China's Debt Bubble Ready to Pop?
The U.S.-China trade war may hasten a Chinese financial crisis that has been bubbling up for some time. Public and private debt has been ballooning upward even faster than the fast-growing economy. Debt-financed development is not itself necessarily a problem, except when it inevitably spills over into ever-rising asset prices. Asset prices can ascend as long as credit expands faster than real economic growth, but when creditors become more wary about issuing new loans to heavily-leveraged speculators, a crash will soon follow.
In China, as in the U.S. and other countries during the 2008 financial crisis, all assets tend to rise with expanding credit, but real estate is the leading asset bubble. Real estate, like stocks and bonds, has no natural price based on cost of production because its value depends on desirable location more than cost of construction. As credit expands, more and more people can afford to buy pricier homes; businesses can buy bigger offices and fancier malls. If credit keeps expanding fast enough, asset prices keep going up with no natural upper limit other than the eventual wariness of increasingly bearish creditors. When major creditors lose confidence in further price increases, they start to restrict credit to the most debt-leveraged speculators, and panic selling begins.
Whereas ordinary people buy homes mostly as residences, speculators care only about their value as assets. Real estate prices have been shooting up in China for a couple of decades, but recently have begun to plateau. Speculators do not even have to see a drop in prices to begin panic selling. Even slower growth can raise alarms. Nearly all speculation is based on debt. The more debt leverage, the more the speculators can magnify profits. If asset prices are going up 10% per year and loans cost 6%, the more you can borrow the more you can profit. However, if price growth slows to only 3% a year, then the leveraged speculator may soon be "under water" because the annual gain from the asset is less than the cost of borrowing. Then it pays to sell quickly because losses will be leveraged too.
Once price growth slows, speculative buyers quickly disappear and sellers proliferate. This is why bubbles tend to burst much more quickly than they inflate. Speculators need to sell before the price falls below the amount they borrowed — or they lose money. When a bubble starts to burst, the quicker you sell, the less you lose. However, the need to sell quickly also makes it a buyers' market as sellers are willing to cut the price to sell quickly, before it is too late.
Governments can influence asset prices in any country, but the authorities are especially active in China. Not just the central government, but local governments all over China are in the real estate business, much like Donald Trump and other private developers in the U.S. Given China's hot property market of recent years, a principal source of revenue for many Chinese local governments has been real estate development. Government agencies buy (or already own) land, build infrastructure to make it more valuable, and then sell it at a profit to private developers, who themselves hold it to sell at even higher prices to householders, businesses, and speculators. The merry-go-round continues to enrich all participants as long as the credit flows freely.
China's rich real estate circus creates a tension between local governments, the primary real estate developers, and the central government in Beijing. Unlike local governments, Beijing is also responsible for managing the value of the Chinese currency, the RMB, and overall economic performance. The faster debt expands, the more there is price inflation – both asset and consumer prices. Local governments are not troubled, but the central government has a problem. Inflation means the purchasing power of the RMB is falling, which tends to weaken it relative to foreign currencies.
China's enormous export boom plus its attractiveness for foreign investment tended to increase the value of the RMB for about a decade until 2014. Since then, China's debt-fueled inflation and slowing export growth have tended to weaken the relative value of the RMB to the dollar, euro and other major currencies. The main way to staunch the falling value of the RMB is to restrict credit, but restricting credit tends to pop the asset bubble. This painful dilemma leads Beijing officials to a "saw-toothed" credit policy. They put the brakes on credit to prop up the RMB, and asset prices fall. Then they panic and expand credit again. This stop-and-go credit policy has been roiling Chinese markets in recent years. Beijing's temperamental credit management has so far averted a crash, but debt continues to pile up, which increases the potential size of the panic when credit tightens significantly.
I have been to at least a dozen Chinese cities, large and small, during the past year and observed the effect of the debt and real estate bubble. Everywhere frenetic construction continues even though forests of completed high-rise apartment buildings are largely empty, and glittering mall after mall stuffed with expensive financed merchandise have relatively limited foot traffic and even fewer shoppers with bags of merchandise. Young people go to malls to window shop and to eat, but increasingly they buy online. When I see underutilized real estate I perceive non-performing loans. Owners will lose their shirts when the music stops and the credit frenzy abates.
Last year Beijing was in the mood to restrain the credit bubble to bolster the RMB. This was in part to placate Trump who complained loudly that Chinese "currency manipulation" was depressing the RMB value and thus unfairly competing by making Chinese goods cheaper in dollar cost. But it was not enough. Now that Trump has unleashed a trade war in earnest, China is reacting as I expected and once more reversing direction, letting credit flow freely to counter the otherwise depressive effect of Trump's tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S. This will tend to weaken the RMB again and thus reduce the dollar cost of Chinese exports, though not likely enough to counteract the cost of the tariffs.
China seems determined to avoid a serious financial crisis, but as a result, credit continues to expand at an unsustainable rate. A reckoning must eventually come. Yet exactly when will be influenced by the unstable twists and turns of public authorities in the U.S. and China plus the concerns of creditors who might be uncomfortably exposed to insolvent borrowers. The U.S.-China trade war adds new pressure to an already stressed system.


