changing the stone color. However, sealing the stone will give a slight wet and cleaner look to it. There are sealers without color enhancers and it will almost retain the original look of the stone.
You can check out the Marble Institute of America for stone care information.
How can you offer lower prices?
At StoneTileDepot.com, we can offer very competitive prices on wholesale marble tile primarily because we buy directly from selected manufacturers and secondly we sell directly to you on the Internet. Our only showroom is our website and we update our product catalogue almost every day. On the other hand, we have arranged some pick-up locations with warehouses around the country to carry our inventory. As you can see; we 1.continuosly look into reducing our operational cost and in return, your cost of buying quality natural stone products in this market.
Our current wholesale marble tile pick-up locations are in Carlstadt (New Jersey), Miami (Florida), Fullerton (California) and Dulles (Virginia). You need to schedule a pick up time with our representatives to make sure that your merchandise is ready at the pick up location.
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By 2022 the U.S. is projected to need 1.4 million new programmers, but at the current rate only 400,000 IT grads will emerge to fill them. How America tackles this disparity will help determine its ongoing global competitiveness and the economic success of all Americans. Codecademy has developed innovative training tools, and the White House is turning to this issue with great urgency.
Kirkpatrick: We’ve heard a lot, sort of underlying a huge number of the conversations today about the challenge of getting citizens ready to participate in this economy, and particularly understanding coding and technology and really being prepared in a thousand ways—but this idea of education, and education for the jobs that are going to exist, is really, really urgent. We also had an extraordinary session after lunch in here in expanding the diversity in technology itself and in the industry, and thinking more broadly about inclusion—and actually, a lot of that discussion applies to any industry. Brian was on that session.
And let me just introduce the two guys that are up here with me. Brian Forde is—this White House had a CTO for the first time, right? That was the first time there was ever a CTO of the United States, and now we have people in the White House who have titles like Special Advisor to the CTO for Mobile and Social Innovation, which is his title, although it doesn’t begin to describe all the things he does. But that, to me, is very promising, that we’ve gotten to that level of understanding, at least at the executive branch. And so Brian works in the White House on this tech stuff, and I’m going to ask him to describe specifically how you’re thinking about training, as soon as we get into the discussion.
Zach Sims is one of the great entrepreneurs of New York right now, a very young CEO of Codecademy, which is a company that does online tools for learning about coding and programming and technology. He dropped out of Columbia to start that company, what—about three, four years ago? Three years ago. So he’s gone a long way since then, and actually it’s a Union Square Ventures portfolio company, which is Albert Wenger’s company.
So, Brian, start out by telling me what is it that you are most concerned about when it comes to this issue of training the future citizens and workers of the country?
Forde: Sure, so one of the big issues that we’ve seen is, there’s a widely-cited statistic that says there’s 1.4 million IT opportunities or jobs that are going to be created by 2020; we’re only going to have 400,000 computer science graduates who are going to be able to fill those, so what do we do to fill the other 1 million job opportunities that are going to be created? And so, one of the exciting things that we’ve seen from Zach’s platform, Codecademy, and all of the coding boot camps that are popping up, and all of the other accelerated learning programs—not only in coding, but in network and sys admin, cyber security, and even tech support has lucrative opportunities as well—is that you can be upskilled between three months to two years, and you don’t need a STEM undergraduate degree to get a STEM-type job. And that’s a really important distinction for us, because if you look at us competitively as a country, compared to other countries, you’ve got across the world 21% of folks across Asia are graduating with engineering degrees, 12% in Europe, and only 4.5% in America.
Kirkpatrick: 21% of college graduates in Asia are coming out with engineering degrees?
Forde: Yeah, compared to 4% here.
Kirkpatrick: Oh, that is a bracing statistic.
Forde: Right. And if you look at, historically, 30 years ago, U.S., Japan, and China each had about 70,000 engineers coming out. I think most recently the U.S. was down to 60K, and China was up to 600K.
Kirkpatrick: 600,000 engineers per year being graduated in China. That’s 10X what we’re producing?
Kirkpatrick: That’s a positive way to put it. An opportunity to become competitive.
Kirkpatrick: I would say there is a risk of serious falling behind, if we’re not already behind. Luckily we have a pretty creative tech community here. But I mean, for you, when you look at it in the White House, and when the President looks at it, and Megan Smith, the new CTO, is the view that basically we are essentially training—we need to think about preparing the next generation of Americans to think differently about tech, or is it simply we need a bunch more coders?
Forde: Well, I would say what does the knowledge of coding and other skills unlock the ability to do, right? It unlocks your ability to be more creative. It unlocks your ability to jobs that allow more flexibility. You know, Megan has a line where she says, “Why don’t we call it the Department of Labor and Talent?” Right? How do we create new sets of talent, that can access all the jobs that we access, where we’re super-passionate and allow us to really apply our creativity? Because that’s what coding really allows you to do—be more creative. It doesn’t box you in to one standard solution, it allows you to invent the solution.
Kirkpatrick: Okay. A lot of things to drill down on, as we go forward.
Zach, you know, so quickly talk about what Codecademy has done so far, where you’re doing it, and where you want to take it.
Sims: So when we started Codecademy three years ago, I think we had two contrarian theses that have actually proven to be true in the three years since we’ve started the company. The first was that programming was not just for programmers, so this was before Mark Andreessen had written his essay, “Software Is Eating the World,” we theorized, you know, not just—a programming skill set wouldn’t be relevant only for programmers; it would be relevant for anyone and everyone. And I think that’s proven itself out, not just in the BLS numbers that Brian cited, but also if you look at every industry now, entry-level jobs in ad sales in some industries require a basic understanding of the programmatic ads that are being sold by those same people. Journalism is being changed by it, technology, as well. So we’re seeing every industry be changed by technology.
And the second was that, as a corollary to the first, that schools across the world would realize this change and they would change their curriculums to start teaching people 21st century skills and aptitude in computer science and programming. So we’ve seen both of those really play themselves out, and what that’s meant for Codecademy is that as we build a really easy-to-use platform that makes it easy for anyone to start learning and to learn by doing matter online, more than 25 million people around the world have taken Codecademy courses.
Sims: More than 25 million. And what that means to us is, again, this interest is far beyond what anyone would have predicted three years ago, and programming is becoming kind of fundamental literacy. It’s becoming literacy for the workers of the 21st century, but also for the students of the 21st century. So we work with governments across the world, around 25% of our learners are in school and under the age of 21, so we work with the U.K. government, for instance. Every primary and secondary school student this year will take a programming course. Every school in France will have a programming course this year. Every student in Estonia learns to program on Codecademy. We think there are a lot of other countries that are helping to prepare their students for the 21st century, and we’re looking forward to seeing the U.S. kind of take similar steps.
Kirkpatrick: Okay, I want to get to that. There’s more dichotomy there than you, sort of—I mean, you’re implying it, but you’re not hitting it too hard yet, but it goes back to that 600,000 to 60,000 point. But the thing about Codecademy is, anybody can go there and just start taking classes, and it’s sort of a help each other, kind of peer-to-peer system that you’ve built, that is very, very easy to use—I know that for a fact—but you’re also working with institutions wherever you can to sort of scale it to reach a larger number of people.
Okay. I wanted to just ask the audience, how many people in here feel, say you can code? Okay. That’s quite a few, and that’s nice to know. How many people who can’t code wish they could code. That’s an even larger number, and I’m not surprised to see that. So you know, you’ve got an opportunity that’s clearly going to be growing, and Union Square Ventures is probably going to make a lot of money.
But this thing about the U.S. being different really worries me, and I think it goes right to the heart of why we’re having Techonomy Detroit. You know, we care about Detroit, but we also always said this conference was really about American economic issues, in a time when technology is transforming everything. So what you’re saying is, the government of Estonia is working with you centrally, to make Codecademy available to every student in Estonia, and in the U.K. they have—maybe they’re not doing it in every school, but the government has mandated that every student will learn programming, and many of those schools are using Codecademy, and similarly in France, right?
Kirkpatrick: What percentage of K through 12 American students would you guess, are today being exposed to programming in some form or fashion?
Forde: I couldn’t—I don’t have that number.
Kirkpatrick: It’s got to be tiny, though, right?
Sims: I think what’s important to think about is timelines, right? And so I think we’re actually talking about two different timelines, and I think it’s important to distinguish them. So the one timeline is thinking about, this is the President’s Council of Advisors of Science and Tech, said we need 1 million additional STEM undergraduates 10 years from now, but we also need 1 million additional IT-ready workers by 2020.
Kirkpatrick: Even beyond the million programmers?
Forde: Right, and so what’s important to distinguish is, you know, what you’re describing and what other countries are doing is thinking about it from K through 12—which, we are as well, and we have separate programs for that, but what’s also important to think about is how we’re going to train the workers today for the jobs that exist today, in the next few years.
Kirkpatrick: Well I think that’s a fantastic way to think about it, but I also think it’s critical to recognize that we don’t have a national understanding of these issues—and I actually would ask you, you know, I think Obama and the administration have shown a pretty good understanding that tech is changing the world, right? Not as good as I would like, but pretty good. Congress, on the other hand, seems completely, totally clueless. I mean, the number of Congress people that could even participate in the discussions we’ve had today is probably 15% or 20% at best. I mean, would you disagree with that?
Kirkpatrick: All right, well we love that, I love that, but I just think it’s so good that Zach’s company exists and some of these tools are emerging—Amooks [PH], and a lot of other online tools, because certainly, you know, you’re not the only company or organization that’s building online education that can take people into the—bring people out of the 20th century, so to speak. But it is worrisome that—and I love what you’re doing, and there’s no question you’re doing the right stuff, but we need to be alarmed, in my opinion. Do you think we need to be alarmed?
Sims: I think the bright spot is that, from a consumer perspective—so, 70% of Codecademy’s learners are outside the U.S., but the largest country that uses Codecademy is still the United States.
Sims: So we have the largest sheer number of users that are learning to program in the world are in the U.S., and that to us is still meaningful. So I think what Brian is talking about is changing the K through 12 system is always difficult, right?
Sims: I think that’s what you’re referencing.
Sims: But what we’re seeing is consumers understand the gap between education and labor—you know, companies and employers understand the gap between education and labor, and we hope that by providing them with the resources to upskill and fill that gap, that people will vote with their feet, you know? They’ll take courses on Codecademy, they’ll find those modern jobs.
Kirkpatrick: Well, it seems like a no-brainer, if we can see these jobs coming into existence, and they’re not being filled—and I think any tech company will tell you, it’s hard to find people for a lot of the positions they have, even today, and I don’t think the average high school and college student—well, they’re starting to realize it. Some places they realize it more than others. In fact I just read, you know, Harvard, which has come up on stage today, the biggest class in the Harvard freshman year now is computer science, for the first time ever. It used to be economics and with this incoming freshman class this year, it became computer science. So that’s great, but those are the richest, smartest kids in America, so it starts somewhere; that’s got to spread more broadly.
So, you know, one of the things, Zach, that I wanted to ask you is, because you think so hard and you do so much sort of looking at how we can change this stuff at scale, right? And we’ve heard a lot today about the sharing economy and crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding and, you know, there’s a lot of things happening, the maker movement, that are really exciting new trends, that are potentially economically very important, but my observation has been that many of things require a fairly sophisticated understanding of what’s going on, even to be involved in, right? So do you think you guys could help with that too? I mean, do you think of broadening what Codecadmey does over time, so that it’s more than just coding, but also just kind of awareness over the changing nature of the economy?
Sims: Absolutely. I think we think of coding as digital literacy, but I think there are many other parts to the equation of what digital literacy means. Fundamentally, Codecademy exists to teach people the skills they need to find jobs, and one component of that are the skills to understand the world we live in, I think, you know? You don’t want to hire someone who’s just able to sit in front of a computer and write code for you but doesn’t understand the underlying logic that is powering everything. And that’s kind of the first step of what we do oftentimes, with students on Codecademy, is they’re learning these are the fundamental building blocks of programming, and this how they play a role in your everyday life. And that’s, I think, the basic fluency that we should all have—regardless of whether or not we learn how to program—to understand how our world works, and as software starts to eat the world, it becomes ever more important.
Kirkpatrick: Well, and Brian, I know one of the things you’re doing—aside from just trying to raise awareness that these jobs are there and we aren’t currently prepared to fill them—is, and you were eloquent on the inclusion session—you know, getting a wider range of young people into these jobs, because let’s face it, coding has predominately been a white guy thing—like, he was talking about brogramming is a big trend that was discussed in the inclusion session and if it’s just brogramming, it’s not going to help the country nearly as much.
So talk about some of the things that the White House has done, because I know you’ve got some very specific things that you’ve been involved in.
Forde: Yeah, so we started the White House Tech Inclusion Initiative, which, back in 2012 we hosted both the workshops and brainstormed some of the ways we can improve tech inclusion, but that was for STEM undergraduates, and so now we’re starting to think about ways that we can go beyond STEM undergraduates, and have tech inclusion happen via the coding boot camps and Codecademy, and others.
Kirkpatrick: There was not an awareness?
Forde: There was not an awareness of coding boot camps at the hiring manager level, for some companies, and recognizing how valid that is. And so there’s opportunities for improvement on one, getting information out to the right communities about the opportunities that exist in the tech industry, but also for the Mayors to know, in cities across America, that all of these job opportunities, these IT job opportunities—not only in the tech industry, but in the finance, health, and other industries—exist and are significant.
Two, what are tech companies and other companies doing to improve inclusion by making sure that they do coding boot camps, but they can do other things in lieu of a four-year degree. The other piece is financing, right? It’s really challenging to get capital for something that is unaccredited, and coding boot camps and others are unaccredited, so what can we do at the federal level to think about that, and what can the private sector do to allow for loans for folks who may not have the best credit score.
Kirkpatrick: Like a new kind of student loan for this explicitly?
Forde: A new kind of student loan—that could come from the private sector, because quite frankly, the private sector is the one who actually loses out on the most amount of money by having significant delays in getting their jobs filled, right? That’s lost cost and productivity. So there needs to be an incentive on their end, both at how they’re looking at hiring, but also opportunities for financing that education, as well.
Kirkpatrick: And you also had a White House Tech Inclusion Summit?
Forde: We did have a Tech Inclusion Summit to address some of the issues that were identified, including mentorship, which is really important. And so there’s an initiative that started called U.S. 20/20, which challenges tech companies for 20% of their staff to mentor in STEM-type programs for 20 hours a year throughout the country, which has been really amazing.
Kirkpatrick: Fantastic. I invite anybody to come to the mikes, so if you have comments or questions. I have—I want to ask you two things—make sure we get to these before we go. First of all, you guys have worked—one of the reasons we put you guys onstage together is because you’ve gotten to know each other working on projects together, so talk a little bit about what you’ve done together, and the kind of things you’d like to do together in the future.
Sims: I think the key for us at Codecademy is really enabling what Brian has talked about so far, which is scaling up the workforce in the U.S. that has the skills they need for these modern jobs. And so watching the White House get involved and try to really raise awareness of both the gap between education and labor, and also the solution that exist to fill that. We’re happy to help out however we can, and I think we will continue to train consumers and hope to work with government as well.
Forde: Yes, there’s a real opportunity for us to act as a convener. The White House is a great place to meet and so we want to open it up to all kinds of coding boot camps and training programs like Zach’s to come in—and employers as well—to educate, and make commitments, like we did with the Tech Inclusion Summit, by continuing to drive that, as a country, to make sure one, that they’re aware of the different gaps that exist in employment and where the opportunities of making commitments to change.
This is a playbook that we—as unique as the federal government can do. And also aggregate demand, right? So you can imagine a mayor identifies local problems, but when you aggregate cities across the country, then it raises the attention and you can get national commitments, which would be real opportunities.
Kirkpatrick: Well, and as you heard earlier, we want to do a Techonomy Policy event in Washington—I mean, I want to continue this discussion there. But I guess before we go to the questions—there’s at least one person, two people over there, so we’ll get to those—but I want to ask, what’s sort of like the dream scenario question, right? We’re here in Detroit, it’s a predominately black city with a lot of relatively poorly educated people because the schools here stink, right? So the dream scenario would be, how do you get some of these young people from where they are today—the ones that are here now—into the economy with these tools? What is the chance, do you think, and what are the means that we might be able to do that? I mean, either one of you—I’d just love to hear something optimistic about that, because I really think we’ve got to find a way to do that.
Sims: I mean, I think we focus on providing the resources and then hopefully enabling anyone who has access to really take action and change their lives through learning these skills. I think the challenge fundamentally of what you just mentioned is that oftentimes there are prerequisite skills, right? There are literacy issues and with a school system that’s fundamentally broken, whether Detroit’s or somewhere else, you have other things to focus on before you can get to the level of worrying about employability. So for us, we want to provide access to anyone and everyone, and we have, we will continue to, and enable anyone to learn these skills. I think it’s the role of the school systems, oftentimes, to provide the literacy prerequisites that allow people to dream at this level and access material like Codecademy.
Forde: I’m incredibly optimistic because I first came to Detroit 10 months ago, and I remember walking with Beth Niblock and four other top municipal CIOs to the Mayor’s office, when she was still the CIO of the city of Louisville. And coming out of that two-day exercise, we were trying to identify, as part of the White House revitalization effort with the city of Detroit, what a 21st century government in Detroit looks like, and we were going to prepare a plan. And you know, several months later, or 10 months later, we see Beth Niblock, who’s one of the top municipal CIOs in the country, who has the full backing of her mayor and is in full progress attacking the seven-step plan, because she has a mayor who fully supports her and wants her to succeed, because he wants the city to succeed. And so this mayor has done an incredible job of taking ideas and turning them into action, and I think you’ve seen some of the results already, with Beth.
And so you know, anything that we can put that does have an opportunity to make real change, and seeing a city that’s so resilient, and a culture that’s so supportive, and businesses and philanthropists that have really got behind this is—I actually think Detroit has a better chance than other cities, because there’s such a strong community here of support.
Kirkpatrick: Yeah, there is some momentum that’s really tangible and it’s wonderful to see. Over here, who’s first? And please, succinct, and let’s go quickly through several people.
Thomasmach: So, I’m Tim Thomasmach [PH]. I had a career in IT, and as late as, like, five years ago, I was really hearing the message, hey, don’t learn to program because we’ve got people in India to do that, we’ll get freelancers from offshore and, you know, there’s no career path. Why is it now, in America, it seems like we really have a huge demand for programmers that are American that are here in person. Is that happening, is that going to be real, or is that going to be something that’s going to continue?
Kirkpatrick: That’s a great question. I like the way you put it.
Sims: I think it will continue to be real. I think it’s hard to find a great company that has been built on outsourcing. A great technology company, you know, when the product is built outside the U.S. and the executive team is inside the U.S., for instance. I know a lot of technology investors hesitate to fund companies that can’t build a technology team. I think the quality of the product is just not as good, and that doesn’t have to do with where it’s being programmed, it just has to do with everyone being in one location, building a really cohesive team. And I don’t think that’s really changing.
Forde: No, I agree with Zach.
Kirkpatrick: Okay, good. Let’s get, does somebody else there have a question?
Audience 2: My name’s Tom, I’m from SkySpecs [PH], and first an observation, and then a question leading into it. I used to teach an Intro Programming course at the University of Michigan, while I was doing my Master’s degree, and I was always amazed at the gap between the brightest students and then those that were first being introduced to programming. And then every semester, it sequentially got worse and worse—the gap gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and it perpetuates itself because that gap being so large is intimidating for new students that come into a place like the University of Michigan and realize, wow, these guys already know five different programming languages.
So the question is, what can be done at the high school or even K through 8 level in order for us to level the playing field for all of these kids coming into college that are trying to learn how to program.
Kirkpatrick: You know what, rather than answer that, I’m going to do this trick of several questions, and we can kind of address them as you choose. Please tell us what you have on your mind.
Audience 3: My name’s Sauch [PH] and I’m coming from the healthcare side of things, so throughout this whole conference I’ve been trying to find applications or solutions for problems in healthcare, and I’m just wondering from, not only from a policy perspective but also from an entrepreneurial perspective, how is programming and solution that are programming-based being applied to healthcare problems, especially with the explosion of data that’s happening now that the Human Genome Project has been completed?
Kirkpatrick: Yeah, and some of the new Apple products could make that an even more interesting question. Behind you, you want to come up and quickly tell us what your question is?
Audience 4: Sure. My interest is in K through 12, and from your vantage point, I’m interested in how much uptake there is, either with Codecademy or with other products, in the K through 12 area, and maybe what challenges you see there, as well, trying to move that ball forward.
Kirkpatrick: So K through 12, healthcare, and the gap between the best programmers and everybody else. Any thoughts?
Forde: So with the gap, what I understand is, and we spoke about this earlier with Maria Klawe and what she’s done at Harvey Mudd. So she actually takes some of those best students and she actually puts them in different classes, or actually makes them mentors to others, so that it’s not a threatening experience, but it’s an opportunity for better engagement and collaboration, so there are some ways—and I think she’s starting to work with other universities to replicate some of her processes, which is, I think grown to 50% women in computer science, which is really impressive.
Sims: And I think it is changing the format that is the most important thing, as Brian mentioned. You know, I remember my introductory computer science class at Columbia—I took one class at—the professor stood up on the first day, there were 300 people in the room, and told us that more than 30% of people in the class would fail. We’d spend more than 30 hours a week doing the homework, and it might be rewarding, if we made it to the end. Needless to say, I was not so encouraged by that. So I think as people like Maria at Harvey Mudd try to change that, you’ll find more groups of people who are comfortable with a level playing field.
Kirkpatrick: Yeah, Harvey Mudd is notable, because now it’s over 40% of all the computer science graduates are women, so they’ve really done a great job broadening the base. And any thoughts on healthcare or K through 12? We talked a little bit about K through 12 already.
Sims: So on the K through 12 front, we work with government when we’re asked, so that’s what we do outside of the U.S., as a majority the departments for education will contact us, and say, “How do we implement programs across our country?” And really, what’s appealing to us there is scale. We’re able to work with a nation, or a state and get millions of students on the platform. Whereas in the U.S. it’s a lot harder. We have to go district by district, and the flows and timespans that we deal with in different countries really varies. So it’s not just the U.S. that has a longer timespan now. We’re seeing working with districts in other countries too, that there’s a three to five year decision cycle for how do we run a pilot as to whether or not we even teach this, then once we decide to teach it, how are we teaching it?
Kirkpatrick: Also the thing you said about it being considered science—just quickly say that.
Sims: Yeah, so actually a majority of U.S. states still, if I’m not wrong, don’t consider computer science a science, for the purpose of graduation requirements, and consider it the same as an elective, like an art or music. So I think the first step in the U.S. is changing that, and then you get to the stage where computer science is actually a required class, so there’s definitely room.
Kirkpatrick: Any closing thoughts, Brian?
Forde: I think this is going to be a community-based solution. This isn’t just the federal government, this isn’t just Codecademy, this is going to require employers and local leaders and mentors, and so what I really want to invite you guys into is to the White House process, and so if you do have any offers for support or new ideas, we’re here to take them and integrate them, and work collaboratively with you to be able to address this.
Kirkpatrick: Well, thank you both for being part of the, what is a critical discussion. Thanks so much. Thank you, Zach.
China’s clearly training a lot more engineers than the US, but I wonder if these engineers are leaving school with adequate skills to compete in global markets and produce truly original R&D. If so, then America’s competitiveness is definitely in jeopardy, but I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions until I had a look beneath the surface. Building STEM capacity is much more than a numbers game. With the right training and working environment, a small handful of visionaries can produce more innovation and value than an entire nation of tech drones. The future rests not with who has the largest tech workforce, but rather with who has the best tech workers.
You don’t want to hire someone who’s just able to sit in front of a computer and write code for you but doesn’t understand the underlying logic that is powering everything. | 2019-04-21T00:12:19Z | https://techonomy.com/conf/14-detroit/sustaining-innovation/can-train-america-train-workers/ |
"Her father Henry wanted Mary to swear an oath recognising him as Head of the Church in England and admitting that his marriage to Mary's mother, Katharine, had been invalid. What would you have advised her to do?"
Melita Thomas is the co-founder and editor of Tudor Times, a repository of information about Tudors and Stewarts in the period 1485-1625.
Melita has loved history since being mesmerised by the BBC productions of ‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII’ and ‘Elizabeth R’, when she was a little girl. After that, she read everything she could get her hands on about this most fascinating of dynasties. Captivated by the story of the Lady Mary galloping to Framlingham to set up her standard and fight for her rights, Melita began her first book about the queen when she was 9. The manuscript is probably still in the attic!
Whilst still pursuing a career in business, Melita took a course on writing biography, which led her and her business partner, Deborah Roil, to the idea for Tudor Times, and gave her the inspiration to begin writing about Mary again. The King’s Pearl: Henry VIII and his daughter Mary is her first book.
In her spare time, Melita enjoys long distance walking. She is attempting to walk around the whole coast of Britain, and you can follow her progress here.
Welcome Melita! Your book is a great read.
Mary and the influence of Isabella of Castile.
It is a truism that women could not (or should not) rule in Europe during the middle-ages and Renaissance period, but the theory and the lived reality were two very different things. The second half of the fifteenth century, and the sixteenth century was an age of female rulers.
Generally, female rule was not absolute – they were regents, governors, dowagers and queens-mother, whose effective dominance was hidden behind the cloak of acting on behalf of fathers, brothers or under-age sons – but one woman, Isabella, sovereign Queen of Castile, probably wielded more power and influence across Europe than any woman until the empresses of the eighteenth century.
As a young woman of seventeen, Isabella was willing to wage war against her half-brother to have her claim to succeed him recognised, and on his death, when she was twenty-three, she raised troops and led an armed force to seize the throne, not waiting for her husband to take the initiative on her behalf. Isabella’s driving personality, and the mutually beneficial partnership that she and her husband, Ferdinand, King of Aragon, established, led to the emergence of Spain as one of the great powers of Europe, and the dominant force in the European colonisation of the New World. Isabella’s vision of herself was as a Crusader. Whilst crusading in the Holy Land was something that most European rulers talked about, but failed to do, Ferdinand and Isabella saw themselves on the front line – their duty was to reclaim Christian Spain from the remaining Moorish kingdoms, and to ensure purity of religion at home by rooting out heresy, and Judaism.
Isabella had four daughters, two became queens-consort of Portugal, one succeeded her (much less successfully) as Queen of Castile, and the youngest, Katharine, became queen-consort of England. Katharine left her homeland at the age of fifteen, but records of her childhood, and her surviving correspondence, suggest that she was emotionally close to her mother. Isabella, in an early example of a woman holding down a high-powered and demanding job, whilst maintaining her maternal role, took her children with her everywhere, even close to the front-line of battle, and was closely concerned in their education. It is no stretch of imagination to suppose that her youngest daughter imbibed from her mother the knowledge that a woman could be a powerful and effective monarch, even if she were married, and that her supreme duty was to God.
This belief in a woman’s duty to be a crusader, to protect her faith, and to fight for her rights were amply illustrated by Katharine’s refusal to accept her husband, Henry VIII’s plan to set her aside, because they had only one daughter, and no male heir. That Katharine was seen as a fearsome opponent is illustrated by Henry’s concern that Katharine would raise an army against him and ‘wage war as fiercely as ever her mother had done’, and by her nephew, the Emperor Charles V, telling the English ambassador, only partly in jest, that his sole fear was that ‘(Katharine) would ally with French and defeat him’.
This was the heritage of Katharine’s daughter, Mary. It was not the custom in the sixteenth century for royal children to live with their parents full time – Isabella had been exceptional in that regard - so Mary was housed separately, but she visited her parents for weeks and even months at a time and all the available evidence indicates that both of Mary’s parents were devoted to her. Naturally, of course, she would have been included in the daily activities of her mother, rather than her father and, whilst there is no evidence about what Katharine told Mary about her grandmother, it is not unreasonable to believe Mary heard the story of Isabella’s victories and the final surrender of the Kingdom of Granada to her, an event Katharine herself had witnessed in 1492.
In 1525, Henry, despairing of a male heir, began to consider the possibility that Mary might succeed him. He sent her to the Marches of Wales to preside over the Council. Although not formally created Princess of Wales, she was called by the title, and very quickly accustomed herself to being treated as such, with the implication that the position held of being the king’s heir.
The single extant letter from Katharine to Mary dating from this period, refers only to their mutual health, and the queen’s hopes that Mary will improve her Latin, and occasionally send copies of her Latin exercises for the queen to see. It says nothing about Mary’s role, or what the future might hold for her, but surely Katharine had told her about Isabella’s success, not just on the battle-field, but also in reinforcing crown authority, increasing trade and improving access to justice - thus creating a role-model for Mary.
Eight years later, in 1533, Mary was informed that she was no longer to be termed Princess of Wales, nor to consider herself Henry’s heir. She was seventeen, the very age at which Isabella had insisted on her right to the Castilian throne, in preference to her half-brother’s daughter, whom most people thought was not his own child. The similarity of cases – the ‘true-born’ heir as Mary saw herself, versus the illegitimate (again in Mary’s view) Elizabeth, corresponds with that of Isabella and her supposed niece, Juana ‘La Beltraneja’, and it is impossible that Mary was unaware of the parallel.
Isabella was not physically within the control of her half-brother, enabling her to take up arms to drive out La Beltraneja on her half-brother’s death, whilst Mary was isolated and powerless, stripped of even her household servants, but she continued to vehemently defend her position. Like Isabella, Mary had many supporters, and had Henry died without a legitimate son, Mary would undoubtedly have fought for the throne against any attempt to proclaim Elizabeth. As it was, Henry lived until 1547, and was succeeded by Mary’s half-brother. But on his death, in 1553, when an attempt was made to ignore her claim to the throne, Mary showed herself the true descendant of a warrior queen.
Without hesitation, she called on her supporters and raised an army, preparing to fight to for her rights and her religion – just as Isabella had done. Late in her own reign, when there was war with France, Mary even talked of taking the field herself - surely, her courage, determination and martial spirit must have owed something to the example of Isabella.
Lacock is a small village in Wiltshire, which many people will recognise, even if they’ve not been there, as a favourite place for filming, especially by the BBC. The village, with its timber-framed houses, has proved an ideal backdrop for scenes in “Cranford”, “Pride and Prejudice”, “Wolf Hall” and “Downton Abbey”, and for the film “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”.
In 1232 Lacock Abbey was built, initially as a nunnery, but it subsequently became a comfortable family home, and the village grew up beside it. One of the Abbey’s most famous residents was William Henry Fox Talbot, who created the first ever photograph negative there in the nineteenth century and established Lacock as the birthplace of photography. The Fox Talbot Museum contains changing exhibitions of the history of photography.
Because Lacock is so frequently used for filming of historical series, there are no double yellow lines in the village (though there are plenty of notices warning you not to park on the street!) and television aerials are kept to a minimum, even though nowadays they can be photoshopped out. The whole village belongs to the National Trust, so that it retains its special character.
It is a wonderful place to visit, and I feel very lucky to live nearby. Just walking round the village gives the feeling of having stepped back in time.
choerographed by Fokine, costume by Bakst, in Paris 1913.
Continuing the story of the British diplomat Henry James Bruce and Russian prima ballerina Tamara Karsavina, who fell in love in St Petersburg in 1913. Eight months after they had witnessed the October Revolution in 1917, Lenin declared Britain an enemy of the Bolshevik government. Henry’s British Embassy colleagues fled from Moscow to Britain via the Crimea. But Henry went in the opposite direction, north to Petrograd, to rescue his lover and their 19 month old son, Nikita.
Read Part One of their adventure here.
Petrograd had been Tamara’s home all her life, but now she agreed with Henry that it was time they left. Although she had no political objections to the new order, communal life was stressful. The apartment in Millionaya Street, where she lived with Nikita and their cook, nanny and maid, was now shared with five families. Life was chaotic, with children playing in the shared passage, its ceiling criss-crossed with washing lines. Tamara’s cook Liza had been elected onto the house soviet committee but nobody knew who owned the house or to whom they should pay rent?
Tamara had been with handsome, clever Henry for five years but now that Lenin had made peace with Germany, her dull husband, Vasilii Moukine, might return from fighting. He had agreed to divorce Tamara but the Bolsheviks had abolished both marriage and divorce.
The chaos extended far beyond Millionaya Street. When Moscow became the capital in March 1918, Petrograd, formerly St Petersburg, was of little national or international importance and was now bankrupt. The canals, once busy with barges bringing food and fuel, were collapsing and choked with rubbish and sewage. Cholera and typhus had already killed several thousand people that winter. Although the population had halved, there was not nearly enough food. Most of the cab-horses had starved to death, and the electric trams no longer ran. Henry was compelled to walk to the former British Embassy where he found Captain Cromie, the Naval Attaché, the only British diplomat left. Cromie showed him coded telegrams which revealed that all routes south to the Crimea, east to Japan and west to Finland and the Baltic Sea were closed. Their only way out of Petrograd was north via Murmansk in the Arctic Circle, where British troops were stationed to reinforce the White Army.
Grand Season of Russian Ballet at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, June 1912.
However, they couldn’t tell where the front line of the civil war between the White and Red armies was located, only that it was getting closer every day. As a foreigner, Henry needed a permit from the Foreign Ministry in Moscow to travel; and even Tamara needed permission from the workers’ soviet that now controlled the Marinsky Ballet. Another problem was that Tamara’s face was even better known than the Czarina’s or Lenin’s. For 15 years she had appeared to two thousand people at each performance in the Marinsky Theatre and she had toured all over Russia and Western Europe with Diaghlev's Ballet Russe. Postcards were sold of her posing as Giselle and Salome; and with Nikita on her lap. His thick curly hair and his mother's large dark eyes were unmistakable. If a reward was posted for their capture, they might easily be denounced to the authorities in exchange for a meal or a few logs of firewood.
as Zobeide on Sheherazade by John Sargent, 1913.
After a tense week of enquiries, an unidentified woman telephoned the apartment. She had passes for a steam-ship departing the following morning. It would take them along the River Neva and through Lakes Ladoga and Onega north to Petrozavodsk, which was beyond the front line on the railway to Murmansk. Tamara packed two trunks, which was the most they risked taking without arousing suspicion. She found it a nightmare choosing what to include and after a desperate search failed to find the key to her bureau containing her personal letters and photos. They waited until three in the morning when it was dark enough not to be seen. Liza the cook and Katiousha her maid put aside their new revolutionary status and marked an ancient custom. They all sat in a circle in silence, then crossed themselves and quietly said goodbye. Tamara’s neighbour Prince Dolgorukov accompanied them to the pier on the Neva embankment. Henry spoke fluent Russian, French and German, and both he and Tamara had travelled all over Europe. But neither of them had travelled incognito, with a child, through enemy country before.
Portrait of Tamara Karsavina by Henry J. Bruce, 1918.
The steamship was crowded with families anxious to return to their homes around the inland lakes before they were cut off by civil war. There were also young men eager to join the fighting – wherever the front line was now. A young Count told them that he planned to join the White Army, though it already had a surplus of officers and not enough soldiers. The Red Army had the opposite problem – too many private soldiers, who decided military strategy by vote.
After five days the boat arrived in Petrodovask on the west coast of Lake Onega, where they planned to catch the steam-train north. Henry and the Count disembarked cautiously. The road leading up from the empty harbour to the railway station was shrouded in drifts of willow seed, stained with blood. A French officer told them that the streets were overlooked by snipers and the trains were full of Red Army soldiers, whose few officers could not control them. He advised them to return to Petrograd, even though the situation there had deteriorated even further. Count Mirbach, the German ambassador, had been assassinated in Moscow and Lenin had laid the blame on Britain. As a result, Captain Cromie had been killed defending the former British Embassy in Petrograd. They decided to remain on the boat which was heading to the north of the lake. The young Count went to search for food but was shot by a sniper within sight of the steamer. He managed to crawl back to the boat, his plans to join the White Army in ruins.
Five days later their boat arrived in Povenetz, a village at the far north end of Lake Onega. There they were told of a disused post-road leading north-east for about 200 miles to the White Sea, and they hired a horse and cart. Tamara was forced to reduce their luggage to a few pictures, some blankets and a teaspoon which had belonged to the dancer Taglioni. She gave away most of Nikita’s clothes, and asked the captain to return their trunks to Petrograd. From Povenetz, they travelled slowly through the forest, crossing marshes and rounding lakes. Mosquitoes rose in huge clouds and swarmed around their heads. For several days they saw only the occasional peasant, shrouded in muslin, working in an isolated clearing. At night, they shared the floor of rough window-less huts, lit by rushes. They drank weak tea, and ate hard sausage. The local people were friendly, but knew nothing of politics or the movements of the Red Army. Twenty years of dieting and dancing with bleeding feet, had taught Tamara to ignore both hunger and pain, while Henry had been toughened up by British boarding school. Nikita, a pampered city child, clung to his mother and screamed.
After six days and nights in the forest, they arrived at a slightly more prosperous village on the edge of Lake Sumo. They had just let the horses go for the night when they learned that the village had a soviet committee. Without realising it, they had crossed the line into Red Army territory. Worse still, a consignment of vodka had just arrived. In an effort to improve productivity in both factories and farms, the Tsar had passed a law, which the Bolsheviks had upheld, against distilling vodka. But with the increasing anarchy, it had been impossible to enforce. After a short, fitful sleep in a hut, the leader of the soviet, Commissar Solkov woke them and announced that rather than let them continue round Lake Sumo by cart, his men, who were all drunk, would row them across. He obviously didn’t trust this well-dressed man with a strange accent, his beautiful wife with soft hands, and their child who wore shoes. If they did not agree, then he would lock them up in a barn. Henry remained outwardly calm, guessing that the commissar would almost certainly set the barn on fire.
Postcards of Tamara Karsavina were on sale in Russia.
Here she is with Louloushka, her King Charles Spaniel.
Tamara pointed out that a storm was brewing, the lake was already rough and Nikita could not swim, whereupon he said, “It matters not if the little cur drowns.” At this Tamara was enraged and flew at him, screaming. She could cope with the new social order, but not with insults to her son. Henry thought it was all over. Despite their luck and fortitude so far, their escape seemed to be ending in disaster.
Will they get away? Find out next month.
I am trying to keep away from the computer at present to avoid this most obnoxious, recent invasion to Europe, "Black Friday". Instead, I have been out on the land, working in the sunshine harvesting our olives. I know that I have written at length in my series of Olive Farm books, particularly the two travel books THE OLIVE ROUTE and THE OLIVE TREE about olive farming, its culture and its history. Still, every year when I return to the land to pick the fruits - a backbreaking task but one that I enjoy enormously - I am yet again enthused by the subject. I am reminded of how rewarding and historically rich this activity is and it fills me with a real sense of humility and I am grateful to Mother Nature for her gifts.
We pick by hand, using no machines. We don't even beat the fruits to the netted earth because the sticks bruise the fruit's skin, causing it to split, the oil to weep and thus the fruit begins to oxidise. Oxidation augments the level of acid in the pressed olive oil. Olive oil that has an oleic acid level of higher than 0.8% cannot be sold as Extra Virgin. (Some territories allow the acid level to reach 1% before the oil loses it Extra Virgin label. In Europe, the regulations are more stringent). Once the oil has lost its Extra Virgin quality, it loses many of its natural vitamins and minerals and, most importantly, it lacks the antioxidants that make extra-virgin olive oil such a gift to our kitchens and our good health. These include protection again heart disease, lowering of cholesterol levels, protection against type II diabetes as well as several cancers.
Recently-pressed unrefined olive oil has a greener or golden hue whereas refined olive oil will be lighter in colour and lack any residue of the flesh of pressed fruits. Because olive oil, unlike wine, does not have a long shelf life, it is important to consume it young.
I think it is because we have stayed faithful to the time-honoured methods of farming that I find the harvesting and visits to the mill so rewarding and rejuvenating. I know that I am contributing to a ritual that is almost as ancient as farming itself. Of course, we press our olives at a modern mill. Today, it is very rare to find mills that press using the hemp mats (known as les scortins in French) stacked high and squeezed in a screw press. This process has been overtaken by more efficient and more hygienic systems.
These photos show the old-fashioned screw press system at work. This method was, until the last century, used everywhere around the Mediterranean.
Packing the hemp mat with olive paste. The paste is the result of crushing the the fruits including its stone with a gigantic revolving stone.
As the screw presses its weight down onto the mats, the oil is squeezed out and runs into a steel plate. At this stage, as you can see, it is oil mixed with water. The liquids are then separated so what you are left with is pure olive oil.
By the way, this ancient mill is still operating not far from where we live in the south of France.
Here is a photograph of some of our olives being unloaded at the more modern mill we use, which is in Speracedes in the hills behind Cannes.
As you can see we try to pick the fruits when they are green rather than dark purple or black. It gives a more peppery taste to the oil. Also, because we are organic, the sooner the fruits are off the trees the less chance the fly has to attack the drupes during her autumn breeding session.
See how green and viscosy our oil is. Its extra virgin rating is between 0.5% and 0.6%.
I spent seventeen months travelling solo around the Mediterranean in search of the history, secrets and cultures of the olive tree and its cultivation. I wanted to know where it all began. No one knows precisely who first picked a drupe from off an olive tree or wild bush, perhaps, back then, and decided to experiment with its oil. I found no definitive answers but I did manage to trace olive routes, olive developments from the fourth to fifth millennium BC forwards. I discovered two groves of 6,000 year old olive trees - each grove, boasting about a dozen remaining trees, still delivering their annual fruits and still being pressed into fine extra-virgin olive oil.
el, Iraq were, as far as I have discovered, at the heart of the earliest olive farming operations. It's a tragedy that so many of the clues I found that date olive cultivation back to at least 5,000 BC have been destroyed in the recent wars.
Here are one or two of my memories. Thankfully, saved.
Libya. It's the women who harvest and prune the trees in north Africa.
Leptis Magna, Libya. Libya was hugely important olive production region for the Romans.
In our Olive Route films, we visit Testaccio in Rome which is a hill created from pottery shards, the broken remains of the amphorae used by the Romans to transport their oil and wine.
These two photos were taken in Becheleah in Lebanon. These trees have been radiocarbon dated at over 6,000 years old. In the second photograph, I am standing with an Iranian friend, Soheila, in an olive tree where, over millennia, its centre has died off and hollowed out. It survives and thrives by producing new exterior shoots from its roots. These are the trunks that are encircling us.
These two travel books were based on my experiences of those seventeen months travelling round the Mediterranean. The books, in turn, became the inspiration for a five-film, high-definition documentary television series narrated and written by me.
The films were shot round the Mediterranean although, due to the Arab Spring uprisings and the Syrian war we were not able to shoot everywhere I travelled when I was alone researching for the books.
Last month I revisited Perugia, where I studied Italian in my teens. At lunchtime, when I finished my classes at the University for Foreigners, I used to make my way up the steep medieval streets to a mysterious place called the Rocca Paolina. This was an enigmatic, subterranean cavelike labyrinth on the edge of the city and I was usually alone there. It appealed to my adolescent love of solitude and the story attached to it fascinated me.
(From Early Modern Italy - A Social History by Christopher Black).
As always in Renaissance history, brutal crimes, religious sentiment and sensitivity to art co-existed, often in the same person; Perugia’s most famous artist, Pietro Vannucci (Perugino), taught Raphael. In memory of the tragic death of her son Grifonetto, Atalanta Baglioni commissioned Raphael to paint a Deposition where the characters of that terrible event were to be depicted. In his 1507 Entombment, now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, Atalanta is portrayed as the heartbroken Madonna, Grifonetto is the one bearing the dead Christ and Zenobia, Grifonetto’s wife, is represented as Mary Magdalen.
Gianpaolo Baglioni escaped the slaughter and ruled over Perugia for many years. In an age when Popes were formidable and violent politicians, Perugia’s arrogance and independence was considered intolerable. Gianpaolo was as ferocious as the rest of his family and the Popes were afraid of his ambition. So Leo X lured him to Rome, promising him safety; Gianpolo came, and was tortured and beheaded.
His sons and nephews continued to fight and murder one another and the Farnese Pope, Paul III, visited Perugia. All the nuns in the city had to queue up and kiss his feet. In 1538, when the Pope raised salt tax, Perugians revolted against this and were excommunicated. Paul III then sent an enormous army of mercenaries and Spaniards and handed over the city to the Preservers of Ecclesiastical Obedience.
Paul 111 decided to humiliate and control the proud city of Perugia by building a massive fortress, the Rocca Paolina, as a symbol of his power. Over a hundred houses, as well as all the palaces and towers of the Baglioni, churches and monasteries were partially demolished and used as building materials for his fortress. Instead of destroying the houses entirely, the Pope’s architect, Sangallo, left the lower part of the houses and the streets to create the phantom underground galleries that are still so intriguing.
In this nineteenth century painting of Perugia by Giuseppe Rossi you can see that the massive fortress loomed over the entire city. In 1859, during the Risorgimento, Perugia again rebelled against Pope Pius IX, who sent 2000 Swiss Guards ( wearing those cute uniforms you see in the Vatican). They looted the city and butchered people in the street. With the unification of Italy the following year the new king of Italy, Victor Emanuel 11, finally liberated the city from the Popes. The fortress was torn down by the citizens of Perugia, using dynamite and their bare hands. Anthony Trollope, watching the demolition of the Rocca Paolina, wrote that ‘few buildings have been laden with a heavier amount of long-accumulated hatred’.
The Prefecture Palace and the pleasant Carducci Gardens were built on top of of the Rocca Paolina, like a lid on Perugia’s gory and turbulent history. On a clear day in October we looked out over the balustrade at the end of the gardens to see the stunning golden landscape of Umbria, as far as Assisi.
I knew that the ruins where I used to wander long ago had been cleaned up and that escalators had been installed to help people in this steepest of hill cities to reach different levels. Italian engineering never ceases to amaze me and in Perugia modern technology bridges different periods of history, as well as being extremely practical. I was afraid the Rocca Paolina would have lost its unique and melancholy atmosphere and was delighted to find an imaginative video installation down there. Without words, it uses Bach’s music and expresses time as waves, floating clouds and kaleidoscopic mosaics; a griffin, Perugia’s symbol, flies through the film, swooping through shattered buildings and brutal wars to some kind of triumph. Viewed in the underworld, projected onto an ancient wall through a medieval archway, it’s impressive.
STEPPING FROM THE SHADOWS: Robert FitzHarding: minor character, major player by Elizabeth Chadwick.
Writing works of fiction set in the medieval period across a broad canvas, I often have to research characters who might only have a few lines in my novel, but whose influence and impact on their world while they were alive, was considerably greater. They might dwell in the shadows now, but they were big players on the stage of their own lives.
One such person is Robert FitzHarding of Bristol, a twelfth century merchant, landholder, broker and baron, who appears in my current work in progress The Irish Princess, as the man responsible for introducing interested parties and assisting them in their negotiations to obtain the right deal and support for their enterprises.
When the Irish king of Leinster, Diarmait Macmurchada was exiled from his land, it was to Robert FitzHarding in Bristol that he brought his plight. The latter advised him to seek the aid of King Henry II and gave him letters of introduction. On Diarmait's return from Henry's court in Aquitaine, Robert housed him in comfort in Bristol at Henry's request and brokered an introduction to Richard de Clare, lord of Chepstow who would provide the military might that would eventually restore Diarmait to his position in Leinster and sweep the Cambro-Normans into Southern Ireland with history-changing consequences.
Born around 1095, Robert FitzHarding's family background was aristocratic, but of the Anglo Saxon persuasion rather than Norman, although intermarriage had occurred in the years since 1066. English high status survivors are a rare breed, but Fitzharding was one of their number. He was the son of a royal official, Harding of Baldwin Street and his grandfather was an English thegn from Somerset called Eadnoth the Staller. The family, following the Norman Conquest held their land of the Earl of Gloucester for a single knight's fee (the amount of land thought to be sufficient to sustain a knight and his military requirements). Robert's brother Nicholas was the holder of this knight's fee. Robert himself was a tenant of housing and lands in Bristol, probably a family inheritance, but held, like the Somerset lands, of various top ranking lords of the land. Robert held land on the High Street in Bristol, in Broad Street, Wine Street, St Nicholas Street, by the river Frome, and between Small and Broad Street. Added to this were two suburban estates held directly of the Earl of Gloucester.
Throughout the mid 12th century, Robert FitzHarding continued to acquire land and knights' fees from various barons until he had his own lordship of scattered estates surrounding Bristol. Indeed, Richard de Clare, needing funds for his Irish expedition, sold FitzHarding one of his manors at Tickenham in Somerset. During the years of the Anarchy as King Stephen and the Empress Matilda fought for the throne, he supported the latter's cause - Bristol being the caput of Robert of Gloucester, half-brother to the Empress and her chief supporter. FitzHarding with his trading contacts and wealth was in a position to loan money, provide ships and wheel and deal to help further the Angevin cause.
Certainly Henry II was so grateful to FitzHarding that when he came to the throne in 1154, he granted him the lands and estate of one Roger of Berkeley who was less wedded to the Angevin cause and had refused to pay dues from his lands. FitzHarding was given permission to build a castle on the land. The only stipulation was that his eldest son Maurice was to marry Roger of Berkeley's daughter and Roger of Berkeley's son also called Roger, was to marry Robert's daughter Helena.
So, from wealthy burgess, Robert FitzHarding was now true landed gentry with a castle and dignity of his own. He had also founded the abbey of St Augustine's in Bristol between 1140 and 1148 (now Bristol Cathedral) and retired there shortly before his death in 1170. The family, while never rising to the highest ranks of baronial power, were nevertheless important at a regional level and formed the vertebrae in the backbone on which both the higher and lower echelons of society depended.
Descendents of Robert FitzHarding still occupy Berkeley Castle today in unbroken tenure stretching for 900 years.
A fascinating personality and I enjoyed discovering a little more about him, even if he only has a handful of pages in my novel.
I'm listening to Little Dorrit as an audiobook at the moment, which will see me through quite a lot of cooking and baking. This is not a comprehensive set of remarks about the book, but two thoughts which I decided were suitable for this blog.
'I don't!' said she. Whereupon he once again tells her to count to five and twenty.
Of course, in our age, we would think Tattycoram deserved some consideration and care, instead of being expected to be grateful for being taken on as a kind of semi-slave, a maid to a child older than herself, and, as she not unreasonably points out, a child she sees being indulged and adored while she is expected to fetch and carry. If this is supposed to compensate her for a life without a loving family, it's not very helpful. It does, incidentally, cast a slightly less benign light on the Coram orphanage than visitors to Coram Fields might be inclined to see it in.
In Dickens's world view, it is, of course quite different. In the novel, Tattycoram sits diagonally across the narrative from good Little Dorrit, the Angel in the House, who lets her father, sister and brother treat her like a doormat, and who never complains. Compare Little Dorrit to Jane Eyre (whose outburst to Mrs Reed puts her more in the Tattycoram category, telling that heartless woman what she deserves, and hasn't got, as later she will tell Rochester). Dickens's women are, of course, notorious. However, Jane Eyre springs from the gentry; whether Bronte might have thought a working class woman was entitled to state her wrongs so vehemently is an interesting question.
The second reflection is the dreary aptness and relevance of this passage, 160 years after the book was written. However much Dickens's caricatures of women annoy me, as well as being a magnificent writer and a great story-teller, he was often pretty perceptive about people.
For those of us who like their televised historical fiction with a slag-heap of grit and a soundtrack that favours Nick Cave over luscious strings, this month's return of Peaky Blinders has been like Christmas come early. This recreation of 1920s Birmingham and the truly terrifying gangsters stalking its grimy streets blends fact with fiction: the Peaky Blinders gang existed but wasn't run by the Shelby brothers; Small Heath and the Garrison pub had strong associations with gangs and betting rings between the wars although the satanic-mill factories that form the backdrop were not in such consolidated ownership. Real characters are mixed in with the series' fictionalised family, including appearances by Winston Churchill and Billy Kimber, leader of the Birmingham Gang and vicious enough in real life to make Tommy Shelby seem almost a softy by comparison.
Part of the series' appeal for me has always been its core of feisty female characters, centred on Helen McRory's Aunt Polly who ran the illicit gambling rings when the men were away being damaged by war. In series four, a new women has been added to the mix: Jessie Eden, a shop steward in one of Shelby's factories who we first encounter putting on her lipstick in the gents' toilet and responding to demands she go somewhere more suitable with the rather cracking: 'You don't have a woman's lavatory on the second floor because no women get this far up."
Publicity round the series suggests Eden has been brought in as a possible love interest for Cillian Murphy's character Tommy. Given the show's track record with its female characters, I think we can hope for something closer to the actual Jessie Eden, who is something of a Brummie, and certainly a trade union, hero. She was born in 1902 and, when we meet her challenging Tommie about female pay in 1925, was actually working at the Joseph Lucas Motor Components Factory where she was a shop-steward for the Transport and General Workers' Union. At the time of the General Strike in 1926, the percentage of unionised women at the factory was tiny and completely over-shadowed by the 10,000 non-unionised women, nevertheless Eden marched the women in her section out to join the strike.
When she was interviewed by the Birmingham Post on the 50th anniversary of the Strike in 1976, Eden recalled the privations of the period: "We used to take our turns picketing or join the big meetings in the old Bull Ring, which was much larger then. Sacrifices had to be made. We had practically no meat during the strike. We lived on bread, jam and marge.” She also recalled her own brush with the law on the evening of the May Day march which saw a procession of 25,000 people, witnessed by another 100,000. "One policeman put his hands on my arm. They were telling me to go home, but the crowd howled, ‘Hey, leave her alone’ and then some men came and pushed the policemen away. They didn’t do anything after that. I think they could see that there would have been a riot. I was never frightened of the police or the troops because I had the people with me, you see. I don’t know what I’d have felt like on my own."
Five years later, Eden really came into her own when she led 10,000 women out of the Lucas factory on a week long strike over new working practices which were driving female workers to the point of collapse. The irony of the story was that the new working speeds intended as a result of the American-designed systems were to be based on Jessie's work-rate as she was judged as an exemplar of efficiency. A further irony was that Eden, now a member of the Communist Party, was one of those who lost her job when a furious management imposed cutbacks. The 1931 strike is credited with starting mass unionisation among women workers but its aftermath was tough on Eden who apparently struggled to find work. She seems to then disappear for a period of two years but was actually in Moscow, rallying Soviet women construction workers employed building the city's metro. No mean feat for a working-class, apparently tiny, woman from Birmingham.
Jessie Eden was a champion of social justice her whole life. She was a key figure in the 1939 Birmingham Rent Strike which brought 49,000 tenants out on strike, successfully winning them rent control in the council and private sector. She stood for the Communist Party in the 1945 General Election and led a march against the Vietnam War in Birmingham in 1969. Graham Stephenson, whose website is a fantastic resource for anyone interested in Eden and union/Communist politics, knew Eden in later life and described her in a recent Guardian interview: "People say that in her prime she was an electrifying speaker, who poured out words from the heart without notes and whose confidence in victory was contagious." That's a tribute I'm sure most of us would love to have and hopefully Peaky Blinders is set to give us a deeper flavour of this woman whose actions made such a difference to the women around her, women who she fought to see treated with dignity, equality and respect. Somehow the time for remembering her seems right.
On 15th November 2017 Salvator Mundi, (very probably) by Leonardo Da Vinci sold at auction at Christie’s New York for $450.3 million. You may have read one of the reports about its rediscovery, restoration and controversial sale and resales - if not take a look at this article in the Guardian, it includes a nifty slider so you can see the effects of that restoration - you may also have picked up on the fact it was bought from an estate sale (pre-restoration) in 2005 for ten thousand dollars, and felt a deep twinge of sympathy for whoever sold it then.
If that bothers you, my story today might break your heart. Robert Foulis (b.1707) and his brother Andrew were printers to the University of Glasgow and earned a reputation for the accuracy of their printing of Greek texts, and showed considerable critical and commercial sense in their choice of modern authors. In the 1750s they set up an Academy of Fine Art in Glasgow, and made their art collection available to the students who studied there, a collection enhanced with further large purchases of art in 1772. The Academy however seemed to be a terrible financial strain and closed its doors after Andrew died in 1775.
Early the following year Robert went to London, apparently to sell the pictures. He was advised against doing so by none other than Mr James Christie who apparently told him that the market was glutted with similar paintings. According to the snappily entitled Robert & Andrew Foulis and the Glasgow Press : with some account of the Glasgow Academy of the Fine Arts by David Murray, after expenses Foulis returned to Glasgow with just fifteen shillings of profit and died very shortly afterwards (2 June 1776).
Now if Foulis had been trying to sell just one Da Vinci, that would put the pain of the person who sold Salvator Mundi in 2005 into some sort of perspective, but Foulis wasn’t just selling one painting, oh no. The collection he took to London included (according to his three volume catalogue) SIX works by Leonardo Da Vinci works, as well as numbers of works by Raphael, Titian and Rubens.
Now it’s true he wasn’t the only one with a stack of Old Masters on hand in 1776. James Christie had in one sale sold pictures by all those artists the previous April, and did so again in March of 1776. In the same issue of the Public Advertiser in which Christie advertised the 1776 sale, Messers Langford in Covent Garden are alerting readers to their own auction which includes Rubens, Rembrandt, Carracci and Titian and Mr Walsh has a selection of Poussin and Corregio up for auction if you aren’t Old Mastered out.
But… As we all know only too well the closer you look into history the murkier it all gets. I’m pretty sure Foulis didn’t sell his pictures at all.
Now, it may be that he intended to do so, and heeded Christie’s advice to wait, or it may be his original intention was to make money out of his collection in another way. Here is the advertisement Foulis ran (with minor variations) from 31 January to 26 May 1776.
There is no mention of any sale here. Instead he is quite explicitly exhibiting his pictures and charging a shilling a time, and also trying to sell his three volume catalogue of the collection.
It’s true that auctioneers often exhibited works for a few days before a sale, but I can’t see any example where they did so for weeks. Langford charged people a shilling to come and see what he was selling from 1 March 1776, but he probably wouldn’t have had room to do so before then, giving he had two other old master sales in February.
For anyone who has tried to tempt Londoners to an event, that fifteen shillings profit looks pretty reasonable now. There is no doubt that Foulis was devastated by the failure of his exhibition. His printer gives a rather harrowing description of him returning home to Glasgow, exhausted and deeply disappointed.
So why were they sold at this point? The new season has begun, but it's only a couple of weeks old, so it's still early for the eighteenth century oligarchs to have gathered, I’d have thought. Possibly Robert’s death had made his family’s severe financial problems acute and they had to sell as quickly as they could.
The sale realised £381 8s 6d. It’s tempting to insert a snarky remark about Christies having got a lot better at selling Da Vinci’s since then, but something else must have been going on too as Christie’s sale of M. Le Brun’s pictures in 1775 netted £2,142 and Sir George Colebroke’s collection sold for £4,385 17 shillings.
Perhaps Christie knew the market was glutted, because he’d glutted it himself.
It is also possible that Foulis’ paintings were being looked at with a sceptical eye. Given that there are under twenty paintings universally accepted as by Leonardo known today, it does seem a little dubious that so many drifted through the London art market at this time. If anyone wants to take advantage of this link to the Foulis catalogue, and match his descriptions to a particular painting, I’d be fascinated to find learn more. I'd also love to know what happened to the pictures after the sale.
Looking at various calculators of relative value, that £381 from the sale could be worth anything between forty thousand pounds and four million today. Even if we take the latter figure, that’s still a hundredth of what someone just paid for one rather beaten up Da Vinci.
So next time you timeslip into the 18th century you know where to go for a bargain. | 2019-04-21T04:31:18Z | https://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2017/11/ |
Three faculty and two staff members at Alfred State were recently honored with Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching, Professional Service, Classified Service, and Faculty Service.
David Hunt received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Matthew Ryan was honored with the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service, Scott Bingham was presented with the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Classified Service, and George “Joe” Richardson and John Santora were both named recipients of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service. Each received a certificate and a medallion.
Hunt, an associate professor in the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Department, is known for his passion in teaching and for his dedication to students, who respect him for the wealth of information and support that he offers them. He makes the world their learning ground, as he provides practical and professional knowledge to them that they will need to be competitive in their field of study and work. His student strive to meet the challenges he presents them, and they do so willingly because of their regard for his abilities and intelligence.
As faculty adviser of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Club, Hunt attends all major club events, giving freely of his time on weekends and after class. He is also the faculty adviser to the Robotics Club, and has travelled with the club to regional and national competitions.
Ryan, the senior director of Residential Services, worked with the vice presidents of Academic and Student Affairs to pilot and chair the college’s first Academic Intervention Team. He also led the redesign of the room selection process in order to provide both group housing options and affinity living areas for upper-class students.
Furthermore, Ryan has enthusiastically embraced the campus’ emphasis on civic engagement. Examples of his involvement, both on and off campus, include supervising Alfred State students’ relief work at the Lion’s Camp Badger in Spencer; leading a relief trip to Binghamton to assist in the cleanup after Hurricane Sandy; co-organizing a donation drive for Johnson City flood victims, and serving as an active member of the Scio Lions Club.
Bingham, a lieutenant in the University Police Department, is a consummate professional and a highly skilled and dedicated police officer. As a lieutenant in a small organization, he is asked to perform every function of the department from clerical duties to executive/administrative duties. At times, Scott has prioritized his time – even when personally inconvenient - for the needs of the department, whether it be staying late to complete an investigation or switching to a completely different shift and days off for an extended period of time.
In addition to his role as a law enforcement officer, Bingham worked with a student to begin the Pioneer Woodsmen’s Club in 2009. Since then, he has built the team into one that consistently competes for first place in multiple divisions at the competitions they attend. This past April, he helped coordinate a large spring woodsmen’s meet called the “Northeast Woodsmen’s Conclave” that brought regional exposure to Alfred State.
Professor Richardson, the chair of the Building Trades Department, has served the college, SUNY, and the local community at a national and international level through numerous student and faculty projects. He has generously given his time and creativity to many in numerous ways, including as faculty adviser to the Solar Decathlon teams of 2013 in China and 2015 in California, and as interim dean of the School of Applied Technology for two separate time periods.
He also was instrumental in moving a Buffalo Billions initiative forward, worked extensively to help make green energy technology training available in the region, had extensive involvement in continued efforts to fund construction of the School of Applied Technology Workforce Development Center, and coordinated the construction of the Alfred State Zero Energy House to be certified as· an Energy Star Home and green building.
As a professor and chair of the Culinary Arts Department, Santora seeks to inspire students to perform at levels that are higher than what is required to meet current standards. Drawing on his personal expertise in the culinary arts, he has consistently involved his students in a variety of community projects that bring their class lessons to life.
Santora’s efforts have been recognized with awards in community service and in multiple articles in trade publications and in the regional press. His excellence in areas of specialization have led to television appearances that in tum provide inspiration to his students. He was recognized for his many accomplishments with a SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities in 2005.
Two Alfred State faculty and staff members were honored recently with a Leadership through Civic Engagement Award.
The award is presented annually by the College Council to acknowledge students, faculty, staff, and alumni who have led or initiated exemplary academic and/or co-curricular initiatives that demonstrate a commitment to engaging in the community— locally, nationally, or globally — through service, volunteerism, activism, politics, and much more. This year’s recipients were Debra Burch, associate professor in the Culinary Arts Department, and Jason Cronin, senior staff assistant and head baseball coach in the Athletics Department.
Burch has demonstrated leadership by inspiring students, colleagues, and community members to support local disabled veterans. During the fall 2015 semester, Burch arranged for retired US Army Brig. Gen. Arthur Austin Jr. to speak at a Veteran’s Day ceremony. His visit launched a fundraising campaign for the LEEK Hunting and Mountain preserve - an organization that offers programs to wounded and disabled veterans.
Burch mobilized the efforts of 17 baking program students over several days to prepare bread, rolls, doughnuts, and other baked goods for the college sponsored bake sale. Furthermore, she arranged the visit for the Culinary Arts staff and student participants to the LEEK Preserve on Dec. 4 and presented the nearly $3,600 donation received through the bake sale. This campaign raised awareness and funds and exemplifies how college community members utilize their skills and gifts to support a larger cause.
Cronin has developed a culture of civic engagement among the approximately 30 members of his team through example and action. He directs and inspires his team to take part in many local and regional community projects, setting an ambitious goal of 300 community service hours. The team regularly participates in the Celebrate Service Celebrate Allegany day of service each fall and has partnered with New York Special Olympics, the Alfred Box of Books Library, the American Red Cross, and the Bath Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
The squad assisted Chemung County Habitat for Humanity with construction of the Elmira Habitat home in November 2015. They even took time out of a busy tournament schedule during the 2016 spring break to support the Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Myrtle Beach, SC.
Alfred State President Dr. Skip Sullivan recently presented four members of the college faculty and staff with the college’s Pioneer Award.
Recognized at the college’s employee recognition banquet were: Steven Scott, Andover; Mark Amman, Andover; Travis Armison, Fillmore; and Alyshia Zurlick, Alfred Station. Each received a certificate and a monetary gift.
The Pioneer Award acknowledges those who have demonstrated commitment and dedication to the college mission and goals, have made contributions that have had meaning and measurable positive impact on college operations, are seen as positive role models and show creativity and initiative, and have shown a consistent level of exceptional performance throughout their employment.
Scott is indeed a true asset to the Alfred State family and Facilities Services. While on the grounds crew, he would be seen plowing, shoveling, or mowing from the early morning till the end of each day. Now that Scott is a maintenance assistant in the Building Maintenance group, he stays busy on work orders or on special project teams. Most recently, he has been a very important member of the team who built the new Residential Life offices in the Townhouse Commons Building.
Amman has long demonstrated a strong commitment to his colleagues, his department, and the college in a variety of roles, and his energetic program development over the past two years has set a new standard for high performance at Alfred State. In addition to completing his regular administrative work as chair of the Physical and Life Sciences Department, Amman has managed the development and approval of three new academic programs: health sciences, radiologic technology, and diagnostic medical sonography. Though these new programs were the creation of many hands, Amman has provided exceptional initiative and leadership in coordinating and directing work, keeping various teams on task, and ensuring each step is completed within the necessary time frame.
Armison has been an amazing addition to the Agriculture and Veterinary Technology Department. As an instructional support assistant, he is not only knowledgeable about a variety of animal species, both large and small, he is a willing teacher, dedicating many hours during and after class to assure both agriculture and veterinary technology students understand management, husbandry, handling, and breeding techniques for multiple species. Armison has also instituted a Collegiate Future Farmers of America (FFA) Chapter at Alfred State that has brought FFA members from almost every curriculum on campus back to their FFA roots. When Armison is not helping with a lab or prepping for another lab, he also manages all the student work blocks at the farm.
Zurlick has shown her commitment to the college in many ways, including implementing the Emerging Pioneer Leadership Program, which has led to a leadership academic minor within the Business Department, enabling leadership development to supplement the skills and knowledge being developed across the curriculum. In addition to being the assistant director of the Office of Student Engagement, she has taken on the role of adviser to Delta Chi Omega sorority and has been a great role model to the young women. Zurlick has guided them in leading Project Prom Dress, which collects prom dresses, accessories, and cash donations for area teenage females in need. She has also voluntarily mentored many students through her various roles.
Recipients are nominated by their peers and selected by the Reward and Recognition Committee.
The Print and Mail Services Department at Alfred State recently received an honorable mention in the Cross Media category in the Association of College and University Printers 2016 print competition, held April 2-6 in Cincinnati, OH.
Specifically, the department was honored for the use of variable data in the college’s Orientation program.
The achievement marks the second straight year Print and Mail Services has been awarded in the print competition. Last year, the department won a first-place award for quality and uniqueness for the Alfred State personalized viewbook, and an honorable mention under the “Best Digitally Printed” category for the Alfred University MostArts Festival brochure.
The Association of College and University Printers is a non-profit organization that was established to promote communication, training, and educational opportunities within the higher education in-plant printing and mailing industry, according to its website, http://www.acup-edu.org/.
Print and Mail Services provides document and distribution solutions to the campus community, including the production and management of all printed materials related to student recruitment, admission decisions, scholarship awards, academic warnings, etc. The award-winning, state-of-the-art Print and Mail Services facility at Alfred State is a key component of SUNY’s shared services initiative.
The Community Design Center of Rochester, the region’s only non-profit, citizen-driven organization dedicated to promoting healthy, sustainable communities, recently appointed two new members to its Board of Directors, including Alfred State Professor of Architecture William Dean, AIA, NCARB, LEED® AP.
Dean, a registered architect, has been a faculty member at Alfred State since 2000. He holds a Bachelor of Professional Studies degree and Master of Architecture from the University at Buffalo.
At Alfred State, Dean founded the fourth-year Urban Design Studio, which promotes student civic engagement as a means of helping communities in the Rochester area and New York's Southern Tier visualize potential solutions for revitalizing their neighborhoods and business districts.
Prior to joining the college, Dean practiced with several firms in the Rochester area that specialized in residential, commercial, and health care design. He also maintains a consulting practice focused on helping clients plan for creative and sustainable improvements to their living and working environments.
Dean's applied research interests include issues related to new paradigms of professional practice, and community design and development through the work of the Urban Design Studio and the Southern Tier Architectural Resource Center.
His community and professional services span numerous activities in the region, and he has participated in many CDC Rochester projects. Dean has been designated as an Appalachian Teaching Fellow by the Appalachian Regional Commission and received the Alfred State College Council's Award for Leadership through Civic Engagement in 2013.
In addition to Dean, the CDC Rochester also appointed Monica C. McCullough, Esq. to its Board of Directors. McCullough is the president of MM Development Advisors, Inc., which specializes in providing comprehensive real estate development, community development, and general administrative advising to not-for-profit organizations and mission-focused, community-oriented private companies.
Alfred State recently announced promotions for faculty and staff.
Included among those receiving promotions for the college and Office of the President, with their new titles, are Dr. Craig Clark, Alfred, vice president of Economic Development; Heather Mark, Bath, secretary 1, Office of the President; and Dr. Kristin Poppo, Alfred, provost.
Those promoted in the Division of Academic Affairs, with their new titles, are Travis Armison, Fillmore, instructional support associate, Agriculture and Veterinary Technology; Dr. Alex Bitterman, Buffalo, professor, Architecture and Design; Tammy Brackett, Andover, professor, Digital Media and Animation; Pamela Brandes, Wellsville, secretary 2, School of Applied Technology; Valerie Calderon, Cuba, secretary 1, Mathematics and Physics and English and Humanities; Benjamin Cawley, Bolivar, lead programmer-analyst, Technology Services; Gordon Cook, Wellsville, instructional support associate, School of Applied Technology; Casey Cowburn, Andover, academic adviser, Student Success Center; Lucinda Croston, Andover, secretary 1, Business; Kathleen Ebert, associate vice president, Academic Affairs; Marsha Goodwin, Troupsburg, secretary 1, Digital Media and Animation, Architecture and Design, and Computer and Information Technology; Kera Mariotti, Wellsville, associate professor, Civil Engineering Technology; Krystal Perlman, Hornell, senior staff assistant, Technology Services; Jacob Perry, Springville, assistant professor, Culinary Arts; Ricky Richards, Wellsville, instructional support technician, Technology Services; Nicole Schroeder, Hornell, secretary 1, Student Success Center; and Deena Smith, Almond, secretary 1, Civil Engineering Technology, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Technology, and Computer and Information Technology.
Pictured, sitting, from left to right, are Benjamin Cawley, Pamela Brandes, Nicole Schroeder, Valerie Calderon, Marsha Goodwin, and Krystal Perlman. Second row, from left to right, are Kathleen Ebert, Jacob Perry, Kera Mariotti, Deena Smith, Tammy Brackett, Travis Armison, and Alex Bitterman. Back row, from left to right, are Ricky Richards and Casey Cowburn.
Receiving promotions in Administration, Advancement and Enrollment, with their new titles, are Darlene Fox, Whitesville, janitor, Facilities Services; William Greene, Andover, maintenance assistant mechanic, Facilities Services; Ryan Maloney, Holland, office assistant 2 (keyboarding), Student Records and Financial Services; Raymond Mullen, Bolivar, SUNY campus worker, Facilities Services; Karl Perkins, Andover, motor equipment mechanic, Facilities Services; David Shultz, Hornell, plant utilities engineer 1, Facilities Services; Anna Shutt, Wellsville, office assistant 2 (keyboarding), Admissions; and Danielle White, Hornell, executive director, Institutional Advancement.
Receiving promotions in Student Affairs, with their new titles, are Erica Alger, Hornell, senior counselor, Health and Wellness Services; Matthew Heller, Hornell, chief of police, University Police; Nikkie Hockenberry, Hornell, chief diversity officer, Student Affairs; Anne Holmok, Alfred, senior staff assistant, Athletics; Spencer Peavey, Wellsville, assistant vice president for Student Affairs, Student Affairs; Patrick Smith, North Tonawanda, senior staff assistant, Residential Services; and Jeffrey Wilcox, Nunda, lieutenant, University Police.
Pictured, sitting, from left to right are Anne Holmok and Jason Cronin. Back row, from left to right, are Jeffrey Wilcox, Patrick Smith, and Matthew Heller.
Food truck mania will sweep over Alfred State this fall, ushered in by the arrival of “The Feast Beast,” the college’s first mobile dining venue.
Alfred State President Dr. Skip Sullivan drove the Beast through the inaugural blue ribbon, Monday, June 13, signaling the arrival of the 24-foot truck. The Beast, which will serve exclusively on the Alfred State campuses and property, will offer signature sandwiches and hand-crafted burgers and salads. The food truck is owned and operated by Auxiliary Campus Enterprises and Services, Inc. (ACES), the not-for-profit corporation that provides dining services on campus.
The truck, designed by Custom Mobile Food Equipment, with graphics created by Lonowood Art Company, was available for tours at its debut. Students, faculty, and staff are already lining up for the opportunity to see and taste what “The Feast Beast” has to offer.
Students will be able to use their meal plan to dine from the food truck by purchasing a value meal option, or by using Dining Dollars or Campus Spending Account cash. Cashiers onboard will also accept cash and credit cards.
Members of the faculty and staff at Alfred State were honored recently for their years of service at the college.
Those employees honored for 35 years included Kathleen Bayus, Alfred Station, secretary 1, Marketing Communications; and Lawrence Perkins, Andover, grounds supervisor, Facilities Services.
Honorees received a college weather station and a certificate to commemorate the occasion.
Those employees honored for 30 years included Andrew Bayus, Alfred Station, director of College Housing, Residential Services; Larry Drumm, Almond, motor equipment mechanic, Facilities Services; Roger Elias, Wellsville, general mechanic, Facilities Services; Patricia Lewis-Brownell, Wellsville, secretary, School of Applied Technology; and Deborah Neu, Hornell, secretary, Student Records and Financial Services.
Honorees received a college watch and a certificate to commemorate the occasion.
Pictured, sitting, from left to right, are Andrew Bayus and Patricia Lewis-Brownell. Back row, from left to right, are Deborah Neu and Roger Elias.
Those employees honored for 25 years included Regina Boyd, Hornell, women’s basketball coach, physical education instructor, Athletics; Robert Bretzin, Portville, assistant professor, Computerized Design and Manufacturing; Steven Martinelli, Andover, professor, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Technology; Vanessa Stachowski, Belmont, nurse, Health and Wellness Services; Robin Torpey, Cuba, associate professor, Computer and Information Technology; and Choichiro Yatani, Alfred Station, professor, Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Pictured, sitting, from left to right, are Regina Boyd, Robert Bretzin, and Steven Martinelli. Back row, from left to right, are Choichiro Yatani, Robin Torpey, and Vanessa Stachowski. | 2019-04-25T11:06:13Z | http://www.alfredstate.edu/archive/201606 |
"Van der Weyden" redirects here. For the surname and list of people with the name, see Van der Weijden.
Van der Weyden worked from life models, and his observations were acute, yet he often idealised certain elements of his models' facial features, and they are typically statuesque, especially in his triptychs. All of his forms are rendered with rich, warm colourisation and a sympathetic expression, while he is known for his expressive pathos and naturalism. His portraits tend to be half length and half profile, and he is as sympathetic here as in his religious triptychs. Van der Weyden used an unusually broad range of colours and varied tones; in his finest work the same tone is not repeated in any other area of the canvas, so even the whites are varied.
Due to the loss of archives in 1695 and again in 1940, there are few certain facts of van der Weyden's life. Rogelet de le Pasture (Roger of the Pasture) was born in Tournai (in present-day Belgium) in 1399 or 1400. His parents were Henri de le Pasture and Agnes de Watrélos. The Pasture family had earlier settled in the city of Tournai where Rogier's father worked as a maître-coutelier (knife manufacturer).
From the second of March 1436 onward, he held the title of 'painter to the town of Brussels' (stadsschilder), a very prestigious post because Brussels was at that time the most important residence of the splendid court of the Dukes of Burgundy. On his move to Brussels, Rogier began using the Flemish version of his name: "Rogier van der Weyden".
Portrait of a Woman with a Winged Bonnet, c. 1440.
Little is known about Rogier's training as a painter. The archival sources from Tournai were completely destroyed during World War II, but had been partly transcribed in the 19th and early 20th century. The sources on his early life are confusing and have led to different interpretations by scholars. It is known that the city council of Tournai offered eight pitchers of wine in honour of a certain 'Maistre Rogier de le Pasture' on 17 November 1426.
However, on 5 March of the following year, the records of the painters' guild show a "Rogelet de le Pasture" entered the workshop of Robert Campin together with Jacques Daret. Records show that de le Pasture was already established as a painter. Only five years later, on the first of August 1432, de le Pasture obtained the title of a "Master" (Maistre) painter.
His later entry into apprenticeship might be explained by the fact that during the 1420s the city of Tournai was in crisis and as a result the guilds were not functioning normally. The late apprenticeship may have been a legal formality. Also Jacques Daret was then in his twenties and had been living and working in Campin's household for at least a decade. It is possible that Rogier obtained an academic title (Master) before he became a painter and that he was awarded the wine of honour on the occasion of his graduation. The sophisticated and learned iconographical and compositional qualities of the paintings attributed to him are sometimes used as an argument in favour of this supposition.
The social and intellectual status of Rogier in his later life surpassed that of a mere craftsman at that time. In general, the close stylistic link between the documented works of Jacques Daret and the paintings attributed to Robert Campin and van der Weyden are the main arguments to consider Rogier van der Weyden as a pupil of Campin.
The final mention of Rogier de la Pasture in the financial records of Tournai, on 21 October 1435, lists him as demeurrant à Brouxielles ("living in Brussels"). At the same time, the first mention of Rogier de Weyden places him as the official painter of Brussels. It is this fact that puts de la Pasture and van der Weyden as one and the same painter. The post of city painter was created especially for Van der Weyden and was meant to lapse on his death. It was linked to a huge commission to paint four justice scenes for the "Golden Chamber" of Brussels City Hall. Different properties and investments are documented and witness his material prosperity. The portraits he painted of the Burgundian Dukes, their relatives and courtiers, demonstrate a close relationship with the elite of the Netherlands. Whilst Rogier van der Weyden became increasingly wealthy, he also gave generously in alms to the poor. Further testimony of his philanthropy is van der Weyden's position as administrator of the hospital and charitable foundation Ter Kisten of the Beguine convent in Brussels between 1455 and 1457. The Miraflores Altarpiece was probably commissioned by King Juan II of Castile, since Juan II donated it to the monastery of Miraflores in 1445.
According to some sources, in 1449 Rogier went to Italy, and in the holy year 1450 quite possibly made a pilgrimage to Rome, which brought him in contact with Italian artists and patrons. However, his Italian experiences had no influence on his style. The House of Este and the Medici family commissioned paintings from him. However, his After interventions from both the Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin of France, the future Louis XI, Rogier van der Weyden was persuaded to accept the request of Bianca Maria Visconti, Duchess of Milan, that her court painter Zanetto Bugatto go to Brussels to become an apprentice in his workshop. Rogier's international reputation had increased progressively. In the 1450s and 1460s humanist scholars such as Nicolas Cusanus, Filarete and Bartolomeo Facio referred to him in superlatives: 'the greatest', 'the most noble' of painters.
Portrait of a Lady, c. 1460. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
No single work can be attributed with certainty to van der Weyden on 15th-century documentary evidence alone. However, Lorne Campbell has stated that three well-authenticated paintings are known, but each has been doubted or underestimated. The best documented is The Descent from the Cross in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Campbell points out that this painting's provenance can be traced in some detail from the 16th century. Originally hung in the church Notre-Dame-hors-des-Murs in Leuven, The Descent from the Cross was sent to the King of Spain. While the ship on which it was travelling sank, the painting fortunately floated, and careful packaging meant that it was scarcely damaged. A copy of the masterpiece by Michel Coxcie was donated to the people of Leuven to replace the original sent to Spain. The Triptych of the Virgin or Miraflores Altarpiece, since 1850 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, was given in 1445 to the Charterhouse of Miraflores near Burgos by John II of Castile; it was described in the deed of gift as the work of great and famous Flandresco Rogel. The Crucifixion, now in the Escorial Palace, was donated by Rogier to the Charterhouse of Scheut outside Brussels. In his catalogue raisonné of Van der Weyden's, the Belgian art historian Dirk de Vos agrees with Campbell about the authenticity of these three paintings.
Rogier's apprenticeship under Campin instilled a number of preoccupations, most noticeably his approach to feminine beauty, which was often expressed both through the elegant form of the model herself as well as her dress. Both painters positioned their models within strong diagonal lines, rendered either through headdress or folds of surrounding draperies or cloth. Both emphasised the vivacity of their model's character by contrasting them against dark flat backgrounds and throwing strong light from the near left hand side. Campbell compares Campin's Thief with Rogier's Prado The Descent from the Cross in their emotional depictions of anguish. The resemblance was to such an extent – compare Campin's Portrait of a Woman's similarity to Rogier's Berlin portrait – that Campin's works were for a period attributed to Rogier's early career.
Châtelet illustrates how subsequent generations of art historians have conflated and confused Rogier van der Weyden's identity, thereby mis-attributing works of art. It can be traced back to a geographical error in Vasari's Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori where he states that the artist 'Rugiero da Brugia' lived in Bruges. Van Mander, who knew that Rogier van der Weyden resided in Brussels, read Vasari's text and believed that there were two different artists with the same name, who both appear separately in his Schilder-boeck of 1604. Châtelet explains how the Brussels archivist Alphonse Walters discovered in 1846 that there was a Rogier van der Weyden who lived in Brussels but that he had died earlier than stated in the Schilder-Boeck; this led Alfred Michiels to claim that there were two Rogier van der Weyden painters, a father and son. A further complication arose at the end of the 19th century when William Bode and Hugo von Tschudi attributed a group of works of art to the "Maître de Flémalle"; despite discrepancies, these works are similar to those of Van der Weyden and so it was believed that these works were in fact by Rogier and that he was the "Maître de Flémalle". It was only in 1913 that Hulin de Loo indicated that these works were actually painted by Rogier's teacher Robert Campin. There was still a divide in critical opinion over whether there was one Rogier van der Weyden or two artists, the other being Rogier de la Pasture of Tournai, until Erwin Panofsky wrote his definitive work in 1953 Early Netherlandish Painting and established that there was only one painter with two names.
Seven Sacraments Altarpiece, a triptych c. 1445-50. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.
Crucifixion Diptych (c. 1460). Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Relatively few works are attributed to van der Weyden's relatively long career, but this does not mean he was un-prolific, more that it is likely that many have been lost. Nonetheless, he had a very well defined style, and the majority of the attributions are generally accepted. Van der Weyden left no self-portraits. However it has been suggested that he painted a self-portrait into one of the Justice panels, which was subsequently copied into the Bern tapestry. A drawing with the inscription "Recueil d'Arras" is also said to depict Van der Weyden.
Many of his most important works were destroyed during the late 17th century. He is first mentioned in historical records in 1427 when, relatively late in life, he studied painting under Campin during 1427–32, and soon outshone his master and, later, even influenced him. After his apprenticeship, he was made master of the Tournai Guild of St Luke. He moved to Brussels in 1435, where he quickly established his reputation for his technical skill and emotional use of line and colour. He completed his Deposition in 1435, which as he had deliberately intended, made him one of the most sought after and influential artists in northern Europe and is still considered his masterpiece.
The Crucifixion Triptych. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
The fragment of the London National Gallery's The Magdalen Reading has been described by Campbell as "one of the great masterpieces of fifteenth-century art and among Rogier's most important early works". Since the 1970s, this painting has been linked to two small heads in the collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon), of Saint Catherine and of St Joseph. It is now widely believed that these three fragments came from the same large altarpiece depicting the "Virgin and Child with Saints", partly recorded in a later drawing now in Stockholm. At some unknown date before 1811, this altarpiece was carved up into these three fragments.
The lost The Justice of Trajan and Herkinbald, which survived until the end of the 17th century, consisted of four large panels representing the Justice of Trajan and Justice of Herkenbald. These were commissioned by the City of Brussels for the Gulden Camere (Golden Chamber) of the Brussels Town Hall. The first and third panels were signed, and the first dated 1439. All four were finished before 1450. They were destroyed in the French Bombardment of Brussels in 1695, but are known from many surviving descriptions, from a free partial copy in tapestry (Bern, Historisches Museum) and from other free and partial copies in drawing and painting. The paintings probably measured about 4.5 m each, which was an enormous scale for a painting on panel at that time. They served as 'examples of justice' for the aldermen of the city who had to speak justice in this room. The paintings were praised or described by a series of commentators until their destruction, including Dürer (1520), Vasari (1568), Molanus (c. 1570–1580), and Baldinucci (1688).
In his commissioned portraits, van der Weyden typically flattered his sitters. He often idealised or softened their facial features, allowing them a handsomeness or beauty, or interest or intelligence they might not have been blessed with in life. He often enlargened the eyes, better defined the contours of the face, and gave a much stronger jaw than the subject may have possessed in life. Among his most celebrated portraits are those of Philip the Good, his third wife Isabella of Portugal and their son Charles the Bold.
His vigorous, subtle, expressive painting and popular religious conceptions had considerable influence on European painting, not only in France and Germany but also in Italy and in Spain. Panofsky writes how Rogier van der Weyden introduced new religious iconography in his painting; he depicted patrons participating in sacred events and combined half-portraits of the Madonna with portraits of people in prayer to form diptychs. He also reformulated and popularised the subject of Saint Jerome removing the thorn from the lion's paw.
Hans Memling was his greatest follower, although it is not proven that he studied under Rogier. Van der Weyden had also a large influence on the German painter and engraver Martin Schongauer whose prints were distributed all over Europe from the last decades of the 15th century. Indirectly Schongauer's prints helped to disseminate van der Weyden's style. Delenda writes that, with the exception of Petrus Christus who was a disciple of Jan van Eyck, traces of Rogier van der Weyden's art can be found in all fifteenth-century artists, to varying degrees.
^ Mander, Karel van (2012). Vidas de los pintores flamencos [The Lives of Flemish Painters] (in Spanish). Madrid: Casimiro; translation by Agustín Temes; original edition Schilder-Boeck, 1604. p. 26. ISBN 978-84-15715-02-3.
^ a b Kemperdick, Stephan, Jochen Sander, Bastian Eclercy, Maître de Flémalle, and Rogier van der Weyden. 2008. The Master of Flémalle and Rogier van der Weyden. Frankfurt am Main: Städel Museum. p. 67. ISBN 978-3-7757-2259-9.
^ Delenda, Odile (1987). Rogier van der Weyden (in French). Cerf/Tricorne. p. 21. ISBN 2-204-02537-2.
^ Delenda, Odile. Rogier van der Weyden. p. 21.
^ Mander, Karel van. Vidas de los pintores flamencos. p. 28.
^ Delenda, Odile (1987). Rogier van der Weyden. p. 22.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Weyden, Rogier van der" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 567. Note: the 1911 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica has two different entries for the same person; see below.
^ a b Delenda, Odile (1987). Rogier van der Weyden. p. 24.
^ Mander, Karel van. Vidas de los pintores flamencos. p. 27.
^ Châtelet, Albert (1999). Van der Weyden (in French). Paris: Gallimard. pp. 9–10. ISBN 2-07-011613-1.
^ Châtelet, Albert (1999). Van der Weyden. pp. 9–10.
^ Panofsky, Erwin (2007). Los primitivos flamencos [Early Netherlandish Painting] (in Spanish). Madrid: Cátedra. p. 246. ISBN 84-376-1617-4.
^ "Bust of 'St Catherine'?; Bust of 'St Joseph'". Museu Gulbenkian. 19 April 2009. Archived from the original on 1 October 2009. Retrieved 28 July 2009.
^ Delenda, Odile (1987). Rogier van der Weyden. p. 5.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Van der Weyden, Roger" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 887.
^ Panofsky, Erwin (2007). Los primitivos flamencos. p. 247.
^ Delenda, Odile (1987). Rogier van der Weyden. p. 18.
Liess, Reinhard. Zum Logos der Kunst Rogier van der Weydens. Die "Beweinungen Christi" in den Königlichen Museen in Brüssel und in der Nationalgalerie in London, 2 tomes. Munster-Hamburg-London: Lit, 2000. ISBN 3-8258-4158-8.
"Rogier van der Weyden, database of paintings". Centre for the Study of Fifteenth Century Painting in the Southern Netherlands and the Principality of Liège. 2015. Archived from the original on 12 February 2015. | 2019-04-20T00:17:53Z | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogier_van_der_Weyden |
Stephen Colbert spoofed a controversial ad designed for television for the Doritos brand of corn chips. In 2010, the makers of the Doritos product created a contest to choose a video commercial that would be shown during the 2011 Super Bowl. Commercial spoofed by Colbert was one of the entries received by Doritos, though it was not chosen and therefore did not air during the Super Bowl. Nonetheless, in the commercial a priest is worried about how to boost attendance in his church. As he is praying for ideas, heaven reveals the solution: replace the bread or wafers in the Communion service with Doritos.
After the commercial was produced, Stephen Colbert decided to spoof it on his comedy show and I read this to you with the caveat in front that it almost made me cry and I'm sure it will have the same effect on some of you. Colbert begins, "Now, folks, I may be a devout Catholic," and the audience cheers and laughs. He pulls out a bag of Doritos nacho chips from beneath his desk. "I know the Eucharist is usually bread, but through transubstantiation it becomes the body of Christ. So I honestly don't understand why Jesus can't be a Dorito. Doritos are unleavened and, after all, he did snackrifice himself for our sins. And remember, at the Last Supper, according to Mark 14:20, Jesus said he would be betrayed by one of the 12 who 'dips with me in the bowl.'"
Once again, there's audience laughter and an image of the Bible and the text at Mark 14:20 appears on the screen. "They had dips," said Colbert, "therefore Jesus was a chip. Everybody knows the Catholic Church can use a little extra scratch right now. What better way than product placement? Next Wednesday, we can all get our foreheads marked with Dorito dust. For the right price, there's no reason people couldn't be baptized in Mountain Dew. That would be the most extreme baptism ever. Once and for all, we'll show Islam which religion is most radical". End of quote.
Unless you saw Colbert's spoof on the commercial, or saw it on another website, probably didn't hear much about it, about equating Jesus with a corn chip, about saying he snackrificed himself for our sins. Indeed, incorporating Jesus Christ into profane and demeaning situations is so common in America that it hardly gains any attention anymore. Never before has the biblical portrait of Christ been so foreign to our culture. In fashion, he appears on Urban Outfitters as "Jesus is my homeboy" T-shirts. On television, he often appears in the animated episodes of the Simpsons and South Park. On the big screen, he's been the subject of "The Da Vinci Code".
In a 2010 interview, Elton John provocatively stated that Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. Renowned atheist Richard Dawkins claimed that a reborn Jesus would gladly wear an "Atheist for Jesus" T-shirt today and we owe Jesus, he said, "the honor of separating the genuinely original and radical ethics that he held from the supernatural nonsense which he espoused as a man of his time". End of quote.
In their book, "Dethroning Jesus," exposing popular culture's quest to unseat the biblical Christ, scholars Darrell Bock and Daniel Wallace explain that "the popular view of Jesus today is not biblical Christianity, it's Jesus-anity. Jesus-anity is a coined term for the alternative story about Jesus Christ. Here, the center of the story is still Jesus but Jesus as a prophet or a teacher of religious wisdom. His role is primarily one of teacher and guide and example. Jesus' special status involves his insight into the human condition and the enlightenment he brings to it. In this story, the key is that Jesus inspires others but there's no throne for Jesus. He is one among many. The best, perhaps, and certainly one we can learn from and follow".
I never thought I'd see the day in America when Jesus Christ was fair game for comedians and commercial entrepreneurs, especially those who profess to believe in him, like the self-confessed devout Roman Catholic, Stephen Colbert. My point is not necessarily to pick him out and criticize him above others because he's actually one of the more tellable stories in this report. Some of the material that I gained in my research, I would never ever speak of in public because it's so profane and vile. The point is how easy it is for us as Christians to get squeezed into the mold of this world if we're not constantly filtering what we find entertaining and at whose expense. The Jesus that we need to know will not be found in the secular media.
John Piper said, "The degree to which the church is trained to distrust the Jesus of the Gospels and to look for ever-new human creations of Christ, the real Jesus will be blurred and his power to break free from the unbiblical traditions that bind him will be blunted". Some of you know what Muzak is. It's really elevator music. It's the music they play in elevators that you don't even know about until you stop and think, if you're in an elevator alone, "Oh, there's some music playing". It's background music. It plays in elevators and shopping malls and department stores and it just sort of gets into your consciousness without your invitation. Elevator music is always there so we don't pay much attention to it, yet our subconscious mind takes it in.
Cultural messages like the one I have told you that continues to be tolerated is like background music. Little by little, it slips into the consciousness of Christian Americans. It's like cultural noise, whether it's in our lives through a late-night comedian or maybe a Sunday morning mega church pastor or a news interview with the leader of a mainline denomination or a thousand other sources. Messages about Jesus are always streaming into our heads. And if we are not careful, those messages like a silently stored song subconsciously change the way we think about the Jesus who is our Savior. In the midst of this sordid picture of Jesus Christ in our culture, we have the Bible.
And in the Bible, we have the New Testament. And in the New Testament we have the Book of Hebrews. And I don't know if you know that but there's more about Jesus in the Book of Hebrews than in any book in the New Testament except the four gospels. If you wanna know about Jesus, obviously read the four gospels. If you wanna know more about Jesus, read the Book of Hebrews, for the Book of Hebrews is all about Jesus Christ. Hebrews was written to a group of first century Christians, most of whom had been saved out of Judaism. Many of them had been exposed to the danger of giving up. They were under great pressure, being ridiculed and persecuted by their families for having turned from Judaism to Jesus Christ. Many had accepted this adversity joyfully, but others were ready to quit.
So the letter of Hebrews appeals to these believers to keep their faith anchored in truth and confident in Christ and the writer of Hebrews, whose identity we do not know, teaches us that no believer can cope with adversity unless Christ fills his horizons and sharpens his priorities and dominates his experience. And more importantly, from a theological perspective, Hebrews is the only book that begins with the word God. Did you know that? It's the only one. Now, in the Greek, it's not like that but, for some reason, God caused the book to be translated into English so that the first word in the Book of Hebrews is God. Most other books begin with the name of the human writer, Paul or Peter or John. But we don't know who the writer of the Book of Hebrews is, so it begins with God.
So I guess we'll have to let him be the writer, right? God is the writer of Hebrews, as he is of all of the other books. And the theme of Hebrews, as I've mentioned, is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the one that these young Hebrew Christians need to know. He's the one they needed to wrap their lives around. Only Jesus Christ and a full orbed understanding of who he was could get them through the difficulties they were facing. And my friends, I believe that is true in our world today. I believe that as Christians, we get our thoughts and our minds on a lot of other things and we turn away from Christ and then we wonder why we're having such a difficult time.
Jesus Christ is the one who has promised to be closer to us than our brother and keep us in the midst of every situation and just as the Hebrew Christians needed Christ in the Book of Hebrews, we today need Christ in our lives. Not just as our Savior but as the constant friend and companion in our lives. Not every book is so up front about what it's about, but if you turn to the 8th chapter of the Book of Hebrews, you'll discover what this book is about. This is what it says in 8:1, "Now this is the main point of the things we are saying".
That's pretty clear, isn't it? You don't wanna know what Hebrews is about? Well, here it is. "Now this is the main point about the things we are saying: We have a high priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heavens". That's what the Book of Hebrews is about. It's about Jesus. In the Book of Hebrews, we learn that Jesus is better. He's better than everything. He's better than the angels. He's better than Moses. He's better than Joshua. He's better than the old covenant. He's better than the priests. In fact, the word better is in Hebrews 13 times. Jesus is better.
I remember reading a book some years ago by Max Lucado and he was talking about Hebrews and he said, "The best just got better". It's a favorite slogan with advertisers. It's not that our previous product was poor; it's just that the current one is superior. The Book of Hebrews might well use the same slogan. The best just got better. Here in the first few pages of the Book of Hebrews is the real Jesus, and I think instead of spending our whole time railing on the world's comprehension of who Jesus is, we'd do well to focus our attention on what the Bible says about him.
You know, there's an old adage that when you're trying to figure out whether a bill is counterfeit, don't study the counterfeit bill, study the real bill. When you know what that looks like, you'll spot a counterfeit bill whenever you go. It's easy. So we need to get back to knowing who Jesus is, according to the Scripture. Now, in the first two or three chapters of Hebrews, we learn several things about him. And I'm just gonna take you through this because I'm so excited about preaching Hebrews 'cause I get to preach Jesus straight on. You know, I preach about Jesus all the time, but sometimes he's kind of in the places between other things. But when you teach Hebrews, Jesus is the focus of every lesson.
First of all, Jesus is the final word from God. Did you know that? It says in chapter 1, verse 2, "God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers through the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son". Now, watch carefully what that says. That says that in the Old Testament God spoke in various ways and in various times. He spoke to Adam a little bit. He spoke to Moses a little bit. He spoke to Abraham a little bit. He spoke to David and to Solomon a little bit here and there. He spoke in various seasons, from Moses in the Pentateuch all the way through the prophets, ending with the Book of Malachi.
But listen, he never spoke at all to any one person or at any one time so it was here a little and there a little and we are blessed 'cause we have the collection of what he said to all of them but there was never a time in the Old Testament where there was a full-orbed, final word from God. But when you come to the New Testament, we are told, but "in these last days God has spoken unto us through his Son". Did you know that one of the titles for Jesus is he is the Word. He is the Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God".
That's Jesus. Jesus is God's last word to man. When Jesus came into his place on this earth, he was simply God walking around in a body. When God wanted to communicate who he was to us, he took deity and poured it into humanity and said, "This is who I am," and Jesus walked upon this earth. So Jesus is God's final word to man. If you're looking for another word from God beside Jesus, you're gonna wait a long time. He has spoken finally and Jesus is the message. Jesus is God's final word to man. When he spoke in Christ he said everything he meant to say. If you wanna know who God is, study Jesus. If you wanna know what God is like, the Bible says God is a spirit. How do we understand a spirit? We cannot. So God incarnated himself and put himself in a human body so that now we can know how God is through watching Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus is the final word from God. But if you keep reading in the Book of Hebrews you find secondly that Jesus is the first cause of creation.
Now, a lot of people read Genesis 1:1 and say, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". We all believe that, but when you get to the New Testament, you discover that the part of the Trinity that was involved in the Creation process was Jesus Christ. Did you know that Jesus Christ is the Creator God? You say "Jeremiah, where did you find that"? Well, I'm glad you ask. Here's what it says, "Through whom," Jesus, "he also made the worlds". If you didn't get that, listen to John 1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God". And watch this. "All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made".
Now, that's about as clear as you can get. I mean, I wanna say to people who say they don't believe Jesus is the Creator God, "What part of that don't you get"? Colossians 1:16 says it again, "For by him," Jesus, "all things were created that are in heaven, that are on earth, visible, invisible, thrones, dominions, principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for him". So we're building a little picture of Jesus. He is the last word from God and he's the first cause of creation. Then the Bible tells us that Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead. In verse 3 we read, "Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person".
Colossians 1:19 says, "It pleased the Father that in Christ all the fullness should dwell". That means that Jesus Christ is exactly the same as God for he is God. This is one of the clearest statements in the Bible concerning the deity of Jesus Christ. "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him". We can't see God. He's a spirit. You cannot see God. Bible says you can't see God and live but you can see Jesus in the pages of the New Testament and, in seeing Jesus, the Bible says you see God. In his letter to Timothy, Paul expressed his amazement at this. He said, "Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God manifest in the flesh". And Jesus himself said, "If you have seen me you've seen the Father".
I wanna be clear about this because one of the great debates about Jesus Christ today, as I read to you in the Jesus-anity quote, is that he is a good man but he's not God. You cannot believe that and call yourself a biblical Christian because the Bible teaches that Jesus is not just a good man. He is the God-man. And if we don't understand that, we cannot understand Christianity. Here in the first chapter of Hebrews in the 8th verse is one of the clearest proof texts for the deity of Jesus Christ. And this is what it says in Hebrews 1:8, "But to the Son he," which means God the Father. "But to the Son the Father says, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.'" Here is God the Father calling Jesus his Son God.
You say, "I don't believe Jesus is God". Well, you and God don't agree. God says he is God and if you don't think he's God, then you have a problem with the Father because the Father said, "Your throne, O God," speaking of Jesus, "is forever and forever".
I read this about a biblical scholar named Scot McKnight who took his students in class through an exercise on the opening day in his class on Jesus of Nazareth. "He gave a standardized psychological test which was divided into two parts. The results are nothing short of astounding. The first part is about Jesus. It asked students to imagine Jesus' personality, with questions such as, "Does he prefer to go his own way rather than act by the rules"? or "Is he a worrier"? The second part asks the same question of the students, but instead of "Is he a worrier"? it asks, "Are you a worrier"?
And the test is not about right or wrong answers. It is not designed to help students understand Jesus. Instead, if given to enough people, the test will reveal that we all think Jesus is like us. Introverts think Jesus is introverted and, on the basis of the same questions, extroverts think Jesus is extroverted. Spiritual formation experts would love to hear that students in my Jesus class are becoming like Jesus, but the test actually reveals the reverse: students are fashioning Jesus to be like them. If the test were given to a random sample of adults, the results would be measurably similar. To one degree or another, we all conform Jesus to our own image.
And that's where we get in trouble, isn't it? Because Jesus isn't who we want him to be. Jesus is who he is. Jesus is who the Bible says he is. The Bible tells us who Jesus is and if we would read our Bibles, we wouldn't go down that strange road. I don't know if this ever happens to you but people come up to me periodically, if I preach on hell or judgment or something, I get a letter or an email, and invariably, I've had people come up to me and say, "Doctor Jeremiah, my God would never send anybody to hell". And you know what I tell 'em? "That's exactly right 'cause your God doesn't exist. He doesn't exist, you made him up".
We love to take our faith and, when there are hard parts of it that we struggle with, we take them out. We excise them from our understanding. You don't like hell? Well, do away with it. You want everybody to go to heaven? Find a way to make it happen. Write a book about it, get on TV and everybody will think it's true. But that's not true. The Bible says, "It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment". Do whatever you want to with it, but you can't take it out of the Book.
Some people think, "Well, if I don't want it to be true, then it's not true". Well, you know what? It's true, whether you want it to be true or not. So if you wanna get any place in your life, find out what's true and get on the bus. But don't go down all of these blind alleys, trying to make the Jesus you say you love be just like you are 'cause he's not. He wants you to be just like he is. When you get on that track, then something good will happen. Jesus is the final word from God. Jesus is the first cause of creation. Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead. And the Bible says in Hebrews 1:3, "He's the facilitator of all things". He "upholds all things by the word of his power".
Do you know what keeps this whole world from flying off in a different direction and go out of orbit and totally destruct? Jesus has got it in control. He was before history, he was at the beginning of history, he will be at the end of history, and he is the one who controls history. He is the sustainer and upholder of this world. This is what Paul communicated in his letter to the Colossians when he said to these believers, "He is before all things, and in him all things consist". There has never been a moment from the beginning of creation that Jesus Christ has not been performing this mighty work, holding everything together as the facilitator of the universe.
Jesus is the final word from God. He's the first cause of creation. He's the fullness of the Godhead, the facilitator of all things and here's my favorite in the list. He's the forgiveness of our sins. Listen to what it says in verse 3. It says in verse 3, "When he had by himself purged our sins". Christ is not only the revealer of God, he's the redeemer of man. This Book of Hebrews is a book about cleansing and here we are told that Christ purged our sins. He cleansed us. Please note where this phrase appears in the context of these words. "He who is before all things and in whom all things are summed up, the one who is the Father's delight and the Father's glory, the one of infinite power and infinite glory, it was he himself who purged our sins".
To what purpose did he come? He didn't come down to set up his kingdom primarily, he came to seek and to save those that are lost. The Bible says in Hebrews he came to taste death for every man. And not one of these things that people talk about when they say these wonderful things about Jesus is worth anything if he didn't come down here to purge our sins. Think of it, folks. He who created the universe is the one who died for you. The only one who could do that work on the cross was Jesus Christ and the Bible says that he, by himself, purged our sins.
Now remember, I always tell our people, I've been teaching the Book of Hebrews for a while, and I always tell 'em, about every week, the Book of Hebrews was written to the Hebrews. That's a really important thing to keep in your mind, and it's written to us, but it was written primarily to the Hebrews. Now, these Jewish Christians, they knew all about the purging of sins. They had been brought up in Judaism and they knew in Judaism that through the blood of bulls and goats and all of that that their sins were forgiven in advance of the cross.
In the Old Testament the purging of sins was never ever finished. Hebrews 9 says, "Not that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with the blood of another. He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now," watch this, "once in the end of the ages, he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself".
I wanna tell you some good news. This Jesus I've been telling you about that you can tell I'm a bit excited over, this Jesus who is the final word from God and the first cause of creation and the fullness of the Godhead and the facilitator of the universe, this Jesus is the forgiveness of our sins. And when we come to know him, he not only hears our prayer for forgiveness but because of who he is, he can do something about it and forgive us from our sin. He's the final word from God. He's the first cause of creation. He's the fullness of the Godhead. He's the facilitator of all things. He's the forgiveness of our sins. And he's the finisher of our faith. Listen to what he says here, "And he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high".
In the Old Testament Tabernacle, did you know that the high priest never sat down? In fact, in all of the Tabernacle, with all of its wonderful furniture, there was a lampstand, there was a laver, there was an altar, but there was no chair. If you were an Old Testament high priest, you never could sit down 'cause your work was never done. There was always somebody who'd need forgiveness and you needed to be there. You were the priest. But when Christ entered the Holy of Holies in the heavens, the Bible says, "He sat down". Say that with me. "He sat down".
And I wanna tell you something, friends. He didn't sit down 'cause he was tired. He sat down 'cause he was finished. He sat down because what he cried on the cross was true. When he was dying on the cross, at the end of it he said, "It is finished". And he paid the price for all of our sin and when he went back to heaven and he sat down by the right hand of the Father, he sat down to signify that nothing else ever needs to be done for sin. He did it all and it's done. Hebrews 12:2 says, "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God".
You may be thinking, "Well, there's something I need to do in order for me to go to heaven. Something I need to do for my sins to be forgiven". No, there's not anything you need to do. Jesus did it all. He did it all so well that when he got done, he sat down. He's not waiting for you to do anything, except accept what he already did for you. And I'll tell you some more about that in a moment. I'm almost finished, but let me go through this list one more time. He's the final word from God. He's the first cause of creation. He's the fullness of the Godhead. He's the facilitator of all things. He's the forgiveness of our sins. He's the finisher of our faith. And here's the last one for all of us Christians. He's our faithful high priest.
Did you know that? This Jesus who created the world, this Jesus who holds it all together, this Jesus who himself purged our sins on the cross and went to heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father, the Bible says he is at the right hand of the Father, always there making intercession for the saints. And over in the 2nd chapter of Hebrews, it says, "Therefore, in all things Jesus had to be made like unto his brethren," in other words, he had to become a man, "that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted".
