The final refrain of Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous speech will echo around the world as bells from churches, schools and historical monuments "let freedom ring" in celebration of a powerful moment in civil rights history.
Organizers said sites in nearly every state will ring their bells at 3 p.m. their time Wednesday or at 3 p.m. EDT, the hour when King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington.Commemorations are planned from the site of the speech in Washington to the far reaches of Alaska, where participants plan to ring cow bells along with church bells in Juneau.
"When we allow freedom to ring - when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, `Free at last, free at last, great God almighty, we are free at last," King said in closing.
On Wednesday, bells will answer his call from each of the specific states King named, as well as at other sites around the nation and the world. At the Lincoln Memorial, President Barack Obama and former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter will join members of the King family and indoor Tracking. John Lewis, who also spoke at the March on Washington, in ringing a bell that hung in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., before the church was bombed in 1963, organizers said.
International commemorations will be held at London's Trafalgar Square, as well as in the nations of Japan, Switzerland, Nepal and Liberia. London Mayor Boris Johnson has said King's speech resonates around the world and continues to inspire people as one of the great pieces of oratory.
"The response to our call to commemorate the March on Washington and my father's `I Have a Dream' speech has been overwhelming," King's daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, said in a written statement.Some of the sites that will host ceremonies are symbolic, such as the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kan., a monument to the landmark Supreme Court case that outlawed segregated schools in 1954. Bells will also be rung at Lookout Mountain in Tennessee and Stone Mountain in Georgia, a site with a Confederate memorial that King referenced in his speech.
In the nation's capital, numerous organizations and churches will ring their bells at 3 p.m., including the Smithsonian Institution on the National Mall. Washington National Cathedral will play a series of tunes and spirituals on its carillon from the church's central bell tower, including "Lift Every Voice and Sing," "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory," "Amazing Grace," "We Shall Overcome" and "My Country `tis of Thee."The Very Rev. Gary Hall, the cathedral's dean, said bell ringing is a symbol of freedom in the nation's history and that many churches are trying to answer King's call to be faithful to the roots of the civil rights movement.
"It's a kind of proclamation of our aspirations for the expansion of freedom for all people," he said. "It's always important to remember that the civil rights movement started largely as a church movement. ... It was essentially a group of black clergy with some white allies."
King preached his final Sunday sermon at the National Cathedral in 1968 before traveling on to Memphis, Tenn., where he was assassinated. King had been turning his attention more toward economic inequalities with his Poor People's Campaign, moving beyond solely racial issues to talk about all poor people and high unemployment.
His presence at the commemorative ceremony Wednesday will embody the fulfilled dreams of the hundreds of thousands who rallied there 50 years ago for racial equality - and will personify the continued struggle for that elusive goal.
When he became president, Obama blasted through a heavy barrier that many before him had only pushed against. But his presidency has been marred by racist backlash and his administration has found itself refighting battles already thought won, such as ensuring equal access to the polls.
Obama is expected to speak just after an organized ringing of bells by churches and others at 3 p.m. EDT, the time when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his spellbinding "I Have a Dream" speech. Obama will be joined by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton at the memorial's steps. Other luminaries include Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, daughter of President Lyndon Johnson, who signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
A march, led by a replica of a transit bus that civil rights leader Rosa Parks rode when she refused to give up her seat to a white man in 1955, and an interfaith service also were planned for Wednesday morning. A march held Saturday drew tens of thousands to the Lincoln Memorial.
Obama considers the 1963 march a "seminal event" and part of his generation's "formative memory." A half-century after the march, he said, is a good time to reflect on how far the country has come and how far it still has to go.
The first lady spoke Tuesday before a screening of the documentary "The Powerbroker: Whitney Young's Fight for Civil Rights." It follows Young's rise from segregated Kentucky to leader of the National Urban League during the 1960s.
Young was one of the organizers for the 1963 March on Washington, which featured Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech. Mrs. Obama is scheduled to join President Barack Obama as he makes a speech Wednesday commemorating the 50th anniversary of the march.
"For every Dr. King, there is a Whitney Young or a Roy Wilkins or a Dorothy Height, each of whom played a critical role in the struggle for change," she said before the screening at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex.
Mrs. Obama said she learned from the documentary that Young drew from his intelligence and sense of humor to face discrimination and challenges. He worked with three presidential administrations, community leaders, business executives and regular citizens to champion for race relations.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
Showing posts with label probably few moments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label probably few moments. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
How the Video Game Sacked Its Rivals
The year was 1988. George Michael’s “Faith” was top of the pops. “Roseanne” was the number-one show on TV. Bruce Willis, starring in “Die Hard,” still had hair. As a sophomore at Bowdoin College, I was rocking a wicked moustache. And a game called “John Madden Football” from Electronic Arts slipped onto the market for the primitive consoles and computers of the era.
On Tuesday, the Madden franchise turns 25, with versions of “Madden 25” for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and next-generation consoles going on sale. Madden stands pretty much alone, with EA’s wallet ensuring few others will be able to match its might in licensing National Football League teams and players or bearing the development costs to set industry standards in motion graphics and realism.
It wasn’t always that way. The original Madden game was several years in the making, and when it came out, it was essentially a football version of the stats-and-blocky-graphics hit, “Earl Weaver Baseball.”
In 1988, it was the most-realistic pro football simulation out there, but because there were no NFL team or player licenses for football computer games, teams were only loosely based on the Hands free access. Players were colored blips on a green-and-white-lined screen. Play success was based on stats. You could only play one-off exhibition games, but you could store those games in progress on a floppy disk.
Even then, you could see the possibilities. That has long been the hallmark of the EA game, as it took out competitor after competitor. Does anyone remember Joe Montana Football, also an EA game? NFL 2K? NFL Game Day? NFL Fever? NFL Blitz? They were all roadkill under the wheels of the ever-growing Madden team bus.
I remember playing Madden for the first time in a computer lab. I wasn’t hooked. It wasn’t as good or easy to play as Earl Weaver Baseball, and in 1991, I switched briefly to Joe Montana Football. That was a more arcade-like experience, with fewer choices and easier-to-master computer controls.
But with a great leap in computer processing power, I switched back to Madden — now cool enough to have just one, single name — in the mid-1990s. I bought and played each annual update religiously, reveling in the ever-improving and more-realistic graphics and gameplay.
I also cussed over some of the developers’ decisions to change controls or introduce new features that scratched the shine off the user experience or marred gameplay. EA and developers are under constant pressure to innovate what’s basically the same game, year after year. Some years, they succeeded. In others, they failed.
For this column, I hark back to earlier versions of Madden, giving you the five memorable features, good and bad. I am leaving out the amazing advances in graphics that we’ve seen through the years, because new and faster hardware have largely made that all possible for pretty much every game.
from the very first version, Madden was about customization, however simple-structured. Back then, there was a blank team you could name, and a roster you could populate, providing ratings for the players. I remember the roster crashed regularly on my PC, and I was forever trying to figure out how to save the roster I had spent hours building before the next crash. Now, customization of rosters or creation of players (first seen in Madden NFL 1996) is all very visual and is handled through menus and icons. You can make your player look any way you want, give him tattoos, gear, rtls, helmet styles and fit him out with other purchased or unlocked kit. Player ratings can be set and adjusted whenever you like. You can earn boosts. Ultimate Team, the online customizable team you assembled through card packs, trying to improve skills and chemistry, first appeared in 2010 and has become a favorite mode for online gamers.
Madden NFL 1999 first let you step back and think about more than calling plays. Using the new franchise mode, you could behave like a general manager, trading players, signing free agents and carrying your new team through over several seasons. Several seasons later, Madden NFL 2004 added owner functions, like letting you bring in consultants to advise on your franchise decisions and set ticket prices to draw in crowds. Madden NFL 2006 recognized that super-rich players could also make or break a franchise and let you take control of your career from your rookie year to the Hall of Fame via Superstar Mode. Madden started letting you play head-to-head with other gamers in Madden NFL 2003, but it wasn’t until Madden NFL 2010 that you could finally take your franchise online and play it against other players. This year, Madden 25 has merged Superstar Mode and the Online Franchise mode, letting you hop between coach or player without having to start a new dynasty. And Owner Mode is back as part of the Connected Franchise feature.
In the real game of football, a quarterback has multiple choices for receivers. In the early days of electronic football games, it wasn’t like that. You locked in one play for one receiver and hurled the ball in his general direction. If he was covered, you either ran the ball or threw it out of bounds. Then came Madden NFL 1994 and the introduction of choice. Early icon passing was done via multiple, tiled windows through which you picked a receiver. That has since been gradually improved and modified to let you pick any receiver you want, on the fly, with a single button push on your controller. Precision passing, both as a named feature and a refinement of the single-choice pass, was a welcome refinement. Just like in the NFL, the quarterback can do a touch or lob pass with a tap of a button or fire a bullet by holding the button down and slightly alter the receiver’s route with a touch of a stick, allowing him to reach around, behind or in front of a defender. The subtlety makes all the difference in a skilled player’s hands and has made Madden inherently more-realistic and fun.
Less fun was the introduction of the Vision Cone in Madden NFL 2006. Supposedly tied to the quarterback’s skill level and tendencies, it totally skewed the game in an unrealistic direction, favoring pocket passers. Great passers had a cone that encompassed nearly everything, from sideline to sideline, while scrambling and running quarterbacks were nearly blind when they stepped back to pass, meaning they were far more-likely to be off-target. Good thing that cone disappeared without a further word and hasn’t been seen since.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/!
On Tuesday, the Madden franchise turns 25, with versions of “Madden 25” for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and next-generation consoles going on sale. Madden stands pretty much alone, with EA’s wallet ensuring few others will be able to match its might in licensing National Football League teams and players or bearing the development costs to set industry standards in motion graphics and realism.
It wasn’t always that way. The original Madden game was several years in the making, and when it came out, it was essentially a football version of the stats-and-blocky-graphics hit, “Earl Weaver Baseball.”
In 1988, it was the most-realistic pro football simulation out there, but because there were no NFL team or player licenses for football computer games, teams were only loosely based on the Hands free access. Players were colored blips on a green-and-white-lined screen. Play success was based on stats. You could only play one-off exhibition games, but you could store those games in progress on a floppy disk.
Even then, you could see the possibilities. That has long been the hallmark of the EA game, as it took out competitor after competitor. Does anyone remember Joe Montana Football, also an EA game? NFL 2K? NFL Game Day? NFL Fever? NFL Blitz? They were all roadkill under the wheels of the ever-growing Madden team bus.
I remember playing Madden for the first time in a computer lab. I wasn’t hooked. It wasn’t as good or easy to play as Earl Weaver Baseball, and in 1991, I switched briefly to Joe Montana Football. That was a more arcade-like experience, with fewer choices and easier-to-master computer controls.
But with a great leap in computer processing power, I switched back to Madden — now cool enough to have just one, single name — in the mid-1990s. I bought and played each annual update religiously, reveling in the ever-improving and more-realistic graphics and gameplay.
I also cussed over some of the developers’ decisions to change controls or introduce new features that scratched the shine off the user experience or marred gameplay. EA and developers are under constant pressure to innovate what’s basically the same game, year after year. Some years, they succeeded. In others, they failed.
For this column, I hark back to earlier versions of Madden, giving you the five memorable features, good and bad. I am leaving out the amazing advances in graphics that we’ve seen through the years, because new and faster hardware have largely made that all possible for pretty much every game.
from the very first version, Madden was about customization, however simple-structured. Back then, there was a blank team you could name, and a roster you could populate, providing ratings for the players. I remember the roster crashed regularly on my PC, and I was forever trying to figure out how to save the roster I had spent hours building before the next crash. Now, customization of rosters or creation of players (first seen in Madden NFL 1996) is all very visual and is handled through menus and icons. You can make your player look any way you want, give him tattoos, gear, rtls, helmet styles and fit him out with other purchased or unlocked kit. Player ratings can be set and adjusted whenever you like. You can earn boosts. Ultimate Team, the online customizable team you assembled through card packs, trying to improve skills and chemistry, first appeared in 2010 and has become a favorite mode for online gamers.
Madden NFL 1999 first let you step back and think about more than calling plays. Using the new franchise mode, you could behave like a general manager, trading players, signing free agents and carrying your new team through over several seasons. Several seasons later, Madden NFL 2004 added owner functions, like letting you bring in consultants to advise on your franchise decisions and set ticket prices to draw in crowds. Madden NFL 2006 recognized that super-rich players could also make or break a franchise and let you take control of your career from your rookie year to the Hall of Fame via Superstar Mode. Madden started letting you play head-to-head with other gamers in Madden NFL 2003, but it wasn’t until Madden NFL 2010 that you could finally take your franchise online and play it against other players. This year, Madden 25 has merged Superstar Mode and the Online Franchise mode, letting you hop between coach or player without having to start a new dynasty. And Owner Mode is back as part of the Connected Franchise feature.
In the real game of football, a quarterback has multiple choices for receivers. In the early days of electronic football games, it wasn’t like that. You locked in one play for one receiver and hurled the ball in his general direction. If he was covered, you either ran the ball or threw it out of bounds. Then came Madden NFL 1994 and the introduction of choice. Early icon passing was done via multiple, tiled windows through which you picked a receiver. That has since been gradually improved and modified to let you pick any receiver you want, on the fly, with a single button push on your controller. Precision passing, both as a named feature and a refinement of the single-choice pass, was a welcome refinement. Just like in the NFL, the quarterback can do a touch or lob pass with a tap of a button or fire a bullet by holding the button down and slightly alter the receiver’s route with a touch of a stick, allowing him to reach around, behind or in front of a defender. The subtlety makes all the difference in a skilled player’s hands and has made Madden inherently more-realistic and fun.
Less fun was the introduction of the Vision Cone in Madden NFL 2006. Supposedly tied to the quarterback’s skill level and tendencies, it totally skewed the game in an unrealistic direction, favoring pocket passers. Great passers had a cone that encompassed nearly everything, from sideline to sideline, while scrambling and running quarterbacks were nearly blind when they stepped back to pass, meaning they were far more-likely to be off-target. Good thing that cone disappeared without a further word and hasn’t been seen since.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/!
Monday, August 19, 2013
Kean computer science students in Union travel 'beyond the grave'
Nestled under ancient trees beside the First Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth lies a cemetery, richly studded with gravestones. Even through few words, the aged markers tell eloquent tales of the lives lived long ago in this town famous for its role in history. The fates of entire families, of patriots as well as unknowns, can be gleaned from the inscribed details on each slab.
A thoroughly modern innovation, developed by Kean University Computer Science students, now provides access to the wealth of information contained in the cemetery. Historical researchers, genealogists and any interested person can hold all the tales from these crypts in their own hands.
In September 2012 Reverend Higgs, a pastor of the Church, challenged Kean University Computer Science students to create a smartphone app to make the burial ground’s information easily accessible. This was indeed no small task as the cemetery contains more than 2,000 tombstones, in various stages of corrosion.
The Kean Computer Science and Information Technology student team, under direction of Professor Patricia Morreale and student Carlos Silva, divided into two groups, one to create an iPhone app and indoor Tracking, an Android app. Jason Bonafide, serving as database developer and administrator, supported both teams.
The Apple iPhone development team, was under the leadership of Josh Lisojo, with Allan Goncalves, Nathaly Lozano, and Harold Liao all contributing in areas of map and features. Lisojo also handled search functionality. The Apple iPhone emulator was used to build the Apple screens.
Daniel Church led the Google Android development team, with Dev Das, Steve Holtz, and Jugal Shah working on map, features, and search, respectively. The Android OS required expertise in Java and XML.The project was very demanding, as each team had to find ways to mirror the other team in search functionality and features. The Apple app (fpc Cemetery app) debuted in the Apple store mid-March 2103, with the Android app (FPC Cemetery) arriving in the Android store in April. Currently both apps are free to download.
The app is easily navigable and even incorporates humor (the search bar contains the prompt “I see dead people”). Users may seek information by name, year of death, age, or section of the burial grounds. Each individual’s file includes birth and death dates, age, cause of death, epitaph and a photo of the gravestone if available. In addition, there are maps and photos of the graveyard, and information for those planning a visit.Reverend Higgs is very satisfied with the final results and said, “The app was well received at the NJ Historic Trust annual preservation conference in Newark. It clearly represents a cutting-edge approach to linking the latest technology to the necessity of preserving and rediscovering our history.
Everywhere I've shown the app, people have been impressed by the quality of the work and intrigued as to how this technology can open new audiences to appreciating our heritage. My sincere appreciation to the Kean team for pioneering this new avenue to history.”
Now, in my 70s and with artificial knees, I walk or cycle and swim laps daily, all of which has kept me aerobically fit, free of pain, reasonably trim and energetic. So in combing recently through the professional literature on exercise and bone health, I was quite disappointed to learn that neither swimming nor cycling is especially good for my bones — at least, not the ones most susceptible to fracture. Swimming, in fact, might compromise the strength of those bones because it lacks the tug of gravity.
That’s what researchers have found when they measured bone mineral density in young athletes who swim or cycle, and even in some who run.
There are two reasons for this. One is the continuous nature of these activities. Bones, it seems, don’t like constant pressure. They respond better to exercise that involves forceful muscle contractions, occurring in starts and stops and with some variety — as happens, Hands free access, when playing tennis or training with weights.
To maintain strength, bones also need the stress of gravity, which is lacking in cycling and swimming and not as powerful when walking as it is when running. Being suspended in water is like floating in space for a short time: Once they leave Earth, astronauts lose bone.
In the famous Nurses’ Health Study, which has followed tens of thousands of postmenopausal women for decades, those who walked for at least four hours a week were 40 percent less likely to suffer hip fractures than those who walked less.
Those who walked for at least eight hours a week (or did the equivalent amount of another activity) were as unlikely to suffer hip fractures as women on hormone replacement therapy, long known to protect bones. As a bonus, walking briskly for exercise also lowered the women’s risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and stroke.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
A thoroughly modern innovation, developed by Kean University Computer Science students, now provides access to the wealth of information contained in the cemetery. Historical researchers, genealogists and any interested person can hold all the tales from these crypts in their own hands.
In September 2012 Reverend Higgs, a pastor of the Church, challenged Kean University Computer Science students to create a smartphone app to make the burial ground’s information easily accessible. This was indeed no small task as the cemetery contains more than 2,000 tombstones, in various stages of corrosion.
The Kean Computer Science and Information Technology student team, under direction of Professor Patricia Morreale and student Carlos Silva, divided into two groups, one to create an iPhone app and indoor Tracking, an Android app. Jason Bonafide, serving as database developer and administrator, supported both teams.