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firearmreview January 30, 2020 2 Comments
.45 ACP, also called .45 Auto, is one of the leading handguns rounds for personal defense with an excellent reputation for both stopping power and reliability among military, law enforcement, and civilians alike.
1911 with .45 ACP
Of course, there are plenty of other options out there–like 9mm, 11mm, .40 S&W, and .380 ACP–but .45 ACP has earned itself a devoted following that's happy to preach all the reasons that they think it's the best handgun round for self-defense.
Different ammo calibers
Maybe you're part of that following or maybe you're just doing some research to help you pick a caliber for your first (or next) handgun.
Either way, settle in to learn a bit about the history and advantages of this venerable round before we dive into some of our top .45 ACP ammunition recommendations for personal defense and at the range.
.45 ACP History
In 1904, the U.S. Army decided that a .45 caliber was the minimum acceptable caliber for service handguns after smaller caliber rounds failed to stop Moro warriors during the American-Philippine War, while .45 Colt was found to have sufficient stopping power.
1st Nebraska on outpost detail during the American-Philippine War,
So, in 1905, they asked Colt to enlarge the .41 caliber round that they had already been working with Browning to develop, resulting in the earliest version of the .45 ACP cartridge. At the same time, Colt also increased the caliber of the pistol that they had been working on to go with the .41 caliber round.
But the round wasn't finished yet. It, along with the pistol, still had to go through trials to compare them with round and pistol combinations from five other competing manufacturers: Bergmann, Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM), Savage Arms Company, Knoble, Webley, and White-Merrill.
Only Colt, Savage Arms, and DWM passed the initial phase, conducted in 1906, but DWM elected to withdraw at this point, for reasons that we can only speculate about since they never volunteered an explanation of their own.
But the round still wasn't finished and Savage and Colt both had issues to address.
The next round of trials went from 1907 to 1911. One particularly standout round involved shooting six thousand rounds from a single pistol over two days, only cooling the pistols by submerging them in water.
The Savage pistol had 37 malfunctions, which isn't too bad for testing that rigorous but doesn't compare to Colt's zero malfunctions.
At last, in 1911, after a series of successful trials, .45 ACP and the pistol designed to match it were both formally adopted by the Army, with the pistol being dubbed the Colt M1911. You may have heard of it.
Why .45 ACP?
Even more than a century later, .45 is one of the most popular defensive rounds among not just military, but also law enforcement and civilians, and for good reason.
To this day, .45 ACP is still the go-to round for 1911s, but there are also many other guns available chambered for .45 ACP.
Well, .45 ACP was designed for optimal stopping power against even the toughest assailants with the least desire for self-preservation, so saying it makes an excellent self-defense round seems like something of an understatement.
Sure, the 9mm versus .45 ACP debate rages on, despite who knows how many articles and blog posts that claim to definitively put the debate to rest and 9mm is still the best selling handgun round, but many people still prefer .45 ACP for its stopping power and association with the M1911, and it's frequently considered the best handgun round for self-defense.
Personal Defense Ammo Comparison
In addition, .45 ACP is not only powerful but also heavily reliable. And, after all, there is no situation in which the stakes are higher than in a personal defense scenario.
In these moments, you need rounds that just work: they should chamber smoothly with no malfunctions and they should have the stopping power necessary to neutralize the threat. Anything less can be the difference between life and death.
Speaking of which, let's get to the recommendations.
Best .45 ACP Ammo for Self Defense
Winchester Supreme Elite PDX-1 230 gr .45 ACP
Winchester is obviously a huge name in firearms which, at least in theory, offers some assurance of the quality of all the products that they manufacture.
Winchester Supreme Elite PDX-1 rounds are certainly up to the Winchester standard. They're at the upper end of the scale in terms of cost, but they also offer high-end performance.
These rounds use the Winchester Ranger Bonded bullet. The core of these bullets is chemically fused to the jacket to prevent core-jacket separation and improve weight retention, making them more effective when they come up against barriers like clothing and bone.
It's the same bullet in a larger caliber as the 180 gr .40S&W load used by the FBI for their service weapons.
It offers wide, consistent expansion to .652" and penetration that meets FBI standards. The hollow point helps with controlled penetration, and average penetration is about 18" in ballistics gel tests.
This round is also highly reliable and malfunctions are exceedingly rare, especially in the short bursts of shots used in most personal defense situations. The nickel-plated brass casing prevents corrosion and promotes reliable feeding, while the boxer-style priming system allows for easy reloading.
It's a high energy round designed for optimal terminal ballistics and perfect for personal defense.
High end performance
Consistent expansion
Nickel-plated brass casing
Quick Specs:
Muzzle Velocity: 882 ft/sec
Muzzle Energy: 432 ft lbs
Bullet Type: Jacketed Hollow-Point (JHP)
Average Penetration: 17.9"
Average Expansion: .652"
Federal Premium Personal Defense HST 230 gr .45 ACP
Like Winchester is one of the biggest names in guns, Federal Premium is one of the biggest names in ammunition, and the Personal Defense HST line is a popular line of defensive rounds from .380 Auto up to .45 ACP.
Like the Winchester round we just discussed, Personal Defense HST rounds are also designed to meet FBI and other law enforcement requirements, and they're used by many law enforcement agencies around the United States.
In constructing these rounds, Federal Premium improved upon their well-known and well-loved Hydra-Shok bullet, which you may already be familiar with if you're already familiar with Federal's products.
The bullets aren't bonded, but they're still excellently made, with 13.4" average penetration in ballistics gel tests and consistent expansion to an average of .84". Federal also specially designed the bullet's hollow point to prevent it from getting plugged when shooting through barriers and clothing, as can happen with other rounds.
The case is nickel-plated brass for reliability and corrosion resistance and the rounds are boxer-primed.
Federal advertises that these rounds have a muzzle velocity of 890 feet per second, which is pretty solid anyway, but some shooters actually report recording even higher velocities in certain firearms.
Great expansion and penetration
Designed to prevent the hollow point from plugging
Boxer primed
Non-bonded bullets
Speer Gold Dot 230 gr .45 ACP
This next round is has been around for quite a while and was designed for law enforcement, so you know it has reliable stopping power. It continues to be a popular round among law enforcement today.
While Speer Gold Dot doesn't offer as much penetration as other rounds, it's a good option if you're concerned about over-penetration. With an average penetration of 12.9" in ballistics gel tests, it's still got enough penetration for self-defense, but with far less risk of over-penetration than other high-end defensive rounds.
It offers excellent, consistent expansion, up to .707" on average. Bullets are chemically bonded and alloy coated, preventing separation, improving weight retention, enhancing bullet strength, and encourage clean firing.
In addition to their excellent stopping power, these rounds feed reliably just about every time.
Like the other rounds we've discussed so far, Speer Gold Dot rounds have a nickel-plated case with a boxer priming system.
Speer also offers a .45 ACP Gold Dot round with a 185-grain bullet, which offers higher velocity and energy, slightly improved expansion, and average penetration that's about an inch deeper, making it better for longer barreled handguns.
Chemically bonded, alloy coated bullets
Reliable feed
Clean firing
Less penetration
Hornady Custom .45 ACP 200 gr XTP
This last personal defense round is from Hornady, another big name in ammo, and this list just wouldn't be complete without it. While we have it categorized as a personal-defense round, it's really an excellent all-around cartridge for not just self-defense, but also match shooting and even hunting medium-sized and smaller game.
The Custom product line is one of Hornady's best, but it's more affordable than a lot of other high-end bullets, making it great for shooters on a budget.
The brass cases are carefully designed and selected to ensure corrosion resistance, reliable feeding, and that they have the necessary hardness and pressure resistance. On the other hand, plain brass isn't as good for reloading as the nickel-plated alternative, but you can still reload these cartridges.
Of course, that doesn't really matter if you weren't planning on reloading anyway. (Though if you're interested in reloading but aren't sure how to get started, you can learn more from our Beginner's Guide to Reloading.)
The powder is carefully loaded for the right level of pressure as well as consistency between rounds. Rounds are boxer primed.
These rounds feature Hornady's XTP bullet, which has several excellent features of its own.
It's a jacketed hollow point, a design that allows for high-impact energy transfer and good expansion.
The jacket is strategically scored and varies in thickness across the length of the bullet, features which both work to keep the bullet's expansion controlled and consistent. In addition, the jacket protects the bullet's nose to ensure proper feeding and expansion.
Finally, the core density is completely uniform to keep the bullet stable in flight and make sure the bullet expands evenly and consistently when it hits its target.
In addition, this round has a lighter bullet than the other rounds we've discussed, which allows for slightly higher velocity, but also somewhat lower energy.
All of these features combine to create a reliable round with excellent accuracy, impressive expansion, and deep penetration.
Consistent, reliable pressure
Controlled, even expansion
Lower energy round
There's also a great +P, 230-grain version, but that should only be used with firearms approved to handle the extra pressure.
For all of you reloaders, the bullet can also be purchased by itself, as well as in 185-grain and 230-grain versions
Best .45 ACP Ammo for the Range
Of course, you don't want to use up your good defensive ammo hitting targets, but that doesn't mean you want to use just any junk either. Here are our top picks for training and just-for-fun shooting at the range.
Federal Premium 230 gr .45 Auto American Eagle
American Eagle is a Federal Premium brand so, as we already discussed, it's backed by one of the biggest names in ammo. American Eagle is a solid, mid-range product line across all calibers, including .45 ACP, and is one of Federal's more popular lines.
With similar energy and velocity to defensive rounds, American Eagle .45 ACP is ideal for training, as the similar ballistic performance helps match the recoil of defensive rounds so your training is more effective.
Another huge advantage of these rounds is that they're really easy to find. You can walk into just about anywhere that sells ammo, pick up a box of these, and know exactly what you're getting: a reliable round with consistent performance.
The big downside of these rounds is the trayless packaging. It makes the boxes smaller, but once you've removed more than a few rounds, the remaining cartridges tend to jumble, making loading inconvenient.
Ideal for training for defense
Really, really easy to find in stock
Consistent performer
Trayless packaging is messy
Bullet Type: Full Metal Jacket (FMJ)
CCI .45 ACP 230 gr Blazer Brass
Blazer Brass ammunition, made by CCI, is one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, brass case round you'll find in most stores.
It's not bad ammo, though. It just has a simple design that makes it cheap to manufacture and allows CCI to pass the savings to you. It's highly reliable and has pretty good ballistics, too.
Blazer Brass is best for recreational shooting, with lower velocity and energy than most defensive rounds. However, it has sharper recoil than most other FMJ rounds and a heavy case that allows for deeper penetration, so it's still not bad for training when budgets are really limited.
Reloaders should note that Blazer Brass uses small pistol primers rather than the larger ones found on most .45 ACP rounds. That doesn't make a difference in performance, but it's something reloaders should be aware of.
Blazer Brass .45 ACP 230 Gr
Super cheap
Great for recreational shooting
Good ballistics
Not ideal for defense
Magtech .45 Auto 230 gr FMC
You've probably heard of Magtech, but you may not be aware that they're part of the larger CBC Global Ammunition, a holding made up of numerous ammunition companies around the world that provides ammo for a variety of purposes.
Sellier & Bellot is another one of their popular brands. They produce more than 1.5 billion rounds annually, a good bit of which goes to NATO and other military and law enforcement agencies.
This allows Magtech exceptional control over every step of the production process of their ammo, including the primer, powder, projectile, and brass, which ensures quality and lowers the cost.
In turn, this has allowed Magtech to establish their current reputation as a trustworthy brand that makes reliable rounds that are super affordable, especially in bulk, without being low quality.
Despite the low cost, the ballistics of their 230 gr FMC (just another name for FMJ) rounds aren't too shabby, though they don't match the defensive rounds we've chosen.
Magtech .45 ACP 230 Gr
High quality target ammo
Cheapest in bulk
This makes them great for recreational shooting or for new shooters to go through while they learn how to use their new gun since cheap rounds allow you to put a lot of rounds through your gun without emptying your wallet.
Bullet Type: Full Metal Case (FMC)/Full Metal Jacket (FMJ)
Despite all the competition out there, .45 ACP remains one of the most popular defensive handgun calibers, even more than a century after it was first conceived.
While the enduring popularity of the Colt Model 1911 has surely contributed to this, the vast selection of non-1911 handguns chambered in .45 ACP makes it clear that the round has also remained so successful due to its own strengths.
.45 ACP Ventura Tactical
All of the rounds that we've recommended here exemplify those strengths, but this is by no means a complete list of all of the good .45 ACP rounds on the market. These are all great rounds that will serve you well, but you should also feel free to experiment with the different options available to you.
Or, if you're still in the process of choosing a gun and aren't sure whether .45 ACP is the right caliber for you, check out our Bullet Caliber Guide to get the low down on a bunch of the most common calibers.
What's your .45 ACP round of choice? What do you shoot it out of? Answer these questions and ask your own in the comments.
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Really good information, well done. Will refer to others. Thanks.
I've tried them all over the years and have finally decided to use good ole garden variety ball ammo for both target practice as well as carry. As for carry ammo, I choose to put more emphasis on penetration than how the round may expand in a block of ballistic gelatin. If the ball round is good enough for the troops in the battle zone, it's good enough for me. If I ever have to pull my gun on a perpetrator I hope my mind will be focused on lethality, and not whether or not there is an innocent person… Read more »