What that means is that Jesus became for a little time a little lower than the angels, that he might be one of us and walk among us and live as we have lived on this earth. And the Bible says, over in the 4th chapter, that "we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet apart from sin". And before we go any further, let me disabuse some of the nonsense that I sometimes hear about this passage, which goes like this. Well, if Jesus couldn't sin, how could he be tempted like we are because, I mean, let's face it, I can sin. So if Jesus was not able to sin, you know, there's this big argument, was Jesus able not to sin or was he not able to sin?
Well, I believe Jesus was not able to sin. He was the sinless Son of God. Well, you say, "Well, then, how could he have been tempted like we are"? And I remember reading this in a book somewhere, somebody said, "Is a bridge tested fully when the first car drives over the bridge or is it tested fully when cars have been driving over that bridge for years and years and years"? Let me ask you this question. Is a bridge tested when it is found first not to fail or is it tested when it is found never to fail? Jesus didn't give in to any temptation so he felt the full brunt of it all. Whatever it is you think you've gone through, you haven't faced anything like Jesus faced. You know why that's true? 'Cause you gave in. And the temptation of Jesus was to the fullest extent, yet he never sinned.
And the Bible says when I go to Jesus with my trouble, I can talk to someone who knows what it's like to be a human. He became like us and he exposed himself to all the hazards and perils of life and death and he was not protected from trouble and adversity. When we find ourselves immersed in the harsh realities of human experience, where do we go? We go to Jesus. Think of the blessing of it all. Think of how he shares our labors, how he knows the dull drab drudgery of some of the common tasks we have to do, the heavy misery of back-breaking toil. He shares our trials and our limitations. He was poor, with no place to lay his head. He was hungry, grateful to the converted women who ministered to him of their substance. He was thirsty, begging water of a Samaritan woman. He was weary and exhausted and sat for rest on the well. He bore our sorrows and our heartaches.
If there was death in the home, it brought tears to his eyes. When he looked upon the cripple, the leper, the blind, and the helpless, his heart was moved to compassion. Anybody could approach the Lord Jesus and be welcome. The poor, the weak, the publican, the simple. In Jesus, God is with us in all love and infinite blessing. My favorite name for Jesus outside of Jesus is Emanuel, God with us. Yes, he's the creator of the universe. He's the one that holds it all together. He's the one who purged our sins. But he's the one who hears your prayer when you cry out to him in the darkness of the night. When you're going through that thing you thought you would never go through. When you go through what I've written about, a bend in the road, and you wonder, "Does anybody know what it's like to experience what I'm experiencing"?
I'm telling you, there is one. There's one who's felt the pressure of it all. And he is our high priest. Now, I wanna tell you something if you haven't figured this out. I'm recommending Jesus to you. I'm recommending him to you. The Book of Hebrews says that we need to do something with Jesus. The Bible says you have to receive him. You have to accept him. The Book of Hebrews says you need to consider him. You need to accept him. You need to be careful that you don't harden your heart against him. In fact, in chapters 3 and 4, on four occasions we are warned against hardening our hearts against God. And the Bible says, "Today, if you will receive him, do not harden your heart".
You know, people come to churches and they come to events like this and they've heard the gospel so many times on Christian radio, on Christian television, in their churches, in their Bible studies. They still haven't yet received him. And every time you hear the gospel and you don't receive it, another little callous forms on your heart and your heart gets harder. And the Bible warns us that now that we know who Jesus is, there's something we need to do with him. John 14:6, "Jesus said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through me.'"
If you wanna go to heaven some day, if you wanna spend eternity with your creator God, if you wanna be with others of your family who are Christians and have already gone ahead, you better be sure that you have accepted Jesus into your life because he is your creator, he is your sustainer, he is the one who purged your sins. He's the one who's coming back someday and those who have received him will be caught up together with him to be with him and so shall we ever be with the Lord. I went through my Bible in these first few chapters of Hebrews and I put a circle around "today" every place I found it.
I've come to this conclusion. Today is God's word. Tomorrow is Satan's word. Let me tell you what I've been learning in studying the Book of Hebrews and also before that in a little bit of the study of the Book of Galatians. Listen carefully. When God tells us to do something and we hear his voice clearly, the space between having heard what he told us to do and understanding it and doing it does not belong to God. It belongs to the enemy. The word from God is "Do this". The enemy says, "No, you can do that tomorrow. You know, I'm gonna do that someday. I'm gonna get my affairs in order, then I'm gonna take care of Christ". But the Bible says in between the command and obedience is the waste land of the wilderness and Satan occupies that territory like no other part of your life. When you hear what God tells you to do, you should say, "Today". But if you don't say that, you will hear "Tomorrow" ringing in your ears. And one of these days, there'll be a tomorrow that's too late.
D.L. Moody was a great evangelist. When he first started to preach in Chicago, he would have 4 or 5 days of meetings and his method in preaching was he would preach the gospel with enthusiasm and passion and, at the end of the service, he would say to the people, "I want you to go home tonight and think about what I've said. And come back tomorrow night, ready to make a decision". And he did that for a number of years. And one night he did that and the Chicago fire happened. And many of the people who were in his congregation the night when he told 'em to go home and think about it and come back the next night perished in that fire and never had a next night.
From that day until he died, Moody never ever did that again. He learned the power of today. He realized that the message of the gospel that comes home to our hearts usually comes home to our hearts in a meeting something like this. Maybe a light goes on, maybe we realize, "I've known about Jesus but I've never trusted him as my Savior". When that happens and you know God is speaking to you, the time to do something about it is not tomorrow, not the next time you meet with God's people, but today. | 2019-04-22T04:29:11Z | https://sermons.love/david-jeremiah/668-david-jeremiah-when-jesus-would-be-so-profaned.html |
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Today we are joined by Dr Sumitha Nallu from the University of Chicago. Sumitha is the author of 'The Molecular Genetic Basis of Herbivory between Butterflies and their Host-Plants'. Join us to discover more about the genetic basis of herbivory between butterflies and plants. What is comparative transcriptomics analysis ? How was next generation sequencing used in this paper? What impacts will this piece have on our environment? In this episode, Sumitha answers all of these questions and more.We will also gain further insights into 'The Molecular Genetic Basis of Herbivory between Butterflies and their Host-Plants', its impacts and the motivation behind Sumitha's work.In today's episode, we discuss:Sumitha describes her academic background and motivation. [01:43]We are guided through 'The Molecular Genetic Basis of Herbivory between Butterflies and their Host-Plants'. [05:17]Why were wild-caught female butterflies used for this study? [10:55]What is hot in Sumitha's field? [22:53]Finally, Sumitha gives us her one piece of advice for anyone undertaking a PhD. [25:50]Read the article here!This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcherapp.io.
Today we are joined by Dr Gabriele Gut from the University of Zurich. Gabriele is the author of 'Multiplexed protein maps link subcellular organization to cellular states'. Join us to discover more about the combination of traditional biology and computational techniques. What is 4i? How can 4i change clinical trial processes? Why should you talk to a lab before starting a PhD? In this episode, Gabriele answers all of these questions and more.We will also gain further insights into 'Multiplexed protein maps link subcellular organization to cellular states', its impacts and the motivation behind Gabriele's work.In today's episode, we discuss:Gabriele describes his academic background. [01:33]We are guided through 'Multiplexed protein maps link subcellular organization to cellular states'. [03:25]What are the key considerations for 4i? [07:10]Gabriele discusses 4i and the clinical trial process. [12:15]Finally, Gabriele gives us his one piece of advice for anyone undertaking a PhD. [26:41]Read the article here!This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcherapp.io.
This week we are joined by David Sidhu from the University of Calgary. David, alongside Dr Penny Paxman, is the author of 'Lonely sensational icons: semantic neighbourhood density, sensory experience and iconicity.' Join us to discover more about language, sound and it's meaning. What is iconicity and how is it measured? What is the Maluma/Takete effect? What techniques are best for academic productivity? In this episode, David answers all of these questions and more.We will also gain further insights into 'Lonely sensational icons: semantic neighbourhood density, sensory experience and iconicity', its impacts and the motivation behind David's work.In today's episode, we discuss:David describes his academic background. [01:16]We are guided through David's paper. [01:57]What is iconicity and how is it measured? [07:35]What is the Maluma/Takete effect? [13:15]David discusses the publishing process for this paper, alongside other experiences. [17:58]Finally, David gives us his tips to increase academic output alongside his one piece of advice for anyone undertaking a PhD. [22:30]Read the article here!This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcherapp.io.
This week we are joined by Dr Eleonora Passeri from the movement Rare Special Powers. Rare Special Powers is a movement that advocates for the advancement of rare disease through the power of art and beauty. Join us to discover more about the Rare Special Powers movement. Why and how does Eleonora combine the beauty of art with science? What does this movement hope to achieve? What was Eleonora's motivation to start this movement? In this episode, Eleonora answers all of these questions and more.We will also gain further insights into the Rare Special Powers movement and its impacts. In today's episode, we discuss:Eleonora talks us through her academic background and the Rare Special Powers movement. [00:38]What is Eleonora's motivation to create the Rare Special Power movement? [07:12]How is the art chosen for this movement? [15:22]Eleonora discusses other projects that she is working on. [26:48]Eleonora, gives us her one piece of advice for PhD students who may not want to work in academia. [31:47]Where can you find out more about Rare Special Powers? [34:47]Discover more about the Rare Special Powers movement here!This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcher-app.com.
This week we are joined by Dr Peter Crockford from Princeton University and the Weizmann Institute of Science. Peter is the author of 'Triple oxygen isotope evidence for limited mid-Proterozoic primary productivity'. Join us to discover more about the earth's biosphere 1.5 billion years ago. What evidence is there for fluctuating oxygen levels 2.5 billion years ago? How have computing techniques evolved over time? What is it like to work in two academic institutes? In this episode, Peter answers all of these questions and more.We will also gain further insights into 'Triple oxygen isotope evidence for limited mid-Proterozoic primary productivity', its impacts and the motivation behind Peter's work.In today's episode, we discuss:Peter describes his academic background and the paper in question. [01:00]We are guided through the Monte Carlo sampling methodology. [03:45]Peter tells us how oxygen isotopes created life on earth. [08:51]What is life like working in two different academic institutions? [13:22]What topics are hot in the field? [15:21]Finally, Peter gives us his tips to increase academic output alongside his one piece of advice for anyone undertaking a PhD. [16:36]Read the article here!This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcherapp.io.
This week we are joined by Dr Rick Stuart-Smith from the University of Tasmania. Rick is the author of 'Ecosystem restructuring along the Great Barrier Reef following mass coral bleaching'. Join us to discover more about the effects of mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. What is coral bleaching? What funding is in place to combat this? How has mass coral bleaching changed the habitats for fish in the area? In this episode, Rick answers all of these questions and more.We will also gain further insights into 'Ecosystem restructuring along the Great Barrier Reef following mass coral bleaching', its impacts and the motivation behind Rick's work.In today's episode, we discuss:Rick guides us through his motivations and academic background. [00:36]We are guided through 'Ecosystem restructuring along the Great Barrier Reef following mass coral bleaching'. [01:20]What are the proxies used in this study, and what would happen if more were added? [05:51]Are there any academic and logistical differences when studying more secluded sites? [09:53]What will be the impacts of the 2016 mass coral bleaching? [11:38]What funding is in place to combat mass coral bleaching? [17:02]Finally, Rick gives us his tips to increase productivity alongside his one piece of advice for anyone undertaking a PhD. [21:43]Read the article here!This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcherapp.io.
This week we are joined by Alkeos Tsokos from University College London. Alkeos is a co-author of ‘Modeling outcomes of soccer matches'. Join us to discover more about machine learning and its relationship to the sporting world. How successful can soccer matches be predicted and what is the Alan Turing Institute? In this episode, Alkeos answers all of these questions and more.We will also gain further insights into 'Modeling outcomes of soccer matches', its impacts and the motivation behind Alkeos' work.In today's episode, we discuss:Alkeos tells us about his academic background and explains his paper. [00:40]We are guided through the models used for this paper. [02:16]What are the proxies used in this study, and what would happen if more were added? [05:51]What is Alkeos' PhD thesis? [10:15]Alkeos discusses the Alan Turing Institute. [15:03]Alkeos provides us with his trick to increase academic productivity. [17:39]Finally, Alkeos gives us his one piece of advice for anyone undertaking a PhD. [19:08]Read the article here!This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcherapp.io.
This week we are joined by Professor Homero Gil de Zúñiga from the University of Vienna. Homero is the author of ‘Personality Traits and Social Media Use in 20 Countries: How Personality Relates to Frequency of Social Media Use, Social Media News Use, and Social Media Use for Social Interaction'. Join us to discover more about personalities and the way they affect social media use. There are 5 big personality traits, but will this soon change? How are minorities affected by social media use? What is the open access movement and what does Homero think of this environment? In this episode, Homero answers all of these questions and more.We will also gain further insights into 'Personality Traits and Social Media Use in 20 Countries: How Personality Relates to Frequency of Social Media Use, Social Media News Use, and Social Media Use for Social Interaction', its impacts and the motivation behind Homero's research.In today's episode, we discuss:Homero tells us about his academic background. [00:45]Homero guides us through his most recent paper. [04:05]There are currently 5 big personality traits, here Homero discusses these traits, their relationship to social media and how they may evolve. [07:55]We discover more about how different social media platforms cater for different personality traits. [11:45]Homero discusses the use and power of social media for minorities. [17:55]We learn more about academic publishing. [23:48] Homero provides us with a few tricks to increase academic productivity. [27:40]Finally, Homero gives us his one piece of advice for young academics and anyone undertaking a PhD. [32:43]Read the article here!This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcherapp.io.
This week we are joined by Dr Melanie Keep from the University of Sydney. Mel, alongside Dr Alison Attrill-Smith, is the co-author of ‘Controlling You Watching Me: Measuring Perception Control on Social Media’. Join us to discover more about social media perception and identity. What is e-health and what are its benefits? How and why do we define ourselves on social media? Why is age a factor in social media identity? In this episode, Mel answers all of these questions and more. We will also gain further insights into ‘Controlling You Watching Me: Measuring Perception Control on Social Media’, its impacts and the motivation behind Mel's research.In today's episode, we discuss:Mel's academic background. [00:43]Mel guides us through the e-health field and the Australian e-health system. [04:02]We are given an overview of ‘Controlling You Watching Me: Measuring Perception Control on Social Media’. [12:40]Mel discusses whether or not social media self-perception will evolve as a result of the youth of today. [19:19]We learn about how the results of Mel's experiment could have differed if there was a focus on the eastern world. [22:14]Mel discusses the pitfalls of academia and academic productivity. [31:34]Finally, Mel tells us her one piece of advice for young academics and anyone undertaking a PhD. [34:26]Read the article here!This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcherapp.io.
Today we are joined by Dr Jonathan Klassen from the University of Connecticut. Jonathan is the author of ‘Defining microbiome function’. Join us to discover more about the microbiome world; Why is the human gut so important? How important are ants? Why is there now a call for the cross disciplinary training in logic and philosophical microbiome research?We will gain further insights into 'Defining micbrobiome function', its consequences and the motivation behind Jonathan's research.In today's episode, we discuss:Jonathan's academic background. [00:45]We are given an overview of ‘Defining microbiome function’. [02:56]Jonathan discusses previous research in the microbiome world. [06:18]We discover more about the human gut and it's importance to microbiome research. [09:30]Jonathan calls for the 'cross disciplinary training in logic and philosophical microbiome research', but just how popular is this movement? [11:40]Just how far can 'Defining microbiome function' forward current scholarship? [16:15]Jonathan discusses his academic influences. [19:10]Jonathan describes how he spends his week. [20:36]Jonathan gives his one piece of advice for young academics and anyone undertaking a PhD. [25:37]Read the article here!This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcherapp.io.
Welcome to the first ever RESEARCHER Radio episode. Throughout this series, we will be speaking to different academics from all around the world about their specialist subjects. Each academic guest would have produced written, examined, analysed and published work that is trending throughout the RESEARCHER community, and the wider scientific community. We will be finding more about the paper, the steps that are taken to create it and it's potential consequences in the academic or real world.Discovering more about an academic paper and its origins are only half the RESEARCHER podcast story, we will also dive into the world of academia by discovering more about the lives of our academic guests.This week we are joined by Dr Ramiz Nathani, former PhD from University College London and co-founder of RESEARCHER. We will discuss Dr Nathani's transition from science to the world of technology and business, whilst learning more about the RESEARCHER story.In today's episode, we discuss:How Dr Nathani transitioned from the world of science to the world of technology. [01:12]We undertake a whirlwind tour of Dr Nathani's PhD. [02:33]Dr Nathani explains the differences between the world of science and the world of technology, and how they can learn from each other. [04:19]Dr Nathani discusses the inspiration behind RESEARCHER. [06:08]Dr Nathani gives his one piece of advice for anyone undertaking a PhD. [06:52]This podcast is brought to you by RESEARCHER, the free app that makes it easy for academics and scientists to stay on top of new research in their area. Download it for free on iOS, Android or find us on your browser at www.researcherapp.io. | 2019-04-24T08:05:57Z | http://www.digitalpodcast.com/feeds/89495-researcher-radio |
Instagram has proven to be my favorite phone app again and again. I have taken quite a few photos with Instagram only to say, “I should make that into an artwork.” I finally did just that. I took an Instagram photo from Sticks and Stones and turned it into a watercolor. See below.
Beer Lace, watercolor on paper, 2012.
Here is the original Instagram.
This blog was originally started to document my art making processes. It was a way to keep myself working and producing, and then Greta came along. I soon found the only creating I was doing was in the kitchen, since we all have to eat. While I love cooking and baking, I need to make art. So, I am trying to get back to the beginning of all of this and make more art. I know now I need to carve this time out during the week. There will still be recipes on here, but hopefully better balanced with art. Enjoy.
Untitled, mixed media on mat board, 2012.
This is a lesson that came about from Pinterest. I needed a short filler lesson for between major units and this one was a smashing success. Sometimes I think I come across as a staunch neat freak to these kids because they were so excited that I was encouraging them to melt crayons instead of color with them! This is a great use for all those little crayon nubs that just cause frustration during drawing units.
Step 1: Glue crayon pieces onto a board with school glue. Peeled crayons will melt faster, if you leave the wrapper on, you will have a wrapper glued in place, but the wax will still melt away. I had pieces of mat board cut in advance for them to choose from. Consider designs or using objects to block and direct the melted wax.
Step 2 : If using blocking objects, tape them in place. I used a cardboard tube held in place with masking tape.
Step 3: Place on newspaper, and preferably inside of a box. The box will help catch the hot molten wax that will spray you and will burn.
Step 4: Turn hair dryer on to high heat and point at crayons. Hold 6 inches or so away form crayon. Point the hair dryer in the direction in which you wish for the wax to flow.
Within a few minutes you should see the crayons start to soften and melt.
You can also use pieces of cardboard to block wax and direct the flow. If you have a helper, be careful of their hands as well.
Once the wax starts to flow, direct it with the hair dryer. If crayons begin to come off, use a pencil or popsicle stick to hold them in place or move. If your hair dryer has a cold air setting, use that to set the wax more quickly.
Step 5: Allow artwork to cool completely before moving. Remove blocking objects carefully so as not to remove wax as well.
This melted wax design reminded me of a wave, so I added the watercolor ship design in later on.
As we discovered through trial and error during this unit, some designs work better than others. This circle just turned into a mess of colors and was not very interesting.
This heart worked well because the student directed the wax with the hair dryer to the outside edges. She then filled in the interior of the heart with collage.
This piece turned into an almost Chagall-like stained glass window of colors.
We started Thanksgiving off with baking and cooking and a fridge clean-out to make room for the goods. Greta was a big helper to Eric’s fridge cleaning. She wanted to carry the salad dressing bottles.
We gathered at a friend, Mary Elise and David’s house with Julie and Dipesh for a noon-time meal. This was a perfect time since all three families have children. These gatherings are always a hoot – my family away from Iowa home.
There was plenty of time to sit around and watch football.
The table was a work of art in itself.
Mary Elise was, as always, a gracious host.
Greta had her own Thanksgiving plate that was not family heirloom wedding china.
The spread was incredible – Apple Raisin stuffing, ham scalloped potato casserole, fruit, turkey legs, ginger cranberry relish (described as exploding rainbows and unicorns, I might add!), rolls, balsamic roasted carrots, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes. Most of these items were vegan – you would never have even guessed though.
The green bean casserole and balsamic carrots were the most popular dishes.
We all gathered around to eat, even Greta sat in a big girl chair.
We wrapped up the meal with apple pie and vegan pumpkin pie.
Oh yes, best one yet.
Check out the flaky crust on this baby.
The final part of this gathering was the obligatory group photo. Had this photo been taken 8 years ago when I first met Julie and Mary Elise, it would have been just the 6 adults. My how time flies!
For my apple pie, the recipe is as follows. I am giving away major secrets here, so I hope to hear that all of you are making apple pies soon.
For the filling, peel and slice 3 lbs of apples (about 5 medium to large), mixed variety. I heard this secret from a friend, who spoke to an apple grower at farmer’s market about apple pie secrets. I used Fuji, Granny Smith, and Braeburn for this pie.
I saved my apple peels, spread them out on a baking sheet, sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar and baked at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or til dried. They make a great snack!
Place apples in a large mixing bowl and add 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1/4 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons nutmeg, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Set aside.
For the double-crust, in a medium mixing bowl, cut 1/3 cup cold butter into 2-1/4 cups flour. Use a pastry blender until the pieces are pea sized.
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon ice cold water or vodka over part of the flour mixture, toss with a fork. Push aside moistened dough, repeat using 1 tablespoon of water/vodka at a time (8-10 tablespoons total) until all flour is moistened. Do not over moisten. Divide dough into two balls, dough should be crumbly and semi-dry.
I used 4 tablespoons ice water and 4 tablespoons iced vodka for the perfect crust. I put ice cubes in a bowl and keep the vodka in the freezer to keep the crust as cold as possible. The other key to a perfect pie is working fast so the dough does not get too warm. Take a break and refrigerate the dough if it gets too warm.
On a lightly floured surface, use your hands to slightly flatten 1 dough ball. Roll from center to edges into a circle about 12 inches in diameter. Transfer to a pie plate by carefully wrapping dough around a rolling pin, being careful not to stretch the dough. Trim extra dough.
Transfer apple filling to pie plate.
Roll remaining dough ball into a circle about 12 inches in diameter. Place on top of filling, press edges together, trimming extra. Cut steam vents in the top of the dough. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
Cover edges in foil and bake at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.
Remove foil, reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 35 to 45 more minutes. Filling should be bubbly and hot and top of pie slightly golden. Cool on a wire rack.
1. For the filling, peel and slice 3 lbs of apples (about 5 medium to large), mixed variety. Place in a large mixing bowl and add 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1/4 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons nutmeg, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Set aside.
2. For the double-crust, in a medium mixing bowl, cut 1/3 cup cold butter into 2-1/4 cups flour. Use a pastry blender until the pieces are pea sized.
3. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon ice cold water or vodka over part of the flour mixture, toss with a fork. Push aside moistened dough, repeat using 1 tablespoon of water/vodka at a time until all flour is moistened, 8-10 tablespoons total. Do not over moisten. Divide dough into two balls, dough should be crumbly and semi-dry.
4. On a lightly floured surface, use your hands to slightly flatten 1 dough ball. Roll from center to edges into a circle about 12 inches in diameter. Transfer to a pie plate by carefully wrapping dough around a rolling pin, being careful not to stretch the dough. Trim extra dough. Transfer apple filling to pie plate.
5. Roll remaining dough ball into a circle about 12 inches in diameter. Place on top of filling, press edges together, trimming extra. Cut steam vents in the top of the dough. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
6. Cover edges in foil and bake at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove foil, reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 35 to 45 more minutes. Filling should be bubbly and hot and top of pie slightly golden.
What have you done so far today? I was up at 6 AM making apple pie (my best one yet!) and this yummy cranberry relish. Today is the perfect time to make your Thanksgiving day cranberry sauce. This is one I have been making since 2007. It has the perfect zing with the addition of fresh grated ginger.
More on that pie later. Enjoy your day!
1. In a large saucepan, bring 12 oz of cranberries, 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons water, 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger to a boil. Reduce heat to low and summer until most of the cranberries have popped, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in 2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar.
2. Remove relish from heat. Let cool to room temperature, and serve. Or refrigerate in an air-tight container for up to 3 days.
Here is another option for a Thanksgiving side. Soup is a fantastic way to feed a large crowd, especially as a starter or a side. This can be made a day or two in advance and refrigerated or even frozen a week or more in advance. Simply put in the slow cooker on warm. Be sure to plug this in somewhere out of the way to leave more room for the preparation for the rest of your Thanksgiving dishes.
Place 7 – 10 large carrots, 1/2 – 1 yellow onion, 1 garlic head, bottom edge trimmed off, on a rimmed baking sheet.
Spray with olive oil and bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes, rotating half way through.
Vegetables should be soft and blackened when cooked fully. Allow vegetables to cool, enough to handle.
Peel the garlic and slice off blackened bottom edge.
Place vegetables in a blender or food processor. Blend with 1-1/4 cup milk (I used unsweetened almond milk) and 1 cup broth until smooth and pureed.
Cut off about 2 inches of ginger root, peel, and blend with the carrot puree. I keep my ginger root frozen and use a sharp knife to cut off what I need.
Place the carrot puree into a slow cooker, mix in 1 cup water and 1 cup of broth, stir well. Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours.
Serve warm with Easy Rosemary Wheat Rolls.
1. Place 7 – 10 large carrots, 1/2 – 1 yellow onion, 1 garlic head, bottom edge trimmed off, on a rimmed baking sheet.
2. Spray with olive oil and bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes, rotating half way through.
3. Vegetables should be soft and blackened when cooked fully. Allow vegetables to cool, enough to handle. Peel the garlic and slice off blackened bottom edge.
4. Place vegetables in a blender or food processor. Blend with 1-1/4 cup milk and 1 cup broth until smooth and pureed. Cut off about 2 inches of ginger root, peel, and blend with the carrot puree.
5. Place the carrot puree into a slow cooker, mix in 1 cup water and 1 cup of broth, stir well. Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours.
I am so excited for Thanksgiving – it is easily one of my favorite holidays. A partial week of work, time to spend with loved ones, time off for projects, time to cook and bake, and of course time to enjoy the food of the season. This year we are staying home in North Carolina for Thanksgiving – our plans are still under construction. But it is never too soon to start thinking about the menu. I usually like to keep it to about 4 sides but in a large amount so we have plenty of leftovers.
Baked parsnips are an easy way to prepare parsnips and it brings out the delicious subtle flavor of these root veggies. I find that parsnips have a better flavor than potatoes which means they need less (or none) of the (unhealthy) flavorings like butter, milk, and salt.
Cut 2 parsnips in half lengthwise. Remove the core, if it’s woody, discard.
Place in a baking dish sprayed with olive oil. Cut in half, vertically, if this helps them to fit into your dish.
Cover with 3/4 cup broth.
Serve with butter or margarine and fresh squeezed lemon.
Check back this weekend and into next week for more easy Thanksgiving ideas! I’d love to hear what you are planning on eating/making for Thanksgiving this year.
1. Cut 2 parsnips in half lengthwise. Remove the core, if it’s woody, discard.
2. Place in a baking dish sprayed with olive oil. Cover parsnips with 3/4 cup broth.
3. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve with butter or margarine and fresh squeezed lemon.
Greta has been home sick the past couple days. Yesterday afternoon she napped for a lengthy four hours. In that time, I worked on lesson plans, organized the kitchen, and baked banana pumpkin bread. This is a recipe my sister gave me at my bridal shower and it’s only taken me 5 some years to try it out. I wish I had tried it much sooner. The molasses adds such a warm autumn taste to this bread.
We are already missing half of the loaf and Eric threatened to take the other half with him for his lunch today. Try this out with only bananas or half banana and half pumpkin, as shown below.
Grease a loaf pan. Combine 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 cup wheat germ, and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg in a bowl.
I always freeze extra really ripe bananas so I have them on hand.
When I am ready to bake banana bread, I simply defrost them in the microwave and then mash them in a glass measuring cup. For this recipe, I combined mashed banana and pumpkin puree to create the 1-1/2 cups needed.
Combine 2 eggs, 1-1/2 cups mashed banana and pumpkin puree, 3/8 cups molasses, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 oil or melted butter. Stir just until moistened. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
I have a cast iron loaf pan that I use all the time. It is sturdy, cooks foods evenly, and easy to remove baked goods because it stays greased. I highly recommend using one of these pans.
Bake in a 350 degree oven for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove to cool on wire rack.
Enjoy, I am off to work on some more lesson ideas, but before I do that, I have something fun for you to try. It’s a creative website called Mr. Picassohead where you can create your own drawing in the style of Pablo Picasso. I made one called Winking Beauty.
1. Grease a loaf pan. Combine 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 cup wheat germ, and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg in a bowl.
2. Combine 2 eggs, 1-1/2 cups mashed banana and pumpkin puree, 3/8 cups molasses, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 oil or melted butter. Stir just until moistened. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove to cool on wire rack.
Optional streusel topping: Cut 3 tablespoons butter into 1/3 packed brown sugar. Sprinkle over batter before baking.
One of the perks of being a teacher is the time off. This past weekend was a three day weekend due to Veteran’s Day, so Eric and I took advantage of the extra time and headed to Hanging Rock State Park. This is a lovely escape just over an hour’s drive away from Greensboro. It was a perfect November day – tee shirt weather in Greensboro, which meant a little cooler in the foothills.
We decided to take the Moore’s Wall Loop Trail which is a 4.3 mile strenuous hike. This hike starts off curving around Hanging Rock Lake, winds through the forest, and steadily climbs into the rocky mountain, and ending with a spectacular view from a fire lookout tower.
Greta was a little tired from sleeping in the car, but in general a good sport. She always gets excited by the site of her hiking backpack, and this trip was no different. She’s a trooper as long as we keep her entertained with questions and leaves to grasp.
1. Don’t wait until they can walk. Start kids young. Kids need to get outdoors, especially out in nature, away from the city. A backpack for carrying kids is the best way to start. Try on these backpacks before you buy, as you tend to get what you pay for. Buy secondhand, if you can.
2. Stay hydrated and prevent hunger fatigue. Pack twice as much water and healthy snacks as you think you will need.
3. Be prepared for the elements. Bring extra layers and rain gear. ALWAYS bring sunscreen on the trail and apply before getting out of the car. Wear hats and sunglasses as well.
4. Prevent injuries. Wear shoes that can withstand rigors of hiking. I cannot tell you how many kids I have seen complaining of sore feet and they are hiking in flip-flops!
I was so grateful Eric was carrying Greta on this hike – I had forgotten how steep the end of this hike can be – this shows the last few stone steps before reaching the watch tower.
The views are rewarding. This shows Pilot Mountain which is currently burning due to a controlled burn that got out of hand. We could see some of the smoke, but could not smell the fire at all. While we did not see all that many people on the trail, the watch tower was more crowded than usual – most likely due to the closure of nearby Pilot Mountain.
Climbing the last sets of steps before the tower platform.
It was windy up here – Greta gasped for breath a couple times. The last time we were here, we brought Brownie, our dog with us. She is deathly afraid of heights and would not go near the railing.
The leaves were still quite beautiful, even this late in November.
Great the hungry goblin needed a snack before we headed back.
This hike is so rewarding with views – I was so happy with the weather on this day.
This rock shows the graffiti of earlier hikers, circa 1900.
We took the loop, and so took the shorter way down. This section is shorter in distance, but much harder on the knees – lots of worn smooth stone steps due to the higher traffic on this section.
The lake looked a little cold today, but we vowed to make it up here sometime this summer and perhaps stay in one of the cabins.
The bathhouse was built from 1935 to 1942 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It offers lovely views of the lake, has modern bathrooms, and a comfortable place to sit and relax.
I always say this is one of the most beautiful park parking lots I’ve been to – full of mature trees, granite stone walls, and lake and Sauratown Mountain views.
I admit, I tend to over do it every year with pumpkin: pumpkin chai tea, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin funnel cake, pumpkin coffee, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin brownies, pumpkin chocolate, chocolate pumpkin pie, pumpkin pizza, pumpkin pasta, and of course pumpkin butter. Last week my a dreadful thing happened – my pumpkin butter ran out. GONE! This may have been a delight to Eric who suffers through my pumpkin craze annually, but I was craving more.
It was at this time that I also realized I had never gotten around to carving pumpkins for Halloween. Therein lies the answer to my conundrum. So for the first time I can remember, I did not carve a pumpkin, but made pumpkin butter.
Cut 1 pumpkin in half and remove the seeds. Ideally a sweet pie pumpkin would be used, however I had a smallish carving pumpkin and decided to try this anyway.
Cut pumpkin into wedges and place on a rimmed baking sheet. This is my entire pumpkin on one sheet, which should give you an idea on the size of the pumpkin. Roast at 375 for 35 to 40 minutes. Test with a fork – pumpkin flesh should be very soft.
Once the pumpkin is cool enough to handle, peel off the pumpkin rind. I allowed my pumpkin to cool overnight. This is an easy recipe to break into segments if you do not have the time to make this straight through.
Add 1 cup of water to pumpkin mixture during the blending process; blend pumpkin until smooth. I ended up with 4-1/2 cups of pumpkin puree from my one pumpkin.
Place pumpkin puree into a large saucepan.
1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, and stir.
Bring pumpkin mixture to a boil, reduce to low heat and cover, propping one side of the lid open. Cook on low heat for 30 minutes or until thickened.
I boiled my jars to clean them, however I did not do the official preserving canning method for this recipe. That means the jars of pumpkin butter must be refrigerated and eaten within two weeks.
This bubble illustrates what happens when the pumpkin butter mixture boils – hot splatters! Use caution, as it is easy to burn oneself.
I used my 30 minutes of cooking and thickening to play with Greta who was having a blast tormenting cats with her toys.
When mixture is thickened, ladle pumpkin butter into jars.
Cover and allow to cool. Refrigerate and use within 2 weeks. I got these 5 jars out of one pumpkin!
One really good pumpkin butter suggestion: almond butter and pumpkin butter sandwiches. This is what we will be taking for lunches this week.
1. Cut 1 pumpkin in half and remove the seeds. Cut pumpkin into wedges and place on a rimmed baking sheet. This is my entire pumpkin on one sheet, which should give you an idea on the size of the pumpkin. Roast at 375 for 35 to 40 minutes. Test with a fork – pumpkin flesh should be very soft.
2. Once the pumpkin is cool enough to handle, peel off the pumpkin rind and place in a blender. Add 1 cup of water to pumpkin mixture during the blending process; blend pumpkin until smooth.
3. Place pumpkin puree (4-1/2 cups) into a large saucepan. Add 1-1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, and stir. Bring pumpkin mixture to a boil, reduce to low heat and cover, propping one side of the lid open. Cook on low heat for 30 minutes or until thickened.
4. When mixture is thickened, ladle pumpkin butter into jars. Cover and allow to cool. Refrigerate and use within 2 weeks. | 2019-04-19T08:25:08Z | https://alifelikeart.com/2012/11/ |
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In June, I previewed Microsoft's next Windows Media Player (WMP) release, Windows Media Player 10, and as I hinted would be the case in that article, a lot has changed since then. Released to the public alongside a beta version of MSN Music (see my preview) and three Portable Media Center devices (read my review) as the first phase in the Windows XP Reloaded marketing campaign (see my new activity center), Windows Media Player 10 is the linchpin of the Crescent wave of products. WMP 10 is also the center of Microsoft's digital media strategy, which seeks to holistically approach consumer requirements for acquiring, consuming, and sharing digital media.
I'm happy to report that Microsoft has largely accomplished these goals. And though I have some concerns that WMP 10 might still leave a bit too much on the table for competitors such as Apple, with its iTunes jukebox and iPod portable audio player, it's quite possible that Microsoft's broad-based approach to solving digital media needs will ultimately be the correct one. In this review, I'll examine WMP 10's new features, compare the product to competition from Apple and other companies, and explain how WMP 10 fits into Microsoft's wider strategy. But first, let's take a quick walk through the past and see how Windows Media Player has evolved from a simple audio and video playback utility into a modern and powerful all-in-one jukebox.
Previous to Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me, released in 2000), Windows Media Player was a simple applet designed for playing back audio and video content within Windows. With Windows Me (review), however, Microsoft attempted to greatly expand its support for task-based user interfaces, and that product would have originally included a number of Activity Centers, special dashboard-like applications that would have provided a handy front-end for related tasks. Windows Media Player 7 (WMP, see my review) grew out of that user experience effort, providing a Web- like interface that aggregated a slew of common digital media tasks--media management, CD playing and ripping, Internet radio playback, portable device support, and the like--into a single place. At the time, I blasted WMP7's convoluted and confusing interface but looking at it now, you can see that it was the first step in an evolution we're still partaking in today.
In Windows XP (released in 2001, see my review), Microsoft upped the ante with Media Player for Windows XP (MPXP, or WMP 8), a more attractive rendition of Microsoft's all-in-one player that offered customization options that greatly uncluttered the UI. MPXP also integrated fully with My Music and My Videos, two of the media-oriented special shell folders in Windows XP. So when you ripped a CD with MPXP, it copied album art and other meta data information to the appropriate subfolder under My Music. And when you accessed these files from the shell, XP's task panes changed, depending on which type of file was selected. In total, these features make working with digital music in particular far nicer than with other systems.
Just months after shipping XP, Microsoft began showing off its next generation digital media platform, codenamed Corona and later named as Windows Media 9 Series (released in 2002, see my review). Corona was exciting for a number of reasons--not the least of which was the inclusion of powerful new audio and video codecs (WMA 9 and WMV 9, respectively) which scaled up and down the compression and quality bar in order to handle virtually any digital media need. But since we're focusing on media players here, let's just say that WMP 9's many exciting features were somewhat offset in my mind by its needless inclusion of multiple, inscrutable, and visually identical buttons, scattered all over its interface. As powerful as it is, WMP 9 is confusing to new users. More important, perhaps, WMP 9 lost ground significantly to Apple's iTunes, which offers only music management, but is much simpler and easier to use as a result.
Flash forward to 2004. Longhorn, the next generation Windows operating system that will someday succeed XP, is late to market, and getting later every day (Update: Since I first wrote this, Microsoft has revealed that Longhorn will, in fact, ship in 2006; read more here). Faced with constant delays in its next ship vehicle, the Windows Digital Media Team (now simply part of the wider Windows Client team) did the right thing: They culled together a set of functionality originally scheduled for Longhorn, created a much simpler user interface, and released it as a standalone product called Windows Media Player 10 (WMP 10). And though WMP 10 isn't the cornerstone of a new platform per se--there aren't updated codecs, for example, or a new version of the Windows Media Encoder--WMP 10 is very much at the center of a new Microsoft product and technology wave. Dubbed Crescent internally, this product and technology wave consists of a number of consumer-oriented digital media products that Microsoft and its partners will unleash this fall. And those products and technologies will be marketed as part of a marketing push codenamed XP Reloaded, which seeks to educate users about the many free and cheap enhancements that Microsoft has made to XP since it was first released three years ago.
Hey, big deal, right? Well, WMP 10 is here today. Let's take a look.
As an evolutionary product, WMP 10 is immediately recognizable as a member of Microsoft's Windows Media Player product family, and yet it also offers a fresh face to what has always been an overly complicated product. WMP 10, if you can believe it, actually offers a lot more functionality than previous versions of the player, but it presents much of that functionality in far simpler ways. For example, in addition to aggregating music and video files like previous versions, WMP 10 can aggregate pictures, Recorded TV shows, and other media, though that ability might be limited by the kind of PC you have, and which portable devices you interact with.
As I noted in my review, Windows Media Player 9 Series offered an amazing array of functionality, but was complicated as a result, with a UI that was festooned with a bizarre number of inscrutable buttons. I must not have been the only one that complained: With WMP 10, Microsoft has dramatically cleaned up the user interface of its player, and removed most of the all-too-similar UI elements from the default view (Figure).
Now, the side-mounted task bar is replaced by a cleaner toolbar that offers simpler choices like Rip, Burn and Sync, though the player is designed in such a way that you can accomplish all of these tasks--ripping CDs, burning CDs, and synchronizing with portable devices--all without leaving the Media Library if you'd like.
From a design perspective, WMP 10 isn't horrible. The clean Play/Pause, Stop, Previous, Next, and Mute buttons from previous versions have been replaced with fuzzy, gel-like buttons that I don't think will hold up well over time. But the player has been re-skinned to visually resemble the next Windows XP Media Center Edition, which I'll review soon as well, and that look--a sort of royal blue chrome--is reasonably attractive and will likely appeal to the college set.
Microsoft expects many people to "live in the library," an allusion to the Media Library and the ways it's been improved to provide everything you need, all from a single location. From the Media Library, you can manage your media--songs, movies, recorded TV shows, and photos-as well as any connected portable devices. You can manage your Now Playing list, a constantly updateable queue of media files that's currently playing, as well as separate lists for media that needs to be burned to CD or DVD, or synchronized with a portable device (discussed below). The look of the Media Library has been updated to subtler, more readable hues, making it easier to pick out the titles of songs or albums you want. And I like the new automatically generated filters WMP 10 provides for music. For example, "Album Artist" lists music by artist name and then album (Figure). Meanwhile, the "Year Released" filters let you find music based on when it was released, which is a wonderful memory trigger.
Like WMP 9, WMP 10 dispenses with the standard Windows title bar area and menus by default, though WMP 9 merely hid them and WMP 10 actually turns them off. You can access the standard title bar and menu system if you'd like, using the new Access Application Menus button, through which you can also navigate through the normal menu system in a slightly different way (Figure). The end result is a much cleaner looking player.
Overall, the WMP 10 interface is decent. It supports the taskbar player mode, like the previous version, which gets a nice new Seek button for scrolling through the currently playing song or video (Figure). It can also be resized in far more ways than before, and can actually be resized all the way down to a nice, small, WinAMP-like player called Mini-Player Mode that will likely please many people (Figure). And you don't need to use a skin to make it happen. Indeed, skins, like certain other features, have been somewhat victimized by the new design. Because a lot of the superfluous UI elements are now missing for the sake of simplicity, it's much harder to get at some features (like skins). That's the price of progress, methinks.
When compared to companies like Apple, Microsoft's approach to digital media is somewhat unique. Though both companies are attempting to build a platform, only Microsoft has experience with an ecosystem that extends well beyond the company, and Microsoft understands that when it builds platforms, other companies will use that technology to develop their own businesses. In other words, Apple builds an online music store, iTunes, which shuts out competitive stores, because Apple refuses to license the technology. Microsoft builds a complete digital media platform, and numerous companies develop online music and video stores of their own based on that technology; each of these services is unique in different ways, but all of the songs you buy from any of the Microsoft oriented stores will play back on any PC, and in several dozens of devices. On the flipside, as the originator of the platform, and the only player, Apple can give customers a high quality experience which they control from end-to-end. On the PC side, Microsoft can only hope that its partners do a good job with integrated experiences. Some have been more successful than others in that regard.
To make it easier for its partners to create excellent online services, Microsoft has built WMP 10 in such a way that these partners can display their music and video stores directly in WMP 10, so users won't need to download and install separate applications. The company also goes a step further by providing a way for these partners to customize parts of the WMP 10 interface so that when users are utilizing an online store (or related service), the player visually changes to reflect which service you're using. Select Napster from the online store button, for example, and the right side of the WMP 10 toolbar changes colors to Napster-like colors and displays buttons (Music and Radio, in the case of Napster) that are particular to that service (Figure). That way, you can navigate around each store and get a customized experience, all from within WMP 10.
But wait, there's more. Some services, like Napster, will also opt to take over WMP 10's Now Playing Info Center View, thanks to a new extensibility model Microsoft provided. Instead of getting the stock (read: Boring) Info Center View that Microsoft offers, which is based on All Music Guide data, partners can choose to present their own Info Center View. Napster's Info Center View (Figure) presents artist biography information for the currently-playing song, along with a list of other similar artists that Napster members recommend. This enhances your ability to discover new music and plays nicely into Napster's community functionality, which is a primary benefit of that service. And naturally, you can quickly access the artist, album, and song information for the current track directly from the Napster service. That way, you can easily purchase more music by the same artist, or tracks by similar, recommend artists.
During the beta for Windows Media Player 10, I briefly tested the Napster, MusicMatch, MusicNow, Wal-Mart Music, and MSN Music services, and the CinemaNow movie rental service. Each offers a fairly unique WMP 10-based experience, though from what I can tell, Napster is still the poster child in this regard, since it offers the most thoroughly customized experience. My understanding is that more services will be coming online in the days ahead as well. It will be interesting to see whether any can really differentiate themselves. I'll be reviewing each of the WMP 10-based services in a separate review later this month.
One way that these services can differentiate themselves is through subscription content. Some stores, like Napster, will offer monthly subscriptions through which customers can access any of their content, at any time. And unlike previous versions, songs from subscription services can be downloaded to compatible portable devices (see below) and accessed when you're away from the PC. This is a huge and welcome change, and one that will likely stimulate the online music service business somewhat dramatically.
When you do buy music online, a new Purchased Music node in the Media Library's All Music section makes it easy to find that music (Figure). Your purchased music is divided by online service, making it easier to find, so you can synchronize with portable devices or burn to CD. There is also a Purchased Videos node under All Video, though I haven't tested a service yet that utilizes it.
Unlike Apple's iTunes Music Store, which offers music that is only compatible with Apple's iPod portable player (see a trend here yet?), WMP 10 will work with songs from virtually any other online music store, because most of these services offer music in Microsoft's digital rights management (DRM)-encoded WMA format. Not coincidentally, WMP 10 is also compatible with a wide range of portable devices--over 70, according to Microsoft--that also support WMA. These devices run the gamut from small USB-based fobs, like the Creative MuVo to hard drive-based units like the Dell DJ and full-blown Portable Media Centers, which offer not just music, but photo, video, and recorded TV playback as well.
What's interesting here is the way that WMP 10 reacts when you plug in a compatible device. With a smaller device, like the MuVo, WMP 10 pops up a dialog that recommends manual synchronization with your music library (Figure); under such a sync, you will manually decide which songs should go on the device. This makes sense, because small devices like this don't contain enough storage for you to automatically synchronize all of your content.
However, when you plug in a more capable device, like a Dell DJ, WMP 10 suggests automatic synchronization, or Auto Sync, a new feature in this player. If the device has enough storage, it will simply copy every single song you own to the player. If it doesn't, WMP 10 will use a set of rules to determine which songs to transfer. For example, you might configure it to sync your highest rated songs, your most recently added music, or whatever (Figure).
Where this feature really gets interesting is with a full-featured device like a Portable Media Center (PMC). Plug one of these bad boys in, and you'll be prompted to automatically synchronize all of your music, photos, videos, and, if you've got a Media Center PC, your recorded TV shows too. I've tested WMP 10 extensively with a Creative Portable Media Center (see my review) and have overcome my initial skepticism to be impressed with how much content you can fit on such a device. As I write this, the 20 GB hard drive on the Creative contains 3 TV programs (two of which are actually full length movies encoded in the device's highest-possible setting), 2253 songs (239 albums), 5125 photos, and 17 home videos. And there is still 5.75 GB free. Amazing? Sure.
Anyway, in a manual sync situation, you can drag music onto a device directly from the Music Library, and not have to navigate to the Sync Mode at all if you'd like. To do so, simply select the music you want and drag it into the WMP 10 Sync List, which automatically appears when you connect a device (if it's not available; you can choose Sync List from the select list options drop-down list that appears above the list pane in Media Library). To sync the music to the device, press the Start Sync button (Figure). Or, you can press the Explore device button to see which songs or other content are already on the device. Old school users can go to the Sync Mode by clicking the Sync button in the WMP 10 toolbar; the experience is very similar to Sync in Windows Media Player 9 Series.
Depending on the type of portable device you have, you will also have a much simpler time installing it on your system. The first level of support is for older devices, which require a third party driver installation scheme; these devices still work in WMP 10 as before. The second class of devices, sometimes called "mass storage class" devices, is typified by small USB fob-like devices like the Creative MuVo; these devices are immediately recognized by both XP and WMP 10, and work fine out of the box.
The high-end experience, however, is available only with a new third class of devices, which are compatible with Microsoft's new Media Transfer Protocol (MTP); a typical example is any Portable Media Center (PMC) device. These devices install on XP and WMP 10 without drivers, like mass storage class devices, but also offer additional features. For example, an MTP-compatible device can communicate its capabilities to the system and can transfer rich meta data information, like album art and song ratings, and do so bi-directionally. So WMP 10 will natively "know" that a PMC supports Recorded TV, music, photo, and video content, and will automatically attempt to Auto Sync with the device. Also, if you rate songs on your PMC, those ratings will be synched back to your PC the next time the device is connected. MTP devices also show up in the shell, where they can be navigated and managed if necessary.
More and more devices are supporting MTP, and some existing devices--notably Dell's DJ--will be updated by their manufacturer (through firmware updates) to support the technology.
While WMP 10's new interface, digital media services integration, and device support are all major new features, this software also includes a number of other useful updates. I'll highlight a few of the more important changes here.
Quick searching. One area that iTunes excels in is searching, and I was interested to see whether Microsoft had made any progress in this area. And sure enough, a new always-on search box is available in the Media Library view, making it easier to find music in today's suddenly massive collections. Sadly, the search function in WMP 10 isn't instant, as it is in iTunes: You can to click the Search button (or press Enter) manually to display the results of a search (Figure). And there's no "back" button, so you have to manually navigate back to your previous position in the Media Library if your search was unsuccessful.
Well, in WMP 10 the wait is finally over, though it has sort of a anticlimactic ring to it: You can now rip music to MP3 format from WMP 10 directly, without needing an add-on (Figure). There's just one problem: Microsoft's MP3 encoder only supports 128, 192, 256, and 320 Kbps MP3 ripping. Because I prefer to rip songs to 160 Kbps MP3 format, I still need to install a third party MP3 encoder. Hey, it's better than nothing, and it's certainly better than the crippled MP3 ripping in RealPlayer 10.5 Plus.
One feature that's still missing in action with WMP 10 is DVD decoding. That means that you will still need to purchase a third party DVD decoder to play back a DVD movie with WMP 10. (As with MP3 encoders, these products are available cheaply from a variety of sources.) Microsoft's somewhat logical argument is that most PCs, and virtually all standalone DVD drives, ship with a DVD decoder, so most people won't need one anyway.
When Windows Media Player 9 Series debuted two years ago, it didn't have much viable competition. RealNetworks had a similar RealONE jukebox that was somewhat hobbled by annoying ads and a reduced feature-set unless you purchased the Plus version, and Apple's iTunes had yet to become a market leader. In some ways, Microsoft was more preoccupied at the time with niche products like WinAMP, which have since fallen by the wayside, and erstwhile competitor/partners, like MusicMatch.
Times change. Today, Apple's iTunes is the simplest, most elegant media player available for any platform, and the release of WMP 10 doesn't change that. Yes, iTunes has its problems, and it certainly doesn't offer the wide range of media compatibility that WMP offers, but it's still simpler and arguably more popular with the key demographic these companies are trying to reach: Young people. Whether its high-school aged kids, college students, or young adults, Apple can do no wrong, and for good reason: Its products are well-designed and easy to use to a fault. WMP 10 looks somewhat amateurish by comparison, despite its many benefits over Apple's admittedly limited player.
But iTunes also offers some basic features that WMP 10, tragically, lacks. First, it's compatible with the iPod, the world's best-selling portable audio player, a feat Microsoft can't seem to manage. Second, iTunes lets you easily share music from PC to PC (or from Mac to Mac or Mac to PC), a feature that WMP, inexplicably, still lacks. Meanwhile, Microsoft has expended (arguably wasted) years of effort and millions of dollars to ensure that you can share music from your WMP 10 with every conceivable device on the planet, regardless of the business sense. But it has somehow managed to ignore the most obvious music sharing experience, that of PC to PC sharing, and given how many homes now have two or more PCs, that missing functionality is all the more incomprehensible.
Microsoft will argue--wrongly, I think--that there are ways to share music from PC to PC. These methods, however, require customers to understand home networking concepts that are typically more advanced than one might expect from an average user. With iTunes, sharing music just works. If I'm not mistaken, "it just works" is one of Microsoft's favorite terms. They might start practicing what they preach.
On the RealNetworks side, we now have a newer version of RealPlayer that compares favorably to WMP 10. RealPlayer 10.5 doesn't offer a wealth of online music services, mostly because Real offers its own online music store and streaming music service, but it does support more devices than WMP 10--over 100, including the iPod--and arguably offers a nicer UI, depending on your taste.
Ultimately, the biggest failing of WMP 10, however, is that it doesn't obviate the need to use other media players. If you want to play back iTunes Music Store purchased music, or music ripped to AAC format, you need iTunes. If you need QuickTime play back, you must still install Apple's QuickTime Player. Want RealAudio or RealVideo support? You need RealPlayer. This was a huge opportunity for Microsoft to cancel out the rationale for competing players, but as is so often the case, the company has chosen to play it safe and tout features like MP3 burning support and the use of "cool" terms like Rip and Burn as if they were somehow leading edge. They're not, and frankly, you can look to RealNetworks' recent decision to reverse engineer Apple's formats for an example of what I'm talking about: Consumers are waiting for someone to stand up for our rights, and Microsoft's not doing it.
Overall, Windows Media Player 10 is a huge improvement over previous Windows Media Player versions, though it still falls short of the competition in a few key areas. If you've bought into the Microsoft-oriented music world in any way, however--perhaps with a Media Center PC, Portable Media Center device, or by using a WMA-compatible online music service--you simply must upgrade to WMP 10. This release offers major improvements for discovering and buying, and subscribing to content online, sports an improved UI, and integrates nicely with a coming generation of portable devices. And if up-and-coming music subscription services, like that now offered by Napster, take off, the release of WMP 10 will be heralded as the watershed moment of what is clearly still a nascent market. That said, users interested solely in music playback will likely find little reason to abandon iTunes. And iPod users will simply ignore WMP 10 as they have previous versions.
Windows Media Player 10 is free and requires Windows XP (any edition), but not any other Windows versions. That decision will be controversial, but I think it's the right one: With over 300 million users, XP is clearly the preferred Windows client for consumers and music enthusiasts: Had Microsoft shipped a WMP 10 version for older Windows versions, that product would have lacked key features and held up the release of the XP version. You can download Windows Media Player 10 from the Microsoft Web site. | 2019-04-24T02:15:03Z | https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-media-player-10-review |
Generally, he's a good thinker and writer. But not on this subject.
UPDATE: Federal laws relating to guns were pretty sparse until 1968, so indeed there was little reason for the Court to take a 2A case. If I recall correctly, around 1902 there was a law banning pistols from the Postal Service mails. Then the 1934 NFA, applicable only to full auto, short barrels, and a few other things, and still allowing those if registered and taxed. A 1938 National Firearms Act, which didn't do much -- provided for licensing dealers (I don't recall who had to get one) and they had to keep simple records of purchaser's name and address. A few prohibited person categories, chief one being convicted violent felons. Hard to see much of a 2A test case there!
Also, Prof. Wm van Alstyne has pointed out that the first case in which the Court struck down a Federal law for violation of right to speech and press... was in 1965! What we regard as normal judicial function, a careful review of laws for constitutionality, people bringing test cases, the cases getting to the Supremes, is very much a function of the last 30-40 years. That the Court didn't recognize a right as important until recently represents quite a common situation.
One point that is often over looked is that Guard members are paid not by the states but by the Federal government. Therefore in this instance as well as many others it is not entirely independant of the Federal government as some claiming that it is the same as the state militia of long ago.
Is the good Judge Posner entirely unable to read the text of the contemporary statute defining the militia? Can't he read further how those militiamen were expected to arm themselves? He's simply defaulting to the tired old idea that the National Guard is the militia, so the Second Amendment must be moot.
I find this approach as absurd as Justice Stevens' assertion that he could not conclude that "over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons." That's precisely what the Bill of Rights was intended to do: limit the government.
I don't know who the guy is who commented on Posner's article (Alan Vanneman or something like that), but OUCH.
While I too find Judge Posner to be a generally astute and sensible man, I found it difficult to force myself to read this piece. In addition to seeming to believe that the National Guard constitutes the entire militia, he also seems to think it somehow meaningful to assert that the Second Amendment doesn't create a right to maintain private arms for hunting or self defense. That's right; it doesn't. Neither does the First Amendment create a right to free speech, peaceful assembly or free exercise of religion. He also asserts that it would be silly for the founders to have wanted individual militia members to keep their arms in their own homes, in case some other part of the militia should need additional arms at some other location. Much better, I suppose, to have them stored all in one central location for General Gage's convenience.
Awwww.. After this unrelated but excellent opinion a few years ago (my favorite bit is paragraph 15), I had him pegged as being rather libertarian-ish. Looks like that was just one of those "magnificent legal edifices" Kozinski was talking about in Silveira v. Lockyer.
Sorry, I couldn't finish it. I am all out of patience for stupidity, intentional or otherwise.
He's always had money and security.
He'd have been a Tory in 1775.
I find the references to "law office history" most interesting. This phrase originated with Professor Cornell if I am not mistaken.
Essentially what Judge Posner states about historical arguments is that any historical information not coming from historians, all of whom he apparently views as disinterested, is without value and constitutes a snowjob. I suspect that he feels this way because he personally does not like the decision.
If Judge Posner actually thinks that historians are disinterested, perhaps he is interested in a bridge in Brooklyn. After all, historians are human.
Judge Posner would do well to read my History News Network article pointing out the numerous shortcomings of his so called "disinterested historians" in their Heller amicus brief. He is wrong about a great many other things as well.
The link for the History News Network article is here.
What is remarkable about the "law office history" remarks is that Posner, a legal scholar, conspicuously does not discuss the only caselaw that would prove/disprove his militia-conditional hypothesis, that is militia caselaw. You can't prove a militia theory by reference to gun possession cases, you have to prove it with militia cases. If Posner has a militia theory, he owes it to his audience to justify it by reference to militia law.
He does not, because he cannot. The militia caselaw flatly contradicts his militia theory. There is no 2nd Am limit in militia law. The only federal law ever struck down as an unconstitutional interference with the state militia was Lincoln's draft, enjoined by a PA state court, and that decision was overturned in weeks.
Collectivists had an offensive and a defensive position: their offense was to attack the RKBA both via originalism and via gun caselaw. Their claimed defensive position was the "collective" right, which they defended by reference to originalism . . . but never by reference to militia caselaw. They were, and are, hugely vulnerable on the militia-law position they claim to defend. But nobody ever attacks them there, nobody ever confronts them with militia caselaw and forces them to articulate a coherent position and support it with militia law cases. Instead we are trapped in an endless argument over the validity of the RKBA position vis a vis originalism.
We should be arguing about the validity of the collectivist position vis a vis militia law. That would be taking the fight to them, rather than letting them bring the fight to us.
This was an amazingly poor piece by Posner. Ignoring a rather large body of scholarship so cavalierly isn't the Posner I've read in the past.
This piece was quite the epitome of bad reasoning.
1. National Guards are the constituted militia spoken of in the Second amendment. They were not in existence until the 1900's. How can they be the militia when in the 1700's they didn't exist?
2. The idea of someone not keeping their arms at home, but in a storage facility shows that they do not own their arms? This absurd reasoning was ridiculous. The use of "private arms" in the function of militias is well documented. Indeed it was a privately manned militia that was "funded by merchant contributions and manned by Boston college boys" (Kramnic, I.(1987) The Federalist Papers)to take down Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts!
The answer to that question was yes. There were those with criminal records who served in the militia. Even today there are those with criminal records that serve with the National Guard. So if Criminals can serve in those capacities with governmental authority, why would the founders look to strip them of privately owning arms? The issue of criminality has only been a recent issue when it comes to owning firearms. I could be wrong on this, but I would be hard pressed to find much second amendment case law in the 1800's that mentions criminal background as a precursor of denying arms.
I basically stopped reading after he started going on about "conservatives do this" and "liberals do that". Once he started in on that, it became an political opinion piece by someone who happens to be a judge.
Prior to the nfa there was almost no fed law to contest re the second. The first may have been a 1927 law banning the *mailing* of handguns.
The fed seemed to understand that the people would truck no interference with their right to own (keep and bear) guns.
In 1934 the fed again exercised it muscle with the nfa for the safety of the people and law enforcement in the face of *criminals* using machine guns. Of course as with near every gun law enacted the only folks inconvenienced have been the law abiding.
One of the Amicus briefs details fed law prior to 1934, I think the one by Cramer and Hardy.
Judge Posner, the Heller dissenters, the academic historians and law professers who influenced Justice Stevens, and all of the gun control advocates who have denied a private rights purpose for the Second Amendment and asserted there is a government controlling militia related purpose for the Second Amendment are wrong. There are several entirely different lines of research and sets of facts that conclusively indicate this. The early arms related caselaw, the militia related caselaw, and the period history of the Bill of Rights are three such separate fields of information that turn out to directly contradict what supporters of gun control believe (and I emphasize believe because the facts uniformly contradict their beliefs).
J. Norman Heath's research into the militia caselaw of the early republic clearly shows that the Second Amendment was never understood to protect state authority relative to the militia in court cases dealing with conflicting state and federal militia laws. Mr. Heath has a post above about this subject. His article, "Exposing the Second Amendment: Federal Preemption of State Militia Legislation," is a masterpiece that anyone interested in the Second Amendment, and especially those in the legal community, should be familiar with. It can be found in the Journal on Firearms & Public Policy, Vol. 14, Fall, 2002, published by the Second Amendment Foundation.
Clayton Cramer's research into the arms related caselaw of the early republic provides a similar result based on the specific field of caselaw he studied. His book, For the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, published by Greenwood Press in 1994, is another essential source of information that those interested in the Second Amendment should be familiar with, especially any in the legal field.
My own research into the period historical sources has produced extensive and conclusive information directly contradicting the beliefs of gun control advocates and their supporters regarding the militia powers related nexus of the Second Amendment. As just one example, there is a set of three 1788 George Mason documents (a letter, complete Bill of Rights, and partial list of amendments) that settle this matter conclusively all by themselves. These documents indicate that the Second Amendment was completed and included in a Bill of Rights by Mason and Virginia Antifederalists prior to development of any proposed militia powers related amendments. For those interested, my research has resulted in two books, The Origin of the Second Amendment, a docment collection, and a new definitive history of the Second Amendment, The Founders' View of the Right to Bear Arms.
It should be clear from Judge Posner's article that he was relying on the accuracy and authority of the "disinterested" historians for his views as was Justice Stevens. Most of those who signed the historians' and law professors' Heller amicus brief were relying on the accuracy and authority of the writer, Professor Bogus and a few of the historian signatories for their accuracy and authority. The entire gun control advocate belief structure is a massive house of cards with almost everyone relying on someone else as having the detailed information backing up the beliefs. The three different lines of research descibed above all prove that there is nothing backing up the controllers' beliefs. Everyone accepting their beliefs is relying on someone else in a complex and fallacious web of appeal to authority, and not one of the supposed authorities addresses the overwhelming evidence directly contradicting them.
Finally, let it not be forgotten that Judge Rheinehardt of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals thought it best to go back to his Silveira vs Lockyer decision and remove all the citations to the "disinterested" historian, Prof. Michael Bellesiles. BTW, it was Clayton Cramer who first started that ball rolling.
I think Mr. Posner well knows what the 2nd Amendment is about.
Any honest, intelligent, literate, well-read human would.
He won't ever admit it. Can't. Doesn't fit with the correct world view.
So we debate with his ilk unproductively presenting facts, history, literature, tradition, sense. Won't matter.
Can't be so because they don't want it to be.
So they make s**t up.
Believing that the [second] amendment does not authorize an individual's right to keep and bear arms is wrong. The right to bear arms is an individual right. The military connotation of bearing arms does not necessarily determine the meaning of a right to bear arms. If all it meant was the right to be a soldier or serve in the military, whether in the militia or the army, it would hardly be a cherished right and would never have reached constitutional status in the Bill of Rights. The "right" to be a soldier does not make much sense. Life in the military is dangerous and lonely, and a constitutionally protected claim or entitlement to serve in uniform does not have to exist in order for individuals to enlist if they so choose. Moreover, the right to bear arms does not necessarily have a military connotation, because Pennsylvania, whose constitution of 1776 first used the phrase "the right to bear arms," did not even have a state militia. In Pennsylvania, therefore, the right to bear arms was devoid of military significance. Moreover, such significance need not necessarily be inferred even with respect to states that had militias. Bearing arms could mean having arms. Indeed, Blackstone's Commentaries spoke expressly of the "right to have arms." An individual could bear arms without being a soldier or militiaman. Leonard W. Levy, ORIGINS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS 134-35 (Yale Univ. Press 1999).
O.K., time for just a little nitpicking.
Generally, I agree with most parts of the above quote from L.L. Levy. However, the statement that Pennsylvania's novel Declaration of Rights language "the people have a right to bear arms" was "devoid of military significance" needs to be questioned. If by "military significance" it only means that the government was not involved in any organized defensive activities relating to the right, this statement would be true, although it is a rather strange and confusing way of stating such a concept. If what is meant is that there were no organized defensive activities associated with the people having a right to bear arms, that statement would be incorrect.
When this "right to bear arms" that "the people have" was written into the 1776 Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights, the Revolution was underway, and the people of Pennsylvania were associated for defense in the exact equivalent of militia companies only referred to instead as associators because they were not under government control. This came about previously - immediately upon the news of hostilities having broken out over a year earlier on April 19, 1775, in Massachusetts. Pennsylvanians spontaneously formed companies, elected officers, and trained for mutual defense all across the colony. The descriptions of this activity by the Patriot leaders, who were meeting in Philadelphia as the Congress, are amazing and apparently completely forgotten in modern times. These activites were analougous to defensive military action under government control but without the government control because the orgnaized defensive action was directed against government officials and forces that were viewed as violating the constitution and Pennsylvanians' rights.
While there had never been a militia law in Pennsylvania like those in all the other colonies by the time of the Revolution, Pennsylvanians had on a number of notable occassions prior to the Revolution associated for mutual organized defense without any authorization or involvement of government. On only one prior occasion was there a law organizing such associators' activites, and that law was dissallowed by the British BECAUSE associations are voluntary and individuals decide whether to associate or not.
Thus, the language "that the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state" in the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights most assuredly had "militiary significance" under any normal undersanding of that phrase. That military significance was directed at assuring an effective defense on the part of the people against possible unconstitutional actions of force by the new government in the future. Without their own suitable arms, such defensive actions would not have been possible and the Revolution would never have occurred.
What a shocking ignorance of history, especially his ignorace of the Founder's views that militiamen wouldn't keep arms in their homes. One need look no further than the Militia Act of 1792 to find out that the Founder meant exactly that.
Of course, any student of history know that militia's have always owned and kept their own weapons. It is one of the key features that distinguishes them from regular soldiers. Ever since the first Greek wife handed her husband the family arms and said "with it or on it" militias have owned their own weapons.
J. Norman Heath posted above concerning the militia caselaw of the early Republic. Also, I commented above on his "masterpiece" of an article relating to that subject. Just happened to run across his article, "Exposing the Second Amendment: Federal Preemption of State Militia Legislation" on the net since then. It is located at Guncite.
This is something well worth reading. Enjoy! | 2019-04-25T02:57:39Z | https://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2008/08/judge_posners_c.php |
Leptotrichia spp. are anaerobic, pencil-shaped, Gram-negative rods that are part of the normal oral and intestinal human flora. Although not typically considered pathogenic, invasive Leptotrichia infections have been reported in immunosuppressed patients. A perceived rise in the identification of Leptotrichia spp. at our institution prompted a retrospective evaluation of these infections. Laboratory and clinical records were reviewed to identify Leptotrichia culture-positive patients. Over a 5-year period, 68 Leptotrichia-positive specimens were identified. Of these, 21% (14/68) were identified in original samples submitted from 13 different patients at our institution, and the remainder (79% [54/68]) were unknown isolates referred from outside hospitals for molecular identification. All in-house Leptotrichia were identified from blood cultures. Only 64% (9/14) of these grew on solid media, and 5 were a part of polymicrobial bacteremias containing other enteric pathogens. All local patients were receiving chemotherapy and a majority received hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) (11/13). All had neutropenic fever with symptoms of mucositis and/or enteritis. Most of the HSCT patients (73% [8/11]) were autologous recipients hospitalized after recent high-dose chemotherapy for multiple myeloma. L. hongkongensis, a novel species, was found in the majority of myeloma cases (63% [5/8]). In conclusion, we suggest that Leptotrichia spp. may be an underappreciated cause of bacteremia, particularly in multiple myeloma patients receiving cytotoxic chemotherapy for autologous HSCT. In our cohort, these infections were associated with neutropenic fever from an enteric source, and most isolates remained sensitive to standard antibiotics.
High-dose chemotherapy followed by hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT), is a well-established treatment modality for a variety of hematologic malignancies; however, infectious complications remain a major barrier to the overall success of this procedure. HSCT recipients are at particularly high risk for the development of invasive bacterial infections as a result of regimen-related neutropenia and cytotoxic damage to the oral and gastrointestinal mucosa. Mucositis severity, specifically, is an independent predictor of anaerobic bloodstream infection (BSI) following HSCT (11).
Leptotrichia spp. are fastidious anaerobic, pencil-shaped, Gram-negative rods that reside in the mouths, intestines, and female genital tracts of humans (20). Traditionally considered to be nonpathogenic, Leptotrichia species have occasionally been reported to cause invasive disease in HSCT patients and other immunocompromised hosts (6, 14, 18). The overall incidence of Leptotrichia infections in at-risk patient populations, however, may be underestimated. These organisms are notoriously difficult to recover from blood culture and may retain crystal violet, which can lead to their misidentification as Gram-positive rods. Commercially available phenotypic identification systems also have problems classifying these organisms (12). We routinely use 16S rRNA partial gene sequencing for the identification of anaerobic bacteria (16), which allowed us to recognize an increase in the number of Leptotrichia isolates identified by our laboratory. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the incidence of Leptotrichia infections identified by ARUP Laboratories over a 5-year period and to review the occurrence of this infection at our institution.
Clinical isolates.The Associated Regional and University Pathologists (ARUP) laboratories database was searched for all isolates identified as Leptotrichia spp. between January 2005 and December 2010. Specimen source, Gram stain result, the presence or absence of growth on solid media, and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns (when available) were recorded. ARUP is a national reference laboratory that also operates as the primary microbiology laboratory for the University of Utah Health Care (UUHC) system. Isolated organisms were submitted from outside institutions within the United States for molecular identification, whereas UUHC organisms were identified from primary clinical specimens. Medical records were reviewed for UUHC patients, under a protocol approved by the University of Utah Institutional Review Board. The following clinical information was assessed for adult patients: past medical history, presenting signs and/or symptoms of infection, diagnostic imaging, microbiology results, and antimicrobial therapies.
Blood culture.UUHC patient blood samples were inoculated into one Bactec Plus aerobic bottle (resin media) and a Bactec standard anaerobic bottle (BD, Franklin Lakes, NJ). Cultures were incubated for 5 days in a Bactec 9240 blood culture system (BD) and were monitored automatically every 10 min for the presence of microbial growth. All positive anaerobic blood cultures were analyzed by Gram stain and subcultured on two sheep blood agar (SBA) plates (Hardy Diagnostics, Santa Maria, CA). One SBA plate was incubated at 37°C in an anaerobic chamber, and the second SBA plate was incubated in 5% CO2 atmosphere at 37°C. For samples that did not yield growth on the SBA plate, an additional chocolate and brucella blood agar plate, supplemented with hemin and vitamin K (Hardy Diagnostics), was inoculated and incubated for 5 days. Growth from the anaerobic SBA plate was directly referred for DNA sequencing.
Molecular identification.DNA was extracted from isolated colonies using PrepMan Ultra sample preparation reagent (Applied Biosystems, Carlsbad, CA) according to the kit recommendations. DNA was analyzed using partial sequencing of a 500-bp 5′ region of the 16S rRNA gene as previously described (15). Blood cultures broths confirmed to be positive by Gram stain for bacteria morphologically consistent with Leptotrichia spp. but negative for growth on solid media were directly extracted for sequencing. Briefly, a 1.0-ml volume of positive blood was pelleted at 5,200 × g for 2 min, resuspended in 1.0 ml of sterile phosphate-buffered saline, and pelleted again (repeat twice). The final suspension was then extracted for sequencing as described above.
Antimicrobial susceptibility.Antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed in real-time by physician request using the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) broth microdilution reference method for anaerobic organisms (4). In addition, 18 viable isolates were subcultured from frozen storage and analyzed retrospectively. Isolates were tested against a standard drug panel that included ampicillin-sulbactam, cefoxitin, meropenem, metronidazole, penicillin, and clindamycin (Trek Diagnostic Systems, Cleveland, OH). Leptotrichia isolates were also screened for β-lactamase activity using a Cefinase disk (Becton Dickinson Microbiology Systems, Cockeysville, MD). There are currently no established interpretive breakpoints for Leptotrichia spp.; however, antimicrobial susceptibility was inferred based on CLSI breakpoints for anaerobic organisms other than Bacteroides fragilis group (5).
Sequence and phylogenetic analysis.Sequence-based identifications were performed in accordance with the CLSI guidelines (3). For the present study, Leptotrichia sequences were reanalyzed using the most up-to-date version of our 16S reference database (SmartGene IDNS version 3.6.1; Zug, Switzerland). A multiple sequence alignment of our isolates and Leptotrichia type strains was performed using CLUSTAL W in MEGA 5 (17). A phylogenetic analysis was then conducted using the neighbor-joining method with 500 bootstrap replications with MEGA5 software.
Statistical analysis.Statistical analysis was performed using Analyze-It Software for Microsoft Excel (version 2.26). The proportions of patients with Leptotrichia bacteremia were compared using the Fisher exact test for small cell sizes. Summary statistics were used to describe the distribution of Leptotrichia infection at our institution.
Over the 5-year study period, 68 Leptotrichia-positive cultures were obtained from 67 different patients. Most of these (79% [54/68]) were organisms referred to ARUP from outside institutions for molecular identification (Fig. 1). The majority of organisms (91% [62/68]) came from blood cultures. The remaining six isolates came from a variety of sources including: wounds (n = 3), respiratory (n = 2), and amniotic fluid (n = 1).
Distribution of Leptotrichia isolates identified at ARUP between January 2005 and December 2010.
Leptotrichia microbiology.Seventy-five percent (51/68) of all Leptotrichia were identified to the species level, with L. trevisanii being the most frequently encountered species (47% [32/68]). The remaining species-level identifications included six isolates each of L. wadei, L. goodfellowii, and L. hongkongensis and a single isolate of L. buccalis. Overall, 17 Leptotrichia isolates could only be identified to genus level by partial sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. Several of these isolates grouped in distinct clades, bearing similarity to L. buccalis, L. goodfellowii, or L. wadei (Fig. 2).
Neighbor-joining dendrogram of unique partial 16S rRNA gene sequences (first 500 bp) for 64 Leptotrichia clinical isolates and 7 reference type strains. Branch support is recorded at nodes as a percentage of 500 bootstrap iterations. The scale bar indicates nucleotide substitutions per site. Type strains are indicated by the species name, a “(T)”, and the corresponding GenBank accession number. Clinical isolates are indicated by a specimen number, followed by the number of clinical isolates sharing the sequence and the reported identification.
Of the 14 organisms identified from primary specimens at UUHC, 36% (5/14) failed to grow on solid media. All of the nonculturable UUHC Leptotrichia were retrospectively identified as L. hongkongensis. One isolate that failed to grow on initial plating was repeatedly subcultured to several broth (Bactec standard anaerobic ± human blood) and solid (Columbia sheep blood, chocolate, and Brucella blood + hemin + vitamin K) media but was found to grow only in broth containing human blood. Only one multiple myeloma patient in the UUHC cohort had L. honkongensis successfully subcultured from their blood culture bottle to chocolate agar.
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed for 39 isolates (Table 1). The majority appeared highly susceptible to the antibiotics tested, and there was no obvious difference in susceptibility patterns for a particular species. However, two L. trevisanii isolates displayed metronidazole MICs greater than 32 μg/ml, and one of these isolates also had a cefoxitin MIC of 32 μg/ml. A single isolate of L. goodfellowii also had an MIC of 16 for metronidazole. None of the tested organisms possessed detectable β-lactamase activity.
Clinical case histories.In all, 14 cases of Leptotrichia BSI were identified from 13 unique UUHC patients. Approximately a third of cases (36% [5/14]) were part of polymicrobial bacteremias involving other pathogens (i.e., Enterococcus faecium, viridans group Streptococcus, Streptococcus infantis, Bacteroides urealyticus, or Fusobacterium nucleatum). All UUHC patients had received high-dose chemotherapy immediately prior to the onset of bacteremia; twelve had hematological cancers, and one was being treated for a solid tumor malignancy.
More than half of the UUHC hematology patients (67% [8/12]) were undergoing autologous HSCT (auto-HSCT) specifically for the treatment of multiple myeloma. Patients in the myeloma cohort had all been treated with a melphalan-based induction regimen that also included the novel chemotherapeutic agents thalidomide and bortezomib. L. hongkongensis was the most common single species identified from multiple myeloma patients (63%, 5/8). However, the test for association between L. hongkongensis and myeloma chemotherapy for auto-HSCT did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.4).
The multiple myeloma subgroup presented with similar clinical signs and symptoms of infection. All were neutropenic and had fever that was associated with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain despite prophylactic oral levofloxacin and fluconazole. In addition, two patients were hemodynamically unstable at the time of hospital admission: one grew L. hongkongensis and viridans group Streptococcus, and the other had L. hongkongensis identified by sequencing directly from the blood culture broth. Of note, one of the hypotensive patients experienced two separate episodes of L. hongkongensis bacteremia following tandem auto-HSCT separated by 3 months. Several myeloma patients (3/8) had computerized axial tomography confirmed necrotizing enterocolitis with negative Clostridium difficile enzyme immunoassay testing from stool specimens. L. hongkongensis was identified in the blood of two of these patients, and L. wadei was isolated from the third. All of the patients in this cohort survived their respective episodes of Leptotrichia BSI, with negative repeat blood cultures following the initiation of empirical meropenem as per our institution's protocol for the management of neutropenic fever.
The remaining five UUHC patients from were receiving therapy for acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) (n = 2), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (n = 1), T-cell-rich large B-cell lymphoma (n = 1), and esophageal cancer (n = 1). Both of the AML patients received allogeneic HSCT, while the lymphoma patient received auto-HSCT. All five patients presented initially for the evaluation of neutropenic fever; however, only the hematology patients had received prophylactic antimicrobials. At the time of hospital admission, all five had severe oral mucositis and were treated empirically with meropenem with or without vancomycin. Unlike the multiple myeloma cohort, only one patient exhibited diarrhea, which was negative by both enteric stool culture and PCR for C. difficile. The Leptotrichia species identified in these patients were variable, with two unspeciated isolates and one of each L. hongkongensis, L. trevisanii, and L. goodfellowii. Like the multiple myeloma cohort, these patients all survived these episodes of bacteremia.
Anaerobic BSIs have increasingly been recognized as an important sequela of high-dose chemotherapy, with severe alimentary tract mucositis identified as a predisposing risk-factor (11). While members of the genus Leptotrichia have been isolated from neutropenic patients (1, 6, 12–14, 19), they likely remain an underappreciated cause of BSI due to inherent difficulties with conventional laboratory identification methods (12).
We observed an increase in invasive Leptotrichia infections at ARUP in 2007, followed by a subsequent rise in our own hospital in 2008. The reasons for this are probably multifactorial. First, regular use of 16S rRNA partial gene sequencing significantly expands the number of anaerobic organisms that can be accurately identified (10, 16). It is also well recognized that Leptotrichia are not reliably identified by a commonly used phenotypic identification system (RapID ANA II; Remel, Lenexa, KS) (12, 14). Furthermore, the number of at-risk patients has also expanded in recent years with the routine use of high-dose cytotoxic chemotherapy for HSCT and the treatment of other malignancies. In recognition of the increasing numbers of auto-HSCT patients admitted with severe mucositis, enteric bacteremia, and sepsis, antimicrobial prophylactic strategies were revised at our institution in 2009. These revisions may account for the subsequent decline in Leptotrichia infections from our transplant center in 2010 (Fig. 1).
Although not generally regarded as drug-resistant organisms, Leptotrichia antimicrobial susceptibility patterns are largely undefined. Our data suggest that these organisms remain highly susceptible to standard agents. Some of the drugs used routinely for prophylaxis or empirical treatment of neutropenic fever, however, lack robust anaerobic activity (e.g., levofloxacin, cefepime, or ceftazidime). Patients with neutropenic oral mucositis and/or enterocolitis are at increased risk for anaerobic infection and should therefore be treated with a broad-spectrum antimicrobial regimen that has anaerobic coverage (9).
Seven Leptotrichia species have been validly described. Of these, L. buccalis and L. goodfellowii were implicated in severe infections, including endocarditis, L. trevisanii, L. wadei, and L. hongkongensis were associated with bacteremia, and L. hofstadii and L. shahii have been isolated from oral wounds (2, 7, 8, 21). It is interesting that, although previously only described as a cause of BSI in two cases (6, 18), L. trevisanii accounted for half of our isolates (32/68 [48%]). It is unclear whether this organism has been regularly identified at other institutions but not reported or whether it is simply not as pathogenic as other species (e.g., L. goodfellowii and L. buccalis). In addition, we identified multiple isolates only to the genus level despite high-quality sequencing results. The phylogenetic analysis does not cluster these isolates within any of the currently described species (Fig. 2), suggesting that some of these organisms may in fact represent previously undescribed species.
Of particular interest was the identification of six cases of L. hongkongensis bacteremia in our UUHC cohort, five of which were isolated from multiple myeloma patients. Although the apparent association between L. hongkongensis and auto-HSCT for multiple myeloma did not reach statistical significance, likely due to our small sample size, the observation is clinically important. L. hongkongensis was only recently described and to date, limited information exists on the clinical spectrum of associated illness (21). Four of the L. hongkongensis sequences in the present study were identical to the type strain (GenBank accession no. EU919515, listed as Leptotrichia sp. strain HKU24) (21), and two were identical to a Leptotrichia sp. isolated from the blood of a patient undergoing treatment for AML (GenBank accession no. AF189244) (12) (Fig. 2). These two clusters of L. hongkongensis sequences were 99.8% identical (differing by only 2 bp) to each other, which suggests that the organism in Patel et al. (12) was most likely L. hongkongensis. Consistent with this notion is the fact that their isolate also failed to grow on initial subculture to multiple solid media. The Patel et al. report (12), in addition to our six cases of bacteremia with L. hongkongensis in a single BMT unit, suggests that this species may be of particular concern in patients undergoing high-dose chemotherapy for HSCT, and its presence may be suggested by the characteristic Gram stain and failure to grow on subculture to solid media. Widespread recognition of these clinical and laboratory observations may lead to better understanding of the incidence of this organism.
In conclusion, Leptotrichia spp. are emerging pathogens in neutropenic patients receiving high-dose chemotherapy. At our institution, there was an apparent association between Leptotrichia BSI and the chemotherapeutic agents used for multiple myeloma patients undergoing auto-HSCT. In particular, L. hongkongensis was shown to be the predominant species in this population, further defining the clinical relevance of this recently described species. Molecular methods have greatly improved the clinical laboratories' ability to identify these potential pathogens, which have fortunately remained susceptible to most antimicrobial agents.
We thank Mary Lampas and Stephanie Sanders for assistance with the medical record review. We thank Keith E. Simmon for his review of these data. We also thank the clinical microbiology laboratory at ARUP for providing antimicrobial susceptibility testing.
Returned for modification 24 October 2011.
. 2006. A 62-month retrospective epidemiological survey of anaerobic bacteraemia in a university hospital. Clin. Microbiol. Infect. 12:527–532.
. 2008. Leptotrichia endocarditis: report of two cases from the International Collaboration on Endocarditis (ICE) database and review of previous cases. Eur. J. Clin. Microbiol. Infect. Dis. 27:139–143.
CLSI. 2008. Interpretive criteria for identification of bacteria and fungi by DNA target sequencing; approved guideline MM18-A. Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, Wayne, PA.
CLSI. 2007. Methods for antimicrobial susceptibility testing of anaerobic bacteria; approved standard, 7th ed. Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, Wayne, PA.
CLSI. 2011. Performance standards for antimicrobial susceptibility testing; 21st informational supplement. Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, Wayne, PA.
. 2011. Bacteraemia caused by Leptotrichia trevisanii in a neutropenic patient. Anaerobe 17:1–3.
. 1984. Infective endocarditis due to Leptotrichia buccalis: a case report. Can. Med. Assoc. J. 130:422–424.
. 2008. Leptotrichia species in human infections. Anaerobe 14:131–137.
. 2011. Clinical practice guideline for the use of antimicrobial agents in neutropenic patients with cancer: 2010 update by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Clin. Infect. Dis. 52:e56–e93.
. 2001. Risk factors for anaerobic bloodstream infections in bone marrow transplant recipients. Clin. Infect. Dis. 33:338–343.
. 1999. Bacteremia caused by a novel isolate resembling Leptotrichia species in a neutropenic patient. J. Clin. Microbiol. 37:2064–2067.
. 1985. Leptotrichia buccalis bacteremia in neutropenic children. J. Clin. Microbiol. 22:320–321.
. 1995. Leptotrichia buccalis bacteremia in patients treated in a single bone marrow transplant unit. Clin. Infect. Dis. 20:762–767.
. 2006. Application of SmartGene IDNS software to partial 16S rRNA gene sequences for a diverse group of bacteria in a clinical laboratory. J. Clin. Microbiol. 44:4400–4406.
. 2001. Bacteremia due to Leptotrichia trevisanii sp. nov. Eur. J. Clin. Microbiol. Infect. Dis. 20:765–769.
. 1991. Leptotrichia buccalis bacteremia in patients with cancer: report of four cases and review. Rev. Infect. Dis. 13:201–206.
. 2006. Koneman's color atlas and textbook of diagnostic microbiology, 6th ed. Lippincott/The Williams & Wilkins Co., Philadelphia, PA.
. 2010. Leptotrichia hongkongensis sp. nov., a novel Leptotrichia species with the oral cavity as its natural reservoir. J. Zhejiang Univ. Sci. B 11:391–401. | 2019-04-24T22:29:17Z | https://jcm.asm.org/content/50/4/1228?ijkey=486afc0eb7799a8ec48676060c4083749719be67&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha |
This post will be filled with a number of things that have made grown women "weep" over the past few days. Not weep in a bad way, but in a sort of lustful, covetous way. Some say I specialize in that. Me, I think it's just good buying habits. Others would argue, however.
As of this writing, I'm above the armhole shaping and working towards the shoulder--maybe an hour of knitting left until this side is completed and I can start the right front. It's coming along nicely, the fabric is DELICIOUS (even at this firm gauge, I still like it), and it made a friend of ours weep with lust on Wednesday. We don't have the yarn in stock just yet, but she's laid claim to some when it comes in shortly.
Overall, I'm REALLY enjoying this project and look forward to watching the pieces come together, as there are several small details in the design that should make for a lovely finished garment.
That's parts of four different staff members winding their arms off on Jitterbug (and Tate under the right table, supervising). We have EVERY SINGLE shade in stock (save Tuscany and Castagna) in sweater amounts (we were down to one to three skeins on several shades), with the new Dali-inspired solids arriving as soon as they're in stock at the US distributor.
Also in the shipment--tons of Cadenza (dk-weight superwash merino) and Banyan (cotton/viscose dk), which are completely substitutable for eachother in patterns, as well as a ton of pattern books. All of this is in support of our big "Colinette Mega Model Extravaganza" going on at the shop this weekend. We have over three dozen garments on hand for the event, plus the bonus of having our fab sales rep Mary B on hand (complete with "color rings" for all Colinette yarns). The models that are here focus in on six yarns--Jitterbug, Cadenza, Banyan, Tao, Parisienne, and Giotto--and there will be in-store specials and other suprises.
Come on by to check everything out.
Next up (and still in the "staff weeps" arena).....three boxes packed with Garnstudio yarns.
In part, it's a stock-up for cooler-weather knitting, and in part it's making sure we have sufficient supply of these fantastic Norwegian yarns while there's a slight "changing of the guard" with respect to distributors. Three boxes packed with goodies (yarns, pattern books, and more) arrived yesterday, and suffice to say that our shelves are now packed with Silke-Tweed (one of my absolute all-time favorite yarns) and Cotton-Viscose, with more arriving shortly. Our morning crew today is wading through the task of stickering all of this yarn.....given how beautiful this stuff is, it's not really a chore, in my estimation.
When we get new yarn in that's in her "covet zone", Laurie makes the most pitiful whipmering noise you've ever heard. Since she's a complete whore for lace projects and a mega-fan of silk, can you imagine what this did to her?
That's a big bag of Tsumugi Silk (A-1) from Habu Textiles, an interesting Japanese yarn distributor we recently started working with. We now have over 30 colors on our shelf (I should have taken a picture of the cones on the shelf--they're just BEAUTIFUL all lined up in neat rows--GREAT JOB, SABRINA AND COMPANY!). It's 100% raw silk, lace weight, and a cone is 450 yards for $13.30. That means you can get enough for a rather large shawl for under $50 (three cones should do it, but even if you need a fourth, we're still only around $60). We should have the remaining ten-ish shades in just over a week, according to my contacts at Habu. YES! A full colorcard may be found here.
which is just lovely stuff! There's like 330 yards in a single half-ounce skein and they retail for under $8 from us. I can see shawls, ethereal scarves, or this yarn used as a component with other yarns (kinda like in the Nanako jacket I've got in progress). Look at the picture again, closely.....that's Tate's head in the lower right corner--peeping out from under the tables and supervising, as he's so often doing.
Also in this shipment, Paper Moire from Habu.
It's a curious yarn, as it's a nylon binder (string) with linen paper bits trapped in the binder. It's definitely a "component yarn" (hold with others) that's used for effect, but at over 300 yards for just $6.40, it's a nice option. We have every shade in stock right now, and once again, it's used in my Nanako jacket project.
That's two different colourways in the Studio Sock line from Neighborhood Fiber Co., a Washington DC-based indie dyer we connected with at the recent TNNA trade show. The fabulous Karida sent along these two hanks for me to use for design purposes, and our order should be leaving DC shortly, in plenty of time to be here for our August "Sock-It-To-Me" (sock group) meeting. I'll be creating another pattern or two with the yarn that will be included with the purchase that evening, as a little spiff for those who attend this free group that meets on the fourth Monday of every month. They'll get first crack at the yarn (and patterns) and then we'll make it available to everyone that evening or the next day (just like this week's Sleeping Dragon goodies).
that didn't photograph well (Matt is all but demanding a new digital camera so we don't have this problem). It's called "Cooper Circle" and is a combination of truly rich bricks and oranges and persimmon and other shades and simply amazing to take in. How do I tease a very nice lady? Major sock enthusiast Paula D was in on Thursday night and I had to taunt her with this yarn (I'm cruel....it's true). She does attend sock group, so I know she'll score some of it that night. But she fell in TOTAL lust/love with this yarn last night (and oddly, I thought she'd go for the LeDroit, but she was smitten with the Cooper). When it arrives, it will be $21 a hank for 430 yards of superwash merino--helluva deal!
And what makes me weep?
That's three more bags of fiber and patterns--this time to be turned into vests of various sizes out of Jitterbug. I hope they go quickly, as I have a finish deadline of August 31st for them. EEEEEEeeeeeek! I may have to call in reinforcements, as I have knitting of my own to do for the shop.
Also in Thursday's deliveries--a big wad of ADORABLE patterns from Mac & Me, cute buttons from Bullseye Buttons, and something else that escapes me now. Today brings us more wool and pattern books from Manos del Uruguay (just in time, as my Block-of-the-Month group meets at 11 a.m. tomorrow morning) and quite possibly something wonderful from another of our vendors. And I'm probably making our shop manager, Sabrina, cry because there's so much new stock rolling in and not much room on the shelves. Best of all, that's what makes her put specific yarns on clearance, as she did just that with some Classic Elite Wings (alpaca/silk/wool) that we had from last year and she needed the room for the Lush that arrived this week. So now all remaining stock of Wings is just $6 (originally $9.95) while supplies last!
Questions or ??? about the above-mentioned stuff? Just be in touch by phone (toll free) at 866-939-BEAR or slip us an e-mail and we'll do our best to take care of everything for you.
I'm off to go knit for about an hour prior to heading in for the day. Be well!
I'm not an overly-high maintenance kinda guy (shut up, Matt), and I don't indulge in too many personal luxuries. But about 16 months ago I was strongly urged to wander to the other side of the salon where I got my hair cut and try a pedicure.
I often joked with folks that I had "hillbilly feet" (and yes, I can say that--I grew up in rural southern Missouri, right on the Arkansas line, just outside a town of ten people), due to a couple unfortunate incidents with my big toes (slipping on a wooden floor and my toe going under the sofa...almost..and pulling up a nail, for one) as well as just mistreating my feet. I'm on my feet for HOURS a day with the shop and all, and I'm prone to dry heels in general (thanks, Mom, for those genetics!). It was a wicked combination of factors that made me feel like my feet were rather nasty, so I did decide to try an hour in the pedicure chair.
Not overly impressive (maybe a dozen rounds), but that's sock #2 of my Dad's socks (sock #1 was completed a couple weeks ago) and I needed to get it started so I could have some "waiting in line" knitting to take with. It was the perfect project, and I feel really good about getting it started. Good karma day!
Traditionally, Matt and I take Tuesdays as our day off each week. He's alot better about not going by the shop than I am on our day off, and if he does go in, it's typically at my urging or while we're out running errands and I decide to stop by. Today is no different, as he's out running around with our friend Janeen, on the cusp of making a semi-big purchase for him (and no, it's not a Harley as some of you surmised based on a couple blog posts he made last week). I won't steal his thunder if he's going to talk about it here, but suffice to say that he's taking steps towards doing some fun things for himself, and he's out with a major enabler today--in a good way!
Me.....yup, I'm writing this from the desk in the offices in the back of the shop. I came by to drop off some change for the till and to take some photos.....and to sorta wait and see what our adorable UPS driver brings us. I think I know what's arriving today, and if I'm right....oooooooooooooooooooooh-lah-lah!
You'll recognize the Spring Fling as the colourway I designed "Fallen Arches" in, and the Roses and Chocolate was quite popular last night. I'm gonna score me a skank of Mallard for socks for me..it's fab!
The Indian Corn in the above shot is what I'm using for my other lace sock design that's still somewhat embryonic, as there was a error in the chart I was using and it took the publisher just a little bit of time to get back with me. The Candy Apple isn't quite that angry looking in person (nor as orange, but there are shots of fuchsia in it), and the Purple in the Sky was very popular last night as well (someone bought enough to make a shawl out of).
I'm sorry to report that the Mahagony doesn't photography well--this is the best of four shots I took (maybe I should have used the light-colored floor....DUH). It's really a ruddy brown with reddish overtones and nearly solid, save some light/dark places--truly lovely! Island flower is the ever-popular purples/blues/touch of greens that everyone loves, and Meadows, despite being "non Rob" colors, appeals to me.
This group is quite beautiful and varied...the Parade was quite popular, but much to my surprise there's a good bit of Purple Night and Tequila Sun still here (those colors tend to move well here, always!). I love the colors in Winter Thaw...a sort of Neapolitan with Sky thrown in for good measure.
No matter...there's good stock in all shades as of this writing, and you just need to contact the shop at 866-939-BEAR (toll free) or slip us an e-mail and anyone here can help!
OK--no UPS delivery yet (1:40 p.m.), so I'm gonna head out and go relax on the back deck and knit for a bit. The perfect day off!
It's another week "at the races" for us, as the shop has been quite busy, Matt has a head full of design ideas just itching to get out, he's been working on a total rehab of our website (it's going to be AMAZING--there's a screen shot of it on his blog), and we're both teaching quite a bit of late. I finished a beginning sock class yesterday afternoon and I start another tonight and another on Wednesday day (people 'round these parts can't get enough socks!) and Matt is running our monthly sock group tonight (they're getting first dibs on the Sleeping Dragon sock yarns you saw here previously, plus a pattern that I designed for a really interesting lace sock).
This morning started off with a bang--we were both here prior 9 a.m. (when staff arrives to open up). We had good reason--Mary B was here (our good friend and sales rep) and we were ordering...Colinette yarns. It's no small secret that I'm a total pushover for their yarns--color, texture, design...the whole enchilada (oh, speaking of that, she bought lunch...Mexican! YUM). We have a BIG function coming up this weekend, with over 30 models coming in made with Colinette yarns--from sweaters and cardigans to shawls and throws. We're also doing a little bit of fun with some surprises for in-store shoppers this weekend (tied in with the Colinette function), so it's going to be a great week planning and then several fun days of our typical nonsense for the weekend. HOO-BOY!
It's a 1x1 rib and cable combination that then turns into stockinette fabric for the body of the cardigan. I like this project alot, and the finished garment has a deep ruffled around the opening (up and around the neck) that looks to be like 4 x 2 ribbing--a dramatic finish for a close-fitting jacket/cardigan. It's a great design and I look forward to seeing move along towards finish.
Iona is a yarn that I really am enjoying working with, but it also is one I'm not CRAZY about. There's something about British/Australian gauge that kinda irks me, and since Colinette is a UK-based company, it falls under this umbrella. To me (and this is strictly opinion here), yarns and designs from "British Empire" companies tend to be knit at a very firm gauge. Jo Sharp does this with her yarns, Colinette does it with theirs, and I've seen the same thing with others as well (Rowan, Twilley's of Stamford, and more). Granted, the recommended gauge and needle size on a label is only that....a recommendation. But using Iona as an example, the label recommends 4.75 sts/inch on a US 7 (4.5mm) needle. At that gauge, it's FIRM fabric--very jacket like. I'm knitting it at that gauge for this design, and to me, it isn't as supple and drapey as it should be. I've also swatched this yarn at around 4 or 4.5 sts/inch and I like the hand of that fabric much better (using a US 8 or 9/5mm or 5.5mm needle). Other yarns are very similar--Jo Sharp recommends 22.5 sts/4 inches for her Classic DK, and it's very happy at 5 sts/inch in my estimation.
So, for me to get totally behind this yarn, I'm going to have to get some and work it up into a non-Colinette design and see what I think about the fabric and finished garment (and that's already happening). I have an idea of using it for the "Swingin' The Blues" jacket from Knitting at Knoon Designs (a semi-local designer, from Grand Rapids, MI). Yes, you'll see it here.
I don't know if anyone else out there feels the way that I do about some yarns, we all know that you're free to knit whatever you want with whatever yarn you want at whatever gauge you want. There are no knitting police at ThreadBear....and I'm FAR from a knitting purist! Does anyone else share my opinion on "too tight" recommended gauge?
I'm madly in love with the Mother Lode, as that's a stunning colorway in any of their yarns (especially Helen's and Shepherd Sock). They're $56 a hank if you need any...and it's more like want than need.
The green and white is in honor of Michigan State (our local university) and the blue and gold are in the colors of the University of Michigan (another nearby institution). The Flamingo Stripe is an awesome yarn, as the good folks at Lorna's make bigger donations for Breast Cancer research the more you purchase. Shepherd Sock is $11 a hank, and two will make a pair of socks for almost all feet. We received full dye lots of the two school colors combos and three bags of the Flamingo Stripe, so order up!
That's a men's cardigan vest, a ladies' neckdown cardigan with a scoop neck, and a children's bolero knitted from the top down (and just too darned cute). I've already decided that the ladies' cardi has to be knitted up as a shop model NOW, and that I'm going to do it in Colinette Cadenza, a dk-weight superwash merino wool--most likely in Raspberry. It's the perfect gauge (pattern calls for dk or light worsted knitted at 20 sts/4") and will be just striking in that pattern. The men's vest and the bolero are to be made with worsted-weight yarn that you knit at 18 sts/4", so there's TONS of options for those (imagine the bolero knitted in Dream in Color....TOO CUTE!). These patterns are in stock and just $4 each, so HOLLA and we can get some off to you right away!
Got a hankerin' for anything you see above (or in previous posts)? Phone us at 866-939-BEAR (toll free) or e-mail us--either way we'll take good care of you! | 2019-04-24T22:45:00Z | http://tbblackdog.blogspot.com/2007_07_22_archive.html |
That’s right. The White House wants to make it illegal to refuse to hire someone based on their current employment status, and subject employers to litigation if they are alleged to have done so. The President says it “makes absolutely no sense” not to hire someone who has been out of work for an extended period of time.
Even I can think of a couple of reasons why it would make sense. Companies may want people familiar with the latest trends and conditions in their industry, so that they don’t have to spend money training them up. Is it irrational for a hospital to prefer a nurse from their crosstown rival over a nurse who took five years off and is trying to get back into the field? Some firms may find that narrowing the field of potential hires in advance makes the hiring process more efficient.
This may or may not be a sensible calculation for any particular business. But I’m not prepared to second-guess them or assign malicious intent without a lot more specific information. In any case, if a firm that refuses to consider the unemployed is wrong about the costs and benefits of doing so, they’ll lose business to competitors that recruit differently.
Subjecting companies to the risk of job-discrimination litigation is justifiable in the case of pervasive, historically rooted evils like race or gender bias. But burdening the private sector for this dubious new purpose, in these difficult times, would be a big mistake.
Let’s accept, for the sake of argument, that many employers discriminate against the unemployed in hiring decisions. That doesn’t mean a legal response is required. However much discrimination against the unemployed exists in labor markets, there is no reason to believe it is as pervasive and intractable as was, say, racial discrimination. Among other things there are no formal or informal government sanctions against those who hire the unemployed, no risks of boycotts, and no bands of bigoted thugs threatening to punish those who do not toe the line. Further, making discrimination against the unemployed illegal and unleashing plaintiffs’ lawyers on private firms hardly seems like an effective solution. To the contrary, it would give private firms yet another excuse to avoid hiring in the first place.
Since their profits depend on making sure they end up on the right side of every transaction, insurance companies are proxies for all kinds of modern dilemmas.
For example, when they started factoring global warming in their underwriting, even as America was neck deep in a useless and political argument, it was a sign that their mathematicians had already decided it was a real problem.
This week, the folks from Virginia Uranium held an editorial board meeting for the Hampton Roads newspaper right before their appearance before the Virginia Beach City Council.
They were there to debunk the city-sponsored study showing that uranium mining in Pittsylvania County could imperil the water supply for a million people in Hampton Roads.
Which raises the question: If there’s no risk, it should be easy to buy insurance to guarantee the people of Virginia clean water.
That is, after all, how insurance works. If there’s no risk, there’s almost no cost to insure against it. When a star insures her physical assets, for example, the cost of that publicity stunt is low because the risk is, too.
Virginia Uranium’s representatives spent almost an hour explaining how the Virginia Beach study got it all wrong.
How there’s no way that their mine could lead to contamination in the city’s water. That not even a hurricane could wash mine tailings into the reservoir.
That’s when one reporter asked the insurance question: So, would you like to buy a policy?
It was an absurdist question with a real point: Put your money where your risk analysis is.
But Walter Coles Jr. and the scientist who reached the zero risk conclusion, Alan Kuhn, looked uncomfortable.
That’s not how these things work, they responded. That’s a regulatory issue. Companies don’t insure populations from risk.
We could get rid of all that pesky regulation if corporations like Virginia Uranium would shift the risk from taxpayers to themselves. If companies would pay the real cost of the dangers they present. If they would insure bystanders against the catastrophes they might cause.
That’s about when the earthquake shook from a fault a few miles from the North Anna Nuclear Power Station. I’m sure there was no connection.
Water is perhaps the most significant means of dispersal of uranium and related …[radioactive materials] in the environment from mines and mine wastes….Uranium is very soluble in acidic and alkaline waters and can be transported easily from a mine site.
Uranium’s radioactive components, particularly radium and radon, are highly soluble in water, which would be a dangerous experiment for a state like Virginia with over 42 inches of rain per year.
The history of uranium recovery and management in the United States (and, indeed around the globe) is replete with environmental damage, serious worker safety and health abuses, and harm to entire communities….Additionally, most of the environmentally damaged sites have not received adequate cleanup of past harms, and for what little cleanup has been done, most of the cost has been borne by taxpayers rather than the companies and associated beneficiaries of the uranium mined.
Currently, the EPA lists 23 National Priorities List (NPL) sites where uranium is a contaminant of concern …. Uranium, however, is explicitly excluded from the scoring system that is used to place sites on the NPL precluding most abandoned mines from being listed.
For more about environmental and human health impacts from different types of mining, even after studies promised minimal or no impact, go here.
Numerous health problems are associated with uranium and its associated decay products. These include cancer from radon, birth defects and kidney problems from uranium, bone cancer and leukemia from radium, and lung and skin cancer from arsenic.
According to the EPA’s TENORM Report, “Water is perhaps the most significant means of dispersal of uranium and related [radioactive materials] in the environment from mines and mine wastes…Uranium is very soluble in acidic and alkaline waters and can be transported easily from a mine site.” This is bad. No state in which rainfall exceeds evaporation has ever allowed uranium mining within its borders. If Virginia allows uranium mining, it would be the first.
Water is used (and contaminated) in the milling process. In addition, rain falling on waste products from the mining and milling processes picks up radioactive and other toxic elements which can end up and remain in surface and ground waters for thousands of years. In the 1980s, Marline Uranium estimated that the waste pile from their proposed Virginia operation would cover 930 acres, 100 feet deep.
Mining and milling the proposed Coles Hill site in Pittsylvania County would generate hundreds of acres of radioactive waste and contaminate millions of gallons of water. To mine uranium safely, hundreds of millions of gallons of contaminated and radioactive water will have to be prevented from running into Virginia streams or leaching into the ground water. Virginia’s most populous communities lie downstream of the uranium leases filed in the 1980s.
Map of Drinking Water Resources downstream of 1980s N. Piedmont Leases.
Map of Drinking Water Resources downstream of Coles Hill.
Not only does the Virginia Piedmont have greater annual rainfall than other uranium mining communities, it also has greater acute rainfall events. Two of the top five most intense 12-hour storms in the United States occurred in the Virginia Piedmont.
Map of 12-hour storm events.
Twenty-seven inches of rain fell on Nelson County in 1969. Twenty-nine inches fell in Madison County in 1995. Significant flooding also happened in Pittsylvania County in 1996 during Hurricane Fran.
View home video footage & map of the flooding event.
This experiment should not be conducted on Virginia. Virginia should take no action to initiate or sanction a study of uranium mining until the proponents of mining provide reviewable information demonstrating that mining and milling have been undertaken in five places with climate, geology, and population density similar to Virginia and in such a manner as to safeguard the environment, natural and historic resources, agricultural lands, and the health and well-being of citizens of those communities.
Here are some maps related to uranium mining in Virginia, courtesy of the Piedmont Environmental Council.
Map showing counties with former uranium mining leases located in Virginia’s Piedmont.
Map showing drink water sources located downstream from the proposed Coles Hill Uranium Mining site.
Map showing former uranium mining leases in Pittsylvania County, VA.
Major water supplies in Southside are located downstream from properties with former uranium mining leases. There are major safety concerns over mining uranium in wet climates such as Virginia’s, which could have disastrous effects on water supplies.
Major water supplies in the Piedmont are located downstream from properties with former uranium mining leases. There are major safety concerns over mining uranium in wet climates such as Virginia’s, which could have disastrous effects on water supplies.
Map showing former uranium mining leases and downstream water supplies in Virginia near Fredericksburg.