The Apple iPhone development team, was under the leadership of Josh Lisojo, with Allan Goncalves, Nathaly Lozano, and Harold Liao all contributing in areas of map and features. Lisojo also handled search functionality. The Apple iPhone emulator was used to build the Apple screens.
Daniel Church led the Google Android development team, with Dev Das, Steve Holtz, and Jugal Shah working on map, features, and search, respectively. The Android OS required expertise in Java and XML.The project was very demanding, as each team had to find ways to mirror the other team in search functionality and features. The Apple app (fpc Cemetery app) debuted in the Apple store mid-March 2103, with the Android app (FPC Cemetery) arriving in the Android store in April. Currently both apps are free to download.
The app is easily navigable and even incorporates humor (the search bar contains the prompt “I see dead people”). Users may seek information by name, year of death, age, or section of the burial grounds. Each individual’s file includes birth and death dates, age, cause of death, epitaph and a photo of the gravestone if available. In addition, there are maps and photos of the graveyard, and information for those planning a visit.Reverend Higgs is very satisfied with the final results and said, “The app was well received at the NJ Historic Trust annual preservation conference in Newark. It clearly represents a cutting-edge approach to linking the latest technology to the necessity of preserving and rediscovering our history.
Everywhere I've shown the app, people have been impressed by the quality of the work and intrigued as to how this technology can open new audiences to appreciating our heritage. My sincere appreciation to the Kean team for pioneering this new avenue to history.”
Now, in my 70s and with artificial knees, I walk or cycle and swim laps daily, all of which has kept me aerobically fit, free of pain, reasonably trim and energetic. So in combing recently through the professional literature on exercise and bone health, I was quite disappointed to learn that neither swimming nor cycling is especially good for my bones — at least, not the ones most susceptible to fracture. Swimming, in fact, might compromise the strength of those bones because it lacks the tug of gravity.
That’s what researchers have found when they measured bone mineral density in young athletes who swim or cycle, and even in some who run.
There are two reasons for this. One is the continuous nature of these activities. Bones, it seems, don’t like constant pressure. They respond better to exercise that involves forceful muscle contractions, occurring in starts and stops and with some variety — as happens, Hands free access, when playing tennis or training with weights.
To maintain strength, bones also need the stress of gravity, which is lacking in cycling and swimming and not as powerful when walking as it is when running. Being suspended in water is like floating in space for a short time: Once they leave Earth, astronauts lose bone.
In the famous Nurses’ Health Study, which has followed tens of thousands of postmenopausal women for decades, those who walked for at least four hours a week were 40 percent less likely to suffer hip fractures than those who walked less.
Those who walked for at least eight hours a week (or did the equivalent amount of another activity) were as unlikely to suffer hip fractures as women on hormone replacement therapy, long known to protect bones. As a bonus, walking briskly for exercise also lowered the women’s risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and stroke.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
Monday, August 12, 2013
Capital's role in the economic crisis
Two stories illustrate central dynamics of our time – the climate of fear generated around migration and the rise in house prices ('Go home' campaign denounced by human rights groups, Buy-to-let fuels property boom, both 9 August).
The house price rise, especially in London, is caused partly by the international movement of money as the wealthy seek to capitalise on speculative investment. At the same time those with access to money can borrow more and invest in buy-to-let properties, to profit from those who must rent. So this system works to move capital to where it will make more and to divide those who have it from those who don't. Wealth accumulates in fewer hands and and its movement produces rapid, uneven developments.
Writ large, that is the story of our world, and the free flow of capital is followed inevitably by the flow of rtls, as people move from areas of forced decline to wherever there is a prospect of work. Employers benefit from cheaper labour but the migrants are blamed for displacing unskilled workers and competing for scarce resources in housing and health.
To reverse these processes requires economic planning and wealth taxes to put accumulated private capital back towards social use; in the UK the ￡4.5 trillion owned by the top 10% could pay off the national debt four times or finance re-skilling, infrastructure, green technology and much else. It also requires politicians and media to stop blaming the migrants, refugees and other victims of the system, and to look instead at how to rebuild our world so it is more use to all who have to live in it.
As Larry Elliott rightly says, the proliferation of zero-hours contracts represents an increase in the "reserve army of labour" in an attempt to reverse a long-term decline in profitability (Why stop at zero hours? Why not revive child labour, 5 August). But neither this nor the other responses he mentions, such as financialisation, can ultimately overcome the tendency for profit rates to fall.
This is an inherent feature of capitalist competition, resulting not from pressure on prices but from each capitalist's attempt to raise their individual profit rate by investing in more capital-intensive production processes. The overall capital, relative to total profit, goes up, and the profit rate goes down.
Although such things as attacks on wages can offset the basic tendency, sooner or later it results in crises such as the one in progress since 2008. Since the cause is too much capital, the only cure (within capitalism) is destruction of capital through bankruptcy of less-profitable enterprises. Palliatives such as increasing workers' purchasing power can help the system limp along for a while but only at the cost of preparing a bigger and worse crisis.
Said quarterback Andrew Luck: "He's a phenomenal football player. He's going to make plays. You do sort of say, 'All right, T.Y.' He's going to do something special when he's on the field. He has that factor to him."
It's been a long time, maybe forever, since the Colts have had anyone like Hilton. And to think, the Colts got Hilton in the third round with the 92nd pick. Twelve receivers went before him, in large part because a quadriceps injury kept him out of the Senior Bowl and the NFL Scouting Combine."That bothered me," Hilton said. "I've always played with a chip on my shoulder."
Indy has learned quickly, Hilton is much more than simply a burner. He's got hands. He's a superior route runner. And he's a student of the game, having spent the off-season studying what it is that has made Reggie Wayne so great all these years. Specifically, he spent the summer studying Wayne's footwork and his ability to come back to the football.
The same couldn't be said of the Colts in general, who looked awful their first time out. But again, Indoor Positioning System. How many times did the Colts go winless prior to ripping off another 12-win season? If they look this bad in the third game, then howl.
It's darned near impossible to offer sober analysis on a first preseason game, especially with so many starters either sitting or playing only two series. Keep in mind, Buffalo played many of its first-team players deep into the first half, using rookie quarterback E.J. Manuel the entire half.
The house price rise, especially in London, is caused partly by the international movement of money as the wealthy seek to capitalise on speculative investment. At the same time those with access to money can borrow more and invest in buy-to-let properties, to profit from those who must rent. So this system works to move capital to where it will make more and to divide those who have it from those who don't. Wealth accumulates in fewer hands and and its movement produces rapid, uneven developments.
Writ large, that is the story of our world, and the free flow of capital is followed inevitably by the flow of rtls, as people move from areas of forced decline to wherever there is a prospect of work. Employers benefit from cheaper labour but the migrants are blamed for displacing unskilled workers and competing for scarce resources in housing and health.
To reverse these processes requires economic planning and wealth taxes to put accumulated private capital back towards social use; in the UK the ￡4.5 trillion owned by the top 10% could pay off the national debt four times or finance re-skilling, infrastructure, green technology and much else. It also requires politicians and media to stop blaming the migrants, refugees and other victims of the system, and to look instead at how to rebuild our world so it is more use to all who have to live in it.
As Larry Elliott rightly says, the proliferation of zero-hours contracts represents an increase in the "reserve army of labour" in an attempt to reverse a long-term decline in profitability (Why stop at zero hours? Why not revive child labour, 5 August). But neither this nor the other responses he mentions, such as financialisation, can ultimately overcome the tendency for profit rates to fall.
This is an inherent feature of capitalist competition, resulting not from pressure on prices but from each capitalist's attempt to raise their individual profit rate by investing in more capital-intensive production processes. The overall capital, relative to total profit, goes up, and the profit rate goes down.
Although such things as attacks on wages can offset the basic tendency, sooner or later it results in crises such as the one in progress since 2008. Since the cause is too much capital, the only cure (within capitalism) is destruction of capital through bankruptcy of less-profitable enterprises. Palliatives such as increasing workers' purchasing power can help the system limp along for a while but only at the cost of preparing a bigger and worse crisis.
Said quarterback Andrew Luck: "He's a phenomenal football player. He's going to make plays. You do sort of say, 'All right, T.Y.' He's going to do something special when he's on the field. He has that factor to him."
It's been a long time, maybe forever, since the Colts have had anyone like Hilton. And to think, the Colts got Hilton in the third round with the 92nd pick. Twelve receivers went before him, in large part because a quadriceps injury kept him out of the Senior Bowl and the NFL Scouting Combine."That bothered me," Hilton said. "I've always played with a chip on my shoulder."
Indy has learned quickly, Hilton is much more than simply a burner. He's got hands. He's a superior route runner. And he's a student of the game, having spent the off-season studying what it is that has made Reggie Wayne so great all these years. Specifically, he spent the summer studying Wayne's footwork and his ability to come back to the football.
The same couldn't be said of the Colts in general, who looked awful their first time out. But again, Indoor Positioning System. How many times did the Colts go winless prior to ripping off another 12-win season? If they look this bad in the third game, then howl.
It's darned near impossible to offer sober analysis on a first preseason game, especially with so many starters either sitting or playing only two series. Keep in mind, Buffalo played many of its first-team players deep into the first half, using rookie quarterback E.J. Manuel the entire half.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Okanagan College Esthetics program scores
A global leader in professional skin care has partnered with Okanagan College to offer students in the new and enhanced Esthetics and Nail Technology program a range of innovative training and professional development opportunities starting this September.
The Okanagan College Spa Training Centre is now officially designated as a Dermalogica Partnership School. This prestigious association connects students with the professional Dermalogica skin-health product line developed by the International Dermal Institute.
Dermalogica is renowned in the esthetics industry for the high quality of its products and its emphasis on providing excellence in education through training and awards initiatives. Students at Dermalogica Partnership Schools around the world benefit by gaining business knowledge and advanced skin-care skills from one of the most respected names in the professional skin consultation and treatment field.
Learning initiatives for students in the Esthetics and Nail Technology program now include introductions to products and therapies unique to Dermalogica, as well as business-focused learning that indoor Tracking, event planning, and advanced retailing. After graduation, the connection with Dermalogica continues as students have access to further post-graduate professional development opportunities.
This fall, students in Okanagan College’s Esthetics and Nail Technology program can enjoy a new and enhanced curriculum that gives them the full range of skills needed for careers in the growing field of esthetics. Students are trained in a wide variety of spa treatments, ranging from manicures and pedicures to facials, make-up application, and relaxation massage.
The College blends theory and practical application, using field trips, guest speakers, practicum, and a visit to a spa tradeshow where students can learn and make career connections.
Esthetics and Nail Technology graduates have an extremely high job placement rate within a month of graduation, with students easily finding rewarding work in many different settings such as day spas, destination spas, cruise ships and in their own entrepreneurial ventures.
I reflected a little on my response to his pain and realized that "tough love" grandparenting doesn't always work and leaves you feeling lousy. Very similar to a work-related performance evaluation, I realized I required more training in this field.
I decided to contact a couple of experts on how to be more supportive to sensitive kids. Although some of this is "Love 101" common-sense stuff, it's a good review for grandparents — for me, in particular. These experts gave me some insight in supporting kids who have some self-esteem issues as well.
Heck, when I was 10, I didn't know what self-esteem was. Are kids today oversensitive and do they have more issues to deal with? I don't know, but I suspect they might.I feel kids today lose out on that experience of life that most of us baby boomers had. Going outside and Indoor Positioning System. Riding our bikes, figuring things out on our own, making mistakes, doing things with our hands. Many of today's kids can't venture outside unsupervised like we did — it's a different world than the one we grew up in.
We could be happy, innocent kids unaware of many of the bad things going on in the world, but I don't know if that is the case for children today. They get to witness replays of disasters time after time, and for my grandchildren our country has been at war their entire lives. There is so much of a "dark side" world they see daily.
The first expert I reached out to was Dr. Steve Bingner, a licensed psychologist with the Center for Effective Living, here in Rochester. Dr. Bingner indicated that we need to be very good listeners to our grandkids. We should try to determine how they are feeling, to see where they are at and not to just try to quickly fix everything for them.Bingner said we need to empathize with our grandchildren and validate their emotions. I should have said, "I have been stung before and it hurts a great deal. Let's see if I can put something on it to make it feel better."
We should consider that any concern or emotion is an opportunity for intimacy and to teach. Dr. Bingner said that maybe a mood or outburst might be a specific problem that is an obstacle to them. Heck, maybe they are just having trouble with their math homework.
My opinion is that involving kids in real jobs and activities that offer a little bit of a challenge is a good thing. This is something I try to do by getting the grandkids to help water our flowers, wash vehicles, sweep the garage and even do some painting. If they can help you with something, it gives you the opportunity to tell them how valuable they have been.
Dr. Else also mentioned that kids need to feel part of something. They need to know they are an important part of the family. If we can also connect them in positive ways to different pieces of society, such as school, activities, church, they will feel they belong.
We all see the things that make us feel bad. We've witnessed grandparents or parents screaming at their kids in sporting events. Ridiculing their performance. Maybe they are 10 and maybe they are 17, it still hurts them a great deal. I witnessed this on many occasions as a high school basketball official.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
The Okanagan College Spa Training Centre is now officially designated as a Dermalogica Partnership School. This prestigious association connects students with the professional Dermalogica skin-health product line developed by the International Dermal Institute.
Dermalogica is renowned in the esthetics industry for the high quality of its products and its emphasis on providing excellence in education through training and awards initiatives. Students at Dermalogica Partnership Schools around the world benefit by gaining business knowledge and advanced skin-care skills from one of the most respected names in the professional skin consultation and treatment field.
Learning initiatives for students in the Esthetics and Nail Technology program now include introductions to products and therapies unique to Dermalogica, as well as business-focused learning that indoor Tracking, event planning, and advanced retailing. After graduation, the connection with Dermalogica continues as students have access to further post-graduate professional development opportunities.
This fall, students in Okanagan College’s Esthetics and Nail Technology program can enjoy a new and enhanced curriculum that gives them the full range of skills needed for careers in the growing field of esthetics. Students are trained in a wide variety of spa treatments, ranging from manicures and pedicures to facials, make-up application, and relaxation massage.
The College blends theory and practical application, using field trips, guest speakers, practicum, and a visit to a spa tradeshow where students can learn and make career connections.
Esthetics and Nail Technology graduates have an extremely high job placement rate within a month of graduation, with students easily finding rewarding work in many different settings such as day spas, destination spas, cruise ships and in their own entrepreneurial ventures.
I reflected a little on my response to his pain and realized that "tough love" grandparenting doesn't always work and leaves you feeling lousy. Very similar to a work-related performance evaluation, I realized I required more training in this field.
I decided to contact a couple of experts on how to be more supportive to sensitive kids. Although some of this is "Love 101" common-sense stuff, it's a good review for grandparents — for me, in particular. These experts gave me some insight in supporting kids who have some self-esteem issues as well.
Heck, when I was 10, I didn't know what self-esteem was. Are kids today oversensitive and do they have more issues to deal with? I don't know, but I suspect they might.I feel kids today lose out on that experience of life that most of us baby boomers had. Going outside and Indoor Positioning System. Riding our bikes, figuring things out on our own, making mistakes, doing things with our hands. Many of today's kids can't venture outside unsupervised like we did — it's a different world than the one we grew up in.
We could be happy, innocent kids unaware of many of the bad things going on in the world, but I don't know if that is the case for children today. They get to witness replays of disasters time after time, and for my grandchildren our country has been at war their entire lives. There is so much of a "dark side" world they see daily.
The first expert I reached out to was Dr. Steve Bingner, a licensed psychologist with the Center for Effective Living, here in Rochester. Dr. Bingner indicated that we need to be very good listeners to our grandkids. We should try to determine how they are feeling, to see where they are at and not to just try to quickly fix everything for them.Bingner said we need to empathize with our grandchildren and validate their emotions. I should have said, "I have been stung before and it hurts a great deal. Let's see if I can put something on it to make it feel better."
We should consider that any concern or emotion is an opportunity for intimacy and to teach. Dr. Bingner said that maybe a mood or outburst might be a specific problem that is an obstacle to them. Heck, maybe they are just having trouble with their math homework.
My opinion is that involving kids in real jobs and activities that offer a little bit of a challenge is a good thing. This is something I try to do by getting the grandkids to help water our flowers, wash vehicles, sweep the garage and even do some painting. If they can help you with something, it gives you the opportunity to tell them how valuable they have been.
Dr. Else also mentioned that kids need to feel part of something. They need to know they are an important part of the family. If we can also connect them in positive ways to different pieces of society, such as school, activities, church, they will feel they belong.
We all see the things that make us feel bad. We've witnessed grandparents or parents screaming at their kids in sporting events. Ridiculing their performance. Maybe they are 10 and maybe they are 17, it still hurts them a great deal. I witnessed this on many occasions as a high school basketball official.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Protect yourself from creep
Last week, I described my debt situation as leaving the casino busted, ready to face the consequences of my gambling. But what if, as you stepped outside, you found a loose scratch ticket on the ground, and it came up a winner?
Two weeks after my months of living largely on credit ended as a result of the banks denying me any more fantasy funds the payoff I had been gambling on finally came through. Amazon offered my comedy group a contract and an order for six sitcom-episode scripts. Not a lot of money, but enough to cover my debt after taxes. I had just pulled off the financial equivalent of jumping a bicycle over the Grand Canyon.
To ground what seems like a dramatic, real time Location system, this Amazon deal was the result of my previous 10 years working in comedy. Each stepping stone can be traced back, eventually to the first time I stepped on stage at the downtown Comedy Works on May 14, 2003. So lest this seem like an improbable rags to, well, less ragged, tale, it's spread over a long timeline.
Was it wise? Not at all. Living on beans and rice and adhering to a strict budget while pursuing one's dreams is wise. Wading blithely into the swamps of credit-card debt is not. When I was approached for this column, I had my reservations about accepting it, mainly because I did not want to address my own stupid behavior.
All told, as the wild roller coaster ride pulls back into the station, I am at least left with some valuable lessons, which I can share with you after my firsthand experience making these mistakes.Don't open a credit card. I have plenty of friends who bemoan the fact that they've never been offered a credit card. Good for them. A credit card is not a status symbol despite the imagery used to sell them to you. A credit card is a big bank's debit card. That's the best way to view them. If you already have a credit card?