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Tag: Pericles
Posted on September 23, 2017 January 4, 2018
"Feast here awhile": Shakespeare for a Portland Autumn
¶ Dear readers:
¶ According to American Theatre magazine, "Shakespeare remains the most-produced playwright in the country, with 108 productions (including various adaptations). And this year his most-produced play will be Twelfth Night with 9 productions." In fact, Shakespeare in Love was the most produced play of the year, with 15 full-scale professional productions nation-wide. This does not take into account all of the Shakespeare-ish works making the rounds to be excited for, including the Reduced Shakespeare Company's William Shakespeare's Long Lost First Play (Abridged) and Emma Whipday's Shakespeare's Sister. If you are in the Portland area this fall, there are a couple of exciting productions to keep your eyes peeled for.
¶ Pericles Wet
¶ This December, Portland Shakespeare Project will be producing a full-scale run of my colleague, Ellen Margolis' adaptation of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Based on the act printed in a recent issue of Proscenium and a reading I saw last year, this is likely to prove special. This re-magining refocuses on the assault of Princess Hesperides and the framing device of Gower.
Run: 12/1 – 12/17
Tickets: Adult $30; students and groups $20.
Venue: Artist Repertory Theatre
Info: https://portlandshakes.org/2017-pericles-wet/
Continue reading ""Feast here awhile": Shakespeare for a Portland Autumn"
Posted on January 11, 2015 December 26, 2016
In Chicago, the Psychomachia of Pericles
"Few love to hear the sins they love to act."
– Pericles I.i.141
On the way to the theatre my friend asked me for a brief synopsis of what Pericles, a play rarely staged (the fact of which successful sold her on coming with me), was all about. At first I started rambling about its prose romance sources, that the structure was inherently different than that of most Shakespeare where you weren't aiming for a climax in act four and its denouement in act five, but rather was a series of episodes, like an action-adventure film, that accrete into a conclusion. The look on her face said, interesting but how is that going to help me? (I felt oddly vindicated later when I read the following in the director David H. Bell's notes: "Pericles is a kind of 'action hero' that you know nothing about; we see the action but we don't fully understand the motivations. That's the element that makes some think the play is underwritten.") I took a second to collect my thoughts and distilled the play down to the two elements I remember being most striking: (a) this is a story of dads who are far too interested in their daughters' sex lives; and (b) this story is sequential and episodic, organized around shipwrecks that never really wreck.
In history, Pericles was a great leader and statesman of Athens, who inspired the civilization to developments in art and culture, but also lead them into the Peloponnesian War and died of plague himself shortly after. This play charts the story of the private life of Pericles, which may or may not have informed his politics. I think it is on these points director Bell and I largely concur, but beyond it, many choices made for this production only further confused me. I went back to the director's notes after the show to piece together his thoughts. I think it is fair to say that Shakespeare was experimenting with the medieval method of dramatic construction called psychomachia, the story of spiritual conflict: it is the allegorical contest for the spiritual welfare of mankind that David Bevington argues was the "basis of nearly every morality play in the English drama." In his book From Mankind to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), he argues its emphasis became increasingly secular in the mid-sixteenth century, "preaching lessons of civil rather than religious conduct" where "representative social types often outnumbered the more abstract personifications." Thus Pericles is not supposed to be a culturally-specific figure, but an 'everyman' of sorts (and the performance given by Ben Carlson was certainly ordinary enough). Thus, Bell argues "Shakespeare is making a transition to the spiritual" by writing his own epic for the stage, rife with "wonder and miracle." The theatre "becomes church; it is spiritual."
Pericles (Ben Carlson) battles a tempest on the high seas as his sailors man the ship. Photo by Liz Lauren.
What is this transition to "the spiritual" get us? For Bell, it is the recognition of "the power of redemption." So Pericles as an art object is suppose to lay at the nexus of ordinary, spiritual, and redemption. I think here is where we find the fault-line in this production: how does one combine ordinary and spiritualism to produce redemption? I'm not saying that this is impossible, but I do think that the production does not fully and specifically theorize what counts as miraculous/spiritual/epic/wondrous. Furthermore, while this is certainly the "story of a man's life and of learning the lessons of his life as he's living it," historically or otherwise I think it is hard to justify Pericles as an 'everyman.' He's certainly no ordinary soldier or clerk. And finally, redemption would seem a very tricky affect to produce in theatrical experience because of the timing and ephemerality the word implies. The "re" requires that this emotion can only happen late in the game, accounting and responding to things that have already occurred. This begs the questions: What is the first half of the play about, then? For what is Pericles in need of redemption? And if we are following Freytag's Pyramid of dramatic action—not all-encompassing but no doubt useful—redemption is an affect conditioned by timing and requiring not an episodic structure like that of this play, but one that includes a climax and denouement. So not only is the emotional goal of cultivating the "power of redemption" at structural odds with the source materials of this play, it is also a one-time-only kind of affect. This is to say, while we can feel redemption towards the end of a play, how can we feel redemption throughout a play?
Well, there is a way, actually. Barbara Mowat argues in her book The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare's Romances (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1976) that while we may be able to identify elements of comedy and tragedy within romances, the theatrical experience of a romance employs unique tactics and strategies. These effect a particular kind of experience that is invested in naturalism rather than realism. More importantly, a sensation of oscillation by blending presentational and representational, as well as explicitly narrative with dramatic qualities. Romance is not tragicomedy, but a third and discrete category of drama from comedy and tragedy predicated on the mixing of compositional tactics that typically seem oppositional to one another. Mowat breaks down drama into two fundamental forms, closed and open. Closed forms follow a narrative "curve" where the plot is "based upon syllogistic or qualitative progression, which work within generic conventions, which make use of repetitive and incidental forms to give a sense of unity, of coherence, of wholeness to the work and to the experience of responding to the work." Open works avoid this curve and "do not follow syllogistic or qualitative progressions (progressions in which 'one incident in the plot' prepares us for some incident to follow logically, or in which 'we are put into a state of mind in which another state of mind can logically follow'—in which, in other words, the premises stated or the problems raised in the initial situation are decisively resolved in the final action)."
Pericles (Ben Carlson) and his true love Thaisa (Lisa Berry). Photo by Liz Lauren.
This is all to say that by oscillating between tragic and comic strategies, vacillating between seemingly real and unreal moments, dramatic romances as open form literature produce a sense of "dislocation and amazement" and a "theatrical experience which breaks through the aesthetic, deliberately destroying dramatic coherence and consistency in order to waken us." Consider also that romances like Pericles "do not focus on a problem or a central conflict or idea"—like redemption—but rather "they are instead circularly open, with the entire movement of each play in the direction of a return to original happiness—not to a new happiness better than that which opened the play (as in most of the comedies), but instead to a happiness approximating that known at an earlier time…always toward restoration."
On the surface it would seem that Pericles makes good sense for the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, with its older, conservative subscriber base and healthy financial situation—in short, lots of money to throw at inherently conservative drama. And Bell did make some attempts to foster the oscillation effects built into the play to produce this particular kind of theatrical experience that moves from the abstract to the real and back again. When I first registered the costume design, all I could think of was that we had wandered into a pajama party in Atlantis. The ensemble was washed in a shimmering blue, and those of political power were given vaguely Orientalizing accoutrements; it was just enough to produce an aesthetic of 19th-century expansionist racism where all non-Western cultures clearly were poor, formless tailors with a gluttonous penchant for color blocking. (It was especially weird since post-9/11 theatre has rapidly, adroitly, and productively embraced the cultural specificity of the aesthetic and literature of the non-Western world.) One might chock this up to the assumption that Jacobeans wouldn't have known any better about their Mediterranean and Ottoman Turk neighbors, although a huge amount of research in the last two decades has proven otherwise. Two fun examples: first, Elizabeth I was engaged to a Moroccan sultan for a hot second in the interest of trade routes; second, among the several Black individuals brought from Spain as part of Katherine of Aragon's entourage was a prolific trumpeter, who served as a favorite of King Henry VIII's throughout his lifetime and can be seen in portraits and tapestries of royal events.
So, the costuming doesn't hold up as a rendering of fantasies about foreignness or wondrousness to us or to the Jacobeans—although I suppose it certainly served as an abstract element. There was also the operatic use of scale and space in the playhouse, one designed to look like the indoor Blackfriars where Pericles would have most likely been performed. They removed the balcony/musician's room (this space goes by many names) to make the playing space seem especially expansive and epic, then filled it in two ways. First, they used the back wall as a scrim, projecting onto it fire and water images. I know it seems trite and overly-critical to say, but this reminded me of the old animatronic show at Las Vegas' Caesar's Palace my grandmother would take me to as a girl; definitely the new show replicates the kind of fire-and-water techniques used at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Second, they used a motorized platform that would raise up from a trap to substitute for the missing balcony at moments when it was needed. None of this was bad, but I wanted the production to run with it and commit to the camp. I think my experience in Pericles was akin to that had by Daniel Mendelsohn as he described it in a review of Noel Coward plays for The New York Review of Books: "for all its ravishing decor, this Private Lives is devoid of glamour; it's so suspicious of camp style that it ends up having no style at all." While these elements certainly produce a sense of wonderment, it was without a sense of logic that would help them cohere or at least speak to the play's more concrete elements.
Noblemen battle to win the affection of Pentapolis' princess, Thaisa. Photo by Liz Lauren.
If we can ascribe any intentionality to Shakespeare, I think it would be that he intended the romances to be difficult, weird, and antique so we might feel more piquantly the juxtaposition between the real and unreal, the abstract and the recognizable. I have to confess, it was these concrete and seemingly culturally-specific scenes to which I was looking forward. Certainly my favorite is II.i, where having just washed ashore from a shipwreck Pericles meets three fisherman savvy about their political situation. The humor in this moment I imagine would have made Jacobeans laugh in the same way we do at the "annoying peasants" scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This, the Mytilene brothel scenes, and the Pentapolis joust provide important opportunities for humor that are necessary to contrast with the serious moments, according to Mowat, in order for the emotional effect of the play to work. For my friend the best moment in the show was definitely the joust and following dinner scenes, deployed with smart and expert fight and dance choreography. (If only the sound design been so smart; as it was, it vacillated noticeably and uncomfortably between a canned theme and the richness of live instrumentalists.) Ensemble member Eric Parks deployed expert comedic timing in a number of his brief deliveries, and especially being willing to take a pole to the face three times. In the napkin dance, STOMP-like musical breaks (I suspect choreographed by the percussion members, Jed Feder and Dan Toot), and other jig or extratheatrical moments the playfulness of the ensemble superseded the seriousness of Pericles' journey for a time, giving us the balance we so sorely needed.
Carlson has been in at least a dozen productions at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and Bell has directed sixteen at this theatre, and yet it pains me to say these were the stale elements of the production. The ensemble members were doing the most engaging and tonally consistent work, taking up every opportunity for humor they could find. A particular exclamation of "why‽" by Parks reduced us to the worst case of church giggles. And that was the thing: you felt like you weren't allowed to laugh. And this may well not have been the fault of the production, but its context. It was a Friday night, where tickets go up another price bracket because of the weekend, so the audience was especially white and especially octogenarian. The irony is, the aged poet John Gower was removed as a functional chorus from the play entirely: not only would he have been a face this audience could relate to, but he serves as an important organizational feature to give the play coherence. This is not to say the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre isn't doing things to appeal to a new and changing subscriber base. Certainly the collaborations with the Q Brothers and their inordinate success is my favorite thing the playhouse has ever done. Adaptations are a smart way to catch new audiences. But what about some thoughtful Shakespeare? Isn't that ultimately the point? As I look at the rest of the season, there won't be a single full-scale Shakespeare production at the playhouse until next fall.
Through a series of misfortunes, Marina (Cristina Panfilio) is held prisoner in a brothel commanded by Boult (Derrick Trumbly). Photo by Liz Lauren.
At a bar later that night, my friend and I deconstructed the play. We realized we are entering an age when we would like to and can actually afford to become theatre subscribers. She acknowledged that without a companion who liked Shakespeare (I live two hours south of the city and couldn't commit to regular tickets), she wouldn't because the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre productions are so inconsistent, more likely to give you unfocused and conservative theatre like we just saw than anything else. We identified our frustration with the production ultimately in its world-building: at times wanting to be something of the now, at other times magical, and still at others of the world of Shakespeare. Inconsistently providing us with smatterings of all of these elements simply wasn't useful, and I can't imagine the tactic was working as a way to grab a variety of playgoers. Reflecting on the incest element that touches off the action of the play, we both agreed we would like to a see a play that meditates on the weirdness of father-daughter relationships (and before you say King Lear or Titus Andronicus, one that doesn't require the daughter to die to get to the point). Back from the holidays, she revealed her siblings have given their stepdad new pajamas because they were tired of him sleeping naked, and I that my father still seems to have no problem walking around in the morning in nothing but his skivvies even when I am home. I think Pericles could be a play that does so, a play whose own weirdness could engage the strangeness of ordinary life.
The Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's production of Pericles, Prince of Tyre plays in the Courtyard Theatre through 18 January 2015.