Maps showing a proposed 930-acre uranium tailings storage, overlayed on a map of downtown Richmond, Virginia.
A map showing potential uranium located in Virginia.
View water supplies in the Piedmont and Southside regions of Virginia that would be potentially impacted by uranium mining. This map also includes properties with former uranium mining leases.
In the 1980s, uranium leases were filed on thousands of acres of land in Virginia including Fauquier, Orange, Culpeper, and Madison Counties, stretching along the Piedmont to Pittsylvania in Southside Virginia. At that time, the Commonwealth undertook an extensive study of uranium mining. It was costly, time consuming, and divisive. When it was over, the General Assembly and Governor decided it was in the best interests of the people to maintain a moratorium on uranium mining in Virginia.
A new corporation, Virginia Uranium, Inc., is seeking to lift the moratorium. Although the primary focus on the uranium debate has been on the Coles Hill site in Pittsylvania County, most of Virginia’s population would be impacted by uranium mining, especially areas downstream or downwind of mining sites.
There are three forms of uranium mining: open pit mining, deep mining; and in situ leaching. Open pit mining creates large holes dug into the ground to remove the ore and waste rock which impedes ore extraction. This method is frequently used when the desirable ore is close to the surface. The mining operation planned in Pittsylvania County in the 1980s would have been a 110-acre hole, 850 feet deep. Deep mining creates shafts dug into the ground to reach ore at deeper levels. In the last decade, in situ leaching has become more widely used. In situ leaching uses a solution that is injected into underground uranium deposits to extract the uranium from the other minerals. The liquid, now pregnant with uranium, is pumped to the surface where the uranium is taken out of the solution. This process is repeated until all of the uranium is extracted. Information available to PEC indicates that pit mining most likely will be used in Pittsylvania with the possibility of some deep mining, as well.
Uranium milling involves extracting uranium from mined ore. The ore is crushed into sand size particles and the uranium is leached out. The uranium then is precipitated out of the leaching solution and dewatered, dried, and packaged. Through the extraction process, uranium is concentrated into a product referred to as “yellowcake.” In situ leaching is a combined mining and milling operation.
Enormous quantities of radioactive waste are generated by uranium mining and milling, with only 2 to 4 pounds of concentrated uranium oxide yellowcake obtained from each ton of ore taken out of the ground. The resulting waste, or tailings, contain 85% of the original radioactivity and remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Tailings can contain several hazardous substances, including radium (which decays to produce radon) selenium, molybdenum, uranium, and thorium. The mill tailings and the mill tailings effluent are highly radioactive and acutely hazardous. The Congressional testimony of Dr. Doug Brugge, of the Tufts School of Medicine, described uranium ore “as a toxic brew of numerous hazardous materials.” For the full transcript of Dr. Brugge’s testimony, go here.
According to EPA’s Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (TENORM) document, most tailings piles are located in arid areas of the western U.S where low precipitation decreases the potential for water contamination.
Still, even out West, there are problems with water management around uranium mines. Because uranium is highly soluble, surface and ground water are the most significant means of dispersal of uranium and technically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials from mines and mine wastes. Water coming into contact with these wastes must therefore be treated or contained – millions of gallons of water for thousands of years. Read more about water management in the TENORM document, above.
Radioactive Properties of Key UraniumIsotopes, U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, EVS, August 2005.
The National Research Council is involved in a study to examine the scientific, technical, environmental, human health and safety, and regulatory aspects of uranium mining, milling, and processing as they relate to Virginia. The purpose of this study is to assist the Commonwealth in determining whether uranium mining, milling, and processing can be undertaken in a manner that safeguards the environment, natural and historic resources, agricultural lands, and the health and well-being of its citizens.
The study results are not due out until December 2011. Yet, Virginia Uranium, the company that was the main proponent of the study, has announced that it is already preparing legislation to lift the uranium ban during the next session of the General Assembly.
This suggests that the study is only a pretext for Virginia Uranium. Virginia Uranium, their lobbyists and their friends in the General Assembly appear ready to move forward, no matter the cost to Virginia’s health and environment.
On September 5, 2011 by Tim With 0 Comments - Endangered Species Act, Wolves!
I previously discussed the wolf delisting rider to the budget compromise bill. I think it would be useful to summarize recent court opinions concerning the wolf, and consider the effects of the rider on those opinions.
The rider never mentions “wolf” or “delisting.” It simply requires the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) to reissue its April 2009 final rule (74 Fed. Reg. 15,123). That rule effectively delisted the “Rocky Mountain Population” of gray wolves from the endangered species listing. This delisting includes parts of Washington, Oregon and Utah, and all of Montana and Idaho. The population in Wyoming, however, was not delisted because Wyoming lacked “adequate regulatory mechanisms” to protect the wolf. After a District of Montana court order, FWS reversed its April 2009 final rule on October 26, 2010.
FWS also delisted the “Western Great Lakes Populations” of gray wolves in a separate rule (74 Fed. Reg. 15,070), also issued in April 2009. This second rule encompasses all of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Prior to this rule, FWS issued a similar delisting rule for the Western Great Lakes Populations of gray wolves in 2007 (72 Fed. Reg. 6,052), but that rule was struck by the District Court of D.C. in 2008.
In this litigation, environmental groups challenged the 2007 FWS rule that delisted the Western Great Lakes gray wolf populations. The court held that the statutory language is ambiguous. The court then refused to defer to the FWS interpretation: that FWS can designate and delist a distinct population segment within a broader listing. The court vacated and remanded the rule back to FWS. This opinion shares many parallels with the Defenders of Wildlife opinion, discussed below. Both opinions reject FWS’s interpretation as impermissible given the statutory language and legislative history of the ESA. Nevertheless, FWS issued a new delisting rule for the “Western Great Lakes” populations in April 2009, and it remains to be seen if that rule can overcome the hurdles posed by this opinion.
Because Congress did not amend the ESA with its wolf delisting rider, it is difficult to argue that the Defenders of Wildlife opinion is now invalid. And so Congress has, in effect, ordered FWS to reissue a final rule in violation of both the ESA and a direct court order. One could argue that Congress has implicitly delisted the wolf (and thus amended the ESA) with this rider (although I think that is a difficult argument to make). But the fact remains that it looks like Congress is ordering FWS to act in contempt of a direct court order.
This opinion goes the opposite direction of the District of Montana. The District of Wyoming declared that FWS acted arbitrarily and capriciously by not delisting the wolf in Wyoming. Weirdly, the opinion begins by quoting at length from A Sand County Almanac (Thinking Like a Mountain).
The crux of the problem for the court is that FWS wants Wyoming to designate the entire state as a managed trophy game area, even though most of the wolf habitat is in only part of the state (mainly northwestern Wyoming). FWS seeks to prevent excessive killing of the wolves, particularly under Wyoming’s defense of property law, which allows property owners to kill any wolf doing damage to private property. The court finds the FSA’s rejection of Wyoming’s proposed, more limited management area to be arbitrary and capricious.
The court remanded. It did not delist the wolf in Wyoming. This case is specifically protected by the wolf delisting rider, and in fact is the only case specifically mentioned in the rider language. But here the District of Wyoming remanded the final rule to the agency. FWS could choose not to delist the wolf and, in theory, still comply with this opinion.
This case has gotten most of the recent press. This April 2011 opinion rejected a proposed settlement that would have delisted the wolves in Montana and Idaho. The court objected that it cannot approve a settlement that would, in effect, violate the ESA. The reasoning behind this case parallels the court’s earlier August 5, 2010 decision, and the rider will likely affect both decisions equally, if at all.
In short, the wolf delisting rider requires FWS to reissue a rule that was remanded by two courts: District of Wyoming and District of Montana. Republishing the rule without revision, as the rider seems to require, will be unresponsive to both court orders. And the rider protects at least one of those orders (the District of Wyoming). Perhaps FWS will determine that compliance with both the District of Wyoming and the Congressional rider requires it to revise the rule before re-publication. And we have yet to see a good argument for why Congress should be allowed to exclude this reissuance of the rule from all judicial review, or how reissuing this rule achieves the Congressional goal: delisting the wolf.
During storms like this weekend’s Hurricane Irene, trees often fall from people’s yards into their neighbors’. Which raises the question: is the person whose tree fell into her neighbor’s yard is liable for any resulting damage? The answer varies somewhat from state to state. But as a general rule, the owner of the tree is not liable in such cases unless he or she was somehow negligent in caring for it. If a “reasonable person” could foresee that the tree or a branch was likely to fall and cause damage that the owner could have readily prevented, there might be liability. In most cases, however, the owner is not liable, especially if the tree was knocked over by an “act of God” like a storm. Findlaw has a helpful explanation here, as well as a discussion of other property law issues arising from trees.
Even if you believe you do have a good case against your neighbor, you should think carefully before you start a lawsuit over a fallen tree. Given the high cost of litigation, the money you win might not be much more than what you end up paying the lawyers — unless the damage is really severe. The loss of time and aggravation inherent in suing are also relevant costs, even if nonmonetary ones. And then there’s the cost of damaging your relationship with your neighbor, which is especially important if you plan to live in the neighborhood for a long time. In most cases, it’s worth trying to settle your dispute with a neighbor informally instead of going to court.
As an attorney, it’s probably against my interest to encourage people to think twice about suing over minor property disputes. But it’s good advice nonetheless. And part of being a good property lawyer is knowing when to tell your client that a lawsuit may not be the best course of action for them.
No teacher [in a Missouri public school] shall establish, maintain, or use a nonwork-related internet site [i.e., a “website or web page used by a teacher primarily for personal purposes and not for educational purposes”] which allows exclusive access with a current or former student [i.e., “any person who was at one time a student at the school at which the teacher is employed and who is eighteen years of age or less and who has not graduated”]. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed as prohibiting a teacher from establishing a nonwork related internet site, provided the site is used in accordance with this section.
The law’s reference to “exclusive access” likely includes Facebook pages, because “exclusive access” is defined as “the information on the website is available only to the owner (teacher) and user (student) by mutual explicit consent and where third parties have no access to the information on the website absent an explicit consent agreement with the owner (teacher).” I also assume that “eighteen years of age or less” covers only people up to and including the day they turn 18, rather than including all former students who are 18-plus-up-to-364-days; I infer this based on the assumption that the state is trying to protect minors, though the text could also be literally read as covering anyone who hasn’t yet turned 19.
Even if a complete ban on certain forms of communication between certain individuals could be construed as content neutral and only a reasonable restriction on “time, place, and manner,” the breadth of the prohibition is staggering. The Courts finds [that] based upon the evidence adduced at the preliminary injunction hearing, social networking is extensively used by educators. It is often the primary, if not sole manner, of communications between the Plaintiffs and their students. Examination of the statute indicates that … it would prohibit all teachers from using any non-work-related social networking sites which allow exclusive access with current and former students. It clearly prohibits communication between family members and their teacher parents using these types of sites…. Plaintiffs have established a substantial likelihood of succeeding on the merits.
1. To the extent that the plaintiffs’ objection is that class-related communications between teachers and students are restricted by the law, I think that objection won’t fly as a First Amendment matter. The government has nearly unlimited authority to control its employees’ speech that constitutes part of their jobs, including not just the time, place, and manner but also the content of their speech to customers and other clients (such as students).
2. The government probably also has substantial authority to control its employees’ speech on matters of “purely private concern,” see Connick v. Myers, probably including such off-the-job speech, see City of San Diego v. Roe, especially when the speech is to people whom the employees met on the job. This doesn’t mean such control is a good idea — just that the First Amendment has been read as not barring the government from exercising such control over its employees.
3. Nonetheless, the law also applies to teachers’ communication to students that are on matters of public concern — e.g., political, social, and religious commentary that teachers (like others) could spread to people (including students) via Facebook and similar sites. Such a categorical restriction might well be unconstitutional under United States v. National Treasury Employees Union, especially since this mode of speech is banned without any limitation to speech that is likely to be more disruptive to the school than valuable to the speaker and listeners (the showing required by Pickering v. Board of Ed.).
4. The government’s rationale for the law seems to be that it helps prevent teachers from sexually preying on students and former students; and if such speech really seemed likely to have this effect, then perhaps on balance the Pickering showing could be made. But my sense is that it’s quite hard to groom someone for an illicit sexual relationship using Facebook postings, which are available to everyone. And while Facebook e-mail might be hidden, that stems from the use of e-mail generally, and not of “exclusive access” “internet site[s]” such as Facebook.
So I’m inclined to say that the law is likely unconstitutional, though the question is closer than the court’s brief order suggests.
The New York Times published an article this week about how EPA and other federal agencies have quietly increased the dollar value assigned to a human life, to be used for regulatory impact and cost-benefit analysis.
The Environmental Protection Agency set the value of a life at $9.1 million last year in proposing tighter restrictions on air pollution. The agency used numbers as low as $6.8 million during the George W. Bush administration.
The Food and Drug Administration declared that life was worth $7.9 million last year, up from $5 million in 2008, in proposing warning labels on cigarette packages featuring images of cancer victims.
The reason for the increasing value of human life? A combination of inflation adjustment and choice of methodologies. EPA has tended towards using a capitalized “risk premium” for hazardous occupations such as mining to set a “market price” for risk of death. Industry prefers to use surveys about the price the public would be willing to pay to avoid a statistical risk, or simply to add up lost wages, capping the value of a human life with her expected earnings until death. And therein lies a fundamental flaw in cost-benefit approaches — the illusion of mathematical certainty presented by comparing numbers, while hiding the policy and value assumptions underlying the calculation of these numbers.
Given that administrative policy is subject to change from administration to administration, and even from agency to agency within the same administration, perhaps the assignment of a numerical value for human life should not be left to the regulatory agencies at all. If Congress wants cost-benefit analysis to be part of the environmental regulatory calculus (as it has in TSCA section 6, and the Safe Drinking Water Act), then let Congress put a price on life — let’s establish by statute what value Congress wants to use. Many in the environmental community may fear that Congress would pander to industry and low-ball the number, but I think that the opposite might occur were Congress to have to explain exactly what they think their constituent’s lives should be worth.
The Appalachian Mountain range dates back 300 million years. Its coal is the residue of peat bogs formed in tropical coastal swamps when there was a single supercontinent, Pangaea. But it takes only a matter of months to tear down a mountain peak using explosives and giant excavators. The technique is both faster and less labor-intensive than underground mining, and allows profitable access to thin coal seams that otherwise might not be worth harvesting. Since the mid-1990s, the coal industry has cut a swath of devastation through Appalachia’s remote, coal-rich highlands, one of the nation’s most dramatic cases of environmental devastation and regulatory failure.
The fate of the peaks has drawn international attention, but what goes on in the valleys is in many ways more significant. Each spring, the rain that falls on Appalachian mountainsides gathers into thin rivulets, mixing with spring water and groundwater. These streams, often no more than a foot wide, teem with microscopic, insect and animal life that is the foundation of the forest and river food chains and biodiversity. Plug up those intermittent and ephemeral streams with mining debris, and the ecological fallout extends far beyond the edge of the valley fill, into the surrounding forest and the larger perennial streams and rivers down the mountain.
A valley fill, for instance, profoundly alters forest hydrology. When the rainwater hits a valley fill instead of a stream bed, it filters through broken shale and sandstone before flowing out at the bottom. Ordinary minerals liberated from deep inside demolished mountains – heavy metals such as selenium and magnesium – infiltrate it and flow downstream.
During the Bush years, government scientists produced a growing pile of studies that show how valley fills foul waterways. FWS biologists found that heavy concentrations of selenium in West Virginia’s Mud River, downstream from the huge Hobet 21 mountaintop mine, were causing deformed fish. A 2008 EPA study showed that a huge increase in “specific conductance” – the concentration of electricity-conducting metallic ions – immediately downstream from valley fills was wiping out entire populations of mayflies, a ubiquitous species whose disappearance indicates broader ecological effects.
Destroying waterways and aquatic life are, of course, illegal. But in the bureaucratic funhouse of mountaintop removal, laws may say one thing while actions point in the opposite direction. By a commonsense interpretation, valley fills violate parts of two federal laws, the Clean Water and Surface Mining and Reclamation Acts. But since the 1990s the coal industry and its allies in government have engineered a series of legal and regulatory workarounds.
Yet it’s the Clean Water Act that environmental groups have relentlessly focused on, filing a series of lawsuits charging the Corps with failing to meet its enforcement obligations, which state that “dredged or fill material should not be discharged into the aquatic ecosystem” if it will cause “significant degradation to the waters of the United States.” Among other things, that includes disrupting the life cycles of aquatic organisms and the loss of fish and wildlife habitat. Again, it seems logical to assume that burying a mountain stream would meet those criteria. But that’s not the way it’s worked up to now.
Put simply, the Corps evaluates the environmental effects of valley fills using techniques that many scientists criticize as insufficiently rigorous. Scientists and environmental groups also object to the Corps’ approach to mitigation, the notion that you can make up for destroying one stream by building another one. That might mean digging a new stream bed nearby, or “mitigation banking” in which a mining company pays to protect and restore a wetland elsewhere.
This dispute remains unresolved in part because the law divides responsibility for valley fills between the Corps, EPA, the Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining, and the states. The Corps’ jurisdiction is limited to the stream itself and 100 feet on either side, the OSM oversees what happens on the whole mine site. It’s the EPA’s job to look at the entire ecosystem. And the crossed lines of authority have created a regulatory morass and led to erratic, desultory enforcement. The result has been drift: Coal companies can get permission to demolish mountains and fill streams, but they must also deal with more regulatory hurdles while facing continued uncertainty. It’s this situation, untenable for all involved, that the EPA is attempting to resolve.
But the stakeholders do not seem eager for a compromise. At least up to now, the coal industry has usually gotten most of what it wants, giving it little incentive to negotiate. Environmental groups want to see mountaintop removal banned outright. And the Corps, which must also participate in any negotiation, has jealously guarded its permit authority from what it sees as EPA interference. While Obama’s nominee to run the Corps, Jo-Ellen Darcy, handled environmental issues for the Senate Finance Committee and is well-regarded by environmental groups, the Corps is notoriously resistant to change. Lastly, it’s doubtful that a true middle ground — in which mountaintop removal continues with limited changes and the mountain environment is preserved — even exists.
EPA hopes to limit the damage to stream beds by reducing the size of some valley fills, paying more attention to their placement, and by doing more, and better, stream restoration. Such a negotiated, incremental approach could blunt some of the damage, but may not significantly reduce the vast scale of mountaintop projects. And coal companies will resist major changes, especially in the size of valley fills. A study commissioned by the EPA found that sharply limiting the size of valley fills would also restrict the amount of coal harvested. Capping them at 35 acres — a fraction of the size of the average fill, which can cover hundreds of acres — would reduce mountaintop coal production by 77 percent. | 2019-04-20T22:39:09Z | https://coffieldlaw.com/author/tim/ |
So you may have noticed from my last post that I like to make lists. I used to keep post-it notes or a list in a small exercise book, but to be honest there appears to be a shortage of paper and pens around my house and office lately (Most probably a result of a Paper Plane folding fascination of my six year old). So now I usually keep my lists on my iPhone, using the notes application that comes with it. I have tried another app called Reminders as well but for some reason I gave it up and returned to the notes app. This week I thought I’d trial a new app called Finish. I found Finish when I typed in procrastination into the search function of the app store – it was the first free result that came up and i thought why not.
It like all other list make apps lets you lists tasks that you have. It lets you set a due date and then puts them into a time-frame for you within the list. Instead of setting a reminder alert (which annoys me) it asks you for permission just once when you first start using the app to send you push notifications to remind you of your tasks on there due date. It also allows you to set a repeat for the task which is handy if you have a weekly quiz or gym class you want to attend. Another handy feature is the ability to e-mail or share the list with yourself or other people. You can also share your tasks on social media – which could be a great motivator. No one likes to fail to accomplish a task once they share it with other people. This is one of the reasons I never linked run-keeper to my Facebook and Twitter accounts!
What’s good about it: It’s easy to use and automatically gives you reminders if you allow the push notifications. You can see the more immediate tasks first and focus on these rather than the longer term ones. There is also a quick tutorial of how to use it and avenues to report problems.
What’s not so good: There is a feature where you can earn rewards when you complete tasks on time or early, good idea, but some of the rewards are links to competitions to win holidays and I am dubious of these types of rewards.
Don’t do today what you can put off until tomorrow…..
If I am being entirely honest I never used to be the kind of person that would put things off until the next day. During High School I was the annoying person in class who handed her work in early. Yes that’s right I struggled maintaining friends with this very annoying habit of mine. When I got to my undergraduate days I again started work early. Organised a study schedule to ensure I would have enough time to do my work. Whilst my grades were not that great I could at least say I was organised. Towards the end of my degree I found it more difficult to start work early. There were the competing demands of work, study, family, friends, cooking and cleaning. Yes that’s right ‘life’ was getting in the way of my assignments and study preparation.
By the time I started my postgraduate studies all hell had broken lose and my assessments were started the week they were due. I found it difficult to balance my time and keep up with classes let alone try and start things early. It wasn’t until I allowed myself just 4 hours to complete an entire case study worth 60% of my final mark that I realised I had become that person who puts off today what they can do tomorrow. Whilst I got away with it and I’ve managed to complete my studies I look back and reflect on when it changed? And most importantly how could I have changed my approach. Why would I do this, I mean I’m finished, What do I care now? Well for two reasons, the first is that maybe if I understand how it all went pear shape for me I can share that with others and try and help them with their own struggles. The second reason is purely selfish – I still do it. I’m working now, still trying the balance the demands from different domains of my life and still put off tasks that I can do today until tomorrow.
In reflecting on my own experience and in the research I’ve done I have diagnosed myself as a procrastinator. I would and still do make lists of the tasks ahead of me. I break it down into the immediate, short term and long term tasks. I make lists of the thing I would like to do, should do, have to do and can’t possible not do. Essentially I make lists for lists even. Why? It’s a way of avoiding doing the actual tasks. I could run off on a tangent here and I could start telling you about why I avoid the tasks and how my fear of failure and desire to be seen as successful plays a role but that’s a whole other post. What I want to share with you are some of the thoughts I have, from reading and trying out some strategies myself, of how to stop procrastinating.
Don’t wait for the perfect time to do something because it doesn’t exist. There is no magical time to start reviewing your lecture notes or writing an assignment. Magic only happens in the world of Walt Disney, or as created by J K Rowling in the magical world of Harry Potter.
The saying ‘no strain no gain’ is rubbish. It could be that the reason we feel like we work better under stress, working hard against a deadline is that we seriously haven’t tried it any other way. I recall my earlier days of education as far less stressful than the later and I was still completing subjects and a degree.
It’s a time of great accomplishment in other areas of your life. Well yes I can’t really deny that when I was writing my thesis my house hadn’t been cleaner. I baked more, did more socialising with my friends (because they needed me – well that’s what I told myself), went to the gym regularly and lost weight. I did all of these highly important things to put off writing my thesis. In doing them I prolonged my anguish over writing the thesis and looking back I realise that they were not accomplishments at all.
Minimise the distractions in your environment. This one is a little dangerous because you could get so preoccupied with organising the perfect environment to study in and procrastinate on the study itself. Use your common sense though. Move away from TV’s, turn your phone off, and if there is loud music coming from the room next to you then try heading to the library to study.
Break down the larger goals into smaller more achievable goals. Instead of looking at the year, look at the month, week or day if you need to. Set yourself smaller goals that contribute to the bigger goals. If you are writing an essay start typing up your cover sheet, make your footer and page numbers as a way of starting. If you are writing a lab report think of it in sections, introduction, methodology, results, discussion. Tick them off one by one across time so you feel you are working toward the large goal of a lab report. If you are studying for an exam focus on just one area of revision as a time. If you can forward plan then spend an hour of each week making one sheet of key points that you learned from each subject in a separate notebook and use this to revise at the end of the semester.
Reward your hard work and use the promise of the reward to motivate you in completing your goal. Think about setting different rewards for different levels of achievement. When you finish a reading or reviewing a lecture then reward yourself with a small chocolate, a quick walk or watching a TV show. When you complete the essay then take the night of and socialise with friends. When you finish the semester go on a holiday. Make sure the reward matches the effort that you gave when completing the goal.
My final recommendation is to ask for help. This could be help from a friend in joining forces and studying together, or it could be asking someone from your class to explain something you missed. You could ask your lecturer or tutor for help with an assignment. Or if you are really struggling ask a counsellor or someone from the Learning and Development team to help you with your study skills. It’s also harder to procrastinate if you have let someone know your plans and what you are aiming to achieve so sharing your goals with someone makes it harder for you to get distracted and put things off.
I’m not saying that these are the only things to help with procrastination, or that they will all be true for everyone. Maybe you will try one approach and it won’t work. Don’t give up, try another approach. Don’t be afraid to fail. It’s better to have tried and failed then to regret never having tried.
I’m sure you are all aware of the constant rain and strong winds that have hit the Newcastle, Sydney and Central Coast Campus over the past few days. UON has been closed across these areas and as a result I haven’t been able to post to the website or offer any online counselling sessions, including Skype Drop Ins. I apologise to anyone who was waiting on Tuesday night on Skype for me, I had no power or reception where I am and I couldn’t get messages out to you all. Today as the heading might indicate we are back online, and I have a Skype Drop-in session at 2:30pm today and another tonight at 8pm if anyone wants to add me as a contact and get some advice, ask a question or check in with me.
I’ll also try and get my review and other blog post up this week or over the weekend – I had planned to talk about procrastination but it might wait another week and there might be a post about mother nature and her turbulent relationship with technology!
Welcome back to semester 1 of 2015! I’m not sure about you but when I woke this morning and looked outside I felt a need to stay wrapped up in bed, pick up a book and stay in for the day. After a quick pros and cons of going to work or staying in bed I realised that I had better get a move on and get to campus early to ensure I got a park! First day back coupled with rain means the challenge of parking is like tackling Bowser from my Mario Party gaming days. So here I am at work, still drying out from the walk from the car and then across campus and back again, listening to the rain hit my window whilst writing this post. It’s not the warmth of pillows and blankets but I have to say I am finding the rain quite calming.
Anyway enough commentary on the weather! I just wanted to let you all know that the online Skype drop-in sessions are happening again from this week. So if you have a question for a counsellor, whats some study tips, or need some advice about something then add the online counsellor on your Skype account “UoNonlinecounsellor”. I will be available on Tuesday night between 7-8pm, Thursday between 2:30-3:30pm and again 8-9pm and Friday morning between 9-10am. You don’t have to book an appointment you just need request to add me and then use the chat function to make contact. I hope to see you online tomorrow night!
I remember my first thought when R U Ok? Day was introduced”Why is it just one day? It should be everyday”I was frustrated that there was only one day given to a very important task, as I’m sure a number of other mental health professionals would also have thought. I consoled myself ‘one day is better than none’ until I realised that I didn’t have to limit myself to one day and I could encourage others to take it beyond that one day both by modelling the skills more myself and actively campaigning for this through my work with individuals. So here I am today writing about checking-in with friends and family members to see if they are doing ok. I reviewed a smartphone app earlier in the week designed to help you build your skills in doing just that and I reviewed the online resources available from Arafmi for those who are concerned about friends and family members who are experiencing mental illness. In doing this I am extending the life of R U Ok? Day.
I’ve also realised that the introduction of R U Ok? Day broke down the stigma of asking people about their mental health, the same way you would inquire about their physical health. It has resulted in many health promotion events, media attention, resource development and services which are there to support individuals who are trying to support loved ones with mental health concerns. It’s now more socially acceptable to ask friends and family members about their mental health. You might notice they don’t seem themselves, they are not going out or doing the things they would normally do. Or perhaps you have noticed they are doing things they wouldn’t normally do, something that is out of character for them. It’s easy when we notice things like this to think that our friends will change back, it’s just a temporary change. Or we think that it’s not our place to say something to them, they have family or other friends who will help them. The truth is if we all thought like that then who would offer the helping hand? Who would reach out and ask the difficult questions?
Asking the question is just one challenging part of checking-in with someone about their mental health. You also have the challenge of then sitting with the feelings that they have shared with you. Some may have been involved in an event or situation that has triggered these feelings, or still be in an unhealthy situation, so not only do you wonder about your skills and abilities to help them with these situations but you also take on board some of their feelings around these situations. Or they might trigger some of your own past issues.
So you may overcome the challenge of speaking out and asking someone if they are ok, and then the challenges in sitting with your own emotions of supporting your friend and you may be wondering how to get them the help they need. You can start by looking through the services available on the page. You can use the skype drop-in sessions yourself to ask the online counsellor for guidance about what services might help. You could also pass the website details along to your friend and tell them about the services available. You could request an appointment with the Health and Wellbeing Advisor’s on campus by phoning for an appointment for you and your friend to come to together to ask for some direction.
Whilst you have fear and doubt about your ability to help your friend or family member, it’s not what you say or how helpful you are that that person will remember. What they will remember is that you cared enough to ask the question.
Given the prevalence of mental illness within the community I’d be surprised if there was anyone on campus who hadn’t at one time or another been concerned about a family member of friend. Maybe you have noticed that your friend has stopped coming to lectures? Or that there general mood is lower than previous weeks? Or perhaps they are saying or doing things out of character? If you have noticed something out of the ordinary chances are you haven’t been sure what to say or do about it. Or maybe you have but the behaviour continues and you feel you need some support from peers in the same position?
Arafmi and Sane Australia have developed an online Carers Forum for the friends, families and carers of people who experience mental illness. The forum provides a safe space for you to sharer stories and offer or receive some peer support. It have discussion threads across 6 different areas: stories, looking after ourselves, something’s not right, whats new in services, research and technologies, about the carers forum and special events. The forum has a Community Manager and a series of moderators who guide the site and make sure the posts you make are being posted in the best place for peers to notice them and respond.
You can post yourself, or read others posts and like them. You can also reply to others and see the replies from others. Some of the replies are from the community manager and moderators and often contain links to useful services and resources. There is also a Lived Experience Forum which operates the same way. This forum is designed for people living with a mental illness or experiencing mental health issues. You could always point the one your concerned about to this site or read through a few of the discussions here and try and build on your understanding of mental illness from the perspective of someone who is living with one.
What’s good about it: The discussion boards are moderated to ensure that the stigma of mental health isn’t perpetuated and that individual’s can support from their peers.
What’s not so good about it: To be honest it’s pretty good. I guess you could say that there are no professional opinions from mental health professionals – but to be honest if there were it wouldn’t be a peer forum would it.
Have you ever been worried about a friend but not sure what to say to them? Have you thought you might say the wrong thing but had no idea what the right thing might actually be? Have you ever wondered who to ask for help on what to say to the friend? Or how you could help them find the right kind of help? Apparently these are thoughts that lots of young people in Australia have, and it’s why BeyongBlue took donations from people and organisations within the community to help them develop a Check-In App for the smartphone.
giving ideas for how to look after yourself when supporting a friend.
The app itself has information in a variety of formats including quick tips, short testimonies from people in similar situations and links to support resources for immediate help and longer term options depending on the circumstances you find yourself in. You can click on those tips that you ‘like’ or find useful and when you flick through the list you can see those tips which others have found the most useful. The most popular tip when I was last on was the “what not to say” checklist. BeyondBlue are also keen to get your help in building the app so if there is a suggestion you have or an experience you want to share you can hit the suggest button and send them an e-mail for consideration.
In addition to this it also has a section that links to other useful apps and online services like the ReachOut.com SMS Tips and Smiling Mind. You can also use the app to send you reminders or to send you a tip every fortnight to build your skills in the friendship department.
What’s good about it: It helps you work out not only what to say to your friend who you are worried about but also what not to say!
What’s not so good about it: It doesn’t have any information about the different warning signs of mental health to help you decide if you think you should talk to your friend. So for someone who is unsure if they should say anything it doesn’t provide the reassurance about taking that step. | 2019-04-22T12:22:16Z | https://uonblogs.newcastle.edu.au/onlinecounselling/2015/04/ |
Cite as Tallon, in Bianca-Bonell Commentary on the International Sales Law, Giuffrè: Milan (1987) 572-595. Reproduced with permission of Dott. A Giuffrè Editore, S.p.A.
1.1. - The short but very important section IV of chapter V governs the extent to which a party is exempted from liability even [page 572] though he has failed to perform his obligations. Two cases are considered: failure due to an impediment beyond the promisor's control (Article 79) and failure due to the promisee's act or omission (Article 80). Significantly, the French title uses the singular (exoneration) whereas the English title is worded in the plural (exemptions). The plural is preferable because, as compared with ULIS, the two cases are clearly separate in form as well as in substance. Exemption exists in these two cases only. The absence of fault cannot give rise to any exemption since the Convention sets aside the system of liability based on fault. Moreover, in contrast with earlier drafts, the lack of good faith is not specifically envisaged in this section. Indeed, it is regarded as a general principle that applies to all the provisions of the Convention, including those under discussion in this comment.
1.2. - Since the doctrine of absolute obligation was abandoned by the common law (Taylor v. Caldwell 3 B.&S. 828), one may say that legal systems provide for the discharge of one or both parties when a contract has become impossible to perform. This widely accepted rule does not, however, apply similarly everywhere. In many countries it derives from the concept of force majeure, a concept extraneous to the common law which is impossible to translate into English. Furthermore, the notion of force majeure is subject to various interpretations. East European legal systems, for example, rarely permit the discharge of the promisor because it jeopardizes official planning. Elsewhere, the notion, although interpreted narrowly at first, became gradually more flexible. Standard forms in internatiorial commercial agreements illustrate this trend. To make this scheme even more complicated, a number of theories emerged in the twentieth century, e.g., imprévision, �frustration of the venture�, �impracticability�, Wegfall der Geschäftsgrundlage, which extended the doctrine beyond the sphere of absolute impossibility to situations where, due to an unexpected change in circumstances, performance simply proved far more expensive than anticipated. In some legal systems (French private law, for instance), such unexpected change in circumstances produces no effect. It is synonymous with impossibility in some systems (English law) and allows the judge to adjust the contract in others (German and American law). Moreover, lawyers have imagined a wide range of [page 573] clauses (sliding scale, hardship, sauvegarde, renegotiation, etc.) designed to adapt contractual obligations to such situations.
1.3. - Thus Article 79 was elaborated on a variegated background. Significantly, however, the Convention avoided reference to the domestic theories recapitulated above. It developed a system of its own, which in fact results from a slow maturation process that started with ULIS. This autonomy, illustrated by the lack of reference to accepted wording and concepts of domestic laws (force majeure, frustration, impracticability), renders the interpretation of Article 79 extremely difficult because one cannot resort to these laws as a guide. Besides being novel, the system set forth in Article 79 is also unitary in the sense that it does not distinguish between supervening impossibility and imprévision per se. A doubt therefore subsists regarding the extent to which this theory is part of the Convention (see �� 3.1. to .3.6., infra).
1.4. - The text of Article 79 is one of the longest in the Convention. It is, in its final wording, drafted in the same form as Article 65 of the UNCITRAL Draft Convention. Only paragraph (2) underwent a slight modification.
Article 79 corresponds approximately to Article 74 of ULIS. Two paragraphs of minor importance, (2) and (4), were added. The definition of impossibility was slightly modified. Finally, Article 74(3) of ULIS was split into two. One part became paragraph (5) of Article 79 and the other, Article 80. This alteration separates more clearly the two types of exemption: impediment and act or omission of the other party.
1.5. - One might be inclined to look into the travaux préparatoires of ULIS and of the present Convention to discover the meaning of Article 79. This search is, however, unproductive. Surely, it appears that exemption has become more widely recognized over the years (as the inclusion of force majeure clauses in international commercial contracts demonstrates). This represents a significant evolution from the restrictive approach of the initial Draft of 1935.
The Secretariat's Commentary is succinct. It is a mere exegetic analysis of the text, sometimes even inconsistent with the wording of the article. The discussions bore essentially on [page 574] questions of terminology. Obscure at times, they were nonetheless regarded by some (HONNOLD, Uniform Law, 432) as relating to a �fundamental point �. For example the replacement of the word �circumstances� by �impediment� was considered as having altered the scope of the exemption. This question will be examined infra, � 2.6.1.
The Vienna Conference considered only relatively minor points, especially in view of the principle itself.
2.1. - Article 79 deals with one of the most delicate questions in contract law; the effects of the impossibility to perform one of the obligations of the contract. To what extent may the non-performing party be exempted, i.e., may he avoid the remedies available to the other party? It must be noted that Article 79 deals only with the effects as to the non-performing party but remains silent concerning the consequences which follow for the other party (theory of risks). The two questions are, however, closely linked, and Article 79 must be read in conjunction with the provisions that relate to the theory of risks, namely Articles 66 to 70 of the Convention.
2.3. - Article 79 is a long and intricate text. It is impossible to analyze it following the sequence of the paragraphs as they refer to questions of unequal importance. A more rewarding approach may be to examine it in four consecutive parts: the scope of the exemption; the notion of impediment; the proof of the impediment and the duty to notify; and, finally, the effects of the exemption.
2.4. - Article 79 sets forth a general cause of exemption for (a) non-performance (b) of �any obligation� and -- what is more debatable -- (c) without any reference to time. This exemption may play in favour of either party, in accordance with the global conception of the Roman-German tradition. These provisions may, of course, be altered by the parties, as this is often the case in international contracts.
2.4.1. - The expression �failure to perform� does not specify the nature of the non-performance. Accordingly, it may be total or partial, delayed or defective (as, for instance, when the terms of a contract that relates to packaging are forbidden by the law of the seller). The nature of the non-performance has, of course, repercussions on the effects of the exemption as discussed below (see �� 2.9. et seq., infra). All the same, any failure to perform produces a certain exempting effect.
2.4.2. - Article 79 explicity refers to any obligation, no matter which party is concerned. The buyer and the seller are thus subject to the same conditions. This solution does not come as a surprise; it is in harmony with the global conception of the Convention. All the obligations of the buyer, such as they are spelled out in Article 53, as well as all the obligations of the seller listed under Article 30 and all the further obligations which may derive from the individual contract (Articles 30 and 53 are not exhaustive), whether of major or minor importance, fall within the scope of Article 79. A few examples illustrate this point.
2.4.2.1. - The obligation of the buyer to pay the price may contravene exchange laws or regulations (see Article 54). The index to which the parties referred in their agreement may have ceased to exist. By contrast, the financial situation of the buyer [page 576] is generally regarded as irrelevant (see � 2.16., infra). Furthermore, obligation to take delivery of the goods may be hampered by such common obstacles as strikes, blockades, floods, etc. As far as the seller is concerned, the obligation to transfer ownership, in so far as it exists, must be set aside as there is no provision to this effect in the Convention. The same does not apply to the various aspects of the obligation to deliver. Impossibility may indeed follow, although depending on the nature of the goods, from any mode of delivery.
The obligation to deliver conforming goods also comes within the scope of Article 79 when, for instance, some specification of the goods conflicts with the law of the State of the seller.
It should be emphasized that Article 79 applies to obligations of means (obligations de moyen) as well as obligations of result (obligations de résultat) in legal systems that make that distinction.
Thus, Article 79, in its general wording, applies to any sort of obligation generated by a contract of sale.
2.4.3. - The text is silent on the point of time. Presumably, it does not apply to situations where the impediment existed at the time of the conclusion of the contract and was known to the defaulting party. In this case, the conditions set forth in Article 79(1) are not fulfilled as the said party could �have taken the impediment into account at the time of the conclusion�. What is to be decided, however, when an impediment unknown to both parties at the time of the conclusion of the contract is revealed at a later date? A typical case is the sale of goods transported on a ship that sank at the time of the conclusion of the contract. The Secretariat's Commentary affirms, without justifying its position, that Article 79 applies to this case (Official Records, I, 55; see also SCHLECHTRIEM, UN-Kaufrecht, 95; Uniform Sales Law, 101). This is also the implicit solution adopted by � 2-613 of the United States Uniform Commercial Code (see also Official Comment, No. 2). But the answer to this question is not obvious in countries, such as France, where the existence of the subject-matter at the time of the conclusion of the contract is regarded as a condition of validity, as one cannot imagine a contract of sale that would relate to goods which do no longer exist. In this case, the absence of the subject-matter raises a problem of validity which is [page 577] not governed by the Convention (see Article 4(a)). One may think that in other systems it will be possible to rely on the theory of mistake. In both cases, the contract will be declared void.
This divergence must not be over-emphasized, however. It all depends on the consequences which follow from contracts void ab initio as opposed to contracts that are avoided because they are impossible to perform. The retrospective effect is not the same in the two cases. But the question will seldom be raised in relation to a contract which, by hypothesis, cannot be performed. The modes of termination also differ. If the contract is void, it comes to an end by operation of the law. If it is avoided, the non-defaulting party, according to a possible interpretation of Article 79 (see � 2.10.2., infra), will have to declare the contract terminated. But, again, in practice, the difference will probably be negligible.
The extensive interpretation of Article 79 is preferable as it creates uniformity, but it may come into conflict with mandatory provisions of domestic law (see concerning ULIS, STOLL, in DÖLLE, Einheitliches Kaufrecht, 445 in favour of the exclusion of national rules). The better view is to decide that when the existence of the subject-matter is regarded as a peremptory rule by a given domestic law, Article 79 ceases to apply by virtue of Article 4(a) of the Convention, especially in the absence of any provision similar to Article 34 of ULIS which excluded reliance on national remedies for mistake in cases of non-conformity of the goods.
2.5. - Article 79(1) defines the notion of impediment. Paragraph (2), added to the provisions of ULIS, defines a special form of exemption when the non-performance of one party results from the non-performance of a third party. Again, it must be noted that these provisions are not obligatory. The parties may stipulate other causes of exemption in their agreement.
2.6.1. - For an exemption to be granted, the non-performance of the contract must be due to an impediment. Article 74(1) of ULIS used the word �circumstances� although the expression �temporary impediment� also appeared in Article 74(2). The choice between the word �circumstances� and �impediment� had given rise to long discussions at the 1964 Hague Conference. According to the Tunc report (Hague Conference Records, I, 357, 384) the word �circumstances� would have allowed exemption when the seller could not be held liable for the defects in the goods. By adopting the word �impediment�, the Vienna Conference aimed at emphasizing the objective nature of the hindrance rather than its personal aspect. These discussions may appear somewhat recondite. It is not difficult to admit that a simple change in terminology -- in any event one that may become intelligible only after a lengthy examination of the records -- cannot result in such widely different consequences. One cannot expect the judge to spend too much time interpreting a text which is apparently clear. What is actually the issue, as some legal systems readily admit, is the external character of the impediment with regard to the activity of the defaulting party; and, since it does not constitute a separate condition, it must be linked to the condition �beyond his control� (see the excellent discussion of NICHOLAS, Impracticability and Impossibility, �� 5.10 to 5.14 and references).
2.6.2. - The notion of �impediment beyond his control� is not easy to explain, owing partly to the difference that exists for instance between the English and French versions. By using the expression indépendant de sa volonté (literally, independent of his will), the French text appears to adopt a more subjective approach. In a sense, it is contrary to the drafters' intention and the English version is more in keeping with the proposed objective. If the impediment is not extraneous to the activity of the defaulting party, i.e., if it is under his control, it produces no exempting effect. A comparative analysis of the text reveals that this condition covers two situations.
The first one concerns the behaviour of the defaulting party. One might argue that a question of fault is involved here. But this concept has been set aside by the Convention and does not require consideration. What is meant is that exemption will not [page 579] be granted if the defaulting party fails to behave as required under the contract, including the implicit obligation of good faith. This would be the case if a governmental licence is refused as a result of negligence on the defaulting party's part (e.g., because he failed to apply properly for such a licence: see Article 54 of the Convention), or if the goods had deteriorated owing to improper packaging.
The second situation in which the idea of control appears is that which is defined as the external character of the impediment, i.e., exterior to the defaulting party's activity. A typical example is the damage that a defect in the goods causes to the buyer. Can the seller contend that he had no means to discover the defect? The �external approach� leads to a negative answer and to the conclusion that a non-external impediment may never produce an exempting effect even though it meets the other requirements for a valid exemption. For equity's sake, the risk should be placed on the seller in such a case, or on the manufacturer in case of third-party proceedings. To the extent that the impediment relates to the defaulting party's activity, it is not �beyond his control� (French case law even created an irrebuttable presumption of knowledge of the defect when the seller is a professional). This condition, however, is often mixed with the other -- more traditional -- conditions set forth in Article 39(1).
2.6.3. - The first condition concerns the foreseeability of the impediment. It is formulated as follows: �an impediment ... that [the defaulting party] could not reasonably be expected to have taken ... into account at the time of the conclusion of the contract�.
Most domestic laws adopt a similar rule. It is consistent with the basic idea that if the event were foreseeable, the defaulting party should, in the absence of any contrary provision in the contract, be considered as having assumed the risk of its realization.
The formula used in Article 79(1) calls, however, for further comments.
The impediment must be reasonably foreseeable. The reference is thus the reasonable person, the bon père de famille, in accordance with the general concept of the Convention, i.e., halfway between the inveterate pessimist who foresees all sorts of [page 580] disasters and the resolute optimist who never anticipates the least misfortune. The impersonal tone of the text of the Vienna Convention must be noted as contrasting with ULIS which referred to the intention of the parties (this is even clearer in the French version which uses the formula �un empêchement ... qu'on ne pouvait raisonablement attendre�). Everything here is a matter of measure, and it seems difficult to provide more details in a general text. It will be left to the judge or arbitrator to decide depending on the circumstances of the case (for a similar view see Secretariat's Commentary, Official Records, I, 55). Furthermore, foreseeability should relate not only to the impediment per se but also to the time of its occurrence. The closure of the Suez Canal was, for example, foreseeable in the more or less distant future. But the defaulting party could only be exempted if it were reasonably unforeseeable that the impediment should occur during the course of the contract. Foreseeability must be appreciated at the time of the conclusion of the contract. This solution is reasonable and generally acknowledged by domestic laws.
2.6.4. - The impediment must also be unavoidable (see � 2.6., supra). The defaulting party must have been reasonably unable �to have avoided or overcome [the impediment] or its consequences�.
To �avoid� means taking all the necessary steps to prevent the occurrence of the impediment. In most cases, it will coincide with the idea of �beyond his control� (see � 2.6.2., supra).
�To overcome� means to take the necessary steps to preclude the consequences of the impediment. It is closely associated with the condition of the external character of the impeding event. The attention should be focused on the behaviour of the defaulting party. The basis of reference is the same as for unforeseeability, i.e., the reasonable person. This criterion is, however, rather vague and will often be most difficult to distinguish between what is possible and what is impossible to overcome. This issue raises once again the theoretical question of the distinction between impossibility and imprévision. There may be a nuance between great difficulty of performance (or, as it is called by German authors, �economic impossibility� -- see SCHLECHTRIEM, UN-Kaufrecht, 96; Uniform Sales Law, 102) and absolute impossibility. Here again, a case-by-case analysis is [page 581] required. If an object is lost at sea and can be fished out in good condition although at great cost, the final solution will not be the same if the said object is a highly valuable sculpture or merely a machine tool. Thus, everything is a question of measure.
2.6.5. - Nevertheless, several points deserve further attention. First, as a rule, generic goods are not affected by force majeure: genera non pereunt. Others may be obtained to replace them; thus delivery remains possible. The impediment is not invincible. A different solution might prevail if the goods were of a limited kind, e.g., a rare metal produced in a single country. Export prohibition would constitute an impediment in the sense of Article 79.
The second difficulty is illustrated by the example of a contract calling for the goods to be packed in a specific type of container that turned out to be unavailable (see Secretariat's Commentary, Official Records, I, 56). According to the commentary, the seller would not be liable for damages if he provided �commercially reasonable substitute packing materials�. This solution is inspired by � 2-614 of the United Stated Uniform Commercial Code. It is, however, excessive in view of the lack of precision in Article 79; furthermore, it conflicts with Article 35(1) of the Convention according to which the seller must deliver �goods which are ... contained or packaged in the manner required by the contract�.
This solution might, in addition, be dangerous as it would enable one party to modify unilaterally the terms of the contract, thus generating insecurity to the detriment of the weaker party. The same result could in any case be reached by a different and more convincing reasoning. If the seller is unable to perform the contract in accordance with the specifications of the buyer and has recourse to a �commercially reasonable substitute� -- very close to what the parties initially provided in their agreement -- the buyer would act in violation of the general principle of good faith by refusing the latter mode of performance. The seller could therefore claim damages. It would indeed be illogical to speak of non-performance and exemption in a case where the only question is whether the contract has been performed or not.
The insolvency of the buyer is not generally regarded as an impediment (in this sense see also Secretariat's Commentary, Official [page 582] Records, I, 55). It is, in effect, difficult to argue that the insolvency of the buyer is �beyond his control�. The case would be different of course if the insolvency was due to a force majeure event, e.g., the undue confiscation of the buyer's ownings following a coup d'état.
2.6.6. - The last condition relates to the causal element. The non-performance of the contract must be due to the impediment. This condition is logical. The seller cannot avail himself of an event, e.g., the burning of his warehouse, which occurred after he has refused to perform the contract. Non-performance in this case is due to his prior refusal to perform, not to the fire. Of course, it may sometimes be difficult to identify the precise cause of the failure as, for example, when several causes are invoked, such as the impediment and the act or omission of one of the parties. Since this is usually the case when a problem of causality is raised, the solution will depend on the subjective appraisal of the judge. In the absence of any indication to this effect either in the text (when it is the aggrieved party who has contributed to the damage, see Article 80) or in the spirit of the Convention, the judge will apply the theory that prevails in his country.
Whatever theory is adopted, however, the exempting event must necessarily be the exclusive cause of the failure to perform. If goods not properly packaged are damaged following an unforeseeable and unavoidable accident, the seller remains nonetheless liable (see � 2.6.4., supra). The judge cannot reduce, even partly, the damages owed by the seller on account of that latter accident. The loss is attributable to the seller's failure to provide adequate accident-proof packaging.
2.6.7. - It is impossible to enumerate all the events that constitute an impediment according to Article 79. At the utmost, one may refer to the traditional categories of force majeure, i.e., natural catastrophes (e.g., earthquakes, storms, etc.) and of the fait du prince which is gradually extending on account of the greater interference of States in international commercial relations (e.g., embargo, blockade, war and, more recently, export prohibitions). The various systems of licences and permissions will no doubt give rise to delicate problems: is it possible to regard the refusal of a licence as an unforeseeable event? It all depends on the circumstances of the case. If the refusal were foreseeable at [page 583] the time of the conclusion of the contract the party in charge of obtaining the licence should have arranged the insertion of a clause relating to the consequences of refusal.
Finally, acts of man such as strikes, thefts and accidents of all sorts may also be regarded as impediments.
It must be noted, however, that a war or a strike does not, in itself, exonerate the defaulting party from his obligations. The event must meet all the requirements examined above. A given event, e.g., the closure of the Suez Canal, may thus be considered as an instance of force majeure or frustration in one case and not in another depending on the time of the conclusion of the contract, the nature of the goods, etc.
This discussion demonstrates how subjective the notion of impediment is and illustrates the freedom left to the judge in deciding whether a particular event meets the requirements set forth by Article 79(1).
2.7. - Article 79(2) deals with the special case of non-performance by a third party engaged by the defaulting party to perform the whole or part of the contract. This is a novel provision since ULIS contained no similar rule. It is the response to the increasing development of sub-contracting. The term sub-contracting, used in the initial draft was finally deleted as some legal systems ignore it while others use it in a specific sense. It was replaced by a paraphrase: the performance of the contract by a third person engaged by one of the parties to the contract.
2.7.1. - The conditions set forth in Article 79(2) are restrictive.
First of all, the sub-contract must really exist, i.e., there must be an organic link between it and the main contract. The defaulting party must have asked a third person to perform some task connected with the main contract and the latter should know that his action is a means of performing the main contract. The solution provided by Article 79(2) can only be justified by the link which binds the two contracts. A different solution would prevail if the sub-contractor were a branch (établissement) of the same firm. The default of the �third party� would not be �beyond the control� of the non-performing party and one of the conditions set forth in Article 79(1) would therefore not be fulfilled. The sub-contractor must be legally independent of the party to the main contract. This condition may give rise to delicate problems of interpretation in the case of subsidiaries that are wholly owned by the mother-company.
Another problem of interpretation arises in the not infrequent term of international sale contracts under which the buyer imposes a sub-contractor upon the seller (a local firm for instance). Has the sub-contractor been really �engaged to perform�? The answer must be in the affirmative. The sub-contractor, though not chosen by the seller, has been accepted by him as part of the bargain and he is under the technical control of the seller.
The task performed by the third party must relate to the performance of the particular contract only. The general supplier of goods or raw materials is not a third party according to Article 79(2), as his task is to provide products for a wide range of purposes to a wide range of clients (see Secretariat's Commentary, Official Records, I, 56). These materials moreover often constitute fungible goods, the destruction of which cannot, as a rule, lead to exemption. The assignment of these goods to a specific purpose creates the link without which Article 79(2) is inapplicable.
2.7.2. - Exemption may thus only be attained if the requirements set forth in Article 79(1) are fulfilled with regard to both the main party and the sub-contractor.
The main party will generally have to prove that he engaged a competent and capable sub-contractor; otherwise the impediment [page 585] will be deemed neither unforeseeable nor beyond his control. The bankruptcy of the sub-contractor will seldom give rise to exemption as insolvency is not generally regarded as an impediment.
To sum up, it appears that non-performance of a third person will seldom lead to the exemption of the party to the main contract; that party will remain liable for the failure to perform, as the guarantor of the sub-contractor's activity (nothing, however, should prevent him from initiating an action against the third party).
2.7.3. - The party seeking exemption has the burden of proving that the requirements set forth in Article 79(1) are met. This is the case also if the failure to perform is due to the failure of a third party. The sub-contractor remains a total stranger to the action. This situation may be detrimental to the plaintiff as his own exemption depends on whether or not the sub-contractor is exempt from liability. Separate trials may lead to a somewhat paradoxical situation: the party to the main contract, though unable to prove the existence of the impediment in an action against the other party, may be able to demonstrate its occurrence in an action against the sub-contractor. This situation inevitably follows from the principle known in French as autorité relative de la chose jugée (binding effect of judicial decision in relation to the parties). This handicap may be overcome by joining the two actions.
The means of proof are governed by the law of the forum.
2.8. - According to Article 79(4), the defaulting party must give notice to the other party of the impediment so as to enable the latter to take all the steps necessary to overcome the consequences of the failure. Although no such provision existed in ULIS, this rule was probably implied in the principle of good faith. It is in any event in harmony with international practice and is often the subject of a particular clause in the parties' agreement.
Thus only a few points deserve emphasis.
The duty to notify exists only when the occurrence of the impediment is certain, not when it may still be avoided (although it may be difficult to determine what is and what is not avoidable). [page 586] The defaulting party must notify the other party of the impediment and its probable consequences, i.e., he must indicate whether the non-performance is partial or total, temporary or definitive, etc. According to the Secretariat's Commentary (Official Records, I, 56), the duty to notify also extends to the situation in which a party intends to perform the contract by furnishing a commercially reasonable substitute. This affirmation is subject to criticism (see � 2.4.2., supra). A party is indeed under no obligation to accept a mode of performance at variance with the stipulations of the contract.
Furthermore, the notice must reach the party to whom it is addressed within a reasonable time after the party in default �knew or ought to have known of the impediment�.
By providing that the notice be �received� within a reasonable time the article adopts the theory of receipt, thus placing the risk of the transmission on the defaulting party. The solution is in harmony with the provisions of the Convention relating to offer (Article 15) and acceptance (Article 18(2)), although it deviates from the general rule set forth in Article 27.
If the notice has not been given or received within a reasonable time, the defaulting party is liable for damages. It should be noted that the damages for which the latter is liable are only those which result from the failure to give notice as opposed to those which follow from the non-performance of the contract. The former will, in effect, often constitute an additional charge for the defaulting party as the other party will have been unable to take the steps necessary to alleviate the consequences of non-performance.
The impediment which makes one party to the contract unable to meet his obligations may also bear on the notification, e.g., in the case of a general strike that paralyzes the manufacturer's factory and the postal service as well. In such a case, of course, the non-performing party will not be liable for the failure to give notice if the requirements set forth in Article 79(1) are met.
2.9. - The effects of the exemption are described in Article 79 in a most obscure and even contradictory way. The title of section IV is of no avail: exemption from what? The principle set forth in paragraph (1), which is copied from Article 74(1) of ULIS, is worded in very general terms: the party �is not liable [page 587] for a failure to perform�. Paragraph (5), however, is an innovation and appears to restrain the effects of the exemption to one remedy alone: damages. As for paragraph (3), it provides that the exemption has effect only for the period during which the impediment exists.
The gaps in Article 79 also raise problems. The text deals with temporary non-performance but provides nothing concerning partial performance. It considers the non-performance of one obligation but remains silent as to the consequences of the non-performance on the contract as a whole.
Finally, it must be noted that this text is not binding and that, in practice, the parties often stipulate means of redefining the terms of their agreement in the event the performance is jeopardized, e.g., by providing an obligation to renegotiate and by entrusting the adaptation of the contract to a judge or to a third person.
To clarify this issue, three types of situations must be distinguished: those in which the solution is certain; those in which the failure to perform is total and definitive; and those in which the failure to perform is partial or delayed.
2.10.1. - Exemption from liability for damages is certain because it is explicitly stated, although in a negative form, in paragraph (5). The party who fails to perform a contract owing to an impediment that meets all the requirements set forth in paragraph (1) is not liable for damages. The term �damages� must be interpreted widely. It designates all damages, regardless of their proper denomination: dommages-intérêts compensatoires (damages), dommages-intérêts moratoires (damages for over-due performance, interests on damages), direct or consequential damages, etc. This solution is not subject to controversy; the granting of damages to one party presupposes the liability of the other party. The question as to whether the failure to perform exempts the defaulting party from paying a sum stipulated in the contract (either in the form of liquidated damages or penalties) is a matter of domestic law (see Secretariat's Commentary, Official Records, I, 55). The answer depends, in effect, on the interpretation of the clause. If the sum is due in lieu of damages, it will have to be set aside.
Furthermore, the exemption of a party does not prevent the other party from claiming remedies (including damages) as a result of the non-performance of any other obligation. This solution follows from the requirement of a cause-effect relationship described above (the non-performance must be due to the impediment). Thus, if non-conforming goods are delivered with delay on account of some impediment, the buyer will be able to claim every remedy normally available in cases of non-conformity.
Beyond these incontrovertible points, Article 79 raises considerable problems of interpretation. The nature of the non-performance is then decisive.
2.10.2. - The restrictive interpretation of paragraph (5) according to which the defaulting party is exempted only from liability for damages -- is least acceptable when tbe non-performance is total and definitive (definitive non-performance is defined in � 2.10.4., infra). The right of the injured party to claim [page 589] specific performance or avoidance does not make sense any more. Specific performance is, by definition, impossible and avoidance useless (see, however, HONNOLD, Uniform Law, 427, who states without further justification that �the right to avoid the contract is not impaired�). The consequences of an inescapable event cannot depend upon the will of the parties. If, for instance, an American museum buys a work of art in France for exhibition in the United States and delivery is rendered impossible by some regulation prohibiting export, the seller could hardly claim the price since he would not be in a position to deliver the work. If the aggrieved party does not declare the contract avoided, this contract would have nonetheless disappeared. In this case, it disappears by operation of the law. However, the consequences of avoidance, as declared by the aggrieved party, and of termination due to impossibility are not so different. Yet the time of the disappearance may be different: in the case of avoidance, the contract ends at the time of the declaration; in the other case, it ends at the time of the event.
This solution prevails in many countries (see � 275 of the Federal Republic of Germany's Civil Code and French case law relating to Article 1184 of the Civil Code, which is traditionally referred to in this matter).
2.10.3. - Partial non-performance supposes that the impediment affects only part of the main obligation or an accessory obligation and that the contract may still be performed. Article 79(5) leads to less absurd results in this case. As opposed to the situation in which the failure to perform is due to one party, the other party can neither claim damages for the non-performance of part of the contract nor specific performance. But Article 79(5) may be regarded as implicitly, although awkwardly, referring to a provision on breach of contract, namely that which allows a party to declare the contract avoided if the failure to perform amounts to a fundamental breach. Partial performance may indeed be of no interest to the injured party.
The rigidity of the system (termination or status quo) contrasts with the solution that German courts and French administrative tribunals have imagined with regard to Wegfall der Geschäftsgrundlage and imprévision (also adopted by the Italian -- Articles 1467 to 1469 -- and Greek -- Article 388 -- Civil Codes) which authorize, or at least encourage, the adaptation of the contract by the judge.
Article 79(5) applies indifferently to the buyer or to the seller (�either party�). If the buyer, in the above example, refuses to take delivery of the goods, the seller can either compel the buyer to take delivery or regard his attitude as a fundamental breach of contract. He must also account to the seller for all benefits which he has derived from the goods or part of them in case of restitution (Article 84).
2.10.4. - If the performance of the contract is only delayed by some impediment, Article 79(3) provides that the exemption is temporary and has effect only for the period during which the event exists, meaning that the buyer is not liable for damages for over-due performance. This provision contrasts with Article 74(2) of ULIS which granted definitive exemption when late performance amounted to non-performance.
Article 79(5) nevertheless leads to the same result, as over-due performance may be deemed a fundamental breach that enables the injured party to declare the contract avoided.
When �time is not of the essence� of the contract and performance becomes possible, the injured party may claim any remedy, including damages, except for damages for over-due performance.
3.1. - Under some legal systems, an unforeseeable change in circumstances which renders the contract more difficult, but not impossible, to perform may entail the avoidance or even the revision of the contract. These domestic theories, called imprévision, frustration of the venture, impracticability, Wegfall der Geschäftsgrundlage, eccessiva onerosità sopravvenuta, etc. must be compared with the system of Article 79. The issue is of [page 591] importance as the judges may feel tempted to rely on these rules rather than on the rules of the Convention.
The question as to whether Article 79 covers such unexpected events is debatable. As previously noted, the English version of Article 79, as opposed to the French text, may be (wrongly) construed in favour of the theory of imprévision. Unfortunately, the travaux préparatoires are of no avail on this particular point. The 1956 Report of the Hague Conference special Commission (38-39) tried to bypass the difficulty by referring to the intention of the parties (or, more precisely, to what would have been the intention of persons of the same rank and quality as the parties had they been placed in the same circumstances). This approach would have, however, reinstated the principle rebus sic stantibus and maintained a variety of solution because not all legal systems acknowledge such a principle.
The adaptation of the contract by the judge is not expressly allowed in the Convention and must therefore be regarded as impossible. The only remedy available is avoidance.
The insurmountable character of the impediment is moreover defined rather strictly even though it is submitted to the requirement of reasonableness. The borderline between impracticability and a reasonably insurmountable impediment is, of course, uncertain. But if the Convention appears to refer to a more flexible standard than that of traditional force majeure, it is undoubtedly stricter than frustration or impracticability (see concerning force majeure and frustration, NICHOLAS, Force majeure and frustration, 233 et seq.; see also the overall studies of ZWEIGERT-KÖTZ, Introduction to Comparative Law, Amsterdam (North-Holland Publishing Co.), 1977, II, 187-207 and DAVID, L'imprévision dans les droits européens, Mélanges A. Jauffret, 1974, 212-229).
Article 79 thus constitutes an autonomous system in line with, although not as strict as, the rather rigorous Roman-German system. The Convention does not favour very easy exemption for non-performance. A more flexible approach would have been unacceptable to developing countries because imprévision generally operates to the advantage of the most powerful party. Moreover, it would have been regarded by socialist countries as incompatible with their planning policy.
3.1.1. - Two categories of domestic laws must be distinguished. In the first one, the notion of impossibility (in its wider sense) exists and covers both impossibility (defined strictly) and unforeseen but surmountable contingencies. This is, roughly speaking, the position of the common law for which the notion of �frustration of the venture� comprises both supervening impossibility (Act of God) and imprévision. Paragraph 2-615 of the United States Uniform Commercial Code, which refers to the intention of the parties, adds nothing to the discussion. But, Restatement Second on Contracts (�� 261 and 265) (see FARNSWORTH, Contracts, Toronto-Boston (Little, Brown and Company), 1982, 690 concerning the consistency of these two texts) illustrates this unitary trend by resorting to the notion of �impracticability� which covers impossibility and frustration (and which also gives the judge a regulating power, as opposed to the common law rule). This extensive approach must not, however, influence the judge with regard to Article 79. This text embodies an original conception which is wholly independent of the notions of frustration and impracticability.
This solution is unacceptable. The principle of good faith must not be used to bypass explicit provisions of the Convention. Article 79 adopts an intermediate solution which ensures both contractual justice and the security of transactions. Furthermore, the notion of good faith is practically of no avail to the judge. If it were to be regarded as the legal basis of the theory of imprévision in international sales, harmony would be jeopardized and the aim of the Convention, as stated in Article 7(1) would not be attained.
The dualistic approach involves another danger. One could argue on the basis of the distinction between impossibility and imprévision that the latter issue is not �expressly settled� by the Convention and should therefore be governed by the law designated by the conflict-of-laws rule. This approach is, however, unsatisfactory. First of all, the question as to whether this issue is in effect settled by the Convention is debatable. It is clear, especially in view of the travaux préparatoires, that the Convention has opted for a unitary conception of exemption and has thus set aside the theory of �changed circumstances� (even if this choice may be criticized). Moreover, this approach would preclude uniformity. And uniformity would be jeopardized if the restrictive theory of Article 79 existed side by side with the various domestic theories, some of which acknowledged imprévision, although subject to varied conditions, and some of which reject it. Article 79 would become practically useless in the systems which acknowledge imprévision.
3.3. - The view has been expressed (HONNOLD, Uniform Law, 434) that the judge should adopt a �comparative law approach� and examine the �prevailing patterns and trends of modern domestic law� insofar as they are consistent with the necessities of international commerce. This author emphasizes �a special value of legal trends that reflect a careful rewording and modernization of traditional and archaic legal concepts�. This approach is subject to criticism. It might, indeed, arouse the nationalism of judges as every lawyer is inclined to believe that his law is the best and that �traditional and archaic concepts� exist only in other laws. The �special value� rule would thus eventually lead to the application of domestic laws. | 2019-04-25T16:34:53Z | http://www.cisg.law.pace.edu/cisg/biblio/tallon-bb79.html |
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developers who use Java enterprise version may be satisfied to know that the development and runtime platform is gaining new lifestyles as Jakarta EE. As a part of an settlement with Oracle, the tech tremendous will surrender control over the platform to Eclipse groundwork, which has large plans to remake enterprise Java for the rising cloud world.
considering it purchased solar Microsystems back in 2010, Oracle has been fully in charge of Java. That includes defining now not just the core Java language, but having a huge hand in every thing else governed through the Java group process (JCP), together with the Java virtual laptop (JVM), the commonplace edition (JSE) runtime, and the Java business version (JEE) platform, which supplied enterprise-degree capabilities for working Java purposes at scale, together with use of net functions and disbursed execution of code.
in the early 2000s, previous to the sun acquisition, the tempo of innovation was heavy, as Java and JEE unfold all over corporate the united states and the whole world. below the J2EE moniker, businesses quite simply adopted numerous Java service Requests (JSRs), or JEE standards, delivered under the enterprise edition umbrella. That protected JSRs like Java servlets, Java ServerPages (JSP), business JavaBeans (EJBs), Java ServerFaces (JSF) J2EE Connector structure (JCA), the Java Persistence API (JPA) and the Java Message carrier (JMS), among others.
besides the fact that children, over the last few years, the pleasure over JEE has waned and the pace of alternate has slowed significantly. in the fall of 2017, Oracle determined that it had had adequate and, at the urging of a gaggle of providers that included IBM, red Hat, and others, it agreed to relinquish handle of Java EE to the Eclipse groundwork, which is the using force behind the Java-primarily based integrated construction ambiance (IDE) of the equal name.
Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse basis, says the movement is all about respiratory new life into the Java commercial enterprise version platform.
anything the name, Jakarta EE’s connection to JEE and the complete Java stack is obvious. Jakarta EE will proceed to run on desirable of JSE. it will continue to stick to the JCP for necessities and it will continue to be developed as an open Java development package (JDK).
One thing with a purpose to exchange is that the Eclipse foundation will create a wholly new specification system for Jakarta EE, Milinkovich says. the new spec process might be the automobile wherein the community decides the place to take Jakarta EE next. “It’s going to be a a great deal greater of a collaborative and joint effort as antagonistic to a single supplier undertaking,” he says.
The Eclipse basis currently carried out a survey to peer where the Jakarta EE neighborhood (nee J2EE neighborhood) wants the know-how to go. in accordance with the Jakarta EE Developer Survey 2018, the three most essential areas mentioned for growth were more suitable assist for microservices, native integration with container technology like Kubernetes and Docker, and a sooner pace of innovation.
whereas new specs haven’t been set in stone, it’s clear what direction the JEE community needs to look Jakarta EE going. historically, JEE became traditionally carried out on-premise, but the paramount significance of assisting rising cloud paradigms came via loud and clear within the survey.
As founding individuals of the Jakarta EE Working community, Oracle, IBM, red Hat, Fujitsu, Lightbend, Payara programs, Pivotal, Tomitribe, and Webtide could have have an impact on over the direction of this expertise. however the Eclipse groundwork wants to motivate the total Java neighborhood to get behind Jakarta EE.
Oracle on Thursday is releasing updates to the normal edition of Java and the JavaFX wealthy customer software platform, including the first start of the Java construction package and JavaFX utility building package for Mac OS X. The newest enhancements for Java garbage collection and the Java virtual laptop are featured as well.
The enterprise is making accessible Java Platform, regular edition (Java SE) 7 replace 4 and JavaFX 2.1. Java developers, Oracle stated, can down load Oracle's JDK, which includes the JavaFX SDK for MacOS X from the Oracle technology community. Java SE 7 update 4 and JavaFX 2.1 run on windows, too. The enterprise plans to liberate a customer version of Java SE 7, finished with the Java Runtime ambiance, for Mac OS X later this 12 months.
"It looks that Oracle is continuously making first rate on the guarantees of the road map outlined at JavaOne," analyst Al Hilwa, of IDC, pointed out, referring to Oracle's Java technology convention held ultimate fall in San Francisco. "it's essential for Oracle to display steady momentum with this highway map, and it is actually first rate to peer persevered funding just like the new JavaFX expertise in Mac OS X from Oracle." Java, though, has been an issue on Mac methods recently, with the Flashback botnet serving as a Java-based assault against Macs.
"Oracle has aggressive plans for Java over the following few years and we're continuing to pressure technical advancements across the platform," observed Hasan Rizvi, senior vice president of Oracle Fusion Middleware and Java items at Oracle, in a press release released with the aid of the enterprise. "At JavaOne in 2011, we outlined our long-time period road map for Java SE and JavaFX, and we're working closely with the Java group to fulfill our development milestones. With the upcoming Mac OS X port, we appear forward to delivering simultaneous releases of the JRE throughout all main operating programs later this yr, so all Java users can be in a position to take capabilities of the latest elements and protection fixes."
Java rubbish assortment, which helps with reminiscence administration by way of reclaiming programming objects, is being stronger in JDK. "The Java SE 7 update 4 JDK includes the subsequent-era rubbish collection algorithm, garbage First (G1), which has been eagerly expected by the Java developer group. G1 offers predictable rubbish assortment even for extremely huge purposes," Oracle mentioned in a statement. G1 is a server-trend rubbish collector, for multiprocessor machines with large memories, Oracle referred to.
additionally key to Java SE 7 update 4 are performance advancements to the JVM, boosting Oracle Fusion Middleware items. replace four merges performance enhancements from the JRockit JVM into the Java HotSpot JVM and OpenJDK, which is the open supply implementation of Java SE. "Oracle is continuing its work to merge the Oracle Java HotSpot JVM and the Oracle JRockit JVM right into a converged providing that leverages the greatest elements of every of these main virtual machines," Oracle spoke of. replace four could be the first purchaser liberate of Java 7 JRE, scheduled to be released because the default edition on Java.com on can also 1.
The OpenJDK community, Oracle observed, hosts building of Java SE 7 on Mac OS X and JDK 8, which is the prototype reference implementation of Java SE eight. Oracle has begun the OpenJFX mission as a part of its plan to open-supply the JavaFX platform.
Oracle also is saying a public early access for JavaFX Scene Builder, a visual design device that permits designing of UI displays with the aid of dragging and positioning UI components from a palette onto a scene. JavaFX is obtainable for windows and Mac OS X, while a developer preview for Linux is also being offered.
this article, "Oracle enhancements typical Java, JavaFX," became originally published at InfoWorld.com. follow the newest developments in enterprise know-how information and get a digest of the important thing reviews everyday within the InfoWorld every day newsletter. For the newest company technology information, observe InfoWorld on Twitter.
Oracle has launched Java general version 7 (SE 7) - its first principal update to the Java platform considering the fact that acquiring sun Microsystems.
Oracle referred to 97% of commercial enterprise desktops run Java with greater than three billion gadgets being powered by Java expertise.
The business also demonstrated plans to enhance the next edition, Java SE eight.
"i am joyful that the Java community has come collectively in favour of technical growth and that we have a clear direction forward for Java SE 8," referred to Hasan Rizvi, senior vice chairman Oracle Fusion Middleware and Java items.
"Oracle has a robust vested pastime in the success of the Java platform and is firmly dedicated to delivering a consistent, high-efficiency, exceptional Java SE implementation and may be assisting the Java SE 7 release across the Oracle Fusion Middleware product portfolio," he added.
Oracle verified plans to raise investment within the Java platform. Quoted in an Oracle blog put up, Steve Harris, senior vice president of app server building at Oracle, spoke of the company's priority is to retain Java "vibrant", moving against "free and open" and to increase aid for the Java developer community.
builders can entry the new SE 7 unlock by the use of NetBeans IDE 7 (built-in development ambiance), Eclipse Indigo with the Java SE 7 plug-in, or IntelliJ thought 10.5.
Oracle JDeveloper support for JDK 7 can be launched later in 2011.
In August 2010, Oracle sued Google over its Android mobile operating system software since it uses Java expertise obtained with the aid of Oracle when it bought solar Microsystems.
past this week, a US judge rejected Oracle's claim for $2.6bn in damages from Google for infringing Java patents, but has given Oracle the opportunity to get a hold of a greater reasonable claim.
The next Oracle Java SE essential patch replace is due on 18 October 2011.
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Date-Time APIs enable you to represent dates and times and manipulate date and time values. They support the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) calendar system as well as other commonly used global calendars. See the new Chapter 21.
If you plan to take one of the Java SE 8 certification exams, this book can help. The appendix, “Preparation for Java Programming Language Certification,” lists the three exams that are available, detailing the items covered by each exam, cross-referenced to places in the book where you can find more information about each topic. Note that this is one source, among others, that you will want to use to prepare for your exam. Check the online tutorial for the latest certification objectives and cross-references to sections of the tutorial.
As always, our goal is to create an easy-to-read, practical programmers’ guide to help you learn how to use the rich environment provided by Java to build applications, applets, and components. Go forth and program!
This book is designed so you can read it straight through or skip around from topic to topic. The information is presented in a logical order, and forward references are avoided wherever possible.
The examples in this book are compiled against the JDK 8 release. You need to download this release (or later) in order to compile and run most examples.
This book would not be what it is without the Oracle Java engineering team who tirelessly reviews the technical content of our writing. For this edition of the book, we especially want to thank Alan Bateman, Alex Buckley, Stephen Colebourne, Joe Darcy, Jeff Dinkins, Mike Duigou, Brian Goetz, Andy Herrick, Stuart Marks, Thomas Ng, Roger Riggs, Leif Samuelsson, and Daniel Smith.
Illustrators Jordan Douglas and Dawn Tyler created our professional graphics quickly and efficiently.
Editors Janet Blowney, Deborah Owens, and Susan Shepard provided careful and thorough copyedits of our JDK 8 work.
Thanks for the support of our team: Devika Gollapudi, Ram Goyal, and Alexey Zhebel.
Last but not least, thanks for the support of our management: Sowmya Kannan, Sophia Mikulinsky, Alan Sommerer, and Barbara Ramsey. | 2019-04-19T04:44:19Z | http://diamondfp.com.mx/?exam=1Z0-853 |
Your goal of creating your resume is to create a productive advertising tool. Creating a persuasive resume is not straightforward, even if you should be at precisely the stupidest. Resumes could be obscure that is a blunder. They’re a vital gate way to receive your fantasy job. Info-graphic resumes are hopeless to understand, states MacIntyre.
The occupation will be extremely challenging, but rewarding, additionally. You might be requested to finish a paper program, when you fill out an application for workin human being. Therefore, it is a endeavor but in the contest you’re passionate about working people, then it isn’t hard to control most of the assignments. Whether you’re browsing for another one or your first job, you will require a restart which shows companies you are a professional. It also ones that you emphasize will be dependent and the manner in which you term your own accomplishments on the job. The job, the market, and also the institution wasn’t the match.
You ought to arrange your resume to aid agencies evaluate your encounter. Your encounter need to deal with every vital qualification from the job statement. Though work experience is very important, many people take on jobs and tasks outside our day tasks that let us to raise and understand in powerful ways.
You will not have to take note of your project capabilities and abilities that are transferable, and also the requirements of the employer, however you have in order to recognize the best examples of in which you attested that talent or achievement. For example, you ought to incorporate. There are a few important skills that you have to possess on your own restart. Abilities and knowledge you’re called to get to be able to perform your work assignments comprise your duties.
Be certain to comprise restart achievements you may quantify in a different fashion. When an accomplishment is not readily quantifiable, you may supply a indication of the value of the success. Examples and Hopefully the ideas above ought to help you develop with some restart achievements. Your educational accomplishments, like the remaining of your resume, ought to become more transparent and easy to read thus an employer may skim within probably the most crucial sections of your resume direct away.
It’s mandatory that you tailor your resume accomplishments to produce sure they’re related to your professional life. You’ll also notice when necessary her accomplishments will be measured, generating accomplishments much more striking. Your achievements need to become significant. Make sure that they are related to the company. Your restart achievements ensure it is possible for you to clarify your wins therefore employers want to have a possibility on you. If you’re unsure about your own very own previous achievements and results, then talk to your previous supervisor or colleagues and endeavor to collect information.
Make sure you analyze the task description carefully and also choose keywords that you are able to relate with your own personally accomplishments. Think again if you think you have no livelihood accomplishments. Curating your achievements isn’t practically selecting the most useful ones, it is about picking the very best ones to your own job that you’d really like to have. The optimal/optimally way to work out which accomplishments and qualities organizations value is rather effortless.
If you’re finding it nearly impossible to develop any achievements all on your own, you will consistently question your colleagues or friends to assist. A normal suggestion in regards to upgrading your resume is always to concentrate on accomplishments as an alternative to assignments. Accomplishments are not solely an manner of describing your talents and experience, they proof one’s prior performance. Several also believe that it’s catchy to detect definite accomplishments in the industry.
Statements are from time to time referred to as bullet bills mainly because they usually focus on a bullet. There are particular matters connected in producing an impressive target statement. A summary statement can be a professional debut the peak of one’s resume might raise. A solid summary statement in the peak of your resume may increase the possibility of them noticing everything you have surely got to give from the beginning.
Simply take a look at the work description, in case you have thisparticular, then customize your own resume. The task description fluctuates with this area of perform in accord. You ought to research the job description. But in the event you tailor your resume to organize together with your job description, you’ll have identified and added that the proper essential terms to your resume.
An accomplishment section will be a to your resume. Incorporating an accomplishments element into your resume is just really a superb procedure to exhibit your finest achievements and elements of knowledge as they relate to the task which you are searching for. Your resume achievements section should be calibrated together with all the rest of one’s qualifications and experiences.
In a sense, it’s an introduction of yourself which you will give into this reader. The debut needs to function as standard paragraph overview. Many times you will have touse an introduction to yourself which can help you receive a function opportunity or assist you.
You might use the cases utilized within the next section. The letter is actually a writing practice As you’re able to see from the above case. This career objective examples might be of use for persons, that want to know more about deploying resume aims that emphasize qualifications and their abilities. It’s crucial to offer references that will aid the reader form a connection towards the letter’s contents.
You don’t have to modify the advice you includeayou only should exhibit the information. You keep it simple nonetheless with necessary information. You definitely should be selective and also make sure all critical advice before employing, are seen within a advertisement. Keep the observe of this letter favorable and also be sure that you pay most of the information about the person that you’re currently presenting in a couple of lines.
Your resume should be formatted within a straightforward way. Producing resumes, locating a job and going to numerous interviews can seem to become an clinic. You may possibly try to qualify to get a job although they employer has been hunting for a person to update the business enterprise website however doesn’t have the opportunity. Restart to organizations As it has to perform searching for work that you will often have to ship a cv. To start out with, you’ve must submit a program for the job by simply delivering a copy of one’s bio data , in the event the bio data gets short-listed, you may need to handle a series of tests and interviews. Around the reverse side, when you’re looking to get a research-oriented job, you are going to be likely to provide more comprehensive info about your search publications, their scope and methodology, etc.. And you might also mention that excelling at work and acquiring the experience could be your trick to results.
The letter should be constructed in such a way it contrasts without seeming like you are blowing your own horn. Be confident that it’s a responsibility which has to become fulfilled in an perfect manner In the event you’ve been requested to write a reference correspondence with someone. A specialist reference letter should be more precise and plainly published.
Primarily, it’s a formal type of correspondence writing compared to the letter that is conventional. Thus the correspondence is similar to any official business letter. This sample letter of intent would enable you to write an one on your own.
If you’re composing an introduction correspondence to either acquire perhaps even a cover letter or employment, it’s vital that your letter is a good example of brevity and doesn’t drag. Letters of introduction are often written using the objective of introducing a possible employee to a small business organization, also occasionally it is even composed to inquire about a livelihood possibility. Writing a business letter of introduction could grow in to a fantastic deal simpler if you adhere to this easy format .
A formal correspondence has to earn an outstanding impression. An official correspondence must possess lots of components, that will need to be set at positions that are prescribed. A powerful cover letter will be also usually the one that proceeds to demonstrate that you’re evident on your own thoughts. Writing very excellent cover letters increases your own chances of discovering the career that you dream about and can be actually a way to secure the core of the future employer.
This kind of template will allow one to create just what you should need as a way to keep everyone. For greater functionality and flexibility, it will be possible to make a receipt template. The reception template offered with us will be a record citing the sale or purchase details. A blank receipt template has attributes that might be ideal for a big range of companies. It is easy produce thousands of top high excellent accounts also to download a specific professional first-class sales receipt template.
Only have a look previously mentioned to observe the kind of template you could utilize. 267 cover letter templates you print and may download free of price. You can create your resume cover letter template onto your mac dealing with the above mentioned arrangement.
Recruiters are folks. They know that should you’re satisfied and happy at the role then you definitely are going to perform the ideal. The recruiters do not have the time to open these links, then you wont lose any such thing. The arrangement must try more troublesome to review every resume, and then you definitely could be right, if you’re pondering effectively, but that is maybe not the facts. Just about every once in just a little though, the phone rings, plus it’s a recruiter at the end. Since this might come in time and less turnover for you to undergo applicants after all, a recruiter might love to choose candidates that hold the interest and abilities in executing the job. Some pro occupation recruiters give crucial career advice at no cost.
Out of my interviews to purchase my PM job several individuals actually looked at my resume. While the occupation may entail perhaps a name or cash, you need to show up and perform this occupation each day. It makes it feasible once you are there to find work, it teaches you the best way to cultivate on your brand new function. By adding overly or the important things lots of things to your resume, will be saved from having the market occupation that you want. Many decide that more is better, simply because they canand that’s but among the primary mistakes you could possibly 26, delivering as many works. You’ve done the prep work each. In the event that you would like to receive work in a business that is renowned, do your very best also to show and to fulfill with their standards.
Desks are not a one-size-fits-all item. An individual considers each one of those signs. Generally , well-written resumes center on candidates and teamwork’ actions.
Whether you are an employer or a job seeker, accomplishment in nabbing the fantasy occupation which leads to a career route at earnings or at finding earnings talent for your own company is determined by the recruiting strategy you decide on. By way of example, like sales specialists, sales founders wish to close winning deals amongst a earnings candidate and a company. An executive recruiter needs to become resourceful and creative when it regards locating the candidates and calling them. Hiring managers and skim resumes to establish if they wish to inform you personally and interviewers skim to ascertain what matters to consult with you about. Choosing administrators (for the massive part) are especially enthusiastic in what you’ve been doing at the previous 2 3 decades and the way it is related to the location they’re attempting to fill.
The consulting is more applicable to professional experience and his work. At present, on the sector, many service providers have generated an advanced concept of creating resume samples. Companies really like to realize that you are hungry to learn. Let’s have a better look. From then on, connect with those who work at the firm you’re seeking employment in. Because its people are so fantastic, the company is so amazing, and Google knows it. Investing at a resume screening technology could possibly be the optimal/optimally way togo, if this is true.
A good deal of PhDs are loath to use their University email when employing jobs due to the fact that they think their PI is probably going to hack in their electronic mail accounts in order to figure out they are attempting to leave the laboratory. It really is straightforward to become confused In case it comes to resume credentials. Some applicants do dare attain their cover letters don’t look striking 23, their resumes see. You’re going to want recruiters who are prepared to meet with them if you should be most likely to obtain those candidates. Nearly all recruiters think screening applicants have become the hardest and most most time-consuming section of these endeavor. The very frequent mistakes that would continue to keep your resume are the most basic to repair. Keep in mind that your target will be to impress the recruiters is the reason it is essential to pick the illustrations which can be stunning.
Just submitting your resume into some ton of tasks isn’t likely to get the job finished. In later, expect you’ll discover a correspondence that won’t always have the optimal/optimally recommendation which may have been. The cover letter is easily the most important software to entice the recruiters’ curiosity . Setting a goal statement will not help you receive an industry job. Your letter does not need to build up in grand, but it must be authentic. In a sense, it could possibly be clarified being an crucial correspondence.
Ongoing education is necessary for renewing license that was Phlebotomist. You may want to look at relocating for the perfect occupation opportunity, as you complete your program and certifications to get phlebotomy. These assessments will test processes and your experience at phlebotomy and also other associated subjects. Once graduation, you must have the detailed phlebotomy examination provided from the American Society of Phlebotomy Technicians or ASPT. You could get your CPR certificate to improve your own resume.
Your resume can be enhanced by right selection of phrases in a lot of means. It is likely to look more examples of restart to discover format and the perfect ideas to compose the resume so you may describe yourself using terminology however simple and simple to understand. You have the capacity to to opt to include a couple of references in the bottom of your restart, although it is mandatory. Be sure to make utilize of keywords. The advice it is possible to contribute on your function on your projects, the better. It is vital catch the interest of hiring administrators and create the right impression. You have to have a restart which gives companies an insight about the way they won’t regret employing one, to submit an application to get a posture for a phlebotomist.
A specialist reference correspondence should be more specific and generated. In case you was asked to compose a benchmark correspondence then be confident it is just a responsibility which really ought to be all fulfilled within a suitable trend. In afterwards, get prepared to acquire yourself a hurried correspondence that will not possess the recommendation which might have already been. An work adventure section is additionally created by the candidate within this phlebotomist resume sample. In the event that you’d want you to be seen by employers as an individual, then yes.
In the event you necessitate a technician occupation then you should make use of an phlebotomy restart that is ideal. Keep in mind that the selecting managers proceed thru lots of resumes. Bear at heart, HR professionals have a great deal of resumes at if they’re choosing to check. Establish that you just prepared competent at virtually any given moment. It is difficult to come across phlebotomist endeavors that are right.
By highlighting your very most useful features and trying to keep matters easy and brief, you can gather an extraordinary record. Benefit from the sample and also these strategies resume under to make your expert record. Luckily, it is not complicated to compile a resume that is great as soon as you have a structure at heart. Your own ability to show your sample resume for phlebotomy of knowledge. Just take a look in order to find out how written or a restart ought to be made.
No matter exactly what, you will possibly will need to add history. Statistics reveal that companies simply commit a couple seconds glancing over a resume, so helping to make it very important to stick out amongst the perhaps tens of thousands of applicants. The advice on your resume includes nursing qualifications along with your contact advice. Your resume can represent several matters about youfrom your private advice, for your success and personal interests in life. Consider with a resume-creating service In the event that you would like a really professional-looking resume. Employers and some internship internet sites might possibly need a background check. You know segments to include and also the best way it’s crucial to know in developing a good resume, what to avoid.
Assessing a sample ICU RN resume is really a method to comprehend how to write your own. Even the ICU restart does not need to contain all of your information. Phlebotomists additionally need to become meticulous to make sure that there clearly was going that there is no errors in handling and labeling of blood samples. Whether this Phlebotomist resume example was not adequate for you, you are free of charge to critique templates and some different samples . Possessing a straight-forward Phlebotomist resume aim will enable you to get the ball rolling while within the path. In the resume, you can also cite your permits and certifications to ensure the organization if you should be graduated out of the suitable industry. It’s also crucial to state that in your resume Mainly because wants a license and certificate.
You’ll find scores of unique strategies . Some people state they’d want to escape soon following five decades. A whole lot of individuals opt to keep here and use significantly less than the. It will become even simpler for you to introduce your self. Interviewers are just searching for the appropriate words on this newspaper. It might pull in and also instincts, to begin with.
Your scarf ought to attest. When the letterhead is designed for personal or company usage, there are. Provided you’re not utilizing your letterhead for company reasons, you may use . Letterhead is utilized to provide advice that was critical in correspondence. If you’re intending to generate your letterheads, be certain that you receive them printed with way of a trustworthy printing organization.
A letterhead can be utilized to give communicating a expert appearance in formal correspondence. To start with, you have to have a letterhead. It’s crucial to make certain your letterhead is just a good reflection of who you are and the graphic you wish to convey on the internet and on paper.
Pick how you would like it to look When you know what you want on your letterhead. Letterhead does not will need to be ornate or fancy. Letter-heads always have vital information about a business like web page, address, their mobile numbers, emblem and email. Developing a individual letterhead is really a means to stamp your personality. You can create your letterhead online paper.
You must be aware of selecting the most suitable electronic picture printing products and services. Marketing your business can help you get the most profits continue steadily to keep your clients fulfilled and is beneficial. A firm using the right branding abilities are not merely planning to offer a great image to the firm, it will likewise make people identify some thing particular with this new. If you will need to create a pleasant feel or are in possession of a company that is small, a emblem that is hand-drawn might be the way to go. You might have the ability to make a business from buying and creating fake excuse notes. By way of instance, if you have a wedding catering company, you don’t need the post-card to include floral coloring since it may appear unprofessional.
Giving a shorthand for what you can do would be really a great approach to use a logo. If you are only starting, you likely thinking about the sort of brand you’d really like to create to represent your logo . Your logo is one of the exact first things we notice about your organization. Use images and free graphics to visually describe your services and goods until you have obtained a custom symbol of one’s own. The design is ideally suited for the heavy metallic superstar. Be sure that your design contains comparison to ensure the writing stays easy to read. My design fashion that is private is easy and quite clean, with lots of white distance.
These graphics are available free of charge for commercial use, and also you also may possibly do what you’d enjoy with them. Some graphics start using a CC permit. With images published daily, Unsplash is probably the oldest & most popular free stockphoto blogs on the market.
Inspite of the simple fact which you are interested in receiving the note it’s much advisable to write it rather than scanning itto deliver the observe a touch. Thus, it’s highly advised that you simply just make work with of a note which appears true. After you have the present, it is far better send a thankyou note whenever possible. The perfect means to locate a high excellent watch would be to buy it from an dependable site that sells superior dr. printing notes.
For a number of individuals, creating a quick narrative is more easy than producing a storyline letter. For this cause, it’s far better to know the perfect way about how to compose a drugstore letter of advice to have the ability to urge some one the best way you are aware. Your own personal announcement is the belief for every residency program that you’re employing to join. You may receive sample letters and exclusive high suggestions to assist you. Employer reference letters are extremely easy and certainly will probably be requested from your human resources representative at your organization. The first consideration if composing a great health and exercise sales letter to emphasize is to pay attention to the potential consumer. Writing an excellent health and exercise earnings letter goes to be in your training livelihood.
You may have an example of one’s product or an promotional thing that’s certainly going to be a constant reminder of one’s company eg. Ergo, for analysing the caliber of these notes 27, you ought to utilize examples or sample accessible online however. Next, you need to comprise some types of job. A template can be purchased by a number of sites on the web, and it is likely to provide crucial period should employed effectively. A physician’s observe template may be used for several of facets. In addition, there are free letterhead templates . | 2019-04-22T20:07:54Z | https://www.tomofukumaru.com/brief-an-behorde-muster/ |
Stethoscope: what is it and how is it used?
The whole point of making this website. The mighty stethoscope.
A stethoscope is a medical device that is used, generally, by doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. They use it predominantly to perform checks on the heart and lung functions. These checks are called auscultations. Thanks to a stethoscope medical professionals can easily hear if your heart or lungs function properly.
To a lesser degree mechanics also use stethoscopes. During the running of an engine stethoscopes can be used to determine any faults that might happen in the cylinder of a combustion engine. Unfortunately you cannot open a cylinder during a running engine to check out faults as this would intervene with the normal functioning of an engine. Therefore a stethoscope allows them to perform diagnostics on the engine. Much like a medical professional with a human body.
It was invented in France by the french scientist Rene Laennec in Paris. This innovation came from necessity. He felt uncomfortable placing his ears on women’s chests in order to listen to heart sounds. As a result he decided to come up with a device that would add a little bit more distance between him and his patients.
The first prototype he came up with looked like an ocular device pirates would use.
He would place his ear on one end of this primitive stethoscope and the other end would end up on his patients’ chests. The design for this device has a lot of similarities with an old hearing aid device called an “ear trumpet“. Rene noticed that a rolled up notebook would amplify the sound of a beating heart without physical contact with the patient. He called his device a stethoscope. The term stethoscope has its origins in Ancient Greek. “Stethos” means chest and “Scope” which can be loosely translated as a listening device.
The earliest forms of stethoscopes that resembles the ones we know today came out in 1855 and were invented by Golding Bird. These were the first ones to feature flexible tubing. This next level of innovation was meant to provide extra comfort to the people performing auscultations.
Stethoscopes as we know them today are arguably the most recognizable piece of medical equipment out there. They are THE sign of medical professionals. Studies have also shown that images of people in lab-coats get a huge bump in confidentiality if they have a stethoscope draped around their neck. automatically people associate stethoscopes with the trustworthiness of a doctor. Even though mechanics, albeit to a lesser degree, are frequent users of stethoscopes as well!
There are those that say that slowly but surely the stethoscope is becoming obsolete. The rise of portable ultrasound devices are slowly fazing out the stethoscopes in hospitals. At least when it comes to cardiovascular research. In checking lungs and bowels for signs of disease however the stethoscope still has its place. However only time will tell for how long.
Probably the best known stethoscope-type. They operate on the transmission of sound from the chest piece to the listeners’ ears, via air-filled hollow tubes. The chest piece usually consists of 2 sides that can be placed on the patients’ chest. a bell and a diaphragm. If the diaphragm is placed on the patients’ chest, acoustic airwaves are produced by the vibration of the plastic diaphragm which travel through the tubing to the listeners’ ears. If the bell is used then the vibrations are directly transmitted to the listeners’ ears. the diaphragm is used to hear high- frequency sounds while the bell best delivers low frequency sounds. Both are necessary to conduct a full scale auscultation. This two-sided stethoscope was invented by Rappaport and Sprague in the early part of the 20th century. Both also have stethoscope types named after them.
One major issue with acoustic stethoscopes has always been that the sound level is really low. This problem was overcome however in 1999 with the invention of the stratified continuous lumen, and the kinetic acoustic mechanism in 2002.
The first way in which this is done is by placing a microphone in the chestpiece. However this method has a lot of drawbacks. By amplifying the sound directly you have to deal with a lot of background noise that will be inadvertently amplified as well. This can seriously hinder an auscultation.
Another way to do this, and how 3M for instance does it, is to use a piezo-electric crystal. Piezo electric crystals work in such a way that when pressure is applied to them (think a heartbeat), a small electric charge is released. As a result ambient noise is filtered out and you only hear the actual heartbeat in digital form.
The big benefit of electronic stethoscopes is that you can store a patient’s auscultation to form a base-file of that patient. You will always have a future reference to go to if you hear or find something out of place. Secondly as the sounds they produce are digital, you can add a splitter device to the acoustic-outlet. This enables you to add a second pair of headphones. As a result you and your students can listen in on the same auscultation and you can show your students what to look out for.
A fetal stethoscope or a fetoscope looks a lot like the old listening trumpet. The device works by placing one end of the stethoscope on the pregnant woman’s abdomen. This allows the listener to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus. A fetoscope is also called a Pinard horn after the French obstetrician Adolphe Pinard.
A doppler stethoscope works using the famed doppler-effect. Motion is detected by the change in frequency of the soundwaves. As a result stethoscopes that use the doppler effect as the main detection principle have been shown to be more sensitive in the detection of aortic regurgitations and the detection of impaired ventricular relaxation.
Wherever possible it is recommended to do an auscultation in a quiet space. For EMT’s however this is not always possible and for them different stethoscopes have been developed. You can read more on the best stethoscopes for EMT’s here. Mostly the stethoscopes they use have special noise-dampening technology to muffle out the background noise.
The reason why you need to do an auscultation in a quiet space seems self-evident. It is important you focus fully on the sounds you want and need to hear. A noisy environment will only distract you too much from the job at hand.
Next it is important to keep in mind that the positioning of the patient plays an important role during the auscultation. A patient’s lungs can sound different whether he or she is laying on his/her’s side or sitting up etc. To listen to the heart and abdomen it’s recommended for your patient to lay down. However for the lungs you’ll find it easier if the patient is sitting up.
Thirdly you need to decide if you want to go for the high-pitched or low-frequency sounds. The chestpiece on your stethoscope most likely will have 2 sides. One’s a bell and the other one is a diaphragm as described in the sections above.
The diaphragm is the bottom side pictured in the image above. It basically is a plastic sheet that transmits vibrations from your skin and delivers them via the tubing to the listener’s ears. It is this side you have to use to hear medium to high-pitched sounds.
On the other hand the bell-side is just a chamber that forms between the chestpiece and your patient’s chest. The change in volume of this chamber as a result of for example heart beats causes sound waves to travel via the tubing to the listener’s ear. Use this side for the..you guessed it.. low-pitched sounds.
Note: Always use the chestpiece on bare skin. If your patient still has clothes on while you use your stethoscope chances are you’ll hear nothing but rustling. The same issue persists if you treat someone who is overly hairy. Unfortunately in that case there is nothing the patient can do about it other than shave everything off. However if you face a particularly hairy patient, keep the chestpiece still to keep the rustling to a minimum.
Heart sounds are generally medium to high-pitched. So in order to study the heart you need to use the diaphragm on your stethoscope. Place the diaphragm on your patient’s chest. Try to place it in such a way that the diaphragm covers the space on the left upper chest, where the 4th and 6th rib meet. This is almost directly under the breast. Then hold the chestpiece between your index and middle finger. Gently apply pressure until you do not hear your fingers rubbing together anymore.
Ask your patient to breathe normally. Try to listen to the heart for a full minute. During this time you should hear a sound which is best described as a “lub-dub”-sound. Of course it is hard to convey a sound through written text but I have found that “lub-dub” comes pretty close to what you will hear in real life.
These “lub” and “dub”-sounds also have their own, more scientific names. The “lub”- or systolic-sound happens when the mitral and tricuspid valves of the heart close.
The “dub”-sound, or diastolic, happens when the aortic and pulmonic valves close.
Usually a normal person’s resting heart rate can be anything between 60 and 100 beats per minute. A well-trained athlete however will have a bigger heart. As a result the heart will need to pump less per minute to circulate blood around the body.
A well-trained athlete’s resting heart-rate lies between 40-60 beats per minute.
For infants and kids under 10 years old the normal heart-beat per minute range varies per age. For newborns it is very fast. Between 70-190 BPM.
However then as the kid matures, their heart grows and has to beat less to keep the blood flowing. Once a child turns 2 their heart beats already between 80-130 BPM.
Children between 7-9 have a heartbeat between 70-110 BPM.
First up if the heart-rate is elevated from the normal, that might be a sign of an underlying condition, or it can be that your patient is just nervous to be examined. That is why it is important to get a good understanding of how your patient behaves under normal circumstances.
However even for the untrained ear here are some pointers to look out or.
If you hear a sound that is more like “lub…shhhh…dub”, that might point to a heart murmur. A heart murmur is caused when blood rushes too quickly through the valves.
If you hear one there is still not immediately cause for concern as most people do have benign heart murmurs from time to time. However you should advise your patient to go check it out if you do detect one.
If you hear another sound, other than the familiar “lub-dub” then your patient might have a ventricular defect. This third heart sound is referred to as S3 or a ventricular gallop. It sounds like a low-frequency vibration. Advise your patient to go see a doctor if you hear this third heart sound.
Here is a list of normal and abnormal sounds that you can use to practice yourself. Go through this list and maybe after a while you can blindly identify some of the common heart conditions just by sound alone!
The word “bruit” comes from the French word “bruit” and means “noise”. Usually when you detect a heart murmur in your patient you might want to check out if there are any bruit-sounds. They sound similar but are checked in completely different places.
First you need to place your stethoscope using the diaphragm side over one of the carotid arteries. The carotid arteries are 2 big arteries that run in the front of your neck, on either side of the Adam’s apple.
Be careful not to press too hard on the artery as you could cut off blood supply to the brain and cause your patient to faint. Never block off both arteries either as this surely will result in fainting. This is what MMA’s famous “choke-hold” is based on.
A bruit makes a whooshing sound that indicates an artery is narrowed. Here’s usually where the confusion happens. A bruit and a heart murmur can sound almost identical. However a bruit will sound much louder when you listen to the carotid arteries rather than the heart. You can also listen for bruits over the abdominal aorta, renal arteries, iliac arteries and femoral arteries.
A constricted artery is a serious medical issue and requires medical attention. Tell your patient to go see a doctor straight away!
Ask your patient to sit up straight and breathe normally. If you cannot hear any breathing sounds or if the breathing is too shallow to hear any abnormalities then ask your patient to breathe deeper.
Just like when doing a heart auscultation you need to use your diaphragm when checking the patient’s lungs. Listen to your patient’s upper and lower lobes and inspect the front and back.
The aim of the game is to compare both sides of your patient’s lungs and note if anything sounds out of the ordinary.
Normal breathing sounds are clear and crisp. It sounds like someone would be blowing air into a cup. Here’s a sample of normal lung sounds to train your ears. You can use these sounds to compare them to the ones you hear in your patients.
Stridor-sounds sound similar to wheezing but occur when the patient inhales. This is usually the result of a blockage in the back of the throat. Also this can be heard at times without the need for a stethoscope.
Rhonchi sounds sound like snoring. You need a stethoscope to detect these sounds. They are caused when air flows through a “rough” patch in the lungs or because the air-pathway in the lungs is blocked.
Rales sounds sound like popping bubble-wrap or rattling in the lungs. This is heard when a person inhales.
Divide the abdomen into 4 sections using your patient’s bellybutton as a reference. Listen to the upper left, -right and lower left, -right sections of the abdomen. Use the diaphragm side of the chestpiece of your stethoscope.
Normal bowel sounds sound like when your stomach growls or grumbles. Anything else may suggest something is wrong and the patient requires further attention. You should hear growling in all four sections. However if your patient has just had surgery it might take a while for the growling sounds to return.
Lack of bowel sounds. This should raise your suspicion. If you do not hear anything it might be that something is blocked in the patient’s stomach. It could also be indicative of constipation and bowel sounds may return on their own.
However if they don’t then the patient needs to be checked out by a doctor.
Hyperactive or fast bowel sounds can be indicative of Crohn’s disease, a gastrointestinal bleed, food allergies and a whole other host of not so nice causes. Have your patient checked out straight away. If these fast bowel sounds are followed by a lack of bowel sounds then it could be there has been a rupture or necrosis of the bowel tissue.
Lastly very high-pitched bowel sounds can indicate there is an obstruction in the bowels. Air passing through the gaps of this obstruction is restricted, causing the high-pitched sounds.
Turn up your volume to get the most out of this following video!
This is probably where you and I have seen a stethoscope used most.
You’ll need a “Sphygmomanometer” for this. In simple terms this just means blood-pressure gauge. On our right hand side we can see one. In order to measure your patient’s blood pressure you first need to roll up the sleeve if it’s in the way. If you measure someone’s blood pressure you always need to make sure the blood pressure cuff fits snugly on bare skin.
Press the bell of the stethoscope over the brachial artery just below the cuff’s edge. You can also use the diaphragm if you have trouble hearing with the bell. The sounds to look out for are called “Korotkoff”-sounds. These are low tone knocking sounds that indicate the patient’s systolic blood pressure.
Next inflate the cuff to 180mmHg or 30mm above your expected systolic blood pressure. You can find the reading by looking at the sphygmomanometer. That’s just a fancy word for the gauge on the blood pressure cuff. Then, release air from the cuff at a moderate rate (3mm/sec).
As you release the air, listen with the stethoscope and keep your eyes on the sphygmomanometer (gauge on the blood pressure cuff).
You should hear a knocking sound as air releases fro the cuff. Make a mental note the first time you hear such a knocking sound of the reading on your gauge. This will be the patient’s systolic blood pressure. Keep watching the gauge though as the second knocking sound will come just around the corner.
After this knocking sound stops, note the number on your gauge when you last heard a knocking sound. This is the patient’s diastolic pressure.
Lastly release all the air from the cuff once you noted these two numbers and send your patient home.
If the systolic pressure is over 120 or diastolic pressure is more than 80, you might want to recheck your patient’s blood pressure once a few minutes have passed. If the second measurement shows again an increased blood pressure it’s time to go see a doctor to find out the cause! | 2019-04-25T13:55:50Z | http://www.stethoscopepros.com/stethoscope/ |
Inland lakes constitute one of our greatest natural resources. They are immensely popular features, particularly as recreational community developments. Waterfront property has become so popular that in recent years the demand far exceeds the supply. Unfortunately, as a result of increased population growth, intensified use of surface waters, exploitation of shoreline properties, and other human pressures, inland lakes increasingly are being threatened. Declining water quality, nuisance algae blooms, excessive weed growths, deteriorating fisheries, sediment infilling, eutrophication, contamination, shoreline erosion, water-use conflicts, impaired scenic qualities and depreciating property values are common problems being experienced by lake property owners as a result of human activities. These and other critical problems are avoidable.
Inland lakes can be managed successfully and protected or restored. But those who do so must understand the natural processes of the lake environment and be sensitive to its complexities and delicate balance. Successful preservation of any high-quality, multi-purpose recreational lake is contingent upon (1) gathering essential baseline information concerning the existing conditions of the specific lake, (2) formulating a comprehensive lake management plan based on reliable scientific data, and (3) implementing proper lake management techniques based on known facts. An initial lake survey will provide the necessary information about the current state of the lake, the selection of adequate lake management methods, answer specific questions, resolve significant controversies, and serve as a basis for future lake management policy decisions.
surface-water use conflicts such as disagreements among fishermen, swimmers, powerboaters, and water-skiers.
All of these problems will increase in severity because the amount of surface water of most lakes is fixed while the human pressures upon the lake surface waters is increasing as the number of lake lot owners grows and usage is heavier.
None of the three fundamental types of lake problems are mutually exclusive. For example, physical damage (i.e. erosion) to the lakeshore caused by excessive powerboating can increase sedimentation and turbidity and reduce water quality. Because shorelines act as a buffer between water and land, absorbing the pressures of use, trapping nutrients, and retarding erosion, protecting shorelines must be addressed in a lake management plan. Also, just as shore lands have an optimal development density, the lake surface has a limited carrying capacity. Both the physical and psychological interference conflicts that arise among swimmers, boaters, water-skiers, divers, and fishermen must be considered in a comprehensive lake management plan.