Destroy your physical cards. Having a credit card in your wallet just for emergencies, you tell yourself is nothing but bait. You may not normally use it, but if you came across the right item at the right price...Likewise for keeping it in your rtls. If you just don't feel right cutting the card up, put it in a jar of water in the freezer. At least it will take you some time to access it if you feel compelled to use it.
Never use credit cards as an online payment option. If you use a credit card number for online shopping, you just made it that much easier to spend money that isn't yours. Online shopping is the impulse buyer's best friend, so the worst thing you could pair that with is a seemingly bottomless source of funds.
Take the time to do the math. If you're like me and despise math, steel yourself and actually figure out how long it will take you to pay off your debt using only the minimum monthly payment. In your head you may think "forever," but having the actual amount of time is both sobering and inspiring. You can't work toward "forever," but you can work toward reducing a real number. It will also motivate you to pay more than the monthly minimum.
It's never too late to put on the brakes. When you're sinking quickly into debt, it's easy to lose perspective. "Well, I'm already $12,000 in, what's another $1,000?" The answer is, of course, $1,000 plus the accumulated interest by the time you eventually get around to paying it, which could result in a much larger amount. It's a lot easier to extricate yourself when you're ankle-deep in quicksand than neck-deep.
After my free fall of living on credit, it feels good to live on a budget. It feels like I have both hands on the wheel of my life, and the money I spend comes out of my bank account. If I don't have the money in there, there's nothing to spend. And that's the way it should be.
Slocan Valley residents unable to use their water following a fuel spill last month can now visit Winlaw elementary school for access to water, showers, washrooms, and disaster relief personnel.Executive Flight Centre, which owned the tanker that spilled its load of jet fuel into Lemon Creek, has opened what it calls a "community resiliency centre."But a Winlaw man says while it's a nice gesture, it's not really what affected residents need most.
"I don't want to diminish it, but if they wanted to help us, our health should be monitored and finances made available to compensate us, because it was human-caused," Michael Kaye told the Star. "The community wants hands-on help with their yards and animals that are badly affected."
Kaye, who lives around the corner from the school, said he feels "abandoned, stranded, and abused" since the spill. Although he has a deep well and therefore his water was not affected, he says the fumes took a toll on his lungs, leaving him with a sore throat, headaches, and nausea.
Interior Health says in most cases, well water is not affected. However, shallow wells close to the creek or rivers, particularly those in gravel or sandy soils, may be affected. The health authority says residents shouldn't use their well water if there is a fuel smell in the well or at any tap.
Garden vegetables, fruit, eggs, and dairy milk contacted by the fuel vapour are safe to consume as long as they don't smell like fuel or have a fuel sheen, Interior Health said. But they recommend washing fruit and vegetables thoroughly — easier said than done given that many residents aren't able to use their tap water.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Two weeks after my months of living largely on credit ended as a result of the banks denying me any more fantasy funds the payoff I had been gambling on finally came through. Amazon offered my comedy group a contract and an order for six sitcom-episode scripts. Not a lot of money, but enough to cover my debt after taxes. I had just pulled off the financial equivalent of jumping a bicycle over the Grand Canyon.
To ground what seems like a dramatic, real time Location system, this Amazon deal was the result of my previous 10 years working in comedy. Each stepping stone can be traced back, eventually to the first time I stepped on stage at the downtown Comedy Works on May 14, 2003. So lest this seem like an improbable rags to, well, less ragged, tale, it's spread over a long timeline.
Was it wise? Not at all. Living on beans and rice and adhering to a strict budget while pursuing one's dreams is wise. Wading blithely into the swamps of credit-card debt is not. When I was approached for this column, I had my reservations about accepting it, mainly because I did not want to address my own stupid behavior.
All told, as the wild roller coaster ride pulls back into the station, I am at least left with some valuable lessons, which I can share with you after my firsthand experience making these mistakes.Don't open a credit card. I have plenty of friends who bemoan the fact that they've never been offered a credit card. Good for them. A credit card is not a status symbol despite the imagery used to sell them to you. A credit card is a big bank's debit card. That's the best way to view them. If you already have a credit card?
Destroy your physical cards. Having a credit card in your wallet just for emergencies, you tell yourself is nothing but bait. You may not normally use it, but if you came across the right item at the right price...Likewise for keeping it in your rtls. If you just don't feel right cutting the card up, put it in a jar of water in the freezer. At least it will take you some time to access it if you feel compelled to use it.
Never use credit cards as an online payment option. If you use a credit card number for online shopping, you just made it that much easier to spend money that isn't yours. Online shopping is the impulse buyer's best friend, so the worst thing you could pair that with is a seemingly bottomless source of funds.
Take the time to do the math. If you're like me and despise math, steel yourself and actually figure out how long it will take you to pay off your debt using only the minimum monthly payment. In your head you may think "forever," but having the actual amount of time is both sobering and inspiring. You can't work toward "forever," but you can work toward reducing a real number. It will also motivate you to pay more than the monthly minimum.
It's never too late to put on the brakes. When you're sinking quickly into debt, it's easy to lose perspective. "Well, I'm already $12,000 in, what's another $1,000?" The answer is, of course, $1,000 plus the accumulated interest by the time you eventually get around to paying it, which could result in a much larger amount. It's a lot easier to extricate yourself when you're ankle-deep in quicksand than neck-deep.
After my free fall of living on credit, it feels good to live on a budget. It feels like I have both hands on the wheel of my life, and the money I spend comes out of my bank account. If I don't have the money in there, there's nothing to spend. And that's the way it should be.
Slocan Valley residents unable to use their water following a fuel spill last month can now visit Winlaw elementary school for access to water, showers, washrooms, and disaster relief personnel.Executive Flight Centre, which owned the tanker that spilled its load of jet fuel into Lemon Creek, has opened what it calls a "community resiliency centre."But a Winlaw man says while it's a nice gesture, it's not really what affected residents need most.
"I don't want to diminish it, but if they wanted to help us, our health should be monitored and finances made available to compensate us, because it was human-caused," Michael Kaye told the Star. "The community wants hands-on help with their yards and animals that are badly affected."
Kaye, who lives around the corner from the school, said he feels "abandoned, stranded, and abused" since the spill. Although he has a deep well and therefore his water was not affected, he says the fumes took a toll on his lungs, leaving him with a sore throat, headaches, and nausea.
Interior Health says in most cases, well water is not affected. However, shallow wells close to the creek or rivers, particularly those in gravel or sandy soils, may be affected. The health authority says residents shouldn't use their well water if there is a fuel smell in the well or at any tap.
Garden vegetables, fruit, eggs, and dairy milk contacted by the fuel vapour are safe to consume as long as they don't smell like fuel or have a fuel sheen, Interior Health said. But they recommend washing fruit and vegetables thoroughly — easier said than done given that many residents aren't able to use their tap water.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Social media platforms and telecom service
It’s a marriage that is mutually beneficial to both partners and has tremendous growth potential. In a burgeoning digital and mobile centric market, Telecom players and social media platforms have come together to benefit the user, expecting the partnership to be the next big revenue driver. Research shows that social media platforms, online advertising and increasing Internet access speed would be the key revenue generators for the telecom sector and sure enough, the Indian Telecom Sector has been seen engaging with the leading social media platforms.
For Twitter India, this is not the first time when they have been involved in such an association with a telecom company. Earlier this year, Twitter India tied up with Reliance Communications allowing the Reliance GSM prepaid users in the country to get a free Twitter access.
Airtel was the first in the country to directly associate with social media when it partnered with Facebook to offer its users free access to Facebook for two months. Later they joined hands with Google to launch ‘free zone’ allowing users to use various Google services like Google plus and Gmail for free. However, the first page which was available to the users featured advertisements. At the same time, Airtel’s data segment’s revenue generation rose up to 6.5 per cent from 5.7 per cent in Q4 FY13.
During the launch of ‘Freezone’, Rajan Anandan, VP and Managing Director, Google India said, “The mobile Internet user base is growing really fast in India. Working with Airtel on this exciting trial means that we can offer Internet services at no cost to anyone with rtls. This gives people easier access to information in a way that benefits everyone, whether it’s an individual or a small business that wants to reach more people on the web. We hope this initiative will encourage more Indians to experience the value of the Internet and gain from it.”
On being asked about the objectives of Vodafone behind this association with Twitter, Vivek Mathur, Chief Commercial Officer, Vodafone India said, “Vodafone India has always been at the forefront of providing innovative and user friendly mobile internet experience for its customers in India. Our partnership with Twitter and this offering is yet another step in our ongoing endeavour to make mobile internet more fun, smart, engaging and easy.”
Twitter India’s Market Director, Rishi Jaitly, said, “As a real-time information network full of links, media, and content, our platform offers the mobile ecosystem novel ways to introduce their subscribers to all that Internet has to offer. We are pleased to partner with Vodafone India to offer its subscribers a unique opportunity to use Twitter to follow the people and organizations they care about. Whether it’s hearing the latest news, connecting with cricket stars in real time, or laughing at the day’s best jokes, Twitter brings Indians together and closer to our interests.”
This attempt, however modest it may sound is far from just being a step to promote data usage. Mobile based data market is still in an evolution stage and it will take another two to three years before it could overtake the voice services offered by telecom service providers. As of now, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are reaching out to the Indian mobile user base only to lure the telecom brands and the end users, and using the association as a marketing tool.
According to the UN watchdog, Paulo Pinheiro, speaking in the General Assembly on 29 July, Syria is in free fall: 100,000 dead; refugees and displaced persons in the millions; atrocities of every kind; no end to the fighting in sight. Both Barack Obama and David Cameron have been under pressure to ‘do something’, and most media attention has focused on arming the rebels – as if they were short of arms. Both leaders were initially tempted but seem to have come off the boil.
In Washington, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote an open letter to Congress spelling out the costs and benefits of US military involvement in terms which seem to have succeeded in tilting the political debate against military action.
In London there was a debate in the House of Commons on 11 July on a motion put down by the Conservative backbencher John Baron, a former army officer, stipulating that no lethal support should be given to the rebels without the prior consent of Parliament. It was an encouraging occasion for those who believe in parliamentary democracy (not so encouraging for those who rely on our media, which largely ignored the debate). Speaker after speaker asked how arming the rebels could help bring an end to the fighting, and how we could be sure that the weapons would not end up in the wrong hands. The government had earlier been tempted by the argument that everybody in Syria has access to weapons except the good guys, and had expended a lot of effort trying to get the EU embargo on arms sales lifted; but Alistair Burt of the FCO, winding up the debate for the government, did not oppose the motion and it was passed with 114 votes in favour and 1 against.
One does not have to be a cynic to ask what on earth such a conference can be expected to achieve. The answer is that civil wars do come to an end, although it can be an agonisingly slow process, and outside assistance in finding a political solution has sometimes been effective. There are plenty of precedents (none of them perfect): the Taif Agreement which ended Lebanon’s civil war in 1989, the Dayton Agreement for peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Anglo-Irish Agreement between Margaret Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald. A political solution results from a process, not an event. A conference can be part of that process, indeed can start it. The Anglo-Irish Agreement was top-down, an agreement between London and Dublin not endorsed by anyone in Northern Ireland (and heartily loathed by the Unionists).
The process has to be organic, incremental, multi-dimensional. No superpower, no group of powers can predict let alone dictate its evolution and timing. But they can get it moving. In the Syria case it would not be possible to bring all the interested parties together now, but it would be possible, with political will, to bring together America, Russia, the other permanent members of the Security Council, the EU, the Arab League, the Islamic Conference and others with an interest and record in peacemaking such as Canada and Japan. Such a conference could not solve the problem but it could start the process.
Why doesn’t it happen? ‘Political will’ is a mysterious concept. To a retired diplomat like me it is obvious that Washington and Moscow, to say nothing of the others, both stand to gain from engaging in such an enterprise together. Perhaps the first step in creating the necessary political will would be for the media to abandon for a moment their obsession with guns, blood and spies, and succumb instead to the seductions of diplomacy. But that is like asking little boys to stop playing soldiers and start playing municipal waste recyclers.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
For Twitter India, this is not the first time when they have been involved in such an association with a telecom company. Earlier this year, Twitter India tied up with Reliance Communications allowing the Reliance GSM prepaid users in the country to get a free Twitter access.
Airtel was the first in the country to directly associate with social media when it partnered with Facebook to offer its users free access to Facebook for two months. Later they joined hands with Google to launch ‘free zone’ allowing users to use various Google services like Google plus and Gmail for free. However, the first page which was available to the users featured advertisements. At the same time, Airtel’s data segment’s revenue generation rose up to 6.5 per cent from 5.7 per cent in Q4 FY13.
During the launch of ‘Freezone’, Rajan Anandan, VP and Managing Director, Google India said, “The mobile Internet user base is growing really fast in India. Working with Airtel on this exciting trial means that we can offer Internet services at no cost to anyone with rtls. This gives people easier access to information in a way that benefits everyone, whether it’s an individual or a small business that wants to reach more people on the web. We hope this initiative will encourage more Indians to experience the value of the Internet and gain from it.”
On being asked about the objectives of Vodafone behind this association with Twitter, Vivek Mathur, Chief Commercial Officer, Vodafone India said, “Vodafone India has always been at the forefront of providing innovative and user friendly mobile internet experience for its customers in India. Our partnership with Twitter and this offering is yet another step in our ongoing endeavour to make mobile internet more fun, smart, engaging and easy.”
Twitter India’s Market Director, Rishi Jaitly, said, “As a real-time information network full of links, media, and content, our platform offers the mobile ecosystem novel ways to introduce their subscribers to all that Internet has to offer. We are pleased to partner with Vodafone India to offer its subscribers a unique opportunity to use Twitter to follow the people and organizations they care about. Whether it’s hearing the latest news, connecting with cricket stars in real time, or laughing at the day’s best jokes, Twitter brings Indians together and closer to our interests.”
This attempt, however modest it may sound is far from just being a step to promote data usage. Mobile based data market is still in an evolution stage and it will take another two to three years before it could overtake the voice services offered by telecom service providers. As of now, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are reaching out to the Indian mobile user base only to lure the telecom brands and the end users, and using the association as a marketing tool.
According to the UN watchdog, Paulo Pinheiro, speaking in the General Assembly on 29 July, Syria is in free fall: 100,000 dead; refugees and displaced persons in the millions; atrocities of every kind; no end to the fighting in sight. Both Barack Obama and David Cameron have been under pressure to ‘do something’, and most media attention has focused on arming the rebels – as if they were short of arms. Both leaders were initially tempted but seem to have come off the boil.
In Washington, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote an open letter to Congress spelling out the costs and benefits of US military involvement in terms which seem to have succeeded in tilting the political debate against military action.
In London there was a debate in the House of Commons on 11 July on a motion put down by the Conservative backbencher John Baron, a former army officer, stipulating that no lethal support should be given to the rebels without the prior consent of Parliament. It was an encouraging occasion for those who believe in parliamentary democracy (not so encouraging for those who rely on our media, which largely ignored the debate). Speaker after speaker asked how arming the rebels could help bring an end to the fighting, and how we could be sure that the weapons would not end up in the wrong hands. The government had earlier been tempted by the argument that everybody in Syria has access to weapons except the good guys, and had expended a lot of effort trying to get the EU embargo on arms sales lifted; but Alistair Burt of the FCO, winding up the debate for the government, did not oppose the motion and it was passed with 114 votes in favour and 1 against.
One does not have to be a cynic to ask what on earth such a conference can be expected to achieve. The answer is that civil wars do come to an end, although it can be an agonisingly slow process, and outside assistance in finding a political solution has sometimes been effective. There are plenty of precedents (none of them perfect): the Taif Agreement which ended Lebanon’s civil war in 1989, the Dayton Agreement for peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Anglo-Irish Agreement between Margaret Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald. A political solution results from a process, not an event. A conference can be part of that process, indeed can start it. The Anglo-Irish Agreement was top-down, an agreement between London and Dublin not endorsed by anyone in Northern Ireland (and heartily loathed by the Unionists).
The process has to be organic, incremental, multi-dimensional. No superpower, no group of powers can predict let alone dictate its evolution and timing. But they can get it moving. In the Syria case it would not be possible to bring all the interested parties together now, but it would be possible, with political will, to bring together America, Russia, the other permanent members of the Security Council, the EU, the Arab League, the Islamic Conference and others with an interest and record in peacemaking such as Canada and Japan. Such a conference could not solve the problem but it could start the process.
Why doesn’t it happen? ‘Political will’ is a mysterious concept. To a retired diplomat like me it is obvious that Washington and Moscow, to say nothing of the others, both stand to gain from engaging in such an enterprise together. Perhaps the first step in creating the necessary political will would be for the media to abandon for a moment their obsession with guns, blood and spies, and succumb instead to the seductions of diplomacy. But that is like asking little boys to stop playing soldiers and start playing municipal waste recyclers.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Facts finally collide with ideology on Europe
There have been some glum faces around David Cameron’s cabinet table of late. To the chagrin of some eurosceptic colleagues, the government’s much-heralded audit of Britain’s relations with the EU is coming up with the wrong answers. Brussels is neither sucking the lifeblood from British democracy nor stifling its economy with unnecessary regulation. For all its inevitable irritations, the Union seems to be serving the national interest.
The government has published the first tranche of reports in a comprehensive review of Britain’s EU membership. This first batch includes studies of the “balance of competences” in the single market, tax policy, foreign policy and defence, food safety and animal welfare, health and development. Given the political sensitivities within the coalition – Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats do not share widespread Tory hostility to most things European – the task in large part has been in the hands of neutral civil servants.
The result is a series of reports that tell the story as it is, shorn of ideology and political judgments. This is what persuaded the prime minister to defer publication until backbench Tory MPs hostile to the EU had safely departed Westminster for the parliamentary recess. Mr Clegg wanted the reports released at a ministerial press conference. Mr Cameron’s office insisted there should be no fanfare.
Pro-Europeans seeking a knockout blow in favour of the EU status quo will be disappointed. Though the reports say the single market has provided significant advantages for the British economy, they also acknowledge the difficulty of quantifying the gain. And while business backs the level-playing field legislation needed to make the single market work, there is less of a consensus around environmental and real time Location system.
What is most striking, however, is the distance the conclusions stand from the original intent of the review. The exercise was to have provided a springboard for the large-scale repatriation of EU powers sought by hardline eurosceptics as a minimum requirement for continued membership. Iain Duncan Smith, Owen Paterson and Philip Hammond were among cabinet ministers who protested at the even-handed approach of officials. During one Whitehall exchange, an adviser to Mr Hammond complained the foreign policy and defence report was unduly weighted towards the evidence.