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text:
Q: RTI DDS - not enough available space in CDR buffer I am playing back DDS data from a recorded database, and have written a Java program to listen for the data.  I am able to receive most of the messages fine, but I am getting some consistent exceptions that look like the following:
PRESCstReaderCollator_storeSampleData:!deserialize
java.lang.IllegalStateException: not enough available space in CDR buffer
    at com.rti.dds.cdr.CdrBuffer.checkSize(Unknown Source)
    at com.rti.dds.cdr.CdrInputStream.readShortFromBigEndian(Unknown Source)
    at com.rti.dds.cdr.CdrInputStream.deserializeAndSetCdrEncapsulation(Unknown Source)
    at <my type>.deserialize_key_sample(<my type>TypeSupport.java:456)
    at com.rti.dds.topic.TypeSupportImpl.deserialize_key(Unknown Source)
    at com.rti.dds.topic.TypeSupportImpl.deserialize_keyI(Unknown Source)

Has anyone seen this or know what might cause this?
EDIT: I should also add that I am currently receiving DDS data via a replayed database, using rtireplay.  I started receiving this error after dropping in a new replay configuration that I was given to use.  So maybe the question is what replay configuration settings could affect something like this?  I am also posting obfuscated @key fields in IDL at request
struct MyType{
    Key1 key1; //@key
    Key2 key2; //@key
    ...
}

struct Key1 {
    long long m; //@key
    long long l; //@key
    ...
}

//key members only
struct Key2 {
    Key1 a; //@key
    ...
}

A: Although the stack trace is slightly different, I was able to reproduce a similar case with the following output:
Exception in thread "Thread-5" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: string length (200)
exceeds maximum (10)
    at com.rti.dds.cdr.CdrInputStream.readString(CdrInputStream.java:364)
    at stringStructTypeSupport.deserialize_key_sample(stringStructTypeSupport.java:411)
    at com.rti.dds.topic.TypeSupportImpl.deserialize_key(TypeSupportImpl.java:1027)
    at com.rti.dds.topic.TypeSupportImpl.deserialize_keyI(TypeSupportImpl.java:965)
PRESCstReaderCollator_storeSampleData:!deserialize

Note that I am using 5.1.0 which is a bit more verbose in its error messages.
The conditions under which this occurred were the following:

*

*The DataReader expected a type that had a different key-definition, or to be more precise, a key definition of a different size than what the DataWriter was producing. In my case, the DataWriter produced a string key attribute of 200 characters whereas the DataReader expected a string no longer than 10 characters.

*The DataWriter had a QoS setting of protocol.serialize_key_with_dispose set to true, meaning that this inconsistent key is actually used (as opposed to its key hash) for determining the instance in case of a dispose()

*In case you are using 5.1.0 or later: the publishing Participant had a QoS setting of resource_limits.type_code_max_serialized_length and resource_limits.type_object_max_serialized_length both set to 0. This avoids communication of type information and therefore prevents detection of the inconsistency in the definition. Older versions did not check for type consistency in the first place, even if there resource_limits were set to non-zero.