The principal water-quality problems encountered in lakes come from the processes of eutrophication, sedimentation, and contamination. Eutrophication is the process by which lakes are enriched with nutrients, essentially phosphorus and nitrogen. Sedimentation is the deposition and accumulation of both organic and inorganic matter in lake bottoms. Contamination is the process by which a health hazard is created when harmful substances are added to a lake. This classification of water-quality problems draws somewhat arbitrary distinctions. These three processes are not mutually exclusive; for example, soil sediments carried into a lake from erosion and runoff not only cause sedimentation but also can transport absorbed nutrients or toxic substances causing eutrophication and contamination problems.
The term eutrophication refers to the natural and artificial addition of nutrients to lake waters and the effects of these added nutrients. Eutrophication is an aspect of lake aging; it is a process that increases the rate at which lakes disappear or become unsuitable for human use. Although many lakes naturally are destined to extinction, unwise land and water uses greatly accelerate this aging process. Human activities, which introduce excess nutrients and other pollutants, often termed cultural eutrophication, greatly accelerate this process. The problem is critical in most recreational lakes because of increased population growth, excessive surface-water uses, intensive lake basin development, and greater exploitation of shoreline properties.
Eutrophication results in the deterioration of water quality. Lake waters and bathing areas that were once clear, pure, and refreshing become murky, turbid, coated with algae slimes, and choked with aquatic weeds. Desirable sport fish decline in numbers and size and may taste "off-flavor," and the species composition shifts toward less desirable trash fish such as carp. These are the obvious characteristics of a eutrophic lake. More commonly, the indicators of eutrophication go unnoticed by the casual observer. However, subtle changes in the abundance of aquatic organisms, shifts in species composition, and the appearance of polluted-water life forms allow skilled lake scientists to determine rate of change and predict changes.
Man-made eutrophication, in contrast to natural eutrophication, is rapid, but can be reduced or reversed by restricting or limiting the rate of supply of nutrients to the lake. Lakes are enriched by nutrients that come from two kinds of sources. Nutrients, which enter the lake, concentrated at a specific location such as upstream sewage treatment plants, canneries, dairies, paper mills, feedlots, and storm drains are referred to as point sources. These sources readily are identified, concentrated, and, therefore, easier to treat. Unfortunately, most recreational lakes are affected by non-point sources such as nutrient-rich runoff from agricultural fields and pastures, fertilized lawns and gardens, leaf litter, and groundwater or rainfall, and seepage from septic tank systems - all high in nutrients. These diffuse sources are much more difficult to pinpoint and to treat.
The filling of lakes by soil sediments (sedimentation) is part of the slow, natural aging process of lakes, taking thousands of years. When enhanced by human activities, rapid sedimentation can result in a lake's premature death. Soil sediments entering a lake can originate from within the lake itself and from external sources. Poor agricultural practices, highway construction, logging, and land development activities contribute sediment inflows and threaten nearby lakes. Within the lake basin, erosion caused by excavation and deforestation on steep shoreline slopes and wave action cause shoreline erosion, furnishing sediments to be transported and deposited elsewhere in the lake. Sedimentation makes the lakes shallower, decreasing the volume of water and, thereby reducing the amount of surface water available for recreation. In addition, sedimentation, promotes water loss and higher evaporation rates, depreciates riparian property values, increases water temperature, depletes oxygen supplies, and causes fish kills.
Man-made lakes (reservoirs) often are created by damming streams and backing the waters into stream valleys. These main-stream impoundments often fill up with silt and sediments at a much faster rate than natural lakes that periodically are flushed of their sediments by strong floods. Artificial lakes, in effect, serve as sediment basins, trapping the eroded soil sediments by sharply reducing the inflowing stream's velocity and, therefore, its capacity to transport sediment loads. Eroded soil sediments suspended in flowing waters rapidly settle out and fall to the bottom in standing waters. Sedimentation dramatically reduces the effective life span of mainstream impoundments.
Proper land-use practices, which prevent soil erosion and limit the input of both sediments (sedimentation) and nutrients (eutrophication), are essential in inland lake management. The most fundamental objective of watershed management and lake preservation is to keep the soil on the land. Eroded soil sediments not only serve to transport weed growth-stimulating nutrients but also reduce the average depth and volume of lakes. It is much easier to limit sedimentation and prevent eutrophication than it is to remove excessive sediments and nutrients once they have entered the lake.
species composition, age structure, growth rates, feeding habits, and physical condition of the sport-fish populations.
The morphometry (size and shape) and bathymetry (depth relationships) of lakes are fundamental physical factors that regulate many physiochemical and biological events occurring within lake basins. These physical dimensions of a lake, together with climatic and edaphic (soils and geology) factors play a major role in determining the water quality and trophic status of lakes. Drainage patterns, flushing times, thermal stratification, the distribution of dissolved gasses, aquatic life, and many other factors, which govern the productivity of lake ecosystems all are markedly influenced by morphometric and bathymetric attributes of a lake.
Some lakes are relatively long and narrow, some are tree-like (dendritic) in shape, and others are nearly circular. The tree-like shape provides an extensive amount of shore land that is desirable for recreational lake developments. Numerous shallow coves and a highly irregular shoreline margin account for a relatively high shoreline development index. Most main-stream impoundment lakes are shallowest at the inlet and deepest at the dam. Areas and volumes of lakes, which are useful numbers in calculating liming, herbicide, and other chemical treatments, can be measured accurately with a bathometric map. Knowledge of the size of the drainage basin and the types of land use in the watershed (agricultural, forest, fields, urban development) are important variables that relate to water quality and the turnover time of water in a lake.
Light penetration or transparency is a measure of the depth to which light can penetrate into the water. Transparency is useful in determining the depth of photic zone - the depth to which sufficient light to permit the survival and growth of water plants. The minimum intensity of subsurface light that permits photosynthesis is one percent of the sunlight striking the surface. Thus, the photic zone (plant-life zone) extends from the water surface to the depth at which 99 percent of the surface light has been filtered out. Light penetration, as measured by a Secchi disc, is expressed as the depth at which the Secchi disc disappears when viewed vertically from the shaded side of a vessel. Although Secchi disc transparency is a function of many factors including water color, suspended and dissolved solids, phytoplankton and zooplankton abundances, it serves as a convenient index of water clarity. In clear, oligotrophic waters, Secchi disc visibility is high and water plants grow to great depths. In contrast, in turbid, eutrophic waters Secchi disc transparency is low and plant life is restricted to relatively shallow waters. Observed Secchi disc readings in natural lakes may range from 1 inch to over 130 feet (40 meters) in depth.
Seasonal changes in Secchi disc transparency values correspond to high suspended-sediment inflows and a spring phytoplankton pulse. The midsummer period of maximum light penetration may correspond with maximum zooplankton concentrations, suggesting that grazing by herbivorous zooplankters may, in part, be responsible for increased water clarity. Frequently a down-lake water clarity gradient is observed as a result of high loads of suspended sediments in inflowing waters.
For comparative purposes, Secchi disc transparencies often are converted to vertical light extinction coefficients, which represent the ratio of the photic zone depth to the Secchi disc transparency. A constant of 1.7 (Cole, 1975), which, when divided by the Secchi disc transparencies, provides reasonable estimates of the vertical light extinction coefficients. Light extinction coefficients for natural lake waters range from 0.2 for clear oligotrophic lakes to about 4.0 in highly stained eutrophic lakes (Wetzel, 1975). Light extinction coefficient ranges for lakes of varying trophic status provided by Likens (1975) are: ultraoliogotrophic (0.03 - 0.8), oligotrophic (0.05 - 1.0), mesotrophic (0.1 - 2.0), and eutrophic (0.5 - 4.0).
Secchi disc transparency values provide a useful index for evaluating water clarity. Water clarity not only is important in an aesthetic sense to those recreational lake users who prefer clear waters, but the amount of light penetrating into the lake is a major regulating factor that controls aquatic plant production. Clear lakes with high light-transmission values are conducive to water plant growth provided adequate nutrients are available. In general, the relationship between Secchi disc measurements and the depth to which aquatic plant life can exist (photic zone to one percent of the available surface light) is approximately three times the average Secchi disc value. For example, in Lake Caroline with an annual mean Secchi disc value of 3 feet, the maximum depth to which aquatic plants would be expected to grow is 9 feet.
It is important to note that just as clear water does not necessarily indicate clean (unpolluted) water, turbid water is not always representative of polluted water. Lake waters contain inherent colors caused by dissolved humic acids and other substance, which cannot be removed by any practical technique.
Turbidity is a measure of the waters optical properties resulting from the scattering and absorbing of light by suspended particulate matter. The amount of turbidity or degree of opaqueness of lake water depends on the size, shape, refractory indices, and concentrations of suspended particles. Particulate matter may be organic (phytoplankton and zooplankton) or inorganic (colloidal clay and silt). These suspended particles may originate from within the lake itself (autochonous matter) or from an external source (allochthonus matter). Both contribute to the total quantity and quality of lake turbidity. Turbidity largely is responsible for water color and light penetration.
Athough high water turbidity seldom is directly lethal to fish and other aquatic life, excessive turbidity leads to low productivity and poor fish growth. Highly turbid lake waters decrease light penetration, limit photosynthesis by microscopic green plants (phytoplankton), and reduce the abundance of aquatic animals (zooplankton and insects) that feed on these tiny plants and, in turn, serve as important fish food organisms. Ultimately, growth and reproduction of sport fish are inhibited. In addition, turbid waters not only are much less aesthetically pleasing than clear lake waters, they frequently are unsuitable for domestic use. Turbidity serves as a useful index to water quality. Turbidity values, in formazine turbidity units, for natural lake waters range from 0 in very clear water to 100 or more in highly turbid water.
The color of lake waters may range from clear blue through green to yellow-red to brown and include all of the intermediate hues created by a combination of these colors. The observed color of lake waters consists of unabsorbed light reflected upward from the lake surface. Absolutely pure water absorbs all light, reflects none, and therefore appears black. In contrast, white water results from the reflection of all light rays; no light is absorbed. Natural lake waters seldom, if ever, appear pure black or white since they contain both living and dead, dissolved and suspended materials that both absorb and reflect varying parts of the visible light spectrum. Most lake waters appear blue, blue-green, or green due to the molecular scattering of light by water molecules in motion. Light in the shorter wavelengths (blues and greens) is scattered more (absorbed less) than that of the longer wavelengths, hence the dominance of blue or green colored natural lake waters. With increasing amounts of suspended and dissolved matter, particularly humic substances, yellow, red, and brown colors become more apparent.
An infinite variety of dissolved and suspended, living and nonliving materials contribute to the color of natural waters. Suspensions of inorganic materials such as calcium carbonate in marl lakes, clays in turbid lakes, or sulfur and iron compounds in volcanic lakes, account for greenish, yellowish, yellowish-green, and reddish tints, respectively. The dark brown color of bog, swamp, and marsh waters is due to dissolved humus (organic carbon) materials derived from decomposing leaves and soil substances washed into surface waters. Living organisms, notably blooms of blue-green algae, green algae, and diatoms often impart blue-green, green, and yellow-brown colors to the water. Blood-red lakes may temporarily result when purple-sulfur bacteria, brine shrimp, euglenoids, or dinoflagellates (as in the red tide) reach exceptional densities. Water color provides a useful qualitative index of certain limnological phenomenon and lake productivity. In general, oligotrophic (nutrient-poor) lakes with low amounts of suspended materials are characteristically transparent and blue in color. In contrast, highly productive eutrophic (nutrient-rich) lakes with large plankton populations typically appear yellow-green to yellow or brown in color.
The ability of the human eye to discriminate colors is highly variable and subjective. Indeed, color-blind individuals may not distinguish some colors at all. In addition, human visual memory is very poor in comparison to auditory memory. Thus, it is sometimes useful to distinguish the apparent (observed) color of lake water from its true (specific) color. The apparent color of lake water is not only a function of materials suspended and dissolved in the water itself, but it also is influenced by external environmental conditions such as the colors of the sky, the cloud cover, the lake bottom, the shoreline soil, terrestrial and aquatic vegetation, the quality of incident light, and other factors, all of which may change with the time of day as well as the seasons. On the other hand, the true color of lake water results only from dissolved or colloidal substances in the water itself. The true color of lake water is determined by comparing the color of a water sample, after it has been filtered or centrifuged to remove any suspended substances that may contribute to its apparent color, with a standard color scale. The most widely used comparative color scale is based on platinum-cobalt units. The scale ranges from low P+ units in very clear lake water to over 300 P+ units in very darkly stained bog waters.
Water color is not always uniform with depth, or constant through time. A single lake may have highly colored surface waters and very transparent bottom waters or vice versa. Similarly, the color of a lake may change daily or seasonally. For example, heavy rains accompanied by extensive surface runoff can contribute high loads of suspended sediments, which may rapidly alter the color of the water. Massive algae "blooms" temporarily may impart certain colors to a lake. Thus, variations in physical, chemical, or biological phenomena of lakes may alter the water color of a given lake through both depth and time.
Specific conductance is a direct measure of the water's capacity to conduct an electrical current and an indirect measure of the total dissolved mineral content of the water. Conductance is the reciprocal of electrical resistance. The ability of electrons to flow through water is related to its dissolved ionic content (salinity). For example, as water becomes purer, its salinity decreases, its electrical resistance increases, and its specific conductance decreases. Specific conductance, then, provides an indirect measure of the total dissolved-mineral content and serves as a useful index of water quality and the trophic status of lakes. Conductance is normally expressed as micromhos per cm at 25°C (77°F) (literally the reciprocal of resistance). In general, lake waters with low conductivity contain few dissolved salts, are usually clear, and nutrient poor (oligotrophic). In contrast, lake waters with high conductivities contain more dissolved salts, are often turbid, and nutrient rich (eutrophic). With the exception of nutrient-poor (oligotrophic) high mountain lakes, most lakes in Virginia fall into the mesoeutrophic category characterized by intermediate conductivities ranging from about 30 to 100 umhos.
Water temperature (measure of heat energy) is a major regulator of physical, chemical, and biological processes occurring in lakes. The unique temperature-related properties of water, including its high specific heat, high latent heat of vaporization, and particular density-temperature relationships govern all life processes. Temperature not only plays a critical role in determining the types of aquatic life that can survive in a lake, but strongly influences spawning times, metamorphosis, and migration and it also controls the reproduction, growth, and development rates of all aquatic species. In general, warmer water temperatures accelerate living processes (chemical and biological reactions double for every 10°C [18°F] increase in temperature), while cooler temperatures suppress these processes. Most organisms have an optimum temperature range above and below which they become stressed, and at extreme temperatures, die.
Water has several unique thermal properties that serve to protect aquatic life by minimizing rapid temperature fluctuations. Water, with a specific heat of one - one calorie of heat is required to raise the temperature of one milliliter of water one degree centigrade - has an enormous heat retaining capacity. Few other substances can match the capacity of water to hold heat. Because water both warms and cools slowly, aquatic environments are much more stable than aerial ones. This property of water also has a large influence on adjacent landmasses. For example, areas along large lakes experience moist, cool summers and mild winters as a result of water's high specific heat.
Another significant thermal characteristic of freshwater is that it reaches maximum density at 4°C (39°F) - only a few degrees above the freezing point. Both above and below 4°C (39°F), water is less dense (lighter). Thus, water differs from most substances because it is denser as a liquid than as a solid. Ice, water in its solid state, floats! This important temperature-density relationship is fundamental to understanding thermal stratification and many of the associated phenomena that are observed in lakes.
Thermal stratification refers to the vertical partitioning of lake waters into three independent layers or "strata" of dissimilar temperatures and densities that act as physical barriers preventing the complete circulation of lake waters. These three layers consist of: (1) a layer of warm, light (less dense) water termed the epilimnion (from epi, meaning on or upon); (2) a middle layer or metalimnion (from meta, meaning among or between) of rapidly decreasing temperature (the zone in which the temperature drops at the rate of at least 10 degrees per meter of depth); and (3) a cold, heavy (more dense) layer of bottom water called the hypolimnion (from hypo, meaning under or below the lake). Most swimmers, upon diving into a stratified lake on a calm summer day, have experienced this vertical temperature gradient.
Thermal stratification is density stratification and if a thermal gradient exists so, by definition, must a density gradient. In general, the greater the differences in temperature and density between these layers, the larger the lake's resistance to mixing. In this manner, the thermal stratification of lakes strongly regulates physiochemical processes, particularly decomposition rates, nutrient availability, and biological production.
Most lakes in the temperate latitudes of North America stratify twice a year, once in the summer (direct stratification) and once in the winter (inverse stratification); during the spring and fall these lakes typically are well mixed, isothermal, and circulate freely. Seasonal temperature-density fluctuations and local climatic conditions govern the extent and duration of lake stratification. Spring is the time when the lake waters, heated by solar energy and mixed by strong winds, have approximately uniform temperatures from top to bottom and circulate freely. As spring progresses, the upper waters heat rapidly, the winds subside, and less heat is transferred to the lower water levels. With increasing solar heating and decreasing wind-driven mixing, the upper waters become substantially warmer than the bottom waters and summer stratification develops. In the fall, as surface waters cool (become heavier [denser]), sink, and mix with the lower layers, the lake becomes uniform in temperature density and once again circulates freely. During the winter, as surface waters cool to freezing and ice cover eliminates wind-induced mixing, cold water near lies under the ice. Warmer (but denser) layers of water near 4°C (39°F) (maximum density) lie near the bottom. This situation is called winter inverse stratification.
Sedimentation is a process that refers to the deposition and accumulation of both organic and inorganic matter in lake bottoms. Organic sediments are derived from living matter and represent an accumulation of plant and animal remains that settle to the bottom. In contrast, inorganic sediments are composed of nonliving materials and represent an accumulation of eroded soil sediments, particularly silt and fine clay particles.
Lake sediments can originate from within the lake itself (autochthonous matter), or externally from the surrounding watershed (allochthonous matter). Both of these sources contribute to the total amount of lake sediments. Wind and wave-generated shoreline erosion can contribute large quantities of inorganic sediments that are redistributed elsewhere in the lake.
Excessive sedimentation represents a serious threat to the water quality of inland lakes. It is an unfortunate irony that the very same agricultural soil that provides our life-supporting foods, when washed into waterways and carried into lakes, becomes one of our most destructive water pollutants.
As high loads of suspended sediments are transported into lakes and begin to settle they: (1) fill in the lake basin making the lake more shallow, (2) reduce the amount of surface area, (3) decrease the water volumes and lake storage capacity, (4) clog water filters and intake pipes, (5) reduce water clarity and decrease light penetration, (6) increase water temperatures, (7) lower dissolved oxygen levels, (8) smother fish eggs and bottom-dwelling life forms, (9) stimulate nuisance algae blooms, (10) provide additional rooting sites for waterweeds, (11) promote fish kills, (12) inhibit recreational boating, swimming, and fishing, (13) impair the natural scenic beauty, and (14) depreciate property values.
Sediment problems are particularly severe in artificial lakes formed by directly impounding rivers. These mainstream impoundments disrupt natural drainage systems and serve as settling basins for sediments. They are more susceptible to heavy sedimentation than are natural lakes.
One of the most fundamental objectives of inland lake management is to keep the soil on the land and out of the lake waters. Proper land-use practices that prevent soil erosion and limit the movement of soil particles into lakes and their upstream tributaries are essential in controlling sedimentation.
Virtually every activity that occurs in the lake watershed, including upstream agricultural practices, logging operations, road construction, and lakeshore property development, affects the lake. Land- and water-quality problems are, for the most part, inseparable. Lake sedimentation is largely a land-use problem. Reducing sediment yield from the watershed should be a major component in the planning and management of lake watersheds.
Within the upstream watershed, wise agricultural and forestry practices such as: 1) strip cropping and contour plowing, 2) land grading and terracing, 3) efficient crop harvesting and the removal of crop residues, 4) installing soil stabilization structures and sediment traps, 5) prevention of overgrazing by livestock, and 6) maintaining shelter belts along this waterway will reduce sediment rates. The professional manager makes an effort to encourage wise land use by upstream property owners.
Natural freshwater marshes and bog wetlands are a vital part of the lake watershed. Upstream wetlands have a major beneficial influence on lake water quality and quantity. These wetlands serve as natural pollution and sediment control systems by collecting sediments, trapping nutrients and fertilizers, and absorbing toxic contaminants and other materials running off the upstream agricultural lands. Wetlands serve as natural flood-control systems by regulating storm-water flows and, thereby, reducing flood damage.
Erosion control barriers should be required during construction on lakeshore and upland lots. Several inexpensive erosion barriers, particularly earth, straw-bale, and cloth or plastic-mesh berms (similar to those used in highway construction) are very efficient in retaining soil on the site.
Additional measures that can minimize construction-site runoff are: 1) Preserve the natural vegetation and maintain a green belt of native plants between the site and the shore or a drainage ditch running into the lake. Extensive lawns or "fairways" from the site to the shore are not appropriate in high-quality recreational lake developments. 2) Avoid open construction sites and lengthy construction times, 3) limit construction operations during periods of high rainfall. 4) Prohibit the use of topsoil fill or dredge operations, including boat dock construction activities. 5) Construct retention basins or drywells for storm drainage.
In the past, both sanitary sewage and storm water drainage were discharged directly into lakes. Today, although nearly all sanitary sewage is treated before entering the lake, storm-water drainage is still ignored. Long considered harmless, surface water runoff from roads, roadway ditches, parking lots, and similar areas frequently is laden with nutrients, oils, heavy metals, and soil sediments. Storm sewers and drainage ditches that funnel sediments and other pollutants directly into a lake seriously can reduce water quality over time. An acceptable alternative to direct drainage into the lake is to divert contaminated runoff water around the lake, or into dry wells and artificial settling basins.
The best solution to lake sedimentation problems is to prevent eroded soil particles from entering a lake in the first place. "Preventative" solutions are much easier, more efficient, and a lot less costly than "restorative" solutions used to remove sediments after they have reached the lake waters. While it is possible to restore badly sedimented lakes, the process is difficult, lengthy (usually years), and very expensive!
Dredging, the physical removal of lake bottom sediments, is the most common method used to deal with excessive deposition of eroded soils and organic matter. Although dredging is the most direct way to remove unwanted sediments, it does not represent a solution to the problem. Lake dredging, in itself, can provide only temporary, cosmetic relief.
There are many difficulties involved with dredging and careful consideration should be given, particularly to costs, disposal of the dredged materials, and the potentially adverse environmental impacts. Mechanical dredging is expensive, often prohibitively expensive. The costs are dependant on the size of the project, type of material to be excavated, purchase or lease of disposal areas, distance to the disposal site, and the availability of well-equipped dredging contractors. Moreover, dredge spoils often contain large quantities of absorbed nutrients and may contain other pollutants that could be released into the lake water during the dredging process. In addition, the dredging activity itself temporarily increases the amount of suspended sediments that threaten fish eggs and other relatively immobile forms of aquatic life.
In some situations, mechanical aeration has been shown to reduce the organic portion of lake-bottom sediments. Aeration is also a valuable technique for improving general water quality and the aquatic environment for fish and other aquatic life. Small aerators placed in certain bays such as a "marina bay" would decrease the quantity of organic bottom sediments. | 2019-04-23T23:57:11Z | https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/420/420-538/420-538.html |
On Monday, 25th August 1958, at Eastbourne Station, at about 7.29 a.m., in the Southern Region, British Railway. The 7.45 p.m. car-sleeper express steam train from Glasgow ran past the home signal at Eastbourne at danger, and collided at a speed of about 25 m.p.h. with the 6.47 a.m. multiple-unit 12-coach electric passenger train from Ore to London Bridge, which was about to start from No. 4 platform under clear signals. This train reverses at Eastbourne which is a terminus station. The impact was heavy, and the steam engine ploughed into the leading coach of the electric train which was telescoped into the one behind it. Both vehicles were forced into the air and turned on to their sides on the platform as the train was pushed back over the short distance to the buffer stops. The leading coach struck and dislodged a heavy signal gantry above it as it rose in the air, but the gantry fortunately fell clear of the capsized coaches.
The electric train was not heavily loaded and there were few passengers in the first 2 coaches; I regret to report, however, that 3 passengers and the motorman were killed, and a fourth passenger died in hospital from his injuries a few hours later. Twenty-two more passengers required treatment in hospital, though it was only necessary to detain five of them, and eighteen others were treated for minor injuries at the station. The damage to the passenger coaches of the steam train was slight and only one passenger received minor injuries.
The emergency call for assistance was made without delay and there was a prompt response from the police and medical services, and from the St. John Ambulance Brigade and the Women's Voluntary Service. There was, however, a little delay in calling for the Fire Service which, as a consequence, did not arrive on the scene until nearly half-an-hour after the accident. I was advised by Mr. R. W. Walker, the Chief Constable of Eastbourne, that this was due to a misapprehension in the Police Station where the emergency arrangements were made. There was no question of fire but Mr. Walker considered that the trained efforts of the firemen with their lifting and cutting equipment would have expedited the freeing of the injured from the wreckage. The standing instructions have been amplified for guidance in the future.
The Eastbourne Transport Department provided oxy-acetylene cutting gear and jacks from a depot near the station to help in freeing passengers, and the Corporation Information Service was put at the disposal of the Railway to collect information and deal with enquiries. The Corporation staff also organised refreshments for the passengers and for the rescue teams. The Post Office provided additional telephone facilities to the Railway and Lent a telephone operator to help in dealing with the many telephone messages.
The circuit breakers on the power supply to the electrified line tripped automatically as a result of the accident, and power was cut off from the adjacent lines within a minute on receipt of prompt news of the collision by Electrical Control. The work of clearance and restoration necessitated the station being closed until 1.45 am. on the following day except for the evening car-sleeper train to Glasgow, and a special bus service was provided to carry passengers between Eastbourne and the temporary terminal points at Hampden Park and Polegate.
The weather was stormy, with heavy rain squalls at times from the west.
Eastbourne is a terminus station at the end of a short spur line from the South Coast route which runs through Brighton and Lewes and the junction at Polegate for Eastbourne, past Stone Cross which is the junction for Eastbourne for trains coming from the opposite direction, to Hastings and Ore, and on into Kent. The route from London to Eastbourne via Three Bridges joins this line at Lewes. As will he seen from the location plan the routes from East and West towards Eastbourne meet at Willingdon Junction just north of Hampden Park station. The distance from Polegate signal box to Eastbourne box is about 4 ¼ miles and from Hampden Park box, 1 ¾ miles. The alignment of the track for the last ¾ mile southwards into Eastbourne, which is the Down direction, is in a continuous right-handed curve as will be seen from the scale plan, and the gradient for the last 3 mile is slightly rising.
The relevant Down line signals are the Eastbourne home signal, No. 3. 568 yards from the box, the Eastbourne distant signal, No. 2, 800 yards from the home signal, and on the same post as the Crumbles Intermediate home signal. No. 1; which is worked electrically from Eastbourne box, and the Crumbles Intermediate distant signal, worked with the Intermediate home signal and 800 yards from it. This last signal is 940 yards ahead of the Hampden Park Down starting signal.
The Up line signals to which reference will be made, are Eastbourne No. 4 platform starting signal, No. 36, close to the box, and the advanced starting signal, No. 35, near the Down home signal. The Up Crumbles Intermediate home and distant signals are near the Down Crumbles Intermediate distant and home signals respectively.
The Down line is track-circuited from Hampden Park starting signal to the buffer stops on all platform lines at Eastbourne, and track circuits extend on the Up line from Eastbourne to 200 yards past the Up Crumbles Intermediate home signal.
The Down home signal, No. 3, is provided with a theatre type route indicator as it leads to any of the 4 platform lines, and it is fixed on a bracket arm cantilevered from the post to the left of the line as is shown by the sketch on the plan; there is a calling-on arm below it. The parapet of Whitley Road Bridge, immediately behind the signal post, is painted white to show up the calling-on arm, but the home signal can be seen above the bridge against a sky background from an approaching train. Because of the curvature it only comes into view from the driver's (left-hand) side of a B.R. Class 5 engine, the type involved in this accident, at about 128 yards range. From the fireman's side it can be seen 330 yards away, a longer view over the chord of the curve being prevented by trees outside the railway boundary.
No. 4 platform, at which the 12-coach electric train was standing when it was struck by the incoming express from Glasgow, is 283 yards long and extends up to the signal box. It is bridged by a signal gantry at about 25 yards from the end, on which the starting signals for the other three platform lines are placed, but the starting signal for this platform line, No. 36, is a little further ahead, as the line does not extend as far as the others at the terminus end and the leading coach of a 12-coach train at the platform stands under the gantry. No. 36 signal leads to the Up Advanced starting signal, No. 35, by points Nos. 32 and 27 reversed and No. 18 points in the normal position which is for the crossover route, or by Nos. 15 and 10 reversed, which is the more usual route and the one set for the electric train on this occasion.
Eastbourne signal box is of usual design with an elevated working floor 16 ft. 6 ins. above rail level, and it is equipped with a 72 lever mechanically interlocked frame with an illuminated diagram above it. Indicators are provided to show the position of all signal arms which cannot easily be seen from the box, including No. 3. The thorough mechanical interlocking between point and signal levers which necessitates the relevant point levers being correctly positioned and the conflicting signal levers normal in the frame before any signal lever can be pulled, is supplemented by electrical locking and detection which ensures that the points are properly set, the arm of the signal ahead is at danger, and the route is clear, before the signal lever is made free. So far as No. 3 Down home signal is concerned, the arm of the signal must be at danger and the lever normal in the frame before No. 1 lever can be pulled, and the route into No. 4 platform must be properly set, which includes No. 10 points normal, and the track circuits in the line to the buffer stops indicating clear, before the route lever (No. 4) and No. 3 signal lever can be pulled. As already mentioned the usual route for an outgoing train from No. 4 platform which was set on this occasion requires, amongst others, No. 10 lever to be operated before No. 36 signal lever is pulled.
Block signalling between Hampden Park and Eastbourne is affected by 3-position instruments, and there are comprehensive block controls so that the Down starting signal lever at Hampden Park is released electrically by turning the commutator on the Down line instrument at Eastbourne to Line Clear. Before this commutator can be operated No. 1 lever and the arms of the Crumbles intermediate home and distant signals, and the arm of the Eastbourne distant signal, must be normal; in addition the track circuits up to, and 250 yards beyond, the Crumbles home signal must be clear. A Down train can be brought up to the home signal (No. 3) when the route is set for an outgoing train from No. 4 platform via No. 10 points, as the overrun of 268 yards beyond this signal is considered adequate in view of the moderate speeds of trains approaching this terminus station. The "Out of section" bell code is sent when a Down train has cleared the track circuit which overlaps the Crumble intermediate home signal.
(c) The arm of No. 3 signal has to be at danger and the lever normal in the frame to release the electrical lock on No. 1 signal lever.
The electric train consisted of two 6-coach units with connecting gangways in each unit. The leading coach was a "motor second brake" weighing 59 tons with the brake compartment immediately behind the motorman's compartment, and open type second-class accommodation; the second and third coaches were of corridor type weighing 35 and 36 tons respectively, and the fourth coach was a Pullman car weighing 43 tons. The last two coaches of the set were another corridor coach and a replica of the leading coach, with the motorman's compartment at the trailing end. The rear 6-coach unit was of similar composition to the leading one, except that it had a buffet instead of a Pullman car. Screw couplings were in use between all coaches. The weight of the train was 511 tons and the length over buffers 264 yards.
The steam train was drawn by a B.R. standard class 5 engine with 4 - 4 4 wheel arrangement, and a 6-wheeled tender; it was fitted with the steam brake and combination valve which applies the brake when the train vacuum brake lever is operated, and it weighed 125 tons fully loaded. The driver's position was on the left hand side and the engine was equipped with a speedometer which is conveniently placed at eye level on the driver's side of the firebox. Glass windscreens were fitted outside the side windows of the cab. Behind the engine was a "brake second" coach which was fitted with side lookouts for the guard followed by an " open second." and three sleeping cars. Thereafter there were ten vans, some 4-wheeled, for motor cars and luggage; and a guard's van in rear. The passenger coaches were fitted with the direct admission valve which quickens the rate of application of the vacuum brake. The tare weight of the coaches and vans was 344 tons and the brake power available on the train was 75%, of the total weight including the engine of 469 tons. The length over buffers was 277 yards.
The 6.47 a.m. electric train from Ore to London Bridge arrived four minutes late in No. 4 platform at Eastbourne at 7.25 a.m.; it was about to leave for London under clear signals when :he collision occurred at 7.29 a.m., four minutes after the booked departure time. The 7.45 pm. express train from Glasgow was running about six minutes ahead of the booked time as it approached Eastbourne station on the Down line. After passing signal No. 2 at caution and No. 3 at danger it burst through the trailing end of No. 10 points and then travelled over No. 15 crossover which was set for the outgoing route from No. 4 platform, past the signal box, and as already mentioned collided at a speed of about 25 m.p.h. with the electric train.
The impact was such that the steam engine smashed the front of the leading motored coach and pushed the body off the bogies into the air against the signal gantry, which was dislodged and brought down. The rear end of the coach was at the same time forced into the one behind which it penetrated for about one-third of its length. The forward movement of the engine under the two, interlocked, coach bodies continued for 137 ft. beyond the point of collision, with the bodies rising in the air until they fell on their sides on to the platform. The two bogies of the first coach and the leading bogie of the second coach were carried forward in a jumbled mass by the engine. The electric train, which did not have the brakes applied, was pushed back about 16 feet over the sand drag and against the buffer stops, the full compression of all buffers allowing another 10 feet of movement at the London end of the train. Motorman C. Brock did not leave the driving compartment; he must have seen the steam train bearing down upon him only at the last moment, and he must have been killed instantly when the collision occurred.
The main force of the collision seems to have been absorbed by the two leading coaches as the body of the third coach was not seriously damaged though the underframe was bent; most of the other coaches suffered some damage to underframes, head stocks and buffers, but little to the bodywork.
The weight and constructional strength of the steam engine kept it close to the track alignment, though it became derailed. The front end and the smoke box were much damaged, and the bogie centre and support beam were fractured, and the motion and the right side of the main frame bent, but the boiler was more or less intact as was the cab. The leading wheels of the first coach were derailed and the coach was buffer-locked with the engine; interior damage to this coach was however comparatively slight, and the effect of the collision on the other passenger coaches also was small. There was much heavier damage at the rear end of the seventh vehicle, a bogie van, and the body of the eighth one, a 6-wheeler was riven and displaced from the frame. Appreciable damage was also suffered by the eleventh and twelfth 4-wheeled vans which were partially derailed, and had wrenched bodywork and bent buffers. The ninth, tenth and thirteenth vans were affected to a lesser degree, but the last 3 vehicles were intact.
As already stated there were comparatively few passengers in the first 2 coaches of the electric train; evidence suggests not more than a dozen in each coach, otherwise the shock of the collision and the telescoping between the first two coaches must have caused many more casualties. The first of a number of ambulances arrived at the site at 7.33 a.m. and doctors arrived a few minutes later. The casualties were taken to St. Mary's Hospital and the Princess Alice Hospital, Eastbourne, where all preparations had been made for their care. Brief mention of help rendered by other Services has been made earlier.
Before taking the evidence of railwaymen concerned with the collision. I asked Mr. F. J. Pepper, 1 the Carriage and Wagon Engineer, and Mr. J. Rodgers, the then District Motive Power Superintendent, brighton, who were present with me at the Inquiry, for their opinions about the speed of the collision based on the damage. Mr. Pepper thought that the speed would have been between 25 and 30 m.p.h. while Mr. Rodgers' estimate was between 20 and 25 m.p.h. These opinions matched my own and I assessed the speed of the collision to have been in the region of 25 m.p.h.
Station Foreman C. R. Turk said that he was standing by the guard's compartment of the electric train near the buffer stops when he heard the express train approaching the station. He had seen the starting signal repeater which is half-way along No. 4 platform, in the clear position, and he knew that the points to the Up line must therefore be set for the outgoing route from this platform; he realised that a collision was imminent and he started to run towards his office without waiting for it to take place. The Police answered his telephone call at once and he left the emergency rescue calls to them in accordance with the arrangements here after stating the gravity of the accident; lie then continued with the necessary railway reporting and arrangements for special bus services.
Guard S. W. George said that he had just entered the rear brake compartment of the electric train and was about to test the brakes, which were off, when the collision took place. He considered that the surge backwards of the train into the buffer stops was quite violent; it was enough to jam the door of his compartment. He said that during the run into Eastbourne from Ore the clouds had been heavy but visibility had been good.
Porter T. Westgate had removed the tail lamp from the London end of the electric train; he passed the motorman as he began to walk back along the platform and exchanged a remark with him about the weather, which had eased somewhat from the stormy conditions of a little earlier. He was opposite the middle of the leading coach when he heard the express approaching; he looked round and saw that it was running hard into No. 4 platform and, as he said, ran for his life. Motorman G. J. Fitzgerald who had joined the electric train as a passenger at Hampden Park, was standing by the sixth coach when he saw the express train come under Cavendish Place Bridge and realised a moment later that it was running into No. 4 platform. He had an end-on view of the train and could not therefore judge whether it was running exceptionally fast or not. He said that it had been raining moderately at Hampden Park and was still raining when the collision took place. Both men applied themselves at once to rescuing the injured.
Lengthman J. K. Falconer, who was standing outside the permanent way hut about 80 yards from the signal box towards Cavendish Place Bridge on the far side of the tracks, said that he saw the express train emerge from under the bridge and thought at once that it was travelling faster than is normal for trains on this part of the run in to Eastbourne. He did not hear a whistle before the crash. Carriage and Wagon Examiner, W. C. Jefferies, who was at his office not far from Falconer's position, also saw the express train approach, and was sure that it was running faster than normal. After the collision he examined the position of the brake pistons on the express train and noted that they were all in the "brake applied" position. Later, when the coaches were being removed, he released the vacuum in the upper part of the cylinder on some of them; he judged that the vacuum had been good. He did not hear the sound of brake blocks bearing on the wheels as the train ran in and he was sure that he would have heard it if the brakes had been fully applied. He described the weather conditions as a light drizzle at the time of the accident though the rain had been heavy previously.
Signalman R. G. Vine was on duty in Eastbourne box. He is 59 years of age and is a special class "A" signalman. He has been at Eastbourne for the past four years and, at the time of the accident, was near the end of a 10-hour turn of duty. The extra two hours on this shift on Monday mornings is an approved arrangement for weekend relief, and he said that he was not unduly tired.
Vine accepted the electric train from Hampden Park in the normal way and set the route and gave the signals for it to proceed to 4 platform. After it had cleared the track circuits connected with the Crumbles Intermediate home signal he restored Nos. 1 and 2 levers in the frame and gave Train out of Section; he then restored No. 3 lever as soon as he saw from the track circuit indicator that the train had passed that signal. He was offered the Glasgow train and accepted it at once and pulled No. 1 lever again for the Crumbles Intermediate signals as the line was clear to the over-run point beyond the home signal, No. 3. (Rule 39(a) of the Rule Book does not apply here.) In the meantime the electric train had arrived at No. 4 platform and Vine set the outgoing route for it to leave towards London and obtained Line Clear for it. He pulled the starting signal lever No. 36 and the advance starting signal lever No.35. He was quite sure that he had seen the indicator in the box show that No.3 signal arm had returned to danger when he restored the lever to the frame, and he said, quite correctly, that he could not have pulled No. 1 lever for the Glasgow train if No. 3 signal arm had remained off as the electrical locking would not have allowed it.
Vine watched the track circuit indicators on his diagram as the Glasgow train approached, and gave "Out of Section " when it cleared the appropriate track circuits; he then saw the track circuit ahead of the Eastbourne home signal show " Occupied." He ran along the frame and restored No. 36 signal to danger and then went to the window with a red flag to try to attract the attention of the driver of the incoming train which was then coming through Cavendish Place Bridge. He also gesticulated to the motorman of the electric train and saw him crouch down. He did not see the steam train driver nor did he hear the engine whistle or any sound of a brake application before the collision. He confirmed that this sound could generally be heard from the box. Vine was sure that the train came in very fast and that the engine lurched as it travelled over No. 15 points. He said that it was not raining hard at the time though the rain had been heavy earlier on; the visibility was good.
After the collision Vine took proper action to protect the lines which included placing the Down line block instrument at Train on Line, and arranged to have the traction power cut off. He replaced the Up advanced starting signal lever and the Up Crumbles Intermediate signal lever in the frame, but left the others untouched.
Signalman J. Funnell, who was in Hampden Park box, confirmed Vine's evidence about the block working. He said that the Glasgow train was offered to Vine and accepted by him in the normal way; it passed his box under clear signals travelling at normal speed and he received Train out of Section for it shortly afterwards; he was waiting for Train Entering Section for the Up electric train when he was given the Obstruction Danger bell code. He then protected the Down line with detonators. Funnell thought that when the Glasgow train passed visibility was good and the rain was less heavy than it had been.
Signalman E. A. Doswell, who was on duty in Polegate box that morning, said that the Glasgow train stopped at the station for about 2 minutes; it passed his box at 7.23 a.m. and he received "Out of Section" for it from Hampden Park at 7.26 a.m. The train is timed to leave Polegate at 7.26 a.m. after a halt there of 11 minutes, for operating reasons, but there is no objection to it departing earlier if the signalman is given Line Clear for it.
Mr. M. J. Robinson, Area Inspector, Polegate, said that he arrived at Eastbourne signal box at 8.25 a.m. and checked the signal apparatus and the levers. He found all in order, with the appropriate point and facing point lock levers reversed and Nos. 3, 8 (the " calling-on " arm under No. 3), and No. 17 (a shunt signal on the same post), levers normal in the frame. The repeaters were showing "On" and the block indicator for the Down line was at "Train on Line." He then inspected Nos. 3. 8 and 17 signals and saw that they were at danger.
Driver A. Wembridge was in charge of the 7.45 p.m. car-sleeper express steam train from Glasgow. He was nearly 63 years of age at the date of the accident, and he has been in railway service since 1919 when he was approved as a fireman after a few months' service as a cleaner. He was passed for driving duties in 1945 and was appointed driver in the following year. His headquarters had always been on the former Central Section, first at Brighton Depot and later at Battersea Park and Stewarts Lane Depots. He said that he was qualified to drive on most of the routes of the Central and Eastern parts of the Southern Region and that although he had not travelled over the Lewes to Eastbourne portion of the route from London since April, four months before the date of the accident, he was thoroughly familiar with it and knew the signals. From further enquiries I found that he had made a refresher trip between Lewes and Eastbourne two days before the previous occasion in April when he drove a train over it, as he had not been over the route for the previous 16 months. Refresher trips are a well-established procedure on the railway and drivers are expected to make them when the need arises. He had last certified his knowledge of the route on 2nd May 1958.
Wembridge booked on duty at 3.40 a.m. at Stewarts Lane after a proper amount of rest, and drove the engine to Mitre Bridge Junction where his fireman coupled it to the Glasgow train after the other engine had been detached. He said that he had no difficulty in creating vacuum to 21 ins. on the gauge hut did not make a brake test as the driver of the other engine had told him that the brake was satisfactory; he noted from the gauge, however, that the guard had made a test. During the trip the brake worked satisfactorily and the engine ran well.
The train was 12 minutes late on leaving Mitre Bridge Junction at 5.43 a.m. and there were some checks on the way, hut the timing is easy and the train reached Polegate Junction only 6 minutes late at 7.21 am. The signals were given for it to proceed towards Eastbourne 2 minutes later and Wembridge appreciated that he was then ahead of time. The stormy weather had not affected the running but he said that the front glass in his cab had been obscured by dirt and smoke and that he had to put his head out of the side window, which was fitted with a windscreen, to see the signals.
"Then, when I straightened out, the obstruction was in view. I applied all my brakes hut there was not sufficient margin to act." He did not see the signalman in the box waving a red flag."
Wembridge stated that be $as travelling at not more than 10 m.p.h. when the collision occurred, though he agreed that the damage caused was not consistent with this estimate of speed. He also admitted that his engine was rolling as it went through the crossover, which extends from about 200 yards to 120 yards from the signal box, where he assessed his speed to have been about 15 m.p.h., which is the permitted limit.
Wembridge did not mention seeing the home signal until he was questioned about it. When asked whether he had definitely seen it, he said that he thought that he had seen it in the off position. He was not clear in his evidence but his explanation appeared to be that he was straining his eyes in the heavy rain and had visibility to see the home signal which only comes into view from the left hand side at short range, and that he must have blinked and have imagined that the signal was off. He said that after the accident happened he realised that he must have made a mistake.
It was clear that the speed of the train was much too high as it ran into Eastbourne. I therefore asked Driver Wembridge a number of questions about his health and eyesight and state of mind on the journey, and what were his working arrangements with his fireman about looking for signals, in order to find out any possible cause for his failure to control his train as it approached and ran past the home signal; I was not_ however, successful. He said that his eyesight was perfect and that he only wore glasses for reading; his home life was tranquil and he had no worries to distract his mind; he did not suffer from absent-mindedness or lack of concentration, and though he was due for annual leave in October he was in no way preoccupied about it. He had had a full day's rest on the previous day which he had spent at home, and was fresh when he took up duty. He had not worked recently with the fireman hut knew him to be a good worker, and he did not give him any instructions about looking out for signals; not even in the difficult weather conditions on this occasion did he tell him to look for the Eastbourne home signal which comes into view so much sooner from the fireman's side of the engine. Wembridge could not account for the excessive speed at which his train must have been travelling as it ran into this terminus station, a speed much higher than is proper even when the signals are at clear; nor would he admit that it had been high. He said that he did not take his eyes off the road to look at the speedometer as the train ran into Eastbourne and that it was not his practice to do so when approaching signals.
Fireman J. C. Gilbert of the Glasgow train had not worked with Driver Wembridge for about a year since he had accompanied him on a trip with a parcels train from London to Fratton. Gilbert is 29 years of age and has been a fireman for the past 5 years, after working 2 years as a cleaner. He said that he attended improvement classes and that he hoped to be passed for driving in about another 2 years; he knew a number of the routes on the eastern section of the Region but did not know the route beyond Three Bridges to Eastbourne although he had been there before; he had not therefore been looking out for signals beyond Three Bridges on this trip. When I asked him how he expected to increase his knowledge of routes if he did not look out for signals on new routes he said that drivers pointed out signals to firemen but that there was no time to learn signals on a journey such as this with a heavy train travelling at speed. He added that Driver Wembridge had not pointed out signals to him and had not at any time asked him to look for signals, and Gilbert did not volunteer to look out for the signals on approaching Eastbourne, though he knew that the line was on a right handed curve. He inferred that it would have been presumptuous to make such a suggestion, even in the inclement weather and with the better view ahead from the fireman's (right hand) side when approaching this terminus.
Gilbert confirmed his driver's statement that the engine had been in good running order and he said that he had had no trouble in maintaining steam during the run with the long train. He saw the signals at clear as the train left Polegate but, thereafter, he did not take notice of the route. He said that he had tidied up the footplate and that he was adjusting a water injector as the train approached Eastbourne. He did not recollect the engine passing under either of the overline bridges, nor a lurch as it took the crossover, though he remembered that there had been a partial brake application during the approach into Eastbourne. I pointed out to him that if he had looked ahead as they ran into the station, as he should have done, he could have seen the train in the platform from about 200 to 300 yard: away, but he insisted that he could not have seen more than a short distance ahead because of the rain, and that he had been fully occupied with his work in the cab and had not looked out until immediately before the collision; he noticed that the driver made a full application of the brake, and he crouched down behind the seat on his side of the engine just before the impact. He had had little talk with the driver on the journey and they had not spoken after leaving Polegate; after the accident the driver did not speak to him. I told Fireman Gilbert that I could not believe that he had taken so little interest in the route during the run into Eastbourne, and that it was unnatural for a fireman of his experience not to have noticed more than he said he had, but he would give no more information about what had taken place on the engine before the collision.
Goods Guard C. E. Willoughby, who had joined the Glasgow train with the engine crew at Mitre Bridge Junction, is 38 years of age and has 10 years railway service as a guard. He said that he had not been in charge on this train before but knew that it was customary for the guard to travel at the front of the train, close to the passengers in the sleeping cars, as there is no attendant; he therefore travelled in the leading coach. He did not test the brake from the rear of the train but accepted the word of the guard whom he relieved that it was satisfactory; he did, however, make a brake test from his compartment in the leading coach after the engine had been changed and his gauge was showing 21 inches of vacuum, and he was fully satisfied with it.
Willoughby was thoroughly familiar with the route and he observed many of the signals, though he said he had to put his head out of the window to do so as the side look-out glasses were very dirty after the long journey. He had to move from one side of the compartment to the other a number of times when viewing signals because of the curvature of the line. He said that he had seen the signals at Polegate and at Hampden Park, and he confirmed that the Eastbourne distant signal beneath the Crumbles intermediate home was at caution. He emphasised, however, that he failed to see the Eastbourne home signal because of the rain which had become torrential so that he would have been blinded by it if he had put his head out of the window. He considered this signal to be an easy one to see in normal circumstances.
Willoughby said that he thought the speed had been reduced to about 15 to 20 m.p.h. as the train ran under Whitley Road bridge hut considered that it was travelling too fast so he looked at his vacuum gauge indicator which he saw at 15 inches; he noted that the vacuum was dropping further and then, as he said, settled down on the off side to wait for the train to run into the terminus normally. He expected the train to run into No. 3 platform but suddenly realised that it was taking the crossover road to No. 4 platform which he saw was occupied. The rain had now become less heavy, enabling him to see ahead. WhenI asked him why he did not immediately apply the brake when he became aware that the train was taking the crossover road he said that the vacuum was destroyed and the brake fully on.
After the accident a thorough examination was made of the signalling equipment at Eastbourne and of the block signalling controls between that box and Hampden Park. Except for damage caused by the accident everything was found to be in perfect working order and all the tests gave correct results. Tests were also made of the brakes on the Glasgow train, though there was no suggestion that these had failed in any way, and they were found to be in order.
Because of the curvature on the approach to Eastbourne I checked the siting of No. 3 home signal. The distance at which the signal can be seen from an approaching train has already been recorded; I found the visibility of the signal, with its sky background, to be good, and there are no objects near the line of sight to distract attention. The bridge immediately behind the signal provides an obvious landmark for it and there is little vehicular traffic over the bridge which might interfere with the clear background.
In order to compare the running of the Glasgow train into Eastbourne with a normal approach, I asked for a number of observed runs with a similar train to be made. In general the speed passing Hampden Park when all signals are clear is of the order of 45 m.p.h.; the driver closes the regulator at the Crumbles Intermediate distant signal, and makes a partial brake application, reducing vacuum by about 10 inches, at the Eastbourne distant signal. This has the effect of reducing speed to about 20 m.p.h. at Eastbourne home signal, and to 15 m.p.h. when travelling over No. 15 crossover. The brake then has to be released to enable the train to run into the platform before it is applied again to stop it finally. On one run when a higher approach speed of 50 m.p.h. was obtained the rather more vigorous brake application at Eastbourne distant signal so checked the train that after the brake had been released the regulator had to be opened again to enable the train to reach the platform, These observed results show the ample braking distance available to trains approaching Eastbourne and the amount to which speed is reduced on a normal approach, about 15 m.p.h. at the crossover and not more than 10 m.p.h. when passing the signal box.
Note: The propagation time of the brake throughout the train is about 4 seconds.
I find it difficult to accept the evidence of the train crew about the exceptionally heavy rain as the train approached Eastbourne; though localised heavy rain is not unknown, the evidence of others, both at Hampden Park and at Eastbourne showed clearly that the rain had eased at the time.
I have no doubt, in view of the evidence of a number of eye witnesses and of the damage caused to the electric train, that the speed of the Glasgow train at the moment of impact was considerable. I am satisfied that it was over 20 m.p.h., and probably about 25 m.p.h. I consider that the train crew were not truthful in their evidence on this matter.
The speed of the train during the approach to Eastbourne can readily be deduced from the speed of impact and from the method of working. Driver Wembridge said that he closed the regulator when he passed the distant signal which he saw to be at caution; thereafter, the train must have run under its own momentum, gradually losing speed- and retarded further perhaps by a slight brake application near the home signal, until the final full application just before the collision. The speed over crossover No. 15 must therefore have been in the region of 30 m.p.h. which is confirmed by the evidence of lurching as the engine travelled over it, and at the home signal, 360 yards before the crossover, 35 m.p.h. or even higher. Nevertheless, although the speed was excessive it will be seen from the table of stopping distances that it was not so high that the train could not have been brought to a stand before reaching the buffer stops if it had been running into an unoccupied platform.
There is no firm evidence that the Eastbourne home signal No. 3 was off when the Glasgow train passed it, while there-is abundant circumstantial evidence that it was properly at danger, and I am sure that this was so. Driver Wembridge had seen the distant signal at caution and he said that he was looking out keenly for the home signal but had to blink his eyes from time to time because of the heavy rain. At the speed at which the train was travelling the signal would only have been in view on the driver's side for 6 to 8 seconds, and if Wembridge did close his eyes on this occasion it may have been for longer than he thought; he may then have assumed when he opened them again, perhaps as the engine passed under the road bridge immediately beyond the signal, that the signal must have been off.
The approach view of the home signal was short, but here, where it is the last signal before a terminus station where approach speeds should always be moderate in preparation for the invariable stop, the shortness of view is not a potential source of danger if the driver is alert. Wembridge himself did not state that he could not see the signal; his excuse was that the heavy rain caused him to misread it.
Apart from his mistake over the signal I am of the opinion that Wembridge cannot have been fully alert as the train approached Eastbourne, or he would not have allowed it to travel so fast. The speed was excessive and he should have made a much stronger brake application to reduce it as he approached the signal, even if he was convinced that it was off. I consider therefore that Driver Wembridge must accept full responsibility for the accident. I am at a loss, however, to account for his failure to control the train as it approached Eastbourne, and for his assumption that the signal was off. I have no reason to disbelieve that he had put his head out of the side window and that he had been staring ahead to see signals, and it may be that his effort of concentration in poor weather conditions during the journey from London merged into a state of passivity as the train ran past the home signal and over the crossover, until he was galvanized into action when the electric train ahead suddenly came into view. Alternatively, his knowledge of the route may not have been as good as he said it was, though it is difficult to understand how he could possibly have become lost on the run into Eastbourne with such distinctive landmarks as the two overbridges.
Driver Wembridge willingly agreed to undergo a strict medical examination after the accident; he was considered fit for his age, with a normal reaction time, and not absent-minded.
I was given no assistance by Fireman Gilbert in finding out what happened on the footplate during the vital time. As I have said, it was unnatural for a fireman of his experience, who was hoping for promotion in the not far distant future, to have taken so little interest in the control of the train as it ran into Eastbourne, as he said he did; if true, his statements reflect no credit on his ability; if, on the other hand, he was withholding information out of mistaken loyalty to his driver, I can but say that his lack of frankness has not, helped towards reaching an understanding of Driver Wembridge's serious mistake. Such understanding might have helped Wembridge, and it would certainly have helped a more general study of the causes of drivers running past signals at danger.
Goods Guard Willoughby's evidence seems to have been framed so as to excuse himself for having failed to look out for the home signal and to take action to control the train as it ran at excessive speed towards the station. l do not accept his excuse that the heavy rain prevented him seeing the home signal. Since the wind was from the West, and the signal was on the east side as the train ran southwards into Eastbourne, he could have put his head out on the sheltered side of the train to look for this signal, and would not then have been exposed to the full force of such rain as there was. His evidence about the loss of vacuum as the train approached Eastbourne is not in accordance with the other evidence and I do not believe it. This guard failed in his duty to look out for the home signal, and he failed thereafter to apply the guard's brake as the train ran at excessive speed towards the terminus. For this latter failure I do not blame him too greatly, since guards are in a difficult position over carrying out this duty in which keen judgment is involved.
It was suggested that detonators might have prevented the accident or at least have reduced its severity. Detonator machines, if provided, would have been close to the signal box and would not have made any difference to this accident. It is, however, the policy to provide detonator machines as a part of all future modernisation schemes.
Accidents due to drivers passing signals at danger have attracted much attention in recent years owing to the severe consequences which have been caused and, as mentioned in the concluding paragraphs of Brigadier C. A. Langley's Annual Report on the Accidents which occurred on British Railways in 1957, the British Transport Commission have recently arranged to make a special investigation into this matter with the help of a panel of scientific experts; the Trade Unions have promised their full co-operation.
On Wednesday, December 10th last, Bro. Alfred Wembridge of our Battersea Branch stepped from the dock at Lewes Assizes following a three-day trial in which he was found Not Guilty of manslaughter and discharged. The charge had arisen from the collision on August 25th, 1958, when the steam train in which Bro. Wembridge was the driver ran into an electric train standing at Eastbourne station, Southern Region. Five persons had died as a tragic outcome of this accident.
Locomen elsewhere will be glad to know that the A.S.L.E. and F. stood firmly behind Bro. Wembridge in his ordeal, and that the finest possible legal representation at all stages was engaged by the Society on his behalf. With the trial now behind him, we tender our best wishes for the future, trusting he will bear in mind the kind and encouraging words uttered by the learned Judge in pronouncing his discharge.
There is one fact which the proceedings against Bro. Wembridge have emphassised in unmistakable fashion: namely, that a single mistake by a Driver in the course of his daily work can have the effect – if he himself escapes with his life – of bringing him to the dock on a grave criminal charge. | 2019-04-19T06:47:19Z | https://thesussexmotivepowerdepots.yolasite.com/eastbourne-collision-1958.php |
Time and again physicians and seamen have made noteworthy reputations as novelists. But it is rare in the annals of literature that a man trained in both professions should have gained his greatest fame as a writer of novels. Eugene Sue began his career as a physician and surgeon, and then spent six years in the French Navy. In 1830, when he returned to France, he inherited his father's rich estate and was free to follow his inclination to write. His first novel, "Plick et Plock", met with an unexpected success, and he at once foreswore the arts of healing and navigation for the precarious life of a man of letters. With varying success he produced books from his inexhaustible store of personal experiences as a doctor and sailor. In 1837, he wrote an authoritative work on the French Navy, "Histoire de la marine Francaise".
More and more the novel appealed to his imagination and suited his gifts. His themes ranged from the fabulous to the strictly historical, and he became popular as a writer of romance and fictionized fact. His plays, however, were persistent failures. When he published "The Mysteries of Paris", his national fame was assured, and with the writing of "The Wandering Jew" he achieved world-wide renown. Then, at the height of his literary career, Eugene Sue was driven into exile after Louis Napoleon overthrew the Constitutional Government in a coup d'etat and had himself officially proclaimed Emperor Napoleon III. The author of "The Wandering Jew" died in banishment five years later.
Part Second.—The Chastisement. Prologue.—The Bird's-Eye View of Two Worlds.
The Land's End of Two Worlds.
The Arctic Ocean encircles with a belt of eternal ice the desert confines of Siberia and North America—the uttermost limits of the Old and New worlds, separated by the narrow, channel, known as Behring's Straits.
The last days of September have arrived.
The equinox has brought with it darkness and Northern storms, and night will quickly close the short and dismal polar day. The sky of a dull and leaden blue is faintly lighted by a sun without warmth, whose white disk, scarcely seen above the horizon, pales before the dazzling, brilliancy of the snow that covers, as far as the eyes can reach, the boundless steppes.
To the North, this desert is bounded by a ragged coast, bristling with huge black rocks.
At the base of this Titanic mass lied enchained the petrified ocean, whose spell-bound waves appear fired as vast ranges of ice mountains, their blue peaks fading away in the far-off frost smoke, or snow vapor.
Between the twin-peaks of Cape East, the termination of Siberia, the sullen sea is seen to drive tall icebergs across a streak of dead green. There lies Behring's Straits.
Opposite, and towering over the channel, rise the granite masses of Cape Prince of Wales, the headland of North America.
These lonely latitudes do not belong to the habitable world; for the piercing cold shivers the stones, splits the trees, and causes the earth to burst asunder, which, throwing forth showers of icy spangles seems capable of enduring this solitude of frost and tempest, of famine and death.
And yet, strange to say, footprints may be traced on the snow, covering these headlands on either side of Behring's Straits.
On the American shore, the footprints are small and light, thus betraying the passage of a woman.
She has been hastening up the rocky peak, whence the drifts of Siberia are visible.
On the latter ground, footprints larger and deeper betoken the passing of a man. He also was on his way to the Straits.
It would seem that this man and woman had arrived here from opposite directions, in hope of catching a glimpse of one another, across the arm of the sea dividing the two worlds—the Old and the New.
More strange still! the man and the woman have crossed the solitudes during a terrific storm! Black pines, the growth of centuries, pointing their bent heads in different parts of the solitude like crosses in a churchyard, have been uprooted, rent, and hurled aside by the blasts!
Yet the two travellers face this furious tempest, which has plucked up trees, and pounded the frozen masses into splinters, with the roar of thunder.
They face it, without for one single instant deviating from the straight line hitherto followed by them.
Who then are these two beings who advance thus calmly amidst the storms and convulsions of nature?
Everywhere he leaves this impress behind him.
On the smooth and polished snow, these footmarks seem imprinted by a foot of brass on a marble floor.
Night without twilight has soon succeeded day—a night of foreboding gloom.
The brilliant reflection of the snow renders the white steppes still visible beneath the azure darkness of the sky; and the pale stars glimmer on the obscure and frozen dome.
But, towards the Straits, a faint light appears.
At first, a gentle, bluish light, such as precedes moonrise; it increases in brightness, and assumes a ruddy hue.
Darkness thickens in every other direction; the white wilds of the desert are now scarcely visible under the black vault of the firmament.
Strange and confused noises are heard amidst this obscurity.
They sound like the flight of large night—birds—now flapping now-heavily skimming over the steppes-now descending.
But no cry is heard.
This silent terror heralds the approach of one of those imposing phenomena that awe alike the most ferocious and the most harmless, of animated beings. An Aurora Borealis (magnificent sight!) common in the polar regions, suddenly beams forth.
A half circle of dazzling whiteness becomes visible in the horizon. Immense columns of light stream forth from this dazzling centre, rising to a great height, illuminating earth, sea, and sky. Then a brilliant reflection, like the blaze of a conflagration, steals over the snow of the desert, purples the summits of the mountains of ice, and imparts a dark red hue to the black rocks of both continents.
After attaining this magnificent brilliancy, the Northern Lights fade away gradually, and their vivid glow is lost in a luminous fog.
Just then, by a wondrous mirage an effect very common in high latitudes, the American Coast, though separated from Siberia by a broad arm of the sea, loomed so close that a bridge might seemingly be thrown from one world to other.
Then human forms appeared in the transparent azure haze overspreading both forelands.
On the Siberian Cape, a man on his knees, stretched his arms towards America, with an expression of inconceivable despair.
On the American promontory, a young and handsome woman replied to the man's despairing gesture by pointing to heaven.
For some seconds, these two tall figures stood out, pale and shadowy, in the farewell gleams of the Aurora.
But the fog thickens, and all is lost in the darkness.
Whence came the two beings, who met thus amidst polar glaciers, at the extremities of the Old and New worlds?
Who were the two creatures, brought near for a moment by a deceitful mirage, but who seemed eternally separated?
The month of October, 1831, draws to its close.
Though it is still day, a brass lamp, with four burners, illumines the cracked walls of a large loft, whose solitary window is closed against outer light. A ladder, with its top rungs coming up through an open trap leads to it.
Here and there at random on the floor lie iron chains, spiked collars, saw-toothed snaffles, muzzles bristling with nails, and long iron rods set in wooden handles. In one corner stands a portable furnace, such as tinkers use to melt their spelter; charcoal and dry chips fill it, so that a spark would suffice to kindle this furnace in a minute.
Not far from this collection of ugly instruments, putting one in mind of a torturer's kit of tools, there are some articles of defence and offence of a bygone age. A coat of mail, with links so flexible, close, and light, that it resembles steel tissue, hangs from a box beside iron cuishes and arm-pieces, in good condition, even to being properly fitted with straps. A mace, and two long three-cornered-headed pikes, with ash handles, strong, and light at the same time; spotted with lately-shed blood, complete the armory, modernized somewhat by the presence of two Tyrolese rifles, loaded and primed.
Along with this arsenal of murderous weapons and out-of-date instruments, is strangely mingled a collection of very different objects, being small glass-lidded boxes, full of rosaries, chaplets, medals, AGNUS DEI, holy water bottles, framed pictures of saints, etc., not to forget a goodly number of those chapbooks, struck off in Friburg on coarse bluish paper, in which you can hear about miracles of our own time, or "Jesus Christ's Letter to a true believer," containing awful predictions, as for the years 1831 and '32, about impious revolutionary France.
"THE DOWNRIGHT TRUE AND MOST MEMORABLE CONVERSION OF IGNATIUS MOROK, KNOWN AS THE PROPHET, HAPPENING IN FRIBURG, 1828TH YEAR OF GRACE."
"IN 1810, MOROK, THE IDOLATER, FLED FROM WILD BEASTS."
"MOROK, THE IDOLATER, FLED FROM WILD BEASTS; BUT WILD BEASTS WILL FLEE FROM IGNATIUS MOROK, CONVERTED AND BAPTIZED IN FRIBURG."
Thus, in the last compartment, the new convert proudly, boastfully, and triumphantly parades himself in a flowing robe of blue; head up, left arm akimbo, right hand outstretched, he seems to scare the wits out of a multitude of lions, tigers, hyenas, and bears, who, with sheathed claws, and masked teeth, crouch at his feet, awestricken, and submissive.
"IGNATIUS MOROK BEING CONVERTED, WILD BEASTS CROUCH BEFORE HIM."
Not far from this canvas are several parcels of halfpenny books, likewise from the Friburg press, which relate by what an astounding miracle Morok, the Idolater, acquired a supernatural power almost divine, the moment he was converted—a power which the wildest animal could not resist, and which was testified to every day by the lion tamer's performances, "given less to display his courage than to show his praise unto the Lord."
Through the trap-door which opens into the loft, reek up puffs of a rank, sour, penetrating odor. From time to time are heard sonorous growls and deep breathings, followed by a dull sound, as of great bodies stretching themselves heavily along the floor.
A man is alone in this loft. It is Morok, the tamer of wild beasts, surnamed the Prophet.
He is forty years old, of middle height, with lank limbs, and an exceedingly spare frame; he is wrapped in a long, blood-red pelisse, lined with black fur; his complexion, fair by nature is bronzed by the wandering life he has led from childhood; his hair, of that dead yellow peculiar to certain races of the Polar countries, falls straight and stiff down his shoulders; and his thin, sharp, hooked nose, and prominent cheek-bones, surmount a long beard, bleached almost to whiteness. Peculiarly marking the physiognomy of this man is the wide open eye, with its tawny pupil ever encircled by a rim of white. This fixed, extraordinary look, exercises a real fascination over animals—which, however, does not prevent the Prophet from also employing, to tame them, the terrible arsenal around him.
Seated at a table, he has just opened the false bottom of a box, filled with chaplets and other toys, for the use of the devout. Beneath this false bottom, secured by a secret lock, are several sealed envelopes, with no other address than a number, combined with a letter of the alphabet. The Prophet takes one of these packets, conceals it in the pocket of his pelisse, and, closing the secret fastening of the false bottom, replaces the box upon a shelf.
This scene occurs about four o'clock in the afternoon, in the White Falcon, the only hostelry in the little village of Mockern, situated near Leipsic, as you come from the north towards France.
After a few moments, the loft is shaken by a hoarse roaring from below.
"Judas! be quiet!" exclaims the Prophet, in a menacing tone, as he turns his head towards the trap door.
Another deep growl is heard, formidable as distant thunder.
"Lie down, Cain!" cries Morok, starting from his seat.
A third roar, of inexpressible ferocity, bursts suddenly on the ear.
"Death! Will you have done," cries the Prophet, rushing towards the trap door, and addressing a third invisible animal, which bears this ghastly name.
Notwithstanding the habitual authority of his voice—notwithstanding his reiterated threats—the brute-tamer cannot obtain silence: on the contrary, the barking of several dogs is soon added to the roaring of the wild beasts. Morok seizes a pike, and approaches the ladder; he is about to descend, when he sees some one issuing from the aperture.
The new-comer has a brown, sun-burnt face; he wears a gray hat, bell crowned and broad-brimmed, with a short jacket, and wide trousers of green cloth; his dusty leathern gaiters show that he has walked some distance; a game-bag is fastened by straps to his back.
"The devil take the brutes!" cried he, as he set foot on the floor; "one would think they'd forgotten me in three days. Judas thrust his paw through the bars of his cage, and Death danced like a fury. They don't know me any more, it seems?"
This was said in German. Morok answered in the same language, but with a slightly foreign accent.
"Good or bad news, Karl?" he inquired, with some uneasiness.
"Yesterday; two leagues from Wittenberg."
"Heaven be praised!" cried Morok, clasping his hands with intense satisfaction.
"Oh, of course, 'tis the direct road from Russia to France, 'twas a thousand to one that we should find them somewhere between Wittenberg and Leipsic."
"Very close: two young girls in mourning; horse, white; the old man has long moustache, blue forage-cap; gray topcoat and a Siberian dog at his heels."
"And where did you leave them?"
"A league hence. They will be here within the hour."
"And in this inn—since it is the only one in the village," said Morok, with a pensive air.
"And night drawing on," added Karl.
"Did you get the old man to talk?"
"You shall know all about it. Yesterday, as if I had fallen in with them by chance, I followed them to the place where they stopped for the night. I spoke in German to the tall old man, accosting him, as is usual with wayfarers, 'Good-day, and a pleasant journey, comrade!' But, for an answer, he looked askant at me, and pointed with, the end of his stick to the other side of the road."
"He is a Frenchman, and, perhaps, does not understand German."
"He speaks it, at least as well as you; for at the inn I heard him ask the host for whatever he and the young girls wanted."
"And did you not again attempt to engage him in conversation?"
"Once only; but I met with such a rough reception, that for fear of making mischief, I did not try again. Besides, between ourselves, I can tell you this man has a devilish ugly look; believe me, in spite of his gray moustache, he looks so vigorous and resolute, though with no more flesh on him than a carcass, that I don't know whether he or my mate Giant Goliath, would have the best of it in a struggle. I know not your plans: only take care, master—take care!"
"My black panther of Java was also very vigorous and very vicious," said Morok, with a grim, disdainful, smile.
"What, Death? Yes; in truth; and she is vigorous and vicious as ever. Only to you she is almost mild."
"And thus I will break this tall old man; notwithstanding his strength and surliness."
"Humph! humph! be on your guard, master. You are clever, you are as brave as any one; but, believe me, you will never make a lamb out of the old wolf that will be here presently."
"Does not my lion, Cain—does not my tiger, Judas, crouch in terror before me?"
"Yes, I believe you there—because you have means—"
"Because I have faith: that is all—and it is all," said Morok, imperiously interrupting Karl, and accompanying these words with such a look, that the other hung his head and was silent.
"Why should not he whom the Lord upholds in his struggle with wild beasts, be also upheld in his struggle with men, when those men are perverse and impious?" added the Prophet, with a triumphant, inspired air.
Whether from belief in his master's conviction, or from inability to engage in a controversy with him on so delicate a subject, Karl answered the Prophet, humbly: "you are wiser than I am, master; what you do must be well done."
"Did you follow this old man and these two young girls all day long?" resumed the Prophet, after a moment's silence.
"Yes; but at a distance. As I know the country well, I sometimes cut across a valley, sometimes over a hill, keeping my eye upon the road, where they were always to be seen. The last time I saw them, I was hid behind the water-mill by the potteries. As they were on the highway for this place, and night was drawing on, I quickened my pace to get here before them, and be the bearer of what you call good news."
"Very good—yes—very good: and you shall be rewarded; for if these people had escaped me—"
The Prophet started, and did not conclude the sentence. The expression of his face, and the tones of his voice, indicated the importance of the intelligence which had just been brought him.
"In truth," rejoined Karl, "it may be worth attending to; for that Russian courier, all plastered with lace, who came, without slacking bridle, from St. Petersburg to Leipsic, only to see you, rode so fast, perhaps, for the purpose—"
"Who told you that the arrival of the courier had anything to do with these travellers? You are mistaken; you should only know what I choose to tell you."
"Well, master, forgive me, and let's say no more about it. So! I will get rid of my game-bag, and go help Goliath to feed the brutes, for their supper time draws near, if it is not already past. Does our big giant grow lazy, master?"
"Goliath is gone out; he must not know that you are returned; above all, the tall old man and the maidens must not see you here—it would make them suspect something."
"Where do you wish me to go, then?"
"Into the loft, at the end of the stable, and wait my orders; you may this night have to set out for Leipsic."
"As you please; I have some provisions left in my pouch, and can sup in the loft whilst I rest myself."
"Master, remember what I told you. Beware of that old fellow with the gray moustache; I think he's devilish tough; I'm up to these things—he's an ugly customer—be on your guard!"
"Be quite easy! I am always on my guard," said Morok.
"Then good luck to you, master!"—and Karl, having reached the ladder, suddenly disappeared.
After making a friendly farewell gesture to his servant, the Prophet walked up and down for some time, with an air of deep meditation; then, approaching the box which contained the papers, he took out a pretty long letter, and read it over and over with profound attention. From time to time he rose and went to the closed window, which looked upon the inner court of the inn, and appealed to listen anxiously; for he waited with impatience the arrival of the three persons whose approach had just been announced to him.
While the above scene was passing in the White Falcon at Mockern, the three persons whose arrival Morok was so anxiously expecting, travelled on leisurely in the midst of smiling meadows, bounded on one side by a river, the current of which turned a mill; and on the other by the highway leading to the village, which was situated on an eminence, at about a league's distance.
The sky was beautifully serene; the bubbling of the river, beaten by the mill-wheel and sparkling with foam, alone broke upon the silence of an evening profoundly calm. Thick willows, bending over the river, covered it with their green transparent shadow; whilst, further on, the stream reflected so splendidly the blue heavens and the glowing tints of the west, that, but for the hills which rose between it and the sky, the gold and azure of the water would have mingled in one dazzling sheet with the gold and azure of the firmament. The tall reeds on the bank bent their black velvet heads beneath the light breath of the breeze that rises at the close of day—for the sun was gradually sinking behind a broad streak of purple clouds, fringed with fire. The tinkling bells of a flock of sheep sounded from afar in the clear and sonorous air.
Along a path trodden in the grass of the meadow, two girls, almost children—for they had but just completed their fifteenth year—were riding on a white horse of medium size, seated upon a large saddle with a back to it, which easily took them both in, for their figures were slight and delicate.
A man of tall stature, with a sun-burnt face, and long gray moustache, was leading the horse by the bridle, and ever and anon turned towards the girls, with an air of solicitude at once respectful and paternal. He leaned upon a long staff; his still robust shoulders carried a soldier's knapsack; his dusty shoes, and step that began to drag a little, showed that he had walked a long way.
One of those dogs which the tribes of Northern Siberia harness to their sledges—a sturdy animal, nearly of the size, form, and hairy coat of the wolf—followed closely in the steps of the leader of this little caravan, never quitting, as it is commonly said, the heels of his master.
Nothing could be more charming than the group formed by the girls. One held with her left hand the flowing reins, and with her right encircled the waist of her sleeping sister, whose head reposed on her shoulder. Each step of the horse gave a graceful swaying to these pliant forms, and swung their little feet, which rested on a wooden ledge in lieu of a stirrup.
These twin sisters, by a sweet maternal caprice, had been called Rose and Blanche; they were now orphans, as might be seen by their sad mourning vestments, already much worn. Extremely, like in feature, and of the same size, it was necessary to be in the constant habit of seeing them, to distinguish one from the other. The portrait of her who slept not, might serve them for both of them; the only difference at the moment being, that Rose was awake and discharging for that day the duties of elder sister—duties thus divided between then, according to the fancy of their guide, who, being an old soldier of the empire, and a martinet, had judged fit thus to alternate obedience and command between the orphans.
Greuze would have been inspired by the sight of those sweet faces, coifed in close caps of black velvet, from beneath which strayed a profusion of thick ringlets of a light chestnut color, floating down their necks and shoulders, and setting, as in a frame, their round, firm, rosy, satin like cheeks. A carnation, bathed in dew, is of no richer softness than their blooming lips; the wood violet's tender blue would appear dark beside the limpid azure of their large eyes, in which are depicted the sweetness of their characters, and the innocence of their age; a pure and white forehead, small nose, dimpled chin, complete these graceful countenances, which present a delightful blending of candor and gentleness.
You should have seen them too, when, on the threatening of rain or storm, the old soldier carefully wrapped them both in a large pelisse of reindeer fur, and pulled over their heads the ample hood of this impervious garment; then nothing could be more lovely than those fresh and smiling little faces, sheltered beneath the dark-colored cowl.
But now the evening was fine and calm; the heavy cloak hung in folds about the knees of the sisters, and the hood rested on the back of their saddle.
Rose, still encircling with her right arm the waist of her sleeping sister, contemplated her with an expression of ineffable tenderness, akin to maternal; for Rose was the eldest for the day, and an elder sister is almost a mother.
Not only, did the orphans idolize each other; but, by a psychological phenomenon, frequent with twins, they were almost always simultaneously affected; the emotion of one was reflected instantly in the countenance of the other; the same cause would make both of them start or blush, so closely did their young hearts beat in unison; all ingenuous joys, all bitter griefs were mutually felt, and shared in a moment between them.
In their infancy, simultaneously attacked by a severe illness, like two flowers on the same steam, they had drooped, grown pale, and languished together; but together also had they again found the pure, fresh hues of health.
Need it be said, that those mysterious, indissoluble links which united the twins, could not have been broken without striking a mortal blow at the existence of the poor children?
Thus the sweet birds called love-birds, only living in pairs, as if endowed with a common life, pine, despond, and die, when parted by a barbarous hand.
The guide of the orphans, a man of about fifty-five, distinguished by his military air and gait, preserved the immortal type of the warriors of the republic and the empire—some heroic of the people, who became, in one campaign, the first soldiers in the world—to prove what the people can do, have done, and will renew, when the rulers of their choice place in them confidence, strength, and their hope.
This soldier, guide of the sisters, and formerly a horse-grenadier of the Imperial Guard, had been nicknamed Dagobert. His grave, stern countenance was strongly marked; his long, gray, and thick moustache completely concealed his upper lip, and united with a large imperial, which almost covered his chin; his meagre cheeks, brick-colored, and tanned as parchment, were carefully shaven; thick eyebrows, still black, overhung and shaded his light blue eyes; gold ear-rings reached down to his white-edged military stock; his topcoat, of coarse gray cloth, was confined at the waist by a leathern belt; and a blue foraging cap, with a red tuft falling on his left shoulder, covered his bald head.
Once endowed with the strength of Hercules, and having still the heart of a lion—kind and patient, because he was courageous and strong—Dagobert, notwithstanding his rough exterior, evinced for his orphan charges an exquisite solicitude, a watchful kindness, and a tenderness almost maternal. Yes, motherly; for the heroism of affection dwells alike in the mother's heart and the soldiers.
Stoically calm, and repressing all emotion, the unchangeable coolness of Dagobert never failed him; and, though few were less given to drollery, he was now and then highly comic, by reason of the imperturbable gravity with which he did everything.
From time to time, as they journeyed on, Dagobert would turn to bestow a caress or friendly word on the good white home upon which the orphans were mounted. Its furrowed sides and long teeth betrayed a venerable age. Two deep scars, one on the flank and the other on the chest, proved that his horse had been present in hot battles; nor was it without an act of pride that he sometimes shook his old military bridle, the brass stud of which was still adorned with an embossed eagle. His pace was regular, careful, and steady; his coat sleek, and his bulk moderate; the abundant foam, which covered his bit, bore witness to that health which horses acquire by the constant, but not excessive, labor of a long journey, performed by short stages. Although he had been more than six months on the road, this excellent animal carried the orphans, with a tolerably heavy portmanteau fastened to the saddle, as freely as on the day they started.
If we have spoken of the excessive length of the horse's teeth—the unquestionable evidence of great age—it is chiefly because he often displayed them, for the sole purpose of acting up to his name (he was called Jovial), by playing a mischievous trick, of which the dog was the victim.
This latter, who, doubtless for the sake of contrast, was called Spoil-sport (Rabat-joie), being always at his master's heels, found himself within the reach of Jovial, who from time to time nipped him delicately by the nape of the neck, lifted him from the ground, and carried him thus for a moment. The dog, protected by his thick coat, and no doubt long accustomed to the practical jokes of his companion, submitted to all this with stoical complacency; save that, when he thought the jest had lasted long enough, he would turn his head and growl. Jovial understood him at the first hint, and hastened to set him down again. At other times, just to avoid monotony, Jovial would gently bite the knapsack of the soldier, who seemed, as well as the dog, to be perfectly accustomed to his pleasantries.
These details will give a notion of the excellent understanding that existed between the twin sisters, the old soldier, the horse, and the dog.
The little caravan proceeded on its ways anxious to reach, before night, the village of Mockern, which was now visible on the summit of a hill. Ever and anon, Dagobert looked around him, and seemed to be gathering up old recollections; by degrees, his countenance became clouded, and when he was at a little distance from the mill, the noise of which had arrested his attention, he stopped, and drew his long moustache several times between his finger and thumb, the only sign which revealed in him any strong and concentrated feeling.
Jovial, having stopped short behind his master, Blanche, awakened suddenly by the shock, raised her head; her first look sought her sister, on whom she smiled sweetly; then both exchanged glances of surprise, on seeing Dagobert motionless, with his hands clasped and resting on his long staff, apparently affected by some painful and deep emotion.
The orphans just chanced to be at the foot of a little mound, the summit of which was buried in the thick foliage of a huge oak, planted half way down the slope. Perceiving that Dagobert continued motionless and absorbed in thought, Rose leaned over her saddle, and, placing her little white hand on the shoulder of their guide, whose back was turned towards her, said to him, in a soft voice, "Whatever is the matter with you, Dagobert?"
The veteran turned; to the great astonishment of the sisters, they perceived a large tear, which traced its humid furrow down his tanned cheek, and lost itself in his thick moustache.
"You weeping—you!" cried Rose and Blanche together, deeply moved. "Tell us, we beseech, what is the matter?"
After a moments hesitation, the soldier brushed his horny hand across his eyes, and said to the orphans in a faltering voice, whilst he pointed to the old oak beside them: "I shall make you sad, my poor children: and yet what I'm going to tell you has something sacred in it. Well, eighteen years ago, on the eve of the great battle of Leipsic, I carried your father to this very tree. He had two sabre-cuts on the head, a musket ball in his shoulder; and it was here that he and I—who had got two thrust of a lance for my share—were taken prisoners; and by whom, worse luck?—why, a renegado! By a Frenchman—an emigrant marquis, then colonel in the service of Russia—and who afterwards—but one day you shall know all."
The veteran paused; then, pointing with his staff to the village of Mockern, he added: "Yes, yes, I can recognize the spot. Yonder are the heights where your brave father—who commanded us, and the Poles of the Guard—overthrew the Russian Cuirassiers, after having carried the battery. Ah, my children!" continued the soldier, with the utmost simplicity, "I wish you had, seen your brave father, at the head of our brigade of horse, rushing on in a desperate charge in the thick of a shower of shells!—There was nothing like it—not a soul so grand as he!"
Whilst Dagobert thus expressed, in his own way, his regrets and recollections, the two orphans—by a spontaneous movement, glided gently from the horse, and holding each other by the hand, went together to kneel at the foot of the old oak. And there, closely pressed in each other's arms, they began to weep; whilst the soldier, standing behind them, with his hands crossed on his long staff, rested his bald front upon it.
"Come, come you must not fret," said he softly, when, after a pause of a few minutes, he saw tears run down the blooming cheeks of Rose and Blanche, still on their knees. "Perhaps we may find General Simon in Paris," added he; "I will explain all that to you this evening at the inn. I purposely waited for this day, to tell you many things about your father; it was an idea of mine, because this day is a sort of anniversary."
"We weep because we think also of our mother," said Rose.
"Of our mother, whom we shall only see again in heaven," added Blanche.
The soldier raised the orphans, took each by the hand, and gazing from one to the other with ineffable affection, rendered still the more touching by the contrast of his rude features, "You must not give way thus, my children," said he; "it is true your mother was the best of women. When she lived in Poland, they called her the Pearl of Warsaw—it ought to have been the Pearl of the Whole World—for in the whole world you could not have found her match. No—no!"
The voice of Dagobert faltered; he paused, and drew his long gray moustache between finger and thumb, as was his habit. "Listen, my girls," he resumed, when he had mastered his emotion; "your mother could give you none but the best advice, eh?"
"Well, what instructions did she give you before she died? To think often of her, but without grieving?"
"It is true; she told us than our Father in heaven, always good to poor mothers whose children are left on earth, would permit her to hear us from above," said Blanche.
"And that her eyes would be ever fixed upon us," added Rose.
And the two, by a spontaneous impulse, replete with the most touching grace, joined hands, raised their innocent looks to heaven, and exclaimed, with that beautiful faith natural to their age: "Is it not so, mother?—thou seest us?—thou hearest us?"
"Since your mother sees and hears you," said Dagobert, much moved, "do not grieve her by fretting. She forbade you to do so."
"You are right, Dagobert. We will not cry any more."—And the orphans dried their eyes.
Dagobert, in the opinion of the devout, would have passed for a very heathen. In Spain, he had found pleasure in cutting down those monks of all orders and colors, who, bearing crucifix in one hand, and poniard in the other, fought not for liberty—the Inquisition had strangled her centuries ago—but, for their monstrous privileges. Yet, in forty years, Dagobert had witnessed so many sublime and awful scenes—he had been so many times face to face with death—that the instinct of natural religion, common to every simple, honest heart, had always remained uppermost in his soul. Therefore, though he did not share in the consoling faith of the two sisters, he would have held as criminal any attempt to weaken its influence.
Seeing them this downcast, he thus resumed: "That's right, my pretty ones: I prefer to hear you chat as you did this morning and yesterday—laughing at times, and answering me when I speak, instead of being so much engrossed with your own talk. Yes, yes, my little ladies! you seem to have had famous secrets together these last two days—so, much the better, if it amuses you."
The sisters colored, and exchanged a subdued smile, which contrasted with the tears that yet filled their eyes, and Rose said to the soldier, with a little embarrassment. "No, I assure you, Dagobert, we talk of nothing in particular."
"Well, well; I don't wish to know it. Come, rest yourselves, a few moments more, and then we must start again; for it grows late, and we have to reach Mockern before night, so that we may be early on the road to-morrow."
"Have we still a long, long way to go?" asked Rose.
"What, to reach Paris? Yes, my children; some hundred days' march. We don't travel quick, but we get on; and we travel cheap, because we have a light purse. A closet for you, a straw mattress and a blanket at your door for me, with Spoil-sport on my feet, and a clean litter for old Jovial, these are our whole traveling expenses. I say nothing about food, because you two together don't eat more than a mouse, and I have learnt in Egypt and Spain to be hungry only when it suits."
"Not forgetting that, to save still more, you do all the cooking for us, and will not even let us assist."
"And to think, good Dagobert, that you wash almost every evening at our resting-place. As if it were not for us to—"
"You!" said the soldier, interrupting Blanche, "I, allow you to chap your pretty little hands in soap-suds! Pooh! don't a soldier on a campaign always wash his own linen? Clumsy as you see me, I was the best washerwoman in my squadron—and what a hand at ironing! Not to make a brag of it."
"Yes, yes—you can iron well—very well."
"Only sometimes, there will be a little singe," said Rose, smiling.
"Hah! when the iron is too hot. Zounds! I may bring it as near my cheek as I please; my skin is so tough that I don't feel the heat," said Dagobert, with imperturbable gravity.
"We are only jesting, good Dagobert!"
"Then, children, if you think that I know my trade as a washerwoman, let me continue to have your custom: it is cheaper; and, on a journey, poor people like us should save where we can, for we must, at all events, keep enough to reach Paris. Once there, our papers and the medal you wear will do the rest—I hope so, at least."
"This medal is sacred to us; mother gave it to us on her death-bed."
"Therefore, take great care that you do not lose it: see, from time to time, that you have it safe."
Victim of L. C. D. J. Pray for me! —— Paris February the, 13th, 1682.
At Paris. Rue Saint Francois, No. 3, In a century and a half you will be. February the 13th, 1832. —— PRAY FOR ME!
"What does it mean, Dagobert?" resumed Blanche, as she examined the mournful inscriptions. "Mother was not able to tell us."
"We will discuss all that this evening; at the place where we sleep," answered Dagobert. "It grows late, let us be moving. Put up the medal carefully, and away!—We have yet nearly an hour's march to arrive at quarters. Come, my poor pets, once more look at the mound where your brave father fell—and then—to horse! to horse!"
The orphans gave a last pious glance at the spot which had recalled to their guide such painful recollections, and, with his aid, remounted Jovial.
This venerable animal had not for one moment dreamed of moving; but, with the consummate forethought of a veteran, he had made the best use of his time, by taking from that foreign soil a large contribution of green and tender grass, before the somewhat envious eyes of Spoil-sport, who had comfortably established himself in the meadow, with his snout protruding between his fore-paws. On the signal of departure, the dog resumed his post behind his master, and Dagobert, trying the ground with the end of his long staff, led the horse carefully along by the bridle, for the meadow was growing more and more marshy; indeed, after advancing a few steps, he was obliged to turn off to the left, in order to regain the high-road.
On reaching Mockern, Dagobert asked for the least expensive inn, and was told there was only one in the village—the White Falcon.
"Let us go then to the White Falcon," observed the soldier.
Already had Morok several times opened with impatience the window shutters of the loft, to look out upon the inn-yard, watching for the arrival of the orphans and the soldier. Not seeing them, he began once more to walk slowly up and down, with his head bent forward, and his arms folded on his bosom, meditating on the best means to carry out the plan he had conceived. The ideas which possessed his mind, were, doubtless, of a painful character, for his countenance grew even more gloomy than usual.
Notwithstanding his ferocious appearance, he was by no means deficient in intelligence. The courage displayed in his taming exercises (which he gravely attributed to his recent conversion), a solemn and mystical style of speech, and a hypocritical affectation of austerity, had given him a species of influence over the people he visited in his travels. Long before his conversion, as may well be supposed, Morok had been familiar with the habits of wild beasts. In fact born in the north of Siberia, he had been, from his boyhood, one of the boldest hunters of bears and reindeer; later, in 1810, he had abandoned this profession, to serve as guide to a Russian engineer, who was charged with an exploring expedition to the Polar regions. He afterwards followed him to St. Petersburg, and there, after some vicissitudes of fortune, Morok became one of the imperial couriers—these iron automata, that the least caprice of the despot hurls in a frail sledge through the immensity of the empire, from Persia to the Frozen Sea. For these men, who travel night and day, with the rapidity of lightning there are neither seasons nor obstacles, fatigues nor danger; living projectiles, they must either be broken to pieces, or reach the intended mark. One may conceive the boldness, the vigor, and the resignation, of men accustomed to such a life.
It is useless to relate here, by what series of singular circumstances Morok was induced to exchange his rough pursuit for another profession, and at last to enter, as catechumen, a religious house at Friburg; after which, being duly and properly converted, he began his nomadic excursions, with his menagerie of unknown origin.
Morok continued to walk up and down the loft. Night had come. The three persons whose arrival he so impatiently expected had not yet made their appearance. His walk became more and more nervous and irregular.
On a sudden he stopped abruptly; leaned his head towards the window; and listened. His ear was quick as a savage's.
"They are here!" he exclaimed and his fox like eye shone with diabolic joy. He had caught the sound of footsteps—a man's and a horse's. Hastening to the window-shutter of the loft, he opened it cautiously, and saw the two young girls on horseback, and the old soldier who served them as a guide, enter the inn-yard together.
The night had set in, dark and cloudy; a high wind made the lights flicker in the lanterns which were used to receive the new guests. But the description given to Morok had been so exact, that it was impossible to mistake them. Sure of his prey, he closed the window. Having remained in meditation for another quarter of an hour—for the purpose, no doubt, of thoroughly digesting his projects—he leaned over the aperture, from which projected the ladder, and called, "Goliath!"
"Master!" replied a hoarse voice.
"Here I am—just come from the slaughter-house with the meat."
The steps of the ladder creaked as an enormous head appeared on a level with the floor. The new-comer, who was more than six feet high, and gifted with herculean proportions, had been well-named Goliath. He was hideous. His squinting eyes were deep set beneath a low and projecting forehead; his reddish hair and beard, thick and coarse as horse-hair, gave his features a stamp of bestial ferocity; between his broad jaws, armed with teeth which resembled fangs, he held by one corner a piece of raw beef weighing ten or twelve pounds, finding it, no doubt, easier to carry in that fashion, whilst he used his hands to ascend the ladder, which bent beneath his weight.
At length the whole of this tall and huge body issued from the aperture. Judging by his bull-neck, the astonishing breadth of his chest and shoulders, and the vast bulk of his arms and legs, this giant need not have feared to wrestle single-handed with a bear. He wore an old pair of blue trousers with red stripes, faced with tanned sheep's-skin, and a vest, or rather cuirass, of thick leather, which was here and there slashed by the sharp claws of the animals.
When he was fairly on the floor, Goliath unclasped his fangs, opened his mouth, and let fall the great piece of beef, licking his blood-stained lips with greediness. Like many other mountebanks, this species of monster had began by eating raw meat at the fairs for the amusement of the public. Thence having gradually acquired a taste for this barbarous food, and uniting pleasure with profit, he engaged himself to perform the prelude to the exercises of Morok, by devouring, in the presence of the crowd, several pounds of raw flesh.
"My share and Death's are below stairs, and here are those of Cain and Judas," said Goliath, pointing to the chunk of beef. "Where is the cleaver, that I may cut it in two?—No preference here—beast or man—every gullet must have it's own."
Then, rolling up one of the sleeves of his vest, he exhibited a fore-arm hairy as skin of a wolf, and knotted with veins as large as one's thumb.
"I say, master, where's the cleaver?"—He again began, as he cast round his eyes in search of that instrument. But instead of replying to this inquiry, the Prophet put many questions to his disciple.
"Were you below when just now some new travellers arrived at the inn?"
"Yes, master; I was coming from the slaughter-house."
"Two young lasses mounted on a white horse, and an old fellow with a big moustache. But the cleaver?—my beasts are hungry and so am I—the cleaver!"
"Do you know where they have lodged these travellers?"
"The host took them to the far end of the court-yard."
"The building, which overlooks the fields?"
A burst of frightful roaring shook the loft, and interrupted Goliath.
"Hark to them!" he exclaimed; "hunger has driven the beasts wild. If I could roar, I should do as they do. I have never seen Judas and Cain as they are to-night; they leap in their cages as if they'd knock all to pieces. As for Death, her eyes shine more than usual like candles—poor Death!"
"So these girls are lodged in the building at the end of the court-yard," resumed Morok, without attending to the observations of Goliath.
"Yes, yes—but in the devil's name, where is the cleaver? Since Karl went away I have to do all the work, and that makes our meals very late."
"Did the old man remain with the young girls?" asked Morok.
Goliath, amazed that, notwithstanding his importunities, his master should still appear to neglect the animals' supper, regarded the Prophet with an increase of stupid astonishment.
"If I am a brute, I have a brute's strength," said Goliath, in a surly tone, "and brute against brute, I have not always come the worst off."
"I ask if the old man remained with the girls," repeated Morok.
"Well, then—no!" returned the giant. "The old man, after leading his horse to the stable, asked for a tub and some water, took his stand under the porch—and there—by the light of a lantern—he is washing out clothes. A man with a gray moustache!—paddling in soap-suds like a washerwoman—it's as if I were to feed canaries!" added Goliath, shrugging his shoulders with disdain. "But now I've answered you, master, let me attend to the beasts' supper,"—and, looking round for something, he added, "where is the cleaver?"
After a moment of thoughtful silence, the Prophet said to Goliath, "You will give no food to the beasts this evening."
At first the giant could not understand these words, the idea was so incomprehensible to him.
"What is your pleasure, master?" said he.
"I forbid you to give any food to the beasts this evening."
Goliath did not answer, but he opened wide his squinting eyes, folded his hands, and drew back a couple of steps.
"Well, dost hear me?" said Morok, with impatience. "Is it plain enough?"
"Not feed? when our meat is there, and supper is already three hours after time!" cried Goliath, with ever-increasing amazement.
"Obey, and hold your tongue."
"You must wish something bad to happen this evening. Hunger makes the beasts furious—and me also."
"How, so much the better?—But—"
"But, devil take me, I am as hungry as the beasts!"
"Eat then—who prevents it? Your supper is ready, as you devour it raw."
"I never eat without my beasts, nor they without me."
"I tell you again, that, if you dare give any food to the beasts—I will turn you away."
Goliath uttered a low growl as hoarse as a bear's, and looked at the Prophet with a mixture of anger and stupefaction.
Morok, having given his orders, walked up and down the loft, appearing to reflect. Then, addressing himself to Goliath, who was still plunged in deep perplexity, he said to him.
"Do you remember the burgomaster's, where I went to get my passport signed?—To-day his wife bought some books and a chaplet."
"Yes," answered the giant shortly.
"Go and ask his servant if I may be sure to find the burgomaster early to-morrow morning."
"I may, perhaps, have something important to communicate; at all events, say that I beg him not to leave home without seeing me."
"Good! but may I feed the beasts before I go to the burgomaster's?—only the panther, who is most hungry? Come, master; only poor Death? just a little morsel to satisfy her; Cain and I and Judas can wait."
"It is the panther, above all, that I forbid you to feed. Yes, her, above all the rest."
"By the horns of the devil!" cried Goliath, "what is the matter with you to-day? I can make nothing of it. It is a pity that Karl's not here; he, being cunning, would help me to understand why you prevent the beasts from eating when they are hungry."
"You have no need to understand it."
"Will not Karl soon come back?"
"He has already come back."
"What can be going on here? There is something in the wind. Karl goes, and returns, and goes again, and—"
"We are not talking of Karl, but of you; though hungry as a wolf you are cunning as a fox, and, when it suits you, as cunning as Karl." And, changing on the sudden his tone and manner, Morok slapped the giant cordially on the shoulder.
"The proof is, that there are ten florins to earn to-night—and you will be keen enough to earn them, I am sure."
"Why, on those terms, yes—I am awake," said the giant, smiling with a stupid, self-satisfied air. "What must I do for ten florins?"
"You shall see. Begin by going to the burgomaster's—but first light the fire in that stove." He pointed to it with his finger.
"Yes, master," said Goliath, somewhat consoled for the delay of his supper by the hope of gaining ten florins.
"Put that iron bar in the stove," added the Prophet, "to make it red-hot."
"You will leave it there; go to the burgomaster's, and return here to wait for me."
"You will keep the fire up in the stove."
Morok took a step away, but recollecting himself, he resumed: "You say the old man is busy washing under the porch?"
"Forget nothing: the iron bar in the fire—the burgomaster—and return here to wait my orders." So saying, Morok descended by the trap-door and disappeared.
Goliath had not been mistaken, for Dagobert was washing with that imperturbable gravity with which he did everything else.
When we remember the habits of a soldier a-field, we need not be astonished at this apparent eccentricity. Dagobert only thought of sparing the scanty purse of the orphans, and of saving them all care and trouble; so every evening when they came to a halt he devoted himself to all sorts of feminine occupations. But he was not now serving his apprenticeship in these matters; many times, during his campaigns, he had industriously repaired the damage and disorder which a day of battle always brings to the garments of the soldier; for it is not enough to receive a sabre-cut—the soldier has also to mend his uniform; for the stroke which grazes the skin makes likewise a corresponding fissure in the cloth.
Therefore, in the evening or on the morrow of a hard-fought engagement, you will see the best soldiers (always distinguished by their fine military appearance) take from their cartridge-box or knapsack a housewife, furnished with needles, thread, scissors, buttons, and other such gear, and apply themselves to all kinds of mending and darning, with a zeal that the most industrious workwoman might envy.
We could not find a better opportunity to explain the name of Dagobert, given to Francis Baudoin (the guide of the orphans) at a time when he was considered one of the handsomest and bravest horse-grenadiers of the Imperial Guard.
They had been fighting hard all day, without any decisive advantage. In the evening, the company to which our hero belonged was sent as outliers to occupy the ruins of a deserted village. Videttes being posted, half the troopers remained in saddle, whilst the others, having picketed their horses, were able to take a little rest. Our hero had charged valiantly that day without receiving any wound—for he counted as a mere memento the deep scratch on his thigh, which a kaiserlitz had inflicted in awkwardly attempting an upward thrust with the bayonet.
"You donkey! my new breeches!" the grenadier had exclaimed, when he saw the wide yawning rent, which he instantly avenged by running the Austrian through, with a thrust scientifically administered. For, if he showed a stoical indifference on the subject of injury to his skin, it was not so with regard to the ripping up of his best parade uniform.
He undertook, therefore, the same evening, at the bivouac, to repair this accident. Selecting his best needle and thread from the stores of his housewife, and arming his finger with a thimble, he began to play the tailor by the light of the watch-fire, having first drawn off his cavalry-boots, and also (if it must be confessed) the injured garment itself, which he turned the wrong side out the better to conceal the stitches.
This partial undress was certainly a breach of discipline: but the captain, as he went his round, could not forbear laughing at the sight of the veteran soldier, who, gravely seated, in a squatting position, with his grenadier cap on, his regimental coat on his back, his boots by his side, and his galligaskins in his lap, was sewing with all the coolness of a tailor upon his own shop-board.
Suddenly, a musket-shot is heard, and the videttes fall back upon the detachment, calling to arms. "To horse!" cries the captain, in a voice of thunder.
In a moment, the troopers are in their saddles, the unfortunate clothes mender having to lead the first rank; there is no time to turn the unlucky garment, so he slips it on, as well as he can, wrong side out, and leaps upon his horse, without even stopping to put on his boots.
A party of Cossacks, profiting by the cover of a neighboring wood, had attempted to surprise the detachment: the fight was bloody, and our hero foamed with rage, for he set much value on his equipments, and the day had been fatal to him. Thinking of his torn clothes and lost boots, he hacked away with more fury than ever; a bright moon illumined the scene of action, and his comrades were able to appreciate the brilliant valor of our grenadier, who killed two Cossacks, and took an officer prisoner, with his own hand.
After this skirmish, in which the detachment had maintained its position, the captain drew up his men to compliment them on their success, and ordered the clothes-mender to advance from the ranks, that he might thank him publicly for his gallant behavior. Our hero could have dispensed with this ovation, but he was not the less obliged to obey.
Judge of the surprise of both captain and troopers, when they saw this tall and stern-looking figure ride forward at a slow pace, with his naked feet in the stirrups, and naked legs pressing the sides of his charger.
The captain drew near in astonishment; but recalling the occupation of the soldier at the moment when the alarm was given, he understood the whole mystery. "Ha, my old comrade!" he exclaimed, "thou art like King Dagobert—wearing thy breeches inside out."
In spite of discipline, this joke of the captain's was received with peals of ill-repressed laughter. But our friend, sitting upright in his saddle, with his left thumb pressing the well adjusted reins, and his sword-hilt carried close to his right thigh, made a half-wheel, and returned to his place in the ranks without changing countenance, after he had duly received the congratulations of his captain. From that day, Francis Baudoin received and kept the nickname of Dagobert.
Now Dagobert was under the porch of the inn, occupied in washing, to the great amazement of sundry beer-drinkers, who observed him with curious eyes from the large common room in which they were assembled.
In truth, it was a curious spectacle. Dagobert had laid aside his gray top-coat, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt; with a vigorous hand, and good supply of soap, he was rubbing away at a wet handkerchief, spread out on the board, the end of which rested in a tub full of water. Upon his right arm, tattooed with warlike emblems in red and blue colors, two scars, deep enough to admit the finger, were distinctly visible. No wonder then, that, while smoking their pipes, and emptying their pots of beer, the Germans should display some surprise at the singular occupation of this tall, moustached, bald-headed old man, with the forbidding countenance—for the features of Dagobert assumed a harsh and grim expression, when he was no longer in presence of the two girls.
The sustained attention, of which he saw himself the object, began to put him out of patience, for his employment appeared to him quite natural. At this moment, the Prophet entered the porch, and, perceiving the soldier, eyed him attentively for several seconds; then approaching, he said to him in French, in a rather sly tone: "It would seem, comrade, that you have not much confidence in the washerwomen of Mockern?"
Dagobert, without discontinuing his work, half turned his head with a frown, looked askant at the Prophet, and made him no answer.
Astonished at this silence, Morok resumed: "If I do not deceive myself, you are French, my fine fellow. The words on your arm prove it, and your military air stamps you as an old soldier of the Empire. Therefore I find, that, for a hero, you have taken rather late to wear petticoats."
Dagobert remained mute, but he gnawed his moustache, and plied the soap, with which he was rubbing the linen, in a most hurried, not to say angry style; for the face and words of the beast-tamer displeased him more than he cared to show. Far from being discouraged, the Prophet continued: "I am sure, my fine fellow, that you are neither deaf nor dumb; why, then, will you not answer me?"
Losing all patience, Dagobert turned abruptly round, looked Morok full in the face, and said to him in a rough voice: "I don't know you: I don't wish to know you! Chain up your curb!" And he betook himself again to his washing.
"But we may make acquaintance. We can drink a glass of Rhine-wine together, and talk of our campaigns. I also have seen some service, I assure you; and that, perhaps, will induce you to be more civil."
The veins on the bald forehead of Dagobert swelled perceptibly; he saw in the look and accent of the man, who thus obstinately addressed him, something designedly provoking; still he contained himself.
"I ask you, why should you not drink a glass of wine with me—we could talk about France. I lived there a long time; it is a fine country; and when I meet Frenchmen abroad, I feel sociable—particularly when they know how to use the soap as well as you do. If I had a housewife I'd send her to your school."
The sarcastic meaning was no longer disguised; impudence and bravado were legible in the Prophet's looks. Thinking that, with such an adversary, the dispute might become serious, Dagobert, who wished to avoid a quarrel at any price, carried off his tub to the other end of the porch, hoping thus to put an end to the scene which was a sore trial of his temper. A flash of joy lighted up the tawny eyes of the brute-tamer. The white circle, which surrounded the pupil seemed to dilate. He ran his crooked fingers two or three times through his yellow beard, in token of satisfaction; then he advanced slowly towards the soldier, accompanied by several idlers from the common-room.
Notwithstanding his coolness, Dagobert, amazed and incensed at the impudent pertinacity of the Prophet, was at first disposed to break the washing-board on his head; but, remembering the orphans, he thought better of it.
Folding his arms upon his breast, Morok said to him, in a dry and insolent tone: "It is very certain you are not civil, my man of suds!" Then, turning to the spectators, he continued in German: "I tell this Frenchman, with his long moustache, that he is not civil. We shall see what answer he'll make. Perhaps it will be necessary to give him a lesson. Heaven preserve me from quarrels!" he added, with mock compunction; "but the Lord has enlightened me—I am his creature, and I ought to make his work respected."
The mystical effrontery of this peroration was quite to the taste of the idlers; the fame of the Prophet had reached Mockern, and, as a performance was expected on the morrow, this prelude much amused the company. On hearing the insults of his adversary, Dagobert could not help saying in the German language: "I know German. Speak in German—the rest will understand you."
New spectators now arrived, and joined the first comers; the adventure had become exciting, and a ring was formed around the two persons most concerned.
The Prophet resumed in German: "I said that you were not civil, and I now say you are grossly rude. What do you answer to that?"
"Nothing!" said Dagobert, coldly, as he proceeded to rinse out another piece of linen.
"Nothing!" returned Morok; "that is very little. I will be less brief, and tell you, that, when an honest man offers a glass of wine civilly to a stranger, that stranger has no right to answer with insolence, and deserves to be taught manners if he does so."