Three broad conclusions arise from the reports. The first is that the single market holds up a mirror to the close integration of modern economies. Companies depend on the “four freedoms” of goods, services, persons and capital. Cross-border supply chains, common standards, mobile workforces and multicentre manufacturing are the stuff of today’s business. These processes depend on common standards and regulation.
Japan has voiced publicly what many third countries have said privately. Foreign investment (and the jobs that go with it) in the UK is vitally dependent on access to other EU markets. At a more mundane level, Britain’s food processing industry could not work if its complex cross-border production chains did not all operate under uniform regulation. The same applies across other industries and many services. The implication is that if Britain were to leave the EU, it would be obliged by economic realities to opt back into the panoply of regulation – only this time without any say in shaping the rules.
The second conclusion is that Europe and the rest of the world are complementary markets for British business. The evidence submitted by Vodafone tells the story. The advent of EU telecommunications regulation gave the company a chance to scale up from a national to a European provider; once established in Europe it could realise its global ambitions. Looking through the other end of the telescope, overseas companies such as BMW use their British operations to sell cars to emerging markets – a practice made possible only because of EU trade agreements with third countries.
Third, whatever their rhetoric, British governments often choose to operate through Brussels even when there is no obligation so to do. Thus in foreign policy and rtls, where the institutions of the Union are relatively weak, more often than not Britain seeks to co-ordinate with its EU partners. Elsewhere, it wants to extend Union competences: animal welfare would seem a natural province for decision-making at national level, but Britain is vociferous in pressing for EU-wide rules.
All in all, the reports throw up plenty of instances when the EU needs reform or where European rules should be dropped in favour of national choices. They underline, however, how difficult and costly it would be for Britain to unravel the facts of interdependence. The ideology of the eurosceptics has collided with the evidence. No wonder Mr Cameron waited for the safety of the summer parliamentary recess.
The issue is coming to a head this week as parliament votes on plans to unclog the civil lawsuit system put forward by Annamaria Cancellieri, justice minister, and history suggests she has a fight on her hands. Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi often used immovable vested interests as an excuse for the policy paralysis that characterised his nine years in office. Mario Monti, his sober technocrat successor, ran into the same wall. Now it is the turn of Enrico Letta at the head of his fragile and febrile left-right coalition.“The lawyers, the major lobbies – they block our country from becoming normal,” an exasperated Ms Cancellieri fumed at a recent conference.
The law would extend the use of mandatory alternative dispute procedures, or mediation, to try to cut a backlog of civil lawsuits running at some 5m cases and increasing by 10 per cent a year. Lawyers went on strike for a week in protest.The slowness of Italy’s civil justice system – it takes an average of 1,210 days to resolve a commercial dispute – is often cited as the most potent deterrent to foreign investors. In the World Bank’s 2013 global ease of doing business survey, Italy ranked 160th out of 185 countries in terms of enforcing contracts.
Italy abounds with lawyers – more than 240,000, compared with 54,000 in similarly sized France. They also make up more than 10 per cent of parliament, including Mr Berlusconi’s two personal lawyers, who were heavily engaged in tackling his raft of trials and investigations when not involved in tabling legislation to give him immunity.
The government has published the first tranche of reports in a comprehensive review of Britain’s EU membership. This first batch includes studies of the “balance of competences” in the single market, tax policy, foreign policy and defence, food safety and animal welfare, health and development. Given the political sensitivities within the coalition – Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats do not share widespread Tory hostility to most things European – the task in large part has been in the hands of neutral civil servants.
The result is a series of reports that tell the story as it is, shorn of ideology and political judgments. This is what persuaded the prime minister to defer publication until backbench Tory MPs hostile to the EU had safely departed Westminster for the parliamentary recess. Mr Clegg wanted the reports released at a ministerial press conference. Mr Cameron’s office insisted there should be no fanfare.
Pro-Europeans seeking a knockout blow in favour of the EU status quo will be disappointed. Though the reports say the single market has provided significant advantages for the British economy, they also acknowledge the difficulty of quantifying the gain. And while business backs the level-playing field legislation needed to make the single market work, there is less of a consensus around environmental and real time Location system.
What is most striking, however, is the distance the conclusions stand from the original intent of the review. The exercise was to have provided a springboard for the large-scale repatriation of EU powers sought by hardline eurosceptics as a minimum requirement for continued membership. Iain Duncan Smith, Owen Paterson and Philip Hammond were among cabinet ministers who protested at the even-handed approach of officials. During one Whitehall exchange, an adviser to Mr Hammond complained the foreign policy and defence report was unduly weighted towards the evidence.
Three broad conclusions arise from the reports. The first is that the single market holds up a mirror to the close integration of modern economies. Companies depend on the “four freedoms” of goods, services, persons and capital. Cross-border supply chains, common standards, mobile workforces and multicentre manufacturing are the stuff of today’s business. These processes depend on common standards and regulation.
Japan has voiced publicly what many third countries have said privately. Foreign investment (and the jobs that go with it) in the UK is vitally dependent on access to other EU markets. At a more mundane level, Britain’s food processing industry could not work if its complex cross-border production chains did not all operate under uniform regulation. The same applies across other industries and many services. The implication is that if Britain were to leave the EU, it would be obliged by economic realities to opt back into the panoply of regulation – only this time without any say in shaping the rules.
The second conclusion is that Europe and the rest of the world are complementary markets for British business. The evidence submitted by Vodafone tells the story. The advent of EU telecommunications regulation gave the company a chance to scale up from a national to a European provider; once established in Europe it could realise its global ambitions. Looking through the other end of the telescope, overseas companies such as BMW use their British operations to sell cars to emerging markets – a practice made possible only because of EU trade agreements with third countries.
Third, whatever their rhetoric, British governments often choose to operate through Brussels even when there is no obligation so to do. Thus in foreign policy and rtls, where the institutions of the Union are relatively weak, more often than not Britain seeks to co-ordinate with its EU partners. Elsewhere, it wants to extend Union competences: animal welfare would seem a natural province for decision-making at national level, but Britain is vociferous in pressing for EU-wide rules.
All in all, the reports throw up plenty of instances when the EU needs reform or where European rules should be dropped in favour of national choices. They underline, however, how difficult and costly it would be for Britain to unravel the facts of interdependence. The ideology of the eurosceptics has collided with the evidence. No wonder Mr Cameron waited for the safety of the summer parliamentary recess.
The issue is coming to a head this week as parliament votes on plans to unclog the civil lawsuit system put forward by Annamaria Cancellieri, justice minister, and history suggests she has a fight on her hands. Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi often used immovable vested interests as an excuse for the policy paralysis that characterised his nine years in office. Mario Monti, his sober technocrat successor, ran into the same wall. Now it is the turn of Enrico Letta at the head of his fragile and febrile left-right coalition.“The lawyers, the major lobbies – they block our country from becoming normal,” an exasperated Ms Cancellieri fumed at a recent conference.
The law would extend the use of mandatory alternative dispute procedures, or mediation, to try to cut a backlog of civil lawsuits running at some 5m cases and increasing by 10 per cent a year. Lawyers went on strike for a week in protest.The slowness of Italy’s civil justice system – it takes an average of 1,210 days to resolve a commercial dispute – is often cited as the most potent deterrent to foreign investors. In the World Bank’s 2013 global ease of doing business survey, Italy ranked 160th out of 185 countries in terms of enforcing contracts.
Italy abounds with lawyers – more than 240,000, compared with 54,000 in similarly sized France. They also make up more than 10 per cent of parliament, including Mr Berlusconi’s two personal lawyers, who were heavily engaged in tackling his raft of trials and investigations when not involved in tabling legislation to give him immunity.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Redesigned summer school is acquiring buzz in Minneapolis
With its deadly dull remedial drills and endless study-hall flavor, summer school is essentially punishment for a lackluster performance during the regular year, right?Wrong. Forget everything you think you know about it.At a time when Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) is struggling to figure out how to lengthen the school year for its most needy kids, summer school is quietly acquiring something of a buzz. Students are enrolling themselves in record numbers — and happily.
On a recent muggy Monday, a group of teens was holed up in a classroom on the third floor of South High School waiting for their teacher to come take a look at robots they’d designed using Lego Mindstorms software.“Academics?” quipped one, a young man with a blue-and-white faux-hawk and a bodacious supply of moxie. “I come here for the people, for my friends.”
And at first he might have been more interested in the free Go To bus pass that comes with enrollment in MPS’ relatively new middle-school to high-school transition program, called Fast Track. But the bottom line is he’s there.“Before Fast Track, getting ninth-graders to come to summer school and stay was impossible,” said MPS’ Director of Extended Learning, Jan Braaten. “Now they all come and Indoor Positioning System.”
Three years ago the district launched an ambitious overhaul of its summer offerings with the goal of creating more — and better — “seat time” for at-risk students. A growing body of research shows that longer school days and years are crucial to positioning struggling kids for success.At the same time, other studies have found low-income students risk losing up to two months of math and as much as three months’ gains in reading during the summer. By ninth grade, in fact, two-thirds of the gap in literacy between affluent and impoverished students can be traced to summer.
By contrast, the handful of Twin Cities schools getting terrific academic results within challenged populations virtually all enjoy school days and years that average 40 percent more "time on task." Summer school clearly has always meant added hours, but it was a snore, with 16 four-hour days devoted entirely to reading and math. Kids didn't want to go. If a program site signed up 200 kids and 100 showed up, it was considered a success.
Contrast that with the need. The Minnesota Department of Education, which reimburses districts for summer school, has spelled out 13 qualifying factors for students who need the extra time.English-language learners are eligible, as are homeless and highly mobile kids, students who are significantly below grade level in reading and math, and so on.MPS serves its own students and those attending charter schools within the districts boundaries. City residents who attend school elsewhere are served by the districts that operate their schools.
There’s plenty of academic support, but the lineup of activities sounds a lot more like the activity-filled summers enjoyed by middle- and upper-class children, who are far less likely to lose ground over the break.Today, summer school consists of 23 six-hour days and offerings that extend far beyond reading and math. There’s art and music and lots of opportunities to be outdoors.A long list of community partners comes into the schools; the Bakken Museum works with three grades. All classes are taught by licensed teachers. (MPS teachers have first dibs on the jobs, but the district usually ends up hiring a small number of external candidates.)
Aimed at incoming ninth-graders, Fast Track is a good example of summer school’s gap-closing potential. This year 2,100 qualifying eighth-graders were invited and an eye-popping 531 enrolled. Bringing them all together allows Program Facilitator Elizabeth Fortke and the rest of the staff to offer a wider variety of programming, including things like guitar, ceramics and theater. South was chosen because it is the easiest facility for kids from all parts of the city to get to on public buses.
The academics were chosen strategically. Nationwide, 90 percent of dropouts occur before, during or after the freshman year of high school, according to Fortke. Fast Track aims to head that off in part by giving students an extra term, in essence.For many, high school presents a quantum leap forward in terms of expectations. If students know what a GPA is, they may not understand its importance or the potential impact of their permanent record.
“It’s a chance to get them thinking about how high school does mean something,” said Fortke. “And to start talking about college and work-force readiness.”It’s also a no-harm, no-foul opportunity to try more rigorous coursework. Failing grades do not go on student’s record, but passing Fast Track grades do earn high-school credit. Geography is the most failed ninth-grade class, for instance. Fast Track students who take it and don’t do well have another chance in the fall. Also new: physics, engineering and physical sciences.
More rigorous state math standards instituted three years ago mean students now must take algebra in the eighth grade, not the ninth like before. Those who didn’t master it in middle school are taught in a different, project-based style over the summer.
Is it working? District leaders are in the process of designing a system for measuring summer school’s impact on student success. In addition to traditional outcomes like graduation and proficiency rates, they’re hoping to measure things like participants’ attitudes about school.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com.
On a recent muggy Monday, a group of teens was holed up in a classroom on the third floor of South High School waiting for their teacher to come take a look at robots they’d designed using Lego Mindstorms software.“Academics?” quipped one, a young man with a blue-and-white faux-hawk and a bodacious supply of moxie. “I come here for the people, for my friends.”
And at first he might have been more interested in the free Go To bus pass that comes with enrollment in MPS’ relatively new middle-school to high-school transition program, called Fast Track. But the bottom line is he’s there.“Before Fast Track, getting ninth-graders to come to summer school and stay was impossible,” said MPS’ Director of Extended Learning, Jan Braaten. “Now they all come and Indoor Positioning System.”
Three years ago the district launched an ambitious overhaul of its summer offerings with the goal of creating more — and better — “seat time” for at-risk students. A growing body of research shows that longer school days and years are crucial to positioning struggling kids for success.At the same time, other studies have found low-income students risk losing up to two months of math and as much as three months’ gains in reading during the summer. By ninth grade, in fact, two-thirds of the gap in literacy between affluent and impoverished students can be traced to summer.
By contrast, the handful of Twin Cities schools getting terrific academic results within challenged populations virtually all enjoy school days and years that average 40 percent more "time on task." Summer school clearly has always meant added hours, but it was a snore, with 16 four-hour days devoted entirely to reading and math. Kids didn't want to go. If a program site signed up 200 kids and 100 showed up, it was considered a success.
Contrast that with the need. The Minnesota Department of Education, which reimburses districts for summer school, has spelled out 13 qualifying factors for students who need the extra time.English-language learners are eligible, as are homeless and highly mobile kids, students who are significantly below grade level in reading and math, and so on.MPS serves its own students and those attending charter schools within the districts boundaries. City residents who attend school elsewhere are served by the districts that operate their schools.
There’s plenty of academic support, but the lineup of activities sounds a lot more like the activity-filled summers enjoyed by middle- and upper-class children, who are far less likely to lose ground over the break.Today, summer school consists of 23 six-hour days and offerings that extend far beyond reading and math. There’s art and music and lots of opportunities to be outdoors.A long list of community partners comes into the schools; the Bakken Museum works with three grades. All classes are taught by licensed teachers. (MPS teachers have first dibs on the jobs, but the district usually ends up hiring a small number of external candidates.)
Aimed at incoming ninth-graders, Fast Track is a good example of summer school’s gap-closing potential. This year 2,100 qualifying eighth-graders were invited and an eye-popping 531 enrolled. Bringing them all together allows Program Facilitator Elizabeth Fortke and the rest of the staff to offer a wider variety of programming, including things like guitar, ceramics and theater. South was chosen because it is the easiest facility for kids from all parts of the city to get to on public buses.
The academics were chosen strategically. Nationwide, 90 percent of dropouts occur before, during or after the freshman year of high school, according to Fortke. Fast Track aims to head that off in part by giving students an extra term, in essence.For many, high school presents a quantum leap forward in terms of expectations. If students know what a GPA is, they may not understand its importance or the potential impact of their permanent record.
“It’s a chance to get them thinking about how high school does mean something,” said Fortke. “And to start talking about college and work-force readiness.”It’s also a no-harm, no-foul opportunity to try more rigorous coursework. Failing grades do not go on student’s record, but passing Fast Track grades do earn high-school credit. Geography is the most failed ninth-grade class, for instance. Fast Track students who take it and don’t do well have another chance in the fall. Also new: physics, engineering and physical sciences.
More rigorous state math standards instituted three years ago mean students now must take algebra in the eighth grade, not the ninth like before. Those who didn’t master it in middle school are taught in a different, project-based style over the summer.
Is it working? District leaders are in the process of designing a system for measuring summer school’s impact on student success. In addition to traditional outcomes like graduation and proficiency rates, they’re hoping to measure things like participants’ attitudes about school.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
A Fan’s History of Sub Pop
It was fine; it happens to a lot of kids. For the most part, they kept it civil and everything was totally OK. They are both wonderful parents. I would visit my dad in Seattle on the weekends and spend the rest of the time with my mom back in Maple Valley, which is two towns over from where that guy died from having sex with that horse, just so you know.
One morning when I was 15, I came out of the shower and found my mom and dad in a shouting match at the door. I don’t remember why it started, but I remember thinking I’d never seen my parents shout at each other like that. I watched the whole thing unfold with only a towel on from upstairs, just standing there, frozen. I felt betrayed, and naked.
“If I could take the fire out from the wire, I’d take you where noooobody knows you, and nobody gives a damn anyway,” Spencer Krug warbled in my ears. I played that song on repeat until I felt like I actually went to that place. That place where nobody knows you and nobody gives a damn. Any place but where I was sounded really good.
The title of this piece may sound dramatic, but over the course of this project, I’ve found that it’s not that far from the truth. To help celebrate the 25th anniversary of Seattle’s biggest record label, we went out and collected your stories. We asked for your memories of the impact that Sub Pop songs or albums have had on your indoor positioning system. I was surprised by how much common fabric these stories share.
When I interviewed Dick Dawson, he talked about cathartically crushing cans in his parent’s garage, listening to “Shadows” by Sunny Day Real Estate. I thought back to that moment with my parents and “I’ll Believe in Anything,” and instantly understood where he was coming from. When I talked to Natalie Walker about how Sleater-Kinney very directly informed her professional career as director of the Rain City Rock Camp for Girls, I could relate. After seeing Chad VanGaalen’s video for “Molten Light,” I immediately downloaded the animation program he uses. I use that program at work all the time.
It’s funny how a record label can shape someone’s entire career. In the case of Brian Albright, who now works for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the stakes are even higher. If it weren’t for an obscure Sub Pop split single in 1992, he might never have met his wife.
Only a quarter-century later has it become clear what Sub Pop really is. On the surface it’s just a record label, but in reality it’s the sum of all these stories. From the first Green River EP in 1986 to this month’s release of Rose Window’s The Sun Dogs, the label’s 1,053rd record, Sub Pop has managed to put out landmark rock, folk, hip-hop, and electronica albums while simultaneously defining new genres unto themselves. But among all those records also lies a lot of humanity that isn’t listed in Sub Pop’s catalogue.
My guitar teacher told me about this movie called Hype, about the early-’90s grunge scene and how Sub Pop rose to power and all that. I think the first song we ever played [in Hearabout Nancy] was “Touch Me I’m Sick” by Mudhoney. We played a ton of Mudhoney covers. We would go into our garage and we would plug a microphone into a guitar amp and we would just scream those songs. When we were warming up, we would play the entire Bleach album and [trade] off our instruments and stuff. That was so fun. We used to rock, like, “Floyd the Barber” and “Blew.” Uh, “Paper Cuts” and “Big Cheese” and “Swap Meet.” We played Mudhoney a lot too. We played shit like “Sweet Young Thing Ain’t Sweet No More” and “Hate the Police” and “Flat Out Fucked.” Oh damn, it was good stuff.Oh my God, I can’t even remember all of them. All those songs, that was our stuff.