*The error occurred at the moment that an instance was dispose()d

Especially protocol.serialize_key_with_dispose is not commonly changed and it seems to be the only reason why this deserialize_key function might show up in your stack trace. If you check your rtireplay configuration and find that this particular settings is set to true, then it is highly likely that the scenario described here is your case.
The serialize_key_with_dispose setting is to allow for the case where the first sample ever received for a key value happens to be a dispose. This means that the instance is not yet known. Normally, the actual key values are not propagated with a dispose, but just a hashed key. This might not be good enough to identify which instance the dispose is intended for. Setting this policy to true results in the full key value being propagated with a dispose. It is related to propagate_dispose_of_unregistered_instances. For more details, see section 6.5.3.5 Propagating Serialized Keys with Disposed-Instance Notifications of the Connext User's Manual

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Home Budgets/Taxes Occupational Licensing Puts the Hurt on Consumers
Occupational Licensing Puts the Hurt on Consumers
written by Arianna Wilkerson May 15, 2018
Arianna Wilkerson
Arianna Wilkerson is the government relations coordinator at The Heartland Institute. A former Heartland intern, Wilkerson began her career in 2016 as the organization's marketing coordinator before transferring to the government relations department in the summer of 2017.
Wilkerson is an Illinois native who received her bachelor's degree in communication studies from Bellevue University in Nebraska.
Latest posts by Arianna Wilkerson (see all)
The Promise of Child Safety Accounts - June 7, 2018
Once Again, the Farm Bill is Stuffed With Food Stamps - June 6, 2018
Occupational Licensing Puts the Hurt on Consumers - May 15, 2018
Left-wing advocates of expanding government say efforts to repeal occupational licensing laws are an attack on public safety. In reality, giving people the "right to earn a living" simply means that all workers should be empowered with the ability to practice their craft without overzealous licensing boards and government agencies harassing, fining, or threatening jail time.
The number of occupational licensing laws has skyrocketed in recent years. To date, these onerous regulations cover more than 1,100 occupations. In the 1950s, government permission was required for less than 5 percent of the workforce. Now, expensive government permission slips are prerequisites for nearly 25 percent of the workforce.
In 2012, the Institute for Justice analyzed licensing requirements for 102 lower-income occupations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. IJ found these rules, on average, require workers to pay more than $260 in fees, complete a year of education and experience, and pass one exam.
California has one of the worst licensing schemes: It licenses 76 lower-income occupations and imposes burdensome requirements that equate on average to $486 in fees, 827 days of experience or education, and two exams.
Occupational licensing advocates argue these mandates are necessary to protect public health and safety. In some cases, this is true. However, far too often occupational licensing laws are applied to relatively safe jobs. In fact, the overwhelming majority of occupations are practiced in at least one state that does not have a licensing requirement on the books, and state licensing laws vary widely in scope and nature. This shows many overregulated occupations can and do exist without a license and without risking public safety or health.
The contrast between interior designer licensing requirements and an emergency medical technician highlights the system's arbitrary and draconian nature. In many states, interior designers are required to fulfil more licensing requirements than EMTs. For example, Florida requires interior designers to pay more than $1,000 in fees, acquire six years of education, and pass an exam to obtain a license. On the other hand, Florida EMTs need to pay just $115 in fees and complete about 26 days of education. Apparently, saving lives requires less training than decorating people's houses!
Oppressive licensing schemes don't come cheap, either. Economic models suggest"occupational licensing can result in up to 2.85 million fewer jobs nationwide, with an annual cost to consumers of $203 billion." Excessive regulatory regimes reduce business competition and entrepreneurship, leading to fewer jobs and lower-quality services. Also, inconsistent licensing laws hamper workers' mobility from one state to another.
Another often-overlooked aspect of occupational licensing laws is their protectionist origins. Special interest groups, not consumers, campaign for and urge legislators to create and maintain licenses as a strategy to diminish economic competition. Licensing restrictions are essentially barriers to entry that result in net wealth transfers from consumers to politically connected groups, such as big business and big labor. This is crony capitalism at its worst.
Fortunately, alternatives to unnecessary licensing laws do exist. Consumer-rating websites, such as Yelp!, TripAdvisor, and Angie's List contain unbiased customer-based reviews of businesses. Positive comments (and pictures) on social media and word-of-mouth are taken seriously by businesses that cannot afford a bad reputation for inferior products or bad customer service. Other non-government alternatives include third-party professional certification, voluntary bonding or insurance, and market competition.
Because many licensing schemes are unnecessary, legislators should pass bills that explicitly deregulate occupations or trim the scope of current licensing laws. For a more holistic solution, legislators should pass a Right to Earn a Living Act, or RELA, which eliminates all excessive government licensing requirements, leaving only those that are essential for maintaining public health, safety, or welfare. Further, RELA laws allow citizens to petition for the repeal or modification of any regulation that isn't demonstrably necessary.
When deciding whether to license an occupation, legislators should consider: (1) what public harm, if any, is being safeguarded against; (2) what the least restrictive way to license an industry is; and (3) whether market-based options already effectively regulate a given occupation or industry.
Every American has the fundamental right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Earning an honest living should not be encroached upon—especially not under the guise of "protecting" the public.
[Originally Published at the Washington Examiner]
Occupational Licensing Puts the Hurt on Consumers was last modified: May 15th, 2018 by Arianna Wilkerson
CaliforniaDCEMTsfeesFloridagovernmentHair StylistInterior DesignerLicensing Lawsoccupational licensing
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Rediscovering Tax and Regulatory Powers at the Local Level
Heartland Weekly – Pruitt Leading EPA Toward Greatness
Give Special-Needs Kids Best Possible Education
Sports and COVID Risk
Heartland on the Radio: Isaac Orr on the Paris Climate Treaty!


text:
Q: Why turbulence is non-equilibrium? I've encountered this notion many times that turbulence is non-equilibrium (e.g., Falkovich & Sreenivasan, Physics Today, 59, 2006).
However, I am confused about what does it mean by "non-equilibrium"? Non-equilibrium in terms of what? In the sense of thermal equilibrium/non-equilibrium? In Sreenivasan (1999, Rev. Mod. Phys., 71), he says that:

"... turbulence is a paradigm in non-equilibrium statistical physics,
  in which fluctuations and macroscopic space-time structure coexist."

but this is somewhat a vague explanation (to me at least). So could anyone explain a little bit more of the meaning of non-equilibrium in this context?

A: I believe that indeed equilibrium/nonequilibrium here refers to thermal equilibrium/nonequilibrium. Informally, a system is in equilibrium if you leave it be and wait long enough, so that all currents (of energy, particles, etc) flowing through the system quiet down. Take a glass of water and wait, and it equilibrates with its surrounding. However, if you put the water in a pot and heat from a stove below while the top is being cooled by air, then even if the water reaches a steady state where you cannot see any macroscopic motion, energy is flowing from the bottom to the top, and this steady state is a nonequilibrium one.
Turbulent states occur when you keep pumping energy in and it is continually being dissipated, so energy flows through the system (for example, you stir the fluid on a macroscpic scale, and energy "cascades" down to smaller scale eddies until at very small eddies it is being dissipated).
More precisely, the common definition of an equilibrium system is one that is statistically time-reversal symmetric: you cannot tell by looking at a video of the dynamics whether the video is going forward or backward. If you model your system as a Markov process (e.g., by using a Langevin equation), then equilibrium means that the process is "reversible", or satisfies the detailed balance condition. Turbulent fluids do not satisfy these conditions precisely because there is an energy flow.


A HUGE Cheer to the nurses and staff at the Invermere hospital! You ladies filled my lengthy stay with full of laughter, kindness, and friendship. It will never be forgotten! You took great care of me when I was as helpless as a toddler. Best roommates ever!


text:
import {Directive, HostBinding} from '@angular/core';

@Directive({selector: '[my-dir]', host: {'[tabindex]': '1'}})
export class MyDirective {
  @HostBinding('title') myTitle = 'hello';

  @HostBinding('id') myId = 'special-directive';
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


More than 125,000 western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) have been discovered deep in the isolated forests of the Republic of Congo. This new find is a huge boost to their population, at least doubling estimates to between 175,000 and 225,000.
The gorillas were found during the first wildlife census of the area carried out by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and the Government of Republic of Congo. Across an area covering 18,000 square miles, researchers tracked the animals by counting their nests, which nomadic gorillas build each evening to sleep in before rising the next morning in search of browse and a new overnight campsite.
Western lowland gorillas are one of four gorilla sub-species, which also include mountain gorillas, eastern lowland gorillas, and cross river gorillas. All are labelled endangered or critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with numbers of western lowland gorillas previously believed to be around 50,000 due to deforestation, warfare, poachers and the Ebola virus.
Emma Stokes, a WCS biologist who helped co-ordinate the study, said the dense forests in the Congo had kept the animals out of human sight. "It was an incredible moment when we realised the figures we were getting in. They had not been previously recorded because these are remote areas, inaccessible and tough to survey." The swampy forest terrain is also one of the main reasons the gorillas have been thriving as it is so inaccessible to humans. Since there aren't any logging operations in the heart of these northern forests roads are all but nonexistent. That, in turn, has led to low levels of poaching or subsistence hunting. However, in recent years, the Republic of Congo has begun to sell the right to log the forests so things may change rapidly. Steven Sanderson, president of WCS says that the Congo government has committed to creating a new national park in this area but time is of the essence to ensure that this becomes a reality so that the area is protected before the hunters and loggers get there first.
Harvard University's Richard Wrangham says loss of habitat is the greatest threat to the survival of the primates: "That's partly from people just cutting down forest in order to be able to plant their crops but a lot of it is coming from big monocultures, a lot of it from logging, a lot of it from mining, so a lot of it from industrial actions as well." Wrangham adds that forest clearance for growing crops for biofuels is going to intensify the loss of land for the primates. And while we may be able to try and control the actions of humans, one thing we can't control is the threat from Ebola virus. "We must not become complacent. Ebola can wipe out thousands in a short time," says Stokes. Given the very high density of the animals found in this new group, they may be especially vulnerable if the virus did penetrate the group as recent research has shown that death rate is highest in gorillas living in groups (Caillaud et al., 2006).
Nevertheless, this is a huge boost for gorilla conservation and must be celebrated. As Craig Stanford, professor of anthropology and biology at the University of Southern California, says, "If these census results are confirmed, they are incredibly exciting, the kind of good news we rarely find."
Next Article Why do some countries win more Olympic medals?


text:
Q: How can I simulate the frequency of each face for N die rolls? I want to simulate a fair die roll N times without actually rolling a die.
To be clear, I want to achieve something like this:
N = 1000
"1" showed up 185 times
"2" showed up 162 times
"3" showed up 158 times
"4" showed up 148 times
"5" showed up 182 times
"6" showed up 165 times

I can say that, for example, the number 1 shows up
random_binomial_distribution(N = 1000, probability = (1/6))

times. But I can't apply this for all faces, as the sum of all these results will likely not equal 1000.