"Out of Tirlemont's flea-haunted den, We ride forth next day of the sen, With sabre in hand, ah! Good-bye to Amanda," etc.
The silence to which Dagobert had condemned himself, almost choked him; this song afforded him some relief.
Morok, turning towards the spectators, said to them, with an air of hypocritical restraint: "We knew that the soldiers of Napoleon were pagans, who stabled their horses in churches, and offended the Lord a hundred times a day, and who, for their sins, were justly drowned in the Beresino, like so many Pharaohs; but we did not know that the Lord, to punish these miscreants, had deprived them of courage—their single gift. Here is a man, who has insulted, in me, a creature favored by divine grace, and who affects not to understand that I require an apology; or else—"
"What?" said Dagobert, without looking at the Prophet.
"Or you must give me satisfaction!—I have already told you that I have seen service. We shall easily find somewhere a couple of swords, and to morrow morning, at peep of day, we can meet behind a wall, and show the color of our blood—that is, if you have any in your veins!"
This challenge began to frighten the spectators, who were not prepared for so tragical a conclusion.
"What, fight?—a very, fine idea!" said one. "To get yourself both locked up in prison: the laws against duelling are strict."
"Particularly with relation to strangers or nondescripts," added another. "If they were to find you with arms in your hands, the burgomaster would shut you up in jail, and keep you there two or three months before trial."
"Would you be so mean as to denounce us?" asked Morok.
"No, certainly not," cried several; "do as you like. We are only giving you a friendly piece of advice, by which you may profit, if you think fit."
"What care I for prison?" exclaimed the Prophet. "Only give me a couple of swords, and you shall see to-morrow morning if I heed what the burgomaster can do or say."
"What would you do with two swords?" asked Dagobert, quietly.
"When you have one in your grasp, and I one in mine, you'd see. The Lord commands us to have a care of his honor!"
Dagobert shrugged his shoulders, made a bundle of his linen in his handkerchief, dried his soap, and put it carefully into a little oil-silk bag—then, whistling his favorite air of Tirlemont, moved to depart.
The Prophet frowned; he began to fear that his challenge would not be accepted. He advanced a step or so to encounter Dagobert, placed himself before him, as if to intercept his passage, and, folding his arms, and scanning him from head to foot with bitter insolence, said to him: "So! an old soldier of that arch-robber, Napoleon, is only fit for a washerwoman, and refuses to fight!"
"Yes, he refuses to fight," answered Dagobert, in a firm voice, but becoming fearfully pale. Never, perhaps, had the soldier given to his orphan charge such a proof of tenderness and devotion. For a man of his character to let himself be insulted with impunity, and refuse to fight—the sacrifice was immense.
"So you are a coward—you are afraid of me—and you confess it?"
At these words Dagobert made, as it were, a pull upon himself—as if a sudden thought had restrained him the moment he was about to rush on the Prophet. Indeed, he had remembered the two maidens, and the fatal hindrance which a duel, whatever might be the result, would occasion to their journey. But the impulse of anger, though rapid, had been so significant—the expression of the stern, pale face, bathed in sweat, was so daunting, that the Prophet and the spectators drew back a step.
Profound silence reigned for some seconds, and then, by a sudden reaction, Dagobert seemed to have gained the general interest. One of the company said to those near him; "This man is clearly not a coward."
"It sometimes requires more courage to refuse a challenge than to accept one."
"After all the Prophet was wrong to pick a quarrel about nothing—and with a stranger, too."
"Yes, for a stranger, if he fought and was taken up, would have a good long imprisonment."
"And then, you see," added another, "he travels with two young girls. In such a position, ought a man to fight about trifles? If he should be killed or put in prison, what would become of them, poor children?"
The German shook cordially the hand, which Dagobert had proffered, and, holding it still in his own, he added: "Do one thing, sir—share a bowl of punch with us. We will make that mischief-making Prophet acknowledge that he has been too touchy, and he shall drink to your health."
Up to this moment the brute-tamer, enraged at the issue of this scene, for he had hoped that the soldier would accept his challenge, looked on with savage contempt at those who had thus sided against him. But now his features gradually relaxed; and, believing it useful to his projects to hide his disappointment, he walked up to the soldier, and said to him, with a tolerably good grace: "Well, I give way to these gentlemen. I own I was wrong. Your frigid air had wounded me, and I was not master of myself. I repeat, that I was wrong," he added, with suppressed vexation; "the Lord commands humility—and—I beg your pardon."
This proof of moderation and regret was highly appreciated and loudly applauded by the spectators. "He asks your pardon; you cannot expect more, my brave fellow?" said one of them, addressing Dagobert. "Come, let us all drink together; we make you this offer frankly—accept it in the same spirit."
"Yes, yes; accept it, we beg you, in the name of your pretty little girls," said the stout man, hoping to decide Dagobert by this argument.
"Many thanks, gentlemen," replied he, touched by the hearty advances of the Germans; "you are very worthy people. But, when one is treated, he must offer drink in return."
"Well, we will accept it—that's understood. Each his turn, and all fair. We will pay for the first bowl, you for the second."
"Poverty is no crime," answered Dagobert; "and I must tell you honestly that I cannot afford to pay for drink. We have still a long journey to go, and I must not incur any useless expenses."
The soldier spoke these words with such firm, but simple dignity, that the Germans did not venture to renew their offer, feeling that a man of Dagobert's character could not accept it without humiliation.
"Well, so much the worse," said the stout man. "I should have liked to clink glasses with you. Good-night, my brave trooper!—Good-night—for it grows late, and mine host of the Falcon will soon turn us out of doors."
"Good-night, gentlemen," replied Dagobert, as he directed his steps towards the stable, to give his horse a second allowance of provender.
Morok approached him, and said in a voice even more humble than before: "I have acknowledged my error, and asked your pardon. You have not answered me; do you still bear malice?"
"If ever I meet you," said the veteran, in a suppressed and hollow tone, "when my children have no longer need of me, I will just say two words to you, and they will not be long ones."
Then he turned his back abruptly on the Prophet, who walked slowly out of the yard.
The inn of the White Falcon formed a parallelogram. At one end rose the principal dwelling; at the other was a range of buildings, which contained sundry chambers, let at a low price to the poorer sort of travellers; a vaulted passage opened a way through this latter into the country; finally, on either side of the court-yard were sheds and stables, with lofts and garrets erected over them.
Dagobert, entering one of these stables, took from off a chest the portion of oats destined for his horse, and, pouring it into a winnowing basket, shook it as he approached Jovial.
To his great astonishment, his old travelling companion did not respond with a joyous neigh to the rustle of the oats rattling on the wicker work. Alarmed, he called Jovial with a friendly voice; but the animal, instead of turning towards his master a look of intelligence, and impatiently striking the ground with his fore-feet, remained perfectly motionless.
More and more surprised, the soldier went up to him. By the dubious light of a stable-lantern, he saw the poor animal in an attitude which implied terror—his legs half bent, his head stretched forward, his ears down, his nostrils quivering; he had drawn tight his halter, as if he wished to break it, in order to get away from the partition that supported his rack and manger; abundant cold-sweat had speckled his hide with bluish stains, and his coat altogether looked dull and bristling, instead of standing out sleek and glossy from the dark background of the stable; lastly, from time to time, his body shook with convulsive starts.
"Why, old Jovial!" said the soldier, as he put down the basket, in order to soothe his horse with more freedom, "you are like thy master—afraid!—Yes," he added with bitterness, as he thought of the offence he had himself endured, "you are afraid—though no coward in general."
Notwithstanding the caresses and the voice of his master, the horse continued to give signs of terror; he pulled somewhat less violently at his halter, and approaching his nostrils to the hand of Dagobert, sniffed audibly, as if he doubted it were he.
"You don't know me!" cried Dagobert. "Something extraordinary must be passing here."
The soldier looked around him with uneasiness. It was a large stable, faintly lighted by the lantern suspended from the roof, which was covered with innumerable cobwebs; at the further end, separated from Jovial by some stalls with bars between, were the three strong, black, horses of the brute-tamer—as tranquil as Jovial was frightened.
Dagobert, struck with this singular contrast, of which he was soon to have the explanation, again caressed his horse; and the animal, gradually reassured by his master's presence, licked his hands, rubbed his head against him, uttered a low neigh, and gave him his usual tokens of affection.
"Come, come, this is how I like to see my old Jovial!" said Dagobert, as he took up the winnowing-basket, and poured its contents into the manger. "Now eat with a good appetite, for we have a long day's march tomorrow; and, above all, no more of these foolish fears about nothing! If thy comrade, Spoil-sport, was here, he would keep you in heart; but he is along with the children, and takes care of them in my absence. Come, eat! Instead of staring at me in that way."
But the horse, having just touched the oats with his mouth, as if in obedience to his master, returned to them no more, and began to nibble at the sleeve of Dagobert's coat.
"Come, come, my poor Jovial! there is something the matter with you. You have generally such a good appetite, and now you leave your corn. 'Tis the first time this has happened since our departure," said the soldier, who was now growing seriously uneasy, for the issue of his journey greatly depended on the health and vigor of his horse.
Just then a frightful roaring, so near that it seemed to come from the stable in which they were, gave so violent a shock to Jovial, that with one effort he broke his halter, leaped over the bar that marked his place, and rushing at the open door, escaped into the court-yard.
Dagobert had himself started at the suddenness of this wild and fearful sound, which at once explained to him the cause of his horse's terror. The adjoining stable was occupied by the itinerant menagerie of the brute-tamer, and was only separated by the partition, which supported the mangers. The three horses of the Prophet, accustomed to these howlings, had remained perfectly quiet.
"Good!" said the soldier, recovering himself; "I understand it now. Jovial has heard another such roar before, and he can scent the animals of that insolent scoundrel. It is enough to frighten him," added he, as he carefully collected the oats from the manger; "once in another stable, and there must be others in this place, he will no longer leave his peck, and we shall be able to start early to-morrow morning!"
The terrified horse, after running and galloping about the yard, returned at the voice of the soldier, who easily caught him by the broken halter; and a hostler, whom Dagobert asked if there was another vacant stable, having pointed out one that was only intended for a single animal, Jovial was comfortably installed there.
When delivered from his ferocious neighbors, the horse became tranquil as before, and even amused himself much at the expense of Dagobert's top coat, which, thanks to his tricks, might have afforded immediate occupation for his master's needle, if the latter had not been fully engaged in admiring the eagerness with which Jovial dispatched his provender. Completely reassured on his account, the soldier shut the door of the stable, and proceeded to get his supper as quickly as possible, in order to rejoin the orphans, whom he reproached himself with having left so long.
CHAPTER V. ROSE AND BLANCHE.
The orphans occupied a dilapidated chamber in one of the most remote wings of the inn, with a single window opening upon the country. A bed without curtains, a table, and two chairs, composed the more than modest furniture of this retreat, which was now lighted by a lamp. On the table, which stood near the window, was deposited the knapsack of the soldier.
The great Siberian dog, who was lying close to the door, had already twice uttered a deep growl, and turned his head towards the window—but without giving any further affect to this hostile manifestation.
The two sisters, half recumbent in their bed, were clad in long white wrappers, buttoned at the neck and wrists. They wore no caps, but their beautiful chestnut hair was confined at the temples by a broad piece of tape, so that it might not get tangled during the night. These white garments, and the white fillet that like a halo encircled their brows, gave to their fresh and blooming faces a still more candid expression.
The orphans laughed and chatted, for, in spite of some early sorrows, they still retained the ingenuous gayety of their age. The remembrance of their mother would sometimes make them sad, but this sorrow had in it nothing bitter; it was rather a sweet melancholy, to be sought instead of shunned. For them, this adored mother was not dead—she was only absent.
Almost as ignorant as Dagobert, with regard to devotional exercises, for in the desert where they had lived there was neither church nor priest, their faith, as was already said, consisted in this—that God, just and good, had so much pity for the poor mothers whose children were left on earth, that he allowed them to look down upon them from highest heaven—to see them always, to hear them always, and sometimes to send fair guardian angels to protect therein. Thanks to this guileless illusion, the orphans, persuaded that their mother incessantly watched over them, felt, that to do wrong would be to afflict her, and to forfeit the protection of the good angels.—This was the entire theology of Rose and Blanche—a creed sufficient for such pure and loving souls.
Now, on the evening in question, the two sisters chatted together whilst waiting for Dagobert. Their theme interested them much, for, since some days, they had a secret, a great secret, which often quickened the beatings of their innocent hearts, often agitated their budding bosoms, changed to bright scarlet the roses on their cheeks, and infused a restless and dreamy langour into the soft blue of their large eyes.
Rose, this evening, occupied the edge of the couch, with her rounded arms crossed behind her head, which was half turned towards her sister; Blanche, with her elbow resting on the bolster, looked at her smilingly, and said: "Do you think he will come again to-night?"
"Oh, yes! certainly. He promised us yesterday."
"He is so good, he would not break his promise."
"And so handsome, with his long fair curls."
"And his name—what a charming name!—How well it suits his face."
"And what a sweet smile and soft voice, when he says to us, taking us by the hand: 'My children, bless God that he has given you one soul. What others seek elsewhere, you will find in yourselves.'"
"'Since your two hearts,' he added, 'only make one.'"
"What pleasure to remember his words, sister!"
"We are so attentive! When I see you listening to him, it is as if I saw myself, my dear little mirror!" said Rose, laughing, and kissing her sister's forehead. "Well—when he speaks, your—or rather our eyes—are wide, wide open, our lips moving as if we repeated every word after him. It is no wonder we forget nothing that he says."
"And what he says is so grand, so noble, and generous."
"Then, my sister, as he goes on talking, what good thoughts rise within us! If we could but always keep them in mind."
"Do not be afraid! they will remain in our hearts, like little birds in their mother's nests."
"And how lucky it is, Rose, that he loves us both at the same time!"
"He could not do otherwise, since we have but one heart between us."
"How could he love Rose, without loving Blanche?"
"What would have become of the poor, neglected one?"
"And then again he would have found it so difficult to choose."
"We are so much like one another."
"So, to save himself that trouble," said Rose, laughing, "he has chosen us both."
"And is it not the best way? He is alone to love us; we are two together to think of him."
"Only he must not leave us till we reach Paris."
"And in Paris, too—we must see him there also."
"Oh, above all at Paris; it will be good to have him with us—and Dagobert, too—in that great city. Only think, Blanche, how beautiful it must be."
"Paris!—it must be like a city all of gold."
"A city, where every one must be happy, since it is so beautiful."
"But ought we, poor orphans, dare so much as to enter it? How people will look at us!"
"Yes—but every one there is happy, every one must be good also."
"And, besides, we shall be with our friend with the fair hair and blue eyes."
"He has yet told us nothing of Paris."
"He has not thought of it; we must speak to him about it this very night."
"If he is in the mood for talking. Often you know, he likes best to gaze on us in silence—his eyes on our eyes."
"Yes. In those moments, his look recalls to me the gaze of our dear mother."
"And, as she sees it all, how pleased she must be at what has happened to us!"
"Because, when we are so much beloved, we must, I hope, deserve it."
"See what a vain thing it is!" said Blanche, smoothing with her slender fingers the parting of the hair on her sister's forehead.
After a moment's reflection, Rose said to her: "Don't you think we should relate all this to Dagobert?"
"If you think so, let us do it."
"We tell him everything, as we told everything to mother. Why should we conceal this from him?"
"Especially as it is something which gives us so much pleasure."
"Do you not find that, since we have known our friend, our hearts beat quicker and stronger?"
"Yes, they seem to be more full."
"The reason why is plain enough; our friend fills up a good space in them."
"Well, we will do best to tell Dagobert what a lucky star ours is."
"You are right—" At this moment the dog gave another deep growl.
"Sister," said Rose, as she pressed closer to Blanche, "there is the dog growling again. What can be the matter with him?"
"Spoil-sport, do not growl! Come hither," said Blanche, striking with her little hand on the side of the bed.
The dog rose, again growled deeply, and came to lay his great, intelligent looking head on the counterpane, still obstinately casting a sidelong glance at the window; the sisters bent over him to pat his broad forehead, in the centre of which was a remarkable bump, the certain sign of extreme purity of race.
"What makes you growl so, Spoil-sport?" said Blanche, pulling him gently by the ears—"eh, my good dog?"
"Poor beast! he is always so uneasy when Dagobert is away."
"It is true; one would think he knows that he then has a double charge over us."
"Sister, it seems to me, Dagobert is late in coming to say good-night."
"No doubt he is attending to Jovial."
"That makes me think that we did not bid good-night to dear old Jovial.
"Poor beast! he seems so glad when he licks our hands. One would think that he thanked us for our visit."
"Luckily, Dagobert will have wished him good-night for us."
"Good Dagobert! he is always thinking of us. How he spoils us! We remain idle, and he has all the trouble."
"How can we prevent it?"
"What a pity that we are not rich, to give him a little rest."
"We rich! Alas, my sister! we shall never be anything but poor orphans."
"Doubtless, there is some hope attached to it, else we should not have made this long journey."
"Dagobert has promised to tell us all, this evening."
She was prevented from continuing, for two of the windowpanes flew to pieces with a loud crash.
The orphans, with a cry of terror, threw themselves into each other's arms, whilst the dog rushed towards the window, barking furiously.
Pale, trembling, motionless with affright, clasping each other in a close embrace, the two sisters held their breath; in their extreme fear, they durst not even cast their eyes in the direction of the window. The dog, with his forepaws resting on the sill, continued to bark with violence.
"Alas! what can it be?" murmured the orphans. "And Dagobert not here!"
"Hark!" cried Rose, suddenly seizing Blanche by the arm; "hark!—some one coming up the stairs!"
"Good heaven! it does not sound like the tread of Dagobert. Do you not hear what heavy footsteps?"
"Quick! come, Spoil-sport, and defend us!" cried the two sisters at once, in an agony of alarm.
The boards of the wooden staircase really creaked beneath the weight of unusually heavy footsteps, and a singular kind of rustling was heard along the thin partition that divided the chamber from the landing-place. Then a ponderous mass, falling against the door of the room, shook it violently; and the girls, at the very height of terror, looked at each other without the power of speech.
The door opened. It was Dagobert.
At the sight of him Rose and Blanche joyfully exchanged a kiss, as if they had just escaped from a great danger.
"What is the matter? why are you afraid?" asked the soldier in surprise.
"Oh, if you only knew!" said Rose, panting as she spoke, for both her own heart and her sister's beat with violence.
"If you knew what has just happened! We did not recognize your footsteps—they seemed so heavy—and then that noise behind the partition!"
"Little frightened doves that you are! I could not run up the stairs like a boy of fifteen, seeing that I carried my bed upon my back—a straw mattress that I have just flung down before your door, to sleep there as usual."
"Bless me! how foolish we must be, sister, not to have thought of that!" said Rose, looking at Blanche. And their pretty faces, which had together grown pale, together resumed their natural color.
During this scene the dog, still resting against the window, did not cease barking a moment.
"What makes Spoil-sport bark in that direction, my children?" said the soldier.
"We do not know. Two of our windowpanes have just been broken. That is what first frightened us so much."
Without answering a word Dagobert flew to the window, opened it quickly, pushed back the shutter, and leaned out.
He saw nothing; it was a dark night. He listened; but heard only the moaning of the wind.
"Spoil-sport," said he to his dog, pointing to the open window, "leap out, old fellow, and search!" The faithful animal took one mighty spring and disappeared by the window, raised only about eight feet above the ground.
Dagobert, still leaning over, encouraged his dog with voice and gesture: "Search, old fellow, search! If there is any one there, pin him—your fangs are strong—and hold him fast till I come."
But Spoil-sport found no one. They heard him go backwards and forwards, snuffing on every side, and now and then uttering a low cry like a hound at fault.
"There is no one, my good dog, that's clear, or you would have had him by the throat ere this." Then, turning to the maidens, who listened to his words and watched his movements with uneasiness: "My girls," said he, "how were these panes broken? Did you not remark?"
"No, Dagobert; we were talking together when we heard a great crash, and then the glass fell into the room."
"It seemed to me," added Rose, "as if a shutter had struck suddenly against the window."
Dagobert examined the shutter, and observed a long movable hook, designed to fasten it on the inside.
"It blows hard," said he; "the wind must have swung round the shutter, and this hook broke the window. Yes, yes; that is it. What interest could anybody have to play such a sorry trick?" Then, speaking to Spoil sport, he asked, "Well, my good fellow, is there no one?"
The dog answered by a bark, which the soldier no doubt understood as a negative, for he continued: "Well, then, come back! Make the round—you will find some door open—you are never at a loss."
The animal followed this advice. After growling for a few seconds beneath the window, he set off at a gallop to make the circuit of the buildings, and come back by the court-yard.
"Be quite easy, my children!" said the soldier, as he again drew near the orphans; "it was only the wind."
"We were a good deal frightened," said Rose.
"I believe you. But now I think of it, this draught is likely to give you cold." And seeking to remedy this inconvenience, he took from a chair the reindeer pelisse, and suspended it from the spring-catch of the curtainless window, using the skirts to stop up as closely as possible the two openings made by the breaking of the panes.
"Thanks, Dagobert, how good you are! We were very uneasy at not seeing you."
"Yes, you were absent longer than usual. But what is the matter with you?" added Rose, only just then perceiving that his countenance was disturbed and pallid, for he was still under the painful influence of the brawl with Morok; "how pale you are!"
"Yes, I assure you, your countenance is quite changed. Rose is right."
"I tell you there is nothing the matter," answered the soldier, not without some embarrassment, for he was little used to deceive; till, finding an excellent excuse for his emotion, he added: "If I do look at all uncomfortable, it is your fright that has made me so, for indeed it was my fault."
"Yes; for if I had not lost so much time at supper, I should have been here when the window was broken, and have spared you the fright."
"Anyhow, you are here now, and we think no more of it."
"I will, my children, for we have to talk together," said Dagobert, as he drew a chair close to the head of the bed.
"Now tell me, are you quite awake?" he added, trying to smile in order to reassure them. "Are those large eyes properly open?"
"Look, Dagobert!" cried the two girls, smiling in their turn, and opening their blue eyes to the utmost extent.
"Well, well," said the soldier, "they are yet far enough, from shutting; besides, it is only nine o'clock."
"We also have something to tell, Dagobert," resumed Rose, after exchanging glances with her sister.
"A secret to tell you."
"Ah, and a very great secret!" added Rose, quite seriously.
"A secret which concerns us both," resumed Blanche.
"Faith! I should think so. What concerns the one always concerns the other. Are you not always, as the saying goes, 'two faces under one hood?'"
"Truly, how can it be otherwise, when you put our heads under the great hood of your pelisse?" said Rose, laughing.
"There they are again, mocking-birds! One never has the last word with them. Come, ladies, your secret, since a secret there is."
"No, miss, it is for you to speak. You are to-day on duty, as eldest, and such an important thing as telling a secret like that you talk of belongs of right to the elder sister. Come, I am listening to you," added the soldier, as he forced a smile, the better to conceal from the maidens how much he still felt the unpunished affronts of the brute tamer. | 2019-04-22T17:06:12Z | http://hotfreebooks.com/book/The-Wandering-Jew-Complete-Eugene-Sue.html |
Previous studies have reported higher quality of life in patients who receive home nocturnal hemodialysis (HNHD) than conventional in-center hemodialysis (IHD). The optimal method for eliciting preferences from dialysis patients remains undefined, and there may be unique methodologic concerns in this population. Patients’ preferences for IHD (n = 20) and HNHD (n = 24) were studied using the standard gamble (SG), time trade-off (TTO), and modified willingness to pay (WTP) methods. This report describes experience with operationalizing these three techniques in this population. A higher preference for HNHD was found with all measures, with significant differences observed with the SG (HNHD: median 0.79 [interquartile range (IQR) 0.67 to 0.95]; IHD: median 0.60 [IQR 0.20 to 0.82]; P = 0.031) and WTP (HNHD: median 0.50 [IQR 0.40 to 0.68]; IHD: median 0.20 [IQR 0.20 to 0.38]; P < 0.001). SG and TTO scores were moderately correlated but not with WTP. In addition, qualitative issues arose during TTO and WTP interviews that seemed to influence the interpretation of these preference scores. In the TTO, time willing to trade became oriented toward the next pivotal life event, with a failure of the requirement for a constant proportional time trade-off. WTP preferences were oriented toward the smallest survival stipend. These issues represent range restriction biases. No significant issues arose during the SG interviews. HNHD patients expressed a greater preference for current health than IHD patients. The operational performance of SG was good in this study, whereas biases and methodologic concerns were identified with the TTO and WTP in this population.
Measuring quality of life is an attractive approach to gauging an intervention's effectiveness. Quality-of-life measurements can be a study's primary focus or can be combined with costing data as part of a cost-effectiveness analysis. The quality of life of dialysis patients is among the worst reported for chronic medical conditions (1,2). Studies have attempted to quantify quality of life in dialysis patients through disease-specific or generic instruments (3–11). Tools such as the kidney disease quality of life (KDQOL) generate a numeric rating of quality of life in many domains. Preference-based techniques can be used to estimate utility scores (2,4,12,13), expressing global quality of life as a single number on a scale ranging from 0 (a health state equivalent to death) to 1 (equivalent to the best possible health (14–20). They have several advantages over rating systems, allowing comparisons of quality of life across disease states, and can be used to generate the popular quality-adjusted life year (QALY) metric that is used in cost-utility studies. Utility scores can be generated by a variety of preference-based methods and are one of the preferred outcome measures for economic analyses (21,22). Two such methods are the time trade-off (TTO) and standard gamble (SG). The TTO method involves determining the maximum proportion of remaining lifespan that a patient would be willing to trade for perfect health. The SG method involves determining the maximum chance of immediate death that a patient would be willing to gamble against for the chance of gaining perfect health. Patient preferences can also be elicited through willingness to pay (WTP) valuations, particularly for application in cost–benefit analyses (23–26).
The preferred technique for eliciting preferences remains controversial, because preference scores can vary considerably (27). Such variation may be due to the heterogeneity of personal preferences. However, previous studies suggested three methodologic concerns that can also influence preference scores. First, preference assessment studies exhibit method effects: The technique used seems systematically to bias preference scores (19,28–30). Second, preference assessment studies exhibit respondent effects: Interviews of patients with the medical condition, health professionals, and lay public often yield different results (31–33). Finally, the validity of preference measures rest on axioms that can be violated (34,35).
Our group performed a cost-utility study that examined two forms of hemodialysis (2). The first was conventional in-center hemodialysis (IHD), whereby patients received dialysis treatments at the hospital three times per week for 4 h. The second was home nocturnal hemodialysis (HNHD), whereby patients performed treatments at home five or six times a week, connecting themselves at night to the dialysis machine and undergoing dialysis during sleep (36). In our primary report, we identified the cost-utility of HNHD relative to IHD, with the utility score based on the SG technique as the measure of dialysis effectiveness. However, we also elicited patient preferences for health states by the TTO and WTP methods, with an a priori intention to examine the performance of these measures in this population.
In this report, we focus on two areas that were not discussed in our previous publication. First, we describe the degree of correlation among these three techniques. In theory, these scores should be highly correlated, but in practice, this is often not the case (28). Second, we report an informal qualitative description of our experiences with eliciting preferences, including potential operational problems when these techniques are applied in hemodialysis patients. Because our sample size is relatively small, we cannot offer a rigorous generalizable comparison of these three techniques; however, our observations suggest areas for future research and point out potential pitfalls that future investigators will need to take into account. This information is particularly significant given the increasing popularity of many forms of intensive dialysis and the need to estimate the impact of these modalities on quality of life.
Patient preferences were elicited through face-to-face interviews that were conducted in a standardized manner by a single interviewer, with interviewer instructions written on a prompt card. Sessions were scheduled during a routine appointment at the home dialysis clinic for the HNHD group and at the dialysis unit before treatment for the IHD group. Interviews were conducted in well-lit and quiet semiprivate offices or examination areas. Criteria were set prospectively for delaying an interview; specifically, hospital admission within 1 mo, current treatment with antibiotics, initiation or dosage titration of a psychotropic drug within 1 mo, invasive procedure within 1 wk or, significant life event within 2 mo (death or sickness of a friend or family member, change in employment status, divorce or separation from significant other, or change of address). The interviews for each utility measure were performed sequentially, starting with TTO, then SG, then WTP. We did not vary the order of testing and did not attempt to identify sequencing biases.
Each elicitation task was framed as a dichotomous choice, in which participants were asked whether they preferred either the certainty of their current health or an alternative in which they could attain best possible health by accepting a trade-off. The trade-offs were risk for death, decreased life expectancy, and monetary payments for the SG, TTO, and WTP methods, respectively. The choice was from the ex-post user-based perspective. We assigned discrete values to these trade-off parameters: Probability of death for the SG, time traded for the TTO, and money lost for the WTP. For each method, the initial value was randomly chosen from all possible values. We changed the value of the trade-off parameter iteratively using a bisectional approach (in which the utilities presented were the midpoint of the possible lowest and highest values on the basis of the previous responses and the bounds of the preference scale) until we found the maximum value that each respondent would accept for the trade-off parameter (e.g., maximum probability of immediate death in the SG technique) (16,28). We calculated preference scores on the basis of this indifference point. We did not elicit preferences between IHD and HNHD, because not all patients had been on both modalities; we also did not attempt to compare these with other dialysis modalities (e.g., peritoneal dialysis) or renal transplantation.
For the SG, participants were given a choice between remaining in their current state of health or accepting a hypothetical treatment. If successful, then the hypothetical treatment would cure the renal disease, resolve their medical issues, and return the person to the best possible state of health. If unsuccessful, then the hypothetical treatment would lead to immediate death. Interviewers used a computer program to represent visually the gamble probabilities in the form of a circle, transected into two sectors, one representing the probability of immediate death and the other representing the probability of a successful cure (http://individual.utoronto.ca/bayoumi/prospeqt/excel.htm). Patients were allowed to choose not to gamble.
For the TTO technique, participants were given a choice between remaining in their current state of health or accepting a hypothetical treatment that would cure the person's renal disease, resolve all medical issues, and restore the best possible state of health. However, the hypothetical treatment would reduce their remaining lifespan. The same computer-based utility elicitation program provided assistance, visually representing the time horizon as a horizontal bar whose length represented the patient's remaining life span, bisected such that the bar consisted of two colored areas, one representing the proportion of the lifespan that will be spent in perfect health and the remaining area representing the proportion that would be lost to achieve perfect health. The estimated remaining lifespan was drawn from American life expectancy tables and adjusted for age, race and gender but not presence of renal or other diseases. Patients were allowed to choose not to trade off time.
Patient preferences were also elicited by two variations of the WTP method. The first approach involved an open-ended determination of the amount that a patient was willing to pay to achieve best possible health. In this case, the scale was bounded by zero and by the total of all of the patient's available financial resources as reported by the respondent. For reasons discussed next, a second evaluation of WTP was also used. In the second approach, patients were assigned an after-tax income of $50,000 per year, with no possibility of acquiring new funds or of drawing on existing resources (making the scale bounded by $0 and $50,000). The payment for perfect health would be made annually, thereby reducing their annual income for the remainder of their lives. In both cases, we generated a WTP score equivalent to 1 minus the maximum acceptable payment divided by the scale maximum (1 − u, where u is maximum willingness to pay/scale maximum). Like the other measures, this calculation produces a WTP score that ranges from 0 to 1, with higher scores suggesting a better quality of life.
We used nonparametric methods to evaluate preference scores. For continuous variables, between-group differences were tested with the Mann-Whitney U test. For categorical variables, between-group differences were tested using the χ2 test or Fisher exact test as necessary. Correlation between preference scores and demographic variables was determined using Kendall's τ-b statistic and among the three forms of preference scores by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient using the Cronbach α method for single measures with a two-way mixed-effect model, testing against absolute agreement with a moderate correlation threshold of 0.3 and a highly correlated threshold of 0.6. A two-tailed significance level of 0.05 was used for all tests. SPSS (version 11.0; SPSS, Chicago, IL) for Macintosh was used for the statistical computations.
We interviewed 20 IHD and 24 HNHD patients (Table 1). Preference scores were higher in the HNHD group by all techniques (Table 2), although statistical significance was reached only for the SG and WTP techniques. Differences that were related to form of dialysis persisted after adjustment for demographic and comorbid factors. The TTO and SG scores were moderately correlated with each other, whereas the WTP scores did not significantly correlate with either of the other measures (Table 3, Figure 1). The dispersion of scores within groups by the three techniques was broad (Figure 2).
Scatter plots comparing the preference scores from a cohort of hemodialysis patients. (A) Standard gamble (SG) versus time trade-off (TTO). (B) Willingness to pay (WTP) versus SG. (C) WTP versus TTO.
Distribution of preference scores by type of dialysis and preference measurement technique. The top, bottom, and line through the middle of the box correspond to the 75th, 25th, and 50th (median) percentiles, respectively. The whiskers on top and below the box extend to the 90th and 10th percentiles, respectively. The black square within the box corresponds to the mean.
Eleven of the 43 patients (six IHD, five HNHD; NS) expressed spontaneously that they wanted to live only until their next pivotal life event, were unwilling to trade any time before that event, and were willing to sacrifice all remaining time beyond that point. In one example from the interview logs, a respondent stated, “I only need to live until my nephew's wedding next summer; after that, I don't care.” Those who responded in this manner were not confronted about their response or reinterviewed later to determine whether their desired lifespan had decreased as predicted. TTO utility scores were lower in those who responded in this manner (0.18 ± 0.15 versus 0.69 ± 0.22; P < 0.001); however, no statistically significant demographic differences were apparent, although the sample size is small. Two people chose not to trade. One person had to reschedule the interview because the TTO questions were found to be upsetting, but the study was eventually completed. No other major issues arose during the TTO interviews.
In the WTP analysis, seven respondents (five IHD, two HNHD) were interviewed using the first methodologic variation (scale upper bounded by all of the patient's available financial resources). In each case, respondents answered similarly, expressing a willingness to trade everything with the exception of a small survival stipend. The protocol was then modified to the second methodologic variation (scale upper bounded by $50,000/yr). The original seven were reinterviewed, and this method was used for the remainder of the study group; these scores are reported here. Approximately one fourth of the participants spontaneously commented that the $50,000/yr figure was generous, whereas another one fourth observed that this amount seemed inadequate. All participants were willing to trade money for health.
No significant difficulties arose during the SG interviews. Two patients required a complete repeat of the instructions but were able to complete the interview without further difficulties. All patients were willing to gamble.
No evidence of editing bias (whereby respondents have revised the provided scenario information) was observed, and the tasks did not seem to be too cognitively demanding or incomprehensible in our population. Subjectively, there was no evidence of a social desirability bias (whereby respondents provide what they perceive to be the desired response rather than their true valuation). The average time to complete each set of elicitations was 4 min (not including time for instructions). When an individual rated his or her quality of life very highly (>0.90 on any metric), we challenged the individual about the willingness to trade. In all cases, the individuals agreed that they were willing to trade or gamble in principle but rated their current quality of life highly enough that they were willing to trade or gamble only small amounts or nothing.
A variety of methods are available to elicit patient preference for health states (34,35). To be consistent with theoretical underpinnings, several requirements must be met (14,37–40). In our study, three methods of determining preference were applied, and observations were made with two of these methods that raise cautions when they are used in hemodialysis patients. Although it is possible that these issues are present in other groups, we restrict our conclusions to the population that we studied. We have attempted to provide some statistical rigor; however, the small sample size lends itself better to a subjective description of the biases observed.
Our most serious caution arose with the TTO method, in which some participants traded all remaining lifetime aside from the amount necessary to reach their next pivotal life event, an interval that was usually arbitrary and outside the control of the patient yet had an undue effect on the TTO score. This pattern could seriously distort the interpretation of TTO scores in such respondents. For example, if a participant wanted to live only until a pivotal event and that event date was accelerated by 6 mo, then the amount of time that the patient would be willing to trade would (presumably) be increased by 6 mo. Although the TTO score would decrease, it seems unlikely that there was a change in the patient's underlying quality of life or of their preference for health states. Although the utility function has been described as being concave over time in most people (30,41,42), those who responded in this manner would have a step function for utility over time, which would represent both a range restriction bias and an extreme example of nonconstant proportional TTO. Although other authors have suggested ways to correct TTO scores by adjusting for time preference bias (42), these methods would not apply in our extreme cases. When the time willing to trade is fixed by a pivotal life event, differences in preference scores between individuals are primarily determined by the expected remaining life span. For example, consider two patients with a remaining lifespan of 10 and 20 yr, respectively, both with a pivotal life event 1 yr away. Although the first patient would seem to have a higher TTO score (0.10 versus 0.05), it is not clear that the first patient is actually expressing a higher preference for dialysis. Again, such patterns represent violations of the requirement for constant proportional TTO (43–45) and are a form of range restriction bias.
Although possible, we find it unlikely that our operationalization of the TTO method contributed to these biases. Our TTO technique was similar to that used in previous ESRD studies, and our IHD population had similar utility scores to those seen in previous dialysis studies. We did not structure the interviews in a way that would have encouraged spontaneous expressions such as we observed. It is possible that these observations applied only to our unique population or were related to our operational methods; however, it is also possible that participants in previous trials harbored similar thoughts.
Difficulties also arose in our WTP analysis. Participants seemed willing to trade all but a small stipend necessary for survival. This calls into question whether a similar range restriction bias was present in the WTP interviews, with values being dictated by a predetermined minimal necessary income level rather than allowing for a clear expression of a participant's preferences. This observation could lead to difficulties in interpreting the WTP score. For example, consider two such people studied with our first methodologic variation (with the patient's total available financial resources as the upper bound of the scale), whereby one individual is much wealthier, but both are willing to trade all but the same survival stipend. It is not clear that the wealthier individual (whose WTP score would be lower) is actually expressing a different preference for the dialysis state than the less wealthy patient, despite the difference in scores. In the second WTP method (whereby the scale was upper bounded by $50,000/yr), there was significant disparity in patients' response to the availability of $50,000/yr of income, perhaps related to the declining marginal utility of a dollar to wealthy rather than poor individuals (26). These issues call into question the ability of WTP methods as we applied them to differentiate patient preferences for health when quality of life is extremely poor. However, we believe that the WTP approach has promise in dialysis populations, because our participants were able to perform the required cognitive tasks and seemed willing to trade money for health. Future research should examine which WTP method performs best in this population. For example, WTP valuations that involve comparisons of one dialysis modality with another, rather than with a hypothetical treatment that is capable of normalizing health, may produce better results. Also, structured analyses that compare open- versus closed-ended scenarios, as well as different approaches to the bargaining method, should be examined. These approaches may better represent patient preference for health states.
Unlike the TTO and WTP methods, no significant issues were identified during the SG analysis. Although it has been suggested that the abstract thinking that is required for the SG method may make it difficult to use (38), we did not observe such difficulties. It is possible that difficulties with the SG may arise in other dialysis populations, or perhaps people who perform dialysis are particularly well suited to consider hypothetical life or death decisions and numeric expressions of probability.
Although it seems that individuals with high preference scores were willing to trade or gamble, it is possible that in some cases there was a true unwillingness to trade or gamble that would become evident on more detailed questioning. Previous studies in dialysis (46) and in nonrenal populations (19,28–30) suggested that preference scores are often highest with SG, then TTO, and lowest with WTP. Factors such as utility curvature, probability weighting, loss aversion, and scale compatibility lead to these systematic differences among methods (30). We saw a similar pattern in our results, suggesting that method effects were active in our population.
Our observations are based on spontaneous comments made by participants. No attempt was made to probe whether these patterns of reasoning were present in others who did not volunteer similar comments, so our observations may underestimate their prevalence. These potential biases may be present in other populations, in particular other health conditions in which quality of life is chronically low. Regardless of the theoretical issues that arise from these observations, the desire to live only to the next pivotal life event and the willingness to trade all but a minimal survival stipend are clear reminders of how poor the quality of life may be for many people who are on dialysis.
A final observation is the impressive variability in utility scores between individuals who perform the same method of dialysis, sometimes resulting in a range that covers the entire utility scale. Investigators who perform studies of quality of life in dialysis patients should be prepared to see similar variability in their results, which may have an impact on patient selection and study sample size.
We measured patient preferences for health states by three methods, all of which suggested a higher quality of life in patients who performed HNHD, with statistically significant differences seen for the SG and WTP techniques. Each preference elicitation technique has advantages and disadvantages. The TTO method may be vulnerable to biases as we have described. The SG method worked well in our study, but the cognitive demands of this technique may be problematic in other dialysis populations. The WTP techniques that we used did not perform well but remain appealing options that will require further refinement. Although the measurement of patient preference for health states remains an appropriate method of estimating quality of life, further research is required to define the best method of eliciting such preferences in people with ESRD.
The Canadian Society of Nephrology and the Kidney Foundation of Canada provided research support for the conduction of this study and for P.A.M. Funding for HNHD pilot programs provided by the Ontario Ministry of Health. The funding agreement ensured the authors’ independence in designing the study, interpreting the data, writing, and publishing the report.
We acknowledge the following institutions and people for participation: St. Michael's Hospital: Jill Campbell, Mark Goldstein, and Mark Robson; Humber River Regional Hospital: Colleen Jones and Michaelene Ouwendyk. | 2019-04-26T02:48:12Z | https://cjasn.asnjournals.org/content/2/3/477 |
It’s already been 2 months without you but every morning I remember your smile like the first time, I’ll never forget my love. You are my strength.
Saturday there was the concert during which I described our project in front of hundreds of people who support us, it was an exciting evening, as you repeat, I realize more and more that I am not alone, thank you very much to everyone.
While I was talking on the microphone, it seemed to feel like I was next to me, to see you among the people, to feel your scent light, I know that you too, my love, you are always next to me.
Among the stalls of the church where we greeted you for the last time the eyes of your mother Antonella shone with pride for you dear Martha, because she also knows that what I’m about to do, it’s all thanks to you.
A special thanks also to the boys of the missionary choir of Tata Nzambe who, among the notes of their songs, accompanied my presentation. In this period I continue to be amazed at the goodness of mind of people like Diego, who without knowing me allowed the organization of this concert or as Ricky of the choir who, without asking anything, prepared everything. They too are the pieces of a great puzzle that is magically completing itself.
Here I am arrived at the definitive itinerary of my long journey on foot for charity (# marta4kids), each dot is a destination for a total of 324 days, a number that just thinking about it, is in itself a journey.
Only 33 days left before the start, there are still many things to prepare but I’m already at a good point, I never thought I could do it in such a short time, it’s all thanks to you that you follow me and support me, I appreciate it very much; together, we will bring smiles and hope to those who are not so lucky.
Zanzibar is a true natural paradise. A pearl immersed in the Indian Ocean . I saw colors on that island that I had not seen anywhere else in the world.
The first time you are faced with this magnificent sea, you can not but be breathless. The fast flow of the tides gives true color shows because the sea acquires infinite shades of blue that change very quickly. The beautiful white beaches are able to give more prominence to the ocean, making the landscape a continuous postcard.
But despite the beauty can be found everywhere, and you can hardly be mistaken in choosing one place rather than another on the island, it is good to consider that the small Zanzibar offers very different maritime locations between them. I can not make a top because it would be very difficult and probably wrong to put them in order of ranking. I believe that everyone should look forhis special place , the one that responds completely to his needs that can be very different from one individual to another. So I will try to describe the three main areas so that everyone can understand where to choose to stay.
The main towns located to the north of the island are Nungwi and Kendwa . In general, this part of the island is less affected by the trend of the tides and this is why it makes swimming possible at any time of day. Nungwi is larger and most of the accommodation is located here. It has a very tourist center but just move to the northern part to find an oasis of tranquility. In fact, the area near the lighthouse, still retains a very genuine character thanks to the beautiful beach that the villagers use to build their typical boats, the dhows .
In Nungwui the beaches are not immense and the rocks alternate with suggestive beaches of fine sand. The village is the most beautiful that I have seen on the island and, although it is a bit snubbed by tourists, I think it is worth visiting because it offers the opportunity to observe more closely the busy inhabitants in their daily activities.
Florida is an epicurean’s deli world, which is popular for Latin American cuisines. Jacksonville is named the seaside river city and well known for fish and seafood. Foodies may include this city on the top of their repository of food trips.
Riverside or beachside restaurants in this city are to be hit first. Some popular cuisines are Steakhouse Jacksonville Fl, Mexican Jacksonville Fl, Caribbean Jacksonville Fl, and Cuban Jacksonville Fl. Do not miss the stone crabs, snappers, chops, rock shrimps, Cuban sandwiches, and Apalachicola oysters. If you are looking for thrifty delights, you may order pies, chomps, Texas-style BBQs, and pizzas.
It offers lustrous dining with an exotic seafood menu and branded wine and cocktail. This is a popular grill restaurant that invites with “n” number of steak, fish, and beef dishes. You have a chance to order turf n surf specials like groupers, crabs, lobsters, flounders, and shrimps. Catch the flavored season dishes, morsels, soups, oak grilled salads, hot pot and roasted chicken, and desserts. The tavern offers a wide range of drinks, handcrafted burgers, and unique cocktails of the week, what you would never imagined. You may reserve a party to enjoy fresh and yummy crunches, chops, and desserts with the group.
It is in the top ten of the best restaurants in Jacksonville. It is a friendly and unpretentious French bistro serving Avondale food and local produce. You feel stuffed with delight ordering mussels, scallops, chestnut roasts, truffles, and pastries. They come up with different flavors and creamy texture. While mellowing crunchy sea-salt varieties, you get a complementary taste of bittersweet and saltiness. Chefs turn the items with seasons, yet a palate of scrumptious dishes is before buffs. Some of the top dishes to try are oysters, marinated calamari, scallop crudo, rillettes, tartare, and tortes.
As the name suggests, it has the best of steak and seafood varieties, certified black beef, and a range of wines. It is known for its ribs, rib-eye steaks, and filets. It offers an exclusive polished room for guests and parties with a clean and casual atmosphere. This traditional steakhouse has separate chophouses with stylish interiors for private events.
Gourmets may have a large selection of banquet items and enjoy their platters and buffets. They can gobble delicious local sea-salt dishes with exotic flavors and seasons. Oak bar specials in this restaurant are branded beer, white wine, and cocktail.
It is a Spanish style chop offering classic Spanish tapas, risottos, market fish varieties, Italian cheese toasts, sausage, and handmade bread. It is a multiculinary specializing in Spanish, Avondale, Asian, Argentinean styles.
It is premier in serving small plates and they win over other bistros with a mix of different ingredients and hard work to yield bona fide country foods. Foodies may hit this small but great restaurant for guzzling hip delicious items. They can enjoy piquant flavors of grills, rice with meat and veggies, and rice with other variations.
It offers contemporary dining with normal rates for its authentic Southern food. The mainstays in this restaurant are chicken, fish, and shrimp, though it is worth taking other menu items too. Here you can enjoy variations of flavors with smoked and fried hot chicken.
Those who went to main city and beachside restaurants as well as steakhouses in Jacksonville will certainly recommend food trips to others.
In the 60s Essaouira was the destination of the hippies , thanks to Jimmy Hendrix who is said to have composed “Castle made of sand” thinking in this city; Orson Welles shot us “Othello”. Today Essaouira is one of the most beautiful cities in Morocco.
This small town, with a population of just over 70,000, attracts many tourists every year: from penniless surfers to golfers in extra-luxury resorts .
But what makes this city so magnetic?
First of all, it is incredibly beautiful: the first time you set foot in Essaouira you will be fascinated. Certainly I’m biased, because I have maintained an emotional bond with this city, but this pearl deserves a stop on a tour of Morocco.
But what is really unmissable? To visit Eassaouira it is necessary to consider stopping at least two days; if you want to surf then the stay is prolonged. Many travelers often stop for a long time in Essaouira to savor the tranquility and leave the chaotic Marrakech behind. There are no shortage of places to relax, but pay attention to the existent months: even the Moroccans know the beauty of the beaches and take them by storm!
1- the Medina is rather small but really beautiful: you can find local craft shops , small restaurants with typical cuisine, luxurious boutiques and corners of natural cosmetics.
The wood craftsmanship is typical of the area, so you will find many stores of objects derived from it. Also the argan is typical of this area: there are in fact numerous cooperatives of women who work this miraculous plant. In this regard, I would like to mention that the argan grows only in the region south of Essaouira so here you find the original oil coveted in Europe (at more than fair prices, which can also go to women’s cooperatives).
It took around 7 hours of waiting and flying, but finally the dry African heat of the 18 managed to make itself heard.
Indistinguishable voices, different perfumes, bright colors, “scarab” signs, piped prayers from loudspeakers precariously fixed to the walls, businessmen in elegant suits and veiled women with hands adorned with black and necks embellished with showy yellow gold, very calm children (the same ones who cried for hours during the flight). This was my first impact with Khartoum , Sudan .
It will seem egocentric but as soon as I arrived I felt many eyes focused on me. Then, looking back, it was not so unusual. Diversity attracts much more than everyday life, we know, and skin, hair and clothes so different are highlighted; behind all those looks, however, there was only a great curiosity. They certainly thought what I was doing there since Sudan tourism is not so widespread .
The light of the next morning was too strong and to be able to see the 4 × 4 parked just outside the gate you had to squint. Experienced hands had already loaded it meticulously, given the experience of desert adventures in the past: on the luggage racks, sleeping bags, camping table and chairs, while the back had turned into a restaurant.
Our goal was precise but at the same we had not given the limits to be respected. We only knew that we would head north and that we would be in the desert, in the Nubia region, in the pyramids, in the remote villages (which are those where life, as we understand it, is impossible).
Khartoum was not as I expected it . Probably my expectations corresponded to those of anyone else thinking of Sudan: city, to call them with a euphemism, small and messy. Instead, the first surprises: apart from the size and population of 5 million people, the road that accompanied us to the gates of the city was wide and after all clean. Poverty, however, you could see, this is obvious .. Always from the window I looked out and I took care not to put too much emphasis on my camera, especially near the police.
For many kilometers, mini-markets have been the master along with many small shops (with their faded signs, their goods mainly based on fresh fruit and dates, exposed with precarious balance, and a few drinks).
There was no precise boundary, one could not say where the city ended and nothing started . It was only noticed that the number of machines decreased and that of the goats increased. Then, all of a sudden, only the dunes .
Casablanca, unlike other cities, will never be love at first sight. Falling in love at first sight of this city is really impossible. I have never heard anyone sustain the overwhelming beauty of this city, I for one. But I can also say that maybe I would not live in any other city in Morocco , because it is so, you love it or hate it , but in any case, it deserves a visit or at least a reading.
This metropolis has a high number of inhabitants (sometimes read 3 million, sometimes 7, sometimes 12), boasting the primacy of the first city of Morocco. It is the financial and economic capital , and this attracts an ever-increasing number of people, attracted by the possibility of finding work, which are going to fill the suburban neighborhoods of the city that is actually expanding inward. Yes, because there is also to add that Casablanca is the most expensive city in the country , rents are very high, and living near the center is a privilege of few (and Europeans).
It is a metropolis with long tentacles where you can feel like in many European capitals, shops and cafes are the same, restaurants and bars full of businessmen in aperitif hours, discos for all tastes, and very little tradition and religion . The girls with the veil in Casablanca are few, and it will be easy to find women at the bar that show off clothes worthy of via Montenapoleone.Yet here we find the Hassan II Mosque , the largest mosque in Morocco and among the largest in the Arab world (the first two in the ranking are in Saudi Arabia). An imposing construction, built following the most modern architectural techniques and the sacred scriptures of the Koran. New and ancient to blend in a place that holds up to 25,000 faithful in prayer inside and 80,000 outside. Among other things, we can take a bit of merit because the glass comes from Venice and the marbles from Carrara .
Once you visit the mosque, you can go to the second most visited place in the city, the Habous district : it certainly recalls the ancient medes of Fes or Marrakech , but was conceived by a French architect in 1917. Unfortunately the maladministration has meant that this neighborhood is rather decayed, without prejudice to the possibility of finding Moroccan crafts and small pastries with typical products , which is rather difficult in the rest of the city.
In the heart of the arid lands of Botswana it is an enchanted place, a place characterized by calm waters, reeds and landscapes spotted with bright green: This is the Okavango Delta,which is the largest inland river delta in the world .
The Okavango River, the third largest river in Africa, travels over 1000 km without ever finding the way of the sea and therefore its waters end their journey here, absorbed by the saltworks located in the central part of Botswana. This river, which disperses its waters on the border with the desert lands of the Kalahari, creates a landscape of rare beauty and a perfect environment for the sustenance of a myriad of animals .
The delta contracts and expands according to the seasonal rhythm of the rains . Starting in March, the abundant rains that fall in Angola, start to swell the river. During the following months the rains gradually moved westwards, following the course of the river. Between June and July the delta reaches the greatest water flow so as to get to earn up to 3 km a day . In August the flow of the river decreases and the labyrinthine canals start to back away. The major dry period is from November to March.
The truck of our group of Adventures In the World leaves us in Maun, in front of a small airport where we get on board a Cessna plane . The small size of the aircraft makes it much more sensitive to air currents and the young rider’s acrobatics driving us in this sensational panoramic flight do not help the weak of the stomach. Despite this the eyes, or the part of the body that, in this situation, can claim the right to say the last word, thank you for being here.
In fact, from above, the complex grid of canals, lagoons and islands and the colors of the earth mixed with the green of the vegetation and the iridescent blue of the water, give the vision of a lunar landscape . Small dark dots move slowly on these strips of land emerged, and only when the aircraft is lowered I can decode them: they are large herds of elephants, buffaloes and zebras .
It is as if it were a large mosaic that only observed closely reveals the pieces that compose it. A mosaic created by animals, lagoons, islands, canals, forests and forests of aquatic plants .
The flight lasts more than half an hour and allows you to enjoy views very different from each other since this type of landscape changes its appearance depending on the amount of water present in each area.
As wonderful as this Delta seen from above, in my opinion, you can not go away from here without having experienced the unique experience of navigating its waters with the typical mokoro , a traditional boat made from an ebony trunk .
In fact, the mokoro in ebony are increasingly rare because they are replaced by the more “eco friendly” glass fiber mokoro, but I admit they do not have the same charm. Whether they are made of ebony or fiberglass, what does not change is the first impression of instability that they transmit, certainly due to the very low, narrow and elongated shape. But unlike what you can think of, mokoro are perfect boats for sliding quickly over the shallow waters of the Delta .
There are two seats, while at the stern a boatman pushes the boat with a ngashi , that is, more simply, a long wooden perch that sinks on the soft backdrop acts as a lever.
There are things that this excursion is right to expect, others not.
For example, you do not expect huge packs of animals on the banks. To spot elephants, zebras and lions it is advisable to get off the mokoro and take a guided tour by land.
But if you expect that peace and serenity that only the silence is broken by genuine, genuine sounds, such as the light rubbing of the boat on the water and the rustling that it creates making its way through the reeds, then you are in the right place.
Just as you are in the right place if you can not resist the magnetism of calm and transparent water because, following carefully the instructions of the boatmen who can indicate suitable areas, you can immerse yourself in the cool waters in a unique environment in the world .
Reginald Harper author of this blog, He is professional writer he create this website to share about Traveling and much more. | 2019-04-20T22:35:54Z | http://hiexbrevard.com/ |
When you get to within five-to-ten years of when you expect to retire, the planning usually gets more serious. So far, you’ve probably thought about how much money to save every year, but now you need to think about lots of other issues that will guide you to a better estimate of how much you need to accumulate.
What Are You Retiring To?
What is it that you want to do? Have time to read? Work out regularly? Spend more time with kids, family, friends? Take up a new hobby? Volunteer your time for something you care about? Take a class? Try working at something new? Perhaps with fewer hours or a shorter commute.
Whatever the possibilities, you should probably talk to your spouse (if you’re married) to see how that fits in with their future plans. It’s quite common for the spouse to have some anxiety about a change in the daily home routine. No doubt compromise will need to be part of everyone’s agenda.
Make a list of what excites you about the future and how you’d like to spend your time.
Think about how much those possibilities will cost.
Talk to your spouse, friends, other people you trust to get their thoughts.
Your choice of where to live is a major factor to consider when contemplating retirement. Are you happy staying where you are? Do you want a warmer (or colder) climate? Do you want to be able to travel for extended periods? It’s all about lifestyle.
If you are happy living where you’ve always lived, you probably won’t have many surprises. But if you’re thinking about a second home in another part of the country or perhaps moving permanently somewhere else, you need to do some homework. Try spending a longer vacation where you think you want to go. How will you make new friends, find medical care or get involved with your community?
If you plan to stay where you live now, quantify the costs for living there. Is your mortgage paid off? Do you have association fees? Can you afford to pay property taxes once retired? Should you consider downsizing within the same area?
If you are considering a new location in retirement, make the time to visit for several weeks or months. The experience will help you consider issues you may not have thought about before. What are the costs like? Higher? Lower? How easily can you integrate yourself in this new community?
If you are thinking about relocating, how will the current housing market affect your decision? Do you need to allow more time to sell your home before you start looking for a new place?
If you’d like to travel for an extended period of time on a regular basis, try to quantify those costs. Will you have “double” expenses for that time? For example, will you be paying rent in the new location and mortgage payments on your current home? Two sets of utility bills? Will you need to ship a car back and forth? These costs can add up fast, so it pays to think about it ahead of time.
Will your health care cover you anywhere you choose to live? What types of changes would need to be made to other types of insurance coverage based on a change of residency?
If you already have more than one home, do you anticipate selling any properties once retired? How does the rest of the family feel about that?
Speaking of family feelings, you’ll need to give some thought to how the kids will react to major changes in the household. Many retirees’ children are grown and launched in their own lives. But you’d be surprised how many of those kids still think of the house they grew up in as “home.” Retirement can be a time to follow your dreams and try new things, but be prepared for a variety of reactions from those closest to you.
Not everyone’s kids are completely launched at retirement. That may be a reason to stay in your current home for a while. As the kids get older, they may be able to continue with their lives while you travel for longer periods. Or perhaps you can time your adventures so that they can join you, although they may be reluctant to leave their own lives – even for a relatively short period of time.
What considerations are there for retirement that would affect your children?
How will you incorporate the needs of your kids once you’ve retired?
It’s not just the kids that may need your financial support. A new pattern is emerging as Baby Boomers are more frequently approached by family and friends to help when times get tough. While writing a check to someone in need may not seem to be a significant enough issue to sidetrack your own retirement plans, a pattern of these types of requests can definitely add costs that you hadn’t planned on and haven’t built into your retirement projections.
Family members having a tough time financially increasingly approach baby boomers who were and remain responsible about saving and investing. For example, your child needs a loan or your sibling needs help paying bills. Your mother with dementia must go into assisted living but lacks long-term care insurance. These costs are not necessarily built into your retirement plans.
People live longer now; you need to plan as if you will live into your 90s, some 40 more years. Your parents may also live longer and need financial assistance in those years.
Your kids may boomerang after college or in early adulthood, moving home to live with you again for years.
Clients struggle with children who have addiction issues and pay for the kids’ long-term rehab – care that sometimes comprises relapses and requires even more treatment. Parents face how long to keep paying for care, a cost rarely foreseen and included in any financial plan.
Wealthier clients who planned for organized philanthropy in retirement instead give money to needy people in daily life. These gifts are nondeductible and don’t fit into planned charitable giving.
Not surprisingly, the study notes that one in seven people over 50 are divorced, a sevenfold increase from 1960. Divorce usually stretches both parties financially and creates more complicated domestic situations – often creating need for frequent financial help, as well.
These issues only get more complex as retirement approaches, and with it your fears of outliving your money and becoming a burden on your family. The study pinpoints needing a family member to provide physical care as potentially the most worrisome outcome (men feel more strongly about this than women).
Few families discuss long-term care needs or even how to approach planning for elder care. Only a little more than a third (37%) of those 50 and older believe they will need long-term care, for instance, when in reality 70% will eventually need it, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Out-of-pocket elder care for either you or your relative drains savings fast. Costs range from an average of $20 an hour for in-home care to some $7,300 a month for private care in a nursing home.
Alzheimer’s disease is another top fear. The study reports that nearly half of people 85 and older have Alzheimer’s or related dementias. No doubt most of those retirees prefer to remain in their own homes.
You need to know about the costs of retrofitting you home to accommodate an elderly relative, and what long-term care insurance does and doesn’t cover when under your roof. Your use of long-term care insurance to cover home health care often reduces the policy’s lifetime benefits, for instance. How much coverage remains for institutional care if you eventually need it?
When handling these very personal and complex issues, consider consulting with an elder care attorney or geriatric specialist. At the very least, think about whether you are becoming the family bank and if you should build the costs into your retirement plan.
A study in the May 2011 issue of Journal for Financial Planning by Wade Pfau, Ph.D. posits that it’s the savings rate that we should be focusing on rather than the withdrawal rate. His research shows that it may be more effective to think about what you want to spend in retirement and then save accordingly. The longer you have to save, the less you need to sock away each year. But on average, the savings rate needed in this study was approximately 16% to 17%. That’s higher than the traditional 10% of net income. But for many people, it’s probably realistic. Of course many factors affect that rate including time to save, asset mix, inflation, taxes and so forth.
Once you get within five years of retirement, it makes sense to do a detailed projection of income sources and expenses in retirement to see if you are on track. This is probably one of the most important times to seek professional advice to make sure you’ve really considered all relevant factors.
Are you saving enough for retirement? It may be more now that the economy is growing so slowly.
Have you thought about how much you’ll spend in retirement? Have you considered inflation over time on those costs?
Do you know the percent of assets you’ll spend each year in retirement – your withdrawal rate? Is it sustainable over your lifetime? One of many people’s biggest fears is running out of money during retirement.
Consider your life expectancy. People are living longer now and many of you may need to plan to live into your 90s.
Historically, there have been three primary sources of income in retirement: Social Security, your company retirement plans and personal savings. Not everyone will have all three.
Social Security will most likely change for many people who are not already retired. It is already “means tested” in that people in higher income brackets pay more tax on their benefits than those in lower brackets. You can apply as early as age 62, although at that age you will lose 20% of your full benefits. If you are married, there can be significant advantages to doing some analysis of “claiming strategies” (when to take your benefits). This stream of income can play an important role in retirement and it pays to learn more about your options. In some cases, it may make sense for one spouse to defer their own benefits until age 70 while taking spousal benefits at an earlier age.
Company retirement plans are a major source of income for many retirees. Some companies still offer pension plans. In these types of plans, the employer puts away money based on an actuarial formula for its employees. At retirement, you can choose a pension benefit for just your life or for a combined life expectancy with your spouse. More often, companies offer 401(k) or 403(b) plans where the employees have to save and choose their own investments. At retirement, you can rollover those assets to an IRA or leave them in the company plan.
If you like the idea of a pension – receiving a regular income – then you may want to consider an immediate annuity for a portion of your retirement income. Choose an insurance company with reasonable expenses and a strong financial track record.
Recent retirement studies show that it may be advantageous to use an immediate annuity to cover your fixed costs. The annuity is guaranteed to pay out for your life expectancy (or a joint life expectancy if that’s what you choose). So assuming the company that sells you the annuity is solvent, you won’t run out of money – at least for a basic level of expenses. You can then draw are right now, you may want to wait a bit before committing to an annuity. Once you purchase an immediate fixed annuity, you typically lock in an interest rate for life.
Think about when you want to start taking Social Security benefits assuming you think you’ll be eligible.
Understand what company benefits you are entitled to: retirement plans including pension plans, 401(k) or similar plans, non-qualified plans (typically for higher level executives), stock options, restricted stock, company health insurance and other benefits.
If you want to lock in a stream of income in retirement, consider an immediate fixed annuity from a company with reasonable costs and a strong financial base.
One frequently overlooked source of income in retirement is the Health Savings Account (HSA). An HSA is a tax-exempt trust that is set up with a qualified HSA trustee. You can contribute to an HSA if you have a high-deductible health insurance policy. (If you are enrolled in Medicare, you cannot make contributions.) The money in the HSA grows tax-free until you need it in retirement. As long as the money is used for qualified health expenses, you won’t have to pay income tax on the withdrawals.
When you make a contribution to an HSA, you get a deduction on your tax return. If you contribute through an employer plan, you put away dollars that will never be taxed. Self-employed individuals can also contribute after-tax dollars to HSA plans. You do not need to have earned income to contribute.
Watch out for the expenses of the plan. If you want to invest in a particular fund, try looking for HSA trustees on that fund company’s website. For example, Vanguard has links to HSA providers that offer Vanguard funds.
There are annual limitations on how much can be contributed. For 2017, a single person can contribute $3,400. If you are over age 50, you can make an additional catch-up contribution of $1,000. If you have family high-deductible coverage, you can contribute up to $6,750. Contributions can be made up until the tax filing deadline. You report contributions to the IRS on Form 8889 that is filed with your return.
If you die with an HSA, your spouse can use it for their qualified medical expenses. If your beneficiary is someone other than your spouse, the money becomes taxable to your heirs.
Many people find themselves at a loss when it comes time to invest retirement assets. As you get older, typically you invest more in bonds. Lots of people have no clue what to look for when purchasing bonds. Focus on a combination of credit quality and length to maturity. These are the primary drivers in evaluating the quality of bonds.
Most retirees find comfort in maintaining enough money in cash equivalents and bonds to cover at least three years’ of expenses. Inflation can put a damper on retirement income. Think about ways to protect your assets from the ravages of inflation. TIPS – Treasury Inflation Protected Securities – are one way to do this. Diversifying in stocks, real estate and precious metals could also help protect against rising prices. If you buy an annuity, get the inflation protection rider.
One of the most vulnerable times in your investing life is just before or just after you retire. If the market goes down, it can be hard to recover as millions of people are discovering right now. If you are working, you can always keep working longer to try to recover. But if you are already retired, it’s much tougher to course correct. Common sense about spending can help. If times are difficult, pull back on expenses to the extent you can. If you are experiencing anxiety, it may be time to hire a professional.
A recent study by Wade Pfau and Michael Kitces, Reducing Retirement Risk with a Rising Equity Glidepath, challenges the traditional thinking about holding more bonds in retirement. The study considers another strategy of holding more bonds as you approach retirement and are in the early phases of retirement. Then in later years, you start adding to the stocks in your portfolio. This is one way of addressing the vulnerability of your portfolio right at the point of retirement. By later in your retirement, your portfolio may be able to take on more risk. This strategy may be supplemented by purchasing a fixed immediate annuity, also later in your retirement years, to lock in income to cover mandatory expenses.
How will your investment strategy change at retirement? Will it continue to change as you age?
How much money do you want to hold in very liquid investments for emergency reserves?
Are you confident in your own abilities to manage your money in retirement or should you seek a professional? Many times investors start off managing their own affairs but find that as they age they value having a trusted professional there as a sounding board or to help their families when they are gone.
Have you considered how to protect your portfolio against inflation or other threats to your assets?
Insurance needs can change at retirement. Most people want life insurance when their children are young and their mortgages are high. With the ability to pass $10.98 million to children estate tax free from a married couple, there may be less need for life insurance to protect against estate tax.
You won’t need long-term disability insurance in retirement. That’s to protect your income while you’re working. You will still need homeowners’, auto and umbrella coverage.
Fidelity estimates that a couple at age 65 will need $220,000 for medical costs alone throughout retirement. This assumes both people sign up for Medicare and don’t have additional company retirement benefits. This does not include any need for long-term care expenses, over-the-counter medications or dental costs. If you retired before age 65 or needed long-term care, expenses could be much higher.
Long-term care insurance covers home health care and nursing home costs. Typically people evaluate their need for this coverage between age 50 and 60. Costs are more reasonable during that period and go up with age. Costs can also go up for entire classes of insureds over time. The shorter the period of benefits, the lower the increases. Depending on your level of assets, you may not need long-term care insurance. AARP has a program for this type of coverage that is reasonably priced.
Evaluate your need for life insurance at retirement.
Review your personal property coverage: home, auto, umbrella.
Understand what your company will provide for retiree health insurance, if anything.
Although you typically will have COBRA health insurance coverage when you leave your company, make sure you understand how long it will last.
Apply for Medicare about three months before you turn age 65.
Educate yourself about long-term care insurance to see if you should apply for a policy.
While you were working, your employer withheld taxes for you. At retirement, you’re responsible. Many people pay estimated quarterly tax payments for income tax – both state and federal. You may find that you owe much less tax right after you retire – and before you have to start taking required minimum distributions from retirement accounts. That could be because you are drawing on assets that have already been taxed.
You can take withdrawals from a company retirement plan once you are age 55 and separated from service without penalty. So if you need to draw on this money, don’t roll it over to an IRA where you have to be age 59½ to withdraw money without penalty. The penalty for early withdrawal is 10% on top of your regular tax owed.
If you have company stock in a retirement plan, you may be able to use a little known tax rule referred to as “net unrealized appreciation (NUA).” To use this special rule, you do not roll over the company stock to an IRA. You take it out of the plan and pay ordinary income tax on the cost basis. Many times this cost basis is low because the shares were purchased by the company long ago (your company can provide you with the cost basis).
When you eventually sell the stock, you’ll pay capital gains tax on the net unrealized appreciation (fair market value on the date of withdrawal from the plan minus the cost basis) instead of ordinary income tax on an IRA withdrawal. If you hold the stock at least one year, any additional appreciation is also taxed at capital gains rates.
If you use NUA, your heirs will not be able to step up the cost basis at your death. There are pros and cons to using this technique and I strongly advise you to consult a professional before doing this.
Watch out for tax penalties in retirement. At age 70½, you have to take required minimum distributions (RMDs) from retirement accounts. If you miscalculate on the amount to withdraw, you may have to pay a 50% penalty on what you should have withdrawn but didn’t. The rules can be complicated especially when you first start, so you may want to seek professional help at that time.
Think about if and when you’ll need to file quarterly estimated income tax payments.
Consider the tax impact of withdrawals from your assets. You may want to start taking withdrawals from assets that have already been taxed first and wait to start withdrawing from tax-deferred assets.
Make sure you understand when you are required to start taking withdrawals from retirement accounts.
You can always take more than the minimum distribution.
You need to have a will. And perhaps a trust, too, depending on your circumstances. These documents detail what you want to happen with your assets, guardianship for your children and who will make important decisions when you’re gone. Procrastination is common. Most of the time, people just can’t figure out who they want to name as executors, trustees or guardians. Try to identify your best choice now and understand you can always change it later if necessary.
If you are worried that your heirs won’t manage money wisely, you can add language to create a “spendthrift” trust. The trust controls how the money can be spent. If you want to leave money to someone, but not their relatives, you can have the trustee purchase an annuity that ends after one life. There are lots of solutions to estate problems you may be worried about.
In some cases, a significant level of wealth needs to be protected for heirs. Creating a family trust can be one way to pass assets to the next generation. Creating charitable trusts that all family members can participate in can create values that you want to pass along. Don’t forget to plan for pets’ care once you are gone.
Powers of attorney for health care and property are also important to make sure your wishes are honored if you are not competent to manage your own affairs. And don’t forget to write down where to find important information so your family or friends know where to find everything.
If you don’t have estate documents, get them drafted by an estate attorney.
If you do have estate documents, review them every five-to-ten years.
Make sure you have powers of attorney for property and health care.
Write down where your important papers are and who to contact in case of an emergency.
The information presented here is not specific to any individual’s personal circumstances. To the extent that this material concerns tax matters, it is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, by a taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed by law. Each taxpayer should seek independent advice from a tax professional based on his or her individual circumstances. These materials are provided for general information and educational purposes based upon publicly available information from sources believed to be reliable—we cannot assure the accuracy or completeness of these materials. The information in these materials may change at any time and without notice.
What’s a Donor Advised Fund?
© 2019 Stevens Visionary Strategies All Rights Reserved. | 2019-04-22T16:51:49Z | https://stevensvisionary.com/countdown-to-retirement/ |
Although the survey was not representative of all caregivers, the demographic profile of respondents was similar to that reported in other research (87.4% women, average caregiver age 57, average care recipient age 72).
Nearly 61% said they had used an assistive device, most commonly mobility aids, bathing aids, medication assistance, and toileting aids. In addition, 83.8% had used technology for calling for help in an emergency. In the majority of cases, the caregiver or another family member paid for the AT themselves. Reasons for not using AT included a lack of awareness, not needing it, and costs. A similar portion of respondents (62.8%) had used HMs, which were also paid for primarily by family caregivers. Most respondents said that the AT/HM was very helpful. Although 67% said they experienced moderate or heavy physical strain from caregiving, most (59.4%) had not received training on device use or techniques to minimize the risk of physical strain. The most frequently mentioned source for information on AT/HM was the Internet (67.4%), followed by physicians (47.3%) and AAAs (37.9%).
The site visits and discussions revealed many tips and resources that can help family caregivers reduce their risk of physical strain, assess their homes, and select, access, and pay for AT/HM. We also identified a number of innovative strategies and resources that the NFCSP network can use to assist family caregivers with AT/HM.
As a first step in disseminating information and strategies that emerged from this study, the research team developed a guide for family caregivers (Appendix B) and a guide for NFCSPs (Appendix C). Each guide will be made available in both a print handout version and online version and disseminated through NFCSPs, ADRCs and various other channels. In addition, research findings from this study have been presented at several national conferences. Also, findings were presented in a guest post on http://www.disability.gov, which is operated by ODEP and has nearly 30,000 followers.
Major barriers mentioned in both the TEP and CAP discussions, as well as in the literature, included a lack of awareness of safe handling techniques and available AT/HM and fears of technology. As one CAP member discussed, most caregivers are thrust into their roles as caregivers; they lack time to prepare for their caregiving responsibilities, including time to learn about AT/HM. Another member pointed out that, in some instances, it could be a simple matter of introducing the caregiver to the technology. As one TEP member commented, "We could do a lot to improve people's lives by raising consciousness that physical strain does not have to be a part of caregiving and that it is modifiable." Many caregivers do not realize that they can do something to reduce their physical strain.
A related barrier, noted in the TEP discussion, is a tendency of many caregivers towards "over-helping." This suggests that efforts are needed to educate caregivers and care recipients on ways to support the care recipient's independence, which can also be one of the more cost-effective solutions to reducing strain. Training in techniques for communicating with persons with dementia could help reduce physical strain resulting from miscommunication and conflicts when caring for this population.
TEP members commented that renters are more likely than owners to be reluctant to make physical changes to their homes, because they have less control over their settings, and 20% of older people live in rental housing. However, the group noted that under fair housing law, landlords must allow people to make reasonable modifications in their homes. In many cases, after contacting the landlord, renters have installed AT/HM without any problems.
Our research uncovered many resources that can assist families with AT/HM, including guides and checklists for assessing home safety, sources of information on choosing AT/HM, and general caregiver support resources. Other potential sources of assistance include primary care physicians (PCPs), occupational therapists, local aging service providers, Centers for Independent Living (CILs), State Assistive Technology Projects, and AT re-use programs.
The site visits and panel discussions suggested a number of steps that the Aging Network can take to increase access to AT/HM to reduce family caregiver physical strain. Many NFCSPs, in conducting home visits, look for AT/HM that the family may need. Phone assessments may be necessary in difficult to reach, rural areas. A strategy that several programs have found helpful is for CMs or family caregiver specialists to bring along samples of commonly used AT that caregivers can try, such as a shower bench. Some programs use assessment forms or checklists, which can help staff with assessing a caregiver's need for AT/HM. After the initial assessment and selection of AT/HM, program personnel noted the importance of following up with caregivers over time to ensure the usefulness of the equipment and its correct use. In some instances, the NFCSP conducts the initial assessment and then refers to another provider or organization for more in-depth assessment as needed. Many potential partnerships for assessments were suggested, including occupational/physical therapists, RNs, home health agencies, rehabilitation services, vocational rehabilitation agencies, care transitions teams, disability organizations, and state AT projects. Community colleges that provide training programs and continuing education courses for home health aides could be a way to reach this workforce, in addition to online training programs.
To help families find a contractor to complete the HM, NFCSPs can form relationships with local businesses, in order to refer people to providers who others have used and who have a proven record of good results.
To help make AT/HM affordable and accessible, many programs include AT/HM in the array of services provided with NFCSP Supplemental Services funds. Another way to help caregivers access AT is to build or refer to an AT re-use or lending program. Agencies can also leverage some of the many other potential funding sources for AT/HM.
Another recommendation was for programs to conduct outreach to raise awareness of existing resources to address caregiver physical strain among family caregivers, physicians, and other health and human services providers. This could be done by partnering with various community organizations to disseminate information to caregivers or presenting information at events and locations in the community where older adults and family caregivers go such as physicians' offices, places of worship, and senior centers.
The expert, caregiver, and NFCSP panels were asked their recommendations for expanding dissemination to reach a wider non-academic audience. Participants discussed general recommendations pertaining to an overall dissemination strategy, as well as specific suggestions for dissemination aimed at distinct target audiences.
Panel participants noted that different materials are needed for different purposes. TEP participants recommended providing objective, evidence-based materials to inform caregivers and the public about AT options.
An idea that was discussed was to produce multi-media implementation guides and educational materials for the effective interventions targeted, if applicable, at each of the potential user groups: family as well as professional caregivers. The educational materials and implementation guides could use video and web technology and be disseminated through leveraging existing resources including ADRCs and AoA's Family Caregiver Support Programs, and possibly on AT product databases such as AbleData, TechForLTC, Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) Clearinghouse, and caregiving websites such as the FCA.
A frequently mentioned example was the training component of the Aging in Place/Better Living at Home program in Howard and Montgomery Counties, Maryland. The program is developing training programs for three audiences: (1) video-based trainings for professionals including occupational therapists, physical therapists, and SWs; (2) video-based learning for staff at AAAs and other social service agencies, to help with determining the need for a referral to OT; and (3) for the general public, an informational resource providing neutral information on the pros and cons of the various types of AT/HM that are available. A representative of the program noted that it will take a non-academic approach to training; the videos will include real-life caregivers in the context of the home. The videos will be short (about 3-5 minutes) and available online.
Panel participants discussed that partnerships between AAAs and ADRCs and other disability organizations, in particular, could provide a useful opportunity for the aging and disability communities to learn from each other. They noted that, compared with older populations, the younger disability population has tended to be more assertive in advocating for systems change. The disability perspective could be useful for AoA to consider in these areas, and perhaps the groups could collaborate to develop mass education campaigns that could support each other.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is working on an effort to provide consumer information on medical devices (U.S. Food & Drug Administration, 2011).
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation grants, established through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which seek to improve costs, quality, and access.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture extension services with universities, which work on aging issues. Some AAAs have established connections with these organizations, but in some cases that connection has not been made.
Participants identified four issues that dissemination efforts will need to address, in addition to providing AT/HM, to ensure that the equipment is used and is helpful: (1) assessment of home safety and AT/HM needs, including re-assessment over time; (2) acceptance of AT/HM, including overcoming common concerns such as renter issues, fear of losing benefits, concerns about the look of the devices, and the concern that a device may symbolize disability and desire to maintain a sense of normalcy; (3) training on how to use the AT/HM and training in communication with persons with dementia, as well as retraining as needed; and (4) proper installation -- the group discussed that contractors and handymen vary in their knowledge of how to properly install assistive equipment.
Experts and stakeholders suggested a variety of materials to provide information for family caregivers. Families need repeated exposure to the possibilities of AT. A layering strategy with public health campaigns to normalize the use of these products was mentioned as an important component. The comment was made that these materials could empower families to help themselves.
Panel members also noted the need to make materials available in multiple languages and to ensure that materials are at a reading level that the average person can comprehend.
Websites: TEP and CAP participants agreed on the need for better tools and resources to inform families about AT/HM. They commented that although many websites address AT/HM, many of these sites are not very useful to family caregivers. A noted problem is that, although several websites are available that provide caregivers with information about AT products and services, they are often tied to marketing for a company's products. These websites do not provide objective guidance to help caregivers decide what they need or results of rigorous scientific evaluation. The suggestion was made to create a clearinghouse of information that would be a website or single source where caregivers can search by topic and get information on assessments, available AT, and videos.
Videos: Panel participants suggested that simple visuals are best to get information across to the public and professionals alike. They noted that people want neutral information without marketing or advertising. The FCA identified over 100 training videos, but most were determined to be poorly presented or low quality production. A comment was made that videos can be powerful and helpful in getting the message across effectively and time-efficiently, as caregivers are likely to be short on time. An example mentioned is an aging services provider that is using its Distance Learning Center to provide free video-based education (http://www.mmlearn.org/). Social media was suggested as a possible mechanism for disseminating the videos.
Tools: The suggestion was made, in addition to the videos, to offer a tool such as a decision-making tree as a person-centered way to assist families in decision-making.
Existing caregiving and AT/HM websites, blogs, conferences, newsletters, and mailing lists.
Home improvement stores (e.g., Home Depot, Lowes) could be asked to provide a display, handouts, and/or videos on aging in place in the stores.
Disease-specific websites, such as the MS Society.
Health care providers, including orthopedists, chiropractors' offices, and community health centers.
HMOs and long-term care insurance providers.
Villages and NORCs, which screen service providers and help residents obtain services.
Group settings, as in Skills2Care, a home-based OT program to improve the well-being and skills of family caregivers that is available as an individual or group class (Jefferson Elder Care, 2011).
PACE programs, which provide more integration of services, and care teams that could include occupational therapists.
Mass media was also considered; however, panel participants noted that this is expensive and has a "dissolve effect." However, short 1-minute tips on a cable channel were mentioned as a possible strategy. Television/radio public service announcements were also suggested. Another idea was media outreach targeting specific writers who might be interested in this topic and appearing in op-eds and newspaper articles. Another idea was to convene a Congressional briefing and invite reporters.
Panel participants also suggested going to places where caregivers are, such as houses of worship, barber shops, waiting rooms of doctors' offices, local caregiver associations, and libraries.
Ideas included working with utility companies to include information in utility bills, working with fire departments to give people information when they visit people's homes, working with Chambers of Commerce to reach employed caregivers in the workplace, disseminating information through caregiver coalitions and respite care coalitions, and working with disability organizations, vocational rehabilitation agencies, pharmacies, volunteer organizations like Rebuilding Together, and hospital discharge planners.
The TEP and CAP panels generally agreed that the focus needs to be on CMs and SWs, because they spend the most time with older adults and family caregivers. As a TEP member noted, CMs work directly with caregivers and see a lot of things; training and resources could help them be comfortable giving referrals. However, AT/HM is not typically taught in schools of nursing or social work. One participant commented that aging services tend to foster a dependency model, with the focus on the need for help, rather than how to maximize capacity. Often, workers do not think of AT/HM as one of the ways they can help a person.
Staff at one of the visited sites recommended that CMs look at the home and educate caregivers about the relationship between the home environment, health, and function, because their job includes supporting people in the home. In addition, they advised reminding staff that they do not need to know it all and can lean on other providers -- to see their job as identifying issues, not performing the services.
Training of CMs, case workers, and other staff in how to assist caregivers with accessing technology was a major issue that arose in the TEP and CAP discussions as well as in the literature review.The TEP discussion emphasized the importance of the issue of training CMs and SWs. Participants noted that, although occupational therapists provided services in many of the interventions examined in the literature, the reality is that CMs/SWs are more often the staff who will be in direct contact with the targeted populations and identifying their AT needs. As such, direct training related to AT/HM should be implemented among this workforce to ensure that they can appropriately assist and refer caregivers. TEP members noted that this component of assessment has not been well integrated into CM/SW training.
Panel members commented that case workers need more training on body mechanics and the kinds of resources and strategies available to help reduce physical strain. For example, in some cases simply having a person sit in a different chair can reduce the need for assistance with transferring. Hence, staff training should also focus on how to help people find information and resources. CAP members suggested that more CM training might also help alleviate caregiver concerns over the cost of some AT/HM. CMs may not be properly informed about the costs of these devices, of which some come very cheaply.
Dr. Gitlin, a renowned scholar on AT/HM interventions, described workshops in Pennsylvania to heighten CMs' awareness of home safety for people with disabilities, which she said has been well received. The training was through the Pennsylvania Care Management Institute, which provides ongoing education for CMs. The program uses a home-grown assessment approach. The CMs asked three questions of families of people with disabilities, which were highly predictive of perceived quality of life, such as, "Do you have assistive devices in your home?" These questions could be included as part of a CM's risk assessment tool. A benefit of using a short set of assessment items (2-3 questions) is that assessing caregivers can take a lot of time and money. Getting that information more quickly can help avoid using limited funds on lengthy comprehensive assessments and having little left for services.
TEP and CAP participants also discussed the need to teach physicians about AT/HM, noting that physicians are not expected to be experts, but they need to be aware of the issue in order to make appropriate referrals. One CAP member stated that she has found medical professionals to be lacking in AT/HM knowledge. Another member supported this and said that we should target the education of PCPs in order to ensure that they are properly educated about AT/HM for caregivers.
In addition to directly educating physicians, the group discussed reaching audiences in non-traditional ways such as developing materials for the physicians' television network. Another suggestion was to disseminate a list of questions that patients could ask their physicians.
A suggestion was to reach consumers and give them information on how to select a contractor and what to tell them. Another suggestion was to work with training programs for contractors. | 2019-04-22T05:59:19Z | https://aspe.hhs.gov/report/accelerating-adoption-assistive-technology-reduce-physical-strain-among-family-caregivers-chronically-disabled-elderly-living-home/results-0 |
CalPERS was once the crown jewel of institutional investors, known for combining competence, integrity, and care. It invests funds and pays the pensions of California State workers. Over a decade ago, however, CalPERS’ senior managers and board became a cesspool that stood for the opposite. CalPERS’ corrupt culture is deeply rooted. Various California Treasurers have tried to clean up the mess, but the reforms have failed because few senior officers and board members have been willing to take on the rot with the forcefulness required.
I worked closely with board members in my role as the general counsel of Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. It takes enormous courage to confront senior corporate officers or fellow-directors when they are maintaining a solid front. We had a good board, officers, and institution. In an institution with a deeply rooted, sick culture like CalPERS, everything works against forceful directors trying to cure the rot. They have to confront a phalanx of directors and officers who are genuinely horrified that someone would disturb the highly prized decorum of the boardroom. The officials maintaining that the sick culture is not sick become enraged at anyone that blows the whistle on their unwillingness to act aggressively to cure the sick culture.
CalPERS has had the great fortune of having a board member willing to take on its board and officers to insist on rooting out its culture of corruption. In doing so, JJ Jelincic discovered the great truth – no good deed goes unpunished. His fellow board members, with the clear connivance of the senior officers, are ginning up an effort to destroy his ability to continue to try to root out the rot at CalPERS. Neither Jelincic, who has among the greatest expertise of any board member in finance, nor the directors as a whole, knows what Jelincic is supposed to have done wrong.
Here is the kangaroo nature of the proceedings at CalPERS, revealed in an excerpt from the transcript of a public board meeting. It is typical of a broken organization. Bill Slaton is a CalPERS board member.
Bill Slaton: Mr. Jelincic, I’m going to address you in this – that as I’ve observed, you’ve taken unilateral actions that to me are clear violations of fiduciary duty, and by implication placed our fiduciary duty as a board at risk, and the common theme is the disrespect for the governing rules of the organization.
To be more specific, I’m talking about the disregard for confidentiality of materials or decisions reviewed or made by this board…. [T]here are in my view only two possible solutions to protect the fund from the risk of continued fiduciary violations. The first would be for Mr. Jelincic to voluntarily resign his board position.
If he chooses to remain on the board, I ask the board president to place on the board agenda as soon as possible an action item regarding a sanction or sanctions to be imposed by this board, and one sanction I ask to be considered would prohibit Mr. Jelincic from attending any closed sessions conducted by any committee or the full board while he remains a member of this board due to his repeated unauthorized disclosure of confidential material.
At this point in the transcript, we have Slaton attacking Jelincic in a manner one virtually never witnesses in a boardroom. What we do not know is what “confidential” information Jelincic supposedly “disregarded.” Jelincic’s reputation is for pushing boards to act aggressively to fulfill their fiduciary duties, so it is bizarre for Slaton to be seeking to muzzle Jelincic’s efforts to improve the board’s performance of its fiduciary duties on the grounds that (in some unstated fashion) doing so will improve the board’s fiduciary performance.
Jelincic, as one would expect, asked what specific “confidentiality” he was “disregarding” so that he could respond to Slaton’s attacks. Slaton provided no specific charges, making it impossible for Jelincic to respond with any specific denials.
The transcript reveals other important facts. First, while Slaton provided zero evidence of any wrongdoing by Jelincic, he demanded that that the board act “as soon as possible” to consider Slaton’s demand that the removal of Jelincic from the board. (A director that cannot take part in the closed board meetings cannot function as a director.) Without any showing by Slaton of anything remotely approaching an emergency, the board appears to be expediting its effort to muzzle Jelincic.
As a general counsel, I would have responded immediately to Slaton at the board meeting. First, I would have emphasized that Slaton had presented nothing to warrant the board considering such a drastic sanction against another director. Second, I would have stressed that Jelincic’s request that Slaton notify Jelincic’s of the specific charges was an absolute necessity before the board should even consider holding a meeting to sanction a director. Third, I would have called attention to Slaton’s refusal to provide any facts supporting his conclusory claims of misconduct when Jelincic requested that he do so. The fourth point I would have made is described below.
We know is that CalPERS’ general counsel responded in a very different manner – a manner that reveals the terrible culture at CalPERS that Jelincic has labored to fix. The transcript reveals that the Rob Feckner, President of CalPERS board and his general counsel are reinforcing rather than fixing CalPERS’ failed culture.
Matt Jacobs, the General Counsel did speak up, but solely to implicitly support throwing Jelincic under the bus. His statement ignored the three points I would have made, and then merely read the board of directors’ sanctioning powers. Jacobs failed to note that the board did not have the power under the powers he had just read, to impose Slaton’s proposed sanction. That is the fourth point I would have made to the board.
The transcript then records Feckner’s response to his General Counsel’s legalese. He too failed to point out that the board had no power to impose Slaton’s proposed sanction. He told the board that “Matt and I have had many discussions about” Slaton’s desire to sanction Jelincic. Jelincic knew about Slaton’s desire as well and in conversation with Feckner requested that the board meeting where Slaton was going to request that the board hold a “trial” and sanction Jelincic be public and on the record.
Feckner’s revelation proves that Slaton had zero excuse for not providing Jelincic with the specific charges so that he could respond and refute any pretext for the board holding a “trial.” Slaton’s attack on Jelincic was planned, not impromptu. It was a serious charge that Slaton knew could do grave damage to Jelincic and CalPERS’ reputations. If Slaton had not done his homework and determined the specific charges he intended to make against Jelincic, all Slaton had to do was wait until he had done so, put Jelincic on written notice of the specific charges so that he could respond, and then the board could decide whether to consider the charges and the defense.
The transcript indicates that Slaton claimed to have done his homework. He asserted that he had his specific charges developed – but refused to give Jelincic notice of those specific charges so that he could mount an effective defense. Slaton then compounded the unfairness by requesting an expedited “trial” of his specific charges by the board. That combination of actions indicates that Slaton had two purposes in making his unsubstantiated, conclusory charges at the board of directors meeting. First, it denies Jelincic the time and ability to prepare an effective defense of Slaton’s specific charges while allowing Slaton to plan and prepare his attack. Second, it allowed Slaton to smear Jelincic and prejudice the board (the “judges” in the future “trial”) against Jelincic by allowing Slaton to make a facially slanderous attack on Jelinic that I quoted from in a manner that made it impossible for Jelincic to respond because there were zero specifics.
Feckner’s revelation also means that Feckner and Jacobs have zero excuse for not insisting that Slaton provide Jelincic and them with the specific charges before Slaton made the facially slanderous charges at the board meeting that I quoted. It is a breach of their and Slaton’s fiduciary duties to CalPERS to knowingly allow one board member to accuse another board member of committing a crime under California law without having vetted the claim to demonstrate that it was well-founded. Jacobs’ actions go against every normal reflex of a corporate general counsel.
The general counsel is supposed to play a leadership role in rehabilitating a corporate culture like CalPERS that has lost its integrity. Jacobs has failed this test.
This excerpt from another board member’s comments is symptomatic of CalPERS’ sick culture.
Priya Mathur: That is our job – to protect this organization and to protect our members by protecting this organization, so those are my comments.
No, your “job” is not “protecting this organization” from those trying to fix what every independent expert agrees became a corrupt culture. Your job is not protecting officers and board members from criticism by Jelincic when they fail to work aggressively to fix that toxic culture. CalPERS’ culture became toxic over a decade ago precisely because there was no one like Jelincic on the board who was willing to criticize and willing to ask the officers the demanding questions that a real fiduciary asks when serving on a board. The long practice of CalPERS board members “protecting this organization” has been causing devastating harm to CalPERS’ members for over a decade. To fix CalPERS, California should appoint more people like Jelincic.
This entry was posted in Banana republic, Corporate governance, Guest Post, Investment management, Legal, Politics on January 31, 2017 by Yves Smith.
They don’t get how see-through this all is, do they? They really think they can steamroll everybody. They think they can go on record proving they don’t understand their obligations and no one will hold them accountable for it…can’t wait for the class-action against the entirety of the board and staff (sans Jelincic).
Whoa. Pretty disgusting. I’ve worked in some toxic work environments, where things like this happened – unsubstantiated claims/attacks, generalized attacks against someone where the substance of the attack is never revealed, etc. It’s very difficult to work under such conditions, but I’ve witnessed first hand how hard it is for someone who is honestly trying to work with people to clean house often has the tables turned and becomes the one who is accused of wrong-doing.
I’m glad that notice is taken and given about this situation, as I wish Jelincic well in his endeavors. This is very sobering news. Thanks for the post.
CalPERS really needs to clean house and clean up its act. They are “playing” with CA citizens’ money, and it’s been proven over and over that they’re doing a really poor job at this time.
Professor Black fails to mention that the former CEO of CalPERS, who most of the current top staff worked with, has been in FEDERAL PRISON since last May for misconduct at CalPERS.
While General Counsel Jacobs was brought in from outside after the indictment of the CEO and a former board member, it is clear that his job is to lead the cover-up and to make sure that no other staffers or board members join the former CEO in prison.
Board members engaging in a cover-up are the ones in violation of their fiduciary obligations. As a current beneficiary of CalPERS, if I had two quarters to rub together I’d sue Slaton, Feckner, and Mathur personally for violating their fiduciary duty to me as a beneficiary by placing protection of the “organization” over their duty to protect members and beneficiaries by transparently ferreting-out the damage done to our investments by this self-admitted and jailed CROOK. Instead, they chose to violate the First Amendment rights of a legitimately-elected board member who also happens to be an expert in finance.
Hey, this is how it works in the real world, just ask Richard Bowen of Citigroup. Or how about Neil Barofsky’s story about when one of little Timmy’s senior aides at the Treasury department told him not to do his job too well because it would enhance his job prospects in the private sector once he was one with government service. Hopefully a watchdog website like NC can help to make a difference in this case, but unfortunately this episode exemplifies how things really works in the country.
The (apparently deliberate) perversion of the term “fiduciary duty” is truly disgusting.
Thank you Bill Black for spelling out the wrongdoings of the CalPERS board against Jelincic with such clarity.
Given the excoriating of CalPers here at NC – taking direct aim at private equity, my read is that Jelincic’s great crime is his reading of NC and possibly asking questions in public meetings regarding PE deals and contracts. Basically, the board is trying to keep the public from knowing how much the GPs made while the LPs (that is, CalPers) made little if anything. This hypothesis, if true, suggests that either those numbers are truly hideous, or there is a conflict of interest on the board. I hope the CA AG’s office takes note. I smell a pony.
CalPERS board member JJ Jelincic has sent a letter to its chief executive, Anne Stausboll, criticising the pension fund’s support of private equity “propaganda”, according to the Financial Times. . .
Although that does exclude the University of California, which has equally questionable practices.
As a person with no experience in these matters I am horrified to see how ingrained this corruption is in so many financial institutions. I am in the process of rereading Jeffery Clements’ book from 2011 “Corporations are not People” and wonder how most Americans can consider they live in any sort of democratic country where the citizens have any power at all to influence those already in charge.
CalPERS’ corrupt culture is deeply rooted.
In New Zealand and Australia, “rooted” is a synonym for “f—ed”. It still parses quite well even with the unintentional(?) double meaning.
Wasnt Priya Mathur herself facing some ethics violations or something?
Not facing, she’s no longer chairing any board committees as a result of earlier sanctions.
Mathur, who is the principal financial analyst for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, has often been in trouble with the ethics agency for not filing campaign contribution reports and statements of economic interest.
Actually Mathur is currently Chair of Pension & Health Benefits Committee and Vice-Chair of Performance, Compensation & Talent Management Committee, Her removal only lasted six months.
New Chair and Vice-Chair elections will begin this month.
“Who is the client of the government attorney”, I believe this question also applies to CalPers.
I would ask can you clarify, link to or in any way help me to understand a very slippery question. “Who is the client of the government attorney”? I ask this question concerning an elected group like County Council, an appointed public board and a single elected official like a Supervisor of Elections. Also what obligation does the attorney have to other elected officials and members in the above situations?
Mayors assign attorneys to elected city councils and other elected officials send (assign_) attorneys to work with elected officials, an example being the supervisor of elections, school board, and to public boards. As a long time observer the attorneys act as their client is the person who sent or assigned them.
I have seen information on the public not being the client. I also have seen information on the question of confidentiality for the attorney in certain situations. I know there are statutes and ordinances about meeting not open to the public when concerning law suits but otherwise I believe the public should be able to hear or know the instructions of the client when charging the attorney about what actions to take. Is this correct?
I have not seen the question raised about an attorney who is assigned by a client to a county or city council or to another elected official who cannot have a client relationship with the attorney who is advising the official.
I have seen elected officials try without successes to have their own attorney but never hear the argument raised about the problem being the client relationship to another.
Can you point to any information about the legality of this and other questions or answers about this type of client relationship or lack their of?
I’ve seen major conflicts of interest arise in relation to election officials or boards of election, in which the state attorney (who represents state staff and officials) charged with wrong-doing, is somehow also in a position of making legal decisions to citizens who are trying to take a case against election officials. For some reason judges don’t take action to avoid conflicts of interest (in themselves or in other parties) in such cases. Ken Blackwell (OH 2004 Presidential Election) is a famous example but there are many others.
There are judges / officials who do their job with integrity, but it is not always the case.
A book published in Ireland 18 months ago lays out facts concerning the finances of Irish high court judges. (“Waiting for the Sheriff”) They apparently all have massive loans that cannot ever be paid (in the tens of millions and more). For some “strange” reason the banks have never called in those loans. In Ireland, one may not serve as a high court judge if they have been bankrupt. Thus the banks “own” the judges. No wonder the banks get off easy all the time, regardless of the evidence against them.
Thanks for the input. I can believe the whistleblowers. In the distant past when everything I turned over was concerning in a big way I looked at the FBI’s public corruption web site. It stated they do not overturn the people’s choices or language to that affect. The 60 day before the election was thing with Clinton was not there but it supports the facts that it seems most elected officials get a pass regardless of what they do even to extent of subversion of government (Democracy). I cannot remember if it was there on the site or where I learned that the FBI locally could not open an investigation on a politician unless they checked with higher ups. The only exception was dealing drugs. I personally think the only time a politician is indicted or prosecuted is when they piss of someone with more power.
As for attorneys they can only have only one client at a time and they must have a client relationship to act. I used to think this was like a safety on a loaded gun with the attorney being the gun. I have always believed but never heard a client who is an elected official should give instructions to the attorney in an announced public meeting or setting.
I have seen attorneys in government settings parrot anything to make what their client wants to happen by not acknowledging law and procedures. There can be a lot more said about this. It reflects the loss of We the Citizens Rights to seek Redress stated by the Constitution which can only be had by laws, regulations and parliamentary procedures being acknowledged and followed.
. “Who is the client of the government attorney”?
The People are the “client” of government. In CalPERS the clients are the recipients of the pensions. They are the ones owed a “fiduciary duty” by the Board. And any action taken that can impair the money to be paid to the CalPERS clients would be a violation of the Boards “fiduciary duty”.
Besides the dispute over PE, are there other disputes ?
Let’s face it, CALPERs is underfunded and is letting financial ignoramuses in Sacramento bankrupt the system. | 2019-04-20T20:13:18Z | http://cfdtrade.info/2017/01/bill-black-calpers-seeks-to-destroy-its-most-effective-director.html |
The 2014 FIFA World Cup Final was a football match that took place on 13 July 2014 at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to determine the 2014 FIFA World Cup champion. Germany defeated Argentina 1–0 in extra time, with the only goal being scored by Mario Götze, who collected André Schürrle's cross from the left on his chest before volleying a high left-footed shot into the net. The match was the third final between the two countries, a World Cup record, after their 1986 and 1990 matches, and billed as the world's best player (Lionel Messi) versus the world's best team (Germany).
Before the match, Germany had reached the World Cup final seven times (six times as West Germany from 1954 to 1990), winning three (1954, 1974, 1990) and being runners-up four times (1966, 1982, 1986, 2002); Argentina had reached four finals, winning twice (1978, 1986) and placing second twice (1930, 1990).
The result marked Germany's fourth World Cup title and their first World championship as a unified nation. The victory meant that three consecutive World Cups have been won by teams from the same continent, following Italy and Spain in 2006 and 2010 respectively, the first time this has happened in World Cup history. It was also the first time that three consecutive World Cup finals were still tied after 90 minutes. The final marked the first time a World Cup hosted in the Americas was not won by a team from the continent.
In the winning German team, Miroslav Klose, who had become the top scorer in World Cup history in the semi-final victory over Brazil, became one of the very few players ever to have won gold, silver and bronze medals in the World Cup (bronze in 2006 and 2010, silver in 2002 and gold in 2014), joining a club with earlier German players like Franz Beckenbauer, Sepp Maier and Wolfgang Overath (1966–1974), as well as Italian Franco Baresi (1982–1994).
According to FIFA, 1.013 billion individuals globally watched the final match of this tournament.
The two teams had met in 20 previous matches, with nine wins for Argentina, six wins for Germany and five draws. In these games, both teams had scored a total of 28 goals. Six of these matches were at a World Cup, two of them in the final. The 2014 final was the seventh World Cup match between them, equalling a tournament record for meetings between two teams (along with Brazil vs Sweden, and Germany vs Yugoslavia). The last three meetings were in three consecutive World Cups, having met in quarter-finals of 2006 and 2010 campaigns.
1958 FIFA World Cup Group 1, West Germany defeated Argentina 3–1.
1966 FIFA World Cup Group 2, West Germany and Argentina drew 0–0.
1986 FIFA World Cup Final, Argentina defeated West Germany 3–2 to win their second and most recent title.
1990 FIFA World Cup Final, West Germany defeated Argentina 1–0 to win their third title. It was Germany's last title as West Germany and the last before the 2014 Final.
2006 FIFA World Cup quarter-finals, Germany defeated Argentina 4–2 on penalties (1–1 draw after extra time).
2010 FIFA World Cup quarter-finals, Germany defeated Argentina 4–0.
In the 1966 FIFA World Cup, Argentina and West Germany played a 0–0 draw in the group stage. FIFA cautioned Argentina for its violent style against the Germans which saw Argentine Rafael Albrecht get sent off and suspended for the next match.
The 1990 FIFA World Cup Final saw two Argentine players get sent off and West Germany won 1–0 due to a controversial penalty kick late in the match.
The 2006 quarter-final game, where Germany won 4–2 in the shootout after the game ended 1–1, was marred by a post-match brawl caused by the Argentines, which resulted in suspensions for two Argentine players and one German player.
The most recent meeting between the two teams until the final, was a friendly match played on 15 August 2012 at Commerzbank-Arena, Frankfurt am Main, won by Argentina 3–1. Before the tournament, a friendly was scheduled for 3 September 2014, being the first match for both teams after the World Cup. Argentina won this meeting 4–2.
Klose scored one goal in the 2006 meeting and two goals in the 2010 meeting, while Müller scored one goal in the 2010 meeting. Germany manager Joachim Löw was the assistant manager in 2006 and the manager in 2010.
The match ball for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Final, announced on 29 May 2014, featured a variation of the Adidas Brazuca named the Adidas Brazuca Final Rio. Whilst the technical aspects of the ball were the same, the design was different from the Brazuca balls used in the group stages and other playoffs, with a green, gold and black coloring. It was the third special ball for FIFA World Cup final matches, after the +Teamgeist Berlin (2006) and the Jo'bulani (2010).
Nicola Rizzoli, from Italy, was named as the referee of the final, together with fellow Italians Renato Faverani and Andrea Stefani as the assistant referees, and Carlos Vera and Christian Lescano from Ecuador as the fourth and fifth officials. Earlier in the 2014 World Cup, Rizzoli took charge of the Spain–Netherlands and Nigeria–Argentina matches in the group stage, and the Argentina–Belgium quarter-final. He had previously taken charge of the 2010 UEFA Europa League Final and the 2013 UEFA Champions League Final. He was also one of the referees at the 2011 FIFA Club World Cup, UEFA Euro 2012 and the 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup. He became the third Italian referee to take charge of a World Cup final, after Sergio Gonella in 1978 and Pierluigi Collina in 2002.
Both teams named unchanged starting line-ups from their semi-finals, but German midfielder Sami Khedira withdrew during the warm-up with a calf injury. He was replaced by Christoph Kramer, who had made two brief substitute appearances during the tournament. Kramer himself suffered a head injury after a collision with Ezequiel Garay inside the penalty area, but was initially cleared to continue playing. Fourteen minutes later in the 31st minute however, he collapsed to the ground, apparently suffering from concussion and was replaced by André Schürrle.
Argentina's Lionel Messi (front) battles Germany's Mats Hummels for the ball.
Argentina striker Gonzalo Higuaín challenging Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.
Argentina's Gonzalo Higuaín missed a good opportunity in the first half, dragging his shot wide after being put through on goal by a misjudged header from Toni Kroos. He had a goal disallowed later in the first half, when he was ruled offside after tapping in a cross by Ezequiel Lavezzi from the right wing. Germany responded when Thomas Müller raced into the penalty area and cut the ball back for Schürrle, who saw his first-time effort saved by a diving Argentine goalkeeper Sergio Romero. As the half ended Germany had a brief flurry of chances, the closest coming when Benedikt Höwedes' header hit the post from a corner during injury time.
In the second half Lionel Messi missed an early opportunity when he fired wide of the German goal from inside the penalty area after receiving a through pass, but the remainder of the half saw fewer chances with the closest coming from a Toni Kroos shot that went wide in the 81st minute. In the 88th minute, Germany’s all-time leading scorer Miroslav Klose was substituted for Mario Götze. This would be Klose’s final appearance for Germany.
In the second half of extra time Mario Götze of Germany scored the winning goal in the 113th minute. Schürrle raced past two defenders on the left before crossing into the penalty area, where Götze controlled the ball on his chest and then volleyed left-footed into the net. He became the first substitute to score a World Cup-winning goal, as well as the youngest player to score in a World Cup Final since German Wolfgang Weber in 1966 (same age, 22). Thomas Müller had a chance to double Germany's lead shortly afterward when he dribbled past two defenders, but his shot across the net was too wide.
Late in extra time, Messi had an opportunity to equalise from a free kick within goal-scoring distance, but his attempt flew high over the crossbar. In addition to Klose, Germany captain Philipp Lahm and veteran defender Per Mertesacker, a late substitute, announced that the final would also be their last match for Germany. Combined, these three players had amassed 354 appearances for the national team between them.
Due to the Argentina–Brazil football rivalry, the Brazilians in the crowd supported Germany, despite their resounding 7–1 victory over Brazil in the semi-finals, as the Germans had shown respect to the defeated hosts, while Argentine fans had celebrated Brazil's elimination. Most Brazilians were reportedly relieved that their rivals did not win the World Cup in Brazil's iconic home stadium.
Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel (left) attended the final. However, President of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (right) was absent due to illness.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff invited the BRICS leaders to the final ahead of the 6th BRICS summit. Among those who showed up were Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, the next World Cup hosts, and Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa, the previous hosts. Other world leaders Viktor Orbán (Hungary), Ali Bongo Ondimba (Gabon) and Gaston Browne (Antigua and Barbuda) also attended the event, which led The Guardian to label the guest list "bizarre and random", as those countries were failed to qualify for this World Cup.
German President Joachim Gauck and Chancellor Angela Merkel were present for the final. Merkel already watched the Germany vs. Portugal match in Salvador, when the German team won 4–0. The President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, did not attend because of both her grandson's birthday and a case of pharyngo-laryngitis.
Russian comedian Vitaly Zdorovetskiy ran onto the pitch during the match with "Natural Born Prankster" written across his torso and attempted to kiss Benedikt Höwedes of Germany. Brazilian authorities arrested him, and he was released hours after the match.
Several celebrities also attended the final, including Rihanna, Mick Jagger, David Beckham, Ashton Kutcher, Daniel Craig, Tom Brady, and LeBron James. Former World Cup winners like Fabio Cannavaro, Lothar Matthäus, Daniel Passarella – who all had won the World Cup as captains – and Pelé were present as well.
Germany captain Philipp Lahm lifts the World Cup trophy.
The closing ceremony took place about an hour and forty minutes before the final. A performance of two acts, the ceremony lasted about 20 minutes. The first act featured 22 samba dancers and a host of other performers, with 32 of the dancers wearing dresses decorated in the colours of the 32 participating teams. The second act featured musical performances headlined by Colombian singer Shakira, and included singers Carlinhos Brown, Wyclef Jean, Alexandre Pires, Ivete Sangalo and guitarist Carlos Santana.
Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen and Carles Puyol, a member of Spain's winning team in 2010, unveiled the FIFA World Cup Trophy.
President Rousseff of Brazil delivered the trophy to German captain Philipp Lahm during the awards ceremony on the stands. Alongside her during the trophy handover was FIFA president Sepp Blatter. As Lahm raised the trophy, the outro of the tournament's official song "We Are One (Ole Ola)" was played.
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Without any doubt, one of the favorite brand, Mizuno continues producing a new model of racing shoes which live up and keep its standards. The Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 can help you beat your best times ever, regardless of your race distance. Runners with adequate support coming right from the arches and love enough cushioning contained in a comfortable and responsive ride should look at this product.
Firstly, comfort takes the great role in its updates. There is some more padding right in its collar and tongue. Even though this feature does not change much from its precedent, an increase in its comfort level can be always the welcome addition, in particular for a shoe of multi-purpose.
Its expansive overlay located in its forefoot is less comprehensive than other similar products. Therefore, the shoe gives you a bit more room right in its toe box. As the stitches of this shoe are not numerous with its’ smaller overlay, your hot spots or irritation risks are lessened as well.
Mizuno parlayed well the success came from all Hitogami series into this iteration by making some marginal changes. Its’ upper gets the most significant variations in the right form of the more comfortable mesh for your better breathability in this shoe. Very important update in its’ mesh use is the inclusion in its’ tongue. For this reason, the tongue of the shoe is more flexible and breathable than before.
The shoemaker Mizuno blankets its’ entire outsole by using the carbon rubber named X10. More than a rubber compound with the special function, it has super sticky features to enhance the traction as well. Numerous dots were scattered throughout such rubber in its outsole. Therefore, Mizuno calls the shoe configuration with the name as G3 Sole. Besides, the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 helps you much with its flexibility and a bit of traction.
The engine room of the shoe is filled entirely with some best technologies from the famous shoemaker Mizuno. Manning the responsive and lightweight cushioning is its midsole foam named U4ic. This part is somewhat 30% more lightweight than other premium foams of the company without losing the intrinsic capabilities. Its Wave Spring technology may anchors almost all Mizuno shoes, is the thermoplastic insert of the midfoot. This technique dissipates shock before converting that impact to the usable energy. Its midsole grooves network was designed to able to work according to the gender can be carved in its midsole in order to help you with its flexibility. Also, this shoe owns the smoother heel so you can have more comfortable forefoot movement.
Its AirMesh can cover almost all entire shoe to serve for the superior breathability. You can try to hold its’ upper in the right place an see the midfoot support along with the logos of Mizuno on both two sides of this shoe. Apart from it, the traditional lacing of the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 gives you a personalized fit with its moderately padded tongue and collar to improve your comfort.
Are you someone looking for one good option of a high-mileage, light-weight running companion for races? In the case of you agree to at least one of these questions, then this may be the type of shoe you are searching for. Its heel area can be considered secure and snug while its heel collar is low enough to leave the ankle bones to stay alone. You may found that both the forefoot and midfoot areas of the shoe are a kind of squeeze. Its traditional lace and tongue system helps you much to customize your fit if you have the excess room right in its midfoot. The shoe front is somehow a little bit rounded compared to other models if Mizuno. However, it does not allow full splay of the toe on the ground contact.
Its mesh upper is breathable and coordinates well with its light padding to keep your foot comfortable right on the platform. For this reason, many wear testers, including me like its responsive midsole. Besides, its midsole is less forgiving and more firm than other similar brands, even with the same stack heights. So, this shoe is quite similar to the Adidas Pure Boost R.
Regarding the Length, it is indeed true to size. Its sizing and fit are indeed taken straight right out of some original designs of its previous model. As a matter of fact, Mizuno makes the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 a standard sizing and fit. As with many shoes built specially for some up-tempo running and training, it makes you feel locked in the midfoot and heel before it may widen in its forefoot. If you have the medium measurements, you may find its fit adequately convenient and comfortable. Its’ available widths can be medium and somehow wide while its sizes range from up to 15 with this version for men and up to 12 for women.
This shoe may compete well with some other similar shoes, such as the Salming Speed, Brooks PureConnect, and Saucony Kinvara. With the quick feel and low stack, it can allow us to push its pedal to its metal as well as get through all hard workouts. At the very first time of wearing it, you may feel entirely connected to your ground and enjoy all great feelings when traversing every surface. The Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 is considered one great race choice for many runners, including me. The shoemaker Mizuno completed an excellent job of bringing the strongest and most powerful attributes of its two wonderful racing shoes to create a single product that you definitely love. Although it is not cushioned and leads toward the faster rate of striding, its first showings may impress you.
Its upper offers you a very supportive and breathable feel. Using the AIRmesh technology of Mizuno, this part of the shoe allows the air to complete its own way through it and keep the feet cool during your workout. However, the only drawback to its feature lays on the wet feet when running in days with snow or rain. Featuring a seamless upper, you will not worry about any irritation point which you may feel through your runs. However, you should remember one thing with this upper is its tighter designed capability. As with many speed trainers, the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 does not own a super wide toe box, yet it keeps a constant pressure and support throughout its upper. This characteristic is quite like the Mizuno Wave Hayate 2.
Motion from toe to heel of this shoe is enhanced entirely by the drop of 9mm, the rocketed geometry from its front to back, and a flex groove with the longitudinal feature. All of them allow you to have natural movements of your foot through several stance phases. In some words, you may describe the material of its u4ic midsole to own a good rebound but firm feel for quick turnover of the leg. These are considered ideally designed for fast training and running, with super traction, lightweight construction, and excellent energy transfer right in its midsole. If its drop and fit agree with your objective, the shoe can be your excellent race companion. Labeled a great racer, this shoe has sufficient stability from its rearfoot plate named Wave to serve well as the training shoe of efficient and light runners. In the case of trying the Brooks Hyperion before, you may find lots of the same thing between them.
Fly flexible in its low-slung shoe design which features the especially Classic performance named 3D Fit along with the technology named Parallel Wave in its heel for responsive, quick cushioning. Besides, you may get the fantastic grip and durability in the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 thanks to its blown rubber located in its forefoot outsole. You also can see a variety of design innovations, like midsole compound named u4ic, the mechanical midsole structure named Wave, and SmoothRide geometry. All of them were combined harmoniously into one relatively minimalist and flexible shoe. That is the reason why you have this shoe which was built especially for some race days. Like the Mizuno Wave Aero 15, it will help you much in handling your daily training mileage.
The heel of the shoe feels locked right into its well-designed cup of the heel. So, the shoe starts to narrow from right there, until it plays into its toe box. As a matter of fact, your foot may feel wholly locked in with its midfoot. However, above that, your toes can feel somewhat locked in entirely for the whole running duration. Overall, the shoe was your enjoyable choice to run with. They responded pretty well to every time you decided to increase the intensity or speed of your runs. For this reason, you may love its own way which the shoe allowed you to feel and grip the road directly on your runs as well as helped you push yourself. Its range of quality can be compared with the Asics Gel Pulse 8.
The plastic insert with the wave-shaped feature of the shoe runs from its heel through its midfoot effectively redirects and absorbs all impact forces directly related to the ground. However, they somehow strike away right from the foot. Also, it helps you to keep your shoe centered for all stance phases and transfer the forward momentum efficiently. Also, the plate contributes to your rigid feel for the rearfoot.
The Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 is very flexible and lightweight. Once on your feet, it will have the nice fit which was snug especially in its midfoot, leading into the roomy forefoot, just like the Adidas Pure Boost R.
This shoe is instantly runnable and comfortable. It owns the Goldilocks cushioning zone which is sufficient for you to feel light right on the feet and do not feel any pounding and the ground. Furthermore, it is good for the speed work, long runs, and everything similar to them. You can discover the secret weapon if this shoe shows its ability to raise speed. The supportive yet ultra-lightweight shoe combines the durability and the race design to offer the running-ready performance to serve for your daily training.
Compared to the Adidas Adios Boost 3, this shoe has the better responsive midsole and outsole traction. However, the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 owns a less comfort dedicated for your long distance runs and narrower fit in overall. The heel to toe drop of 9mm encourages the heel striking as well as will not appeal to any midfoot striker.
The durability of the shoe was unexpected firstly. However, the rubber of the shoe is still the same as it showed on the first day after the decent mileage. Also, on treadmill, concrete or track, its ride is responsive and smooth. The low cushioning stack and the flexibility of the shoe can be somewhat its biggest negatives. Whenever you take it off the track or concrete, onto the well-maintained gravel, it is unable to offer sufficient protection in order to make your runs more enjoyable. If you love having the wonderful ground feel, you may choose either the Mizuno Wave Hayate 2 of this shoe.
The shoe offers many updated technologies of Mizuno in its sole unit. Firstly, namely the Wave technology use, even very lightly, as well as the midsole technology named U4ic to help you to dampen your stride’s impact. These technologies can be made the effective assistance in the natural turnover and gait of all runners, including you. The toe box to the slight upturn of its sole unit may assist you to move through the stride as well as propel you properly onward. Although it is not as aggressive as other similar shoes, like the New Balance Vazee Pace, the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 will help in this matter. In fact, Mizuno used the sole pads made of blown rubber to help you with grip right on all roads and the high mileage durability. Even putting more than 80 miles directly on it and the shoe still keeps the unchanged integrity they possess when being pulled out of the box.
Like its precedents, Mizuno advertises widely its Wave Technology to be applied in the shoe, claiming such technique helps you to find the perfect balance between shock absorption and weight. As a matter of fact, it does its job super well, on the different type of surfaces. Being billed as the shoe perfect dedicated for fast running days, you will be comfortable when using it as the racer and trainers. All heel strikers find it works for them so the shoe can fit for you as well. For this reason, I recommend trying it on prior to purchase.
Whenever unboxing the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3, you may feel exciting with its vibrant blue and its aggressive look right before putting it on. As a matter of fact, the look of the Hitogami is very subtle, sleek, and impressive. The shoe boasts, at least the pair I received, no loud colors or design features that immediately stood out. The sole unit resembled the same appearance of both the Musha and Ronin. After its second version somehow disappointed users with the restrictive upper, the 3rd iteration of the Wave Hitogami returns with the slipper-like, flexible fit. Its upper holds your heel securely as well as has the light support right from external overlays and internal straps around your midfoot. Yet, the toes can be free and comfortable to wiggle with the airy mesh resulted from the feet ball forward. Combined well with the flexible, thin sole, it disappears when you roll through some strides with the quick-tempo feature.
Regarding the flexibility, you can consider it as the shoe’s natural asset with various minimalist features.
Being offered at an Affordable price, the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 can be used for all different kinds of long-distances, including some ultra-long runs.
Its exceptional design brings you a great and wonderful footwear outside the normal environment.
The carbon rubber named X10 continues to make you impressed regarding the durability with four color combinations.
Finally, this shoe is super light.
Its toe box is somehow tight and can constrict.
This shoe is considered only suitable for limited surfaces, like Treadmill or Smooth concrete.
Its’ heel offset is relatively high to turn off you in the case that you are searching for shoes with the lower drop.
The Mizuno Wave Hitogami 2 somehow follows its precedent with the fabulous feel and fit, having geared towards the long distance run. With the lower-profile and more special design than other Mizuno offerings, this shoe will please even the pickiest runners. If you are searching for the smooth turnover and higher proprioception off your ground at the faster paces, try out this shoe and feel by yourself. For everyday training, the shoe lacks the support and comfort Mizuno fans may expect. However, you will appreciate the place this particular shoe offering falls belonged to the diverse footwear line of the company.
The Hitogami is considered a great running choice for many runners, including me. Mizuno has completed their great job of bringing the strongest and most powerful attributes of racing shoes. Also, it created one single product which all previous wearers love. We should not miss out the wonderful look of this shoe, which is very impressive, subtle, and sleek. It boasts with no design features or loud colors, which immediately or indeed stood out. Its sole unit can resemble the similar appearance of the Ronin and Musha.
The most similar running shoes to the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 can comprise of Adidas Pure Boost R, Mizuno Wave Hayate 2, Brooks Hyperion, Mizuno Wave Aero 15, and Asics Gel Pulse 8.
The Adidas Pure Boost R is the lightweight and convenient running shoe which has a reliable system set and the appealing look to give your running experience the boost of speed and energy. Such neutral shoe can deliver the secure fit, comfort, and flexibility. All of three characteristics will make your running session more agreeable and smoother to the natural foot motions. It is considered a running companion that owns a component set and the appealing design in order to make the shoe more secure, comfortable as well as attuned to your natural foot movement.
The Mizuno Wave Hayate 2 is considered one of the popular choices for long-distance runs. With many great reviews, it can offer you the superb cushioning, fit, and comfort. For this reason, this shoe is more suitable for you if you need the stability arch control. Generally, this shoe is one of great premium products for your high mileage races. With this solid running companion, all athletes, including you can tackle all unpredictable trails and tracks with comfort and ease. The 2nd iteration of the Wave Hayate also features some noticeable upgrade while mentioning its façade as well as how it is constructed.
The Brooks Hyperion is somewhat a versatile shoe which can function pretty well on regular running sessions and races its flexible design and durable construction allows the shoe to deliver the responsive cushioning and natural movement. If you are one of the neutral runners, you will definitely enjoy what it offers. Furthermore, comfort and Performance are service parts of this shoe. It can achieve the responsive flexibility and cushion because of the soft fabrics made up the upper and the bendable platform.
The Mizuno Wave Aero 15 may offer the excellently cushioning among other racing flats belonged to Mizuno. As such, this shoe can function well as your daily trainer in fast workouts or your race day companion. The shoe versatility makes itself an attractive choice for people who love to have a shoe with the multi-purpose usage without spending more. It brings the excellent fit, decent support for the arch, superb comfort, and speed. For this reason, it can be one of the most common shoes under Mizuno brand name, evidenced by the 15th incarnation.
This shoe provides you the dependable and trusted performance. Such feature is also the primary offering of this shoe. The Asics Gel Pulse 8 has adequate cushioning, excellent comfort, ultra-breathable coverage, decent support for the arch. All of them make it an ideal choice for many runners, particularly middle or beginners of the road enthusiasts. All the changes updated in this shoe are focused entirely on its upper for the more accommodating and better fit. To achieve its objective, Asics removed several of its thick overlays located in its midfoot. In the original place are some printed overlays.
The Mizuno Wave Hitogami 3 is the latest level of the low-stack options for the trainer, behind the famous Mizuno Sayonara line. It indeed presents the manageable price tag for an offering. Even though it is not the line top of Mizuno, it was packed with many updated and advanced technology. Throughout wearing this shoe, you may find it able to hit the highest mark on every test putting through. Continually you can look forward to using it with its exception of long runs. | 2019-04-25T21:40:39Z | https://runnerlight.com/mizuno-wave-hitogami/ |
Preparing for the framework: standard curve generation and plasmid copy number evaluation.
Flexible copy number control is the core of our framework, which is based on re-engineered ColE1 origin of replicon.
Multi-plasmid framework would not be much without multiple plasmids. We have equiped our synthetic origin of replication with specific recognition sequences to create unique plasmid groups.
Having multiple plasmids in a cell means using multiple antibiotics. Or does it?
If at least one of the plasmid group has a low copy number, they require extra care to not be lost at cell division. Therefore, SynORI framework incorporates a special partitioning system derived from pSC101 replicon.
The foundation of multi-plasmid framework is the ability to determine plasmid copy number (PCN) per cell. Our approach to count the PCN in the cell is built upon absolute quantitative PCR.
By using two different standard curves we are able to evaluate bacteria and plasmid copy number in the reaction. The PCN per cell is found by dividing the total PCN by the cell number. As described by Plotka M. et al, the separate detection of the plasmid and the host cell chromosomal DNA was achieved using two separate primer sets, specific for the plasmid Ori sequence and for the chromosomal d-1-deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate synthase gene (dxs), respectively. Ratio of these genes copy number gives PCN per cell.
Why we chose a specific set of primers for PCN determination?
Commonly, gene used for PCN evaluations in qPCR is an ampicillin resistance gene (bla). In our case, the bla gene for plasmid number determination was not used, as the SynORI multi-plasmid framework employs a number of plasmids with different selection system gene circuit parts. Instead, the origin of replication was barcoded with distinct sets of primers (named qPCR) for different groups of origin copy number determination. This enables to determine the desired plasmid group copy number, when working with multi-plasmid systems.
Since working with extracted genomic, plasmid or total DNA incorporates an error which depends on the extraction efficiency, we decided to work with specially prepared cell lysate suspensions, skipping the extraction step. Furthermore, dxs gene from chromosome was ligated into pUC19 plasmid for less complicated standard preparation.
First of all, it was concluded that primers, designed for calculations, are appropriate for absolute quantitative PCR by measuring the efficiency of PCR amplification reaction. Both genes have almost ideal amplification efficiency and required no further optimization.
Figure 1. PCR amplification efficiency of genes used for plasmid copy number evaluations.
Amplified qPCR product were verified using agarose gel electrophoresis.
Figure 2. Verification of products amplified during qPCR.
Figure 3. Melting curves of amplified qPCR products used for PCN determination.
Next, standard curves were generated for dxs and qPCR plasmid gene copy number determination according to the protocol written by our team (click here?).
Figure 4. Standard curves generates for plasmid copy number determination for SynORI project.
The fit of the linear regression model was satisfactory; the coefficient of determination (R2) was more than 0.999 for all standard curves. As amplification efficiencies and generated standard curves were ideal for both genes, the curves and earlier mentioned protocol were used for all further PCN determination experiments.
Plotka M, Wozniak M, Kaczorowski T. Quantification of Plasmid Copy Number with Single Colour Droplet Digital PCR. Doi H, ed. PLoS ONE. 2017;12(1):e0169846. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0169846.
Anindyajati, Artarini AA, Riani C, Retnoningrum DS. Plasmid Copy Number Determination by Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction. Scientia Pharmaceutica. 2016;84(1):89-101. doi:10.3797/scipharm.ISP.2015.02.
Flexible copy number control is the core of our framework, which is based on re-engineered ColE1 origin of replication.
ColE1 plasmid replicon is based on two antisense RNA molecules: RNA I and RNA II.
The transcript of RNA II forms a RNA-DNA duplex and acts as a primer for DNA polymerase and for that reason is often called a replication initiator.
During the transcription of RNA II, several different secondary structures can form. Part of these structures are susceptible to the binding of RNA I - a shorter antisense version of RNA II. The interaction between RNA I and RNA II begins upon the formation of kissing-loop pairs between their anti-complementary secondary structures. If the kissing complex persists, a 3’ end of RNA I starts forming a zipper-like duplex with a complementary region of a single strand RNA II. Because the primer cannot be formed anymore, this results in replication inhibition, which is why RNA I is often called the replication inhibitor.
The favor of kissing-loop complex formation kinetics to predict plasmid group compatibility.
It immediately becomes clear that in order to control the copy number of a plasmid, one could simply change the RNA I promoter. However, there is a reason why it has never been done before!
As mentioned above, RNA I and RNA II are two antisense molecules, so it is impossible to change one without altering the sequence of another molecule. RNA I promoter is located right on top of the RNA II secondary structures, which are not used for inhibition, but are crucial to form the RNA-DNA duplex for replication initiation.
Even if one managed to somehow substitute the RNA I promoter with another without disabling replication, it would still be inconvenient because this method would require a large pool of resources every time.
For that reason we have decided not to modify or replace the RNA I promoter inside the initial wild type origin of replication, but rather to disable it completely and place a copy of it next to RNA II.
As already indicated, the main problem of inactivating the RNA I promoter is the necessity to take precautions in order keep the critically important secondary structures of RNA II intact.
We have first acquired a priority mutation list from the literature. The list analysed RNA polymerase binding affinity to -10 and -35 promoter region and its dependence on point mutations, with mutations causing the largest decrease in affinity being displayed on the top of the list.
Table 1. Priority mutation list of -10 and -35 promoter regions.
Mutants that had unchanged RNA II secondary structures.
Mutants that were on the top of mutation priority list (meaning the lowest RNA polymerase affinity).
We had ordered the selected ColE1 mutants from the IDT and later tested if we had successfully disabled the RNA I promoter.
It is difficult to distinguish when the promoter is fully disabled because first, there is no literature data describing replicons that are not negatively regulated at least to some extent, and second - plasmid systems hardly reach the equilibrium without negative control therefore every copy number calculation varies greatly. This is why we decided not to check for the highest copy number mutant, but rather to insert a wild type RNA I with its wild type promoter. By doing that we could see which replicons were most precisely mutated.
If the plasmid copy number (PCN) did not differ from wild type after the insertion of an RNA I gene next to the mutated replicon, it proved a complete disabling of the replicon. Contrary, if the copy number decreased, we could suspect that the replicon did not have a completely disabled RNA I and the sum of inhibition from both RNA I genes reduced the copy number to even lower values than in the wild type replicon.
First, we planned to calculate the copy number of our mutants that supposedly had their RNA I gene promoter disabled (mutants ORI 1, ORI 2, ORI 3, ORI 4, ORI 5). After that, we aimed to calculate the copy number of the corresponding mutated replicons, but with RNA I gene containing its wild type promoter cloned next to them.
After transformation, cells with ORI 5 plasmids did not grow successfully, which suggested a conclusion that this mutant had either severely damaged RNA II gene or increased expression of RNA I to the level of complete replication inhibition.
Since 4 other mutants had grown after the transformation, we incubated the cells overnight, purified the plasmids and cloned wild type RNA I with its wild type promoter next to each of the mutants. We then calculated the copy number of 8 samples: 4 ORI mutants and 4 ORI mutants with RNA I placed next to them.
Figure 1. Copy number calculations of the RNA I promoter elimination mutants. Two biological replicates were performed, with 2 technical qPCR replicates each time.
Firstly, ORI 1 mutant had a moderate increase in copy number (Figure 1). Yet, with RNA I next to the replicon, the copy number did not seem fall back to wild type levels. We hypothesize that the reason for this was the damage done to the RNA II gene. The damage resulted in mutant formed secondary structures no longer sufficiently interacting with inhibitory RNA I molecules.
ORI 3 did not seem to increase much in copy number. We did not consider it to be a good candidate as well, because we wanted our core synthetic ori to possess a range of copy numbers to choose from.
The third candidate, ORI 4, seemed to be a decent candidate because with cloned RNA I its copy number fell to near wild type levels, but it also did not prove to be good enough, because its maximum number of copies was too low.
ORI 2 mutant seemed like a perfect candidate. Its copy number increased from wild type X levels to Y +- Z. In addition, when RNA I gene was placed next to it, the copy number of the constructed plasmid fell to wild type levels. After these results we have decided to use this ORI 2 mutant as a core for our framework. We simply called it RNA II (Part:BBa_K2259000 ).
Once the RNA I promoter was disabled in the ColE1 origin of replication, it could be moved to a different plasmid location and used as a separate unit. Also, RNA I promoter can be changed without having to worry about damaging the initiation of replication. RNA I and consequently the copy number of a certain plasmid can now be placed under virtually any signal pattern required.
We have discovered the sequence of wild type RNA I promoter by using PromoterHunter. and ordered a wild type RNA I gene from IDT without the promoter’s sequence. We have first cloned series of anderson promoters next to the RNA I gene and then placed this construct next to RNA II (RNA II-Anderson-RNA I).
Figure 2. RNA I and RNA II constructs, with RNA I constructs under different-strength Anderson (See anderson collection here http://parts.igem.org/Promoters/Catalog/Anderson ) promoters.
In theory (see "Modelling" for more details), lower-strength Anderson promoters should yield lower concentrations of RNA I, hence higher copy numbers of plasmids per cell. Our constitutive copy number device experiment results prove it to be true in practice as well. The stronger Anderson promoter is used, the less copy number per cell we get. With the strongest Anderson we get only 21+-6.84 plasmids per cell.
We can state with certainty that we are now able to control the plasmid copy number in a constitutive manner, and we call it simply the SynORI constitutive copy number device.
Next, we wanted to move one step forward and try to build an inducible copy number system. We first had to make sure that at least part of our construct is well characterized and to so we chose the rhamnose promoter from the biobrick registry (Part:BBa_K914003).
For this experiment we have built a rhamnose and RNA I construct (Part:BBa_K2259065) and then cloned this construct next to RNA II (Part:BBa_K2259091). We have used different percent of rhamnose in our media in order to see if this approach was possible and if so, to figure out the dependency between the plasmid copy number and rhamnose concentration.
Figure 3. RNA I and RNA II constructs, with RNA I gene being under the rhamnose promoter.
The first thing we noticed was that rhamnose promoter was very strong in terms of plasmid copy number reduction. It was also considerably leaky (promoter can be enabled even without any inducer). At zero induction there were approximately only 9 plasmids per cell and at 1 percent induction the number rose to approximately 1 plasmid per cell.
RNA I rhamnose-induced promoter seemed to be working well, with higher concentrations of inductor giving lower plasmid copy number.
We called it the SynORI copy number induction device.
So now when we can flexibly control the copy number of a plasmid, the only question is - what will come next?
Tomizawa J. Control of ColE1 plasmid replication: the process of binding of RNA I to the primer transcript. Cell. 1984 Oct;38(3):861-70.
Som T, Tomizawa J. Regulatory regions of ColE1 that are involved in determination of plasmid copy number. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1983 Jun; 80(11): 3232-3236.
Tomizawa J, Itoh T, Selzer G, Som T. Inhibition of ColE1 RNA primer formation by a plasmid-specified small RNA. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1981 Mar;78(3):1421-5.
Masukata H, Tomizawa J. Control of primer formation for ColE1 plasmid replication: Conformational change of the primer transcript. Cell. 1986 Jan; 44(1): 125-136.
Brenner M, Tomizawa J. Quantitation of ColE1-encoded replication elements. Biochemistry. 1991 Jan; 88:405-409.
Brewster R. C, Jones D. L, Phillips R. Tuning Promoter Strength through RNA Polymerase Binding Site Design in Escherichia coli. PLoS Comput Biol. 2012 Dec; 8(12): e1002811.
Multi-plasmid framework would not be much without multiple plasmids. We have equipped our synthetic origin of replication with specific sequences to create unique plasmid groups.
PAs RNA I and RNA II interact mainly with the three stem loops that form kissing complexes, we have decided to use this feature to our advantage in order to engineer different plasmid groups by adding unique, group-specific sequences to RNA I and RNA II stem loops.
The specific sequences were acquired from Grabow et al., where they have screened a large number of different RNA kissing stem loop complex combinations. They have derived a table of different loop sequences that only bind with each other but do not have any cross interaction to the following loop sequences in the list.
The inactivation and transfer of RNA I gene away from RNA II allows us to use different sequences for RNA I and RNA II molecules that are not necessarily ideal complements of each other.
Use two different unique sequences in the first two RNR I and RNR II stem loops, in order to maximize same group specificity.
Keep RNA II unchanged for the third loop but change it in the RNR I by adding either G/C mutations to RNA I (GC type RNA I) or making RNA I completely non-complement to RNA II (NC type RNA I).
According to literature (Tomizawa, 1984) RNA II secondary structures are very sensitive to any mutations in the third loop and has a high chance of ruining the replication initiation. To avoid this we did not want to alter the third loop of RNA II sequence. Just because we chose not to interfere with the third loop of RNA II, we could not leave the third loop of RNA I unchanged. If every group had a fully compatible third loop, the background cross-group inhibition would be too large and we would not be able to obtain independent plasmid groups.
We have designed 5 different RNA II genes corresponding to groups A, B, C, D and E and needed to make sure if they were working (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Table displaying RNA II of plasmid groups according to their loop sequences. Group A contains 1 kissing-loop from Figure 1 in both first and second loops, group B - h and a, group C - c and d, group D - l and e, group E - f and g, first and second loop respectively. All plasmid groups third loop corresponds to one found in the wild type.
Also, we have 10 different RNA I alternatives: A, B, C, D, E with each having a version of either G/C or NC mutations (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Different plasmid groups can be co-maintained in a cell with a specific, pre-selected copy number. Copy number control principle is the same for every plasmid group, but both RNA I and RNA II molecules are only specific to their own.
These different plasmid groups can then be co-maintained in cell with a specific, pre-selected copy number. Copy number control principle is the same for every group, but each group is only specific to its own group.
The first step in experimentally choosing the suitable RNA I-RNA II pairs was done by employing a system that was able to measure the trans-acting effect of each RNA I type of group A has on the RNA II group A (BBa_K2259000) (RNA I types: WT (BBa_K2259005), NC (BBa_K2259024) and GC (BBa_K2259006)). By co-transforming base vector 2.0 (BBa_K2259081) having an A group RNA II together with pSB4A5 plasmid, which is constantly expressing one the mentioned RNA I. The plasmid copy number per cell was determined for each co-transformation using the absolute quantification qPCR.
As seen from the results, the GC type RNA I has the lowest tendency to cross interact with the RNA 2 initiator of replication from group A, as the copy number of the base vector 2.0 drops by the smallest amount. RNA I of NC type has the biggest cross-interaction level as it inhibits the plasmid replication the most.
Group analysis of RNA I - RNA II type GC.
After the degree of interactions have been established amid A groups of all types RNA II-RNA I, GC stem loop structures have been chosen for further group interaction assessment. First of all, we turned to determining the copy number each group of RNA II (A - BBa_K2259000, B - BBa_K2259001, C - BBa_K2259002, D - BBa_K2259003 and E - BBa_K2259004) establishes in the cell with and without its corresponding RNA I constantly expressed by the Anderson promoter in the same vector.
Figure 5. Plasmid copy number each group of RNA II establishes in the cell with and without its corresponding, constantly expressed, RNA I.
Seeing that group E and C measurements were off, we concluded that RNA II did not fold into correct secondary structure and, as a result of that, it did not work as a primer formation unit. We chose to work with the remaining three groups as the plasmid systems produces stable plasmid copy results. B group RNA II seems to have enhanced primer formation abilities, as the plasmid copy number skyrockets. Every RNA II construct is sensitive to its RNA I, as the plasmid replication is inhibited by constantly expressed RNA I transcript.
Type GC stem loop cross-interactions were assessed by constantly expressing RNA I transcript from pSB4A5. The experiments were rather tricky, as the pSB4A5 plasmid seemed to be easily lost when co-transformed with our base vector 2.0. Nevertheless, we were able to measure the cross interactions between the groups displayed in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Cross-interaction assessment of different groups of RNA I-RNA II.
As seen from Figure 6, there is no interaction between these groups: A and C; A and B. The inhibition has been identificated between B and D; A and D groups. Based on the following results, 2 types of plasmid groups were chosen for 2 co-transformation plasmid copy number assay: A with B and A with D groups.
Group A RNA I-RNA II has been co-transformed with group B RNA I-RNA II and vectors with and without global copy number control devices (BBa_K2259052, BBa_K2259053, BBa_K2259075).
Figure 7. Plasmid copy determination of two different plasmids in the same cell.
Based on the results from Figure 7, it can be concluded that RNA II A and RNA II B act as different replicon and does not inhibit the replication of each other. By introducing the global copy number device, plasmid copy number decreased equally of both plasmids.
Grabow WW, Zakrevsky P, Afonin KA, Chworos A, Shapiro BA, Jaeger L. Self-assembling RNA nanorings based on RNAI/II inverse kissing complexes. Nano Lett. 2011;11(2):878–87.
Gregorian R., S, Donald M. CrothersDeterminants of RNA Hairpin Loop–Loop Complex Stability. J. Mol. Biol. 1995; 248:968–984.
Eguchit Y, Tomizawa J. Complexes Formed by Complementary RNA Stem-loops Their Formations, Structures and Interaction with ColEl Rom Protein. J. Mol. Biol. 1991. 220:831-842.
Lee A, Crothers D. The solution structure of an RNA loop–loop complex: the ColE1 inverted loop sequence. Structure. 1998 Aug; 6:993–1005.
Now that we have figured out and engineered a method to regulate plasmid copy number in a group-specific fashion the only control element that is missing is a way to control every group at the same time.
Figure 1. 3D ROP protein structure (Kokkinidis et al., 1987).
Recall, we have used ColE1 replicon as base of our system. And it has given us a perfect hint on how to achieve our current objective. Wild type ColE1 replicon codes a small homodimeric, four-helix bundle protein called Rop (also known as "Repressor of primer" or Rom).
Literature shows that Rop recognises specific secondary RNA structures, rather than unique sequences. What that means is that Rop binds to RNA I-RNA II kissing loop complex.
When Rop binds to secondary structures, it increases the binding affinity of RNA I and RNA II and consequently-replication inhibition.
As our framework approach is based on specific RNA sequence binding, having a Rop protein in our system is equivalent of having a global copy normal regulator. In theory, the protein should bind to every complex despite the specific interactions of each group, because the binding geometry should stay similar in each case.
We have designed Rop protein with an Anderson promoter and showed that it can reduce the copy number of single plasmid, and multiple plasmids non-specifically.
We have first decided to verify the expression of Rop protein to make sure that our designed Rop gene gives appropriate mRNA which is translated in the cell correctly. Rop gene was then placed under inducible T7 promoter. After two hours of growth, E. coli DH5a cells containing plasmid with Rop gene were induced using 1 mM IPTG. Soluble proteins from the cell lysates were separated by centrifugation and then used for SDS-PAGE. Size of Rop protein is 7,5 kDa, so it can be seen below 10 kDa size standard mark. Figure 1 shows, that Rop protein was induced successfully and its quantity increases by prolonging cell growth. It is found in soluble protein fraction which strongly suggests that Rop protein possibly forms an active spatial structure in vivo and might have influence to RNA I-RNA II duplex formation.
Figure 2. SDS-PAGE of Rop protein induction. M - Thermo Scientific PageRuler Unstained Low Range Protein Ladder; 1 - E. coli soluble proteins fraction without induction after 7 h of growth; 2-5 - cells induced using 1 mM IPTG - hours above tracks indicate different time of growing after induction.
We then wanted to see if we can add a constitutive Anderson promoter to Rop gene in order to change the copy numbers of a plasmid group. We have cloned 3 different anderson promoters next to Rop gene and then moved it next to RNA I. We then moved these 3 intermediate parts (BBa_K2259072, BBa_K2259073, BBa_K2259074) into the minimal SynORI vector (BBa_K2259092) next to RNA II (BBa_K2259075, BBa_K2259053, BBa_K2259052). We have then calculated the copy number.
As seen in in the figure above, our Rop protein constructs successfully lower the plasmid copy number. Each anderson promoter increases Rop concentration and consequently, lowers plasmid copy number.
We have also investigated Rop protein with inducible Rhamnose promoter in order to have a viable option of inducible copy number control. We have cloned Rop gene next to rhamnose promoter and RNA I (BBa_K2259070) and then placed this construct next to RNA II (BBa_K2259076) in SynORI minimal vector (BBa_K2259092).
These results show that rhamnose promoter is too strong for Rop protein expression, because even the leakage of promoter at 0 percent induction leads to copy decrease to average 1 copy per cell. That means that cells can barely survive and if they do, the inhibition level is so high they cannot maintain more than one plasmid.
Despite the high expression level this device can still prove to be useful in the future, for example if characterized with an active partitioning system this construct could become a useful tool for extremely low copy plasmid group generator.
We have now demonstrated how Rop protein can act as constitutive (SynORI constitutive global copy number device) and inducible (SynORI inducible global copy number device) copy number regulator.
See proof of concept for how we used it as a global group-unspecific multiple plasmid regulator!
One of the essential parts of synthetic biology are plasmids. However, bacterial plasmid systems require a unique selection, usually an antibiotic resistance gene, to stably maintain the plasmids. As the number of different plasmid groups used in a single cell rise, the need for more selection markers grows. In addition to raising the issue of biosafety, the use of multiple antibiotic resistance genes destabilizes the functionality of the cells. To address this problem a protein granting the resistance to aminoglycoside family antibiotics, called amino 3'-glycosyl phosphotransferase (APH(3')), was split into two subunits by Calvin M. Schmidt et al.
According to the obscure guidelines we split an unmodified neo gene sequence between 59 and 60 amino acid residues. Two subunits were termed a-neo and ß-neo. Furthermore, we added additional termination codon at the end of an a-neo fragment for the translation to stop. No other start codons were included into the ß-neo subunit as the gene was designed for toehold switch system. Despite the fact that ß-neo subunit had no start codon, the split antibiotic system worked perfectly when coupled with a standard promoter and a ribosome binding site (BBa_K608002). Consequently, a split antibiotic resistance gene provides a selection system to stably maintain two different plasmids.
Figure 1. Split neo gene principle scheme by M. Schmidt et al.
In order to increase the capability of our selection system, we reasoned that a split antibiotic system should be put under a transcriptional or translational control. A. A. Green et al. presented wide range of de novo synthesized dynamic riboregulators, called toehold switches, which take advantage of RNA-mediated linear interaction to initiate RNA strand displacement. A toehold switch contains two parts: a ribosome binding site and a linker sequence, both of which are sequestered by a secondary RNA stem loop structure. The linker sequence has a start codon and functions as a link.
Figure 2. Principal toehold switch scheme by A. A. Green et al.
Although the linker sequence adds additional 10 amino acid residues to the peptide, we reasoned that it will not affect the function of split antibiotic. Toehold switches are unlocked when an RNA trigger binds to the 5’ end of the toehold and initiates RNA duplex formation, which releases the locked RBS and reveals linker start codon. We concluded, that if the toehold sequences were added in front of a- and ß-neo gene fragments, the translation would require trigger RNA to initiate protein synthesis.
Toeholds and their corresponding triggers design sequences were used as described by A. A. Green et al. with some modifications. First of all, it is important to note, that a "scar" which is made between biobrick prefix for protein coding sequences and suffix, contains a termination codon at the 3’ end. Therefore, it was necessary to use the other form of prefix for a- and ß-neo genes, as the translation proceeds from one biobrick to another. Furthermore, seeing that the "scar" produced when joining two biobricks is 8 base pairs, we included an additional T nucleotide at the end of linker sequence to ensure the translation stays in frame to the a- and ß-neo genes.
Figure 3. The schematic representation of SynORI 4 plasmid selection gene circuit.
We constructed a system, which includes two toehold riboregulators (termed toehold 1 and toehold 2) upstream of a- and ß-neo genes in two different plasmids. The corresponding activating RNA triggers (name trigger 1 and trigger 2) were placed into additional two plasmids under constant expression. All the parts used together complete a 4-plasmid selection system - two distinct trigger RNAs are expressed by two different plasmids in order to unlock the translation of toehold controlled a- and ß-neo peptides to form a complete amino 3'-glycosyl phosphotransferase. For this reason, if one plasmid is lost, the end product - a/ß dimer APH(3') is not formed, therefore bacteria lose their antibiotic resistance.
The SynOri selection system circuit could be expanded by including additional transcription factor which induced the transcription of previously described RNA triggers. The fifth plasmid would house a transcription factor for the initiation of whole system. Phage modified promoter is perfect for this task, as it is activated by cI lambda peptide and repressed by cI 434 peptide with minimal leakage. Both of the RNA triggers - 1 and 2 - were placed under control of phage modified promoter. Furthermore, downstream of the trigger gene we included cI 434 repressor under constant expression to ensure minimal leakage of the promoter. The fifth plasmid was built to constantly express cI lambda - the activator of phage promoter. In the absence of this plasmid, the gene circuit cannot function, as the trigger RNA transcription is repressed by constant cI 434 expression and toehold switches lock the translation of a/ß APH(3'). When the final component of the circuit is present, the cI lambda activator enhances the transcription of both RNA triggers. The transcribed triggers then unlock the translation of a/ß neo peptides which form an active protein and confer the resistance to aminoglycoside family antibiotics.
Figure 4. The schematic representation of SynORI 5 plasmid selection gene circuit.
The minimal SynORI selection system, designed for maintaining two plasmids in a cell, was validated by coupling two parts of the split antibiotic coding sequences - a-neo BBa_K2259018 and ß-neo BBa_K2259019 - to constant expression promoter in two pSB1C3 plasmids.
Figure 5. Results of two plasmid co-transformation containing constantly expressed a and ß split kanamycin antibiotic resistance gene. The control groups only had one or no antibiotic resistance gene subunits expressed.
In addition to split antibiotic system, we were able to co-transform 4 plasmids using only kanamycin as the selection marker by implementing a riboregulatory system upstream of the previously described divided neo gene. We employed toehold switches, an orthogonal translational regulation devices, to lock the protein synthesis of the corresponding split subunits (parts: BBa_K2259034 and BBa_K2259035). Furthermore, constantly expressed RNA trigger sequences (parts: BBa_K2259038 and BBa_K2259040) were added into additional two plasmids to complete the 4 plasmid genetic circuit. Our team has developed and optimized an electroporation protocol to carry out our transformation needs.
It is important to note that, in contrast to our SynORI framework, all four plasmids were the same (pSB1C3) - it had identical replicons. As a result, the selection system became unstable after long period of growth due to replicon cross-interaction. Nevertheless, as you can see from Table 1., carrying out similar experiments with 4 different antibiotics produced zero bacterial growth!
Table 1. Experimental data of 4 plasmid electroporation results.
The hallmark of SynORI selection framework is genetic circuit which enables 5 plasmids to be maintained in a single cell using only one selection marker. That goal has been reached by employing modified phage promoter (BBa_I12006) to construct signal activated trigger RNA transcription devices (BBa_K2259042 and BBa_K2259043) that are controlled from the fifth plasmid.
Figure 6. Result of SynORI 5 plasmid selection system electroporation. The 4th field includes all the framework parts. 1 - No trigger 1 (control). 2 - No trigger 2 (control). 3 - No lambda activator plasmid (control). 4 - Full System: lambda activator plasmid; toehold 1 a-neo; toehold 2 ß-neo; trigger 1; trigger 2.
The co-transformants were grown for 24 hours for the first colonies to appear, as all the plasmids had identical replicons (pSB1C3). Cell were sensitive and could not be inoculated into liquid LB medium containing standard kanamycin concentrations. Further optimizations with lower antibiotic quantities and different replicons are needed. Nevertheless, SynORI selection framework enabled bacteria to sustain 5 different plasmids with identical origins of replication in the presence of one selection marker, contrary to using a batch of different antibiotics as described earlier.
SynORI framework provides an opportunity to have low copy plasmid groups, yet in order for them not to be lost during the cell division, there must be a mechanism that actively keeps plasmids in the cell.
We have looked into different active partitioning systems and first chose to characterize and apply a Staphylococcus aureus type II plasmid segregation system for our framework. However, after a lot of consideration we have decided to search for alternatives. The main reason was that partitioning system of S. aureus is rather large, almost 49 kDa, as it codes two large proteins responsible for segregation.
We have then stumbled upon a described pSC101 plasmid stability region which is a lot different from its counterpart. It does not seem to encode any protein but rather contains a binding site for DNA gyrase (Wahle and Kornberg, 1988). Most importantly, the regulatory region is only 400 base pair long.
It has been showed that pSC101 plasmids with partial deletions of stability region have decreased supercoiling and are extremely unstable. This has led to the proposal that gyrase-generated negative supercoiling establishes a DNA conformation which enables plasmids to interact with specific E. coli structures and distribute them to daughter cells during cell division.
The plasmid loss rates were measured using a method described by S. M. Deane et al. We wanted to compare plasmid loss rates with and without active partitioning system (PAR) in 2 different vectors. pSB4A5 vector and Base vector 2.0 (BBa_K225908) which we have built from Minimal base vector (BBa_K2259092) were used for the following experiments in E. coli DH5a strain.
Figure 2. A. Plates of transformants containing vector with active partitioning system after 20 generations. LB plates without antibiotic - left side. LB plates with ampicillin - right side. B. Plates of transformants containing vector without active partitioning system after 20 generations. LB plates without antibiotic - left side. LB plates with ampicillin - right side. C. Plates of transformants containing vector with active partitioning system after 100 generations. LB plates without antibiotic - left side. LB plates with ampicillin - right side.D. Plates of transformants containing vector without active partitioning system after 100 generations. LB plates without antibiotic - left side. LB plates with ampicillin - right side.E. After 200 generations cells were spread once again to see mRFP intensity decrease*, compared to the previous generations the number of mRFP containing colonies without active partitioning system is invisible, the intensity of mRFP of the transformants with active partitioning system is significantly decreased. *It is possible to evaluate plasmid-containing colonies by checking if the colony contains mRFP. However, it might be tricky since the intensity can be slightly visible in colony, in that case patching bacteria on LB plates is a more trustworthy method.
Figure 3. Results from the second experiment where plasmid loss was evaluated using our base vector 2.0 (Minimal base vector with (Part:BBa_K2259088). Plasmid-containing bacteria decreased significantly in a vector without an active partitioning system, plasmid loss was already visible in a 60th generation. Where vector with an active partitioning system plasmid loss was not observed in a 60th generation, the loss of both vectors increased later on.
Figure 4. A. Plates of transformants containing vector with active partitioning system after 20 generations. LB plates without antibiotic - left side. LB plates with ampicillin - right side. B. Plates of transformants containing vector without active partitioning system after 20 generations. LB plates without antibiotic - left side. LB plates with ampicillin - right side. C. Plates of transformants containing vector with active partitioning system after 100 generations. LB plates without antibiotic - left side. LB plates with ampicillin - right side.D. Plates of transformants containing vector without active partitioning system after 100 generations. LB plates without antibiotic - left side. LB plates with ampicillin - right side.E.
D. Bramhill and A. Kornberg, Cell 1988, 54, 915-918.
S. M. Deane and D. E. Rawlings, J Bacteriol 2004, 186, 2123-2133. | 2019-04-23T04:18:34Z | http://2017.igem.org/Team:Vilnius-Lithuania/Design |
Originally posted by Betsy de Parry, AnnArbor.com Community Contributor, on Sun, Jul 15, 2012 : 8 a.m.
I’m not alone. The cyber world is flooded with concerns and assumptions, not to mention a whole lot of misinformation. And no wonder.
The debate has been framed in the context of politics and spun to benefit one side or the other, leaving most of us confused and some of us downright scared about how the law will impact that most vital and intimate of relationships: that between patients and doctors. We’ll be around long after this election cycle is over.
There are no simple answers to anything as complex as health care, but those who are on the front lines are best qualified to provide accurate insight. Dr. Ora Pescovitzand Rob Casalou are on those front lines, navigating the challenges of providing and improving our care every day.
Dr. Pescovitz is the CEO of the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS), which treated 1.8 million people in an outpatient basis and 45,000 people in the hospital last year.
And they tell us so much more, which is why I share their replies to my questions in their entirety.
Q. How – or will – the ACA change our relationships with our doctors?
Mr. Casalou: Our relationship with our doctors continues to change because of the laws of economics and not the laws created by our government. The fact is that our country cannot sustain the costs of the health care system as it is structured today.
The idea of managing populations and trying to reduce costly care is not because of the ACA, it is because of economic reality.
Health care can be expensive, it can be uncomfortable and it can take time away from other priorities in our lives. Yet, it is a product we need and it must be high quality and low cost. Thus, for us to deliver that product, doctors and hospitals must align closely and have common incentives to make sure we try and maintain a healthy population in the communities we serve. This is one of the major reasons we came together with IHA.
Dr. Pescovitz: One of the big things that the ACA emphasizes is quality of care — are doctors and their teams doing everything for patients that we know is proven to work and that can keep people healthy? And, it’s tying payment to performance on quality measures and patient satisfaction. This is a big change for our industry and, quite frankly, one that is a long time coming.
Now, hospitals and doctor’s offices will be working even harder to make sure patients get the right care at the right time. It will be financially beneficial to avoid unnecessary tests and procedures, reduce duplicative efforts and make process improvements that reduce readmissions, hospital-acquired infections and the like. All of this should help improve patients’ overall experience — and health.
For people who haven’t had a regular doctor, such as people without insurance, the ACA will make it easier for them to get the kind of regular care they need and build a relationship with a doctor who can work with them on their health issues.
One of the reasons health care spending is so out of control is that, as a nation, we don’t do a good job on the preventive side of care and, as a result, people develop preventable chronic conditions that are costly to their health and to the health care system.
With more people having access to care, we have an opportunity to take better care of patients early on and see them regularly as they age and their health needs change. This will have significant long-term impact on the health of our population and on health care spending.
We (UMHS) have a bit of a “head start” on making these kinds of changes because we have spent the last five years proving that we can provide exactly the kind of coordinated, high-quality care that the ACA is designed to encourage, while containing the growth of costs. We did this in a Medicare demonstration project that laid the groundwork for Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), and we’re doing it now through our new Pioneer ACO with the physicians of U-M and IHA (a multi-speciality group practice). We are also pioneering a “patient centered medical home” model that the ACA encourages.
Q. Because the ACA gives millions more people access to health care, there is speculation that the influx of new patients will strain the system beyond capacity. What assurance, if any, can you give patients that waiting for months to see doctors won’t be the norm?
Mr. Casalou: First, we believe creating the ability for all people to access care is a good thing. We also need to remember that many of the current uninsured patients in our community do access care and use the health care system now. Many pay out of pocket for their health care, and we and other hospitals currently write off all or part of medical bills for the uninsured.
So, while there will be more patients accessing care, not all the newly insured will be incremental to our health care system.
Having said that, we are building capacity, particularly in primary care, to provide a medical home for all our patients. Just this past year our physician partner, IHA, added several primary care doctors and nurse practitioners and will continue to do so in the coming months and years.
We do not anticipate longer wait lists or lower quality in the care of patients as a result of increasing demand.
Q. Our doctors are already constrained by time. Do you anticipate that the time they spend with us will decrease?
Dr. Pescovitz: In my 30 years of treating patients, and working with medical students and residents, there’s one constant: We always want to be able to spend more time with our patients, and to be able to see all the patients who want to see us. But, more importantly, we want the time we spend with patients to matter.
I am hopeful that trends in health care, including those influenced by the ACA, will help doctors make the most of the time with patients. With millions more insured Americans, we will definitely see more people seeking access to care they haven’t previously had, so we will need to be diligent and responsive to this influx. The ACO model addresses this by suggesting a structure of more coordinated care amongst all members of an individual’s health care team.
Also, the ACA incentivizes hospitals and doctor’s offices to invest in technologies and care strategies that can make them run more efficiently — such as computer systems and physician extenders. So, these measures may help reduce the time doctors spend on things besides caring for patients. At the same time, there’s a great push to increase the supply of doctors.
Q. There is speculation that the ACA is driving doctors who are currently practicing out of medicine and that it will drive the best and the brightest young people to professions other than medicine, which, of course, will mean fewer doctors to treat more people. Are you seeing any evidence of this?
Dr. Pescovitz: I interact with faculty, residents, medical students and community physicians from all over the country all the time, and we all share a common drive to help people get better and live more productive and fulfilling lives. Whether we do that as physicians delivering care, scientists developing treatments or faculty teaching future generations of physician-scientists, it is part of our core. I don’t think that has changed or will change. Medicine remains one of the most rewarding and sacred professions.
I don’t think the ACA is driving people away from medicine. It would be premature to draw such a conclusion. Actually, more young people are applying to medical school than ever before — 7,000 more nationwide last year compared with a decade ago!
I do think that the profession is changing as lifestyles and priorities change, and as new generations enter the workforce. Today, people prioritize work-life balance differently and are making career decisions that reflect this priority. At the same time, we are seeing young professionals and students with more technological expertise bring new and exciting perspectives and skills that will certainly shape the future of medicine.
Q. We’ve seen drug shortages as recently as a few months ago. Won’t this only get worse as millions of new people enter the system? How is this possibility being addressed?
Mr. Casalou: The other way to look at this question is to say that if we have millions of people who are not receiving adequate care, including medications, isn’t it incumbent on us to build the capacity to meet the demand? Wouldn’t any other manufacturing or service industry do the same?
Q. The ACA has been called government-run health care. Will the government now dictate what procedures we can or cannot have or will those decisions still rest with our doctors?
Dr. Pescovitz: Those who throw stones at “government run health care” often ignore the fact that huge numbers of Americans already rely on government-run plans such as Medicare, veterans’ care, Medicaid, and special programs for sick children.
All of these programs, and insurance plans from private companies, give doctors a lot of leeway to decide what is best for their patients and will continue to do so. As the ACA takes full effect, that should still be true.
And there will be more research at places like U-M to actually study what works best, so more patients can get proven care. In fact, our new University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation was conceived to bring together hundreds of health services researchers who share a common goal of studying health outcomes to ensure better, safer, more equitable and more cost effective health care.
Q. Serious illnesses such as cancer may require periodic, long term or lifelong treatment. Is there anything in the law that will prevent our doctors from treating us at any time in the course of our illnesses?
Mr. Casalou: I don’t see anything in this law that will prevent or withhold appropriate care to patients.
Q. There is speculation that the cost of administering the ACA and/or increased demand will drive up costs which in turn will drive up premiums. True or false and why?
Mr. Casalou: If the only outcome of the ACA is to have more people using the current system with the current cost structure and utilization of high-end services then, yes, costs will go up. However, this outcome would not be economically sustainable.
This is why accountable care was a centerpiece of the legislation. The idea is that we will increase access to care while lowering the cost of care per individual as we maintain health rather than have a system based on sick care. Both of these elements are crucial for this to succeed.
Q. What does the ACA mean to research, clinical trials and patients who want to participate in them?
Dr. Pescovitz: The ACA is already funding a wide range of research that compares medical treatment options and gives us valuable information on what works and what doesn’t.
As for clinical trials, the majority of funding for those comes from federal agencies whose budgets aren’t affected by the ACA, but are facing budget cuts because of the failure of the “super committee” last year. In fact, federal and state funding for all kinds of medical research, not just clinical trials, is going down — not up — and that’s posing a big challenge to research institutions like ours. Groups like Research!America offer a lot of information online about this threat and what members of the public can do about it.
Private companies also fund a lot of clinical trials, and there are new requirements outside of the ACA to make sure that these are done safely and transparently. Additionally, we are seeing a trend in philanthropic support for research, which will become more important as other funding sources dry up.
Q. What would you say to patients who are concerned about the new law?
Dr. Pescovitz: Learn more and get informed! When you strip away the politics, it is clear that most people simply are uninformed and rightfully concerned about what the ACA means for them and their families. Healthcare.gov is a good resource for information, as ishealthlawguide.aarp.org.
Also, talk to your doctor and stay engaged in the ongoing conversation as we work through changes in health care. We want patients to be our partners in shaping this change.
Change is never easy, but these changes are long overdue. We must get American health care to a better place. Doctors and hospitals are already becoming more motivated to provide high-quality care and better customer service because of the ACA.
If you have children who are young adults, are in the Medicare prescription drug “doughnut hole,” or have a pre-existing condition that makes it hard for you to find affordable insurance, the ACA is already helping you. And no matter what your situation, the ACA is intended to make sure that we as a society spend our health care dollars more wisely, fairly and humanely.
This is a journey. We didn’t get here overnight and it will certainly take many years — even decades — to see the full impact of changes we are enacting today. But, positive change is necessary.
Mr. Casalou: I would say to try and filter through the politics and rhetoric of the law. It is complicated and people who are on both sides of the politics of the law spend a lot of time trying to create fear or overstating aspects of the legislation.
The law is far from perfect, but so is our current health care system. Our system needs a transformation and, if the bill has done nothing else, it has put a spotlight on a problem that has been growing for several years, and has become too costly and not accessible to all Americans.
I suspect the law will get refined over time to deal with problems as they arise. For us, we are staying the course.
Q. Most everyone agrees that the current system of American health care is not sustainable. What steps are health care systems like yours taking to decrease costs without sacrificing patient care?
Dr. Pescovitz: For a country that wants to be the best at everything, health care is an area where we lag significantly. We have amazing options for people who have good insurance, and terrible options for people who don’t.
As a nonprofit, UMHS provides a large amount of care either for free or at reduced cost to those who don’t have coverage. But, we can’t do this for everyone. No system can.
As a society, we’re spending health care dollars badly, because we pay for emergencies and care for advanced disease that has gone untreated, rather than prevention and lower cost, early-stage intervention.
Make no mistake — if you have insurance, whether through private insurance or a government program, the truth is you already pay for the cost of caring for the uninsured, so it benefits the majority of our country’s population to get national health care spending under control. Inaction isn’t an option.
The ACA, and changes to health care reimbursement that were taking effect long before the ACA, are making hospitals, doctor’s offices and other health providers become more efficient. The ACA and insurers are driving us to make much-needed changes in computerization, quality measurement and customer service that other industries have long had in place. That means reducing waste, to reduce unnecessary costs, but it also means investing in things that will improve the patient experience and provide the care that patients actually need, rather than what pays the bills.
For nearly a decade, we’ve been working with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to lead efforts to improve care at hospitals statewide, in specialties such as heart care, cancer care and medical imaging. These are data-driven, cooperative efforts that have resulted in much better outcomes for patients and hundreds of millions of dollars in avoided costs because doctors and hospitals are doing things in consistent, proven ways instead of just the way they’ve always done them.
Mr. Casalou: For the past four years, we have been getting our health care system ready for the new realities of health care. The plan has many facets including reducing costs through redesign or elimination of costly programs and excess capacity. Examples include the elimination of our helicopter service and contracting with UM, and converting the St. Joseph Mercy Saline hospital into a outpatient health center that more appropriately meets the needs of the community.
In fact, the collaboration between St. Joe’s and UM in recent months is intended to benefit our community by eliminating redundancies and coordinating the delivery of services where appropriate.
The plan also includes investments in the front end of care, our physicians, and creating a medical community at St. Joe’s that is aligned and cohesive. Examples include the merger with IHA and the subsequent growth of our physician network.
The plan includes redesigning care to create a high quality and safe care environment. We are seeing great results as St. Joe’s has received national recognitions and awards this past year for high quality care and patient satisfaction.
And last, but definitely not least, we are working to keep our employees engaged as members of health care family by maintaining a work environment that enriches them as professionals. We keep what is called a “balanced scorecard” where we measure every aspect of our plan to make sure that we are achieving all of our goals and not focused just on one area. | 2019-04-26T00:44:12Z | http://washtenawhealthinitiative.org/2012/07/repost-from-annarbor-com-beyond-politics-the-affordable-care-act-your-doctor-and-you/ |
Disclaimer #2: This recap, is very, very long. Unlike most Final Fantasy games, the story on Final Fantasy VIII relies on an absurd amount of detail and, in my opinion, trying to do a faithful recap required more detail than usual. If you want a quicker recap, I would suggest another source; however, keep in mind it cuts out quite a bit of the story and a lot of things will not make sense as a lot of the story is cut out. So if you wish to skip over this section, I wouldn’t blame you in the least. The story is quite good though, but you have been warned–long recap is long!
The duel in the video is that between main protagonist Squall Leonhart (in black) and Seifer Almasy (in white). The two are participating in a sparring match as both are training and preparing to be a part of an elite mercenary group known as SeeD. The two are rivals and, needless to say, their little training match got slightly out of control with both gaining matching scars in the process.
After the intro, Squall awakes in the medical center of his “home”, Balamb Garden. His instructor, Quistis Trepe, arrives to remind him it is time for his SeeD field exam. The test set before Squall is to control his own Guardian Force (GF), which are the summons in the world of Final Fantasy VIII. Squall heads out with Quistis and faces Ifrit and defeats him, passing his exam. Obtaining this GF allows Squall use of the Junction System (which will be explained in full later) allowing him to draw, junction, and use magic from monsters (a process known as using “para-magic”).
Squall then prepares for his final exam to become a SeeD. His is tasked with infiltrating the city of Dollet, which is currently occupied by the Galbadian Army and attempt to drive them out. Squall is teamed up in a squad with Seifer, and another potential SeeD, Zell Dincht. They soon discover the goal of the Galbadian Army is to reactivate an old radio tower and they are ordered to stop them. Seifer decides to disobey this order and abandons the party. Squall and Zell then soon run into another SeeD taking party in the exam, a young girl named Selphie Tilmitt and she replaces Seifer. The three make their way to the top of the tower, but despite their efforts it is reactivated. A gigantic spider-like war machine then chases the trio and they manage to outrun it and escape Dollet with the rest of the SeeD.
The next day, Cid assigns Squall, Zell, and Selphie to their first mission. They are to assist a small resistance group known as the Forest Owls whom are trying to liberate the town of Timber from the Galbadian Army. On their train ride to Timber though, things start to get a little weird. All three of them pass out and somehow find themselves in a dream featuring three Galbadian soldiers: Laguna Loire, Kiros Seagill, and Ward Zabac. Even stranger, the three all seem to have some sort of consciousness throughout the dream and even all of their junctioned magic has carried over to the three men.
While in this dream state, they see that Laguna appears to be the leader of these men and that they are fighting in a war against Timber. The three men head to Deling City and have some drinks in the hotel bar. Here, Ward reveals that Laguna has quite the crush on the piano player at the bar, Julia. A humorous scene then follows as he tries to approach the girl of his dreams, only to have some sort of a panic attack in which his leg cramps on him and he quickly limps back to his seat (and all the while Squall is offering some more humorous commentary as he sees this unfold).
Kiros and Ward soon leave and tell Laguna to have a few more drinks on them. While doing so, Julia approaches Laguna’s table and has a seat with him. The two strike up a rather awkward conversation (in which even Julia asks how Laguna’s leg is); however, luck is on Laguna’s side as Julia invites him to her room so they can talk in private. Laguna finally gets the nerve to head up to her room and the two start talking and hit it off. Here Laguna reveals his actual dream is to be a journalist (in fact some of his work appears throughout the game). Julia reveals that one day she’d like to sing; however, she struggles at writing lyrics, but she believes that Laguna will be able to inspire her to write a song. Just as it seems everything will fall into place for Laguna, Kiros comes knocking on the door to relay new orders and at that time Squall, Zell, and Selphie all wake up.
After the dream diversion, the three arrive in Timber and meet up with the Forrest Owls and are introduced to their leader, who ends up being the same girl that danced with Squall the night before, Rinoa Heartilly. The Forrest Owls then lay out their plan to the three new SeeD: they are to intercept and hijack the train of Galbadia’s president, Vinzer Deling. After they do so, the plan is to corner him and force him to withdraw his forces from Timber. The plan works; however, the president had a body double and he ends up turning into a monster that the party must defeat.
After realizing they have been duped, the resistance learns that President Deling will actually be on Timber’s TV Station to address the world. Deling announces that he has appointed a new diplomat for Galbadia, the Sorceress Edea; however, just as he does, Seifer comes storming into the scene and takes Deling hostage. Quistis, who also happens to be on the scene says that if the Timber Team is watching, they need to get up to the station to assist. Squall and company rush to the tower and attempt to talk Seifer down, which fails and he attempts to fall back with the president still held at gunblade point. The Sorceress Edea then appears and begins to talk to Seifer and she convinces him to come with her. He releases the president and disappears with Edea.
As things begin to somewhat settle down, Quistis reminds Squall that since they cannot currently return back to Balamb Garden, they must go to the nearest garden, which happens to be Galbadia Garden. On the train ride there, Squall, Selphie, and Quistis pass out and return to the adventures of Laguna. Laguna and company are in the wrong patrol location and find themselves in a location called “the Centra”. Soon they find themselves on the run from Esthar soldiers. In the end one of the dying soldiers uses an ability that severely cripples the party. They then arrive at a cliff and see an ocean and a boat. Laguna throws his squad members into the ocean and then later jumps himself to escape, after which, Squall, Selphie and Quistis awake.
Everyone then heads to Galbadia Garden and Quistis talks with Headmaster Martine. She comes back to report to the party that SeeD was not implicated at all on the attempt at the president’s life; however, Seifer was found guilty of the entire situation and was executed. As everyone laments Seifer’s passing, it is revealed that Riona and Seifer had a bit of a history with each other, one in which Riona said she “might have been in love”. Everyone else starts eulogizing Seifer, which ends up driving Squall a bit crazy, saying he would refuse to have anyone talk about him in the past tense as they were with Seifer.
The group later meets up with Headmaster Martine whom hands over new orders from Cid: execute the Sorceress Edea. To complete this mission, Martine offers the services of sharpshooter Irvine Kinneas. The group then leaves for Deling City and on the train ride, we find out Ivrine fancies himself as quite the ladies man as he starts to hit on all the female members present.
Squall and company finally arrive in the city and head to General Caraway’s mansion only to be quickly denied entry until they preform a “test of courage”. Succeeding in this test, they finally meet the General, who is revealed to be Rinoa’s father. Caraway then runs down his plan: Irvine will use a sniper rifle to kill Edea during her inauguration parade by trapping Edea in a gateway. If for some reason that plan fails, the SeeDs will attack Edea head on. Riona, however, makes a plan of her own and wishes to use an Odine amulet to suppress Edea’s powers.
While we are left wondering what happened to an ice-impaled Squall, we are sent back to the dream world in which Laguna is playing house with a small girl named Ellone and a woman named Raine in a town called Winhill. Kiros happens to find Laguna here and Laguna tells him that Raine nursed him back to health over six months and in repayment, he helps to hunt the monsters that plague the town since the rest of the men are out at war. Kiros mentions to Laguna that he has a contact with the “Timber Manics” magazine if Laguna wanted to write an article about traveling the world; however, Laguna seems to be hesitant to leave Raine and Ellone behind. After a quick scene in which Laguna eavesdrops on Raine and Ellone talking about the possibility of the two getting married, we head back to the real world in which Zell wakes up and finds himself in a prison cell with everyone.
Zell quickly realizes that in his dream, he was Ward and he was working in the same prison they are being held in. As Zell tries to figure a way out, the scene moves to Squall whom is being tortured by Seifer demanding to know the “true purpose” of SeeD and why they oppose Edea. Squall is dumbfounded and has no answers. As the torture ends, a prison warden informs Seifer that a missile attack is ready for Balamb and Trabia Gardens as punishment for opposing Edea. Seifer says once Balamb is destroyed, Edea and Seifer are going to go all Emperor/Darth Vader on the world and hunt down and kill every last SeeD. Seifer leaves and the torture is picked up by a prison warden, causing Squall to pass out.
Zell then starts to help everyone break out of the prison by reclaiming everyone’s weapons and they go look for Squall. They finally find Squall in room he passed out in, having just been awakened by a strange creature called a Moomba that kept calling him Laguna. With the Balamb SeeDs reunited, they try to find their way out and run into Rinoa and Irvine. With everyone back together again, the party escapes and split up into two groups: one to warn Balamb Garden and one to try to stop the missile launch.
The story then follows the group trying to stop the missile launch, lead by Selphie. Despite their best efforts, the missiles do launch towards Balamb. The focus then shift’s to Squall’s group at Balamb Garden and they find everything has gone completely nuts. The Garden has split into two factions, one supporting Headmaster Cid and one wishing to overthrow him, claiming they are allied with the “Garden Master”. Cid gives squall a key that will allow him to go to a restricted level of the Garden saying there is a control system there that should help them out. What they find is a control system to make Balamb Garden mobile, allowing them to avoid the missiles; however, Cid warns them that he can’t fully control the Garden’s movements.
After the crash, Squall is told to report to the “Garden Master” in the basement. There he runs into Cid and later meets NORG, a creature known as a Shumi. NORG explains that he is the financial backer of the Gardens and that he is quite pissed the assassination attempt at Edea failed. Since Martine used Squall to carry out the orders, he believed that Martine was attempting to ensure blame would be placed on NORG and Balamb Garden. NORG then begins a rather insane rant that all Cid and Martine are trying to do is take his Garden (and really, his cash flow) away from him. He wishes to hand over all the SeeDs and Cid to quell Edea’s anger, saying it is “his Garden” and he can do as he wishes. As Squall objects, NORG reveals that Cid and Edea are actually married, and then quickly believes the two of them are in cahoots to take the Garden away from him.
So yeah, NORG loses his mind and tries to attack Squall and his group, forcing them to kill the crazy alien…thing. But hey, if you think the little alien running Garden as well as Cid and Edea being married was a bit weird (even Squall flips out at this point in the game), just wait, we are only getting started.
A Galbadian ship approaches the Garden and it is full of SeeDs dressed in white, whom identify themselves as Edea’s SeeDs (still with me?). They claim to come in peace and talk to Cid and suggest to him that he needs to had over Ellone (yes, that Ellone from Laguna-world) to them so she can be safe. Cid agrees and tells Squall to find her. Squall finally finds the girl and confronts her about the dreams they’ve been having. She confesses that she is the same Ellone that they’ve been seeing, but that their dreams aren’t dreams at all, they are being transported into the past and she was hoping they could change it.
After Ellone is taken away a very confused Squall is lying in bed. Rinoa drops in wanting a to take a walk with him, but their walk is soon cut short by Balamb Garden crashing into Fisherman’s Horizon and Cid calling Squall to his office. Cid asks Squall to go meet with the mayor of Fisherman’s Horizon. The mayor offers to help with Garden repairs, but asks that everyone leaves immediately when it is fixed. Soon after Galbadian soldiers come looking for Ellone and threaten to torch the city regardless if they find her or not. Squall and company help drive them out and he returns to report to Cid.
After hearing Squall’s report, Cid makes an announcement to the entire Garden. He says that the Garden is being fixed and they will use it as a mobile base to start a war with Edea. He also says a new commander will lead them in this new mission: Squall. Squall borderline freaks out, but Cid says that it is his fate to accept this role and defeat Edea.
After Squall’s promotion, the story takes a quick break and Selphie comes up with an idea to celebrate and hopefully make Squall relax a bit. She starts a band with herself, Quistis, Zell, and Irvine as members and wants Riona to be able to talk with Squall. As Squall heads out of his room, he is met by Rinoa in the same dress she wore at the graduation party. She tries, and fails to get Squall to open up to her and have him rely on her and the rest of his friends for help. Squall’s cold responses don’t settle well with Rinoa, whom eventually storms off.
The next morning, Squall leads the Garden to the city of Balamb to check on the situation there. They find that Galbadian soldiers, led by Fujin and Raijin (Seifer’s friends) have occupied the city and are searching for Ellone. They defeat the pair and drive them out of the city. Later, Selphie suggests that they go back to her home Garden of Trabia as she is worried about its condition since it was a target of the earlier missile attacks. Squall figures it isn’t a bad idea so they head out and find Trabia Garden destroyed.
After a bit of lamenting by Selphie, the group begins to talk and it leads in the pasts of all the SeeD members. Irvine’s memory is the most clear and everyone figures out that, save for Rinoa, they all grew up in the same orphanage. We then find out that Squall was always waiting on his “sis” (whom he has legit dreams about throughout the game), this “sis” is none other than Ellone. Everyone tries to figure out why they can’t remember these things, yet Irvine seems to be able to better than anyone else. They finally come to the conclusion that the use of GFs causes memory loss, and since Irvine was the last of the group to junction them, he has the clearest memory.
Squall and company face Seifer and Edea once again and take them down. After her defeat, Edea seems to remember everything out of nowhere, and even asks if she has successfully protected Ellone. During this time, Rinoa collapses as well. Later on everyone regroups at Edea’s house and she reveals that she was being possessed by a powerful sorceress from the future, Ultimecia. Edea knew Ultimecia was after alone and therefore allowed herself to fall subject to Ultimecia’s will in order to save Ellone. Ultimecia’s ultimate goal is to use Ellone’s powers to send her mind into the past, present and future so that she can compress time and become a powerful goddess over not just the world, but over all time as well. After the update, Squall goes to check on the unconscious Rinoa…and then once again falls into the dream world.
We then see Laguna working on the set of a movie in which his role is that of the sorceress’ knight. As that scene comes to a close, Ellone begins to talk to Squall and apologizes that she can’t seem to “disconnect” him because she is asleep and can’t fully control her powers. The scene quickly shifts to Laguna talking to Edea as he is looking for Ellone. He reveals that she was kidnapped by Esthar soldiers because they were looking for a successor to Adel, that time’s sorceress. Just before Ellone “disconnects” Squall, she reveals that while Laguna was searching for her, Raine died due to complications in childbirth (yes, that would be her and Laguna’s child). She tried to use her powers to send Laguna back to that very moment, but she couldn’t, nor could she change the past to make it so. Squall then wakes up, and is determined to find Ellone.
With Edea’s help, Squall learns the location of the White SeeD ship where Ellone is being kept safe…or so he thought. It turns out that the Galbadian army found the ship and attacked them. During the battle a ship from Esthar came and Ellone ended up leaving with them during the fray. With this knowledge, Squall decides to go to Esthar alone, carrying Rinoa on his back.
Squall, however, is met with the rest of the group, along with Edea who says she needs to see Dr. Odine so he can take her sorceress powers away, negating the need for Ultimecia to attempt to take over her body again. The SeeDs reunite with their Matron and set out to find the hidden city of Esthar, and eventually they do. As they enter the city, Squall collapses as is taken back to Laguna’s time.
This time around, Laguna is slaving away at a place called the Lunatic Pandora along with Kiros and Ward. The three attempt an escape and while doing so, they overhear Dr. Odine talking to his assistants about using the Lunatic Pandora as a weapon and something about a moon base. They also hear something about the sorceress Adel abducting young girls for some form of research.
After Dr. Odine leaves, one of the assistants ends up meeting with Laguna, Kiros, and Ward, revealing that he is a part of a resistance against Adel. He tells them that Dr. Odine is now obsessed with a young girl named Ellone. Laguna and the assistant then strike a deal to help each other out. The resistance would help Laguna reclaim Ellone and Laguna would aid the resistance effort. Laguna finds Dr. Odine, who gives up Ellone’s location, and finally reaches Ellone after his long search.
At this point Squall wakes up once again, and the party sets out to meet Dr. Odine. He agrees to suppress Edea’s powers and also makes a deal with Squall to see Ellone, as long as he is allowed to examine Rinoa. Squall agrees, and preparations are made to send Squall and Rinoa to the moon via the Lunar Gate. As they launch, a large structure comes out of the ground. Dr. Odine immediately identifies it as the Lunantic Pandora and it seems that Galbadia is to blame for bringing it out of the ground. Zell attempts to lead a group inside, but they are quickly kicked out.
The scene shifts to Squall who has arrived at the Lunar Base. He then meets up with Ellone at long last and requests her help reviving Rinoa. As Squall attempts to bring Ellone to Rinoa, alarms start going off all around the base. Rinoa has seemingly gone mad and is trying to free the sorceress Adel, whom is sealed out in space. All the while, a phenomenon called the Lunar Cry is starting in which thousands of monsters gather on the moon and then are sent down to the Earth at a single point at the behest of the Lunatic Pandora.
Squall then demands that Ellone sends him back into Rinoa’s past in order to try to figure out what’s wrong with her. Eventually he sees what actually happened after Seifer and Edea were defeated. Ultimecia told Seifer to activate the Lunatic Pandora and she possessed Rinoa’s body. Squall then attempts to “connect” with Rinoa whom seemingly comes back to her senses after releasing Adel. However, the space suit she is wearing is running low on oxygen and Squall heads out to space and saves her. Still running low on oxygen, the two find an old spaceship called the Raganrok and in there, a supply of oxygen.
After the two clean out the ship of some nasty monsters, they are able to get back in touch with Esthar. The ground control team there helps Squall set the ship on a course back to Earth successfully. On the way back, Squall and Rinoa share a rather touching scene along with the game’s theme song “Eyes on Me”; however, everything comes crashing back down to reality once Esthar realizes that Rinoa is on the ship and deems her a threat as she has become a sorceress and unwillingly took on Edea’s powers without either of them really knowing it.
Once Squall and Rinoa land, Rinoa agrees to be sealed as Adel was. She believes that this must be done so that Ultimecia cannot possess her any further and achieve her goal of Time Compression. After Rinoa is taken away Zell fills Squall in on the Lunatic Pandora and how it managed to start the Lunar Cry. Not only that, thanks to the Lunar Cry, Adel’s now unlocked tomb was caught int the Lunar Cry stream and Adel is now back on the surface inside the Lunatic Pandora. However, there is only one thing on Squall’s mind and that is saving Rinoa and he saves her before she is sealed away.
After another conversation between Squall and Rinoa (ah, love is blooming), everyone is informed that Esthar has formed a plan to defeat Ultimecia and their presence is required at Esthar at once to meet the president. The group flies the Raganrok to Esthar and are greeted by Ward and Kiros, as well as Esthar’s president, Laguna. Squall prompts Laguna for the plan, which is followed by an explanation from Dr. Odine on how Ultimecia is controlling minds across time, via a machine he created to mimic Ellone’s powers called “Junction Machine Ellone”. Since the machine has limits, Ultimecia wanted to find Ellone in order to actually achieve the goal of time compression.
So they come up with the following plan: Squall and company will go inside the Lunatic Pandora to both kill Adel before she fully awakens and to rescue Ellone. With Adel dead and Edea’s powers now passed on to Rinoa, Ultimecia would be forced to possess Rinoa once again. At that point, Ellone would send Riona’s mind back into another sorceress of the past, prompting Ultimecia to trigger Time Compression. At that point, the party would be transported into Time Compression as well, allowing them to face Ultimecia herself and have the chance to destroy her. However, being able to survive Time Compression is quite a tricky process, and to make it through, everyone must remember their love and friendship (an explanation that even Squall admits is corny).
Squall and company go to the Lunatic Pandora and execute their plan to perfection, taking down Seifer and then Adel. As planned, Rinoa was possessed by Ultimecia, Ellone sent her back to the past and Ultimecia was tricked into compressing time. The entire party was able to make it safely through the attempted time compression and arrived in Ultimecia’s time. As they arrive in front of Ultimecia’s castle, they see the bodies of SeeDs everywhere, causing Squall to believe that SeeD has been fighting Ultimecia for generations.
The party then enters their final challenge, which is probably one of the more unique final dungeons of the series. As they enter Ultimecia’s castle, all of their abilities are stripped, allowing them only the ability to attack. The party must unlock their abilities one by one by defeating several bosses throughout the castle, all the while solving several puzzles in order to get to them. Finally, after they unlock everything, they face off at long last against Ultimecia.
This starts off a four stage battle which serves as the final conflict for the game. First, the party fights against her “normal form” and she chooses three random party members in which to do battle with. If any character is left KO’d for too long during the fight, Ultimecia can absorb them into time and they are replaced with another party member (which the player can actually use to their advantage to get their “main party” into battle). After the party beats the sorceress, she then digs into Squall’s mind and summons, Griever, the name of Squall’s ring and his idea of the ultimate Guardian Force. After the party takes out the beast, Ultimecia then junctions herself to Griever, creating a hybrid form of the two. Finally, Ultimecia enters her final form, which has all sorts of nasty attacks. Not only can she cast some of the best magic in the game and instantly kill the player’s GFs, but she also creates a new spell from her own mind called Apocalypse, which is her idea of the ultimate Black Magic. | 2019-04-24T02:54:46Z | http://www.ndtex.com/misc/2010/03/day-viii-final-fantasy-viii/2/ |
Michael's Photograph "Sri Lankan Hobo" is one of only ten monochrome prints from the VAPS Interclub Competition chosen to represent Victoria in the Australian Interclub Photographic Competition.
On behalf of all members of the Yea Camera Club, many congratulations Michael. The choice was well deserved, because it is a fine photograph.
In the absence of the President, and Vice President , John steered the meeting.
The meeting confirmed that they did not want to run a competition this year. Ann Anstey will inform Lisa Cornwall that we do not have a requirement for Beaufort Manor.The club will consider running the competition bi annually.
The meeting was a practical portrait session to practise for the Yea Identity Portrait project.
Ann Anstey organised models – Michelle Dolman and daughters , Natasha and Teagan, and Brian Ward. They were very patient and understanding. The meeting warmly thanked them.
For this month only. Please bring, on a memory stick / USB / Flash Drive , to the next meeting your 3 Best portrait photos from this session in a folder named “portraits”. The photo Mb will be full size.
Thanks to Ann Anstey for supper. A volunteer required for next month.
Just thought that we would drop you a note with information on 3 photographic competitions which your members may be interested in entering.
Yea Camera Club Members are encouraged to enter this exciting photo competition and help raise vital funds for The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
The winner of the competition will win over £250 worth of photographic prizes, as well as the prestigious SINWP Bird Photographer of the Year Trophy and Certificate.
The Bird Photographer of the Year in aid of RSPB competition is proudly supported by Aaduki Multimedia Insurance, PermaJet, The Societies of Photographers and .photo domains.
We invite all photographers to get involved and enter this month's 'Our Colourful World' photography competition.
Entries are invited that capture people and places from around the world. The images may depict everything from street musicians, street performers and people in everyday life situations.
We look forward to seeing some fantastic images entered from your members.
May 2018. Vol. 45, No 4.
I know that by now that we should have had some decent rain throughout the state and it is becoming quite a concern in many rural areas.
Photographically, this autumn has been a blessing, with mild days and good dry weather without the contrast and glare of the summer months. I hope many of you have taken advantage of these conditions and shot some delightful images. The Autumn colours came early and caught many of us by surprise!
I am pleased to report that we have a near record number of registrations for the upcoming VAPS convention in Warrnambool, including attendance to the Formal Dinner, Cocktail party and all the workshops. It's not too late to consider attending and joining in what promises to be one of our best conventions to date.
Warrnambool has plenty of accommodation options and it's such a lovely place to visit in the late Autumn, with the changeable weather along the coastline… just superb for all those dramatic photographic opportunities.
The local club has worked so hard to insure we will have a very successful convention and I really cannot thank them enough be down.
I hope to catch up with as many of you as possible during the four days that I will down there.
A general photographer who mostly worked in slides, he was a member of the Sunbury Camera Club and was instrumental in that club conducting a National Photographic Exhibition at Emu Bottom Homestead in 1975. Noel introduced the State Service Award of VAPS, known as the SSVAPS, at the 1979 Geelong convention, in recognition of individuals' service to photography in Victoria.
It was also awarded retrospectively to worthy recipients but the first to be presented, was to Ian Cust of the Essendon Camera Club and the second, unbeknown to him at the time, was Noel.
Noel was the secretary for the 1978 APSCON held in Bendigo, which was the first APS convention to make a profit. Using Bendigo's Kangaroo Flat Bus Lines, he organised a three-week tour for the 1980 APSCON in Western Australia and with Georgie McIlroy, he also organised a three-week tour for 35 to 40 photographers of New Zealand, attending their PSNZ Convention in 1982.
Noel faced two challenges, to improve the RASV/VAPS National Photographic Exhibition and to improve the conventions. With the conventions he helped introduce Audio Visuals and by the experience gained through managing the 1976 Ballarat, 1977 Wodonga, 1978 Swan Hill and 1979 Geelong conventions, he ensured they were financially well administered.
As a result of this involvement in conventions and with reference to documents made by George Wallis he produced a guide on how to conduct a convention, copies of which were still held by the VAPS Convention Director and the APS in 2003. The 1979 Geelong convention was the first where a bound convention booklet was provided to all attendees.
Don't forget that you can zoom in to read the detail on any image in the Newsbrief.
If you have any ideas for speakers or presentation please let us know.
Image Evaluation / Judging courses for anyone who would like to improve their ability to evaluate a photographic image, and for those that think they may like to take on the role of a future judge, or anyone that would just like to help fellow club members, especially novices better evaluate their images.
(Note: there is no level 2 training scheduled in 2018).
Sunday 14th October Level 5 training. Location yet to be finalized.
A small group of those interested in photography at every level will leave Australia on September 18 for a 13 day visit to China.
The Australia China Friendship Society Limited have invited their member Susan Moss to lead the tour. Susan is a member of the Western Australian Camera Club which celebrated its centenary in 2017.
On most days in China the group will be joined by a local photographer well versed in nearby attractions and knowing the best times to achieve top images.
Susan worked with the Guilin tour expert to design an itinerary that would delight those on the tour. Highlights will be the Li River, golden rice prior to harvest in the rice terraces and a visit to an old Dong village. The Dong people being one of the 56 ethnic minority groups in China.
Victorian participants will fly China Southern, the world's third largest carrier, from Melbourne direct to Guangzhou, the old Canton.
The cost is $4380 covering fares, rail and coach connections, hotel accommodation in twin rooms, most meals, and all gratuities.
The beautiful Li River in Guilin where the limestone karst mountains will delight photographers.
Golden rice in the rice terraces prior to harvest.
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The VIGEX 2nd International Digital Salon will be conducted in 2018, with the closing date for entries on 13 May. There will be six sections: Monochrome Open, Colour Open, Nature, Creative, Photo Travel and Differences in Society. The final section is a new category to encourage innovation in photography – it will seek images that reflect on human life in the modern world. Details of the Salon will be available on the web-site shortly.
Friends of VIGEX subscriptions are used to support each print salon and these funds are not allocated towards the more financially robust digital salons in the alternate years. This means that the next FoV subscriptions will cover the two-year period 2018-19 leading up to the VIGEX 20th Print Salon 2019.
All Friends are invited to renew their subscription now and any new Friends will be especially welcome. Membership Forms for Individual Friends or Camera Club Friends are found on the Friends page of the VIGEX web-site – complete the form electronically for email return or print and post. Subscriptions may be paid using Direct Deposit via EFT.
Starting with over 8 hours of Lightroom training videos which cover all the content from their two-day Mastering Lightroom class.
We are pleased to offer Camera Club members a discount of $200 on our Lightroom Video Training, making it just $95 for you to purchase over 8 hours of video training content covering everything we cover in our 2 day Mastering Lightroom class.
Please check it out - Lightroom Video Training - The first video in sessions 1, 2 & 3 are free to watch.
To redeem the offer simply enter the discount coupon VAPS when purchasing the bundle, which becomes available when you click Buy on any of the individual sessions.
Photoshop videos are also in the works!
This photographic information is forwarded to VAPS clubs and members for interest and information.
VAPS is not formally endorsing this event above any others.
VAPS is circulating the information for the benefit of club members.
The 2018 VAPS Convention and Interclub exhibition will be held at Deakin University Campus in Warrnambool this year. Hosted by the Warrnambool Camera Club it promises to be a fantastic weekend full of learning and photographic opportunities.
Commencing on Friday 25th May through to Monday 28th May the convention will kick off with an official welcome cocktail party and viewing of the Interclub print exhibition on the Friday night.
The Saturday and Sunday programmes are full of excellent speakers and workshops that will have everyone engaged in informative photographic sessions along with photographic opportunities on Monday to round off a great long weekend of photography.
Headlined by renowned Arctic and Photographer of the Year, Joshua Holko, who will present two outstanding talks on his amazing Arctic Circle photography, and Glyn Lavender well known Australian and International photographic coach who will steer us through "Refining our vision among the Chaos" before embarking on a live model shoot to demonstrate the techniques of model lighting.
Denis Smith known as one of the world's most prolific light painters will enthral with his talk and exclusive workshop on the Sunday night. This is an opportunity not to be missed, full details are in the programme and registration forms.
Local speakers and photographers have not been forgotten either with Oat Vaiyaboon aka HangingPixels will present on the latest trend in Drone photography. Another fantastic local is Elizabeth O'Callaghan local author and historian. Elizabeth with take us through the history of photography in Warrnambool and the many changes that this interesting city has experienced.
Photographic opportunities will also be high on the agenda with Ian Rolfe conducting two open landscape workshops and the Warrnambool Camera Club presenting an open Model shoot nearby for all of those who like to just get out and capture great images. Ian will also hold a photoshoot of the iconic Childers Cove on Monday morning. The finish off the weekend you will also have the opportunity to visit one of Warrnambool's favourite attractions, Flagstaff Hill. On the Sunday night you have the option of attending the Light & Sound show, for a small additional cost. On the Monday all delegates and their families will have free entry to Flagstaff Hill. We even have people in period costume walking around the venue.
Deakin University has really great facilities for our 2018 convention, plus the Warrnambool Bowls Club will be the location for the Saturday night Awards Dinner.
Check out the next edition of VAPS Newsbrief for a full run down on the convention, accommodation offers and all of the great 2018 presenters.
All of the links to the programme and registration form can be found here.
Interclub Photography at the Brother Fox Café venue Deakin University.
Please pay at the bar for all drinks.
8.00am Registrations open in the foyer of the main Auditorium Deakin University.
8.30am Exhibition opens at Brother Fox Café.
10.45am Separate viewing of all Audio Visuals in the second auditorium, running all morning.
11.10am John Spring, update on Audio visual program and rules.
1.25pm Keynote speaker: Glynn Lavender Refining your vision among the Chaos.
2.35pm Disperse to the outdoor Portrait Workshops at specific locations.
6.30pm Assemble at the Warrnambool Bowls club for pre-dinner drinks, please pay at the club bar for all drinks.
Please note: The Photography exhibition will close at 3.30pm on Sunday to allow the dismantling and repacking of prints to club folders, assistance appreciated.
7.00am Dawn photo-shoot with Ian Rolfe Proud-foots boat house and the estuary.
11.20am Keynote speaker: Denis Smith The art of Light Painting.
12.30 BBQ lunch in the outside picnic area adjacent Brother Fox Café.
7.00am Dawn coastal photo-shoot with Ian Rolfe – meet at the carpark at Childer's Cove Mepunga. This shoot is subject to tides and weather and an update will be made in Sundays announcements. Participants must have registered for at least a day's attendance to take part in any of the photo shoots.
10.00am Warrnambool Maritime Museum special convention programme for delegates with Flagstaff Hill volunteers dressed in period costumes until around 1pm.
Monday upon presentation of convention registration ID.
the VAPS website and listed in Newsbrief.
Living in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Joshua studied with distinction at the Australian Photography Studies College and the Australian College of Journalism. He is a fully accredited AIPP Double Master of Photography and member of the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers. In 2011 he was selected to appear in the AIPP 'Look for the Logo' television campaign highlighting some of Australia's best photographers. In 2011, and was also appointed as Australia's first and only Moab Master Photographer and Printer by Moab and Legion Paper in the USA.
In early 2012, Joshua was honoured to be appointed as a member of the esteemed Coloratti by X-Rite and was subsequently interviewed for Nik Radio in late 2012.
Early in 2013 he was honoured as the 2012 Outdoor Photographer of the Year in the 'Spirit of Adventure' category for his photograph of Mountain Climbers in Antarctica. In 2013, 2014 and again in 2015 he was elected to the Victorian Council of the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers.
In 2014 he won the Australian AIPP Canon Professional Science, Environment and Nature Photographer of the Year and Victorian Epson Professional Photographer of the Year grand prize along with overall State category wins in Science, Environment and Nature, Creative Photographer of the Year and Highest Scoring Print of the Year.
In 2015 Joshua was honoured as the Global Arctic Photographer of the Year with five medals across multiple categories.
In 2017 he was named the Victorian Epson Professional Documentary Photographer of the Year as well as being a finalist in the Science, Wildlife and Wild Places category.
Joshua's photography has taken him on extensive travels throughout Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, North and South America, China, Europe, Iceland, Norway, Greenland, the Arctic and Antarctica.
His photography has also been exhibited at Montsalvat Art Gallery, purchased by City Councils, as well as private collectors around the world. His photography has won both Gold and Silver with Distinction awards at the prestigious Australian Professional Photography Awards, as well as winning other internationally acclaimed awards such as the World Extreme Environment People's Choice Award.
Joshua's work has also been published in numerous magazines and journals, including National Geographic, Canadian Geographic, F11 Magazine, The Australian Photography and Gallery Compendium, Wild, Australian Photography, Better Photography, Better Pictures and the highly respected Silvershotz Journal.
Glynn is the owner and operator of Creative Photo Workshops and is well known both here in Australia and also the USA for his 30 plus years involvement in the photo industry.
Glynn's goal is to cut through the technical jargon of photography and get to the heart of what's important – capturing great images, his passion for teaching photography is evident everywhere he goes and every time he picks up his camera.
His catchword is that the best way to learn anything is to just do it!
Glynn's ability to share his knowledge and empower Workshop attendees to reach their goals is well known and many working professional photographers consider Glynn their mentor and part of the reason for their success.
With nearly a thousand Workshops under his belt, Glynn's experience shines through at every event and he willingly shares everything – there are no trade secrets at his events.
Glynn is heavily involved in the photographic industry worldwide as Vice President of the Digital Imaging Marketing Association and several Photo Marketing Association committees.
Creative Photo Workshops is one of Australia's most dynamic photography training companies, running events in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
Glynn also leads photo tours to such countries as Vietnam, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and many other destinations, he also conducts creative workshops in groups or one on one, blending a unique blend of humour and passion into every lesson and presentation.
Denis Smith bought his first camera in 2009, and during the same year a huge life change saw him leave his home-town of Auckland, to make a new start in Adelaide, South Australia. The move away from Auckland and a high-flying corporate life allowed Denis the time and space to deal with the depression, alcohol abuse and lifestyle that almost killed him. Photography quickly became the creative outlet that allowed him to replenish both mind and soul.
Denis is now known as one of the world's most prolific light painters, and continues to inspire photographers of all ages and experience to explore and push the boundaries of their own creativity. Through his light painting workshops, Denis mentors beginner to advanced photographers and leads them into the night to create ethereal and mind blowing images.
Denis believes photography should be inclusive and that we live in an incredible age where everyone, young and old, can create stunning images that spark joy and enthusiasm deep within.
With an uncompromised openness about his own mental health issues, Denis brings art, nature and people together whilst influencing mental health acceptance and equanimity.
Oat Vaiyaboon aka hangingpixels, was born in Bangkok, Thailand. His mother had spent part of her youth attending university in Canberra and was impressed enough to send her son down under to further his education. So at 14 years old, Oat made the long journey to Sydney.
After completing year 12 in 1996, Oat went to university to study architecture. After university, he worked as a draftsman, spending the next decade adding his creative flair to the Sydney skyline.
Oat's desire to expand his horizons meant he went back to university to obtain his masters degree in design, photography and digital media.
This re-ignited a passion for photography that had existed since high school where he chose photography as his major in Art.
Back in high school Oat still used the old film that had to be developed. He could often be found working in the dark room, processing his images and watching them come to life. Although now it is all digital and the tools are different, a lot about the process of photography for him has stayed the same.
The thing Oat loves most about photography is that he can go out and not be committed to one thing, it is about each person's interpretation.
"It is how you see the object you are photographing. I look at things and work out when and how to use the natural light, I'm still learning now. Sometimes you go out with your camera and come back and all the shots are terrible."
Oat's venture from Sydney to south-west Victoria has provided him with wonderful subject matter. Images of the Grampians, the Great Ocean Road, the Otways, the high country and just about every natural wonder in and around Port Fairy have caught the attention of his camera.
Oat shares his passion for photography, both with camera in his hand or attached to a drone, on his facebook and instagram accounts and on his website.
He is a licensed drone operator, capturing spectacular shots from above.
"People are becoming more aware of what drones can do, what great shots you can get from using them."
For Oat, taking photos is very therapeutic. He travels around, sometimes with his family or friends, sometimes in solitude, and takes photos.
" Maroondah Photographic Society (MPS) is compiling a booklet to commemorate its 60th anniversary and is appealing to anyone within the photographic fraternity who might have access to previous years' VAPS Convention Programs, or old copies of VAPS Newsbriefs, from 1986 to 2007.
These are needed to fill in the missing gaps of MPS's Interclub entries and their results.
If anyone is able to assist could they please contact Neil Roberts at [email protected] or on 0419 373 417, to arrange for the transfer of the information."
a wonderful collection of photos by The Melbourne Camera Club members, both prints and projected digital images, representing the theme Travel. The Melbourne Camera Club Gallery, cnr. Ferrars and Dorcas Sts, Sth Melbourne.
10 photographers, 2 professional models, make-up artists and 3 hours of photography in The Melbourne Camera Club studios. If you are into portrait shooting then this is for you.
With a maximum of 5 shooters per group you will not only get plenty of shooting time but plenty of help from our experienced instructors in all aspects of portrait photography (or we can stay out of your way if you prefer).
Our models will wear a variety of outfits, and there will be ample opportunity to learn some new lighting set ups.
Suitable for experienced and novice portrait shooters.
Cost is $90 for Melbourne Camera Club members, and $130 for non-members.
Numbers are restricted so you must book in advance.
O – Open, N – Novice (has not received an acceptance or award in an Agricultural Show, National Show or International competition).
Y – Youth, up to 16 years.
Newsbrief publication deadline 26 May.
Copyright © 2018 Victorian Association of Photographic Societies, All rights reserved. | 2019-04-23T00:06:46Z | http://www.yeacameraclub.org.au/2018/ |
Practicing meditation, such as breath awareness, body scan, walking meditation, mindful dishwashing, etc. can support us in becoming more mindful in our everyday lives, including our parenting. Through meditation practice, we can learn to be more present in general and with our children --and more intentional in our interactions with them. In addition to meditation practice as a way to support the cultivation of mindful parenting, the following are ideas of ways to approach parenting as a mindfulness practice in and of itself... to support us to be more present in our parenting and to enhance our connection with our children.
Choose a daily interaction that you have with your child – brushing their teeth, breastfeeding, walking to school, bedtime stories, etc. Set an intention to be fully present in this interaction for a certain time frame, eg – a week. You can do this by bringing your awareness, as best you can, fully to your interaction with your child and being fully immersed in the activity with them. When your mind starts to wander to other things like work, planning for dinner or the weekend, to-do lists, etc., see if you can just let those thoughts be; then come back to being present with your child. Remind yourself that you have the rest of the day to think about these issues, but only this moment with your child.
These interactions are commonly approached as tasks that need to be completed so that we can 'get on with the rest of our day or evening.' And yet it is the constellation of ‘tasks’ that make up the majority of our interactions with our children. They offer us endless possibilities for connection that we might miss if we are not really present, even though we may be physically going through the motions. You may come to experience these 'little' moments as 'precious moments' not to be missed.
When we find ourselves in challenging situations, it can be helpful to take a step back and ask ourselves, "What is Most Important Now?"
In such situations, when we take a moment to reflect on this, we may open ourselves up to possibilities that may otherwise may be hidden by the stress and worry of what we think should be happening.
Here is my moment to practice, to notice the sensations arising in my body, the racing thoughts of questioning the past and forecasting into the future. I take a few deep breaths and reflect on "What is most important now?" And I realize, it is helping my baby get to sleep. Not folding laundry, not cooking, not being on the Internet, not even formally meditating. Not only is helping my baby sleep the most important thing, but it is also the reality I'm faced with. I can struggle with the situation and wish it was different, but that just doesn't change it (and never really does). Or it can be right here, present with the situation I am in and figure out what is needed in this moment, right now - not for tomorrow or not even for the next hour.
Once I took a step back, and a few breaths, I was able to let go of questioning the past and worrying about the future and focus on the task at hand. I also became aware that I was super-tired and needing support this particular night, so I called my partner to come home from a class and help put our son to bed... I followed shortly thereafter.
At the end of each day, invite yourself to reflect on a positive moment that you had with your child or children. Even if it has been a particularly challenging day (especially if it has been so), bring to mind a pleasant moment that you had with your child or children - or reflect on something that you appreciated about your child or children today.
It can be all too easy for our minds to hold on to the challenges that we experience in our day-to-day lives, overshadowing the moments of joy. Intentionally reflecting on the pleasant moments can support us in re-connecting with and remembering the joy and pleasure we share with our children each and every day.
"Instead of positive experiences washing through you like a sieve, they'll collect in implicit memory deep down in your brain." (Rick Hanson, "just one thing: developing a buddha brain one simple practice at a time).
Lovingkindess is a practice of cultivating compassion, both for ourselves and others. It can be easy to feel love and compassion when people are doing things we like or acting in ways that we want them to. But it can be challenging during those times when people aren’t necessarily acting how we would like them to or when we are faced with aspects of ourselves that we find hard to accept.
Just like we practice the cultivation of mindfulness / present-moment awareness, we can also engage in practice to cultivate compassion, patience and acceptance for ourselves and others. This practice is known as Metta or lovingkindness practice.
It involves the repetition of phrases, and tapping into the intention behind them. Depending on how much time you have to practice, you may choose elements of this practice, for example, offering lovingkindness to yourself as a caregiver, or perhaps focusing on offering lovingkindness to your child.
With this practice, it is also important to notice if an attachment to an outcome arises; to notice that and let it be. The purpose of the practice is to support us in developing compassion for ourselves and for others, rather than expecting others to change as a result of our practice. You can do the entire practice in one sitting or perhaps focus on a specific section if that feels most relevant.
Below is a sample of lovingkindess phrases that you might use. It is not the actual words or phrases that are most important, but rather the intention behind them, so please feel free to use phrases that resonate most with you.
For the first part of this practice, bringing into your mind’s eye, the image of your child (or one of your children) during a time in which you felt very connected to them. Perhaps it was a pleasant experience that you shared, or maybe a moment when you felt very proud of them... a time when you felt a lot of love - positive feelings towards your child. While holding this image of your child in your mind, repeat silently the phrases of lovingkindness.
When you are ready, invite an image of the same child during a difficult time. Perhaps you are feeling angry or disappointed or frightened with something that they have said or done – or saddened by a choice they have made. Perhaps it was a time of conflict between the two of you. While holding this image of your child in your mind, again repeat the same phrases of lovingkindness. See if you can invite yourself to generate a sense of compassion, even in the midst of a challenging time. Notice if any struggles arise in the mind, or in the body, when saying these phrases. Perhaps feelings of righteousness or a reluctance to let go. See if you might invite yourself back to the phrases. Practicing holding on to compassion, amidst the difficult times, which are bound to happen.
Now, bringing an image of yourself, as a parent or caregiver into your mind’s eye during a time when you felt very positive about yourself as a parent or caregiver. Perhaps at a time when you were feeling connected, responsive, attuned to your child… pleased with yourself in your role as parent/caregiver. While holding this image of yourself in your mind, repeat the phrases of lovingkindness.
If you don’t remember the exact words, that is okay, again, it is the intention behind the repetition of the phrases that is the goal.
Now, bringing into your mind’s eye an image of yourself as a parent/caregiver during a time when you were not so pleased with yourself in a situation. Perhaps this is a time that you 'flipped your lid,' when you responded to your child in a way that you wish you hadn’t. We can often be very hard on ourselves in such moments, very judgmental, and forget that in these situations, we are doing the best that we can. We may see another parent in a challenging situation, and our heart goes out to them. Yet, when we find ourselves in a similar situation, we may be very hard on ourselves. Seeing what it might be like to bring compassion to ourselves even during those times when we may be stressed, maxed out, not necessarily at our best. Not only reserving kindness and compassion for those times when we are “on,” being kind and gentle and forgiving with ourselves when we may be having a hard time.
Repeat the same lovingkindness phrases while holding onto this image of ourselves.
If you find this very challenging, and notice judgement creeping in, perhaps bring into your mind’s eye is slightly less difficult or ‘loaded’ situation and see if that might support the cultivation of compassion towards yourself.
Now, bringing in image of your entire family together, whatever ‘family’ means to you. Repeating the lovingkindness phrases, sending love and compassion to yourself and your family together.
Finally, offering these wishes of loving kindness to all families everywhere.
Schedule time to just be with your children, with no agenda in mind. Follow their lead and see where it takes you. So much of our time is scheduled, rushing from one place to another, whether it be work, school, extra-curricular activities... Invite yourself, even if for 5 minutes a day, to just hang out with your child or children. Gently observing what they are interested in, and engaging when they invite you in to their activities. Otherwise, just sitting back and observing them. Imagine what they might be thinking and feeling - what's going on in their world. You might even on occasion, wonder what they might be thinking or feeling. Observing your child engaged in an activity of their choice is actually a simple, yet profound way to contribute to building their self-esteem.
Coming into a comfortable sitting position and bringing your awareness to your breathing.
Inviting an image of your child (or one of your children if you have more than one) into your mind’s eye, seeing them completely. What are qualities of your child that stand out to you as you bring awareness to them in your mind’s eye? How would you describe them - their true nature? What are some qualities that make up their true nature? (loving, active, strong-willed, sensitive, etc.).
As you bring awareness to these qualities of your child, notice what you might feel in your body – any physical sensations (warmth, tightness, etc.).
Bringing awareness to any thoughts that may arise as you reflect on your child’s True Nature. Also allowing whatever feelings show up to be present, not needing to do anything with them, but noticing them.
Next, inviting yourself to bring to mind a situation where a conflict may have arisen between yourself and your child – when they may have been asserting an aspect of their True Nature that may not have fit with what you were hoping for in that situation. Bring this scene to mind as vividly as you can, recalling as best you can what feelings you had at the time. What thoughts came up? What body sensations were present?
Now, bringing awareness to what you notice in this moment as you reflect on this conflict. What thoughts, feelings and body sensations, if any arise? Perhaps frustration with your child, or with yourself as a parent, perhaps judgment, perhaps tension.
Seeing if you can simply sit with those emotions and thoughts and sensations as they slip into your awareness, without doing anything but allowing them to be in your presence. If you notice the urge to rationalize them or make them stop, simply acknowledge that as well and let it be within your awareness. If there are any judgments that accompany your thoughts and feelings, bringing awareness to those as well. Again, not needing to do anything with these thoughts and emotions, just letting them be, come and go, in and out of awareness. Practicing being an observer to our inner experiences, without having to act upon them.
Often, in challenging moments, we react automatically when difficult thoughts or feelings or judgments arise, and yet when we can be mindful of them and observe them, we can make more of a choice of how to respond. With practice, we can learn to observe our thoughts, feelings and body sensations and to not have them dictate our reactions.
When we bring more awareness to our inner experience when in relationship with our children, we open up the possibility of rich learning - about what’s going on for them, perhaps seeing the situation through their eyes, and, as such, honouring their True Nature, while also remaining connected, both with them and with ourselves.
This simple practice is a way to bring breath awareness and stillness with your child. Children are so attuned to their parents that they can sense when we are stressed, upset, happy, calm, etc. Here is an opportunity to provide them the opportunity to experience your calm presence. You could do this practice if there has been a stressful interaction, you have had a stressful day and are feeling stressed out or just anytime when you are with your child.
You can do this practice when holding or wearing your baby, when your child is sitting on your lap or simply when you are with your child. You don't even have to tell them that you are doing anything special!
Simply checking in with your breath and bringing your awareness to it. What is it like in this moment? Can you be intentional about your breathing? What do you notice about the contact / interaction with your child when you slow down and bring your awareness to your breath? What do you notice about any response form your child (if any)?
If it feels right for you, perhaps even quietly, in your own mind reciting the phrases offered by Thich Nhat Han.