First song I ever learned to play on guitar was “Polly” by Nirvana. I learned all the early Nirvana riffs. I still to this day can play Bleach from the top to bottom, and I can play a highly butchered version of every single solo. I would sit in my room late at night, and me and my friend Mark would listen to Bleach. We’d play it for five seconds, then pause it. Then we’d sit down and play that five seconds on guitar. It was the same thing over and over until we could play the entire album. We’d take Adderall. Like, speed. A couple days of doing that, and then we came out of my room being able to play the entire album.
When we did start writing our own songs it was very Bleach-esque. Raunchy lyrics, tuned-down drop-D guitars. It was more about the aggression of it, not so much the musicality. You could just write about anything and then scream a loud chorus.
It was June 1989 in Denver, Colo., when I bought Roadmouth by local heroes The Fluid. It was a fateful day in which I bought that album, Steel Pole Bathtub’s Butterfly Love (themselves a former Denver band, now making an impact nationwide), and Dinosaur Jr.’s Bug. I’d seen The Fluid live, and their MC5-infused retro-garage punk seemed nothing like what I’d heard in Mudhoney’s sludgy “Touch Me I’m Sick” single. But it wasn’t until hearing The Fluid’s second Sub Pop album paired with the noisier works of STB and Dinosaur Jr. that it all seemed to make sense in a way that things were all headed in a really exciting new direction of beautiful noise. And it meant that if The Fluid could get out of Denver and become pioneers, then I should dare to give it a try as well.
Years later my own band, Pleasure Forever, signed to Sub Pop. I had a very fancy job working for a fancy record label, with expense accounts, living bicoastally between San Francisco and New York City, etc. I gave it all up just to make a record for Sub Pop. And though very little came of it, I don’t regret it in the slightest. I made some great lifelong friends at the label, toured like crazy, and had some incredible experiences, all due to that lone, crazy record label that changed my life back in 1989.
Leavenworth was an odd town to grow up in. You knew everyone, it was pretty secluded. This was pre-Internet, so I didn’t have access to the wider music scene. I used to drive down to Wenatchee and pick up Alternative Press or some other cool magazine like that. And I think I first heard about Mudhoney from a Sub Pop comp, The Grunge Years. There was a Mudhoney track on there, and I went out and bought their most recent record. There was nobody playing stuff like that on the radio out there, and they weren’t on the air on MTV or anything yet.
When I liked a band a lot, I would write them a letter or fan mail or something. I wrote Mudhoney a letter. I knew they were a pretty shocking band, so I tried to write them a pretty shocking, out-there letter to grab their attention. They actually wrote me back and thanked me for being a fan. I don’t even remember what I wrote the letter about . . . some crazy thing. I was just trying to be cool to the rock stars.Interacting with a band back then, pre-Internet, was a big deal. It gave me more confidence in who I was and what I wanted to do, and what I do today.
They also sent me a sticker . . . it was an orange sticker that said the band name on it, so I slapped it on the bumper of my car. I was driving a ’67 Ford Falcon; it was awesome. I’d be driving around this small town. I’m a pretty quiet kid, everyone knew who I was, and all of a sudden I’ve got this Mudhoney sticker on my car and I’m blaring Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. That album meant a lot to me. I got a lot of strange looks, and some ribbing from my family at my attempts to “go grunge.” That band was exactly what I needed at that time in my life. They will always be my favorite band of the era.
Read the full story at http://www.ecived.com/en/!
One morning when I was 15, I came out of the shower and found my mom and dad in a shouting match at the door. I don’t remember why it started, but I remember thinking I’d never seen my parents shout at each other like that. I watched the whole thing unfold with only a towel on from upstairs, just standing there, frozen. I felt betrayed, and naked.
“If I could take the fire out from the wire, I’d take you where noooobody knows you, and nobody gives a damn anyway,” Spencer Krug warbled in my ears. I played that song on repeat until I felt like I actually went to that place. That place where nobody knows you and nobody gives a damn. Any place but where I was sounded really good.
The title of this piece may sound dramatic, but over the course of this project, I’ve found that it’s not that far from the truth. To help celebrate the 25th anniversary of Seattle’s biggest record label, we went out and collected your stories. We asked for your memories of the impact that Sub Pop songs or albums have had on your indoor positioning system. I was surprised by how much common fabric these stories share.
When I interviewed Dick Dawson, he talked about cathartically crushing cans in his parent’s garage, listening to “Shadows” by Sunny Day Real Estate. I thought back to that moment with my parents and “I’ll Believe in Anything,” and instantly understood where he was coming from. When I talked to Natalie Walker about how Sleater-Kinney very directly informed her professional career as director of the Rain City Rock Camp for Girls, I could relate. After seeing Chad VanGaalen’s video for “Molten Light,” I immediately downloaded the animation program he uses. I use that program at work all the time.
It’s funny how a record label can shape someone’s entire career. In the case of Brian Albright, who now works for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the stakes are even higher. If it weren’t for an obscure Sub Pop split single in 1992, he might never have met his wife.
Only a quarter-century later has it become clear what Sub Pop really is. On the surface it’s just a record label, but in reality it’s the sum of all these stories. From the first Green River EP in 1986 to this month’s release of Rose Window’s The Sun Dogs, the label’s 1,053rd record, Sub Pop has managed to put out landmark rock, folk, hip-hop, and electronica albums while simultaneously defining new genres unto themselves. But among all those records also lies a lot of humanity that isn’t listed in Sub Pop’s catalogue.
My guitar teacher told me about this movie called Hype, about the early-’90s grunge scene and how Sub Pop rose to power and all that. I think the first song we ever played [in Hearabout Nancy] was “Touch Me I’m Sick” by Mudhoney. We played a ton of Mudhoney covers. We would go into our garage and we would plug a microphone into a guitar amp and we would just scream those songs. When we were warming up, we would play the entire Bleach album and [trade] off our instruments and stuff. That was so fun. We used to rock, like, “Floyd the Barber” and “Blew.” Uh, “Paper Cuts” and “Big Cheese” and “Swap Meet.” We played Mudhoney a lot too. We played shit like “Sweet Young Thing Ain’t Sweet No More” and “Hate the Police” and “Flat Out Fucked.” Oh damn, it was good stuff.Oh my God, I can’t even remember all of them. All those songs, that was our stuff.
First song I ever learned to play on guitar was “Polly” by Nirvana. I learned all the early Nirvana riffs. I still to this day can play Bleach from the top to bottom, and I can play a highly butchered version of every single solo. I would sit in my room late at night, and me and my friend Mark would listen to Bleach. We’d play it for five seconds, then pause it. Then we’d sit down and play that five seconds on guitar. It was the same thing over and over until we could play the entire album. We’d take Adderall. Like, speed. A couple days of doing that, and then we came out of my room being able to play the entire album.
When we did start writing our own songs it was very Bleach-esque. Raunchy lyrics, tuned-down drop-D guitars. It was more about the aggression of it, not so much the musicality. You could just write about anything and then scream a loud chorus.
It was June 1989 in Denver, Colo., when I bought Roadmouth by local heroes The Fluid. It was a fateful day in which I bought that album, Steel Pole Bathtub’s Butterfly Love (themselves a former Denver band, now making an impact nationwide), and Dinosaur Jr.’s Bug. I’d seen The Fluid live, and their MC5-infused retro-garage punk seemed nothing like what I’d heard in Mudhoney’s sludgy “Touch Me I’m Sick” single. But it wasn’t until hearing The Fluid’s second Sub Pop album paired with the noisier works of STB and Dinosaur Jr. that it all seemed to make sense in a way that things were all headed in a really exciting new direction of beautiful noise. And it meant that if The Fluid could get out of Denver and become pioneers, then I should dare to give it a try as well.
Years later my own band, Pleasure Forever, signed to Sub Pop. I had a very fancy job working for a fancy record label, with expense accounts, living bicoastally between San Francisco and New York City, etc. I gave it all up just to make a record for Sub Pop. And though very little came of it, I don’t regret it in the slightest. I made some great lifelong friends at the label, toured like crazy, and had some incredible experiences, all due to that lone, crazy record label that changed my life back in 1989.
Leavenworth was an odd town to grow up in. You knew everyone, it was pretty secluded. This was pre-Internet, so I didn’t have access to the wider music scene. I used to drive down to Wenatchee and pick up Alternative Press or some other cool magazine like that. And I think I first heard about Mudhoney from a Sub Pop comp, The Grunge Years. There was a Mudhoney track on there, and I went out and bought their most recent record. There was nobody playing stuff like that on the radio out there, and they weren’t on the air on MTV or anything yet.
When I liked a band a lot, I would write them a letter or fan mail or something. I wrote Mudhoney a letter. I knew they were a pretty shocking band, so I tried to write them a pretty shocking, out-there letter to grab their attention. They actually wrote me back and thanked me for being a fan. I don’t even remember what I wrote the letter about . . . some crazy thing. I was just trying to be cool to the rock stars.Interacting with a band back then, pre-Internet, was a big deal. It gave me more confidence in who I was and what I wanted to do, and what I do today.
They also sent me a sticker . . . it was an orange sticker that said the band name on it, so I slapped it on the bumper of my car. I was driving a ’67 Ford Falcon; it was awesome. I’d be driving around this small town. I’m a pretty quiet kid, everyone knew who I was, and all of a sudden I’ve got this Mudhoney sticker on my car and I’m blaring Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. That album meant a lot to me. I got a lot of strange looks, and some ribbing from my family at my attempts to “go grunge.” That band was exactly what I needed at that time in my life. They will always be my favorite band of the era.
Read the full story at http://www.ecived.com/en/!
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Inspirational leader James Horwill is a 'Kev' all Aussies want to follow
It is too early, after just eight Tests as captain, for James Horwill to have that bouquet unreservedly but he is well on his way after being the inspirational heart of the Wallabies storming back into an epic rugby series against the British and Irish Lions.The primal, clenched-fist scream that James Horwill unleashed in Melbourne on full-time last Saturday night when his team somehow found a way to win came from the very core of Australian rugby.
The "Big Kev'' nickname sprung from his youth when he was compared to the excitable TV salesman with that moniker. The mood was back in Melbourne in that one celebratory moment before his mind quickly switched to Saturday's series decider in Sydney.The closed-roof venue in Melbourne made the night more like a rock concert than a rugby Test. Horwill was on lead guitar bullocking ahead, urging, cleaning out.
That Saturday's shot at history could tonight be ripped away from him by the International Rugby Board scuttling their own judicial process to re-try him on a trampling charge is without precedent.Crushing. A call on his intregrity when he said it was an accident? Absolutely.
Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting is another with a make-up like chiselled cement. His experience of being deprived of a milestone 35 years in the making in 2004 is a glimpse at how Horwill may be feeling on Saturday night unless the second hearing clears him as well.Numbness, tears and elation...Ponting felt them all in the dressing room in Nagpur when Australia clinched a series win in India for the first time since 1969-70.
"Missing those first three Tests in India was the hardest thing I had to do in my career,'' Ponting once said.It was a broken thumb that caused Ponting's deep sense of loss even in victory. He was part of it but not part of it because sportsmen only get the true fulfillment being in the battle.
In an era where too many alcohol-fuelled or late night dining footballers don't get it, indoor positioning system. It is one of the reasons that Wallaby great John Eales rates Horwill so highly.Horwill has played just 36 of the 73 Tests of the Robbie Deans reign since 2008 which means he has spent as much time ploughing into rehab at the Reds and Wallabies for major injuries as he has playing.
It has never been idle time. He has contributed at Queensland Rugby Union board level, he has sold the rugby message at countless speaking engagements and he's got to understand rugby's commerical and media world. He's devoted time to know the game from top to bottom.
The one-time firebrand has also absorbed wise lessons in risk-taking as a captain.Eales predicted before the series that Horwill's Reds' background of knowing when to roll the dice by waving away a penalty goal attempt to press for a try could be pivotal in the series. It happened on cue with the scrum he called rather than go for three points with 10 minutes to play.
It was a great captaincy call in the try build-up.This series has been a marvellous event, not the least because of the carnival pulse that the travelling Lions fans give it.There is fun but needle at the same time.At 3pm last Saturday, Lions fans were lampooning Kurtley Beale at full volume in song in a riverside bar in central Melbourne.
"He kicked, he slipped and now he's on the piss...Kurtley Beale, Kurtley Beale,'' went the roaring verse in repetition.By 10pm, the Lions fans were silent but the voice will be back for Sydney.Whether the Lions can pull themselves back together from the jolting loss is another thing. The whole momentum of this series has changed because no longer are they serenely sailing along.
Selection changes, self doubt, massive pressure to breakthrough for their first series victory since 1997 and keeping the now holidaying players in the squad on the straight and narrow at their Noosa camp this week are all major challenges.
"One measly kick. One desperate lunge for glory. One last chance for redemption. Poor Leigh Halfpenny. At least Kurtley Beale could curse the turf or his moulded studs...It was a long, long effort - more than 50 metres and on the angle. The only man who will blame Halfpenny is Halfpenny himself. He hung his head in despair as the kick fell short. Will Genia gathered and booted it joyfully into the stands. Halfpenny could barely look anyone in the eye as they tried to console him and the opposition preferred hands. He was a man apart in his misery. Rugby the ultimate team game? Not for everyone. The loneliness of the long-distance kicker."
"If you took this storyline to a Hollywood producer you'd be thrown out on your ear for stretching credibility way beyond breaking point. As entertainment this was appalling, as edge-of-the-seat, nerve-shredding drama it was utterly compelling...Needs must, as the old saying has it and, needing a win to take the series to Sydney, the Wallabies went to their well of sporting resilience and mustered the victory that they so badly needed. The crowd roared their approval at the death and skipper James Horwill, with that disciplinary cloud hanging over him, raised twin fists at the Lions, the critics and anyone else who wanted a piece of him."
"Whatever the result of next Saturday's deciding Test in Sydney, North will return to the British Isles this summer with his name etched into Lions folklore...When North gathered an up-and-under near the Lions' 22-metre line and he saw Israel Folau charging towards him he looked to be up the creek without a paddle...Rather than getting himself in the best position to present the ball for the seemingly inevitable maul to follow, North used Folau's iron-tight grip to his own advantage, scooping the 6ft 5in, 15st 6lb wing up in the air and over his shoulder with gobsmacking ease. With a global audience watching in awe North then pumped his legs, taking Folau with him as he gained significant ground - even using the Wallaby as a shield for would-be tacklers."
Click on their website www.ecived.com/en/ for more information.
The "Big Kev'' nickname sprung from his youth when he was compared to the excitable TV salesman with that moniker. The mood was back in Melbourne in that one celebratory moment before his mind quickly switched to Saturday's series decider in Sydney.The closed-roof venue in Melbourne made the night more like a rock concert than a rugby Test. Horwill was on lead guitar bullocking ahead, urging, cleaning out.
That Saturday's shot at history could tonight be ripped away from him by the International Rugby Board scuttling their own judicial process to re-try him on a trampling charge is without precedent.Crushing. A call on his intregrity when he said it was an accident? Absolutely.
Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting is another with a make-up like chiselled cement. His experience of being deprived of a milestone 35 years in the making in 2004 is a glimpse at how Horwill may be feeling on Saturday night unless the second hearing clears him as well.Numbness, tears and elation...Ponting felt them all in the dressing room in Nagpur when Australia clinched a series win in India for the first time since 1969-70.
"Missing those first three Tests in India was the hardest thing I had to do in my career,'' Ponting once said.It was a broken thumb that caused Ponting's deep sense of loss even in victory. He was part of it but not part of it because sportsmen only get the true fulfillment being in the battle.
In an era where too many alcohol-fuelled or late night dining footballers don't get it, indoor positioning system. It is one of the reasons that Wallaby great John Eales rates Horwill so highly.Horwill has played just 36 of the 73 Tests of the Robbie Deans reign since 2008 which means he has spent as much time ploughing into rehab at the Reds and Wallabies for major injuries as he has playing.
It has never been idle time. He has contributed at Queensland Rugby Union board level, he has sold the rugby message at countless speaking engagements and he's got to understand rugby's commerical and media world. He's devoted time to know the game from top to bottom.
The one-time firebrand has also absorbed wise lessons in risk-taking as a captain.Eales predicted before the series that Horwill's Reds' background of knowing when to roll the dice by waving away a penalty goal attempt to press for a try could be pivotal in the series. It happened on cue with the scrum he called rather than go for three points with 10 minutes to play.
It was a great captaincy call in the try build-up.This series has been a marvellous event, not the least because of the carnival pulse that the travelling Lions fans give it.There is fun but needle at the same time.At 3pm last Saturday, Lions fans were lampooning Kurtley Beale at full volume in song in a riverside bar in central Melbourne.
"He kicked, he slipped and now he's on the piss...Kurtley Beale, Kurtley Beale,'' went the roaring verse in repetition.By 10pm, the Lions fans were silent but the voice will be back for Sydney.Whether the Lions can pull themselves back together from the jolting loss is another thing. The whole momentum of this series has changed because no longer are they serenely sailing along.
Selection changes, self doubt, massive pressure to breakthrough for their first series victory since 1997 and keeping the now holidaying players in the squad on the straight and narrow at their Noosa camp this week are all major challenges.
"One measly kick. One desperate lunge for glory. One last chance for redemption. Poor Leigh Halfpenny. At least Kurtley Beale could curse the turf or his moulded studs...It was a long, long effort - more than 50 metres and on the angle. The only man who will blame Halfpenny is Halfpenny himself. He hung his head in despair as the kick fell short. Will Genia gathered and booted it joyfully into the stands. Halfpenny could barely look anyone in the eye as they tried to console him and the opposition preferred hands. He was a man apart in his misery. Rugby the ultimate team game? Not for everyone. The loneliness of the long-distance kicker."
"If you took this storyline to a Hollywood producer you'd be thrown out on your ear for stretching credibility way beyond breaking point. As entertainment this was appalling, as edge-of-the-seat, nerve-shredding drama it was utterly compelling...Needs must, as the old saying has it and, needing a win to take the series to Sydney, the Wallabies went to their well of sporting resilience and mustered the victory that they so badly needed. The crowd roared their approval at the death and skipper James Horwill, with that disciplinary cloud hanging over him, raised twin fists at the Lions, the critics and anyone else who wanted a piece of him."