How can I simulate the frequency of each face for N rolls without iterating through every roll?

A: The frequencies for the different faces aren't independent, since they have to sum to $N$. However, instead of iterating over the dice, you can iterate over the number of faces, which doesn't increase with $N$:

*

*Simulate occurrences of 1, $n_1$, as Binomial, with $N$ trials and success probability $1/6$.

*Simulate occurrences of 2, $n_2$, as Binomial, with $N - n_1$ trials and success probability $1/5$.

*Simulate occurrences of 3, $n_3$, as Binomial, with $N - n_1 - n_2$ trials and success probability $1/4$.

And so on, until you simulate the occurrences of 6 with a success probability of $1$, using up all the remaining rolls.

A: I feel the simplest approach for a die of $D$ sides (your question assumes $D=6$), with an arbitrary set of values (your question assumes a die roll is one of $\in {1,2,3,4,5,6}$) is to use a shuffle algorithm-based sampling function on the set of values of your die:
Python
Assume you have an array of die values (any number of values, any set of values), named MyDie, the basis for "rolling" MyDie N times is:
import random
values, counts = np.unique(random.choices(MyDie,k=10), return_counts=True)

For example, for $N=10$:
>>> import random
>>> import numpy as np
>>> values, counts = np.unique(random.choices(MyDie,k=10),return_counts=True)
>>> print(values,"\n",counts,sep="")
[1 2 3 4 5 6]
[1 4 1 1 1 2]

R
Assume you have an array of die values (any number of values, any set of values), named MyDie, the basis for "rolling" MyDie N times is:
sample(MyDie,size=N,replace=TRUE)

For example, for $N=10$:
> MyDie <- 1:6
> table(sample(MyDie,size=10,replace=TRUE))

1 2 3 5 6
4 1 2 1 2


Complimentary snacks are not served on-board our flights. However, you may pre-book your snack while making your reservation or add it later online or by calling our call center. If you have not pre-booked your snack, you can also purchase food items on-board basis availability.
Flights under 30 minutes flying time: Only our favorite Cookie Tins, Nut Cases and water bottles will be available for purchase. No other Food & Beverage will be on sale on-board such flights.
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For payment details on pre-booked snacks, click here.
Is alcohol offered on IndiGo flights?
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Please not: Serving of or consumption of alcohol is strictly prohibited on Domestic flights.
Is smoking allowed on- board IndiGo flights?
ŸIndiGo provides water cups free of charge on all its flights. Water bottles will be available in flight on sale.
ŸIndiGo allows passengers to bring food items on-board. Allowed food items include cold snacks, non-alcoholic drinks, snack bars and biscuits.
IndiGo currently does not provide ear plugs and cotton on-board. Therefore, we recommend that passengers carry their own chewing gums, cotton and/or ear plugs for their comfort. It is also recommended that passengers carry blankets/ shawl on board.
No. IndiGo merchandise is on sale only on Airbus A320.


text:
Dr Raisi in the meeting of the Omani FM:
Tehran-Muscat ties based on the historical ties, common grounds
Speaking in a meeting with Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, the Foreign Minister and Special Envoy of the Sultan of Oman, on Wednesday morning, Ayatollah Dr Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi said, "Relations between Tehran and Muscat go beyond the relations between two neighbours and stem from the historical ties and common grounds between the two peoples".
The President said that the friendly relations between Iran and Oman have not only remained at the level of bilateral relations, but have also been reflected in the cooperation and convergence of the two countries in international and regional fields, saying, "The goal of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the develop relations with Oman in all areas, including political, economic, social and cultural".
Dr Raisi described the feeling of closeness between the people of Iran and Oman towards each other as a support for the development and strengthening of bilateral relations and capital in advancing bilateral relations.
The President continued his speech by pointing out that the countries of the region have enough ability and power to ensure the security of the region, stating, "The presence of oursiders in the region has no effect other than threatening security".
In this meeting, the Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi also conveyed the congratulations and greetings of the Sultan of Oman to the new President of Iran, noting, "Relations between Iran and Oman have become a model for relations between countries in the region, and we are proud of these historical and deep-rooted relations".
Welcoming Dr Raisi's position on strengthening relations with neighbouring countries, including in his speech during the endorsement ceremony, the Omani Foreign Minister said, "We hope to welcome Your Excellency in Muscat as soon as possible and for the visits of high-ranking officials to continue to further strengthen and consolidate the relations between the two countries, especially in the economic field".


Call today Giveaway Thursday. Not only does that mean there's just one day to wait for Hot Fudge Friday, but it also means we've got yet more tickets to give away. The Granada Theater has hooked us up with three pairs of tickets to see Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit Saturday.
Along for the ride with the former Drive-By Trucker are Red Cortez and Dusty Rhodes and the River Band [no, not that Dusty Rhodes].
Each of the first three to email me with the subject "The Devil Is My Running Mate" will be on the list for the show, plus-one.
Update: Contest is over. Congrats to the winners.
Update 2: One of the winners doesn't need his tix after all. Hit me up for that last pair.


Welcome to the inspirational world. In this site you can find and read carefully selected inspirational short stories and quotes and enjoy looking at high quality motivational images.
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Just like you need food for your body, you also at certain times, need food for your mind and soul that comes as touching and inspirational messages. An inspirational story, a quote or poem that can lift you up and makes you feel better.
I found that Inspirational messages, such as funny stories and quotes are an excellent source providing energy and spirit for anyone reading them from time to time.
Inspirational stories can give you the ability to make a positive change in your attitude and help you make better choices, fill your life confidence and make you determined to achieve you dreams and goals.
Also, reading inspirational messages and stories can help you change your thoughts, or can assist you in making you think of a situation in a different way. They can spark new ideas giving us a new way of thinking or viewing a particular situation.
Finally, You are more than welcome to comment on any inspirational story or message.


text:
Police: 1 taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries after shooting on Hobbs Avenue
Oshkosh police say one person suffered life-threatening injuries in a shooting late Thursday on the city's north side.
Police: 1 taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries after shooting on Hobbs Avenue Oshkosh police say one person suffered life-threatening injuries in a shooting late Thursday on the city's north side. Check out this story on thenorthwestern.com: http://oshko.sh/2vdHRGX
Nathaniel Shuda, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin Published 6:43 a.m. CT July 28, 2017 | Updated 12:59 p.m. CT July 28, 2017
Oshkosh Police Department logo(Photo: File/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)Buy Photo
OSHKOSH - One person suffered life-threatening injuries in a shooting late Thursday on the city's north side.
Police responded about 11:30 p.m. Thursday to the 500 block of Hobbs Avenue, according to a news release from Lt. Andrew Lecker. Emergency medical personnel took a 24-year-old man with a gunshot wound in the back to a local hospital.
RELATED: Four people taken to hospital after EAA Seaplane Base crash
RELATED: No injuries, suspects after shots fire on Boyd Street
It appears the victim was targeted, according to the news release.
Oshkosh police continue to investigate the incident.
Investigators are encouraging anyone with any information about the incident to contact the Oshkosh Police Department at 920-236-5700 or Winnebago County Wide Crime Stoppers by calling 920-231-8477; texting "IGOTYA" and a tip to 274637; or submitting a tip at winnebagocrimestoppers.org.
The incident is the second shooting in the city this week. On Sunday, police responded to a report of shots fired in the 500 block of Boyd Street, though no one was injured.
Nathaniel Shuda: 920-426-6632 or nshuda@thenorthwestern.com; on Twitter: @onwnshuda.
Read or Share this story: http://oshko.sh/2vdHRGX
Oshkosh youth of color want to see more racial literacy in the community