"Breathing in, I feel calm. Breathing out, I feel at ease."
What a perfect way to soak up the summer, by taking a moment to slow down and really linger in a pleasant experience. Drink in this experience, with all your senses, with all your being. Whether it be lying on a beach, walking with a loved one, smelling a flower on a morning stroll, feeling the wind on your face as you ride your bicycle, savouring a yummy frozen treat with your family, or a warm summer front-porch evening, watching the neighbourhood go by. Not grasping. Not clinging. Just fully showing up to what is already occurring. Throughout your day, invite yourself to slow down and really experience these moments, even for a few seconds. By doing this, they are more likely to make it into your memory.
Invite yourself at the end of the day to recall one of these experiences. What body sensations, emotions, thoughts do you recall as you reflect on the experience? Intentionally reflecting on positive experiences not only feels good, but actually strengthens the positive neural pathways in our brain.
You can even do this with your family. Each person can reflect on and share an experience they basked in that day. The more details the better to really make it stick in your memory. What a feel-good way to train our brains to become more aware of all the good around us.
Check out Rick Hanson for more ideas on bringing more good into our lives.
Feel free to bask in ALL of the goodness offered by each of the seasons.
To begin this meditation, start by finding a comfortable, seated position. Allow your attention to be directed inwards. Checking in with how you are feeling in your body and in your mind. Bringing a sense of acceptance to whatever your experience may be – because it is already here.
For the second part of this meditation, direct your awareness to your breath. Observing the full of cycle of your breath from the beginning of the inhalation to the end of the exhalation. Perhaps saying to yourself – "inhaling" as you inhale and “exhaling” as you exhale. No need to manipulate the breath in any way, just simply staying with one point of focus. And when distractions tug at your awareness, gently guide your attention back to the breath.
Now that you have taken some time to settle into the meditation, see if you can bring an image or your child or your children into your mind’s eye. See what it is like to hold this image. Is it pleasant, or unpleasant or neutral? As you continue to hold this image, see if you can evoke feelings of loving kindness towards your children. To help you in this practice, you may try bringing forth phrases that capture your deepest feelings. Some phrases you may try are the following: May you be happy; May you be healthy; May you live in peace.
For the next part of this practice, see if you can direct the same feelings of loving kindness towards yourself as a parent. Recognizing the qualities of yourself that your children benefit from having you as a parent: your commitment, your compassion, your caring, your vulnerability. And recognizing how at times we may feel uncertain or judged, particularly from ourselves when faced with difficult situations. Knowing that as parents we do our best to be the "good enough parent", to borrow a phrase from D.W. Winnicott. We accept that we will make some mistakes and perfection is impossible. So as you offer yourself loving kindness, find phrases that resonate with you: May I be happy, May I be healthy, May I be at peace, May I do the best I can as I care for my children.
And now bring your entire family into your mind’s eye. As you hold this image, again evoke feelings of loving kindness with the phrases that you have chosen: May we all be happy; May we all be healthy; May we all be at peace; May we live in ease and enjoy our lives together.
For the final part of the meditation, bring to mind all families everywhere, in every part of the country, the world. And now bring feelings of loving kindness and compassion to all families, knowing that all parents and their children face struggles in living a peaceful, harmonious life. May all families be happy; May all families by healthy; and May all families live a harmonious and joyous life together.
Intention One: I will bring my entire creative genius to the work of mindful parenting.
Intention Two: I will see parenting as a spiritual discipline, meaning that it provides me with every necessary opportunity to cultivate wisdom and open heartedness in myself, so that I may come to know and express my true nature and share what is best in me with my children and with the world.
Intention Three: I will cultivate mindfulness and discernment in my daily life, especially with my children, using an awareness of my breathing to ground me in the present moment.
Intention Four: I will make every effort to see who my children actually are, and to remember to accept them for who they are at every age, rather than be blinded by my own expectations and fears. By making a commitment to live my own life fully and to work at seeing and accepting myself as I am, I will be better able to accord a similar acceptance to my children. In this way I can help them to grow and to realize their full potential as unique beings.
Intention Five: I will make every effort to see things from each child’s point of view and understand what my children’s needs are, and to meet them as best I can.
Intention Six: I will use whatever comes up in my own life and in the lives of my children, including the darkest and most difficult times, as “grist for the mill,” to grow as a human being so that I am better able to understand my children, their soul needs, and what is required of me as a parent.
Intention Seven: I will pull these intentions into my heart, and commit myself to putting them into practice as best I can, every day, and in appropriate ways that feel right to me and that honour children’s sovereignty, and my own.
Like the 'Seven Intentions', these twelve exercises are by Myla & Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Exercise One: Try to imagine the world from your child's point of view, purposefully letting go of your own. Do this every day for at least a few moments to remind you of who this child is and what he or she faces in the world.
Exercise Two: Imagine how you appear and sound from your child's point of view, i.e., having you as a parent today, in this moment. How might this modify how you carry yourself in your body and in space, how you speak, what you say? How do you want to relate to your child in this moment?
Exercise Three: Practice seeing your children as perfect just the way they are. See if you can stay mindful of their sovereignty from moment to moment, and work at accepting them as they are when it is hardest for you to do so.
Exercise Four: Be mindful of your expectations of your children and consider whether they are truly in your child's best interest. Also, be aware of how you communicate those expectations and how they affect your children.
Exercise Five: Practice altruism, putting the needs of your children above your own whenever possible. Then see if there isn't some common ground, where your true needs can also be met. You may be surprised at how much overlap is possible, especially if you are patient, and strive for balance.
Exercise Six When you feel lost, or at a loss, remember to stand still, as in David Wagoner's poem: "The forest breathes..." Listen to what it is saying; "The forest knows/Where you are. You must let it find you..." Meditate on the whole, by bringing your full attention to the situation, to your child, to yourself, to the family. In doing so, you may go beyond thinking, even good thinking, and perceive intuitively, with the whole of your being (your feelings, intuition, body, mind, and soul) what really needs to be done. If that is not clear in any moment, maybe the best thing is to not do anything until it becomes clearer. Sometimes it is good to remain silent.
Exercise Seven: Try embodying silent presence. This will grow out of both formal and informal mindfulness practice over time, if you attend to how you carry yourself and what you project in body, mind, and speech. Listen carefully.
Exercise Eight: Learn to live with tension without losing your own balance. In Zen and the Art of Archery, Herrigel describes how he was taught to stand at the point of highest tension effortlessly without shooting the arrow. At the right moment, the arrow mysteriously shoots itself. Do this by practicing moving into any moment, however difficult, without trying to change anything and without having to have a particular outcome occur. Simply bring your full awareness and presence to this moment. Practice seeing that whatever comes up is "workable," if you are willing to stand in this way in the present, trusting your intuition and best instincts. Your child, especially when young, needs you to be a center of balance and trustworthiness, a reliable landmark by which he or she can take a bearing within his or her own landscape. Arrow and target need each other. Forcing doesn't help. They will find each other better through wise attention and patience.
Exercise Nine: Apologize to your child when you have betrayed a trust in even a little way. Apologies are healing. An apology demonstrates that you have thought about a situation and have come to see it more clearly, or perhaps more from your child's point of view. But we have to be mindful of being "sorry" too often. It loses its meaning if we are always saying it, or make regret into a habit. Then it can become a way for us not to take responsibility for our actions. Be aware of this. Cooking in remorse on occasion is a good meditation. Don't shut off the stove until the meal is ready.
Exercise Ten: Every child is special, and every child has special needs. Each sees in an entirely unique way. Hold an image of each child in your heart. Drink in their being, wishing them well.
Exercise Eleven: There are very important times when we need to practice being clear and strong and unequivocal with our children. Let this come as much as possible out of awareness and generosity and discernment, rather than out of fear, self-righteousness, or the desire to control. Mindful parenting does not mean being overindulgent, neglectful, or weak; nor does it mean being rigid, domineering, and controlling.
Exercise Twelve: The greatest gift you can give your child is your self. This means that part of your work as a parent is to keep growing in self-knowledge and in awareness. We have to be grounded in the present moment to share what is deepest and best in ourselves. This is ongoing work, but it can be furthered by making a time for quiet contemplation in whatever ways feel comfortable to us. We only have right now. Let us use it to its best advantage, for our children's sake, and for our own.
Learn more about eating mindfully as a family. | 2019-04-25T21:43:14Z | http://mindfulfamilies.ca/index.php/mindful-families/mindful-parenting/practices-for-mindful-parenting |
As they prepared to leave the table around which we had gathered in the synagogue, they presented me with a beaded bag from Jerusalem, a bag filled with gifts. I was embarrassed to receive yet another gift from them. I told them that their presence was itself the greatest gift. I told them that my wife and I had been in Israel this summer in the midst of so much pain and sorrow, and that everywhere I went I asked people where they find hope. In the presence of these young people I found an answer to my own seeking, to the same question that in moments of enough courage I ask myself.
Planning to return for our service that evening, they were a group of ten Israeli high school students, five Jews and five Muslim Arabs. The Jewish students are from the south, all attending a regional school in Kibbutz Yotvata in the Arava region of the Negev desert. I lived on that kibbutz for a time many years ago. The Muslim students are all from a small village in the north near Natzeret/Nazareth. They are travelling together as part of a program called Friends Forever. It is an American based effort to bring young people together from places of conflict, people who could just as easily become enemies rather than friends. Having met each other a few times in Israel as part of the coordinating effort, they now travel and live together abroad, sharing in discovery of each other and themselves as they encounter new places, people, and experiences. Their guides are two teachers, one from each of their schools, and an American coordinator for the program. The goal and the hope of the program is that the friendships fostered will continue at home, and that these new friends will help to prepare new cohorts to engage in becoming friends forever.
We went around the table, sharing names and a little background. The interplay of names and backgrounds was like music, enveloping all of us with a sense of wholeness, only names, the essence of who we are and where we have come from, names telling of each one’s presence. I had to hold back tears several times. I did not share with them the sudden thought I had that the last time I heard an interspersing of Hebrew and Arabic names was at a peace vigil at which were read the names of all the dead from the Gaza war, Palestinian and Israeli, Hebrew and Arabic. To call each other by name is the beginning of friendship, a way of connection, and so may it be for these young people, and through them for all of us, the beginning of a new way. I asked them why they had chosen to be part of Friends Forever. Their answers showed that a new way was already unfolding through them. Knowing strife so close at hand, their answers were more than untried idealism, but reflected a yearning that is born of urgency and of a struggle not to despair. Several of them spoke of loving peace, of wanting to help bring peace to the world. In their being together, transcending their own fear and discomfort, of which they spoke honestly, they are taking the first steps toward making peace a reality in their own world of strife and separation.
When it came time to leave, we walked outside together. Suddenly, one of the Muslim students asked if they could see the Torah. “Ah, of course,” I said, and all turned around and walked back in. We gathered around the reading table and opened the scroll to where it was set from last week. There, jumping out at us, were the words of the Sh’ma, an affirmation of God’s oneness, Hear, O Israel, God our God, God is one (Deut. 6:4). I shared an essential teaching with them, one they already knew in their hearts: if God is one and all people are created in the image of God, then…, and I asked them, and they answered…, then all people are one. And so it was around the table. And then I rolled the scroll to that week’s Torah portion, Parashat Ekev (Deut. 7:12-11:25). I chanted the first few verses for them. Smiling, and making me smile, one of the Muslim students said it sounded like the chanting of Quran. And I asked them, “what does Ekev mean?” One of the Jewish students said right away, though all of them speak Hebrew, “it means because of.” And so it does, and I asked, “and what does akev mean,” and a teacher answered, “it means heal.” I added one more word formed of the same root, ikvot/footsteps. And I explained that this portion is about them. Most often when we speak of following in someone’s footsteps it is younger people or people coming later who follow in the footsteps of those who came before. But it is for us to follow in their footsteps, to pursue the way of friendship and peace in the way that they are modeling and living the ideal now.
There is a beautiful teaching of Rabbi Yitzchok Meir of Rothenberg (1799-1866), the Ri”m, that the first words of the portion, v’haya ekev tish’m’un/it shall come to pass as a result of your hearing…, perhaps on the heals of your hearing, are telling us to listen for the footsteps of the Messiah, ikvot m’shicha. Those are the footsteps that I could hear as we stood around the open Torah, Jews and Muslims together. In the bag of gifts they had given me was a small book of teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810) entitled, Ein Makom Rachok/Not a Far Away Place. Following in the steps of such young people, may that time of peace and wholeness, of swords turned to plowshares, be a little closer, not a far away place.
It always starts that way, with a few advisers, some bombing, and some promises that there won't be any serious "boots on the ground." So, here we go again in Iraq. The U.S. advisers are there. The bombing is underway. Next?
That's not to say that the latest manifestation of terrorism with ISIS isn't horrific. Anyone engaged in Holy War isn't bound by the same strictures as when it's just a normal war. Holy Warriors have God on their side and God, as we've seen over the ages, can be an extraordinary villain of nationalistic leaders and moralistic followers, those who are able to turn a faith inside out and upside down.
Especially in the U.S., we need to be careful about only laying responsibility for holy war on followers of Islam. When we look at the historical record, all of the monotheistic traditions have had (and are still having) their holy wars. One could hardly bear to watch the recent destruction in Gaza of the military overreaction on the part of Israel, seeming to carry an intensity and passion only understandable in a religious context. After all say many, it's all land God gave the Jewish people in ancient times.
It's also understandable that after such a horrific event as the holocaust, the Jewish people might say "never again." Still, who is to say the survivors in Gaza won't say "never again," and in the next engagement will have God on their side?
Nor can we ignore one of the reported reasons President Bush decided to invade Iraq. According to Thomas Romer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne, he was approached by the office of French President Jacques Chirac to help Chirac understand a reference Bush made to "Gog and Magog."
The words came up in 2003 while Bush was lobbying Chirac to become part of the "coalition of the willing" in support of an Iraq invasion. Bush told Chirac a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the middle east and how they had to be defeated.
If you don't know your books of Genesis, Ezekiel and Revelation in the Christian Bible, that's where the names Gog and Magog appear. They are the forces of apocalypse that are coming out of the north and will destroy Israel unless they are stopped. Bush believed the situation in the middle east was a cosmic struggle, prophesied in Scripture.
Bush told Chirac, "This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins." The same year he spoke with Chirac, he reportedly told the Palestinian foreign minister he was on a "mission from God," in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Chirac has since confirmed Romer's report in a book published in France by Jean Claude Maurice, although he reportedly told the author if he repeated the story in his book, he would deny it.
If the story is accurate and I have no reason to doubt it, especially as George W. is a Christian millennialist, many thousands have lost their lives in a holy war, and Iraq continues to be the scene of enormous suffering, destruction and just plain terror.
For those Christians who affirm the concept of God in the first letter of John, "God is love," the so called "mission" of President Bush in Iraq was not only mistaken but absolutely contrary to the faith. And for those Christians who understand Old Testament prophecy and apocalyptic literature as referring to the times in which it was written, not some predicted future, the beliefs of President Bush in such a position of power and authority, is not only terrifying but utter madness.
Two sensible things have been communicated about the situation we are in now. President Obama said, we are doing better in Afghanistan because leadership there is in dialogue across the political divides. That never happened in Iraq with the Maliki government. Rather they alienated other groups even more than earlier.
The problem is, the President said this in almost the same breath as committing us to new strikes in Iraq.
The only other sensible response so far came from Pope Francis. He asked Islamic leadership to come forward and disown the kind of Islam represented by ISIS. We need this to happen! But if it doesn't, we might also understand that at least in the U.S., Muslims have hunkered down, with good reason. There are some holy warriors at work in U.S. society who can't distinguish between civilians and terrorists. One disturbing bumper sticker I saw on I-29 read, "Kill Them All: Let Allah Sort Them Out."
That kind of thinking needs to be condemned by all people of faith. Fear and religious prejudice create silence and bitterness, not dialogue. The same goes for coercion, manipulation, force and war. Peace is the fruit of justice and truth seeking.
Like concentric circles flowing out in Jamaica Pond, formed of stones cast from different places on the shore, becoming as one, so the confluence of yearning flowing out from the far-flung shores of humanity, becoming as one. In a time of so many sorrows, Mieke went for an early morning walk around the pond last Shabbos. On her return, she told me in disbelief of the sign she had seen on a bench by the boathouse. It said in quotes, “Noah’s Office,” and then told of a memorial gathering that morning at nine o’clock for Noah Katz. We were both shocked, how could it be? As I later wrote in sharing thoughts with my congregation, for those of you who were touched by Noah’s ebullient spirit around the pond, taken in by his garrulous warmth and love of people, I apologize if this is your first hearing of his death. He had died suddenly in his sleep a few days before. Upon the bench where he so often sat, his “office,” there were folded running shirts that told of marathons he had run, and there were flowers, and upon the ground beneath the bench his running shoes with their bright orange laces boldly announcing Noah’s arrival at the finish line.
I made my way over to the pond just before shul, raindrops forming so many circles on the water. Word had spread quickly, a crowd gathering in the bandstand in disbelief, a huddled circle of people comforting and seeking comfort from each other. Noah’s sister and brother-in-law were there, all the rest were his family from around the pond. One woman, an English teacher, spoke of how she and Noah would talk about words, “what word should we talk about today,” Noah would ask her each morning he saw her. One of his favorite words was “serene,” she said, as he looked out onto the pond and noted its serenity. Another spoke of her son whose name was also Noah, and how big Noah would always ask how “little Noah” is doing. A man familiar around the pond for the parrot perched upon his shoulder, a bright colored bird named Shakespeare, shared that Noah had recently wanted to talk about death, leaving us to wonder if it had been a premonition, a sense of coming change. “No, no, said the man, let’s not talk about that.” Instead, Noah confided that he had always been afraid of Shakespeare the parrot and asked if he could hold him. “Put up your hand and Shakespeare will decide,” said the man. Transcending fear, reaching beyond limitation, as though beyond the wall that runners fear to hit, Noah held the parrot on his hand, smiling upon that which he feared no longer.
I spoke in the circle of having gotten to know Noah over the last year and a half or so. I shared the embarrassment and shame I feel for having avoided him for some time before that. Here and there we would speak briefly or trade pleasantries. I was often wary of the amount of time it could take to engage with Noah. With deep sadness, I realize what I missed and take to heart the lesson to be learned. One of the first times I met Noah, running for a short distance together, he asked me if I had any events coming. Perplexed, I thought about coming Bar and Bas Mitzvahs, weddings, the kind of events in my life. Seeing my confusion, he said, “races, do you have any races planned?” In having earlier avoided too much engagement with Noah, I think it was in part that I wanted to avoid being the rabbi, wanting just to be a pond runner or walker. Noah was intrigued, though, that I was a rabbi and I began to share more openly with him. We talked of having elderly fathers. We spoke of a mutual friend, someone who was to him as family for so many years, a woman whom my dad hired for her first job. Noah bubbled with laughter, almost uncontainable in his joy for living and his delight in human connection.
The next Shabbat was Shabbos Nachamu/the Sabbath of Comfort. Following the sorrows remembered on Tisha B’Av, day of mourning and fasting for so much tragedy in Jewish history and in the world, we begin a cycle of time called the Seven Weeks of Comfort. The name of this Shabbos as the Sabbath of Comfort comes from words chanted from the prophet Isaiah, Nachamu, nachmu ami/Comfort, comfort my people (Isaiah 40:1). It is an imperative given to each of us, each of us called to be a comforter, each of us in need of comfort. So it was in the bandstand by the pond on that Shabbos, a huddled mass of people comforting and being comforted by each other. So it is in the world right now, people all along the shores of humanity so in need of comfort, of hope. Hearts breaking for the violence in the Middle East, Israel and Gaza so unbearable; from where shall comfort come, from where signs of hope? Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, the old ways of strife that lead to misery, none to comfort and show a new way. Only stones gently cast, as in the way of symbolically casting our sins into the water on Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Near, shall bring circles of life to intermingle with each other.
On that Sabbath of Comfort, we read from the Torah portion called Va’etchanan (Deut. 3:23-7:11), a prayerful word meaning in its root to beseech, to plead, to supplicate, an expression of so much desire and yearning. Wherever the word appears, it is understood to be an expression of a gift freely given/matnat chinam. That was the way of kindness as a gift freely given to all by Noah Katz. Of caring for each other simply because we are each human, each one carrying a story worth hearing, a precious connection waiting to happen, so shall the circles of life, circles of connection, intertwine and be unbroken, comfort upon the waters. May his memory be a blessing.
After several months of searching, my husband and I have found a new yoga teacher. Her classes are strenuous and we both come home feeling like we have had a good workout. She gives clear instructions and does a beautiful job of guiding both newcomers and old-timers in the execution of the postures.
Over the last several weeks I have been appreciating her increasing focus on pranayama – breathing practice. Noticing the breath – - following the breath - - holding the breath - - releasing the breath - - disciplining the breath while moving through the postures….
The breath – the Source of Life – so taken for granted until it is compromised in some way. As I try to be more faithful about incorporating yoga into my daily routines, focusing on the breath has become a central way of grounding myself, of entering into prayer, of finding my way through the day with just a little more equanimity. I find myself coaching myself to breathe when I begin to feel stressed. I am learning to follow the breath to a place of silence and balance and peace. I am not adept at staying there, but I am learning to find my way.
As I write, there is a three-day truce in effect between Israel and Gaza. Whether it will still be in place by the time this is posted is uncertain. But for the moment, there is space to breathe, to allow the Life Force some time to balance and restore itself.
The last several weeks of conflict have been so painful for so many people. It seems not to matter which side of the conflict is embraced as the “right one” - - the pain and the sadness and the anger and confusion afflict millions around the world. In response to it, I find my own breathing constricted, shallow, rapid - - not the kind of breath that nurtures fullness of life in my body – not the kind of breath that feeds my cells for the work they have to do. I have to stop and pay attention and take charge of my breath with intention. I have to observe it - - govern it - -slow it down - - deepen it - - hold it - - release it - - all in the service of bringing myself into a state of balance again.
What is becoming more clear to me is that when I am occasionally stressed beyond my ability to care for myself in this way, I depend upon the prayer and the breath of my fellow travelers to carry me through until I can re-engage with my own breath and regain balance again. At other times I do the same for them. It is a curious thing. By sharing in a disciplined practice of breathing, we are able to be present to one another in ways that strengthen and sustain and heal. Staying with the breath has the potential for allowing wisdom to surface - - perhaps even vision for life.
However brief or prolonged the current ceasefire may be, it represents a moment to breathe in the midst of the pain and suffering and chaos of war. It may allow time to re-balance – and –as with a yoga practice – it may falter and fail and need to be approached again and again until it is a stable way of entering life. With discipline, the pranayama of this time of mediated breath might be deepened to a point where all parties might recognize the power of stopping to take a breath – and then another - and then another in the service of life. We who are geographically at a remove from the various centers of conflict in the world can do this for one another until we are all breathing together.
For today, I offer the intention and the merit of my breath practice in the service of peace in the world.
I write from the turmoil of my heart. Mieke and I returned from Israel yesterday. It is good to be home and it is hard to be home. I struggle to find the place called home. I feel alone at times in the struggle to balance the swirl of emotions and feelings. I asked so many people, “how do you hold it all together, where do you find hope?” I ask myself the same questions, and I am not sure. Of how do you hold it all together, the woman of a couple with whom we had Shabbos dinner last week said, “barely.” Finding hope was in fact easier for her, in the details of day to day, mostly in caring for their little grandchild, changing diapers, walking, shopping. Over Shabbos lunch, my friend, Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights, answered my questions with the prophetic resolve with which he lives and faces down despair, “we just have to keep going.” He is convinced that in the struggle for justice and peace, every act of goodness makes a difference.
In a strange and eerie way, it was easy to feel at home in a shelter when the sirens wailed, gathered with people of all views, where one’s politics and opinions didn’t matter, only one’s presence. I find it much harder here. I feel alone, no sense of home or belonging in gatherings that would only praise and defend Israel, and so too at gatherings that would only condemn and decry Israel. We have been here so many times before, lessons unlearned and then the question that churns of what to do in the midst of crisis. The crisis is real for Israel, as it is real for the people of Gaza. I feel sick with the worry of Israeli friends who are sick with worry for their children, young ones who wet their beds with the sound of the sirens, bundled off to safe rooms and shelters. I feel the worry of friends who dread to know where their soldier sons are and what they are doing, and who are beside themselves in not knowing. Feeling the worry of our own, how can we not feel as our own as well the terror wrought on Palestinians? More than the wail of sirens, how dare we not feel their horror as the bombs fall and houses cave in?
In Laila’s words, I find hope, sentiments felt by many Jews. We are one in fear and in hope, fear beneath the bombs and rockets, fear for our children, fear that we not lose our humanity. Knowing the fear we feel for Israel should open our hearts all the more to feel the unimaginable fear for those of Gaza who live beneath the bombs. All of the children are our own, all of them and all of us joined as branches on the tree of life. That is the message in the name of this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Matot (Numbers 30:2-32:42. It is a portion of great violence and vengeance, a reflection of the worst that we can be, the worst that we can do. And in that is its warning and its hope of transcendence, that in seeing the violence of which we are capable, we shall recoil with horror. It is the mirror of Torah in which we see ourselves and rise up to be who we are meant to be. The word mateh/tribe can also mean branch, rod, staff. We are all as branches on the same tree and we are all each other’s staff with which to guide and support on the journey of life.
These terrible days unfolding come as we enter the three weeks that lead to Tisha B’Av, day of fasting and mourning for the destruction of the Temples and so much brokenness in the world. Of these three weeks, called the Three Weeks of Reproach/Sh’losha d’Puranuta, or the Bayn Ham’tzarim/Between the Straits, the Slonimer Rebbe says, they are the furrowed ground from which shall begin to blossom the great light revealed. May that be the hope of this time, that seeing the horror of so much violence we shall see a new light and a new way arise. | 2019-04-18T19:19:25Z | http://www.livingnonviolence.com/2014/08/ |
I usually write about something from my personal experience and relate it back to a theme or verses from the Bible. This week, I thought I’d write on some of my experiences with the Hope Frome Coffee Van. I know I haven’t included absolutely everything and I’m sure I have probably included more information than some would prefer. Having said that, I would rather speak transparently about what we do.
This Friday is another HOPE Frome Coffee Van night. Every fortnight, a crew of 6-10 hi-viz orange-vested volunteers tow a caravan and gazebo tent into the middle of Frome. Armed with camping chairs and cups of coffee, volunteers readily speak to every passerby, saying, “Evening! Would you like a hot drink?”, an invitation to join those under the heat lamp and coloured lights.
Hope Frome was originally launched in 2008 as a part of HOPE08, a national campaign to organise churches on a national scale for the purpose of urban renewal. The Frome group was initially devised as a collaboration between the Christian communities in the area, various community governing bodies and other community groups, to bring hope into what was then a town challenged with societal concerns, to improve the lives of those they served in the community and to communicate the love of Jesus Christ in every action. The Coffee van is one of several continuing legacies of this campaign and has become an established part of the Friday evening festivities.
Guests are initially introduced to Hope Frome by a large sign lashed to the side of the caravan saying “HOPE Frome: Frome’s Christian Communities sharing the love of God to the people of Frome through practical action.” Even with the sign, the question asked almost every week is “Why are you doing this?” The reply that often leaves my lips is, “We’re here to share the Hope we have in Jesus Christ and the love of God through serving the community in practical ways” This honest answer has been the most honest and speaks volumes to nearly everyone I’ve met while out with the team. When asked what we do, we explain that we care for whoever passes through by giving out hot drinks and a safe space to hang out and chat. Often, the people we chat with are up for a night out and therefore a chance to chat is welcome, even in cold weather. The recent addition of a heat lamp in the tent has been very welcome and has helped to keep the space comfortable.
What shape does one of these nights take? It begins well before 9:30, when the initial group of volunteers arrive, closer to 9 o’clock. The caravan, filled with the tent, chairs and supplies, is towed from it’s storage space to the forecourt of St. John’s church, the big church nearest to the centre of town. This location, while being on the property of a church, is fairly neutral and has the added benefit of being almost central between 3 well visited pub and on the walking route for many returning home after a night out.
After the caravan is parked, the group gather for prayer. As these prayers take the form, we ask God to establish His Kingdom in the hearts of the volunteers and the visitors, for God’s hand of protection over the town, for the Good News of Jesus Christ to be meaningfully communicated, for our eyes to be opened to how God is communicating His love to those we meet in their own language, and so much more. Once the prayers conclude, the setup process begins: A power cable is run from one of the church outlets back to the caravan to power the kettle, lights and heat-lamp, the Gazebo tent is set up and the ten camping chairs are placed in a circle around a small table bearing a tin of biscuits, the drink preparation area is set up while several large jugs of water are collected after which the first kettle of the night is switched on to boil water for the two or so dozen hot drinks we’re about to serve.
Once the site is set up, orange vests are donned and soon people start filtering past and invitations begin to be offered. For some of the volunteers, the orange vests are a form of protection. For others, it is something that separates, divides the volunteers from the visitors. Those who choose not to wear the vests have found that conversations flow more freely. People don’t feel they’re performing or speaking to a foreigner, but that they’re talking with someone on an even playing field, a fellow enjoyer of the evening’s events. I, personally, don’t like the vests. Having said that, I happily throw one on when issues occur, or when it is necessary to distinguish me and my purpose from those who are drunk or involved. The vests come from the days when fights were more common in town. At that time, it was crucial to wear something that would distinguish the Hope volunteers from those who were fighting. However, since the closure of the towns two clubs several years ago, the fights have become the exception rather than the rule. It is in these circumstances that I have to unfold my pocketed vest and velcro it over my top.
In an area that was once notorious for fights and rough characters, Frome has been transformed over the last ten years. The town is now described as “trendy” and “hipster”, with a nearly palpable community spirit active in many corners. When the Hope Coffee van first was established, it was a joint project between the churches and the police. The police once were at the site throughout the night. While we may have the odd opposition to our purpose or presence, these oppositions are rare and challenging behaviour is minimal. As the rough behaviours have generally died down, the police have no longer needed to maintain a presence at the van. We have a radio with a direct line of communication to the bouncers and the police, but this is very rarely used.
While we regularly meet new people, those who regularly visit now know what to expect and past conversations are continued. Some nights are very quiet and we only have a handful of visitors. Other nights are very busy and we see 30 to 50 visitors, a majority of whom are substantially inebriated, many of whom are open to chat. Often the conversation turns to personal beliefs and deeply felt convictions about life. It is these times that I find the most meaningful, the most insightful, the reason why I left the house at 9pm, to stay out till sometimes well after 2am. I may have only had the chance to speak with that one person for the whole night, but that one person was the reason I was there.
These nights are wrapped up around 1:30am, at which point the setup process is done in reverse. Once everything is put away, the volunteers conclude whatever lingering discussions may have been drawn out and they come together in the hall of a church property. The evening concludes with a debrief time. Prayer requests are offered and volunteers are given space to say anything they need to get off their chest, after which the group spends some time in prayer. These precious times are spend giving thanks for the events evening and bringing the concerns of the visitors before God. During this time, everyone is very tired and, while the prayer time is appreciated and isn’t rushed, volunteers are eager to get home to their own beds.
I have loved the last 4 years that I’ve been involved with Hope Frome and totally look forward to continuing to be a part of developing a visionary culture, seeking God’s inspiration for serving the greater communities of Frome.
25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.
This week, I’ll be in Frome College. As ever, I’ll be mentoring my group of boys and spending the lunch break with them and other young people. PRAY FOR THESE TIMES! Many young people in Frome College are really struggling with things. The staff find it challenging to find ways to draw these young people back to a place where they actually want to learn. While I’m mentoring, I often reflect with the boys on the need for them to be in the race and stay in the race in order to finish well. Pray that God would communicate His love to these young people through me.
As is hopefully clear from the above reflection, this week, the HOPE COFFEE VAN will be in the forecourt of St John’s church, from 10pm-1:30am, giving out hot drinks and offering a chance to chat with passers by.
PRAY that God would establish His Kingship in our hearts, that we would be able to speak and act with authority in Him, and that people's lives would be transformed by the love of God during these times.
This Sunday night in Trinity Hall, SUNDAY CAFE is happening! We’ll be there from 6:30-8:30, playing games, eating snacks and having fun. This week, we’ll be in the second week of our series leading up to the events of Jesus death and resurrection! Totally exciting! Please pray!
We’re developing a new CULTURE of Vision for future ministry to Youth in Frome from Holy Trinity. PLEASE PRAY FOR THIS! GET INVOLVED!
If you’re interested in having a hand in working with teens/tweens, please get in touch!
Who?: Parents, Supporters, Facilitators, Future Volunteers, Prayer Partners, etc!
What?: Pray! Renewed Vision for Youth Ministry Culture!
We are seeking God’s direction as we renew our vision for ministering to/with young people (teens and young adults) in Holy Trinity.
If you do or don’t have experience in Youth Ministry, that’s fine.
As many of you know, I’m studying at Church Mission Society for a diploma in Pioneer Mission Leadership. I’m doing an extended training time to allow me to pursue Pioneer Missions in the context of Frome.
At the moment, I’m in the middle of a series of essays for a portfolio for the current module. A couple of these essays are meant to be done slightly more creatively than a typical essay. One of these essays is meant to be written in the form of a blog or journal post. And I’ll let you into a secret, the above reflection is one of my writings. It may be a little rough in places and I’m sure I’ve missed out a word, or misspelled something or (as I’ve been known to do in the past) completely forgotten to finish a sentence. But, as it is all done electronically, I will be able to correct and revise this writing until it’s final completion date.
Thank you ALL for your prayers, support and encouragement! I really appreciate it! I KNOW God has called me to His purpose. It’s in this season of learning that I get to focus more intensely on seeking His heart and vision for my life and where He is calling me to serve, to whom and how! Please continue to pray for me through this time.
ALSO, Pray for the vision I’ve been given for the Climbing Centre. I’ve been in contact with a few interested parties and am looking forward to facilitating a collaborative effort centering around indoor climbing. PLEASE PRAY that God would shape the hearts of all those who will become involved to be favourable to the Vision God has laid out to serve the greater community. PRAY that it isn’t overtaken by those who can’t see a broad vision beyond their own benefit. Pray that my eyes would remain open to ways that I can be collaborative and open to change and at the same time remain solid in the places where compromise is not an option.
Thanks again for all of your continued support and prayer!
Hi prayer family! I’m writing on Friday morning rather than Thursday night because I think I need to be getting more sleep but the intense wind that’s been coming up the valley isn’t entirely helping with that (see last week’s reflection.
The thing is this: our communal and personal connection with God is intensely important and should be even more intensely valuable to each one of us. This isn’t just a task that we check off the list every morning (ie: “I ‘say my prayers’ every morning.”), this is what you do when you have a relationship with someone. You talk with them! However, when your friend also happens to be the King of the Universe and Time, you have the privilege of having a first-hand ability to ask for His interaction in your life and intercede to Him for the situations of others!
Roughly 20 centuries ago, Jesus instructed His disciples in how to pray. We call this “The Lord’s Prayer”. We often pray this word-for-word, as if it should be unchanged, but I want to challenge this concept of unchangeability. I Love Jesus’ instruction for the framework shape He gives us to help us to pray, recognising a broad aspect of life. A while ago, I started deconstructing this prayer, looking for the theme behind the line in the prayer. I want to encourage you to do the same.
Below, I’ve included the version I’ve put together. The original prayer is in Bold, what I’m thinking and often praying alongside the original is in Italics and (Parentheses). This is an ongoing process and when something new is revealed to me in this prayer, I add it. It may not be “correct”, but it is coming from me, I’ve made it my own. To me, it’s not just a set of words on the page.
(forgive my sins, look beyond my brokenness, my imperfections that separate me from You.
Today, I’m going into Selwood Academy! Please pray for me as I mentor and run the Christian Union there. Pray for peace and blessing to be in this place and in the whole of the school! May God be known in and from this place!
I’ve been given the name of some connections with people in the area who are interested in having a role in developing a Climbing facility in Frome. Please pray as I meet these people. Pray that they would be open to receiving the Vision for this thing that GOD has given me. Pray that they recognise the value of pursuing it in the direction that I’ve been going. Pray that within this, there would be a solid witness to God’s goodness, hope and provision throughout how this project proceeds!
Last night was another windy night. Because our bedroom is on the top floor and the ceiling is vaulted to the contours of the roof above, I hear the wind battering the front of the house. I sometime find it particularly difficult to sleep if I can hear one of our clay roof tiles clinking against it’s neighbour. On more than one occasion I’ve woken up in a panic as I hear a single drip fall from a rafter onto carpet, the result of the wind blowing rain up and under the roof tiles and the damp-proof fabric. So I am a little on edge when it’s windy like this.
But at the same time, I love the results of the wind. I think it’s God’s way of clearing away the dirt and breaking away the dead or unhealthy branches out of trees, clearing away disease and shallow growth in order to make space for health and fruitful growth. This image reminds me of Jesus talking about the pruning of unfruitful branches. Is the wind one of God’s methods of pruning creation?
I love that the Spirit of God is known in Hebrew as the “Ruach HaKodesh”, which means, literally, the Wind or Breath of Holiness. The word “Kodesh” means Holy, set apart, the only one. “Ruach” is interpreted in a load of ways, but each of the various translations speak to ways we see God reveal His Spirit. In Genesis, we see God’s breath being present as He called the creation into being. In Exodus we see a “strong east wind” part the Red Sea for the Israelites (Ex 14:21). Fast forwarding to the New Testament, after He defeated death, Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (Jn 20:22). Then, after Jesus went to be with the Father, the disciples experienced a “violent rushing wind” and they were all filled with the Pneuma Hagios (greek), or the Ruach HaKodesh (hebrew).
So, when you next step outside on a windy day and have lean hard, pressing into a heavy gale, use it to remind you of the presence of God being made known, in a very physical way throughout ALL of His creation!
This week, I’ll be at Frome College, mentoring and hanging out with the lads! So you’re aware, Christian Union has evolved to include me facilitating a safe space for a group of underachieving lads to hang out, mess around, and sometime talk (briefly) about deep things. I’m totally comfortable with this relationship to what used to be an obvious “Christian Union”. But I would really love a lot of prayer for these lunch-time groups.
• For the students who are dealing with the various dilemmas mentioned above. School isn’t the only issue these young people are facing. They also deal with social and emotional dilemmas. Their anxieties are allowed to reek havoc on their hearts, unchecked. Depression is equally active, but arguably more destructive.
• For me, visiting with both of these groups. Fridays (my visiting day) are always somewhat chaotic, being the end of the week. Pray that my presence would be peace-bringing and life giving.
Well, Last Sunday, the Frome Independent Market was cancelled due to a forecast of bad wind (insert stifled chuckling here). But really, they didn’t want a flock of airborne gazebo tents to take flight, mid market, clobbering hundreds and causing the market calamity of the decade. So, all that to say we didn’t run the HOPE Oasis at the market.
BUT this Friday is the Friday Night HOPE Coffee Van! If you’re in Frome this Friday night between 10pm and 1:30am, please drop by and pray WITH us and see what we’re about!
Please Pray, These nights can be cold and unforgiving, but I often arrive back home afterwards absolutely buzzing, excited to see what God has been doing in the conversations I’ve had over the process of the night! Pray that Those we meet this week would meet with God in a real, authentic, Spirit-filled way. Pray for at least one major healing from God. Pray that one person would walk away with a Bible, eager to read it cover-to-cover! Pray that people would begin a new life following The Way of Jesus!
This Sunday night, SUNDAY CAFE is on from 6:30pm-8:30pm at Trinity Hall! We’ll be chatting over part 2 of our mini-series on Creation, setting the scene for the situations we (humanity) are in the middle of in the present.
HOLY TRINITY FROME’S YOUTH MINISTRY are looking for people like YOU to join us. We are looking for willing and capable volunteer youth leaders, volunteer evening event facilitators and dedicated Prayer partners. Volunteering doesn’t necessarily mean you will need to be at every single weekly event. It means you will join a group of people looking to serve the Young people who come to youth events.
If you volunteer to help out with games, you have the chance to communicate respect, stewardship, honour, patience, and so much more through your actions.
Following this presentation was a presentation proposing for the creation of a Children & Young People Project Development Officer post, which was FIRMLY agreed upon unanimously by the council! In fact, the initial proposal for a one-year short-term post was doubled to two with a potential for future extensions, pending review. This is HUGE news for Young people’s provision in the town as there has been a void of provision in Frome and this is proposed taking into account the specific needs of the actual youth residents of the town!
Finally, I’m really pushing in to a lot of reading and getting my head around what we mean when we talk about “Mission”, “Evangelism” and “The Incarnation”. It’s deep stuff that demands a well reasoned, well sourced approach. I’m not writing a novel, just a few thousand words (about 20 pages), but I need to can all that I’ve read and learned and try to collate it into an easily digestible piece of writing.
PLEEEEEEZE pray for me. If ever my anxieties get up, it’s because of these essays and getting it “right”.
Thank you all, once again, for your prayers. God is good and faithful to complete everything He has started. The time you spend praying is incredibly valuable as you are advertently coming before God, laying our lives before Him, saying “do whatever You think is best”. If we need more of anything, we need more prayer!
In my reading lately, I’ve been looking at how the Incarnation of God into this world through Jesus. In Jesus whole life, death and resurrection, we see His all encompassing LOVE poured out for us! Taking it one step further, I’ve been looking more specifically at how God’s incarnate love makes contact with us.
If you come into contact with ice you feel it’s coldness. If you STAY in contact with ice, you become cold, you take on it’s cold characteristics. But if you insulate yourself against the cold, the effect of the cold ice will be limited, or even cancelled out entirely. This insulation could be through clothing, through how close or far you are from the ice, or if you isolate yourself from it inside a building, the walls become your insulation.
In the same way, through Jesus, God has made contact with us. Jesus said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So, we will never leave contact with Jesus. If I stick with the ice analogy, does our contact with Jesus mean we will start taking on the characteristics of Jesus? I sure hope so!
And once I’ve blown my nose and splashed some water on my face to wash the tears away, I come to a new place of recognition. I’m in CONTACT with God! What happens now? Will others notice a unique characteristic that says I’ve been with God? When Moses visited God and spoke with Him face to face “like a friend”, he glowed because he had been in the presence of the Lord. Do I glow? Or is there something else?
In Philippians 2, Paul talks about being “United with Christ”. Then, he goes on to talk about what shape your life takes if you’re influenced by God’s love. It’s amazing! We’re united as a community, we aren’t selfish, we don’t think more highly of ourselves than we should, we value the interests of others. Sounds wonderful to me! But reading this makes me wonder about the body of Christ. I’ve seen some amazing ministries and missions that have been done, but it seems to be only a few who do it. It’s like our spiritual mittens have become a barrier to God working through each of us. Have we allowed ourselves to become insulated against the cooling effects of the presence of God in our lives? I wonder what would life look like for followers of Christ look like if we weren’t so well insulated?
I’ve found some music particularly helpful for studying. It’s instrumental worship music. The music label “Integrity Music” have brought out instrumental worship albums over the last few years, the first of which is called “Still: Volume 1” by RIvers & Robots. The second is called ”Still: Volume 2” by the Bright City. And the third (which is yet to be released in full) is called “Still: Volume 3” by The Creak. One of the songs from this album has been released to interest people in purchasing the album when it’s released in full. This song is an instrumental rendition of the song “Reckless Love”. It will not be to everyone’s liking, but it is a brilliant background soundtrack to listen to while recognising God’s contact with you on a personal level. If you know the song, you can sing along with it. I’m a wreck if I sing along to it. The absolute certainty of God’s love for me as part of His creation is mind-blowing and puts me into a very emotional place.
Have a listen to one of the 3 “Still” album links above and at the same time, have a read through Philippians 2. Seek God’s contact in this time and allow this time with God to effect you and who you’re becoming. If you notice God making a change in you, tell me about it in an email!
Thank you for continuing to pray for me and for the mission God is calling me into. God’s provision and His love for my wife and I are worth everything to me. Pray that we would see God’s hand working in so many more ways and that people would come to know Him in real and personal ways as a result of what He is doing through us!
This week I’ll be in Selwood Academy! I haven’t been to Selwood in ages! We’ve had a snow-day a half-term break AND an inset day. The thing about it is that God is still working in these kids lives whether I’m there or not!
Please Pray that God would have communicated something unique to each of the kids at the school.
Pray for me as I go into Selwood this week to mentor and facilitate a Christian Union. These kids love this time and use it to blow off steam. Pray that these kids would be inspired to seek deeper, to understand the heart of their maker!
Also pray for the leadership and teaching staff. The school has just returned from a BIG skiing trip and the staff must’ve been absolutely exhausted by the end of it! Pray for resilience, strength and wisdom for getting through the next half of this term!
THIS SUNDAY is the first of TEN Frome Independent Artisan Markets! HOPE Oasis will be out in the Market Yard, opposite the Community Fridge, handing out cups of water as well as being a water refill station, and offering a calm place to sit to get out of the business of the market for a moment.
PRAY that the Hope of Jesus Christ would be communicated, even if not verbally, in this place. Pray for all the volunteers that God would give us wisdom in what to say and do. Pray that God’s Kingdom would be made known in the town of Frome!
SUNDAY CAFE is ON this week! TONIGHT is a Youth Group planning meeting. We’ll be looking at possibly shifting how we do things to keep youth events interesting. PRAY for inspiration and wisdom as we seek God’s heart for serving these young people. Pray for the parents we’ll be connecting with in the coming weeks to hear from them what shape they think the ministry to youth should take in Trinity Church.
I’m continuing my studies at CMS. For the moment, a lot of time is put into researching and drawing quotes from sources to put together a cohesive, integrated thought. Not exactly my forte. Actually, I could use a lot of prayer on this front. Also, I could use a massive helping of prayer in not getting sidetracked. It’s far too easy for me to get stuck in a tangent of research or reading that doesn’t actually help me to complete the task at hand.
In other news, This week coming is another developer meeting. This time it’s optional, but I think I need to try to make an appearance. Pray that I would hear God’s heart for this project and that He would speak through me. Pray that God would use me to make His Kingdom known in this place!
When I was young, I was involved with a youth club called “4-H”. In 4H, I learned to care for my dog, Gunner, a Bernese Mountain Dog who was a little small for his breed, but full of energy. 4H was fun because it was social as well. I met with other kids who had their own dogs of various breeds. We learned dog obedience training and handling. Once a year, we would go to the big county fair and show our dogs for ribbons. Alongside our dogs, there were people showing cattle, baking pies, quilting and so many other things, all as a part of 4H. I later learned that 4H was involved in a broad range of activities. Their stated purpose being “engaging youth to reach their fullest potential while advancing the field of youth development”.
How brilliant is this?! Now, America loves its pledges, but they seem to be less popular in the UK. However, I think there’s value in publicly voicing your intentions, making a promise and committing to dedicate yourself to things like this.
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one [The Lord is our God, the Lord alone, the only one]! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
This verse is almost mirrored in the 4H pledge! I love that first line in verse 7, “You shall teach them diligently to your children!” I can’t get over how amazing this is!
All of these lifstyle action suggestions are great. They can be done by anyone, whether they Love Yahweh or not. But those who DO love the Lord pursue these things differently. It’s like the person who sells flowers at a shop verses the person who gives flowers to the person they love. Both give the thing for another to receive, only one gift is given from a place of love.
What would the world look like if we were to dedicate the “four H’s” of our lives to the Lord Almighty? I, for one, think we’d see the Kingdom of God coming in power!
This week coming, weave each of the 4 H’s into a new prayer every day. Don’t formalise the prayer and pray the same thing. Ask God to shape your heart to reflect His intentions for your conversation with Him.
Thank you for your continued support and prayers for me and what God is doing in my life and in the ministries I am a part of.
This week is Half-term holiday week! You will have noticed that I didn’t write until Friday mid-day this week. This is why.
I’ll be back in Selwood Academy next week.
Pray for the Christian Union group that meets there.
Pray especially for the boy “A**”, who seeks to be purposefully challenging in order to divert attention.
Pray for those I mentor. In general, the whole lot of them are really maturing well with emotional hiccups being very rare now.
Pray for the staff of this school as well as the overall culture and teaching style that is fostered there. Pray for wisdom in the leadership and comfort in the challenges that they face.
Pray for a strong vision for how this school’s students develop socially.
This week is a HOPE COFFEE VAN week! We’ll be in the St. John’s forecourt from 10pm until 1:30am. If you’d like to stop by and see what we do and how we do it, you’re more than welcome! This is a good time to pray for us (as many of you will be just tucking into bed as we’re beginning our night.
Pray for a renewed vision for Hope Frome (ie: the team directly operating in Frome).
Pray for new volunteers who have a heart for the Lord (see the reflection above).
Pray for a renewed direction for who we are called to serve and how we are called to serve them.
As it was Half term this week, we had a holiday weekend last weekend, but we’ll be back this week coming with a PIZZA, ICE-CREAM AND A MOVIE Social! We’ll be watching something fun on the new giant projector screen in Trinity Hall and hanging out together.
Pray for a renewed vision for the Youth Ministry of Holy Trinity Frome.
Pray for inspiration and a strong conviction for who God is leading us to connect with and how exactly that connection is to be made.
IF YOU ARE A PARENT AND YOU’RE READING THIS, GET IN CONTACT WITH ME! I’d REALLY appreciate involving you in the discussions surrounding What/When/How/Who/Why we do what we do!
As you may already know, I’m in the middle of the Mission and Evangelism Module in my studies at CMS for Lay Pioneer Mission Leadership. There are times when it’s a challenge to find the words to type into an essay or the right heart to go forward with a summative reflection, but then there are afternoons like yesterday. I was looking for the right words, when all of a sudden they came to me! I searched for them and discovered that I had a book with exactly that quote inside! I could’ve cried! I grabbed the reference and stuck it in my writing, then continued browsing through the book (which is thick as a brick!) and continued being inspired by what I read!
Please Pray for me as I continue with studies, writing and assignments. I’m still working out the kinks, stretching my muscles and establishing my resiliencies.
This week, I, along with several other groups, met with the developers for the Saxonvale site to present my idea for a Climbing Centre somewhere in this new development area. The Climbing Centre is something God gave me a vision for several years ago. It was incredibly encouraging to hear that almost every group involved, but for one, had similar ideas for what they wanted to install in this space! The idea I proposed was the only one that addressed specifically the needs of young people. This is why it has been encouraged by the developer. In fact, once I suggested it, almost each of the 6 or 7 groups present had a response to how we could make this vision happen! I don’t know if it’s encouraging or discouraging, but the representative from the developer said personally to me that he thinks there won’t be enough parking for a climbing centre as it’ll be too popular!
This meeting does not mean that a centre like this is a “done deal”. It just means that some of the proposed ideas are being thoughtfully considered. I don’t think I’ve given away too much in what I’ve just said.
1. Please Pray for this vision. I am not pursuing this from a place of personal strength in understanding how to start something like this, nor am I coming into it with the weight of a big pocket book behind it, but because I feel that God has given me a vision to pursue in order to communicate His love in a unique way in this area.
Please get in touch with me. This is all new territory for me and therefore seems a lot bigger than I think it should.
Thank you for continuing to pray for all that is mentioned above and so much more!
How can we reflect this in our community? | 2019-04-23T14:27:27Z | http://fromeact.org.uk/factblog/4594339759 |
A rectangular beam is cut from a cylindrical log of radius 25 cm. The strength of a beam of width w and height h is proportional to wh2. (See Figure 4.70.) Find the width and height of the beam of maximum strength.
A 50.0-kg block is being pulled up a 13 degree slope by a force of 250 N which is parallel to the slope. The coefficient of kinetic friction between the block and the slope is 0.200. What is the acceleration of the block?
The following four forces act on 4.00 kg object: F1 = 300 N east F2 = 700 N north F3 = 500 N west F4 = 600 N south What is the acceleration of the object?
A 1000-kg car is driving toward the north along a straight road at a speed of 20.0 m/s. The driver applies the brakes and the car comes to a rest in a distance of 140 m. What is the constant force applied to the car to bring it to rest?
A force of -9000 N is used to stop a 1500kg car traveling at 20 m/s. What braking distance is needed to bring the car to a halt?
Calculate the number of grams of dextrose in 250mL of D5W. I know that the answer is 12.5g, but I do not understand the work. Please help.
Ms. Hernandez has 17 tomato plants that she wants to plant in rows. She will put 1 plant in some rows and 2 plants in the others. How many different ways can she plant the tomato plants? Make a table to solve.
A player bounces a 0.46 kg soccer ball off her head, changing the velocity of the ball from i = (8.7 m/s) + (-3.7 m/s) to f = (5.1 m/s) + (4.2 m/s). The ball is in contact with the player's head for 6.7 ms.
a student attaches a mass to the end of a 0.80 m string. The system will be whirled in a horizontal circular path at 31.5 m/s. The maximum tension the string can withstand without breaking is 250 N. What is the maximum mass the student can use?
in modest proposal, Find sentences in which the speaker uses ethical appeals?
You jog at 6.2 mi/h for 5.0 mi, then you jump into a car and drive for another 5.0 mi. With what average speed must you drive if your average speed for the entire 10.0 miles is to be 10.6 mi/h? I don't get why the answer isn't 15.
A 7.5 kg object moving at 7.3 m/s collides inelastically with a 4.0 kg object which is initially at rest. What percentage of the initial kinetic energy of the system is lost during the collision?
A 50-kg crate is pulled across the ice with a rope. A force of 100 N is applied at an angle of 38° with the horizontal. Neglecting friction, calculate the acceleration of the crate AND the upward force the ice exerts on the crate as it is pulled.
anthony is building a picnic table for his patio. he cut one of the legs at an angle of 40 degrees. at what angle should he cut the other end to ensure that the top of the table is parallel to the ground?
Explain why one column in a hundredths grid is equal to one column in a tenths grid?
Use a grammatically correct English sentence to describe how the mass in amu of one molecule of a compound is related to the mass in grams of one mole of that compound.
An object is fired straight up from the top of a 200-foot tower at a velocity of 80 feet per second. The height h(t) of the object t seconds after firing is given by h(t) = -16t2 + 80t + 200.
Why is there a gain or loss in a pension expense calculation? I am more confused about this every time I read about this topic. Can somebody explain this to me? I have researched and read and still do not understand why.
1)For an atom of carbon how many valence electrons are "s" electrons? 2 2) How many are "p" electrons? 4 3)How many (total) electrons in carbon are paired? 2 4) How many are unpaired? 1 Are these correct.
What does a maple tree do for a community.
The average distance separating earth and moon is 384000 km. What is the net gravitational force exerted by earth and moon on a 3.00 * 10^4 kg spaceship located halfway between them.
Billy is a carpenter who earns $15 per hour. He works 8 hours per day, Monday through Friday. How much does Billy earn in one week?
In an isosceles triangle, if a base angle has a measure of 43 degrees, then the vertex angle must have a measure of 80 degrees as well.
Ammonia, at stp, 1.5L of N2 reacts with 4.5L of H2, if N2 and H2 are consumed, what volume of NH3 at stp will be produced?
How would you describe the tone of this essay? What evidence supports your interpretation? i know its a serious, satiric tone .. but how can i provide examples?
Calculate the amount of heat in kcal it would take to convert 1.45 mol of ice at 0 degrees C to steam at 100 degrees C.
Is water natural resources,renewable resources,or reusable resources?
Luis Giron works at the Pancake Palace from 3:00 p.m. until 12:15 a.m. 5 nights a week. If he takes a 30-minute break each evening, how many hours per week does he work? 46.25 hrs 44.75 hrs. 43.75 hrs.
A 5.6-kg bowling ball is accelerated from rest to a velocity of 17 m/s as the bowler covers 5.0 m of approach before releasing the ball. What force is exerted on the ball during this time?
jack was 21 years older than kat. Together their ages totaled 161 years. What were their ages?
a jet plane flying at 550 m/s makes a curve. The radius of the circle in which the plane is flying is 9.0 X 10^3 m. What centripetal acceleration does the plane experience? Express this acceleration relative to g, the acceleration due to gravity.
The hypotenuse of a right triangle has one end at the origin and one end on the curve y = (x^4)(e^-7x), with x > 0. One of the other two sides is on the x-axis, the other side is parallel to the y-axis. Find the maximum area of such a triangle.
Unlike psychodynamic approaches to personality, the learning approach emphasizes what? A) latent personality structures B) Self-actualization processes C) The Outer Person D) biological traits I thin the answer is C-Outer Person but just not sure of it.
The perimeter of a triangle is 50. The length of the sides of a smaller, similar triangle are 5, 6, and 9. FInd the sides of the larger triangle. What steps would I take to solve this?
Avery paid $168 for a cell phone. What was the original price of the phone if he got it at a 30% discount?
How many milliliters of 0.10 M HCl must be added to 52.0 mL of 0.40 M HCl to give a final solution that has a molarity of 0.25 M?
For the ellipse (x-2)^2/49 + (y+1)^2/25=1 List center: (2,-1) the foci: -(sqrt 74) AND +(SQRT 74,0) Major axis: x=2 Minor axis: y= -1 Vertices: (7,0) (-7,0) (0,5) (0,-5) Is this correct?
if the following sentance true or false, also can you please write the correct version of it if false. if you want a small volume of hot water, you should place the immersion heater near the bottom of the hot water tank.
how many moles of acid are present in 50 mL of acetic acid?
What does a maple tree do for a community? A. it creates energy B. It creates food C. It looks nice D. it stores water My answer is B.
After flying at an altitude of 600 meters,a hot air balloon starts to descend when its ground distance from the landing pad is 10 kilomeers.What is the angle of depression for this part of the flight?
Find the annual rate, r that produces an effective annual yield of 6.3% when compounded continuosly.
What was a key discovery during the early sixteenth century that made regular trade possible across the Atlantic ocean? A.Square sails B.Longitude C.The gulf stream D.Monsoonal winds I think the answer is D. Monsoonal winds.
The yearly cash flows of an investment are(-1000,-1200,800,900,800) Is this a worthwhile investment for someone who can both borrow and save money at the yearly interest rate of 6%?
How many ways can you get a bunch of 4 books to give a friend if you have 30 books (15 novels, 10 history book and 5 math books)?
According to the estimate in 2001 which country ranks first in population then second then third?
What are the three prophecies made by Theoclymenus in Homer's Odyssey?
If points S, O,and N are collinear, how many lines do they determine?
What is the World Bank advising businesses in Singapore and Hong Kong to add businesses, how to get the businesses to grow, hire employees, etc.
what are the blood types, what blood type is the most common in most humans, and what do the positive and negative signs mean?
which of the following gadgets is best for making a soft-shell shape out of butter?
The existentialist Kierkegaard wrote a book Either/Or. What is the connection of this with decision-making? What does he suggest?
For what x-values does y=e^-x have the same slop as x+4y = 1 I am not sure what steps I am supposed to take to tackle this problem.
Given the linear equation y = 4x + 2, find the y-coordinates of the points (-2, ), (1, ), and (-3, ). Please show all of your work. Plot these points and graph the linear equation.
One of the angles in a right triangle has a measure of 73 degrees. What is the measure of the other acute angle?
Please help i don't get the answer. How much energy, in kilojoules per mole, is released when an electron makes a transition from n=5 to n=2 in an hydrogen atom?
what is the significance of Athena turning into birds throughout the Odyssey?
James invested $4,000 at 5% interest per year; how long will it take him to earn $200 in simple interest?
What is the second derivative of (x^3)/(x^2-1)? And how would I accurately graph both the derivative and the second derivative of this function?
How does the Constitution provide for the system of federalism in the American form of government?
What is the future, rounded to whole dollars, of $25,000 after 7 1/2 years, if money earns at an annual rate of 5.75% compounded continuosly?
Can you please help explain this problem? Maurice says that a(square)+ b(square)=(a+b)(a+b). Is this always true, never true, or sometimes true? Explain.
Beth gives Megan $2 allowance a week. Then she takes Megan shopping and allows her to select what she wants to buy. If the item desired costs more than $2, Megan's mother suggests she save her money until she has enough saved to pay for the desired item.
Find the smallest positive value of x which satisfies 1.400cos(1.000x) Give answer in four decimal places for accuracy.
what is the single most important determination of plant distribution?
Find the missing number. 5/15 = ?/3 Is 1 the correct answer?
Find the first two zeros of the function y=sin(4x+20) (in degrees) for x > 0, and the value of y at x=9.
What are some social, economic, aesthetics, and ethical issues involved in a current environmental controversy?
How would I assign priority to 1,2-dimethylcyclopropane?
A bycicle store costs 2,800 per month to operate the store pays an average of 45$ per bike the average selling price of each bycicle is 125 $ how many bycicles must the store sell each month to break even?
F(x) = /x-2/ (absolute value) Please show me to to graph this equation.
What are two changes in weather patterns caused by el nino that can cause disasters?
The state that Europeans came to eye like greedy creditors around a rich man's deathbed was the _______ Empire. A. Ottoman B. Russian C. Austrian D. Persian I'm not sure what the answer is.
What are some reasons why some people would belive that the Day of the dead celebration is wrong?
how do you check a Pascal's triangle with a calculator.
Given the linear equation y=-3/5x-4, find the y-coordinates of the points (-5, ), (0, ), and (5, ). Please show all of your work. Plot those points and graph the linear equation.
how do you add together all the number's up to 100, Quickly though.
Can a radical be negative when the index is even?
Two students Mac & Cheese, were arguing about covalent and ionic bonds. Mac says that covalent bonds could be compared to a good marriage. Do you think one has a better comparison than the other or are both of them equally right ?
how many gallons would be left after 10 seconds?
How would I say "Fishing fascinates me"
Mack’s hourly wage is raised from $12.10 per hour to $13.35 per hour. He works 40 hours per week. How much more does he earn per week at this new rate?
You are an astronaut (m = 80 kg) and travel to a planet that is the same mass and size as Earth, but it has a rotational period of only 11 h. What is your apparent weight at the equator of this planet?
The french philosopher Voltaire was attaked to confucianism because he? A.believed it promoted universal access to education. B.Regarded It as substitute for organized religion. C.Found it full of material he could ridicule in his satirical writings.
What does this means? What if what I think is great, really is great. But not as great as something greater?!"
A cannon is fired horizontally from a top of a 15-m platform. What is the cannon balls horizontal speed when it hits the ground 250 m downrange?
how do you tell till and outwash plains apart?
Which state has the highest average annual precipitation?
What type of map would you use to identify landforms and elevation?
In Jamison's backpack, he only keeps nickels and quarters. He has 30 coins in all. How many of each coin does he have? Show work.
The rectangular region shown has been divided into nine square regions, all different in size. The area of square 3 is 64 cm. The area of square 5 is 81cm. what is the area of the rectangle?
Write the fraction as a mixed number. 38/3 Is 12 2/3 the correct answer?
Danny gave Rose $28 less than she already had. She now has $120. that means Rosario originally had how much????
A 130g ball moving at 0.35m/s in the x-direction is subject to a 0.25N force in the - y-direction for 1.0s. Find the magnitude of the ball's momentum change.
for F(x) = /x-2/ (absolute value) When you graph this problem, does it have a straight line or a "v" line?
What is the second derivative of (x^3)/(x^2-1)?
If the initial investment of 1000 doubles in value in 9.8 years find the rate for continous compounding. so the formula would be A=Pe^rt but where do the numbers go and how do u solve it? Thanks!
I agree with your correction but as I found the following sentence in an Italian book I just wanted to know if, in your opinion, an English mother-tongue expert could have written it. She is such a one-sided character, however, as (?) never to hesitate.
Johns football game last for 50 minutes. What reduced fraction of an hour is that? Can someone please explain to me how to solve this question?
whats 14.9% as a decimal?
Buffers work by converting _____ to ____.
How long will it take an investment that pays 5% compunded annually to double in value?
In 600 minutes how many machines travel a distance of 103,700 mm at a speed of 300 mm/minute?
Your industry currently employs 3,800,000 workers. If this labor force is growing expotentially at an annual rate of 2.3% how long will it be before the number of employees reaches 5,000,000?
how do you find the slant asymtote of f(x) = (x^3)/(x^2-1) ?
how reliable are tests for drugs in sport?
find a drug scandal within a sportig event and write some notes about it.
I need serious help for the questions i put on here and no one is helping me? ive tried using different names, subjects and said please and thank you and no one has yet helped me. I'm not impressed by this. Thanks but no thanks for the help.
The perimeter of a triangle is 50. What steps do I need to take to find the length of the sides?
1) True/false: For any real number x, ln e^x = x. I think that is true. 2)true/false: (2 ln x)/ ln 10 = ln x^2 - ln 10 for all positive x. I think this is true too.
Where do rivers begin or have their source?
A company has plans to increase its sales at the rate of 6% per year. If the sales of the company in 2001 were $23 million, how much sales can you expect the company to make in the year 2003?
Can anyone help me with this question. when you mediate with the clients what are the advantages and disadvantages of not having a lot of information. I thought since you a a neutral party the amount of information doesn't matter. Please help me.
Which is the correct symbol to make the resulting inequality true? 4 4/3 > 4 1/2 Or 4 4/3 < 4 1/2 What does this mean?
Multiply; then reduce to lowest terms 5 1/2 • 3/4 Is the correct answer 4 1/8 ? | 2019-04-21T09:13:32Z | https://www.jiskha.com/archives/2011/11/01 |
This post attempts to address three topics: (I) a host of preliminary considerations, (II) a vision for how the Feast Upon the Word wiki can be implemented; and (III) stages of development, or benchmarks along the path to realizing that vision.
Matthew and I have been conversing about portions of this topic, and he asked that I put something together for wider comment. It grew into this full blown rethinking of everything. Matthew has seen this post before it went up, but at this point he is keeping his options open by neither vetoing nor endorsing anything here. I have thought about most of these issues before, but in the process of putting this together I have again refined my thinking. The hope is that other people will chip in and refine these ideas even further.
This post is long, but it asks a lot of fundamental questions that I think deserve consideration.
Feast Upon the Word is an LDS scripture study wiki. So I approach a vision for the site by first asking several big questions related to that description. These can be thought of as a checklist of reminders about things the site should do.
A. Where do scripture study and commentaries fit in the bigger picture?
B. What are the steps or factors that go into a rigorous interpretation of scripture?
C. What should a scriptural commentary draw upon and accomplish?
D. With all the other commentaries out there, what does a wiki add? Or why does building the wiki matter?
E. Design constraints: What makes for good presentation in a commentary or other reference? What makes for good website design? What makes for a good collaborative wiki?
F. What makes a project valuable or worthwhile?
I believe that thinking about these questions puts a person in a better place to then think about implementation.
• What should be the vision for how the wiki is ultimately implemented?
Finally, I suggest five stages of development that I believe would reflect discrete stages or benchmarks in the growing maturity of the wiki toward that vision.
B. Inviting volunteers to work on a limited number of pages.
C. Inviting public use and contributions.
The point of the preliminary considerations in Part I of this post is to develop a checklist of considerations that the wiki ought to incorporate when developing the recommendations made in Part II.
I can identify three reasons to read the scriptures. (a) To nourish our testimonies. As we read the scriptures, we invite the Holy Ghost to bear witness to us of their truth. (b) To study what the prophets have written in order to learn the doctrines that they taught and that God has preserved for us in the canonized scriptures. These truths do not depend on what we hear, but rather on what was said. (c) To find personal application. These truths do depend as much on what we hear as what was said. While we read, the Holy Ghost can prompt us to recognize truths that are important for our individual lives, even if the verse that prompts us to recognize that truth is taken completely out of context. Think of the character Perchik in the movie Fiddler on the Roof, who reads the story of Jacob marrying the wrong daughter and then concludes that the moral is “Never trust an employer.” That may be what Perchik heard, and it may even be an important truth at that moment for him, but it is not what Moses said in a canonized book of scripture, and it is not a truth of general application. This illustrates the difference between studying doctrines of general application and finding personal or individual application.
I think that commentaries are only particularly helpful with regard to the second of these three reasons for reading the scriptures. That is, studying what the prophets have said in order to learn canonized doctrines of general application.
In the course of studying what the prophets have said, we can engage in three activities that will help us to gain understanding: (a) search diligently; (b) ponder; and (c) pray. See 3 Ne 23:1; 17:2-3 where the Savior spells out these three specific activities to the Nephites. But even with regard to these three activities that help us to study, I think commentaries are only helpful with regard to searching.
I will not further defend the value of scripture commentaries. The Church publishes Institute manuals, and anyone who reads commentaries must think they have value. But I believe it is helpful to also remember that this value is limited. Even the best commentary cannot supply everything that must be done in order to understand and internalize what the prophets have written.
These are the steps that I know to include in a comprehensive and rigorous interpretation of scripture. I am not saying that every reader has to perform every step back to original sources in order to fairly understand a passage of scripture. But I do believe that the failure to at least read a summary of someone else’s results for each step leaves a gap in the reader’s knowledge that, for all they know, might change their understanding. So I figure that each of these steps should be incorporated into the wiki. Any of these steps can be done in a manner that is lazy or sloppy. But that does not deprive the step of value when done carefully.
I do not want any individual contributor to worry about mechanically going through all of these steps. I would much rather read something insightful from a contributor who only worries about one or two steps than something from a contributor who dutifully follows each step but adds nothing insightful to my understanding. I do, however, want the wiki set up in a way that makes it easy for a contributor to address whichever step holds interest for them.
1. Understand the setting. This means the setting of the story, of the author, and of the audience. These three settings may all be the same, or they may all be different. For example, when Mormon wrote the book of Mosiah for us, the action, author, and audience all had different settings, and all three are important to understanding the book. In scope the setting can include the historical background, geography, climate, politics, and culture. In form of presentation it can include text, maps, timelines, photographs, audio, and videos. Understanding the setting of a book often supplies additional light on its meaning. For example, Daniel’s emphasis on God’s powerful interventions is more meaningful in light of the recent conquest of Judah and destruction of God’s house, the Jerusalem temple. Haggai also makes more sense in light of the Jewish return to Jerusalem and the stoppage of work rebuilding the temple.
2. Familiarity with the participants. Portions of Samuel’s account of King David, for example, make more sense after one becomes familiar with Joab’s personality and his relationship to David.
3. Identify the text. This means deciding exactly what are the words that you are trying to understand. (a) For the Bible, this step occurs pre-English-translation and means resolving inconsistencies between the LXX, the MT, and Dead Sea Scrolls. (b) For the Book of Mormon, this includes reference to the printer’s manuscript and to Royal Skousen’s work on the original text. (c) For the Doctrine & Covenants, this includes reference to the two revelation books and to the changes between the first three editions that were printed during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. (d) For the JST, this means consulting the four original JST manuscripts, or at least Wayment’s transcription of them.
4. Ascertain the meaning of the words. (a) For the Bible, this includes reference to an interlinear Bible, Strong’s concordance, a Greek or Hebrew lexicon, and alternate English translations. (b) For the Book of Mormon and Doctrine & Covenants, this includes reference to the 1828 Webster’s dictionary, and for the Book of Mormon perhaps even the modern Hebrew translation that although derived from English may nevertheless shed light on usages in the original language. (c) For all books this includes each author’s idiosyncratic use of words, such as Joseph Smith’s common use of “And again” to indicate the beginnings of new ideas in D&C 76and elsewhere. (d) For punctuation that Joseph Smith either supplied or at least did not change, this may also include an understanding of how the use of punctuation in English has changed following the invention of the microphone. The goal, again, is to get past what we are predisposed to hear and understand what was actually said.
5. Identify and ascertain the significance of references to cultural knowledge. This includes: (a) references to other texts, such as when Paul quotes from the Old Testament; (b) references to social customs and earlier events, such as when Christ refers to Abraham or Jonah; (c) references to well established symbols, such as the marriage supper of the bridegroom or the Day of the Lord; and (d) references to verbal customs and formulas, such as the use of covenant blessing and cursing formulas. One way to approach a text is to try to understand it the same way that the author likely expected his audience to understand it.
6. Understand the doctrinal context. This means understanding: (a) how the speaker and/or author understood a doctrine; (b) how the doctrine was widely understood at the time, perhaps by the audience; and (c) what we know today about the doctrine so that we understand all of God’s prophets to teach consistently with each other.
7. Understand the author’s train of thought. I will explain what I mean since this is the step most often skipped in commentaries that I see, including the wiki until I recently went through and formatted the chapter level and book level pages.
There is a difference between a commentary that helps you understand a book as a coherent whole, and one that merely helps you understand many of the little pieces of the book. I have therefore developed a multi-part question that I use to evaluate my understanding of a passage: (a) identify the principal message(s) the author attempts to convey in this passage; (b) explain why you believe this is the author’s principal message; (c) outline the author’s train of thought in developing this message throughout this passage; (d) identify any larger units of thought to which this passage belongs (group of chapters, book, etc); and (e) explain how this passage supports and develops the principal messages of those larger units. If am unable to answer any part of this question, then I obviously do not yet have a full grasp of the passage. Likewise, if there is any part of this question that a commentary does not address, then it is incomplete.
There is plenty of psychological and linguistic research to support my underlying assumption that sentences are not just a linear sequence, but are instead bundled hierarchically into passages or chunks called paragraphs, which in turn get bundled together into larger and higher level units called chapters, which in turn get bundled into even higher level units called books. Even dogs can clearly communicate at the level of the sentence. But people, including the prophets who wrote the scriptures, routinely communicate much more complex concepts at the level of the paragraph and above.
So this step means identifying: (a) coherent units of thought such as sentences and paragraphs, (b) the relationships between those units, and (c) the relative prominence given to the various parts. The goal of this step is to understand the organization of the entire book as a whole so that the purpose of each part can be understood in the context of that overall plan. This would ideally result in an outline, such as the well known chiasmus of Alma 36 or the outline I have posted for Ether. This makes it harder to take individual words and sentences out of context, or to make them say more than the author intended.
8. Consult later commentators. This includes: (a) later writers in the scriptures, such as when Nephi quotes and explains Isaiah; (b) modern day prophets; (c) LDS and non-LDS scholars who have written commentaries; and (d) traditional Jewish understanding of passages and stories. This will not be the first time that a smart person has tried to explain a book of scripture, and there is no reason to reinvent the wheel from scratch.
* Depth and breadth. I have seen several discussions on the wiki from prior years regarding the difference between “depth,” which I understand to emphasize steps 4 and 5, and “breadth,” which I understand to emphasize steps 6 and 7. I strongly believe that both approaches can and must co-exist on the site. Since I do not have enough time in this life to perform every useful step in the process of interpretation for every single book of the scriptures, I tend to focus my energy on the steps that are most efficient and rewarding for me. But I also recognize that the steps on which I personally spend less time are still valuable. So one of my goals is to especially encourage other people to perform and write up the steps that I am least likely to perform for myself – not the ones that I will get around to anyway on my own.
(a) Commentary. See more on this immediately below.
(b) History. A book on early church history to provide the historical setting of each section and to explain references in the text to people, places, and situations.
(c) Biographies. A book with short biographies of about fifty leading participants.
(d) Maps. An atlas of early Mormon history.
(e) Pictures. A coffee table book with photographs of people and places, or a video.
(h) List of Parallel References. A list of all references in D&C to passages in other books of scripture.
(i) Outline. A linguistic analysis of the text of each section (here is a simple one for Section 1).
(a) Serve as a model for the reader’s own interpretation. A commentary should work through and explain all of the interpretive steps identified in the preceding section. In this way it can serve as a model from which newbies can learn how to go about doing their own interpretation. A good commentary will not only hand out fish, but will also demonstrate how to fish.
(b) Identify main points as main points, but also identify other doctrines that are taught or illustrated. For example, the nature of God’s power is not one of the principal messages taught in Section 29. But verse 29:36 is nevertheless the clearest statement anywhere in the scriptures of the principle that God’s power is tied to his honor. A commentary should communicate that fact. And regardless of whether a commentary on just the D&C needs to go any further, a comprehensive commentary on the entire standard works, like this wiki, should at some point – probable here – identify this as a doctrine that is taught in the scriptures and bring in cross-references such as Moses 4:1-4 which repeats the same statement, D&C 121:36-41 which talks about what can end power, and Alma 42:15 that also talks about what can end God’s power. (I do not care for present purposes whether this is called interpretation or additional commentary).
(c) Share insights. Often in the scriptures a doctrine will play out in the narrative without being explicitly identified and without much emphasis. For example, at the end of Mosiah significant reforms are made to both church and state, the two social institutions that are intended to safeguard free agency. While this connection to free agency is not spelled out in the text, that extra-textual insight does help one to understand important principles that help explain what is happening. (I also do not care for present purposes whether this is called interpretation or additional commentary).
(d) Marshal cultural knowledge and the wisdom of others. A commentary should marshal resources that help readers to know and understand what is likely outside of their own experience and culture. It should likewise marshal insights to help us to understand what is difficult. In this way a good commentary serves as a labor saving device that collects all of these resources in a single location.
(e) Evaluate competing facts and interpretations. There will often be more than one possible interpretation of a passage, or of a fact that bears on the interpretation of a passage. Those competing views should be identified and, when possible, evaluated so that readers know whether both are equally likely, or whether one is much more likely than the other, and why.
A commentary should not fall into the trap of giving equal attention to every interpretation ever suggested by a junior faculty member who was desperately searching for something original to publish. In my view, the value of a commentary depends on its ability to help me to correctly understand what the prophets were trying to say, not on whether it is – or is not – new or different.
(f) Suggest alternative approaches to interpretation. _____________________.
(g) Discuss application. A commentary should go beyond merely understanding the author’s message to addressing how that message can change our understanding and/or behavior. Does the scripture tell us to behave in a certain way? Does the scripture explain a doctrine in a way that would cause us to behave differently? It should help us use the scriptures to reflect upon and reform our lives.
People are increasingly going online for their reference sources. I expect that trend to hold for Church members who study the scriptures, including my own children and grandchildren. If I can influence what is available for them in a way that matters, then I want to do so.
1. Why the wiki is uniquely important. There are many other websites that also have LDS commentary. The thing that is unique about Feast Upon the Word is its format as a wiki. So this question can be posed as whether people need a free online LDS commentary specifically in the form of a wiki.
I equate the concept of an LDS scripture wiki in general with Feast Upon the Word. If a wiki is by definition a collaborative effort open to an entire community, then there should never be more than one wiki on a single topic in a single community. This wiki is already up and has a substantial amount of content. I cannot imagine why another faithful LDS group would need to start a competing project that is likewise collaborative and open to exactly the same entire community. I therefore make no distinction between the concept of an LDS scripture wiki and its embodiment in Feast Upon the Word.
(a) The site must host a lot of content. The commentary must include, and must now be making reasonable progress toward including, all of the content described above for commentaries, and must do so for most of the entire standard works. This rules out any website that does not openly crowdsource content because the quantity of writing required to satisfy this requirement will simply outstrip the resources of any closed group of volunteers.
(b) The site must hyperlink to unhosted references. Everything on the bookshelf described above that is not hosted should be accessible from the site by hyperlink. This is subject only to unavoidable restrictions imposed by copyright. This also means that the commentary must be electronic rather than paper.
It is useful if the site also hyperlinks to other sites with commentary. But the requirement is linking to authoritative references, such as the NIV translation, that both support the commentary on the site and will never be duplicated on the site.
(c) The site must be free – and free of ads. The entire commentary must be available for free to everyone. Free delivery again rules out anything that is not digital. Free access also rules out anything from Deseret Book or anyone else who must pay employees to develop their content.
– The future progress of the wiki is not dependent on the continued interest and availability of any particular individuals.
– Credentials are not required to contribute. There will always be a place for authored and peer reviewed commentary by BYU religion professors. That work can serve as an important check on the conclusions that others draw and the facts upon which they rely. But credentialed academics do not have a monopoly on insight.
– A wiki invites both polished work and unpolished tentative suggestions. Contributions can be made before they are fully developed or well phrased, and then be further developed or polished by others.
– A wiki allows contributors to post material in small units, as small as a bullet point or a single link, without having to write a fully developed treatise. A person can publish a single great insight without having to first publish an entire book.
– It can be updated. It is not frozen once for all time but can be repeatedly updated.
– Also, larger contributions also do not have to be fully edited. Non-English majors can contribute, and others can go back and rephrase.
– Mechanical tasks are performed only once. If I try to host my own comprehensive site, then I must create numerous links to resources like a Hebrew lexicon. If I contribute instead to a collaborative wiki, then that step is performed only once and no other contributor will have to duplicate that work.
– Search engine optimization is shared. Contributors can cooperate in creating a single destination that is worth visiting instead of competing for eyeballs with lots of smaller sites that may not be worth visiting. No one has to find my own small individual site. They can just go to the same wiki they already visit, and there they will also find my content.
– I only have to write the portions of commentary that I care about. Other contributors can do the same. Eventually it adds up so that the site becomes fairly comprehensive and the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts.
– Groups tend to outperform individuals, even really smart individuals, when it comes to aggregating insights.
– Other contributors can correct, refine, and further develop what I write. And I can do the same to what other people write. I have specific complaints about deficiencies in many of the commentaries I read, both LDS and non-LDS. But on a wiki I can contribute to satisfy those deficiencies. And if other people agree that those contributions are valuable, then some will eventually make similar contributions to other parts of the wiki, and the approach will be generally incorporated into the discussion.
3. Weaknesses of wikis. After extolling the virtues of the wiki format, I will also point out two weaknesses that we should endeavor to design around to the extent possible.
(h) Tension between openness v. quality. First there is an obvious tension between the goal of openness on the one hand and the goals of orthodoxy and quality on the other. Frankly, I think the wiki is weakest where published commentaries are strongest: published commentaries enjoy a consistent perspective and voice, are edited, and it is easy to cut the trash out before publication. I think the biggest challenge facing the wiki will be to maintaining content quality and orthodoxy.
As a partial gate-keeping solution, I believe it is possible to implement a software fix that will allow the administrator to grant users graduated levels of permission, with different levels required to edit different portions of a page. The idea is that you do not want a seminary student who enjoys more enthusiasm than knowledge to overwrite what was previously contributed by a leading scholar on the JST. So eventually, I see the top part of the page being editable only by those who have permission, but anyone can add to the bottom part of the page. An editor who has permission can periodically troll through the discussions at the bottom of the page and move good ones up to the top portions of the page. After making several quality contributions (or perhaps establishing other credentials), a person would be granted permission to contribute directly to the top portions of pages. I don’t think we are there yet, but I anticipate that we will eventually need something like this.
(i) Limitations on portability. Electronic delivery is extremely portable with regard to size. An entire bookshelf can be read on a tablet. On the other hand, electronic delivery is not entirely portable with regard to location. Websites are only available when there is access to the internet. Paper books, in contrast, can go even where the internet does not.
Several paid programs can be downloaded to be resident on a hard drive. I have not kept up with either of these in recent years, but I believe that the Deseret Gospel Library and eSword both work this way, or at least used to at one time. It would be nice to be able to download a portion of the current site (not history pages). For example, downloading all of the pages for Daniel without having to do a separate browser save for each individual page. I know that most links would be rendered inoperable, and maybe that interferes too much with functionality. But I think this issue is at least worth thinking about.
4. Why it matters that people help now to systematically build the wiki .
My vision for Feast Upon the Word is that it grow in both content and usage to become a standard resource, which I define as being one of the first three resources that most people turn to when studying the LDS Scriptures. One or more electronic resources are likely to fill that role and, as explained above, I think it is important that the wiki fill that role.
There are two reasons why I think it is important that I and others contribute systematically for a while to help the wiki fulfill that vision of being a standard resource.
(a) First, I am not convinced that the wiki is yet at the point where its future growth and vitality is assured. I believe the wiki will first have to reach a critical mass of content so that visitors will return and also contribute. My contributions today help to ensure that the wiki will reach that critical mass, and thus ensure that it will take off and become a standard resource.
(b) Second, contributing early gives me a chance to influence the form and quality of the wiki. I can contribute content of high quality that helps to set a standard for future contributors. I can add content that remedies the deficiencies I see in other commentaries, again providing guidance to other future contributors.
I cannot tell other people whether they ought to care enough to likewise help build the site up to a critical mass that is self-sustaining. But I see my part in getting the wiki to that point as one of the more important contributions that I will make during my life. To me it is more than a hobby or small group discussion, it is a mission. That mission is to make this contribution over the next couple years and thereby affect what my children, grandchildren, and potentially hundreds of thousands of other people will use as a primary scripture study reference for decades.
This is an area where I happen to know several random bits of wisdom but expect that I have still missed some of the major issues.
1. Commentaries and other references.
(a) Logical organization. I like, and have not yet figured out how to improve upon, the organization that I see in most commentaries: (i) start with a discussion of broad background topics applicable to the entire book; (ii) then discuss large blocks of text such as chapters; and (iii) then, after discussing issues applicable tot he chapter as a whole, address smaller blocks such as individual verses before moving on to discuss the next chapter. I have organized most of the pages on the wiki according to this same pattern.
(b) Discussions of methodology. I am not sure if this concept transfers well to the wiki, but it is at least worth thinking about. My favorite commentaries often have a large section before the commentary begins in which the author first discusses their methodology. I find that authors who have thought carefully about how they go about the task of interpretation more often have things to say that are worth reading. But in the context of a wiki, the fact that one contributor talks carefully about methodology will likely have little effect on other contributors who are not even interested enough in the subject to read the page. I also like those commentaries because I have learned much from their discussions about how they each think one should go about interpreting scripture. For three decades now I have spent about ten percent of my scripture study time studying not the scriptures, but rather how I study the scriptures. This has greatly improved my skill and efficiency. But this topic may be outside the scope of the wiki, which at least emphasizes, and may be limited to, the results of people’s study rather than the methods employed in that study.
(c) Do not be excessively technical. It is easier to learn a concept if it has a name. It can therefore be desirable to use a few technical terms whose definitions are apparent from context. Even the uninitiated will understand more easily. But too much techno-speak creates a barrier to communication with those who do not know the lingo. It also makes sloppy writing easier. It is my personal experience that having to explain a technical concept in simple terms forces me to rethink the concept more critically.
(d) Start with a summary and use topic sentences. People are able to more quickly grasp new information and to retain it longer if they are expecting it and if they can relate that new information to a framework of things they already know. This means using topic sentences, as well as thesis paragraphs or summaries. This is often the reverse from how one thought through and eventually arrived at a conclusion. But as a trial lawyer, a big part of my professional job is to sell logical arguments to a relatively sophisticated audience of judges. And I find that my writing reads better, even to me, after I go back and add topic sentences and introductory or thesis paragraphs. These tools also make it easier to understand Bible commentaries.
I understand where people are coming from when they say they do not want to just tell others what to think. But the act of writing a conclusion already tells people what you think they ought to think. The antidote here is not to leave the conclusion to the end, but rather to not overstate the argument in favor of an interpretation and to be open about weaknesses and alternative interpretations.
I also understand that topic sentences are often counter-intuitive to the writer. It is easy to explain something in the way that you came to understand it. That often means starting with a few random clues and leaving the conclusion to the end. This arrangement of the material can work in an oral presentation when the audience is asked to relive a story of discovery with the person who is speaking. But I think it generally makes for poor writing especially where, as here, the text is about the material rather than the individual author, and there is in fact no individual voice but rather a collaborative effort of multiple anonymous editors.
This also enables the reader to quickly know what is on a page or in a paragraph without having to first read the entire text. This in turn enables the reader to more quickly find items of interest and to skip items and pages of little interest.
(e) Fewer headings, not more. Or, collect the discussion by sequence of results rather than sequence of methods. This concept is related to the one previous. When I read a commentary, I want to read the entire discussion about a passage in one place. I do not want to read a heading about how to apply one step of interpretation to each passage in the book, and then read another heading about how to apply another step to every passage, and so on, so that I have to pick out individual paragraphs under several headings just to get the full discussion about a single passage. That was the reason for combining the two headings previously labeled “Lexical Notes” and “Exegesis.” I think we should further combine some of the additional headings I have created, like “Related Scriptures,” that instead should have just been incorporated into the general heading of “Discussion.” Also, fewer tabs, not more. What I mean here is that ideas and insights about the text, even if unpolished, should go on the front commentary page and should not be hidden on the talk or discussion page where most readers are not in the habit of looking, and where even those who do look will have to search in multiple places just to find all parts of a single discussion.
(f) Documentation. A good work of science will invite people to disprove its conclusions and make it as easy as possible for them to do so. This means providing the underlying data and clearly explaining the logical steps. In the context of scriptural interpretation, data means documentation. The best documentation is hyperlinks that make instantly available the underlying justifications for a conclusion. When hyperlinks are not possible, footnotes are the next best solution. This is important in order to keep authors honest and careful, which in turn will (justifiably) increase user confidence. I want the wiki to be set up in a way that not only makes it easy for contributors to address each step of interpretation, but also makes it easy for readers to verify for themselves and, if warranted, disagree about any of these steps. I have read books on Church history that were written by noted authors and that won awards, and that nevertheless contain inaccuracies. The wiki will not exceed the editorial standard of those books any time soon, but it can exceed them in the ability to identify and correct the errors that do get made.
Even if every conclusion on the wiki were entirely accurate, documentation would still be desirable. When a reader is able to instantly view the data underlying a conclusion, their confidence in that conclusion grows. The reader can then move the conclusion from the column entitled “things anonymous contributors to the wiki think are true” to the one called “things I have logically worked out for myself.” In addition, a reader who can personally review the underlying data or text will not be limited to understanding conclusions drawn by the writer, but will be enabled to draw additional conclusions the writer may have missed. These desirable outcomes are also dependent on the availability of documentation.
(a) Screen sizes from 4″ telephones to 14″ laptops. I tend to think of electronic screens as coming in six standard sizes: (i) 4″ telephones; (ii) 7″ mini tablets; (iii) 10″ full size tablets; (iv) 14″ laptops; (v) 24″ desktops; and (vi) 36″-84″ television screens. I think the site should function on all of the four portable sizes from 4″ to 14″. I do not care about 24″ desktop screens because my experience is that when people read text on a screen that big, they read that text in a window only about half as wide as the entire screen, or maybe a little more. In other words, anything that reads well on a laptop screen will also read well on a larger desktop screen.
(b) Left margin and maximizing commentary on small screens. I like the idea of the left margin. But I would like to see two improvements.
– Left margin scrolling. It would be nice if the left margin scrolled up and down independently of the main screen. If you are reading near the bottom of a long page, it can take a lot of scrolling to get back up to the links on the left margin. It would be nice if they stayed put unless the reader actively scrolls the left margin down.
– Left margin hiding. I use the links in the left margin all the time on my laptop. But when reading on my 7″ android tablet in a vertical orientation, I want all the space I can get left to right. Currently you can tap on white space in the text and the page will zoom in to effectively hide the left margin, but the implementation is not quite right and zooms in just a little too much so that some of the text is also hidden. It would be nice to be able to hide the left margin so the page width still comes out right.
– Scripture text window. On a small screen I also wish I could hide the scripture text window in the same way that I can hide the automatically generated table of contents. Frankly, the smaller the screen, the more likely that the entire LDS gospel library has been downloaded t the device. This is just another implementation of the principle that on a small screen the user wants the ability to maximize how much of that screen is dedicated to the actual text of the commentary.
– A page should be long enough that they have enough content to be worth visiting. Even if the wiki has no content for the particular passage that a visitor wants to read about, it can still have commentary on nearby passages that the visitor may find worthwhile.
– A page should be long enough that you can immerse yourself in the commentary for a while without having to click to the next page. It is my impression that, when going sequentially through a book, every time you click to the next page there is an interruption, or a brief reorientation, as you have to remind yourself where this page fits in the larger scheme of the book.
– A page should be short enough that you can quickly find something on it after linking in from another page. This and the prior criteria work in direct opposition to each other.
– A page should be short enough that you can get to the top and bottom (and other headings) without too much scrolling. The point of adding links to alternate Bible translations on every page is to make those translations easily accessible. Too much scrolling still makes them accessible, but not easily.
The ability to minimize and maximize each heading on a page seems to me very desirable, but it will also impact each of these factors.
(d) Consistency of design. The site should have as much of a consistent look and feel as possible on every page. This means consistency of both headings and the manner in which content is formatted.
(e) Page layout. I can think of three things that make a page more readable regardless of the content.
– Graduated headings. It is helpful to have several clearly distinguishable headings sizes, weights, and fonts. This can help the reader keep track of where they are. I would like even more choices, and then guidelines on when to use which.
– White space around headings. White space is another excellent way of signaling the beginning of a new concept to the reader. As the wiki currently implements, it is hard to control the amount of white space above a heading. I have been putting in double spaces before each major heading. But those will be lost as soon as someone edits only that section under that heading. And I cannot ever get extra white space immediately below the automatically generated table of contents. I would like to see the ability to automatically insert different amounts of white space immediately before different levels of headings.
– White space between paragraphs. As the wiki currently implements, it can be hard to tell paragraphs apart. I am fine with lack of indentation at the beginning of each paragraph. But increasing the amount of white space between paragraphs would help readers to see the breaks between paragraphs.
– On a single page, this means good visual display of headings so that it is easy to quickly see what is on a page and what is addressed under each heading.
– Across the entire site this means lots of cross links including, in effect, links to other pages on the wiki that function much like cross-references in the margins of print scriptures.
– Across the entire site this also means thinking clearly about what the contributor really wants people to see when they click on a link to another passage. Many many times ought to have created an external link to the text of a passage, but out of laziness or lack of proficiency have instead linked to the wiki page for that passage.
– Again, substantive comments should not be hidden behind a separate “talk” or “discussion” tab.
– I would like to see improvement in the quality of search results when using the “search” box to find for text strings on the site.
(g) Getting content from the site. Visitors should be able not only to read what is on the site, but also to print and download it. The biggest obstacle to this currently is that when you print or download the text of the wiki, you get the full url of every external link to a website off the wiki. This makes what you print or download unreadable. The fact that people have to download, edit, and then print is an obstacle to cutting and pasting a paragraph as a lesson or talk resource.
Place to converse. It must always be about what, not who. Consensus through revelation. Also see talk in April 2012.
– The ability to toggle on and off each heading on a page. The headings themselves would always display, but the content under a particular heading could be toggled to display or hide by clicking the “+” or “-” to the left of that heading. Ideally, each user can adjust their preffered defaults as to which headings show or don’t show.
– The ability to minimize or not display the scripture text window. Like the current menu window.
– The ability to change how many levels of menu get displayed. Then maybe I would not have to make headings in a way that keeps them off the menu display.
– The ability to set how each hierarchical level of menu displays in the text. I would make changes to the current settings.
– The ability to always automatically have two lines of white space above each two dash (==) heading. I edit entire pages instead of single sections because otherwise that white space disappears. I am a big believer in using white space as an intentional display element.
– The ability to print out a page without displaying external URL’s. Currently internal URL’s do not display but externals do.
– The ability to have two or more levels of contributor permission, so that low level permissions can add, but they cannot change what higher level permissions have already put in. People can get approved for higher level after reviewing the quality of some number of contributions or edits. Or maybe the lowest level of permission can only add to certain headings. Not an issue now, but I would like to think that it will eventually become important.
– The ability to generate a list of changes by contributor with links as on the special page for double redirects, and after following each link and to see each changed page marked up so you can evaluate their contributions, whether the evaluation is so that you can decide whether to grant greater privileges to someone or whether to block them.
– Not having to prove that I am not a robot every single time I make an edit. I don’t mind doing it each time I first log in. But would it be safe to just let me reprove that every fifth or tenth time? Maybe this will matter less once I finish the mechanical work of regrouping and formatting.
– Good text string searching for the entire site, with wildcards. For example “Ripe* in iniquity” to bring up ripe, ripened, ripening, etc.
– The ability to change a large number of redirects all at once with a single command. Not a huge big deal for merging pages, but it will save some labor splitting pages once a lot of content starts getting added.
– The leading asterisk “*” and the paragraph indent “:” do not indent by quite the same amount. It would be nice if they did, or if they were globally adjustable.
One more thought that may or may not affect your investigating upgrades. There is still the issue of how to deal with long contributions that should not be hidden behind the discussion tab but do not really fit on the main pages either. I think Janet Lisonbee’s long contribution in Ruth can stay right where it is, largely as is. I also like her contribution for 1 Ne 3-4, but I am not so sure it belongs on that page, and I have not yet figured out how to deal with it.
I have developed a set of four criteria that I often use to evaluate both the selection and execution of a project. In other words, what justifies doing more on a project than is required to satisfy my own personal interest? Or what makes a project useful and valuable to others, and therefore worth my spending the additional time required to make it presentable to others? These criteria fall into four major categories.
1. Importance of the subject matter. I am going to cheat on this one by simply assuming that a project is useful if it promotes understanding of the scriptures and the gospel, faith in Jesus Christ, and/or a commitment to living his gospel.
(a) Is the treatment seminal? Seminal means demonstrating the value of a whole new direction for addressing a subject that others can also use, now that it has been pointed out. It is unlikely that a very large proportion of the content on the site will ever be groundbreaking. So I do not believe that the content is seminal. But FUTW is the first and so far only place I know of that is collaborative, open, and tied to the scriptural text as opposed to the gospel doctrine lesson manual. So I do believe the wiki format is a seed that others can also use in their work, in this case by collaborating rather than copying.
(b) Is the treatment definitive? By definitive I do not mean perfect, but I do mean sufficiently good to scare off any serious competition because the deficiencies are too small to justify anyone else redoing the work just to correct those deficiencies. In other words, I mean it becomes widely accepted as an adequate de facto standard in the field. In terms of site design, I do think it is possible to also satisfy this standard. I think it is possible by working through these preliminary questions to design a site that facilitates all of the things a definitive commentary should do. Content is more complicated. I think it is possible to approach this standard over the next couple years in the case of a few scattered and small books of scripture. That is a big part of the benchmark I would like to work toward over the next year and a half. But I do no think it is possible to reach that standard with regard to most of the standard works in less than a couple of decades. But frankly, with regard to the BM, DC and PGP, I don’t know what else is. When friends ask me what I recommend they read in order to understand Alma, I cannot point to a single item that fits the bill. I do think it is possible with regard to the restoration scriptures to get closer to definitive than anything else that is out there, and to do so in a decade or less. Frankly, I think it could get to the point in a decade or so where it was difficult for a scholar to put out a definitive Book of Mormon commentary in print because of the vastly greater resources available through crowd-sourcing and hyperlinking.
(c) Does it at least lay a foundation upon which other important work can build? Perhaps by adding significant insights, by working out a problematic issue, or by adding clarity of concept or expression? Scholars often work on projects that are not earth shaking but that are nevertheless important because they do add up over time to make significant advances. But I do not know that this applies to the wiki overall. This does obviously justify many of the incremental contributions that people make to the site, including the preliminary task of getting the formatting in shape.
(d) Can the treatment demonstrate a method that can be duplicated on other projects? This criteria is most useful when applied to a project that can inspire other copycat projects. Here, however, the point is not to show people how to set up their own LDS scripture wikis, but rather to get them to contribute to this same project. So the wiki site as a whole is not going to satisfy this criteria. However, if we can get a few small books of scripture or groups of chapters written up in good shape, those smaller projects could both inspire and provide a model for other people to contribute by working on other books of scripture on the wiki.
(e) Is it one of those things that just ought to get done, or to already be done, or that you would be embarrassed to explain why it is not already done? I think the wiki does satisfy this criteria when applied to the LDS community as a whole.
(a) Audience size? Classroom teaching can be very effective, but the audience size is not scalable.
(b) Will the audience find it?
(c) What will the audience understand, feel, or do differently?
(d) Will the audience refer back to it repeatedly as a foundation, or just read it once?
We want to reach as many people as possible. We want the site to be worth visiting over and over again as a principal reference. And we want to have the greatest impact possible not only on understanding, ut also on faith and conduct.
(a) LDS academics and doctrinally sophisticated members. This is the group that I want to encourage to contribute. To reach that point, there must be some high quality content.
(d) Non-readers. You will not reach everyone as long as you are tied to text. This includes the blind, the illiterate, and children who can read but lack the attention span to read lengthy treatments of doctrine.
(f) Non-LDS academics in the field of religion.
(g) Members of other faiths.
One of the hardest things to do is to satisfy the needs of multiple audiences in a single lesson, work, or presentation. Here I am primarily concerned with the first three groups, all literate English-speaking members of the Church, but with vastly different levels of doctrinal and scriptural sophistication. I would frankly argue not only that the wiki can satisfy all of those varying levels of sophistication, but that it must. Three reasons.
First, drilling deeply into a verse and generalized summaries should depend upon each other. On the one hand, a discussion summarizing the main points of Mosiah should be supported by detailed analysis all the way down eventually to the level of the verse. On the other hand, the interpretation of an individual verse must likewise be informed by the broader context of the literary structure and principal themes of the entire book. I do not believe that either can be done in complete isolation of the other.
Second, I realized a long time ago that if I could not explain something to an interested teenager in simple non-technical words and everyday examples, in other words if I could not explain it in a way that they could readily understand, then there is a very good chance that I do not really understand it either. So I do not believe that detailed or high quality work is beyond the ability of newbies to follow – if it is well thought through and explained.
Third, it is just as important that the wiki teach the method of scripture study as teaching the content. In an ideal world, every entry would be edited having in mind whether it is accessible to a newbie who is trying to learn how to study on their own. I learned most of what I know about scripture study by repeatedly visiting a couple of major theological libraries and sifting between good answers on the one hand, and on the other hand stuff that doctoral students and professors have to come up with in order to publish something original. But there is no reason why we cannot reduce that part of the price that an average lay member of the Church has to pay in order to understand the scriptures.
• Is it seminal? Does it break new ground that others can follow?
• Is it definitive? Is it done about as well as it is possible to do?
• Is it accessible? Can a newbie readily understand it?
• Is it indispensable? Fifty years later when that newbie has become a BYU religion professor, will it still be one of the first three references off the shelf?
Fewer headings, not more, because want all parts of a single concept in a single place.
This arises partly out of my amateur understanding of neuropsychology regarding chunks and building up meta-chunks.
* A page should engage the reader for 15 to 30 minutes, up to 60 minutes if reading side by side.
* A page should cover a coherent block of text so that the reader, upon finishing the page, is able to tackle and better understand a coherent block.
* The forest is just as important as the trees. Although the site still has “verse level pages,” it now also has higher level pages that invite content. This had been done on rare occasion, such as Alma 37 and Alma, but it was a rare exception. Now it is the norm.
* If there is a need for subpages, then all of the subpages for that level should be created. That means that sometimes, as in Leviticus, you get a full page for Chapter 16 and some empty pages next to it on that same level. I have not followed this strictly, and have sometimes combined 8 subpages on a level into only four.
* There should be a quick overview. I love outlines. But I decided they could put users off, so I have gone to another format. See it in especially in Ruth, Daniel, and Ether.
I think that in its current form the page for Ruth enables someone to work through Ruth for the very first time, not knowing anything about it, and quickly get oriented to the book so it is understood at a basic level of comfort, and also to go beyond that to walk away with a deep understanding of the book’s message/meaning. Those are my personal goals for the website and the reason I contribute.
This heading should be very brief. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading.
Relationship to Book of Mormon. The relationship of Ether to the Book of Mormon as a whole is discussed at Book of Mormon: Unities.
This heading should be brief and explain facts about the setting, including historical background, that will help a reader to understand the book. This can include links to maps and pictures. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading.
This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading.
This heading is for notes about the relationship of this book to other sections and passages. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading.
This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person’s life. This can include identifying principles that the author teaches us to live by, examples that illustrate a lesson or inspire us to follow, and questions for personal evaluation. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading.
This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or “stupid” question can identify things that need to be improved on this page and lead to responses that also help others to understand. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading.
This heading contains an outline for the entire book. Items in blue or purple text indicate hyperlinked pages that address specific portions of this section. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading.
This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the strengths and weaknesses of a particular resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading.
The first stage of development is simply to take the content we already have and present it more readably. This does not involve editing the substantive content that has already been contributed. We are within two or three months or so of largely completing this stage.
1. What I have been doing. Over the last year I have contributed some content and done a lot of systematic cleaning up. That cleaning up has primarily taken three forms.
(a) Formatting headings. About a year ago we opened up to discussion the issue of page headings or elements. I have been implementing the results of that conversation throughout the site, or updating the formatting of headings so far on more than half of the entire site. I have also been adding several minor tweaks to the way that these headings are formatted as I continue to improve on them. After stepping back and asking the big picture questions at the beginning of this post, I think there is another round of updates to implement.
(b) Combining pages. Second, I have been combining pages in order to do what I call “eliminating the desert.” As I began to update the formatting of headings in Leviticus, I noticed that there were an awful lot of empty pages. When I stopped to count, I found that while there was a lot of good content for Chapter 16, there was not a single word of content for al of the other 26 chapters combined. I asked myself just how many pages of empty desert we really want a user to have to click through when looking for content on Leviticus. I decided that asking users to click 165 times just to discover that there are in fact not hits would not result in a “positive visitor experience.” So I cut it down to 6 empty pages plus one good page for Chapter 16. I would love to go back and subdivide those large pages once enough content has been created, but we are simply not likely to get there any time soon.
Of course, there is the question of how I chose to split Leviticus up into 7 pages. This is NOT rote work and involves a lot of judgment. The short answer is, and it took me several years to stumble into learning this through experience, that on my first couple of passes through a text I just try to identify cohesive blocks of text before I worry about the relationships between those blocks. I look first for changes of scene or speaker, introductory phrases, and other indications that the speaker has moved from one block of text to another. I then look for relationships that allow one to build up groups of those blocks into chapters and groups of chapters. I recently saw an article suggesting criteria for identifying chiasmus, and I very much agree with the criteria that: The blocks of text comprising a chiasmus should be enjoy wide acceptance as cohesive blocks of text, even by those who disagree about the manner in which those blocks relate to each other. A quick review of several commentaries can usually serve a check on this for the Bible, but for the BM and D&C there is simply not enough literature out there.
I don’t know that I can give a much longer answer here without it taking over a large portion of this post. I will simply add that I have been working out outlines that trace an author’s train of thought since 1987, that the outlines for books of the Bible are informed by trips to the theological libraries at SMU and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and that I have often also posted outlines for each book that help to explain how I understand the author’s train of thought. In the end my outlines and page divisions will either enjoy a consensus of support, or they will not and they will get changed. This is, after all, a wiki. I do believe that these groupings and outlines, even where they may turn out to be wrong, at least encourage people to think about the text in chunks and are therefore better than having only an endless stream of verse level pages.
I think it goes without saying that not every passage of equal length will merit equally in-depth treatment or draw an equal amount of commentary. Five verses on faith in Alma 32 should and will draw more commentary than 5 chapters of Old Testament genealogy in Chronicles. Even where these differences may not persist in the long run, it is still a fact that they exist today; for example, there is currently more content for 2 Nephi 2 than for the entire book of Helaman. I have tried to adjust accordingly the number of pages dedicated to that content.
(c) Formatting content. Third, I have been reformatting the content. I do occasionally stop to edit the substance of the content, but 95% of this has just been rote clerical work. I am not yet entirely satisfied with the way this works yet either, but again I think it does at least resolve two issues. First, when every single comment or question got its own entry in the automatically generated table of contents, that table of contents became unwieldy and, I believe, stopped being helpful. So I have reformatted headings to individual questions and comments in a way that keeps them from appearing in the table of contents. Second, the formatting varied greatly from page to page so that it was not uniform. One of the basic tenets of good website design, or of typesetting a print reference work, is that all pages should look and feel as much the same as makes sense, and I have tried to implement some uniformity.
But I do am not yet satisfied that it really works yet as well as it ought to. The biggest challenge is on pages that have lots of short comments and a few very long comments. What type of heading system works for both? I don’t know yet. Places to look at a variety of possible solutions are First Corinthians, Hebrews, Nahum and _____. This is one place where I really would like feedback that solves the issue for me.