"Whatever the result of next Saturday's deciding Test in Sydney, North will return to the British Isles this summer with his name etched into Lions folklore...When North gathered an up-and-under near the Lions' 22-metre line and he saw Israel Folau charging towards him he looked to be up the creek without a paddle...Rather than getting himself in the best position to present the ball for the seemingly inevitable maul to follow, North used Folau's iron-tight grip to his own advantage, scooping the 6ft 5in, 15st 6lb wing up in the air and over his shoulder with gobsmacking ease. With a global audience watching in awe North then pumped his legs, taking Folau with him as he gained significant ground - even using the Wallaby as a shield for would-be tacklers."
Click on their website www.ecived.com/en/ for more information.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
British cyclists size up bike-friendly America
With the assistance of air travel and a boat, they'll eventually make their way to Ireland, Wales and finally down to London, where they plan to end their journey on Portland Place, home to the Royal Institute of British Architects, in August.
Along the way, they've met with the government officials and bicycle advocates in Portland, Ore., Minneapolis and several other cities to learn about the "cylicization of cities," absorbing ideas that they'll compile in a report. Their project has drawn the attention of London Mayor Boris Johnson, who earlier this year pledged to spend 1 billion pounds ($1.54 billion) on cycling infrastructure over the next 13 years. He's so synonymous with London's efforts to be more cyclist-friendly that the signature blue bikes in the city's bike-sharing system are colloquially known as "Boris Bikes."
The cyclists gathered Saturday at Bike Pittsburgh, whose Lawrenceville office is on one of those very streets -- a narrow passageway flanked by parked cars -- that may have reminded Mr. Murray of London. There, they talked shop with city officials -- including bicycle/pedestrian coordinator Stephen Patchan and Councilman Bill Peduto's policy director -- and Bike Pittsburgh co-founders Scott Bricker and Louis Fineberg.
In a roundtable discussion, they touched on a variety of topics related to challenges of making cities more bike-friendly. Both Pittsburgh and London deal with a similar problem with infrastructure: how do you adapt roads that were built for horses and carts to accommodate cars, parking and cyclists?
Patrick Roberts, the principal transportation planner for the city of Pittsburgh, said it's going to require a paradigm shift, getting transportation engineers to build roads to include cyclists. As it stands, roads are constructed with the idea that there will be a growth in the number of cars, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when roads aren't built with cyclists in mind.
Roger Hawkins, a 53-year-old rider and architect, said reducing speed limits had a dramatic effect in bringing out cyclists. Of the 100 employees in his office -- based in the London borough of Islington -- none drives to work and about half ride their bikes. He attributes the proliferation of cyclists to Islington's maximum speed of 20 mph. He called it "simple physics" that fast-moving traffic would scare cyclists off their bikes.
With the assistance of air travel and a boat, they'll eventually make their way to Ireland, Wales and finally down to London, where they plan to end their journey on Portland Place, home to the Royal Institute of British Architects, in August.
Along the way, they've met with the government officials and bicycle advocates in Portland, Ore., Minneapolis and several other cities to learn about the "cylicization of cities," absorbing ideas that they'll compile in a report. Their project has drawn the attention of London Mayor Boris Johnson, who earlier this year pledged to spend 1 billion pounds ($1.54 billion) on cycling infrastructure over the next 13 years. He's so synonymous with London's efforts to be more cyclist-friendly that the signature blue bikes in the city's bike-sharing system are colloquially known as "Boris Bikes."
The cyclists gathered Saturday at Bike Pittsburgh, whose Lawrenceville office is on one of those very streets -- a narrow passageway flanked by parked cars -- that may have reminded Mr. Murray of London. There, they talked shop with city officials -- including bicycle/pedestrian coordinator Stephen Patchan and Councilman Bill Peduto's policy director -- and Bike Pittsburgh co-founders Scott Bricker and Louis Fineberg.
In a roundtable discussion, they touched on a variety of topics related to challenges of making cities more bike-friendly. Both Pittsburgh and London deal with a similar problem with infrastructure: how do you adapt roads that were built for horses and carts to accommodate cars, parking and cyclists?
Patrick Roberts, the principal transportation planner for the city of Pittsburgh, said it's going to require a paradigm shift, getting transportation engineers to build roads to include cyclists. As it stands, roads are constructed with the idea that there will be a growth in the number of cars, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when roads aren't built with cyclists in mind.
Roger Hawkins, a 53-year-old rider and architect, said reducing speed limits had a dramatic effect in bringing out cyclists. Of the 100 employees in his office -- based in the London borough of Islington -- none drives to work and about half ride their bikes. He attributes the proliferation of cyclists to Islington's maximum speed of 20 mph. He called it "simple physics" that fast-moving traffic would scare cyclists off their bikes.
A day before the six-month anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, the National Rifle Association extolled Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval for "standing up for the Second Amendment."
Sandoval, a rising Republican star, had followed through on a pledge to veto one of the few gun control measures ever to have emerged from the Nevada Legislature.
Sandoval's veto message two weeks ago said Senate Bill 221 would have eroded "Nevadans' Second Amendment rights under the United States Constitution" and subjected "law-abiding citizens to criminal prosecution."
Not wanting to let the moment pass, the NRA urged its members to email Sandoval and "thank him for standing up for the Second Amendment and law-abiding gun owners in Nevada."
Facing loss of federal funding for his state's largest psychiatric hospital, Sandoval halted the busing last month. The exportation of firearms is an entirely different matter.
California has laws protecting against gun sales to felons and people who have a history of severe mental illness. But people so inclined can drive to a Reno gun show, find a private individual with a weapon to sell and throw down sufficient cash to cover the price.
The seller need not ask questions. The buyer doesn't have to offer answers. There's no requirement that private-party sellers run buyers' names through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to check for a history of criminal convictions, domestic violence or mental illness. It's called the gun show loophole.
Legislation by U.S. Sens. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., would have closed the gun show loophole nationally. It failed in April. On June 3, the Nevada Legislature gave final approval to Senate Bill 221 to close that state's gun show loophole, only to have Sandoval veto it June 13.
The author, Sen. Justin Jones, a Las Vegas Democrat, viewed it as a stopgap until Congress can pass legislation requiring all sellers nationwide to run background checks. Without a national standard, gun laws in one state are "only as effective as the laws in the next state over."
Two months earlier, Bedell tried to buy a gun from a California dealer, only to be denied because of his history of hospitalization for mental illness. Nineteen days later, he bought one of his handguns at a Las Vegas gun show, no questions asked.
As part of his research, Dr. Garen Wintemute, a UC Davis medical school professor who studies gun violence, has counted license plates in the parking lots outside Reno gun shows. Fully 30 percent of the cars had California plates, he said.
"Northern California had a direct personal interest in that debate in Nevada," Wintemute said. "It would have made it more difficult for prohibited persons to obtain firearms. It would have made it harder to get crime guns into California."
Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued its latest annual report documenting the origins of guns used in crimes in all 50 states. The agency traced 31,244 guns used in crimes in California. The largest number came from within California.
Read the full story at www.ecived.com/en/!
Along the way, they've met with the government officials and bicycle advocates in Portland, Ore., Minneapolis and several other cities to learn about the "cylicization of cities," absorbing ideas that they'll compile in a report. Their project has drawn the attention of London Mayor Boris Johnson, who earlier this year pledged to spend 1 billion pounds ($1.54 billion) on cycling infrastructure over the next 13 years. He's so synonymous with London's efforts to be more cyclist-friendly that the signature blue bikes in the city's bike-sharing system are colloquially known as "Boris Bikes."
The cyclists gathered Saturday at Bike Pittsburgh, whose Lawrenceville office is on one of those very streets -- a narrow passageway flanked by parked cars -- that may have reminded Mr. Murray of London. There, they talked shop with city officials -- including bicycle/pedestrian coordinator Stephen Patchan and Councilman Bill Peduto's policy director -- and Bike Pittsburgh co-founders Scott Bricker and Louis Fineberg.
In a roundtable discussion, they touched on a variety of topics related to challenges of making cities more bike-friendly. Both Pittsburgh and London deal with a similar problem with infrastructure: how do you adapt roads that were built for horses and carts to accommodate cars, parking and cyclists?
Patrick Roberts, the principal transportation planner for the city of Pittsburgh, said it's going to require a paradigm shift, getting transportation engineers to build roads to include cyclists. As it stands, roads are constructed with the idea that there will be a growth in the number of cars, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when roads aren't built with cyclists in mind.
Roger Hawkins, a 53-year-old rider and architect, said reducing speed limits had a dramatic effect in bringing out cyclists. Of the 100 employees in his office -- based in the London borough of Islington -- none drives to work and about half ride their bikes. He attributes the proliferation of cyclists to Islington's maximum speed of 20 mph. He called it "simple physics" that fast-moving traffic would scare cyclists off their bikes.
With the assistance of air travel and a boat, they'll eventually make their way to Ireland, Wales and finally down to London, where they plan to end their journey on Portland Place, home to the Royal Institute of British Architects, in August.
Along the way, they've met with the government officials and bicycle advocates in Portland, Ore., Minneapolis and several other cities to learn about the "cylicization of cities," absorbing ideas that they'll compile in a report. Their project has drawn the attention of London Mayor Boris Johnson, who earlier this year pledged to spend 1 billion pounds ($1.54 billion) on cycling infrastructure over the next 13 years. He's so synonymous with London's efforts to be more cyclist-friendly that the signature blue bikes in the city's bike-sharing system are colloquially known as "Boris Bikes."
The cyclists gathered Saturday at Bike Pittsburgh, whose Lawrenceville office is on one of those very streets -- a narrow passageway flanked by parked cars -- that may have reminded Mr. Murray of London. There, they talked shop with city officials -- including bicycle/pedestrian coordinator Stephen Patchan and Councilman Bill Peduto's policy director -- and Bike Pittsburgh co-founders Scott Bricker and Louis Fineberg.
In a roundtable discussion, they touched on a variety of topics related to challenges of making cities more bike-friendly. Both Pittsburgh and London deal with a similar problem with infrastructure: how do you adapt roads that were built for horses and carts to accommodate cars, parking and cyclists?
Patrick Roberts, the principal transportation planner for the city of Pittsburgh, said it's going to require a paradigm shift, getting transportation engineers to build roads to include cyclists. As it stands, roads are constructed with the idea that there will be a growth in the number of cars, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when roads aren't built with cyclists in mind.
Roger Hawkins, a 53-year-old rider and architect, said reducing speed limits had a dramatic effect in bringing out cyclists. Of the 100 employees in his office -- based in the London borough of Islington -- none drives to work and about half ride their bikes. He attributes the proliferation of cyclists to Islington's maximum speed of 20 mph. He called it "simple physics" that fast-moving traffic would scare cyclists off their bikes.
A day before the six-month anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, the National Rifle Association extolled Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval for "standing up for the Second Amendment."
Sandoval, a rising Republican star, had followed through on a pledge to veto one of the few gun control measures ever to have emerged from the Nevada Legislature.
Sandoval's veto message two weeks ago said Senate Bill 221 would have eroded "Nevadans' Second Amendment rights under the United States Constitution" and subjected "law-abiding citizens to criminal prosecution."
Not wanting to let the moment pass, the NRA urged its members to email Sandoval and "thank him for standing up for the Second Amendment and law-abiding gun owners in Nevada."
Facing loss of federal funding for his state's largest psychiatric hospital, Sandoval halted the busing last month. The exportation of firearms is an entirely different matter.
California has laws protecting against gun sales to felons and people who have a history of severe mental illness. But people so inclined can drive to a Reno gun show, find a private individual with a weapon to sell and throw down sufficient cash to cover the price.
The seller need not ask questions. The buyer doesn't have to offer answers. There's no requirement that private-party sellers run buyers' names through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to check for a history of criminal convictions, domestic violence or mental illness. It's called the gun show loophole.
Legislation by U.S. Sens. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., would have closed the gun show loophole nationally. It failed in April. On June 3, the Nevada Legislature gave final approval to Senate Bill 221 to close that state's gun show loophole, only to have Sandoval veto it June 13.
The author, Sen. Justin Jones, a Las Vegas Democrat, viewed it as a stopgap until Congress can pass legislation requiring all sellers nationwide to run background checks. Without a national standard, gun laws in one state are "only as effective as the laws in the next state over."
Two months earlier, Bedell tried to buy a gun from a California dealer, only to be denied because of his history of hospitalization for mental illness. Nineteen days later, he bought one of his handguns at a Las Vegas gun show, no questions asked.
As part of his research, Dr. Garen Wintemute, a UC Davis medical school professor who studies gun violence, has counted license plates in the parking lots outside Reno gun shows. Fully 30 percent of the cars had California plates, he said.
"Northern California had a direct personal interest in that debate in Nevada," Wintemute said. "It would have made it more difficult for prohibited persons to obtain firearms. It would have made it harder to get crime guns into California."
Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued its latest annual report documenting the origins of guns used in crimes in all 50 states. The agency traced 31,244 guns used in crimes in California. The largest number came from within California.
Read the full story at www.ecived.com/en/!
Saturday, June 8, 2013
I saved a toddler trapped on a roof
I had plenty of practice climbing drainpipes as a teenager, when I'd regularly use one to access a girlfriend's bedroom. It wasn't a skill I expected to need again on a sunny bank holiday more than two decades later.
I'd arranged to meet my wife and a couple of friends in the beer garden of a local hotel. As I approached, I could hear raised voices. I thought maybe a group of people had drunk too much and things were about to turn nasty, but as I walked into the garden, I saw everyone looking up, including my wife and friends. Following their gaze, I saw a child in a red hat perched on top of a roof jutting out from the hotel. It made no sense – how had he got there?
I realised the people in the garden had arranged themselves underneath, in the hope that one of them would be able to catch him if he fell. From the other side of the roof, I heard a woman's voice imploring him to sit down and keep still. It was the boy's mother, who had tried to climb up to him and become stranded halfway along a flat roof.
The child ignored his mother's voice and his every movement brought a fresh gasp of anxiety from onlookers. The fire brigade had been called, but no one knew how long they'd take. I imagined the fire engine working its way across the city, slowed by holiday traffic. The thought of looking on helplessly as the boy lost his footing made me feel sick. The knot in the pit of my stomach was too much to bear – scanning the side of the building, I quickly worked out the quickest way up and made for the drainpipe.
It was old and looked as if it might break away from the wall, but I hauled myself up, grabbed on to a gutter that cracked ominously as it took my weight, then quickly heaved myself on to the tiles. Above me, the child paid me little attention and didn't appear to be frightened at all. He was younger than I'd thought – no older than two – and the roof was steeper than it had appeared from the ground. The situation suddenly seemed even more grave. I realised I'd be unable to predict a toddler's responses, and imagined diving across to grab him if he stumbled, knowing there would be nothing to arrest our fall if I did.
My only option now was to keep climbing. I launched myself upwards and tried to ignore the tiles fracturing beneath me, a couple slipping free underfoot and clattering down.
The roof narrowed as it rose and I planted myself as firmly as I could on the ridge, grabbed the boy and swung him on to my lap. In my precarious position, just holding on to him was a indoor Tracking – he wouldn't stop wriggling.
Below me, the hotel's customers remained rooted to the spot, staring up at us, occasionally shouting words of encouragement. My wife, unable to watch, was playing with our four-year-old daughter, attempting to keep her distracted. It occurred to me suddenly that the life of this stranger's child was literally in my hands. I had no doubt he was safer now I was holding on to him, but if we fell, would I be blamed for the consequences?
I also began to question what had led me to act so impulsively. I'm an artist, and over the years I've engaged in many public performance pieces, some of them quite risky – attempting to sell my identity, offering myself for 24 hours as the prize in a raffle, all sorts of projects with unknowable outcomes – but nothing compared with this.
It took only about 15 minutes for the fire brigade to arrive, but I was more than ready. A long ladder slid towards us, and a fireman clambered up, warning me not to move until he was directly below me. I felt a surge of relief as I passed the boy over, then waited to take my own turn climbing down, glad the situation was now in someone else's hands.
I learned later that the boy was called Charlie. His mum had been in the garden with a friend, waiting to be picked up by her husband. She took her eyes off Charlie for only a minute, and it seems he was able to climb so high because a small stepladder was leaning against a trellis, which in turn connected with the roof. No one could have foreseen his fearless ascent.
Whereas rumors once swirled that Microsoft’s Xbox One would require a true always-on connection — one that required the Xbox One to be online literally all the time — the policy turned out to be a simple check-in once every 24 hours. As long as a game is being played on your own Xbox One, rather than a friend’s — which requires an admittedly draconian hourly check-in — you can technically have an internet outage for the majority of the day and still be able to play your games. However, a common argument against an always-online Xbox is that some people just can’t afford an Xbox plus internet service, but no one ever seems to go out and survey to see the extent to which this is true.
This argument assumes that people can afford an Xbox One, games, and a display, but not an internet service. To see if this is true, you’d compare the prices of two groups of products and services. The first is everything you’d need to use an Xbox One without an always-on internet requirement — the Xbox One, a television or monitor with appropriate inputs, and at least one game purchasable from a brick-and-mortar store.
The second group would be an internet connection and a device to utilize the connection — a computer. You’d include the computer in the second group for the same reason you have to include a display and a game in the first group. An Xbox One without a display and a game cannot be used, and an internet connection without an internet-capable device cannot be used.
I'd arranged to meet my wife and a couple of friends in the beer garden of a local hotel. As I approached, I could hear raised voices. I thought maybe a group of people had drunk too much and things were about to turn nasty, but as I walked into the garden, I saw everyone looking up, including my wife and friends. Following their gaze, I saw a child in a red hat perched on top of a roof jutting out from the hotel. It made no sense – how had he got there?
I realised the people in the garden had arranged themselves underneath, in the hope that one of them would be able to catch him if he fell. From the other side of the roof, I heard a woman's voice imploring him to sit down and keep still. It was the boy's mother, who had tried to climb up to him and become stranded halfway along a flat roof.
The child ignored his mother's voice and his every movement brought a fresh gasp of anxiety from onlookers. The fire brigade had been called, but no one knew how long they'd take. I imagined the fire engine working its way across the city, slowed by holiday traffic. The thought of looking on helplessly as the boy lost his footing made me feel sick. The knot in the pit of my stomach was too much to bear – scanning the side of the building, I quickly worked out the quickest way up and made for the drainpipe.
It was old and looked as if it might break away from the wall, but I hauled myself up, grabbed on to a gutter that cracked ominously as it took my weight, then quickly heaved myself on to the tiles. Above me, the child paid me little attention and didn't appear to be frightened at all. He was younger than I'd thought – no older than two – and the roof was steeper than it had appeared from the ground. The situation suddenly seemed even more grave. I realised I'd be unable to predict a toddler's responses, and imagined diving across to grab him if he stumbled, knowing there would be nothing to arrest our fall if I did.