April 29th saw the most recent Ontario Chito Ryu tournament.
Volunteers ( students, parents etc ) were selling tickets, staffing bbq and score keeping.
Thank you to Randy Cotton and Debbie Park from Burlington Chito Ryu Karate Club for assisting the entire day!
I was acting as the onsite medical care for the tournament. Glad to report there were no significant injuries-a credit to the equipment and the control of the referees and the competitors.
And there were the competitors. 130 children competing in kata, kumite and team kata. There were not as many adults as in previous years, possibly due to the beautiful weather.
I had decided to compete this year, as another way of preparing for my grading. It seemed like a good way to perform kata under some pressure -in front of a large audience. As it turns out, that was a good idea. I managed to place second but more importantly noticed that I must have been very tense during my demonstration, as I struggled to control my breathing at the completion of Sanshiryu. Lesson learned ( i hope ).
Finally, 2 more items. Congratulations to young Alistair Park from our Burlington Club. In his first tournament ever he placed first in kumite and second in kata! He is our first junior student of this most recent group to compete and we could not have been prouder.
Secondly, a large thank you to Bill Moran from the entire Ontario Chito Ryu community. Bill, a Higashi student and crony of mine for almost 30 years is the driving force behind most of our functions. Bill organizes the events, books venues, recruits volunteers, organizes food, drink, rings, mats, helpers, drivers and does anything it takes to complete a successful event-whether it be a tournament, kigami biraki, or other karate related celebration. Bill is always there and always reliable and again, to Bill Moran from the Chito Ryu Community-thanks a million!
Karate is one of the things I want to learn ever since. I always have the desire to make it possible since I also see it as a way of protecting myself. Watching the video left me amazed, as always. Wu shu will always be a wild dream I will never let go! For now, I am trying to familiarize myself with it through watching videos. But soon, I will learn it real life and I will learn all the skills I've been dreaming to learn since then!


text:
Flying carpet theorist refused a patent
Professor Zagyansky, who says Albert Einstein's theory of relativity is wrong and claims to have discovered a new magnetic force that appears to support flying carpets and perpetual motion, has been refused by the European Patent Office (EPO) for failing to describe a patentable invention.
Zagyansky argued that his 'invention' should be patentable because the EPO had failed to find any evidence of prior art. The EPO disagreed and said that it could not understand what Professor Zagyansky was talking about in what he called a "revolutionary scientific theory of century (sic)."
The EPO's Board of Appeal decided it was more theory than invention and said that the EPO "cannot be a discussion forum for new physical theories unless these are unambiguously proven, are of a technical nature and capable of industrial application".
Top 10 tips for avoiding a business cyberattack.
A cyberattack could strike anybody, therefore you must not think of yourself as exempt because your business is based on a smaller-scale. There are also


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Look To The Stars At Inspirational Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon
Look To The Stars talks to Tatyana Ali, Bill Duke, Tyrese Gibson, Tichina Arnold, Laila Ali, Taraji P. Henson, Audra McDonald and Quincy Jones about inspirational black women in Hollywood and beyond as Essence Magazine celebrates black women in Hollywood at their 2nd Annual Awards Luncheon honoring Halle Berry, Taraji P. Henson, Gina Prince-Bythewood and Diahann Carroll.
The star-studded event honored four of Hollywoods finest who have helped to change and inspire positive images of Black women in television and film—both in front of the camera and behind-the-scenes: Halle Berry (Power Award), Oscar Nominee Taraji P. Henson (Lexus Star to Watch Award), Gina Prince-Bythewood (Visionary Award) and Diahann Carroll (Legend Award).
Host:Fatima Fofana
Produced by:Crystal Johnson
Editor: Sol Goldwag
Halle Berry, Bill Duke, Quincy Jones, Tichina Arnold, Taraji P. Henson, Tatyana Ali, Laila Ali, Tyrese Gibson, Audra McDonald
Family/Parent Support, Education, Children, At-Risk/Disadvantaged Youths, Adoption, Fostering, Orphans
Quincy and Rashida Jones Stand Up with SU2C and PCF
Chime For Change: It's Possible
Live Real Change
Laila Ali - Healthy Schools PSA
March of Dimes Celebrity Parents
Quincy Jones receives World Malaria Day award
Celebrities To Take Part In Global's 2021 Be Beautiful Be Yourself Fashion Show Oct 21, 2021
Today, the Global Down Syndrome Foundation (GLOBAL) announced GRAMMY Award-winning artist, songwriter, actress, author, and philanthropist Sara Bareilles will perform at GLOBAL's virtual Be Beautiful Be Yourself Fashion Show on Saturday, November 13, 2021. More →
2021 Night of Covenant House Stars Virtual Gala May 10, 2021
Wellness 4 Humanity Announces Cities and Dates for Spread Love Not Covid Event Series May 5, 2021
Kate Hudson, Halle Berry, Kris Jenner to be Honored at 2021 Outstanding Mother Awards Mar 18, 2021
Burma: It Can't Wait - Norman Lear - Day 38
Coldplay's Chris Martin for the Make Trade Fair campaign
UNICEF: Orlando Bloom visits UNICEF programmes in Nepal
Hayley Westenra: Why I support UNICEF NZ


Just check out their pretty clear-red skins, especially compared to everyday dirty-brown beets.
After that, maybe it's hard to guess how they'll turn out, color-wise?
Sliced right after cooking and so still hot, one chiogga beet turned out a pale golden color tinged with pink on one end, and was luscious with nothing more than this.
Chilled, the other chiogga beets turned out pale and pretty pink, some paler than others but still ruby colored. They were delicious, drizzled with a simple dressing of sour cream and horseradish.
Whisk dressing ingredients and drizzle over the beets. Serve and enjoy!
That was quite a color loss! I was dreaming about orange beets last night! I saw sone at the framers market and didn't buy them. Now I am regretting it. I love the idea of using horseradish on them.
Cool! I've never cooked with chiogga beets before, and although I like beets for their deep red colour as much as for their flavour, I'd still like to try these light-coloured ones one day.
I scour the farm market for these beets. They have a more mild flavor than the common dark red ones.
Quick cook: a little water in bottom of pan - just enough to keep the beets from cooking 'to' the pan. Thinly slice these beets into the pan with the water and steam/cook for several minutes until just tender crisp, unless you like them mushy.
Sometimes I do half of these with half dark beets, sometimes with golden, or all three together. Wonderful appeal and flavor combinations.
May also be cut in small pieces and stir fried, boiled, baked, steamed whole, grated and saute'd, mashed like potatoes, incorporated in soup, stew and salads.
Very good raw. Clean, peel if you like, and cut into french fry pieces, then serve with vegetable platter and dip.
My children LOVE these and the golden beets. They help watch for the first ones to come in at the market.
They can well, too, for enjoyment during the winter, though the color integrety is diminished.
If you cook them to crisp tender, then spread on cooling rack in single layers just until not drippy, Put cooling rack in freezer until they are 'just' beginning to freeze, drop into freezer bag and return to freezer immediately. Now you have them frozen for long storage and can pull out as little or as much as you want, heat through and serve. Great addition to soups in the winter as well as sides and salads whether vegetable, club or pasta salads.
Try dropping some of these cooked slices into the left over pickle juice in a jar, stick in the fridge for a couple of weeks and enjoy. Nice mild blend of the flavors.
Hi JenniMae ~ Sounds like you're a big beet fan, too! Thanks so much for the tips, especially one for freezing. That sounds perfect, especially for someone who's got a gardenful. Stop by with tips often, please!


I'll keep this short and pungent. When there are similar videos/stories that are going viral at the same time many people just go along with it. The common unwoke american falls for the emotional appeal because, by nature, we humans are empathetic. This next part is very important. For some time now our politicians have been liars. They use traumatic events to inspire the american public to support their agendas. If one controls the american public, then every where else in the world will be affected.
The agenda is planned behind closed doors.
For black people who are the descendants of slaves, our familiar oppressive narrative is further shoved down our third eyes and psychological reprogramming ensues.
"The innocent black woman beaten."
Yes, these are real and unjust events but why so auspiciously now. You can't pay me to believe that black people haven't been dying at the hands of police brutality in these past 3 months. They have, and I know activists who have been sharing the stories, wondering why they haven't gone viral. These videos were chosen and made viral to inspire black people to desire justice against asians. Why now?
Now for those who are of the "privileged" sort, there's a more sophisticated emotional appeal. Sad stories like these are told to influential people who have the power to affect change in this world and provide opportunities for others to do so.
Sad stories like these are told to influential people who have the power to affect change in this world and provide opportunities for others to do so. This has been going on in North Korea for decades. Who supported this summit?This video was made popular with the underhanded intent to inspire the upper middle class to desire justice against north korea. Why now?
Before I go any further I would like to firmly state that, as a black man, I felt every emotion these videos inspired. I felt the anger for my beaten sisters. I felt the pain of this young korean woman. However, when I feel such deep emotions I meditate to ground and center before making any irrational decisions. "If you can anger your enemy, then you've won half the battle." - unknown. With a clouded mind we become disoriented and easily influenced by rage. Don't let people feed your fire beloveds. If someone can make you angry then they have control over you.
How interesting is it that Qi Gong, which began in the east, teaches practitioners to achieve a state of "no fire." What a morbid play on words. The state of no fire allows people to be at peace without any emotional charge. This does not mean negate or avert emotion, but to become like water. Allow it to flow and through the breath, bring your waters to stillness--thus observing the true meaning and root of this emotion.
Below you will find a quick meditation technique that regulates your fire and brings you back to peace in a matter of moments. Always follow your heart.
Then we start to see articles and news reports at the political level. How nice, they've saved the day. I did a quick google search by simply typing in "America North Korea Politics." This is what I found.
I wonder how they'll put this fire out that they've started.
These news reports with such alarming headlines are the smoke and the viral videos are the mirrors. So I bring you my perspective based on what I see now that adheres to cycles of world history in the past. Step 4 is up for you to decide. What will you do?
You will not find a list of to do's in this blog post. You will not find a call to action. You will not find a grandiose deduction with the intent to make people think a certain way. This is simply to spread a deeper awareness and to simulate healthy thought. Its not always about what the person writing the article thinks. What do you think? More importantly, what do you feel in your heart?