(d) Derivative passages. Another smaller change I have also made systematically is to take, for example, all the comments about Isaiah that were put in 2 Nephi 12-24 and move them to Isaiah 2-14, leaving behind in 2 Nephi only the comments that address Nephi’s use of Isaiah. The idea is that someone looking for content about Isaiah should not be expected to also look in 2 Nephi.
(e) Talk pages. Yet another smaller change I have made is to often move some content from the talk page to the main commentary page. The idea is that substantive content ought to be where people will see it. I see the talk page as discussing why something was done to the main commentary page. I do not know that I always got these changes right, and even when I did, that content probably needs more editing than usual since it was intended for a more intimate audience.
2. Current status and time frame for completion. These three changes – formatting headings, formatting content, and combining pages – are currently about three quarters done across the entire website. I expect to reach the 90% level in another month.
What this means is that people can now go in and improve the substantive content of many pages: (1) on which all the boring formatting tasks have already been done; (2) with logical verse groupings on each page that should make it easier to draw connections between verses and to comment on the big picture; and (3) that already have enough content to edit, to serve as prompts, and to not feel that one is starting to write on a blank page.
OT: I have done about half of the Old Testament, essentially all except Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Samuel, 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.
NT: I have done from Acts to Revelation (except First John). I have done bits and pieces of the gospels, but may not soon try to finish them off systematically because I think they will be much more involved than anything else.
BM: I am within about 15 chapters of being completely done.
D&C: I have just started this, but I expect it to go quickly and will tackler it soon.
PGP: Done, except that it was done before I realized that I was often still leaving desert in my wake, and so I may go back and consolidate a few pages.
3. Where does this leave the site at present. Once I finish this stage of work, my current best guess is that the site will have about 1,200 pages of content, broken down roughly as follows.
PGP: 64 pages, though this may go down a little.
The second stage of development will be to pick several books (or at least large groups of chapters) to develop as models of what mature wiki pages ought to look like. I expect it will take the rest of the year to get this done. I suggest this as a stage separate from the next because I expect this stage will confront us with issues that we need to work through before tackling the third stage.
First Nephi: Just because everyone looks at it and thinks they already know it. If we are going to start pushing the site when Gospel Doctrine hits the Book of Mormon, then we probably cannot leave this off of the list.
Second Nephi: Because it would force us to deal with several of the page relationship issues I have seen. 2 Ne 2 needs four subpages just to handle all the content. 2 Ne 12-24 all fits on a single page and quotes to Isaiah.
Ether: Because it is manageable and I think it will be easy to give people a positive experience realizing they have learned to understand something much better than before.
Ruth: Because enough content is already there and just needs to be wrestled into shape. Also because it will force us to address the issue of long solo contributions to a page.
Daniel: Because it is easy to do, easy to give a positive experience, and a lot of the footnoting is already done.
Obadiah: Because it makes sense from the outline and is very short.
Malachi: Because it is important, manageable, and I can knock people’s socks off.
D&C 42: Because a lot that is insightful can be said.
D&C 89: Because Joe has written a lot already.
We should pick at least one book each from the Bible, Book of Mormon, and D&C because the front or top level pages will have differences. At least one book each with a single page, two levels of pages, and three-plus levels of pages. Some pages where I have added a lot of content that ties things together as in Ether, some where another single person has added most of the content as in Ruth or D&C 89, some where there is a lot of content from multiple contributors. Some pages with a lot of questions. Some with some very long contributions, and some with lots of short contributions. At least one page with lots of good footnotes.
The third stage is getting the site to the point that it is worth pushing to invite the public. For me that means getting the site to the point that an average visitor would decide to bookmark the site and return. That means having enough useful content that visitors will find it worth returning.
When it comes to usage and content, I see wikis as social media. It takes content to get usage, and it takes usage before visitors contribute content. It is a self-perpetuating cycle, whether good or bad. But this is not a chicken and egg question. The content, or at least enough content, must come first.
I cannot possibly write enough by myself to get the site to the point that it becomes a major destination. But I think that I, and hopefully a few others, can at least get the site to a critical point where visitors have positive viewing experiences often enough that they begin to visit regularly and then begin to also contribute. When that happens, the virtuous cycle of growth will take over, and the site will no longer be dependent on the contributions of particular individuals. Most of what I have done on the site over the last year or so has been aimed at getting the site to that critical take-off point as efficiently as I can.
I think a reasonable goal for reaching that critical take-off point is January 2016 when the Gospel Doctrine course will return to the Book of Mormon. I can think of two things that would serve as a benchmark indicating that the site has arrived at that critical point. I think it is reasonable to believe that these could happen in time to start pushing the site before the gospel doctrine course reaches to the Book of Mormon in December 2015 at the end of next year.
(1) Half of the approximately 250 wiki pages on the Book of Mormon result in a positive viewing experience for readers who have an average level of understanding. That means both breadth and depth. To get there, we need both to have some content and to have that content in a shape that is readable. When this is true, I think casual visitors will return.
(2) The wiki pages that pertain to each weekly reading assignment have a combined total of at least two really good insights around either of which a gospel doctrine teacher could build an entire lesson. That is only a hundred concepts, or about one concept for every two wiki pages. When this is true, I think teachers will come back.
(3) A third item that would be nice, and perhaps also realistic, is lots of links. When people want to find any online articles about a Book of Mormon passage that have appeared in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, the Maxwell Institute, or the Religious Educator, they know they can find them by just going to the wiki page for that passage. When there is a tool, such as alternate translations, they know those links are right there handy on the page.
I do not suggest this as a mechanical target that ignores the condition of the rest of the site, but as a rough indicator of the entire site’s usefulness.
I think the end of next year is an ideal window for us to shoot for.
(2) there is enough new content that the current 1,200 or so pages have grown significantly to somewhere between 1,500 – 2,000 pages.
Colophon. Was Hugh Nibley right about these introductory verses being a colophon? Is this literary structure or formula unique to Nephi in the Book of Mormon or did other authors use colophons throughout the Book of Mormon also? Do you agree with John A. Tvedtnes or Brant Gardner on this point?
This is fine as a thought-provoking question for sophisticated users. But if that is the first thing a newbie sees on the website, they will be justifiably intimidated and may never return. I do not see that as merely unfortunate; I see it as downright hurtful. The message conveyed to newbies was that understanding the scriptures is an academic pursuit beyond their reach, a message that is simply not defensible. So if we have a site that people are going to stumble across on Google searches, then I think we have an obligation to ease people into the site so that when they do get down to that question and realize they have hit something beyond their abilities, at least they already know that other large portions of the discussion are within their abilities. So, while I have no problem with meaty discussions, I feel they need to be prefaced with milk.
When linguists try to understand text at the level of the paragraph and above, they look for cohesive blocks of text, for the relationships between those blocks, and for the relative importance given to various blocks. A linear verse by verse treatment strips out all three of those clues to the author’s meaning. It is like reading a fifty page report with all the headings and paragraph breaks removed.
As my children leave home and seek on their own to find understanding, what I want to make available for them is a reference that will walk them through that process enough times that they learn how to do it on their own, then start to second guess me, and finally edit my commentary on the wiki to improve it for my grandkids. I have started to do an okay job of that in Ether.
Janet Lisonbee has wonderful contributions in Ruth and Leviticus 16 that can stay where I have moved them from behind the discussion tab to the main commentary pages. She also has an excellent contribution about the Sabbath Day that I have moved to the commentary page for Geneses 1. I know that it did not belong where it was, hidden behind the discussion tab of Gen 2:1-5. Now, out on the main commentary page for Genesis 1, it will at least be seen. But, I think the right place for it might actually be on a Janet Lisonbee subpage, with the Genesis 1 commentary page containing only a short summary and link. But while it may be okay to go around moving other people’s contributions to their own talk pages, that is a step I hesitate to take for the first time. (I do like user subpages better than blogs because the author can keep going back and refining their own work).
My vision is that a BYU freshman or recent blue collar convert or interested non-member should be able to read that summary and already have some sense of what he is about to read and what he ought to be getting out of it.
Another issue to think about that will eventually have to be tackled is: Also look at 2 Ne 2, which has more content than all of Helaman or Mormon. I frankly cannot figure out a more logical place to break the subpages than at every fifth verse, so I have stayed with that. When it comes to actually turning those pages into something coherent, we will face the issue that at some point you quit trying to overview on every next lower level and you just let it be a sequential jumble. I think.
I am also trying to get not only the headings, but also the content formatted in a way that makes it easy to scan and keeps the table of contents useful (done Helaman to Moroni).
I generally like what I have done, but here are a few pages to look at. Alma 54-55 is a good example of how it makes the page much more friendly. 1 Ne 5-6 is a good example of how items of greatly differing lengths do not benefit much from this formatting. I am still open to ideas.
Perhaps my view of them can be expressed this way. I understand as well as anyone that questions are valuable tools for learning. Everything on the Book of Mormon: Unities page can be traced to my asking why Ether was placed or made to fit at the end rather than the beginning of the Book of Mormon. But in the end this valuable tool is merely a tool for achieving a purpose, a means to an end, and not the end itself. The end or purpose, I believe, is understanding and perhaps application. It is not pedagogy. And what this insistence on straining to ask one meaningful question per verse (yes, really, look again at 1 Ne 3-4) does is make the site quit being about its purpose and to instead be about the tool. But who wants to read that? That is not what made wikipedia and Mormon Doctrine and the Bible Dictionary such standard references.
My current thinking is that the summary section as I have it in Ruth, Chronicles, etc may on average be the most useful and important item on a page, distilling all of the content down to its essentials. I don’t drive for the sake of driving, I do it to get somewhere.
And I go back the test of: is this something I want a new rural, blue collar member in a strugglinng branch to read? If it going to cause problems for him, then maybe it is not worth posting an unanswered, unguided question about that particular verse.
So I am trying to have a good attitude about most of the individual questions, but in the aggregate they frustrate me tremendously.
I do like the concept of a heading for questions. I don’t even mind if some questions get two or three contradictory answers. I just want questions to either raise the quality of discussion, or else be individually sincere.
I guess I have two main critiques.
First, I have doubts about the usefulness of this practice.
It is true that it can be helpful to show people how to learn by asking questions. But it is just as important to teach them how to answer a question well. If what you mostly post is questions and rarely answers, then you have only done half the task. You have not also modeled what a good answer would look like. And when the question suggests that the person posting is withholding the answer, I just get annoyed. It ends up striking me as someone getting too infatuated with a pet pedagogical theory and forgetting about all the other parts of learning that also matter, and filling up the site with that stuff instead of the useful comments that the person is capable of.
I have learned a lot about learning just by copying how other people explain their subject matter. A very large percentage of what I have figured out about the gospel can be traced back to the outline for Lectures on Faith: What is it? How do you get it? How much of it can be gotten? and What are its effects, or why bother? But Lectures on Faith would not be a great book if it stopped on the first page after announcing three of these questions. Rather it is a great book because it then models how to go about answering those questions. After reading it during my mission, I was armed not only with a good set of questions that I could apply to charity, humility, etc., but also with a sense of how to go about answering those questions and of what is required for a high quality answer. In contrast, I have never learned anything – or been satisfied – from playing guess what I am thinking.
I do not want to teach people how to more efficiently reinvent the wheel from scratch. I want to show them how the wheel was invented so they can more efficiently invent new stuff that I have never even imagined. So if I have an answer, I am going to share it so they can start from a position further along than I started. I am not going to make them duplicate my work. Thank you Alma (spirit paradise) and Brother of Jared (the Lord had a spirit body) for doing the same for me.
I understand that many people find thoughtful brainstorm questions helpful. But many of the questions I am complaining about are not thoughtful brainstorms. They are worksheet quality homework. Write a good question. Then explain why you think it is a really good question. Then provide a textual or doctrinal context for the question. Then suggest possible directions for exploring possible answers. Ten of those will teach more than a hundred of the other, and be more satisfying to the reader.
Second, I think the practice is frankly unhelpful.
Answers are satisfying. Unanswered questions are usually not – unless they are really good questions. Simply asking in Moroni 7 “What is faith” is not one of those satisfying high quality questions. And pages with little more than endless streams of unanswered questions will never provide a satisfying experience. People won’t come back. So they won’t contribute. So the site never reaches a critical mass of satisfying content. And the circle continues. In order to get more contributions, the site needs traffic. And to get traffic, page views must be satisfying to most viewers. That is why I am replacing the outlines at the top of each page – which I prefer – with non-hierarchical bullets. That is also why I am willing to spend so many hours doing what is really minimum wage rote work in regrouping pages to eliminate the desert effect. Because when 90% of page views are unsatisfying, no one will come back. If we can reverse that to 10% of page views are unsatisfying, then we will get repeat traffic. My view of my role is to be important in getting the site to the point that I am no longer important.
Again, I am not against questions. Well thought out questions can bring repeat traffic. But many many of the questions I see posted at the rate of one per verse strike me not as likely paths to insight, but as stubborn attempts to not understand. And not many people will come back to read more of that. That is why I do not currently send people I know to the site, and I want to get it to the point that I can start doing so with confidence that they will go back on their own as repeat traffic.
More perniciously, I worry that it may be unhelpful by turning some people off not just from the website, but from scripture study. Hegel used the word alienation to describe a situation in which you picture an ideal and believe that you cannot achieve it (like what the world has done with the concept of God). Unlike you and me, a poorly educated new convert or a BYU freshman might read a page like that and leave with the impression that they should be able to come up with answers that they cannot. We then will have pointed out how much they do not know while providing very little guidance about how to change that situation. If I get frustrated at many of these questions, then I worry that someone less comfortable with their own abilities will get frustrated instead at themself. That would mean that not only have we failed to help, we have actually done harm.
There are several people in my ward who are not bookish, don’t understand the scriptures very well, don’t have a good source I can just point them to, and are painfully aware of all that. And sometimes they get called to teach gospel doctrine. One of the key things that drives me is a desire to provide something that can get those people past the position of alienation. I don’t worry that they will read stuff they could never have come up with on their own. They already know they are not wizards at this stuff. I think they would love reading the page on Ruth. What I do worry about is that they again get frustrated in their efforts to understand, and perhaps even turned off at their inability to even answer, or sometimes even understand, these short simple questions that sound like they ought to be simple to answer – verse after verse, page after page.
So it is not questions per se that I have a problem with. I have even posted a few myself, including two in the Points to Ponder section of Moses 1 that I spent time individually thinking about and rephrasing. What I do have a problem with is the systematic drive to populate the site with mostly questions regardless of quality. Even Lectures on Faith and Alma 5, with all of their famous questions, are mostly about answers.
Thought prompts. If what you are suggesting is another heading with brainstorm ideas for how to approach a verse, then I would not even use the word Questions in the title (but yes in the italicized description). You can muse about a possible approach to a verse just as well in the indicative tense as in the interrogative. “I wonder how ….” and “It would be interesting / might be useful to think about ….” work just as well as “How does …?” Plus, they have the benefit of not sounding like an assignment, or that I am supposed to already know the answer and aren’t I stupid for not knowing it.
A note explaining my transition from outlines at the top of each page to bullet summaries, especially in light of my comments above about questions.
Linguistics at the level of the sentence and above often focuses on three concepts: coherence, relationship, and prominence. Coherence is defining the unit of thought that coheres together. We use periods, paragraph breaks and headings to help us identify these coherent units. Relationship is how these units relate to each other. Transitions help us to identify those relationships. So do scripts or pattens, like setting, inciting event, climax, falling action, and conclusion. Prominence is identifying the really important parts. For example, the ending phrase in a sentence, or the middle of a chiasmus.
One reason I like outlines so much is that they are a very efficient way of communicating all three concepts with regard to a passage. But I am starting to realize that their brief descriptions and lengthy list feel can turn people off when it is the first thing they see at the top of the page.
The bullet points still do a good job with coherence, but not so well with relationship and prominence. But they appear friendly and allow for more words that provide context, describe an item more clearly, and make up in part with regard to relationship and prominence. In addition, because the bullet summaries only commit themselves regarding coherence, refinements regarding relationship and prominence require less adjustment at the top of the page. In other words, it is both friendlier and easier to avoid being wrong with a bullet summary than with an outline. I did a nice job on a bullet summary this morning for Mormon 8-9.
I have formatted all of that content in a uniform manner. Except that in First Corinthians and Hebrews I have left in place a wide variety of options for formatting content. The content within each page is formatted in a uniform manner, but each page is done in a different way (or at least most of them are). Why don’t you and other folks take a look at those pages for a while and let’s discuss what is good or bad about each formatting option and settle on a final set of style guidelines. You might also take a look at other sites including wikipedia.
1. I do not want every new comment to create an entry on the automatically generated table of contents. That just makes the table of contents so unwieldy that it becomes useless.
2. In typesetting, a heading in bold is strongest, a heading in bold-italics is weaker, and a heading in italics alone is weakest and is reserved for a lower level of headings. Underlined headings add strength but may not be an option on a webpage.
3. Headings in bold and bold-italics are easy to see. Headings in italics are hard to see or read. Headings in bold-italics are harder to read than just bold.
4. A leading bullet “*” makes a heading easy to see, but it makes consistent formatting difficult when the text of the entry continues in the same line. I really like it in the Questions section where the test of the question can always fit in the same single paragraph as the heading itself. I am less happy with it in the Discussion section where the content that follows a heading may run for multiple paragraphs.
I have not yet done much editing of other people’s substantive contributions. But one thought I have about voice is that I like two different things that perhaps should both be encouraged to exist on a single page. Some things are better said impersonally, like the Historical Background of First Nephi. Even the Summaries, which are not documented with cites, are better written in this impersonal voice. But I also like the personal and conversational tone of many of the comments in the Discussion section for two reasons: (1) It lessens the authority of the statement, which is often appropriate, and thus allows people to say things they think are correct without having to be 100% correct and yet still be intellectually honest and not misleading to a novice reader by communicating to the reader that lack of authoritativeness. (2) It is more inviting for other readers to add their own two cents.
I am still open to someone pointing out a more useful or authoritative source. I am not planning to go through and systematically add these to First Corinthians and Hebrews until we work through all the content formatting issues also.
Another problem was the bloated tables of contents that were so long and detailed as to not be useful. I have tried to tackle these issues. But I am not satisfied that I yet have the final answer, especially under the Discussion heading. I implemented one version largely throughout the Old Testament. I have implemented something else that I like better throughout the Book of Mormon. There are several different options that I have left in place for comparison in First Corinthians, Hebrews, and Nahum.
This entry was posted on May 12, 2014 at 6:04 pm and is filed under About Feast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
I’m overwhelmingly in agreement with your vision and suggestions, and the only disagreements I have (or foresee having–I’ve only given this a quick once-through reading) are relatively minor.
Really, the only major concern I have is with regard to finding enough willing hands to execute something like the vision you’ve outlined. I’d be anxious and willing to play a small role in working on this, but I have enough other projects on my plate that I doubt I’ll be able to do much more than to work on a rather modest-sized plot in the vineyard, and probably at a rather modest pace also.
Anyway, I think it might be useful in these comments to discuss some immediate next steps, perhaps along the lines of the following.
First, how many people can we find who would be willing to spearhead this effort? I’d count myself among this initial group, but again with a caveat as to how much time I can really devote to this.
Second, how should we coordinate our efforts, both with regard to content and adminstration? Regarding content, I’m thinking, very roughly, that perhaps I could volunteer to be in charge of a particular page, and I could work on that page to make it reasonably “worthwhile” in the sense you described, and then I could move on to a new page–and perhaps I could, in the meanwhile, also help in small ways on other pages that are being worked on. Regarding administration, I guess I’m thinking we’d mainly just want to have some discussion–and perhaps voting–regarding some of the specific ideas, guidelines, rules, etc., regarding the issues you’ve raised above.
Third, once we get some initial direction and momentum, I’m thinking we’d want to think carefully about ways to expand participation. One idea in this vein would be to follow the Sunday school lessons and have one particular person in charge of a page (or a few pages) that pertain to a particular section of scripture for a week or (more likely) a few weeks. Then, we could have a blog post for each Sunday school lesson that encourages discussion of particular points, but also that tries to recruit people to work directly on the wiki. Another idea would be to have a kind of advertisement on other blogs showcasing particular wiki pages as we get them in a presentable format (besides being an ad, these showcasing-posts would request substantive comments, feedback, discussion, etc.).
Well, some thoughts for now. Thanks again for you thoughts, enthusiasm, vision, work, suggestions, etc.! | 2019-04-26T00:24:09Z | https://feastuponthewordblog.org/2014/05/12/vision/ |
Each dragon has a territory and the people in it are considered the dragon's personal servants and slaves. Those who are not are considered rebels and are treated accordingly. Most dragons leave the other races to figure things out. How things are for each territory is fully dependent on the dragon in charge. Some dragons are very tolerant about allowing those in their territory gaining power and prestige. These are considered powerful or weak depending on who speaks with them.
This is a time when few namegivers dare to make legends of themselves, as legends are executed for their heretical ways. This is a time shrouded in mist and little is known about. All of this means the few who take up the path of the adventurer must be daring and have the guts to defy their masters.
Are you brave enough to take up the challenge, to make a legend and defying dragons? Forging a legend in a time when legends and magic must be created to shape the future! If you are interested, please drop me an e-mail.
Knowledge of the Earthdawn system is not necessary for game play, though good role-playing skills are.
Let's first look some of the earlier stories about Dragons. The very first "written" stories (that we have uncovered so far) on the creation of the world is from the Sumerian civilization generally in the area we call Mesopotania. This area which later became Persia and then part of various Middle East civilization is generally found between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Iraq and Iran.
The actual word "dragon" comes from the Greek language much later than this time so any mundane interpretation of creatures by this name before the Greeks must be by descriptions and attributes and not by name. They were generally considered "monsters" even if they had divine attributes.
The very origins and foundations of the entire Mesopotamian culture comes from the stories, culture, and ethics of these Sumerians. The later civilizations of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and then Grecians all got much of their philosophy, cosmology, and religion from the earlier stories/ myths of the Sumerians so it behooves us to first look at these early very early stories and pay particular attention to them.
In fact so many of the stories sprout the same type of general story line that we can actually divide them into two categories; Gods versus monsters (dragons) before creation and heros versus monsters after creation. Later versions of the stories often change the names of the parties about but maintain the basic story line. Is it possible that all these stories came from a single source and was later simply adapted, adopted, and some elements changed to suit the civilization telling it? This is a possibility to be considered about these first stories. Many later dragon stories will also be changed in the same manner by different areas or countries but with the same original tale.
The earlier myths often have a god, usually a storm god or a god armed with thunder and lightning bolts, chasing a dragon that has something to do with water. Examples are almost all of the Mesopotamian stories, the Indian god Indra, both Chinese and Japanese myths, the Mayan Rain Gods, the Egyptian sea dragon/serpent Apophis and pursuer Re, and even many early Semitic stories.
From the very start Dragons were seen as guarding treasures, holding back the floods, and dispensing knowledge. They also are battled by gods or heros from the very beginning. In many cases stories from the Sumerians were borrowed and slightly changed by the preceding civilizations. These same stories were very similar in content but with the actual names of the participants changed.
The first written commentary, found on clay tablets, uses the names of Asag, a monster/dragon (sometimes named as Kur) and Ninurta, a god/hero. Later we are introduced to this same god/hero as Marduk by the Babylonians and the dragons name has been changed to Tiamet. There is some confusion here as the preserved evidence is not in good shape or complete.
In the Babylonian version called the "Enuma elish" Tiamet is one of the original pair of god and goddess at the founding of the universe. From these two all later creatures, good or bad, came into creation. This Goddess is in effect the "mother of all."
In the beginning of the tale Tiamet defends her offspring and all of creation from all the minions and forces of evil. But later, when her husband Apsu is killed, she apparently goes mad and decides to end all creation in her grief. This irrational action pits her against all the other Gods and one of her offspring, named Marduk, is talked into opposing her.
In the fight that ensues Marduk finally kills her by shooting an arrow into her mouth as she tries to swallow him. She is a shape shifter as most or all early Dragons are assumed to be so fought him in different guises. Even time seems to be effect which will come up again in the dragons versions. After the battle he uses her dragon body to form the earth and from death we have life and substance.
The first epic of the hero or human and dragon encounter is the "Epic of Gilgamesh." This we know of by clay tablets from Semitic origin. But these tablets are telling about much earlier versions of the story. Here the hero is pitted against a Dragon named Humbaba who also has shape shifting abilities. Gilgamesh with the aid of the god Shamash finally kills the Dragon but gets in trouble with those other gods who were friends with or supported the Dragon and so has a pyrrhic victory and some penalties for his action are imposed.
Not much later we find the Egyptians with a similar story of either Re the sun god or Seth the hero destroying the snake or Dragon named Apophis. Again there is much confusion and contradictions. In this story both the side of good and the side of evil have attributes of the dragon. So once again we see the idea that the winner of the contest with the dragon take on the attributes of the dragon.
The Hittites have a story of the battle of a storm god with the Dragon named Illuyankas which also has contradictions and different versions but also follows the earlier stories in general details.
Later on we get several versions from the Grecian civilization. There is the story of Zeus fighting Typhon. Typhon is described as "Up from his shoulders there grew a hundred snake heads, those of a dreaded dragon." We will deal with the relationship between snakes and dragons a little latter. But suffice for now to say they are essentially the same. And again this monster/dragon is slain by a mighty thunderbolt from Zeus.
Very similar to this is the story of Apollo and Python. Python is alternately described in different versions of the story as a giant snake or a female dragon with many coils. In any case in some versions she is killed by Apollo when the young god shoots an arrow down her throat. But in other version she is taken into his service and becomes a protected oracular serpent at Delphi. It is interesting to note that both Grecian and Romans had serpents or dragons that were kept at various temples including Delphi that were considered to have great knowledge.
It is also interesting that Hercules himself consulted the Oracle of Delphi and was directed on his "12 labors" by the advice he got their. Included in his labors were the destroying of the dragons Ladon and Hydra of the Seven heads.
A good example of another Greek hero is Perseus who instead of fighting for good versus evil killed a dragon that was about to devour the princess Andromeda in order to marry her and gain a kingdom. The dragon was sent by the god Poseidon or Neptune to avenge an insult.
Another hero dragonslayer was Jason who along with his companions the Argonauts had to overcome the unsleeping "dragon of a thousand coils" who guarded the golden fleece. In one version the dragon is ensorcelled into sleeping and they stole away unharmed with the treasure. In another Jason fought the dragon who was a sea dragon and lost the fight and so was swallowed. it was only by intersession of the god Athene that the dragon gave up her prey.
An interesting story related to Jason is that of Cadmus who later went on to be the King of Thebes. He was also given advice by the Oracle of Delphi (who was herself a dragon) that eventually led him to fight and kill a golden crested dragon at the spring of Ares. For killing this dragon Cadmus was forced to serve the god Ares for a year but was then allowed to found his city from the children of the dragons teeth.
It has been often said that the finding of dinosaur bones by ancient Chinese was the original basis for their "dragon" stories and myths. In reality there is no definitive proof that this is so. It does seem to make sense as large bones from an unknown large creature (i.e. dinosaurs) would cause a superstitious people to believe in large mythical beast such as dragons.
But this story actually appears to belong to the category of “folklore”, rather than anthropology. The Chinese were a highly civilized peoples and had definite ideas on Dragons which were studied, written about, and philosophized on as if they were rather common creatures to these peoples. This is an attribute that often pervades dragons stories worldwide; offhanded casual acceptance of their presence but debate on what it meant.
The reality in ancient China actually appears to be that Dragons were believed in for far longer than peasants were finding large petrified bones. Some of the earliest writings from the Far East mention Dragons, long before it was reported that bones from this creature were found.
In many early mythologies from Asia we find Dragons as either God's or messengers to the God's. Again like in earlier Mideast stories the Dragons are most often associated with water and wisdom. But unlike the Mideast and later European stories we find little to no fighting and killing of or between Dragons & Gods or normal people and Dragons.
Instead of fear and loathing or even outright worship, here we find Dragons as being desirable to an area and good luck rather than ill falls to those areas where dragons abide. They are often prayed to for deliverance from bad fortune, bad weather, and even bad men. In fact, very early in China's history the emperors are said to be communing with the Dragons to get the advice of the Gods on how to govern their peoples. But somewhere along the way things changed.
One very widespread story is of the Dragon Kings. They were known as the Four Brothers when they traveled together. All were water dragons and served the August Personage Jade who commanded them when, where and how much rain to deliver to the earth.
Each lived in a Crystal palace and ruled one of the Four Seas via an army of crabs and fish, watchman, and ministers. Their names were Ao Ch’in, Ao Jun, Ao Kuang, and Ao Shun. There is no indication that these kings directly communicated with mundane humans. But their ministers, who are presumably all dragons, apparently did.
In Chinese society individualism was strongly discouraged for most of their history. Instead, one was to subjugate ones will to the gods or their representatives including the authorities in power. And that power usually started with the emperor. The emperor himself was to have received his authority and blessings from the heavens and used it for the betterment of all the peoples. But how often in our human histories was this arraignment going to last?
Originally it was believed that the dragons were the ones who talked directly to the Gods. The Emperor was given the God's will for his people and he in turned passed on this message to the people through his growing bureaucracy. In this way the Emperor was seen to be sitting on the throne by the will of the Gods and thus divine himself as long as he passed on the god's will as spoken to him.
As time went on the Emperors apparently decided to cut the Imperial Dragons out of the deal and claimed to be able to communicate directly with the God's. Of course to protect this monopoly no one but the Emperor was allowed to try and communicate with the Dragons.
This is a subtle but definite indication of the strength of the belief that dragons did exist and needed to be communicated with. Otherwise there would have been no reason to give the “no communication” decree and the harsh follow up with strict enforcement.
At this point the Imperial Dragons were said to have 5 claws and other lessor Dragon's 4 or even 3 claws. It was now death to try and "communicate with an imperial Dragon." But there were still those who did not believe that the emperor was the only one who should be allowed to gain wisdom by talking to the wisest of the God's messengers, the Dragons.
There are more than a few stories from the Far East about various men who sought out this draconic source of wisdom. But to try and discredit them the Imperial court called them "four-men" or those who talked to less than Imperial Dragons. The implication was that only the Emperor could talk to a real messenger from the God's.
Later on these same individuals who learned and used dragon wisdom became derided as Foemen. But all of these outlawed individuals seeking out Dragons were supposed to prove their worth to talk to these wise creatures by helping out villagers against bandits or oppressive bureaucrats and such.
The tales told of these dragon inspired warriors were very much like the quests and deeds done by the much later heros and the Knights of the Round Table.
The Japanese also had Dragon Kings. One of these was named Rinjin or Ryujin. Like the Chinese Dragon Kings he also had a palace under the sea. Like many other dragon stories this one has several versions. In one case it is about his queen and octopus and in another it is about his daughter and jellyfish.
In the more popular version the jellyfish was a handsome creature with strong bones, ornate fins, and walked on four feet. The princess had a craving for monkey liver and Rinjin liking to spoil his only daughter sent the jellyfish out to acquire one monkey.
To oblige his king the jellyfish found a monkey and invited him to dine at the kings palace. The monkey agreed but on the way back seeing that the monkey was a fine creature confessed why the king really wanted him.
The monkey said that it was alright but that he had left his liver in a special jar at home and would go and fetch it. Eventually it became apparent that the monkey wasn’t coming back and the jellyfish returned to the Dragon King and told his story.
In his rage for the incompetence shown the Dragon beat the jelly fish into a pulp and exiled him from his palace. That is why to this day jellyfish are in the shape they are in.
The Koreans also had their very own dragon kings as did the Vietnamese. According to the Chinese their “true dragons” had five claws. All others had 4 or 3. Japanese dragons were said to have 4 claws while Korean and Vietnamese dragons had 3.
A Vietnamese story of the Dragonkings starts when a kindly man named Slowcoach finds a cute little animal named Cibet. But his mean brother in jealousy kills the little critter who is then buried under a tree.
Every time that Slowcoach visits the grave silver rains down on him. This does not get missed by the brother who also goes to the grave only to be rained on by mud.
In anger he cuts down the tree and leaves. Slowcoach decides to sue the fallen tree so shapes it into a food trough for his pigs. They of course do marvelously well and this also is noticed by the brother who burns the trough.
Only a little piece of wood escapes the fire and this is fashioned into a fish hook by the gentle Slowcoach. But when he puts the hook into the lake the water raises, the pole and line disappear into this turbulence, the waves and almost drown him. Out of the water walks a beautiful woman who says she is the dragon kings daughter and that the hook is caught in her fathers mouth.
Slowcoach agrees too free it and she turns him into a bubble and takes him to her father. The fish hook removed the dragon king rewards him with a bottle containing a little blue fish.
After returning home with his reward which he sits next to his bed life goes on. But one day Slowcoach realized that every time he left his home and came back afterwards it was cleaned. To solve this mystery he came back unexpectedly one day and caught the little blue fish turning into the dragon kings beautiful daughter and cleaning the house.
In order to keep her there forever Slowcoach broke the bottle and asked her to marry him. She agree on the condition that he make her some bones which he did. They lived happily ever after.
As a side note the jealous brother wanting to also get a beautiful wife jumped into the lake in search of the dragon king, but knowing him for what he was the dragon king turned him into a fish. And that was the last anyone saw him except that Slowcoach seemed to spend a lot more time fishing when he wasn’t with his new bride.
Another Japanese story tells of a dragon named OGoncho who lives in a deep but small fissure lake not far from the Kyoto castle named Ukisima. The area of Japan where the white dragon lives is called Yama-shiro and is reputed to be a former home of some demi-god. Every half century the dragon changes into a golden bird and flies around. If anyone hears this bird calling it is a warning that famine will soon be upon the land.
From the Indian subcontinent comes multiple stories of the serpent-dragon named Vitra. He was said to have absorbed the cosmic waters from the universe and coiled around a great mountain. In order to bring water to both the gods and the humans Indra battled this dragon and proved victorious when he used his thunderbolts to kill this monster and released the waters of life for all.
This tale is very much like several of the Mesopotamian stories and Vitra is sometimes described as the personification of winter. When winter is killed by the Gods water is released in the spring.
The name Vitara is sometimes used in place of Vitra but often this is a completely separate dragon.
Another interesting tale comes from the Island of Borneo about a dragon named Kinabalu. He lived at the summit of a mountain of his name. He was the possessor of a fabled pearl of immense size. The Emperor of China heard about the pearl and sent an army to get it for him but the dragon killed all but a few. These survivors return and told the emperor about the disaster and said he could not be overcome by strength of arms. So the emperor sent his two clever sons named Wee San and Wee Ping to get the pearl.
Wee Ping could not find any way to get the pearl but his brother came up with an idea. When the dragon went away to hunt for food they would steal the pearl and replace it with an identical looking one.
The first part of the plan worked as Wee San used a kite to get to the top of the Mountain to steal and replace the pearl. Unfortunately Kinabalu was not fooled and went after the two sons who were sailing away in a large junk with the real pearl.
A fight ensued and Wee San ordered the sailors to heat up a cannon ball red hot and shoot it at the fast approaching dragon. The dragon thinking it was the pearl swallowed it and in doing so was killed and fell into the sea.
Upon arriving home in China Wee Ping lied to his father about who had actually succored the pearl and was given palaces and rewards. Rather than fighting with his older brother Wee San left his homeland and went back to Borneo where because of his good deeds and wisdom eventually became a king.
The lying brother Wee Ping did not get to enjoy his rewards as he was either punished by the Gods or else there was a curse on the possessor of the stolen dragon pearl. Nothing but sadness and misery befell Ping and he died a broken and poor man.
Another tale from the Orient is of one of the only Dragons ever to be converted to a human religion. This Dragon was named Apalala and lived in the Swat river. Supposedly this young dragon was converted by the Buddha himself. He then went around teaching others until he tried it with other dragons who drove him away but allowed him to continue teaching the humans which is why dragons were here in the first place.
From the islands of Hawaii come stories of the mother of all dragons called MO-O-INANEA. She is know as the “self reliant” dragon and not much is known of her other than all others come from her. The natives are very reluctant to talk about this dragon and some speculate she may still be around and is being protected by the Hawaiians.
From the Island of New Zealand Polynesians comes a story of a dragon monster (called a taniwha) by the name of Hotu-puku. It seems that travelers going between Rotorua and Taupo started disappearing.
Thinking that neighboring war parties were responsible these people sent out their own war band. At a place called Kapenga they instead encountered the dragon Hotu-puku and were attacked. During the fight several warriors were killed and eaten and the war band had to flee.
Organizing a new dragon hunting party was a man named Pitaka. His plan was to hang a noose across a trail and using himself as bait. The plan worked and when Hotu-puku tried to grab the man he was caught in the rope and strangled.
Just to be sure this was the right dragon the party cut open the dragon and sure enough founds the remains of the earlier victims. These victims were buried and then the dragon was roasted and eaten.
For his bravery and daring Pitaka became known as a taniwha expert and was rewarded as well as in great demand. His next exploits come at a place called Te Awan-hou where a fierce sea dragon named Peke-haua lived.
This dragon lived in a deep water filled lair called Te Waro-uri and could not be easily approached. For this adventure Pitaka used some companions and some magic. He descended alone into the watery lair and tied a magic vine onto the dragon while he slept. He then escaped up to his fellow dragon hunters. Other magic vines and traps were set above the dragon and then he was hauled unceremoniously up out of his home and in the fighting became further entangled and then finally killed. This ended the second adventure of our hero.
Next Pitaka went to a place called Kataore near Rotorue in Tiki-tapu. Here some disgruntled villagers told him they were being preyed on by a dragon that had been named Kataore by other locals.
This proved to be a simple execution as the dragon did not flee when the group approached it and it was easily killed. Unfortunately this dragon was actually the pet and friend of chief Tangaroa-mihi and he immediately set of after Pitaka and party and chased them out of the area while killed some of the so called dragon slayers in this battle. This was the last we heard of about Pitaka the dragon slayer.
Perhaps the most famous of the European dragons is the tale of St. George's dragon. There are two versions of the incident. The first was told by the frightened villagers and appears to be somewhat of a cover-up.
In it a dragon appears at the village of Cappadocia and threatens to destroy the region. In fear they first feed off the villages sheep and then finally start feeding the maidens via a lottery until only the princess is left.
She is tied to a stake and this is when George came by and killed the dragon. But there is another version that was first repressed by the villagers. But as the older people died their children started telling a different tale.
In this version a dragon moved into the region as often happens when they are driven out by a more powerful dragon or are young ones looking for a territory. Being used to catching and eating whatever he can this dragon starts first with deer and wild game but then discovers the easy pickings the farm animals in the area are.
No people are bothered but eventually someone (no one remembers exactly who) comes up with a plan to feed the relatively tame dragon at a certain place and at a certain time with the villagers sheep. The idea appears to make this a more predictable dragon. Not knowing knowing any better the intelligent but inexperienced dragon goes along with the plan. Then as he grows he needs even more sheep to fuel his growing body. Eventually this growing young dragon finishes all the available sheep and comes into this now small town and starts looking around for some food.
This same bright individual (likely having only sons) who came up with the sheep plan now comes up with a lottery for feeding off the unmarried maidens in the town. Since after sheep they were the most expendable asset the town agreed to the plan.
Unfortunately the town had no idea how much food a dragon needs and how protective of his hunting territory he could become and eventually the princess was the only maiden left. So she went out in her turn to the sacrificial pole. Here St. George came along and rather than slay the young and ignorant beastie lectures him on the evils of eating people and the values of christianity in general. He and the princess then put the tame but confused dragon on a rope and lead him back to the town where he is officially converted to christianity, leaves the area, and troubles the town no more.
An interesting and almost “Asian” philosophy on dragons seemed to pervade the Rhine River areas of Austria. Here there were many tales told of the “Butz” which was a goblinesk creature and the “Nachtvolk” which we would call elves. But dragons were in another category altogether. They were not considered supernatural but rather simply an unwanted part of nature like wolves, bears, and mountain cats.
There are portions of manuscripts found in the area of Vorarlbeg (Western Austria) that mentions them in the same breath as losing a sheep to a pack of wolves. It appears they occasionally took a horse, cow, or some sheep but were rather shy about confronting mankind and were thus never seriously feared or hunted.
They were discussed in conclaves of the nobles and determined to be “no threat to the cities and castles” and thus it was though better to leave them to the occasional wandering wise-men and scholars just like in China and Asia. In short they were just another hazard faced by people living in the area but not to be especially feared.
Tarasque was said to be a dragon of a different kind. She was reputed to be the daughter of Onachus (a giant serpent) and Leviathan (a water dragon). She came from the sea up the river Rhone and decided to make her home in Southern France. In size she was said to be bigger than 12 elephants, with teeth as large as swords, scales harder than iron, and with a fiery breath.
Here she settled and was said to terrorize the region for many years. Many knights and heros attempted to kill her. She was , however, too powerful and destroyed or drove off all that came against her.
After seven years had gone by a farmer found her skin with nothing left inside it and everyone rejoiced that she had died. But she was a reptile and every 7 years had to shed her skin so quickly reappeared bigger and meaner than ever.
After putting up with her another seven years the villagers tried to lure her into a swamp and to her death, but she refused to be so tricked and destroyed all the remaining bridges in the area in her anger.
Finally, after twenty one years of failure St. Martha was traveling in the area and heard about the villagers plight. She went out to face the dragoness alone in a white dress and armed only with her faith and a jar of holy water. Apparently that was enough as she led Tarasque back to the town where the now docile and trusting creature was hacked to pieces.
In honor of the event a church was build in Martha’s honor and the town was renamed Tarascon.
The village of Brand was a remote village in Germany in a mountainous valley. One day a dragon appeared and began eating the villagers cattle and performing mischief toward the poor villagers. Every effort to destroy this dragon ended in failure.
Finally a traveling scholar arrived at Brand and was told of the creature. Warning them that the cure could be as devastating as the dragon this personage gave them the choice of a water or fire to be rid of their nemesis. They chose the water.
The next evening the skies boiled with thunderstorms and the fiercest storm in memory descended on the mountains above the village. At about midnight the storm had increased to a veritable tempest and the whole hillside where the dragon dwelt collapsed. He could be seen outlined in lightning still attempting to stay above the landslide until a massive bolt of electricity struck him and he disappeared into the muddy torrent.
In the morning the valley at its end was completely covered in a landslide of rocks, trees, giant boulders, and mud. Of the dragon there was never again a sight and the area became known as the “dragons grave.” The scholar was also never seen again.
A famous Norse story was of the dragon Fafnir and Sigurd the dragonslayer. As usual with dragon tales there are several versions of the story. This one starts with the telling of the order of the world and the great serpent Nidhogger which lives at the foot of the tree of life Yggdrasil. Of his kind come the dragons. But the Norse believe that a dragon can be a state of mind also and this tale explores the evils of the human condition.
Once there were two brothers named Regin and Fafnir. They were dwarves. Fafnir was recruited by the gods to kill an enemy of the gods Otter. Having done so he was rewarded by an immense hord of gold. But Fafnir's excessive delight and greed for this gold slowly turned him into a great dragon.
The brother Regin wanted this gold and so persuaded Sigurd (also called Siegfried in some tales) to kill this evil dragon. Together they dug a hole and as Fafnir walked across it Sigurd stuck his sword into the dragon’s unprotected belly and killed him.
It was apparently good luck to eat of certain parts of the dragon and so after Regin cut out the dead creatures heart Sigurd cooked it. As he was taking the heart out of the fire Sigurd burned his fingers and put them into his mouth. The dragons heart had magical properties and even this little taste of the heart allowed the hero to understand the speech of the birds.
The birds told Sigurd that Regin was planning on killing him and take all the gold so the hero loaded all the treasure onto his horse and rode away.
Other versions have the dragon giving the treasure to Sigurd for his nobility and honesty and departing in peace. It is likely that other versions were made into the story of Drachenstein.
Another of the many stories having to do with the power of dragon parts and dragon blood is that of the Wilser dragon. The town of Wilser has a village named Helvetia near it. In this area a dragon came and was playing the usual havoc they apparently can when undupervised by the gods.
The town magistrate approached a convicted murderer and said that if he killed the dragon his banishment would be lifted. The man was called Winckelriedt and he was handy with a sword and so he agreed. In the ensuing fight the dragon was killed, but as the victor caused his sword to be raised in triumph the blood trickled down onto him and he died immediately.
There is a village in Germany called Bezau that apparently has had more than one run in with dragons. In the first tale there was once a very prosperous farm on a hill named Jolerbuhel. One day a beggar came asking for a little money or food. The farmer did not approve of begging so drove him scornfully away.
The stranger shouted back that the stingy farmer was going to be sorry and that he was going to bring back something for the farmer shortly to prove it. The sky suddenly turned dark and black and a cascade of water and debris suddenly came down the nearby creek. In the middle of the flow was the beggar leading a large dragon on a red cord.
As the farmer stood and watched in astonishment the flow of boulders, trees, and mud was being herded toward him by the dragons deft tail. In a matter of minutes the rich farm was destroyed and all within killed by the fraging debris.
Next the stranger took the dragons red cord and led him through the village of Bezau and out the other side never to be seen again.
In the next tale there is also a lake no more than an hours stroll from Bezau. There has always been a legend that there was a large dragon who made the lake his home. The lake is very deep and no one had ever found out exactly how deep it really was.
No one to this day has ever tried to measure the depth of this enchanted dragon lake. This is true even though another story of this same dragon says that he guards a fabulous hord and most believe it is at the bottom of the lake.
There is a deep cleft in the ground in Sussex England named after the dragon who had resided there. His name was Knucker and he was reputed to do the usual mischief that most European Dragons are said to do. In short he wasn’t wanted by the locals.
As usual there are several versions of how he was killed. One is the tried and worn one of the king offering the princess to anyone capable of killing this dragon. And eventually some knight prevailed, killed the dragon and got his reward.
The other two versions are interesting in that they both involved locals poisoning Knucker. One had a local farmer’s son named Jim Pulk who put poison in a pie that the dragon ate and then died. And of course reusing a classic theme the boy then also died from sucking on his hands and forgetting there was still poison on them.
The third version is that the Mayor of the closest city named Arundel offered a reward and a man named Jim Puttock accepted. In this tale Jim put some poison in some pudding and then when confronted by Knucker talked him into trying the pudding. According to an article in the Sussex County Magazine Jim lived to a ripe old age after killing the dragon.
An ancient Teutonic myth of unknown origins tells the tale of The Black Worm which is another name for a dragon. In this tale the Black was discovered sleeping on a hoard of gold when discovered by a local couple. Since the gold pile was immense the dragon could not quite curl all the around it and this man took advantage of that fact to climb up and pick out choice pieces.
But after grabbing all he could he got greedy and called to his female companion to come up and get her share. Unfortunately this noise woke the dragon and he roared his wrath at their thievery. The man threw down his ill gotten gains and fled. Looking back over his shoulder he saw the dragon and the gold sink out of sight into the ground, never more to be seen.
Another ancient German tale is about a hoard left by a scholar under three large boulders. Scholars were often believed to be magical and found in or near the company of dragons.
Atop these boulders was another large rock now called the Galina gorge outcrop. Shepherds used to shelter from the heat or rain under this rock. The story tells of a young shepherd boy who kept finding pieces of silver and gold under them. Eventually the boys father found out and surmised that they were part of the scholars hoard which was now guarded by a dragon.
Going to collect this hoard and climbing under the three boulders the father suddenly encountered a terrible thunderstorm. He escaped but the three boulders were buried until only the large rock on top was left flat on the ground.
Locals still believe that someday there will be another great storm with lightning, terrible winds, and water. Whoever is brave enough to be waiting on the bridge below will become heir to this hord as the dragon leaves.
The most famous of the dragons of Ireland went by the name of Ollipeist. The story goes that when St. Patrick came to Ireland the first thing he did was rid the island of snakes. But then he turned his attention to the dragons and started imprisoning them. Knowing his fate if he stayed Ollipeist fled the country and in so doing left his mark with his tail in what is now called the Shannon Valley.
On the Island of Largo was a ruler by the name of Ypocras. Somehow he angered an unnamed goddess who turned his beautiful daughter into a fierce looking dragon. But still her people loved her and called her “The lady of the land” and her father built her a cave inside her former castle.
It was said that if any hero was brave enough to kiss her on the mouth she would revert to the beautiful princess once more. Many would be heros came calling but all went away in fear and died miserably shortly thereafter. The lady is still waiting for her true love.
The German village of Sonntag was a prosperous mountain village until one day a dragon appeared. The death and destruction to the region was typical of dragon stories told at this time. Nobody could kill or drive the dragon away.
But one day a Venediger appeared, befriended the dragon and rode away with him. A Venediger was the German word for supernatural being and could be a dwarf or goblin with a love for crystals and rare minerals. It is also the word for the rock merchants from the city of Venice so it was either a small Venician or a dwarf, both with a love of crystals and dragons.
There are many stories told of Jormungand by the Norse people. He is said to be the offspring of the god of mischief Loki and his bride Angurboda. He is also called the Midgard serpent who lives in the sea and is so long that he encircles the whole planet and has swallowed his own tail. This is why he is also prominent in their stories as the World Serpent. There are to many stories and versions to tell here. But they are another example of dragon and serpent stories told at this time.
The city of Heidelburg has always had a love affair with dragons unlike most other parts of Europe. For much of the early middle ages this city seemed to be the very epicenter of friendly dragon activity.
Dragon eggs were first found in the Neckar river nereby. When incubated in the home and raised properly they were grew into loyal protectors of the hearth of the home. The dragons all had the ability to breath fire and so were especially loved by the local blacksmiths who produced the finest steel in the region because of their reptile helpers.
The males of this larger species could fly and a few of the especially brave of the city residents actually became dragon riders. The female dragons were more water lovers and often helped the fishermen. The females were also said to be highly intelligent and some could converse in the human tongues which made them very popular with the scholars and wise-women who would spend much time learning philosophy from them.
In addition to the big dragons there was a race of dwarf flying dragons who nested in the warm hillsides near the city. They were very popular with the city dwellers who did not have the room of the country residents and farmers. AQ small dragon would be a better asset to an apartment dweller than their larger cousins.
All this happy interactions and love affair between the people of Heidelburg and the dragons came to an end when the christian church moved into the area and the clergymen convinced the people that dragons were actually the offspring of the creatures of hell. When they were turned away from and even killed by their former friends the dragons saddly all left the area and were not seen again. Many in Heidelburg wish they would come back and festivals commemorate this ancient friendship.
In the Austrian capitol of Innsbruck of the province of Tyrol was a narrow gorge carved by the Sill river. The Sill ran through a mountain forest that was shunned by the locals because of the rumors of a dragon living there guarding a huge horde of gold.
The locals knew this was true because after floods they would find pieces of the dragons hord washed out of his lair by the high waters.
Problems arose when the dragon found out that some of his gold was missing and went on a rampage to find where it was. He would destroy fields, farms, orchards, and houses until he found his missing gold. No one could stand against the dragon and the region became impoverished and desolate.
A nobleman of royal birth by the name of Haymo lived some distance away but heard of the cities plight. He was a giant of a man standing some 12 feet in height. He gathered up his armor and weapons and came searching for the dragon. When he found the creature the battle began.
The tide quickly turned against the dragon and he fled to the refuge of his cave in the forest. But Haymo pursued his foe into his very lair and after a fierce struggle killed the dragon and cut out his tongue to bring back to the waiting locals.
Upon seeing this proof the locals asked their new hero to become their leader and he accepted. Many more adventures befell this dragonslayer but in later years he regretted all the killing he had to do and founded the monastery of Wilten on the spot where he had killed the dragon years earlier.
Another dragonslayer was St. Margaret. She lived in Antiochia and the story says that she converted to christianity and was then tempted by the governor Olybrius who wanted her as wife. She was imprisoned in a tower and tortured when she refused his advances.
She was also tortured and tempted by satan who finally sent a dragon against her. But she was strong in her belief in the Lord and made the sign of the cross over the dragon and he was killed. After this the governor lost patience with this christian virgin and dragonslayer and had her beheaded. This is still another example of stories that show dragonslayers have a short life after killing a dragon.
This is the story of St. Magnus and his exploits against dragonkind. As a historical figure Magnus is known to have been born between 1698 and 1702 and is variously claimed by the Irish, Romans, and Alemannians. He died sometime between 1750 and 1772.
With some companions he traveled into the then pagan or neo pagan areas of Southern Germany where he constantly battled on behalf of his christian beliefs. He was credited with founding several notable churches and monasteries.
Magnus had his first encounter with a dragon at the city of Kempton. This city was originally founded by the Roman’s around the time of Christ but over the intervening years became a battleground for beliefs. It was repeatedly conquered and occupied by both pagan and christian armies only to be lost again. It was certainly an interesting place to live in if you liked war.
When Magnus came to the city it was said to be empty of men and filled with dragons and snakes. Against his companions advice he decided to sleep in the open just outside the city and was predictably attacked that evening by the dragon (worm) Boas. Calling on the power of his God Magnus was able to kill this powerful boss dragon and chase the rest of them out of the city. The humans moved back in right after this of course.
His next encounter was in a valley called the Rosshaupten on his way to the city of Fussen. Here he had to pass by a dragon who allowed no one to leave his valley unmolested unless he was out hunting. This dragon lived in a cave next to a beautiful apple tree. Everything else was said to be bare and desolate because of the dragons wrath.
Trusting again in his God Magnus walked up to the lair and challenged the beast. The dragon rushed out to eat this impudent holy man whereupon the human tossed resin and pitch into the dragons mouth which erupted in flame and burned the creature to death.
The local version of this is that magnus and his companion Tozzo built a monastery on this very spot. But the official church version is that the monastery was built at Waltenhofen a mile further up the valley from the dragon slaying.
Interestingly many other villages in the area claimed to have had dragons that were driven off by this saint as well. The village of Ronsberg was one of these. Here it was claimed that three dragons were ransacking the area. One of the locals was a sorcerer and he had succeeded in convincing these dragons to spare the village and instead raid the other areas.
This they did until nothing was left standing or alive except Ronsberg where they turned their attention to once more. Before the sorcerer could again negotiate with the dragons they killed and ate him. The villagers offered the dragons a cow which held them long enough for them to bring Magnus to the village.
He brought with him a tribe of bears that he had tamed and set them on the dragons. Outnumbered the dragons tried to get back to their lairs but eventually they were burned out and destroyed by the saint and his tame bears.
In still another story Magnus killed a family of dragons but spared the young one because he was innocent of the crimes of his older relatives. The villagers raised the young dragon and fed him on mice and rats.
In return as the dragon grew he helped to clear the forest of logs and rocks. He even cut the trees into lumber for the locals. As he continued grow he cleared snow from the fields and even helped build new roads. But he was constantly hungry.
The local villagers refused to feed him anything other than the vermin he could catch and so one night he stole a calf for food. Maddened the villagers attempted to kill him in his sleep. One of the villagers cut him with an ax and a stream of milk shot from the wound.
This was by far the best milk ever tasted and so the locals tried to make amends to their dragon. But he would have nothing to do with them and left the area and never came back.
This the story about a well regarded and handsome hero named Dobrynja who lived with his mother who was very wise. He always had to listened to her sage advice on just about everything. Thatg may explain why he was always going off on quests and such. She especially counseled him never to bath in the river several hours away from their home as it was home to a terrible dragon who killed or imprisoned everyone who went into the river.
One hot summer day the hero was riding near this same river and forgetting his mothers warning decided to take a cool bath. Taking of his weapons and armor he left them on his horse as he strolled leisurely into the river to cool off.
He now remembered his mothers words that the rivers first wave would spit fire, the second sparks, and the third wave would bring steam. But everything seemed peaceful and calm.
To escape the hero swam under the water and out of sight of the dragon until he reached the shore where he had left his weapons. Exiting the waters he discovered the horse and all his possessions had disappeared and the dragon was waiting.
Flames came from one dragon head, steam came from another, and sulfur was thick in the air. Looking around in his helpless condition the hero saw only his helmet was still here so he knelt down beside it. The dragon thinking he was begging for his life did not immediately strike.
In this short interval the hero had filled the helmet with sand and rock and then jumped up and swung it so mightily that one of the heads was knocked off and the dragon fell to the shore stunned.
Gorynytch now begged for his life. But not for himself so much as for his own hatchlings who would starve if he was killed. The noble hearted hero felt sorry for the dragon and gave him his parole provided he never again attacked him and the creature agreed.
The dragon had other things in mind now however, and immediately flew up North to the city of Kiev and kidnapped the High Duke Vladimir’s virgin daughter.
On his way home Dobrynja saw the dragon flying towardhis caves with the Dukes daughter and changed his course to go straight away to Kiev where he met with the Duke to see what had happened. It seemed that no one had the courage to go after the Duke’s daughter and when he was informed that the hero and the dragon were recently seen together at the river the Duke order Dobrynja to go to “his friend the dragon” and retrieve the girl.
Not knowing what to do the hero went home and told his mother what had happened. His mother was very wise and sent her son to bed to rest. That night she made a special kind of silk whip and in the morning told the hero to go get his grandfathers horse. He was then to go to the cave which would be unguarded and by laying the whip to the horse the dragons younglings would be trampled to death.
Doing what he was advised he had just destroyed the brood before the dragon rushed in to see what was happening. Calling the knight an oath breaker the fight was joined and the two antagonists fought for 3 days and nights until Dobrynja remembered the whip. Using it he soon subdued Gorynytch and then quickly cut off his remaining two heads.
But the knight had been wounded and sorely taxed by the fight so he bathed in the dragons blood for three days before he recovered and used the whip to remove any poison in the blood he was soaking in. Next he went out to search for the Dukes daughter.
One by one the hero searched eleven caves and freed hundreds of the dragons prisoners. But it was not until the twelfth cave that he found the virgin tied to the wall with golden chains. He freed her and took her back to her father where the story ends without telling us what his reward was.
Hmmmm, what's the first thing you think of when someone mentions a dragon??? Fierce, mean, brutal??? Actually its none of the above. The only way a dragon can become like this is if its attacked negatively by someone.
Dragons are actually gentle creatures that will give you respect if you give them respect. There are many different kinds of dragons, most people know about the Chinese dragon because its on clothes almost everywhere you go now days.
According to tradition, china's history dates back to 3000 BC. Although modern historians only go back to 1600 BC. A clay vessel from about 2000 BC is decorated with a dragon picture.
The Dragon symbol and figure still exist in modern-day Chinese art and celebrations.
Chinese experts were said to be able to tell the age of Oriental Dragons and their origins by their color. Yellow Dragons were believed to be born from yellow gold a thousand years old; Blue Dragons from blue gold eight hundred years old; red, white, and black from gold or the same color a thousand years old.
As one can see by legends, there was a time when dragons materialized from the astral plane into the physical plane on a fairly regular basis. Considering a Dragon's intelligence, it is no wonder that they now Choose to stay away from humans. Most humans want to control, dissect, or vanquish everything they do not understand, and even a lot of what they do understand.
But that wonderful, vast storehouse of Dragon magick and power is still available if a magician will take the time to learn how to approach Dragons and their deep magickal energies.
Do you even think it would be possible for one of them to do that????? | 2019-04-22T06:12:15Z | http://hojosouta.tripod.com/id13.html |
A public event dedicating the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site was held at the site Saturday, April 28, 2007.
National Parks Services Update on Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site! Improvements are underway for visitors.
At Sand Creek on November 29, 1864, John Chivington led the Colorado Volunteers in a dawn attack on Black Kettle and his band, who had been told they would be safe on this desolate reservation. Two hundred Cheyenne men, women and children were slaughtered, and their corpses often grotesquely mutilated, in a massacre that shocked the nation, bringing a new wave of Indian-white conflict to Colorado's high plains along the Santa Fe Trail.
The site hosted a public dedication ceremony on Saturday, April 28, 2007. Improvements have been completed.
It happened in a place where the land rises and falls like ocean swells, and what the earth didn't claim, souvenir-hunters did, until all that remained were trail fragments, faded memories and the restless winds of the prairie. And in this way, a killing ground was lost.
May 1999: Metal detectors bleep and whine as a big man in camouflage fatigue pants, a canvas hat and long hair, plants a tiny yellow flag. "Okay!" A digger wearing a red baseball cap and carrying a narrow shovel ambles after him. He scoops out a thick clump of dirt while another digger runs a magnet over the clod until a rusted bit of metal twists free. "Nail!" he barks.
"Nail!" someone repeats. "Okay!" And off they go. Slowly, methodically, they scan the prairie, then turn around and scan it again, yard by yard, hour by hour, turning up clues along the meandering banks of Big Sandy Creek. So far they have found the following: Tin cans. Buckles. Horseshoe nails. A skillet. A Dutch oven. A butcher's knife, spoons, forks, a brass kettle handle, a metal scraper, broken scissors, ornaments, bullets, and cannonball fragments. In two weeks, more than 300 relics.
On this clear and sunny morning, the archaeologists are confident and happy; they have the feeling that the mystery of this ground will soon be solved. The crew of twenty men and women trade jokes and insults as they make their way through the rutted meadow of buffalo grass, sage and prickly pear 200 miles southeast of Denver. Yet there are times when reality hits hard and faces turn solemn, particularly the faces of the Cheyenne and Arapaho crew members, who have traveled here from as far as Oklahoma and Wyoming. With every lead slug plucked from the earth, they see an old man, woman or child cut down by soldiers as Chief Black Kettle waved a white flag. To them, this is more than an archaeological site. It is a graveyard.
At dawn on November 29, 1864, as many as 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho were camped along the Big Sandy, asleep in their lodges, when a six-foot-four-inch Civil War hero and Methodist preacher named Colonel John Chivington and his men attacked. The soldiers fired on them through the afternoon, unloading more than a ton of bullets and cannonballs, until the creek ran red with blood. When they left, they burned the village to the ground. An estimated 163 people died. Until six years ago, historians, archaeologists and practically everyone else assumed that the infamous Sand Creek massacre occurred exactly where a gray stone monument said it did: on a bluff overlooking Big Sandy Creek, some ten miles north of the withering town of Chivington, on a patch of ranch land owned by William Dawson.
But then two metal-detector hobbyists contacted the Colorado Historical Society with a concern. They'd spent several days scouring the site but didn't find any artifacts indicating that there'd been a fight there. This puzzled researchers, including David Halaas, the society's chief historian and an authority on the massacre. Some 800 soldiers fired rifles that November day. Metal detectors should have found something. Society researchers hit the archives and learned that the monument had been dedicated on August 6, 1950, by Colorado Arkansas Valley Incorporated and the Lamar and Eads chambers of commerce. It had been carved by local arrowhead hunter Paul Steward, who had collected dozens of artifacts there. That same day, Leroy Hafen, then curator and chief Colorado historian, erected a marker of his own on the highway just outside of Chivington that read: "North eight miles, east one mile, is the site of the Sand Creek 'Battle' or 'Massacre.'" Hafen did not say how he'd arrived at the location; he did not say how Steward had, either. For more than forty years, those monuments stood unchallenged.
The more research the historians uncovered, the more puzzled they became. A 1908 Denver Post article described four veterans of the Chivington campaign who'd gathered at the Big Sandy for a reunion--and spent most of their time squabbling over the location. "Before night, every man had picked a site that pleased him," the reporter wrote. "Before the visit of the veterans, every man between Kit Carson and Chivington knew exactly where the fight took place. Now, nobody is sure. The site of the famous Indian fight is left to the prairie dog, the billy owl, the rattlesnake, the road lizard and the cottontail rabbit."
Other articles were equally disheartening. In 1923, a reporter who'd interviewed ranchers in and around Chivington proclaimed the site "somewhere in this vicinity." In 1937, Boy Scout troops tried to re-enact the attack but couldn't figure out where to do it. "No relic of the massacre can be found," the Montrose Press reported. "The site of the battle remains indefinite." To Halaas, a rumpled man with a fondness for bolo ties and a memory like an Old West encyclopedia, such uncertainty was a travesty. The Sand Creek massacre was a pivotal moment in history, he says. After that, the Cheyenne never again trusted U.S. officials. Tribal leaders considered the massacre a declaration of war on their way of life, and it sparked twelve years of intermittent warfare that culminated in the Battle of Little Big Horn.
The massacre was one of the few American military campaigns repudiated and condemned by Congress. In the 1865 Treaty of the Little Arkansas, Chivington's attack was called a "gross and wanton" outrage. By the time the treaty was signed, Chivington had resigned his commission and stood outside military authority; although two congressional committees censured him, he went unpunished. Territorial governor John Evans, however, was forced from office, largely because of his role in the bloodbath.
Losing the location of the Sand Creek massacre, Halaas says, "is like losing Gettysburg." So in 1994, the historical society hired a professional search team from Fort Lewis College to verify the location of the attack. Three years later, after working closely with the Northern and Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, the crew scoured 900 acres near the marker and farther north. Their discoveries: a .54 caliber bullet, a Civil War-era picket pin, a girth-ring from a saddle, an ax, a piece of trade silver and a brass arrowhead. The relics might have come from the massacre, but given the popularity of the creek as a campground before and after the attack, the team was reluctant to reach a definitive verdict. Cheyenne and Arapaho delegates who accompanied the search team gathered their own data. The Cheyenne believed they had found landmarks mentioned in oral traditions, including a fresh-water spring and groves of cottonwood and willow. They held religious ceremonies near the stone monument and said they felt the presence of their ancestors. The Arapaho, however, walked the same land and came to a different conclusion. These delegates stood near the monument and decided the area didn't feel quite right, echoing an Arapaho spiritual leader who'd offered the same opinion thirty years before. The landscape didn't match descriptions in their oral histories; there were few places to hide. The massacre could have occurred elsewhere, they suggested, perhaps a spot twenty miles south where the terrain, fresh water supply and vegetation would have made a better campground.
In the West, it is not as uncommon to lose the site of a battle, or in this case a massacre, as you might think. As they stand on a ridge overlooking the Big Sandy with their shovels, survey equipment and sunburns, archaeologists Doug Scott and Bill Lees explain why. Scott is a Nebraska-based forensic archaeologist who has worked at Little Big Horn; Lees is an Oklahoma archaeologist who's been involved with such projects as the Washita massacre site in Oklahoma. For one thing, they say, these attacks often occurred in isolated areas miles and miles from the nearest towns, areas rarely visited. And after the railroads arrived, the trails that once provided the only access to the locations eventually disappeared. The vast grasslands around the Big Sandy were particularly slow to be settled. Although the area had been surveyed in the late 1870s, most of its homesteading claims weren't filed until a decade later, almost 25 years after the massacre. Even then, the land was populated largely by ranchers and cowboys who were more likely to pass along information through stories and anecdotes rather than offer precise geographical coordinates. Many of the early official maps of the area, including those made of the Colorado Territory between 1865 and 1875, didn't even note the massacre site. Neither did General Land Office surveys from 1872 to 1880, nor U.S. Geological Survey maps from 1890 and 1891. And while the military kept records, many of the battlefield sketches were not drawn to scale and were very general by today's standards. If Chivington had a map, it's never been found.
Eyewitness accounts are often vague, confusing and contradictory. After Sand Creek, for example, there was ample testimony concerning the attack, but few specifics on the location, which was described as anywhere from 25 to 40 miles north of Fort Lyon along the "Big Bend of Sandy Creek," the "Big South Bend" and "the South Bend of the Big Sandy." There could have been a reason for the confusion: Most of Chivington's men were 100-day volunteers who had enlisted several months before the attack. They had little training in soldiering, much less map-making, and might not have traveled the prairie before. They also marched at night, at a double-time pace and navigating just by the North Star.
After the massacre, few of the soldiers returned to the Big Sandy. Those who did came back decades later, like the 1908 group of veterans, who approached from a different direction (southeast from Kit Carson instead of northeast from Fort Lyon) and during a different time of year (summer instead of fall). Fewer still of the surviving tribe members returned. To the Cheyenne and Arapaho, the massacre site was a place of death. To pay their respects, they visited the area, just on the eastern edge of the reservation, for a few years, but they were soon forced out of Colorado altogether. And while tribal oral histories kept the story of Sand Creek alive, historians and archaeologists only recently began paying attention to them. Another source of uncertainty is the land itself. The creek meanders like a rattlesnake through the buffalo grass. Although it is dry most of the year, the Big Sandy has a reputation for flooding after heavy rains. A few months after the attack, a Fort Lyon resident who'd visited the site said the banks had caved in and obliterated all traces of the battle. Even if that report was inaccurate, the creek could have changed course and left the evidence buried in sediment. Bluffs and ridges could have eroded; other landmarks, such as trails and groves of trees, could have disappeared as well. There's also a chance that artifact collectors simply picked the landscape clean. Old-timers who live near Chivington, Eads and Lamar say the Big Sandy was an abundant source of arrowheads, grinding stones, beads, scrapers, lance points, stone drills, thumb scrapers and copper shells. During the "sand blows" of the Thirties, when topsoil blasted the prairie "smooth as a road" and left artifacts "glittering on the surface," families would collect artifacts there, they say. All or any of these elements, say Scott and Lees, could explain why it's difficult to pinpoint the site of the Sand Creek massacre.
During a 1997 town hall meeting in Lamar, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell learned that William Dawson was interested in selling the land where the official monument to Sand Creek stood. "That set off bells and whistles," recalls James Doyle, the senator's spokesman. Campbell, a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, didn't want to see land that's considered sacred either developed or desecrated, so he introduced a bill calling for the National Park Service to verify the massacre site and recommend ways to preserve and manage it. The measure passed Congress unanimously. In October 1998, President Bill Clinton stood beside tribal representatives in the Rose Garden and signed it into law. At that moment, an unprecedented alliance was forged between governments--the feds, the State of Colorado and the Northern and Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes--and disciplines. "This is an instance of remarkable cooperation," says Rick Frost, the project spokesman. "The people who have participated have all made sacrifices. They've been able to come together from a lot of different places and points of view." But keeping the balance hasn't been easy. There's been friction between the tribes. Some Cheyenne delegates, relying on stories passed down from massacre survivors, believe the Arapaho never camped among Black Kettle's people during the attack. And contrary to many history books, Cheyenne lodges were not grouped together as one but spread out and organized according to clan. In light of these facts, the Cheyenne delegates say, the Arapaho would have camped elsewhere along the creek in their own clusters. But Arapaho delegates shake their heads grimly at these suggestions. They, too, have oral records. And those records, along with most historical accounts, say that Arapaho blood soaked the ground at Big Sandy Creek. More than historical accuracy is at stake here.
Under the 1865 Treaty of the Little Arkansas, the government not only condemned the massacre, but promised to repay tribal chiefs and the 112 surviving families. It never has. Although Sand Creek descendants say the search is separate, some wonder if official recognition of the massacre site is a prelude to reparations or a cue to begin negotiations. There's also the question of what to do with artifacts discovered during the search. Under state law, such relics belong to the landowner. If human remains are found--which is unlikely, given the amount of time passed and the wet, muddy conditions of the creek--they would be returned to the tribes under federal protocols. Publicly, all have agreed to follow state and federal guidelines, but privately, some tribal delegates bristled when asked to sign waivers to that effect, arguing that all Cheyenne and Arapaho artifacts should belong to the Cheyenne and Arapaho rather than the landowner. Whoever that landowner might prove to be. For decades it was assumed to be Dawson, a cattle rancher and former municipal judge in Eads. He'd restricted access to the monument after trespassers littered his land--and then two accused him of holding them at gunpoint. (Dawson resigned his judgeship and pleaded guilty to the charges in 1997--not because he was guilty, he says, but to end the "hemorrhage of funds" to defend himself.) But while Dawson might have been cranky with curiosity-seekers, search-team members say his contributions as a steward of the monument site, authority on the massacre and keeper of archives have been invaluable.
Although the National Park Service, the Colorado Historical Society and the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes had until the summer of 2000 to make their determination of the actual site, more questions hang in the dry prairie air. If a public memorial is established, what kind of memorial will it be? Will there be picnic tables or a black monolith like that commemorating Vietnam vets in Washington, D.C.? And how public is public? Some tribal delegates want at least 100 acres set aside solely for tribal use--but if taxpayers foot the bill, should tourists be allowed to visit? Then comes the most delicate question of all: How will the attack be explained? As a battle or as a massacre?
Last year (1998) state lawmakers voted to strike "battle" after the words "Sand Creek" on a Civil War monument outside the Capitol. They changed their minds this spring, but only after historians and others lobbied to have the monument remain intact, as a commentary on its time. Another marker will be added nearby, explaining Sand Creek in all its complexities. Before any questions can be answered, the massacre site must be found. Eight months into the project, with $230,000 committed for this year, researchers are very close. They have scoured a six-foot-high pile of historical documents from places as diverse as the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., to the Big Timbers Museum in Lamar. They've analyzed aerial photographs from the Thirties through the Seventies, interviewed old-timers and studied soil samples.
Here's what they've determined so far: Black Kettle's village and the massacre site are within a mile to a mile and a half of the stone monument. Searchers have found evidence of the shallow lakes where soldiers said they watered their horses, traces of the old Smoky Hill trail crossing the Big Sandy near the village, a fresh-water spring mentioned in Cheyenne oral records, creek banks that fit the descriptions of the sand pits, and bends in the Big Sandy generally conforming to eyewitness accounts. Among the key resources were a map and journal created by Lieutenant Samuel Bonsall, who led a ten-man detachment from Fort Lyon to Cheyenne Wells in June 1868, four years after the attack. Bonsall's map, the earliest researchers have found, not only specifies the location of the massacre, but cites exact distances from landmarks such as the "Three Forks" trail six miles north and the intersection of Sand and Rush creeks eleven miles south. Historians checked Bonsall's coordinates and found them accurate. In Bonsall's journal, he noted that his party, which included General William Tecumseh Sherman, had gathered a wagon load of artifacts at those coordinates, including arrows, spears, scalps, cooking utensils, knives and "Indian baby skulls," which were then hauled back to Washington. Researchers also relied on maps and correspondence by George Bent, son of powerful merchant William Bent, who built the fabled fort in southeastern Colorado. The half-Cheyenne George, educated in St. Louis and a veteran of the Confederate Army, was camped with Black Kettle's people when the soldiers attacked. Although severely wounded in the hip, he survived and later gave historians detailed descriptions of the location of the Cheyenne lodges, the movements of Chivington's troops and the massacre itself. Working off these materials, the searchers studied an area of land on the northern bank of the creek, about a half-mile to a mile from the marker on the Dawson property, and found artifacts ranging from tin cans to ornaments. Although those might have been left by travelers who camped beside the creek before or after the attack, searchers have found other relics suggesting otherwise, including cannonball fragments, hundreds of bullets, and musket balls. This evidence, combined with archival data, suggests that the bulk of Black Kettle's village was indeed on Dawson's land. Artifacts have also been found farther north on land owned by the Bowen family. Chuck Bowen, who works his father's ranch and deals antiques on the side, grew up three miles from the Big Sandy. As a boy, he rode bare backed and shirtless over the scrubby terrain, pretending he was Indian. When he was twelve, he made a war bonnet of turkey feathers, beads and a coyote tail that today hangs on his living-room wall. He and his future wife, Sheri, went on dates along the Big Sandy. They camped there with their kids. Over the past year, Chuck and Sheri have read every book on Sand Creek, researched land records, matched historical descriptions to the landscape and walked the grasslands with a metal detector. Their discoveries: nearly a hundred bullets, musket balls, shell casings, arrowheads, a harmonica, charcoal pits and even a "C"-shaped cannonball fragment. "One day," says Chuck, "I just thought to myself, This could be Black Kettle's village." Although evidence suggests otherwise--during two days on the Bowen's land, the search team found mostly rusty nails, barbed wire and assorted bullets--the Bowen's remain optimistic. "We don't know what we've found," Chuck says. "But we feel something happened here." While most team members are reluctant to venture an opinion until more research is gathered and all of the artifacts are studied, many believe the Bowen land could be one of the places where Cheyenne and Arapaho who'd fled up the creek perhaps two miles were pinned down by soldiers in the sand pits. "A lot of it continues to be theory," project spokesman Frost says. "But things are stacking up well."
On the banks of Sand Creek, Laird Cometsevah picks his way through a grassy meadow toward a fallen cottonwood. Its trunk has been hollowed by time and bleached white by the sun. He studies it awhile, then thumps it with his walking stick.
"When the soldiers attacked, women hid their babies inside hollow trees like this," he says in a deep, raspy voice. "My wife's family did this. One of her relatives hid their little daughter in one of these hollow logs. There was an opening in the side, and this little girl saw everything that took place. She saw the soldiers killing Cheyenne people and then come back and kill the wounded and cut off their arms and cut open women and things of that nature. This little girl witnessed that and was old enough to remember. Her mother came back and got her. I think it was three days later. This little girl was in this hollow log all that time." The Cheyenne elder turns quiet and plants his walking stick in the soft ground. He tugs his baseball cap, kicks a dusty boot. "When you see the slugs and the cannonball fragments, these types of weapons they are finding, you develop a feeling," he says. "When Cheyenne were told to relocate to Sand Creek, they were told to turn in their weapons. But they couldn't hunt, so they asked for their weapons back. They were only given bows and arrows, I think. For the U.S. government troops to attack this village with what at that time were their most high-powered weapons, it gives you a sad feeling. Genocide. I always felt their purpose was genocide. Black Kettle was led to believe his people would be protected at Sand Creek. But they were attacked. Massacred. On their own reservation."
Cometsevah, who lives in Oklahoma, is president of a Sand Creek descendants' group. His great-grandfather and grandmother survived the massacre. So did his wife's relatives. For the past twenty years, they have visited the gray stone monument to pray and make offerings of dried meat, corn and chokecherries. Sometimes they hear horses and children crying. As far as Cometsevah is concerned, the massacre site has never been lost. The main Cheyenne camp lies below the marker, he says, on Dawson's property. "It's not the Cheyenne who are looking for Sand Creek," he says. "The Cheyenne have always known where it is. It has always stayed in the Cheyenne mind. Sand Creek was always there." In June 1978, the Cheyenne tribe's highest spiritual leader, the Arrow Keeper, visited the land and blessed it, declaring it Cheyenne earth. "Spiritually and religiously, he claimed that spot for the Cheyenne," Cometsevah says. "I'm going to do everything I can to fulfill that ceremony. It's sacred to us. If we don't protect that site for our children and our grandchildren, it might be lost."
A few hundred yards from that meadow, Gail Ridgely picks through a hole where a corroded strand of barbed wire was found. Ridgely, who lives in Wyoming, is Northern Arapaho. His great-grandfather also survived the massacre. Like Cometsevah, Ridgely can't walk this ground lightly. "The other day, I touched some of the articles that were found, and I thought that whoever used them probably died," he says. "You think that maybe one of those bullets went through someone's body. Then the sadness came. An overwhelming feeling. Our ancestor's blood is still here. They have not been properly buried." | 2019-04-24T20:30:13Z | http://www.santafetrailscenicandhistoricbyway.org/scmasacre.html |
Petitioner's art collection was seized by customs officials when he was suspected of smuggling the collection into the country. Subsequently, petitioner was acquitted of the smuggling charge, and the objects of art were returned to him upon his petition for relief from civil forfeiture. He then filed an administrative complaint seeking compensation for alleged damage to the property occurring while it was in the Customs Service's custody. When the Service denied relief, petitioner filed suit in Federal District Court under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), seeking damages for the alleged injury to his property. The District Court granted the Government's motion for dismissal of the complaint or summary judgment on the ground that the claim was barred by 28 U.S.C. § 2680(c), which exempts from the coverage of the FTCA "[a]ny claims arising in respect of . . . the detention of any goods or merchandise by any officer of customs." The Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held: Section 2680(c) precludes recovery against the United States for the alleged injury to petitioner's property. Pp. 465 U. S. 851-861.
(a) The fairest interpretation of § 2680(c)'s language "arising in respect of " is that such language means any claim "arising out of" the detention of goods, including a claim resulting from negligent handling or storage of the detained property, and is not limited to claims for damage caused by the detention itself. That § 2680(b) expressly bars actions "arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission" of mail does not undercut this reading of § 2680(c)'s language, but merely suggests that Congress intended § 2680(b) to be less encompassing than § 2680(c). Pp. 465 U. S. 851-855.
(b) The legislative history of § 2680(c) supports the above interpretation. Moreover, the interpretation accords with Congress' general purposes, in creating exceptions to the FTCA, of ensuring that "certain governmental activities" not be disrupted by the threat of damages suits, of avoiding exposure of the United States to liability for excessive or fraudulent claims, and of not extending coverage of the Act to suits for which adequate remedies were already available. Pp. 465 U. S. 855-861.
MARSHALL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and BRENNAN, WHITE, BLACKMUN, POWELL, REHNQUIST, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion,post, p. 465 U. S. 862.
The question presented in this case is whether 28 U.S.C. § 2680(c), which exempts from the coverage of the Federal Tort Claims Act "[a]ny claim arising in respect of . . . the detention of any goods or merchandise by any officer of customs," precludes recovery against the United States for injury to private property sustained during a temporary detention of the property by the Customs Service.
While a serviceman stationed in Guam, petitioner assembled a large collection of oriental art. When he was transferred from Guam to Philadelphia, petitioner brought his art collection with him. In his customs declaration, [Footnote 1] petitioner stated that he intended to keep the contents of the collection for himself. Subsequently, acting upon information that, contrary to his representations, petitioner planned to resell portions of his collection, agents of the United States Customs Service obtained a valid warrant to search petitioner's house. In executing that warrant, the agents seized various antiques and other objects of art.
means of any false statement." Relying on 19 U.S.C. § 1618, petitioner filed a petition for relief from the forfeiture. [Footnote 2] The Customs Service granted the petition and returned the goods.
The Court of Appeals, with one judge dissenting, affirmed. 679 F.2d 306 (CA3 1982). The Court of Appeals reasoned that the United States may be held liable for torts committed by its employees only on the basis of a statutory provision evincing a "clear relinquishment of sovereign immunity.'" Id. at 309 (quoting Dalehite v. United States, 346 U. S. 15, 346 U. S. 31 (1953)). In the court's view, the Federal Tort Claims Act, as qualified by § 2680(c), fails to provide the necessary relinquishment of governmental immunity from suits alleging that customs officials damaged or lost detained property. On the contrary, the court observed, the "clear language" of § 2680(c) shields the United States from "all claims arising out of detention of goods by customs officers, and does not purport to distinguish among types of harm." 679 F.2d at 308. On that basis, the Court of Appeals held that petitioner had failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted.
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict in the Circuits regarding the liability of the United States for injuries caused by the negligence of customs officials in handling property in their possession. [Footnote 5] 459 U.S. 1101 (1983). We now affirm.
personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment."
"for damage caused by the detention itself, and not for the negligent . . . destruction of property while it is in the possession of the customs service."
the statutory language certainly appears expansive enough to support the Government's construction; the encompassing phrase, "arising in respect of," seems to sweep within the exception all injuries associated in any way with the "detention" of goods. It must be admitted that this initial reading is not ineluctable; as Judge Weis, dissenting in the Court of Appeals, pointed out, it is possible (with some effort) to read the phrase, "in respect of" as the equivalent of "as regards," and thereby to infer that "the statutory exception is directed to the fact of detention itself, and that alone." 679 F.2d at 310. But we think that the fairest interpretation of the crucial portion of the provision is the one that first springs to mind: "any claim arising in respect of" the detention of goods means any claim "arising out of" the detention of goods, and includes a claim resulting from negligent handling or storage of detained property.
Relying on the analysis of the Second Circuit in Alliance Assurance Co. v. United States, 252 F.2d 529 (1958), petitioner argues that the foregoing reading of the plain language of § 2680(c) is undercut by the context in which the provision appears.
did not choose to bestow upon all such agencies general absolution from carelessness in handling property belonging to others."
We find the conclusion reached by petitioner and the Second Circuit far from "inescapable." The specificity of § 2680(b), in contrast with the generality of § 2680(c), suggests, if anything, that Congress intended the former to be less encompassing than the latter. The motivation for such an intent is not hard to find. One of the principal purposes of the Federal Tort Claims Act was to waive the Government's immunity from liability for injuries resulting from auto accidents in which employees of the Postal System were at fault. [Footnote 11] In order to ensure that § 2680(b), which governs torts committed by mailmen, did not have the effect of barring precisely the sort of suit that Congress was most concerned to authorize, the draftsmen of the provision carefully delineated the types of misconduct for which the Government was not assuming financial responsibility -- namely, "the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter" -- thereby excluding, by implication, negligent handling of motor vehicles. The absence of any analogous desire to limit the reach of the statutory exception pertaining to the detention of property by customs officials explains the lack of comparable nicety in the phraseology of § 2680(c).
"[The proposed provision would exempt from the coverage of the Act] [c]laims arising in respect of the assessment or collection of any tax or customs duty. This exception appears in all previous drafts. It is expanded, however, so as to include immunity from liability in respect of loss in connection with the detention of goods or merchandise by any officer of customs or excise. The additional proviso has special reference to the detention of imported goods in appraisers' warehouses or customs houses, as well as seizures by law enforcement officials, internal revenue officers, and the like."
"These exemptions cover claims arising out of the loss or miscarriage of postal matter; the assessment or collection of taxes or assessments; the detention of goods by customs officers; admiralty and maritime torts; deliberate torts such as assault and battery; and others."
The exemption of claims for damage to goods in the custody of customs officials is certainly consistent with the first two of these purposes. One of the most important sanctions available to the Customs Service in ensuring compliance with the customs laws is its power to detain goods owned by suspected violators of those laws. [Footnote 18] Congress may well have wished not to dampen the enforcement efforts of the Service by exposing the Government to private damages suits by disgruntled owners of detained property.
which the Government would be obliged to pay undeserving claimants if it waived immunity from such suits offset the inequity, resulting from retention of immunity, to persons with legitimate grievances.
Petitioner and some commentators argue that § 2680(c) should not be construed in a fashion that denies an effectual remedy to many persons whose property is damaged through the tortious conduct of customs officials. [Footnote 25] That contention has force, but it is properly addressed to Congress, not to this Court. The language of the statute as it was written leaves us no choice but to affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals that the Tort Claims Act does not cover suits alleging that customs officials injured property that had been detained by the Customs Service.
Because Guam is outside the customs territory of the United States, all goods imported therefrom are subject to duties. 19 U.S.C. § 1202.
"if he finds that such . . . forfeiture was incurred without willful negligence or without any intention on the part of the petitioner to defraud the revenue or to violate the law, or finds the existence of such mitigating circumstances as to justify the remission or mitigation of such . . . forfeiture. . . ."
Petitioner also requested damages for two other alleged injuries related to the seizure and detention of his property: the destruction of a cork pagoda by customs officials during the search of petitioner's house and the accidental seizure of a sales receipt for a stereo receiver (without which petitioner was unable to obtain warranty repairs). App. 6-7. In his brief, petitioner argues that these two claims are segregable from his primary claim for damages resulting from the injury to the detained goods, and merit separate analysis. Because petitioner did not present this argument to the Court of Appeals, we decline to consider it. See United State v. Lovasco, 431 U. S. 783, 431 U. S. 788, n. 7 (1977).
Civil Action No. 81-2054 (ED Pa. Oct. 15, 1981). The District Court did not identify the grounds for its ruling. We see no reason to doubt the inference drawn by the Court of Appeals that the District Court was persuaded by the Government's argument that § 2680(c) barred the suit. 679 F.2d 306, 307, and n. 2. It would have been better practice, however, for the District Court to have noted the reasons for its judgment.
In three cases, Courts of Appeals have construed 2680(c) in ways that would not bar petitioner's suit. A & D International, Inc. v. United States, 665 F.2d 669 (CA5 1982); A-Mark, Inc. v. United States Secret Service, 593 F.2d 849 (CA9 1978); Alliance Assurance Co. v. United States, 252 F.2d 529 (CA2 1958). In two other cases, Courts of Appeals have read the provision as did the Third Circuit in this case. United States v. One (1) Douglas A-26B Aircraft, 662 F.2d 1372 (CA11 1981); United States v. One (1) 1972 Wood, 19-Foot Custom Boat, FL 8443 AY, 501 F.2d 1327 (CA5 1974). In Hatzlachh Supply Co. v. United States, 444 U. S. 460, 444 U. S. 462, n. 3 (1980), we acknowledged the divergence in the views of the Circuits, but expressly declined to decide the issue.
"The provisions of [28 U.S.C. §§ 2671-2679] and section 1346(b) of this title shall not apply to --"
We have no occasion in this case to decide what kinds of "law enforcement officer[s]," other than customs officials, are covered by the exception.
In view of the fact that the Tort Claims Act permits recovery only of "money damages . . . for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death," 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b), it is unclear whether, even in the absence of § 2680(c), any of the foregoing sorts of damage would be recoverable under the Act. Cf., e.g., Idaho ex rel. Trombley v. United States Dept. of Army, Corps of Engineers, 666 F.2d 444 (CA9) (adopting a restrictive interpretation of the language of § 1346(b)), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 823 (1982). If the sorts of damages that, under petitioner's theory, are covered by § 2680(c) would not be recoverable in any event because of the limitation built into § 1346(b), § 2680(c) would be mere surplusage. The unattractiveness of such a construction of the statute, see Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U. S. 379, 439 U. S. 392 (1979), would cast considerable doubt on petitioner's position. However, because the question of the scope of 1346(b) has not been briefed or argued in this case, we decline to rely on any inferences that might be drawn therefrom in our decision today.
Because petitioner conceded below that the injuries to his property occurred after it had been lawfully detained by customs officers, we need not consider the meaning of the term "detention" as used in the statute.
The Court of Appeals, while properly emphasizing the plain language of § 2680(c) as the basis for its ruling, suggested that the structure of the Tort Claims Act should affect how that language is read. Relying on the principles that "sovereign immunity is the rule, and that legislative departures from the rule must be strictly construed," the Court of Appeals suggested that § 2680(c), as an exception from a statute waiving sovereign immunity, should be broadly construed. 679 F.2d at 308-309. We find such an approach unhelpful. Though the Court of Appeals is certainly correct that the exceptions to the Tort Claims Act should not be read in a way that would "nullif[y them] through judicial interpretation,'" id. at 309, unduly generous interpretations of the exceptions run the risk of defeating the central purpose of the statute. See United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U. S. 543, 340 U. S. 548, n. 5 (1951); cf. Block v. Neal, 460 U. S. 289, 460 U. S. 298 (1983) ("`The exemption of the sovereign from suit involves hardship enough where consent has been withheld. We are not to add to its rigor by refinement of construction where consent has been announced'") (quoting Anderson v. Hayes Construction Co., 243 N.Y. 140, 147, 153 N.E. 28, 29-30 (1926) (Cardozo, J.)). We think that the proper objective of a court attempting to construe one of the subsections of 28 U.S.C. § 2680 is to identify "those circumstances which are within the words and reason of the exception" -- no less and no more. See Dalehite v. United States, 346 U. S. 15, 346 U. S. 31 (1953).
For reiterations of this argument, see A & D International, Inc. v. United States, 665 F.2d at 672; A-Mark, Inc. v. United States Secret Service, 593 F.2d at 850.
See General Tort Bill: Hearing before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Claims, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., 17 (1932) (testimony of Assistant Attorney General Rugg).
"[t]his provision is suggested in the proposed draft of the bill submitted by the Crown Proceedings Committee in England in 1927. . . ."
"No proceedings shall lie under this section -- "
"(c) for or in respect of the loss of or any deterioration or damage occasioned to, or any delay in the release of, any goods or merchandise by reason of anything done or omitted to be done by any officer of customs and excise acting as such. . . ."
Mr. Holtzoff wrote his report while serving as Special Assistant-to the Attorney General. He had been "assigned by Attorney General Mitchell to the special task of coordinating the views of the Government departments" regarding the proper scope of a tort claims statute. See Borchard, The Federal Tort Claims Bill, 1 U.Chi.L.Rev. 1, n. 2 (1933). Holtzoff submitted his report, in which his draft bill was contained, to Assistant Attorney General Rugg, who in turn transmitted it to the General Accounting Office of the Comptroller General. Insofar as Holtzoff's report embodied the views of the Executive Department at that stage of the debates over the tort claims bill, it is likely that, at some point, the report was brought to the attention of the Congressmen considering the bill. We agree with the dissent that, because the report was never introduced into the public record, the ideas expressed therein should not be given great weight in determining the intent of the Legislature. See post at 465 U. S. 863-864. But, in the absence of any direct evidence regarding how Members of Congress understood the provision that became § 2680(c), it seems to us senseless to ignore entirely the views of its draftsman.
See also S.Rep. No. 1400, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 33 (1946); S.Rep. No. 1196, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 7 (1942); H.R.Rep. No. 2245, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 10 (1942).
Cf. 679 F.2d at 309 (Weis, J., dissenting) (discussed, supra at 465 U. S. 854).
The dissent objects to our effort to test our interpretation of § 2680(c) for conformity with the legislative purposes that underlie § 2680 as a whole, principally on the ground that we take inadequate account of the "central purpose" of the Tort Claims Act. Post at 465 U. S. 866-869. The dissent mistakes the nature of our analysis. Our view is that the language of § 2680(c) is inclusive enough to exempt the United States from liability for negligence in the handling or storage of goods detained by the Customs Service, see supra at 465 U. S. 854. Our purpose in looking to the legislative history is merely to ensure that our construction is not undercut by any indication that Congress meant the exception to be read more narrowly. Because of the sparseness of the evidence regarding the purpose of § 2680(c) itself, see supra at 465 U. S. 855-858, we consider it advisable to consider Congress' more general objectives in excluding certain kinds of claims from the broad waiver of sovereign immunity effected by the Tort Claims Act. Because we find that our reading of § 2680(c) is consistent with those objectives, we see no need to throw our analytical net any wider.
For a variety of expressions of these three purposes, see S.Rep. No. 1400, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. 33 (1946); Tort Claims: Hearings on H.R. 5373 and H.R. 6463 before the House Judiciary Committee, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 33 (1942) (testimony of Assistant Attorney General Shea); Tort Claims Against the United States: Hearings on H.R. 7236 before Subcommittee No. 1 of the House Judiciary Committee, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., 22 (1940) (testimony of Alexander Holtzoff); Hearings, supra, n 11, at 17 (testimony of Assistant Attorney General Rugg); Holtzoff Report at 15. To our knowledge, the only arguably relevant specific statement as to the purpose of § 2680(c) appears in the testimony of Alexander Holtzoff before a Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Holtzoff emphasized the adequacy of existing remedies as a justification for the portion of the provision pertaining to the recovery of improperly collected taxes; he did not proffer an explanation for the portion of the provision pertaining to the detention of goods. Tort Claims Against the United States: Hearings on S. 2690 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., 38 (1940).
See, e.g., 19 U.S.C. § 1594 (authorizing seizure of "a vessel or vehicle" to force payment of assessed penalties); 19 U.S.C. § 1595a(a) (authorizing seizure of property used to facilitate the illegal importation of other goods).
The Government's vulnerability to fraudulent claims would be especially great in a case in which the Customs Service took custody of the goods from a shipper, rather than from the owner. The shipper would contend that it exercised due care in the handling of the goods. The owner would demonstrate that he received the goods in damaged condition. In the absence of an extensive system for accounting for the movements and treatment of property in its custody, the Customs Service would be hard pressed to establish that its employees were not at fault. We do not suggest that such a dilemma would automatically give rise to liability on the part of the United States; that of course would depend upon the substance of the pertinent state tort law. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2674. But uneasiness at the prospect of such scenarios may have influenced Congress when it carved out this exception to the Tort Claims Act.
See, e.g., States Marine Lines, Inc. v. Shultz, 498 F.2d 1146, 1149 (CA4 1974); Dioguardi v. Durning, 139 F.2d 774, 775 (CA2 1944); J. Story, Commentaries on the Law of Bailments §§ 613, 618, pp. 387, 390 (1832).
See State Marine Lines, Inc. v. Shultz, supra, at 1149-1150.
We note that there exists at least one other remedial system that might enable someone in petitioner's position to obtain compensation from the Government. If the owner of property detained by the Customs Service were able to establish the existence of an implied-in-fact contract of bailment between himself and the Service, he could bring suit under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491 (1976 ed., Supp. V). See Hatzlachh Supply Co. v. United States, 444 U. S. 460 (1980).
At oral argument, the Government contended that a property owner could recover against the United States under this theory by bringing suit against the relevant District Director of the Customs Service, and would not be obliged to prove negligence on the part of any specific customs official. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-29. Though we do not decide the issue, such an interpretation of the common law doctrine appears questionable to us. Except in cases in which the property owner could demonstrate that the Director expressly authorized tortious conduct by a subordinate, it seems likely that the owner would be obliged to identify and bring suit against the individual whose malfeasance caused the injury to his goods.
The dissent finds "internally inconsistent" the foregoing "hypothetical rationales" for § 2680(c). Post at 465 U. S. 865. Thus, the dissent suggests that the fact that an owner of goods damaged by the Customs Service might recover from the United States under the Tucker Act, see n. 22 supra, makes it unlikely that Congress would have been chary of creating a remedy under the Tort Claims Act because of the risk of exposing the Government to an excessive number of fraudulent suits. Post at 465 U. S. 865-866. But the requirement that an owner, to recover under the Tucker Act, prove that the Service entered into an implied-in-fact contract of bailment would operate to screen out many fraudulent claims; Congress rationally could have concluded that, in view of the absence of any comparable filter in the Tort Claims Act, it was inadvisable to extend the coverage of the latter to owners of detained goods. Similarly, the dissent finds it implausible that Congress might have feared that the creation of a remedy against the United States under the Tort Claims Act would inhibit vigorous enforcement of the customs laws, see supra at 465 U. S. 859, when there already existed a common law remedy against customs officials for negligence in the handling of goods, see supra at 465 U. S. 860-861. Post at 465 U. S. 866. But, as explained above, the apparent requirement that the owner, to recover under the common law, prove negligence on the part of a specific customs official, see supra at 465 U. S. 860-861, and n. 23, combined with the obligation of the United States to indemnify the official if he acted under proper authority, see supra at 465 U. S. 860, would have minimized the effect of the extant remedies on the willingness of the Service to adopt vigorous enforcement policies and the willingness of its officials to implement those policies. Congress might well have feared that the creation of a remedy under the Tort Claims Act would have increased the liability of the United States to such a degree as to curtail the exercise by the Service of its authority to detain goods.
Comment, Governmental Liability for Customs Officials' Negligence: Kosak v. United States, 67 Minn.L.Rev. 1040 (1983); Note, Using the Federal Tort Claims Act to Remedy Property Damage Following Customs Service Seizures, 17 U. Mich.J. of L.Ref. 83 (1983).
of the language used in other exceptions. Congress did not use the words "arising out of" in § 2680(c), but did use those words in three other subsections of the same section of the Act. See §§ 2680(b), (e), and (h). Absent persuasive evidence to the contrary, we should assume that, when Congress uses different language in a series of similar provisions, it intends to express a different intention.
The language of the statute itself is thus clear enough to persuade me that Congress did not intend to exempt this property damage claim from the broad coverage of the Act. I would, of course, agree that, if there were legislative history plainly identifying a contrary congressional intent, that history should be given effect. I do not believe, however, that it is proper for the Court to attach any weight at all to the kind of "clues" to legislative intent that it discusses, or to its concept of the "general purposes" that motivated various exceptions to the statute. Because the Court has done so, however, I shall respond to both parts of its rather creative approach to statutory construction.
In the entire 15-year history preceding the enactment of the Tort Claims Act in 1946, the Court finds only two "clues" that it believes shed any light on the meaning of § 2680(c). The first -- the so-called "Holtzoff Report" -- is nothing but an internal Justice Department working paper prepared in 1931 and never even mentioned in the legislative history of the 1946 Act. There is no indication that any Congressman ever heard of the document or knew that it even existed. The position of the majority -- that it is "significant" that the "apparent draftsman" of the relevant language himself "believed that it would bar a suit of the sort brought by petitioner," ante at 465 U. S. 856-857 -- is manifestly ill-advised. The intent of a lobbyist -- no matter how public-spirited he may have been -- should not be attributed to the Congress without positive evidence that elected legislators were aware of and shared the lobbyist's intent.
"in construing a statute . . . the worst person to construe it is the person who is responsible for its drafting. He is very much disposed to confuse what he intended to do with the effect of the language which in fact has been employed."
Hilder v. Dexter, A. C. 474, 477 (Halsbury, L. C., abstaining). [Footnote 2/2] If the draftsman of the language in question intended it to cover such cases as this one, he failed.
uses the prepositional phrase "arising out of" to introduce a truncated list of the exceptions. Ante at 465 U. S. 857. But the "casual" use of the latter phrase in the Committee Report is as understandable as it is insignificant. It is nothing more than an introduction. In such an introduction, precision of meaning is naturally and knowingly sacrificed in the interest of brevity.
The Court's reliance on the "general purposes" for creating exceptions does nothing more than explain why Congress might reasonably have decided to create this exception. [Footnote 2/3] Those purposes are no more persuasive than the general purposes motivating the enactment of the broad waiver of sovereign immunity effected by the statute itself.
"may well have wished not to dampen the enforcement efforts of the Service by exposing the Government to private damages suits by disgruntled owners of detained property,"
ante at 465 U. S. 859 (emphasis added), its failure to abrogate the common law remedy against the individual customs officer is inexplicable. For I would assume that customs officers' enforcement efforts would be dampened far more by a threat of personal liability than by a threat of governmental liability. Reliance on an assumed reluctance to waive immunity regarding claims for which "adequate" remedies were already available simply begs the question. A basic reason for the Tort Claims Act was, of course, the inadequacy of the existing remedies, and there is no indication in the legislative history that Congress considered the previous remedies in this specific area adequate.
A discussion of the general reasons for drafting exceptions to the Act is no more enlightening regarding the specific exception at issue here than a consideration of the principal purpose that Congress sought to achieve by enacting this important reform legislation.
"Congress delegate authority to the Federal Courts and to the Court of Claims to hear and settle claims against the Federal Government,"
"Congress is poorly equipped to serve as a judicial tribunal for the settlement of private claims against the Government of the United States. This method of handling individual claims does not work well either for the Government or for the individual claimant, while the cost of legislating the settlement in many cases far exceeds the total amounts involved."
of the House and Senate, and crowded private calendars combine to make this an inefficient method of procedure."
"The United States courts are well able and equipped to hear these claims and to decide them with justice and equity both to the Government and to the claimants. . . ."
to suggest that Congress did not think the judiciary up to this task, or that it wanted to reserve such cases for its own adjudication because it is better equipped to weed out fraudulent claims.
In the final analysis, one must conclude that the legislative history provides only the most general guidance on resolving the issue in this case. For any basic policy argument in favor of making an exception will support a broad construction of the provision in question, just as any basic policy argument in favor of the Act's waiver of sovereign immunity will support a narrow construction of this or any other exception. The Government's policy arguments respecting the administrative burden on the Customs Service and the potential for fraudulent claims, like petitioner's policy arguments, are "properly addressed to Congress, not to this Court." Ante at 465 U. S. 862.
Therefore, this is "a case for applying the canon of construction of the wag who said, when the legislative history is doubtful, go to the statute." Greenwood v. United States, 350 U. S. 366, 350 U. S. 374 (1956). I would acknowledge -- indeed I do acknowledge -- that the Court's reading of the statutory language is entirely plausible. I would, however, tilt the scales in favor of recovery by attaching some weight to the particular language used in § 2680(c). And I must disagree with the Court's reliance on the general purposes underlying exceptions when no consideration is given to the general purpose of the statute itself. But most importantly, I would eschew any reliance on the intent of the lobbyist whose opinion on the question before us was not on the public record.
"'any claim arising in respect of' the detention of goods means any claim 'arising out of' the detention of goods, and includes a claim resulting from negligent handling or storage of detained property."
Ante at 465 U. S. 854.
The majority's analysis, it should be observed, puts the cart before the horse.
"The essence of bill drafting is placing a legislative proposal in the proper legal phraseology and form to achieve congressional intent. It is primarily a task of legal analysis and research, rather than of composition. . . . Framing the legal language to embody congressional purpose is not as difficult as ascertaining what that purpose is in its entirety. While a committee (or individual member of Congress, as the case may be) is in the process of working out what it wants to do, the legislative counsel assist it by explaining the effect of alternative proposals. Even after the committee (or Congressman) has settled upon the major outlines of a measure, subsidiary policy questions seem to unfold endlessly. The legislative counsel must point up all of those for the committee (or Congressman) to decide. To accomplish that, the legislative counsel must envisage the broad application of the proposed law in all of its ramifications."
K. Kofmehl, Professional Staffs of Congress 189 (3d ed.1977) (footnote omitted).
Many bills are, of course, initially drafted in the Executive Branch. After today's decision, we can anticipate executive agencies searching long dormant files for documents similar to the Holtzoff Report. We can also anticipate that private parties will attempt to capitalize on this new reservoir of "legislative" history as well, through discovery and perhaps the Freedom of Information Act. In light of the Government's reliance on the Holtzoff Report, presumably it will not assert that this kind of material is privileged when private parties are in search of "legislative" intent.
Finally, the language in some bills is initially drafted by private lobbyists. One doubts that the majority would find "significant" the intention of such a draftsman when that intention was not shared with the Congress.
"Government, as a defendant, can exert an unctuous persuasiveness because it can clothe official carelessness with a public interest. Hence, one of the unanticipated consequences of the Tort Claims Act has been to throw the weight of government influence on the side of lax standards of care in the negligence cases which it defends."
Dalehite v. United States, 346 U. S. 15, 346 U. S. 50 (1953) (Jackson, J., dissenting).
Cf. Feres v. United States, 340 U. S. 135, 340 U. S. 139 (1950) ("This Act, however, should be construed to fit, so far as will comport with its words, into the entire statutory system of remedies against the Government to make a workable, consistent and equitable whole. The Tort Claims Act was not an isolated and spontaneous flash of congressional generosity. It marks the culmination of a long effort to mitigate unjust consequences of sovereign immunity from suit").
The majority largely relies on the legislative history of bills which were never enacted into law. All legislation has it germinal period, but the intentions of the proponents of previous legislation which was never enacted are, at most, a secondary aid to construing the intent of those that enacted a descendant of it. The earlier legislation may have failed to be enacted for a variety of reasons, of course, but one reason for failure is that the reasons offered by the proponents were unconvincing to the majority of the Congress. The same proposal may be justified on different rationales, however, and it is the rationale of the Congress which enacts a measure which defines congressional purpose and intent. In the context of the Federal Tort Claims Act, we have recognized the extremely limited utility, and sometimes misleading nature, of reliance upon the legislative history of the plethora of earlier tort claims bills which failed to command a consensus, acknowledging that the measure ultimately enacted was presented to the Congress in a "new aspect" when it become Part IV of the proposed Legislative Reorganization Act. United State v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U. S. 543, 340 U. S. 550-552, and n. 8 (1951).
See, e.g., S.Rep. No. 1400, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 29-31 (1946); see also Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. at 346 U. S. 24-25; United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U.S. at 340 U. S. 548-550 (The Federal Tort Claims Act "merely substitutes the District Courts for Congress as the agency to determine the validity and amount of [tort] claims." Id. at 340 U. S. 549); Feres v. United States, supra, at 340 U. S. 140.
The Tort Claims Act was one part of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. The Legislative Reorganization Act was the product of a year of work by the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. E.g., S.Rep. No. 1400, supra, at 1. The Joint Committee, however, was not empowered to report legislation. See H.Con.Res. 18, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. (1945). The bill embodying its work, S. 2177, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., sponsored by Senator La Follette (the Chairman of the Joint Committee) was referred to a Special Committee on the Organization of the Congress in the Senate, chaired by Senator La Follette, created for the purpose of reporting the bill. See S.Res. 260, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. (1946). In the House, the Committee on Rules simply reported a rule permitting floor consideration of S. 2177, as passed in the Senate, and a substitute proposed by Representative Monroney (the Vice Chairman of the Joint Committee). See H.Res. 717, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. (1946). | 2019-04-23T06:09:59Z | https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/465/848/ |
Subsets and Splits