My only option now was to keep climbing. I launched myself upwards and tried to ignore the tiles fracturing beneath me, a couple slipping free underfoot and clattering down.
The roof narrowed as it rose and I planted myself as firmly as I could on the ridge, grabbed the boy and swung him on to my lap. In my precarious position, just holding on to him was a indoor Tracking – he wouldn't stop wriggling.
Below me, the hotel's customers remained rooted to the spot, staring up at us, occasionally shouting words of encouragement. My wife, unable to watch, was playing with our four-year-old daughter, attempting to keep her distracted. It occurred to me suddenly that the life of this stranger's child was literally in my hands. I had no doubt he was safer now I was holding on to him, but if we fell, would I be blamed for the consequences?
I also began to question what had led me to act so impulsively. I'm an artist, and over the years I've engaged in many public performance pieces, some of them quite risky – attempting to sell my identity, offering myself for 24 hours as the prize in a raffle, all sorts of projects with unknowable outcomes – but nothing compared with this.
It took only about 15 minutes for the fire brigade to arrive, but I was more than ready. A long ladder slid towards us, and a fireman clambered up, warning me not to move until he was directly below me. I felt a surge of relief as I passed the boy over, then waited to take my own turn climbing down, glad the situation was now in someone else's hands.
I learned later that the boy was called Charlie. His mum had been in the garden with a friend, waiting to be picked up by her husband. She took her eyes off Charlie for only a minute, and it seems he was able to climb so high because a small stepladder was leaning against a trellis, which in turn connected with the roof. No one could have foreseen his fearless ascent.
Whereas rumors once swirled that Microsoft’s Xbox One would require a true always-on connection — one that required the Xbox One to be online literally all the time — the policy turned out to be a simple check-in once every 24 hours. As long as a game is being played on your own Xbox One, rather than a friend’s — which requires an admittedly draconian hourly check-in — you can technically have an internet outage for the majority of the day and still be able to play your games. However, a common argument against an always-online Xbox is that some people just can’t afford an Xbox plus internet service, but no one ever seems to go out and survey to see the extent to which this is true.
This argument assumes that people can afford an Xbox One, games, and a display, but not an internet service. To see if this is true, you’d compare the prices of two groups of products and services. The first is everything you’d need to use an Xbox One without an always-on internet requirement — the Xbox One, a television or monitor with appropriate inputs, and at least one game purchasable from a brick-and-mortar store.
The second group would be an internet connection and a device to utilize the connection — a computer. You’d include the computer in the second group for the same reason you have to include a display and a game in the first group. An Xbox One without a display and a game cannot be used, and an internet connection without an internet-capable device cannot be used.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
What is that, ask Bangaloreans
The Bengaluru Santhe on Swami Vivekananda Road that was inaugurated on May 8 with much fanfare by the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) wore a deserted look on Friday, with hardly any customers paying it a visit. Though there is a provision to allot 83 stalls for artisans and members of self-help groups, the BMRCL has succeeded in attracting only about 40 artisans and those who support the cause of artisans in rural areas.
The artisans who have been exhibiting their products at these stalls for more than 20 days have been sitting idle most of the time owing to lack of customers.
“Some people visit our stalls during the weekends but not on weekdays. I think that the lack of awareness or publicity about Bengaluru Santhe might be a reason for the low response and lack of encouragement from public,’’ said M Manjula, member of a self-help group, Suruchi, which exhibits cotton bags at the Santhe.
The objective of Bengaluru Santhe was to promote and help artisans from rural areas. The exhibition was supposed to be a platform for artisans to showcase their best products. The terms and conditions of participation offered to rural artisans and members of self-help groups includes a fee of Rs100 per stall per day. The artisans have to share 5% of the revenue with the BMRCL. The shops can be rented out for a maximum period of 60 days. The artisans have no problem to pay the fee of Rs 100 per day but they are worried about the lack of response from the public. “
We are very happy with the guidance and cooperation of K Prabhakara Rao, the chief executive officer of BMRCL. Though his intentions are good, the need of the hour is publicity. Not many people are aware of the existence of Bengaluru Santhe,’’ said Rajeswari Manjunath of Shiva Home Products from Shimoga.
Lack of other facilities such as eateries, entertainment and parking place for vehicles are attributed as the other reasons for the lack of footfalls at Bengaluru Santhe.
“Many visitors have told us that they faced lot of problems to find space for parking vehicles. If the authorities concerned take measures to provide a suitable place for parking vehicles, there will be more visitors. I request the BMRCL authorities to put up more banners on Swami Vivekananda Road to create awareness about the Santhe,’’ said Hema Sekhar, who won a national award for her skills in making batik tie-and-dye products.
Meanwhile, Prabhakara Rao agreed on the need to create awareness among Bangaloreans about the Santhe. “We are mulling over several options to ensure sufficient publicity. As far as the issue of vehicle parking is concerned, not many people are aware of the two-acres of land nearby meant for parking. Ours is the only Metro rail station in the country to have such a vast space for parking vehicles,’’ said Rao.
Three Rivers owner Tripp Kline makes his first pitch of the summer auction season June 4 with the opening half a doubleheader featuring a Latrobe “gentleman's collection.” The opener of the twin bill touches all the bases in the country and Americana categories with selections of furniture, clocks, collectibles, glass, silver, jewelry, china and ceramics. Along with some well-done reproductions, the sale includes many period pieces.
One of the better works of art in the sale is a still-life painting by Dorothy Lauer Davids, a Greensburg artist who earned a memorial show at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art shortly after her death in 1980. Born in York, Pa., Davids settled in Western Pennsylvania and painted ordinary scenes of daily life in her community, such as a farmhand resting after a hard day's work in the fields or shoppers at a local market. During 2009, the museum featured her work again in its “Four Perspectives on Fifty Years.”
Keeping local, the sale offers signed pieces by Malcolm Parcell and Robert Griffing, whose paintings capture the spirit of Pennsylvania's Eastern Woodland Indians during the 18th century. Bidders also will discover older maps and prints of Greensburg and other towns in the southern reaches of Western Pennsylvania.
A campaign curiosity shows how politicians helped voters get their heads around the issues in the early 20th century. After splitting from the mainstream Republican Party, former president Teddy Roosevelt formed the National Progressive party, also known as the Bull Moose Party. A well-preserved bandana captures the party's spirit with images of a bull moose, Teddy's initials and a depiction of a bear carrying a big stick.
As the temperatures outside rise, owner Dan Pletcher promises to turn up the heat in the bidding arena with a new “absolute” selling policy, even in the wake of a $41,000 hammer price for a Tiffany lamp during the May 25 sale. After losing out on several items during an out-of-state sale on which he placed the high bids because of hidden reserve prices, Pletcher vowed that all reasonable top bids on “big ticket” items at C&P events will take home that merchandise. Along with what he calls the company's low, competitive fees, Pletcher says the absolute approach will help sell more merchandise at fair market prices for consignors and bidders.
A couple of 14-karat gold rings will be among the first pieces put to the test. Both stunning in their own right, one ring sports a 4.74-karat round diamond at its center, with 12 smaller sparklers surrounding it on the gold band. The other ring packs a 2.03-karat diamond on an elegant gold band. The rings come with International Gemological Institute certification papers.
Along with the two diamond rings, the jewelry and silver selections are strong overall. A Tiffany sterling-silver owl figure, with a screw-on head, is a fine example. Flatware serving sets, coffee sets, teapots, sterling and tortoise-shell snuffboxes further burnish the silver offerings. A women's 18-karat gold Rolex wristwatch is on offer, as well.
In the furniture section, a three-door American Victorian bookcase from Pleasant Unity, Pa., is elegantly understated for Victorian furniture. The bookcase provides plenty of storage for a reader's favorite tomes behind a trio of tall glass doors. Beneath, three drawers provide space for bookmarks and other reading accessories. On the other hand, a miniature 18th-century painted Italian secretary is perfect for smaller spaces.
Another round of black Americana comes to market during this sale in the shape of salt and pepper shakers, advertising items, calendars, books and other pieces in the 35 lots up for grabs.
Artistically speaking, Japanese and Asian ivory figures, prints, antique bells, palace seats and garden urns bring a hint of the Far East. Paintings feature works from European and American artists, including several prints, engravings, mezzotints and more from a local country club that is downsizing its collection.Click on their website www.ecived.com/en for more information.
The artisans who have been exhibiting their products at these stalls for more than 20 days have been sitting idle most of the time owing to lack of customers.
“Some people visit our stalls during the weekends but not on weekdays. I think that the lack of awareness or publicity about Bengaluru Santhe might be a reason for the low response and lack of encouragement from public,’’ said M Manjula, member of a self-help group, Suruchi, which exhibits cotton bags at the Santhe.
The objective of Bengaluru Santhe was to promote and help artisans from rural areas. The exhibition was supposed to be a platform for artisans to showcase their best products. The terms and conditions of participation offered to rural artisans and members of self-help groups includes a fee of Rs100 per stall per day. The artisans have to share 5% of the revenue with the BMRCL. The shops can be rented out for a maximum period of 60 days. The artisans have no problem to pay the fee of Rs 100 per day but they are worried about the lack of response from the public. “
We are very happy with the guidance and cooperation of K Prabhakara Rao, the chief executive officer of BMRCL. Though his intentions are good, the need of the hour is publicity. Not many people are aware of the existence of Bengaluru Santhe,’’ said Rajeswari Manjunath of Shiva Home Products from Shimoga.
Lack of other facilities such as eateries, entertainment and parking place for vehicles are attributed as the other reasons for the lack of footfalls at Bengaluru Santhe.
“Many visitors have told us that they faced lot of problems to find space for parking vehicles. If the authorities concerned take measures to provide a suitable place for parking vehicles, there will be more visitors. I request the BMRCL authorities to put up more banners on Swami Vivekananda Road to create awareness about the Santhe,’’ said Hema Sekhar, who won a national award for her skills in making batik tie-and-dye products.
Meanwhile, Prabhakara Rao agreed on the need to create awareness among Bangaloreans about the Santhe. “We are mulling over several options to ensure sufficient publicity. As far as the issue of vehicle parking is concerned, not many people are aware of the two-acres of land nearby meant for parking. Ours is the only Metro rail station in the country to have such a vast space for parking vehicles,’’ said Rao.
Three Rivers owner Tripp Kline makes his first pitch of the summer auction season June 4 with the opening half a doubleheader featuring a Latrobe “gentleman's collection.” The opener of the twin bill touches all the bases in the country and Americana categories with selections of furniture, clocks, collectibles, glass, silver, jewelry, china and ceramics. Along with some well-done reproductions, the sale includes many period pieces.
One of the better works of art in the sale is a still-life painting by Dorothy Lauer Davids, a Greensburg artist who earned a memorial show at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art shortly after her death in 1980. Born in York, Pa., Davids settled in Western Pennsylvania and painted ordinary scenes of daily life in her community, such as a farmhand resting after a hard day's work in the fields or shoppers at a local market. During 2009, the museum featured her work again in its “Four Perspectives on Fifty Years.”
Keeping local, the sale offers signed pieces by Malcolm Parcell and Robert Griffing, whose paintings capture the spirit of Pennsylvania's Eastern Woodland Indians during the 18th century. Bidders also will discover older maps and prints of Greensburg and other towns in the southern reaches of Western Pennsylvania.
A campaign curiosity shows how politicians helped voters get their heads around the issues in the early 20th century. After splitting from the mainstream Republican Party, former president Teddy Roosevelt formed the National Progressive party, also known as the Bull Moose Party. A well-preserved bandana captures the party's spirit with images of a bull moose, Teddy's initials and a depiction of a bear carrying a big stick.
As the temperatures outside rise, owner Dan Pletcher promises to turn up the heat in the bidding arena with a new “absolute” selling policy, even in the wake of a $41,000 hammer price for a Tiffany lamp during the May 25 sale. After losing out on several items during an out-of-state sale on which he placed the high bids because of hidden reserve prices, Pletcher vowed that all reasonable top bids on “big ticket” items at C&P events will take home that merchandise. Along with what he calls the company's low, competitive fees, Pletcher says the absolute approach will help sell more merchandise at fair market prices for consignors and bidders.
A couple of 14-karat gold rings will be among the first pieces put to the test. Both stunning in their own right, one ring sports a 4.74-karat round diamond at its center, with 12 smaller sparklers surrounding it on the gold band. The other ring packs a 2.03-karat diamond on an elegant gold band. The rings come with International Gemological Institute certification papers.
Along with the two diamond rings, the jewelry and silver selections are strong overall. A Tiffany sterling-silver owl figure, with a screw-on head, is a fine example. Flatware serving sets, coffee sets, teapots, sterling and tortoise-shell snuffboxes further burnish the silver offerings. A women's 18-karat gold Rolex wristwatch is on offer, as well.
In the furniture section, a three-door American Victorian bookcase from Pleasant Unity, Pa., is elegantly understated for Victorian furniture. The bookcase provides plenty of storage for a reader's favorite tomes behind a trio of tall glass doors. Beneath, three drawers provide space for bookmarks and other reading accessories. On the other hand, a miniature 18th-century painted Italian secretary is perfect for smaller spaces.
Another round of black Americana comes to market during this sale in the shape of salt and pepper shakers, advertising items, calendars, books and other pieces in the 35 lots up for grabs.
Artistically speaking, Japanese and Asian ivory figures, prints, antique bells, palace seats and garden urns bring a hint of the Far East. Paintings feature works from European and American artists, including several prints, engravings, mezzotints and more from a local country club that is downsizing its collection.Click on their website www.ecived.com/en for more information.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Who Will Win in September?
When we gave our way-too-early Emmy predictions last May, we correctly predicted the winners in four out of seven races.We’re kind of proud we called Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ and Claire Danes’ wins two months before the nominees were even announced.
This year’s races, though, are much harder to call because of a huge wild card: Netflix, the streaming service that entered the game with the year’s best new drama, "House of Cards," and the return of "Arrested Development."
Will TV industry professionals roll out the welcome mat for an online service that could cost them their jobs? We have no idea. So with that caveat in mind, here are our very early, for-entertainment-purposes-only guesses about who will take home gold statuettes four long months from now.
"Girls" always kept viewers guessing in its second season, taking almost as many risks as FX’s "Louie." It is a fiercely intelligent and challenging show, but it’s only occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. "Veep," meanwhile, has just crackled. Not a word of dialog is wasted. "30 Rock" will probably score another nomination, but not a win, for its final season. The show as a whole was one of the best ever, but it refused to go soft with its goodbye season. The admirable lack of sentimentality will cost it. "The Office" may also get a nod, simply because its latest season was its last one.
"The Big Bang Theory" will probably get another nod for delivering inoffensive comedy and being the most popular sitcom on TV.
The big question, again, is whether the Academy might recognize Netflix’s long-delayed fourth season of "Arrested Development," which was just released in one chunk, just before the Emmy deadline. Nominating "Arrested" would be a huge step: The TV industry would be essentially bringing its online competition into the Indoor Positioning System, and Emmy voters could celebrate a great show that never quite got the audience or awards it deserved during its run on Fox.
The race is between Julia Louis-Dreyfus, last year’s winner for "Veep," and Lena Dunham for "Girls." But Louis-Dreyfus will probably get an easy repeat for two reasons: First, she’s excellent as the unabashedly self-centered title character. And second, voters will ding Dunham for being naked a lot when she arguably doesn’t need to be and for her character’s carefully crafted annoyingness.
They may also capriciously and unfairly decide that at 26, the whip-smart writer-director-actress has plenty more time to win things.
Laura Dern, on HBO’s brilliant and painful comedy/drama "Enlightened," gave perhaps the best performance by any actress in the past year. Personally, I’d vote for her in a heartbeat. But I don’t think Emmy voters will even think to nominate her, given that she wasn’t nominated last year, and her show has been canceled.
So who else will round out the category? Amy Poehler deserves another nod for her to-be-treasured turn on "Parks and Recreation." Past winner Tina Fey should be nominated again for the final season of "30 Rock." Zooey Deschanel may be back for being so “adorkable” on "New Girl," but I’d rather see Mindy Kaling score a nod for "The Mindy Project." And we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the return of past winners Melissa McCarthy for "Mike & Molly" or Edie Falco for "Nurse Jackie."
Actually, the time was last year or the year before, but that’s OK. The comedian and his brilliant FX series, "Louie," were still new and unfamiliar to viewers then. Now he has reached the media saturation point, and voters may be ready to recognize his -- not using this word lightly -- genius.
He won in two writing categories last yeargood job, Emmys, but C.K. the performer has to sell the bits he writes, and some of them are extraordinarily difficult.
As for the other contenders: Not many people predicted Jon Cryer’s win last year for "Two and a Half Men," which was essentially an acknowledgement that he kept the show steady after Charlie Sheen’s exit and Ashton Kutcher’s addition. He’s unlikely to repeat -- and may not even get another nod.
Emmy voters are under no pressure to give another Emmy to Alec Baldwin, either, but the "30 Rock" star does deserve another nomination for staying ruthlessly funny to the end. Always endearing "Big Bang Theory" star Jim Parsons has won twice already.
Don Cheadle will probably be nominated again for Showtime’s "House of Lies," but this doesn’t feel like his year to win. That leaves room for at least one more nominee. It wouldn’t be a shock for Johnny Galecki, Parson’s co-star, to return to the running, given that their show is still surging in popularity.
"House of Cards" got critical raves this season, so this will be another test of whether the industry is ready to give Netflix its blessing. Since we published this story in our EmmyWrap magazine earlier this month, I've been reminded that FX's "The Americans" also scored with critics and is very much in contention, and Sundance's "Rectify" has earned lots of buzz for its short first season.
This is a potentially wild category. Last year’s winner, "Homeland," was perceived by many critics to suffer a sophomore slump. If Emmy voters agree, that could throw open the race. The "Homeland" win broke a four-year streak for AMC’s "Mad Men," which likely won’t win again until next season, its last one.
It’s absurd, meanwhile, that "Breaking Bad" has never won. But the first half of its final season, which aired in the eligibility period, felt too much like a setup for the fireworks to come. I'd nominate it in a second, but don't know if Emmy voters will.
Perpetual nominee "Downton Abbey" will likely be back after a particularly eventful season. And HBO’s "Game of Thrones" and "Boardwalk Empire" deserve to return as well. FX’s Soviet spy drama "The Americans" keeps getting better, but it may have too much action and not enough weeping for Emmy voters’ tastes.
"The Walking Dead" provided some of the most gripping, scream-at-your-screen moments of the year, but Emmy voters can’t seem to get past the gore and zombies.
So if "House of Cards" or other new shows join the category, what will they bump? Perhaps -- I know this sounds crazy -- "Breaking Bad." The same voters adventurous enough to vote for the meth drama may also be willing to give Netflix its due -- while making plans to recognize "Breaking Bad" next year, finally, for its final episodes.
This year’s races, though, are much harder to call because of a huge wild card: Netflix, the streaming service that entered the game with the year’s best new drama, "House of Cards," and the return of "Arrested Development."
Will TV industry professionals roll out the welcome mat for an online service that could cost them their jobs? We have no idea. So with that caveat in mind, here are our very early, for-entertainment-purposes-only guesses about who will take home gold statuettes four long months from now.
"Girls" always kept viewers guessing in its second season, taking almost as many risks as FX’s "Louie." It is a fiercely intelligent and challenging show, but it’s only occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. "Veep," meanwhile, has just crackled. Not a word of dialog is wasted. "30 Rock" will probably score another nomination, but not a win, for its final season. The show as a whole was one of the best ever, but it refused to go soft with its goodbye season. The admirable lack of sentimentality will cost it. "The Office" may also get a nod, simply because its latest season was its last one.
"The Big Bang Theory" will probably get another nod for delivering inoffensive comedy and being the most popular sitcom on TV.
The big question, again, is whether the Academy might recognize Netflix’s long-delayed fourth season of "Arrested Development," which was just released in one chunk, just before the Emmy deadline. Nominating "Arrested" would be a huge step: The TV industry would be essentially bringing its online competition into the Indoor Positioning System, and Emmy voters could celebrate a great show that never quite got the audience or awards it deserved during its run on Fox.
The race is between Julia Louis-Dreyfus, last year’s winner for "Veep," and Lena Dunham for "Girls." But Louis-Dreyfus will probably get an easy repeat for two reasons: First, she’s excellent as the unabashedly self-centered title character. And second, voters will ding Dunham for being naked a lot when she arguably doesn’t need to be and for her character’s carefully crafted annoyingness.
They may also capriciously and unfairly decide that at 26, the whip-smart writer-director-actress has plenty more time to win things.
Laura Dern, on HBO’s brilliant and painful comedy/drama "Enlightened," gave perhaps the best performance by any actress in the past year. Personally, I’d vote for her in a heartbeat. But I don’t think Emmy voters will even think to nominate her, given that she wasn’t nominated last year, and her show has been canceled.
So who else will round out the category? Amy Poehler deserves another nod for her to-be-treasured turn on "Parks and Recreation." Past winner Tina Fey should be nominated again for the final season of "30 Rock." Zooey Deschanel may be back for being so “adorkable” on "New Girl," but I’d rather see Mindy Kaling score a nod for "The Mindy Project." And we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the return of past winners Melissa McCarthy for "Mike & Molly" or Edie Falco for "Nurse Jackie."
Actually, the time was last year or the year before, but that’s OK. The comedian and his brilliant FX series, "Louie," were still new and unfamiliar to viewers then. Now he has reached the media saturation point, and voters may be ready to recognize his -- not using this word lightly -- genius.
He won in two writing categories last yeargood job, Emmys, but C.K. the performer has to sell the bits he writes, and some of them are extraordinarily difficult.
As for the other contenders: Not many people predicted Jon Cryer’s win last year for "Two and a Half Men," which was essentially an acknowledgement that he kept the show steady after Charlie Sheen’s exit and Ashton Kutcher’s addition. He’s unlikely to repeat -- and may not even get another nod.
Emmy voters are under no pressure to give another Emmy to Alec Baldwin, either, but the "30 Rock" star does deserve another nomination for staying ruthlessly funny to the end. Always endearing "Big Bang Theory" star Jim Parsons has won twice already.
Don Cheadle will probably be nominated again for Showtime’s "House of Lies," but this doesn’t feel like his year to win. That leaves room for at least one more nominee. It wouldn’t be a shock for Johnny Galecki, Parson’s co-star, to return to the running, given that their show is still surging in popularity.
"House of Cards" got critical raves this season, so this will be another test of whether the industry is ready to give Netflix its blessing. Since we published this story in our EmmyWrap magazine earlier this month, I've been reminded that FX's "The Americans" also scored with critics and is very much in contention, and Sundance's "Rectify" has earned lots of buzz for its short first season.
This is a potentially wild category. Last year’s winner, "Homeland," was perceived by many critics to suffer a sophomore slump. If Emmy voters agree, that could throw open the race. The "Homeland" win broke a four-year streak for AMC’s "Mad Men," which likely won’t win again until next season, its last one.
It’s absurd, meanwhile, that "Breaking Bad" has never won. But the first half of its final season, which aired in the eligibility period, felt too much like a setup for the fireworks to come. I'd nominate it in a second, but don't know if Emmy voters will.
Perpetual nominee "Downton Abbey" will likely be back after a particularly eventful season. And HBO’s "Game of Thrones" and "Boardwalk Empire" deserve to return as well. FX’s Soviet spy drama "The Americans" keeps getting better, but it may have too much action and not enough weeping for Emmy voters’ tastes.
"The Walking Dead" provided some of the most gripping, scream-at-your-screen moments of the year, but Emmy voters can’t seem to get past the gore and zombies.
So if "House of Cards" or other new shows join the category, what will they bump? Perhaps -- I know this sounds crazy -- "Breaking Bad." The same voters adventurous enough to vote for the meth drama may also be willing to give Netflix its due -- while making plans to recognize "Breaking Bad" next year, finally, for its final episodes.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Atlanta, by the guidebook
Immediately after landing, I wandered over to Map 14, Grant Park/Summerhill, to experience the “oddest Atlanta tourist attraction.” I had placed my utmost faith in this guidebook, and it honored that trust. At least when it came to Page 292.
While travel appsters hover over their gadgets, squinting at a tiny screen, I hoisted my low-tech guidebooks all over Atlanta. I ruffled through their pages on sidewalks, in my rental car and even inside a bathroom at a bar, searching for whatever I needed next: food, culture, a cab, coffee, the police. Though the weight of the books crocheted a knot in my back, at least I didn’t walk into a parking meter.
To cover the entire spectrum of Atlanta, I toted around a small library of guidebooks: Moon Handbooks (for standards and staples), Not for Tourists Guide to Atlanta (as comprehensive as a phone book) and Wallpaper City Guide (sybaritic and stylish).
Each book spoke its own patois, yet sometimes they came together in a cohesive voice – a valuable consensus for an indecisive traveler. Case in point: the Georgian Terrace Hotel, the august early 20th-century property that appeared in all three softbacks, including the very discerning Wallpaper. Leave the equivocating to Yelpers and Trip Advisors.
And yet sometimes they didn’t endorse equally – a conundrum for a waffling traveler. The Cyclorama, considered the largest oil painting in the world, was too anti-aesthetic for Wallpaper, which avoids the campy and the common. Moon provided a thorough write-up, but its description lacked flash. NFT went straight for the superlatives. I go weak for “-ests.”
Neither book truly captured the Cyclorama’s essence, but maybe they were intentionally holding back to protect the secret sauce. I stumbled into the museum unprepared, except for knowing the basic info. To view one of three intact Cycloramas in the country, I had to wait for the next tour. Guests aren’t allowed inside the amphitheater unattended; perhaps the temptation to jump into the painted scene and play Civil War soldier is too strong.
The painting measures 42 feet high and 358 feet in circumference and includes a Natural Museum of History-ish diorama that was added to the foreground in 1936.
Oakland Cemetery, built in 1840, is a living history museum of the Indoor Positioning System, housing the remains of such famous personalities as Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell and Maynard Jackson, the city’s first African American mayor. The main objective of my pilgrimage, however, was to pay tribute to Joseph Jacobs, the pharmacist who introduced Coca-Cola to the world in 1887. Before entering the gates, I stopped into Ria’s Bluebird for a Diet Coke. I later learned that according to my guidebooks, Ria’s serves smokin’ Southern cuisine and is a coveted brunch spot.
Jacobs’s site was devoid of fan souvenirs. Two large urns flanked the simple white marble mausoleum. I grabbed my bottle of soda, took a swig, then sprinkled the rest around his grave. May your fridge be stocked with Coke for all eternity.
Maybe I trusted too much. Yet both Moon and Wallpaper touted the Thursday-night cocktail gatherings at the Museum of Design Atlanta. Free drinks with admission. Maybe I should have called first.
The guidebooks deserted me on a few other occasions as well. Eighty Eight Tofu House, a 24-hour Asian vegetarian restaurant, was out of business, despite its mention on Page 321 of NFT. And the Red Light Cafe no longer hosts hip-hop shows, contrary to Moon’s description.
Nonetheless, the tiny stumbles didn’t overshadow the guidebooks’ great strides of discovery. For example, I owe NFT for lighting the way to the art museum at Spelman College, the historically black college for women.
Wallpaper also earned a hearty handshake for leading me to Westside Provisions District, an urbane collection of clothing stores, restaurants and furniture shops.
I do, however, take all the credit for missing the turn to Westside and ending up at Goat Farm, an artists’ colony established in an old wheelmaking factory. I didn’t find any four-legged barnyard animals, but I bumped into some chickens and artists loafing around a coffeehouse.
I don’t want to sound like an old-timer here–in part because I don’t feel like one mentally or emotionally (physically is sometimes another matter)–but mostly because what I aim to write is not passé or irrelevant to the current situation. The Left has been here before. The historical circumstances were different, but the static situation was eerily similar. Although I could be referring to the 1950s in the United States, when anti-communism was the national faith and leftists were considered on a par with Satan and his dominions by the mainstream media and most of its readers, the period I want to talk about is the 1970s and 1980s.
The New Left was in retreat. A combination of victories and half-victories, massive repression, a retooling of the Democratic Party, and the demise of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had created a situation where a multitude of organizations existed on the US Left. All too many of them considered their line to be the correct one. None were very willing to compromise, preferring instead to fine tune their particular interpretation of Marx, Lenin and the rest to such a point that instead of gaining adherents, they slowly but surely lost them. By the end of the 1970s, some of these groups were working on the left end of the Democratic Party, hoping to expand the small opening created by George McGovern’s 1972 campaign into creating a genuine left parliamentary opposition in the US. Other groups were fighting amongst themselves, listening to provocateurs in their midsts, or just dissolving into thin air, as it were. Meanwhile, the US right wing was consolidating its forces behind millions and millions of corporate dollars. The result was the election of Ronald Reagan to the White House and the portrayal of Jimmy Carter, the creator of the Carter doctrine (which further bound the Empire’s military to the authoritarian regimes under whose lands the energy industry’s oil profits lay), as a leftist and wimp.
Nothing has been the same since. The Left waged successful campaigns against US support for apartheid, but hardly bothered to oppose the US invasion of Grenada. It was also fairly successful in opposing US support for the Contras in Nicaragua and the bloody regime killing thousands in El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America. Unfortunately, their activities did not foresee the creation of an extralegal funding process for the Contras or the emptiness of the legislation against the human rights violations of the El Salvadorian government. Also, despite one of the broadest campaigns against nuclear weapons in history, the Pentagon and its corporate cohorts placed their missiles throughout Europe. By 1989, the response of the Left to the Bush administration’s invasion of Panama was barely a whimper. Then came Bill Clinton–the popular pretender to the progressives’ throne. In a litany fairly well known, Clinton pushed the neoliberal wet dream known as NAFTA through Congress. Then he “reformed” public assistance to the poor. Then he pushed through the Omnibus Crime and Terrorism Bill, making federal crimes out of a multitude of political activities and increasing the number of federal crimes that were punishable by death. Oh yeah, he reneged on LGBT equality and injected racial coding into his campaign as if he were a modern day Republican. Meanwhile, he and Tony Blair maintained a deadly sanctions regime on Iraq while bombing it at will. Besides all this, Clinton lobbed cruise missiles much like Barack Obama launches armed drones. On top of all this, he helped create the situation that provoked the crash of 2008. No, he wasn’t solely responsible, but the illusion of money where there wasn’t any greatly expanded during his rule. And the Left was rather silent.
While travel appsters hover over their gadgets, squinting at a tiny screen, I hoisted my low-tech guidebooks all over Atlanta. I ruffled through their pages on sidewalks, in my rental car and even inside a bathroom at a bar, searching for whatever I needed next: food, culture, a cab, coffee, the police. Though the weight of the books crocheted a knot in my back, at least I didn’t walk into a parking meter.
To cover the entire spectrum of Atlanta, I toted around a small library of guidebooks: Moon Handbooks (for standards and staples), Not for Tourists Guide to Atlanta (as comprehensive as a phone book) and Wallpaper City Guide (sybaritic and stylish).
Each book spoke its own patois, yet sometimes they came together in a cohesive voice – a valuable consensus for an indecisive traveler. Case in point: the Georgian Terrace Hotel, the august early 20th-century property that appeared in all three softbacks, including the very discerning Wallpaper. Leave the equivocating to Yelpers and Trip Advisors.
And yet sometimes they didn’t endorse equally – a conundrum for a waffling traveler. The Cyclorama, considered the largest oil painting in the world, was too anti-aesthetic for Wallpaper, which avoids the campy and the common. Moon provided a thorough write-up, but its description lacked flash. NFT went straight for the superlatives. I go weak for “-ests.”
Neither book truly captured the Cyclorama’s essence, but maybe they were intentionally holding back to protect the secret sauce. I stumbled into the museum unprepared, except for knowing the basic info. To view one of three intact Cycloramas in the country, I had to wait for the next tour. Guests aren’t allowed inside the amphitheater unattended; perhaps the temptation to jump into the painted scene and play Civil War soldier is too strong.
The painting measures 42 feet high and 358 feet in circumference and includes a Natural Museum of History-ish diorama that was added to the foreground in 1936.
Oakland Cemetery, built in 1840, is a living history museum of the Indoor Positioning System, housing the remains of such famous personalities as Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell and Maynard Jackson, the city’s first African American mayor. The main objective of my pilgrimage, however, was to pay tribute to Joseph Jacobs, the pharmacist who introduced Coca-Cola to the world in 1887. Before entering the gates, I stopped into Ria’s Bluebird for a Diet Coke. I later learned that according to my guidebooks, Ria’s serves smokin’ Southern cuisine and is a coveted brunch spot.
Jacobs’s site was devoid of fan souvenirs. Two large urns flanked the simple white marble mausoleum. I grabbed my bottle of soda, took a swig, then sprinkled the rest around his grave. May your fridge be stocked with Coke for all eternity.
Maybe I trusted too much. Yet both Moon and Wallpaper touted the Thursday-night cocktail gatherings at the Museum of Design Atlanta. Free drinks with admission. Maybe I should have called first.
The guidebooks deserted me on a few other occasions as well. Eighty Eight Tofu House, a 24-hour Asian vegetarian restaurant, was out of business, despite its mention on Page 321 of NFT. And the Red Light Cafe no longer hosts hip-hop shows, contrary to Moon’s description.
Nonetheless, the tiny stumbles didn’t overshadow the guidebooks’ great strides of discovery. For example, I owe NFT for lighting the way to the art museum at Spelman College, the historically black college for women.
Wallpaper also earned a hearty handshake for leading me to Westside Provisions District, an urbane collection of clothing stores, restaurants and furniture shops.
I do, however, take all the credit for missing the turn to Westside and ending up at Goat Farm, an artists’ colony established in an old wheelmaking factory. I didn’t find any four-legged barnyard animals, but I bumped into some chickens and artists loafing around a coffeehouse.
I don’t want to sound like an old-timer here–in part because I don’t feel like one mentally or emotionally (physically is sometimes another matter)–but mostly because what I aim to write is not passé or irrelevant to the current situation. The Left has been here before. The historical circumstances were different, but the static situation was eerily similar. Although I could be referring to the 1950s in the United States, when anti-communism was the national faith and leftists were considered on a par with Satan and his dominions by the mainstream media and most of its readers, the period I want to talk about is the 1970s and 1980s.
The New Left was in retreat. A combination of victories and half-victories, massive repression, a retooling of the Democratic Party, and the demise of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had created a situation where a multitude of organizations existed on the US Left. All too many of them considered their line to be the correct one. None were very willing to compromise, preferring instead to fine tune their particular interpretation of Marx, Lenin and the rest to such a point that instead of gaining adherents, they slowly but surely lost them. By the end of the 1970s, some of these groups were working on the left end of the Democratic Party, hoping to expand the small opening created by George McGovern’s 1972 campaign into creating a genuine left parliamentary opposition in the US. Other groups were fighting amongst themselves, listening to provocateurs in their midsts, or just dissolving into thin air, as it were. Meanwhile, the US right wing was consolidating its forces behind millions and millions of corporate dollars. The result was the election of Ronald Reagan to the White House and the portrayal of Jimmy Carter, the creator of the Carter doctrine (which further bound the Empire’s military to the authoritarian regimes under whose lands the energy industry’s oil profits lay), as a leftist and wimp.
Nothing has been the same since. The Left waged successful campaigns against US support for apartheid, but hardly bothered to oppose the US invasion of Grenada. It was also fairly successful in opposing US support for the Contras in Nicaragua and the bloody regime killing thousands in El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America. Unfortunately, their activities did not foresee the creation of an extralegal funding process for the Contras or the emptiness of the legislation against the human rights violations of the El Salvadorian government. Also, despite one of the broadest campaigns against nuclear weapons in history, the Pentagon and its corporate cohorts placed their missiles throughout Europe. By 1989, the response of the Left to the Bush administration’s invasion of Panama was barely a whimper. Then came Bill Clinton–the popular pretender to the progressives’ throne. In a litany fairly well known, Clinton pushed the neoliberal wet dream known as NAFTA through Congress. Then he “reformed” public assistance to the poor. Then he pushed through the Omnibus Crime and Terrorism Bill, making federal crimes out of a multitude of political activities and increasing the number of federal crimes that were punishable by death. Oh yeah, he reneged on LGBT equality and injected racial coding into his campaign as if he were a modern day Republican. Meanwhile, he and Tony Blair maintained a deadly sanctions regime on Iraq while bombing it at will. Besides all this, Clinton lobbed cruise missiles much like Barack Obama launches armed drones. On top of all this, he helped create the situation that provoked the crash of 2008. No, he wasn’t solely responsible, but the illusion of money where there wasn’t any greatly expanded during his rule. And the Left was rather silent.
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