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Hatters
View from the pressbox: The alternative Luton Town awards for 2016-17
Danny Hylton has been Town's stand out performer this term
Mike Simmonds
Published: 12:59 Monday 08 May 2017
After covering Luton the length and breadth of the country once again this term, it's time to hand out some awards to the stars of the show.
Player of the season: There are some stand out candidates for this award, but it simply has to be Danny Hylton.
Olly Lee celebrates his goal against Barnet
It's never been just about goals with Hylton, as despite sending 26 of them into the opposition's net during the course of his first campaign as a Hatter, the manner in which he leads the line has made him an undoubted favourite on the terraces, being the kind of focal point Luton have been missing for years.
A close second in the running is skipper Scott Cuthbert, who has been a colossus at times this year, the rock on which Town's impressive defensive record has been built on.
Joint third would be Christian Walton, after excelling when on loan from Brighton in the first part of the campaign, and Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu for his displays of the second half of the season, as he is now looking a proper player for Town.
Young player of the year: It couldn't be anyone else other than James Justin. Coming through the youth ranks means an instant popularity usually, but the teenager has looked so composed at both right and left back. With a first touch to die for, he could go on to be a star in the future.
James Justin looks up against Leyton Orient
Breakthrough act: Isaac Vassell. Impressed Mick Harford enough to be offered a deal in the summer and it's easy to see why as close up, his sheer pace is absolutely frightening. Added goals to his game as well and gets better and better with every passing moment.
Goal of the season: Few candidates this term, including Hylton's curler at Morecambe, (so I'm told, see below) plus Jack Marriott's effort versus Cambridge, but you'd go some way to better Stephen O'Donnell's rocket against Yeovil Town way back in August. A real 'pick that out' effort.
Favourite Alan Sheehan free kick of the season: Deserves his own category as the Irishman has netted three blinders this term. Hartlepool one was a corker, but my personal favourite was against Crawley, where the phrase, 'there's no stopping that' couldn't have been put to better use.
Best moment of the season: Olly Lee's winner at Barnet. Midfielder had received a fair amount of stick prior to the game, but had the whole away contingent at the Hive singing his praises as one with a cool finish during the 1-0 victory.
Omar Beckles won't want to see his back header again
Quote of the season: Nathan Jones on Glen Rea: "If I had a kid that's what I want, hopefully he's not as dull as him, but that's what I want because he's right up there and I love him."
Saves of the season: Three of them to pick out. Christian Walton's brilliant stop from the spot at Notts County, Matt Macey's tip on to the bar from Kyle Vassell's overhead volley against Blackpool and Stuart Moore's superb reflex stop to prevent Paul Mullin equalising for Morecambe,
Worst journey: Two spring to mind and that's Morecambe and Carlisle.
Championship transfers RECAP: Luton Town 'agree' £100k transfer; Nottingham Forest 'reach agreement' with Swedish starlet
The trip to the Globe saw me and my passengers miss kick off for the first time ever covering the Hatters, and even worse, by the time we had got there, Danny Hylton had made it 1-0 with an apparent pearler.
Also getting back from Carlisle on a Thursday night is bad enough, but when every single road is shut, it makes it twice as awful.
Back header of the season: The press corp are purveyors of the art and there have been some crackers this season, but Accrington defender Omar Beckles' attempt over his own keeper was by far and away the best. Enough to earn the man of the match award from some cheeky Town fans who had sponsored the game too!
Best food: Wycombe. It's always Wycombe. This time was no different as a delicious lasagna was served up. And they get extra points for dishing out more when this reporter hadn't anticipated they would run out. Notts County definitely deserve a mention too. Free pies before kick-off. Choice of filling as well. What more could you want?
Farce of the season: Hatters ridiculously getting fined 15k for their supposed weakened team selections in the Checkatrade Trophy. Selections that saw the side make it to the semi-finals of the competition, losing narrowly to League One Oxford.
Man killed on Luton-Dunstable Busway
Teen boy held by throat and pinned to ground in vicious Luton robbery
Plans for Aldi supermarket in Luton deferred by council
IN PICTURES: Luton food business operator prosecuted and banned indefinitely
Two Luton drug dealers jailed after police seize kilo of cannabis, weapons and drug paraphernalia
More from Luton Today


Carlsberg and Heineken go head to head in this week's pick and turkey.
This ode to Denmark takes Carlsberg in the right direction, Simon Gwynn says: "There's a subtle raised eyebrow in Mads Mikkelsen's depiction of Denmark's simple, elegant lifestyle that means the brand hasn't entirely abandoned its advertising heritage." It was created by Lucy Aston and Ben Ducker, and directed by Martin Krejcí through Stink.
Brittaney Kiefer thinks the Heineken ad took a page from the Pepsi playbook: "I applaud other efforts in this campaign to bring people together but this film falls short. It sets up a false equivalence between views such as feminism and sexism, and ends on a neat, glossed-over note. The product placement amid such controversial discussions made me cringe."
Pick of the week: Mother "Free the feed"


After investing in classic luggage brands and taking gambles on midrange Instagram fan favorites, it was time to fly test the sensible choice: an affordable suitcase with a slick exterior and noteworthy features that did not match its price tag — or as some may say, a luggage 'deal'. At first glance, iFLY's Admiral collection ticks the right boxes, but how does it stack up on a 14-day vacation with multiple plane rides?
The iFLY X Series Admiral can be found at Walmart, and no one can argue with the price point: $139 for a 28″ hard shell case (prices start at $99 for a carry-on) with the standout features we have come to expect from mid-to-high-range luggage, like a scratch resistant exterior, integrated TSA lock, laundry bag, USB port (on carry-ons) and removable garment suiter (on medium and large sizes).
The iFLY 28″ is a good looking bag. Black, stylish and sophisticated, you wouldn't price it at $139. The rubber grip trolley handle feels sturdy and the wheels ride across uneven New York roads smoothly. Packing lightly, and neatly, is not my forte; the general rule is three outfit changes per day, right? Luckily, the spacious interior is generous and I could fit in more than enough clothes for my two-week Hawaiian adventure, plus Christmas presents. But I certainly had to use the extra 2″ depth expansion zipper.
The weight of the bag is the first major problem for me. With dimensions of 28" x 18.25" x 13" + 2" expansion, it weighs 13.4 lbs/6.0 kg without clothes, which feels excessively heavy for a bag. As I confessed earlier, I am not the best packer, so the extra bag weight combined with maybe one too many sandals meant that I had to take out some extra weight at the airport before checking in. But I soon realized it was not just the extra sandals or toiletries: the bag was only three-quarters full and way too heavy for a standard US airline's 50 lb/23 kg weight limit. At every airport stop I was dumping shoes and shoving jackets in my sister's luggage. If anyone wants a great bottle of grappa or two children's coloring books, head to the trash cans at the Honolulu airport.
Smooth wheels, but sticky zippers.
So with all this opening and closing and recalibrating my luggage at every airport stop, the second major issue presented itself — the sticky zippers. If you are moving around a lot, already frustrated from having to pack and repack your underwear in front of a line of impatient travelers, these are not the zippers you want on your luggage. They are tough, slippery and would not move smoothly unless I was sitting on the bag just right, not with all my weight, just the perfect amount to make the zippers align completely.
Irritated and cursing this cumbersome bag, I arrived at my destination. I was relieved to find my clothes were neatly intact in the zip-interior compartments, but the exterior had a few scuff marks, and strings of fabric from the lining were coming out around the zip — a little disappointing after only a couple of flights. I did wonder what it would look like after a few more journeys, but knew I was not planning on finding out anytime soon.
After one plane ride there were scratch marks and loose threads around the zipper.
The price tag and capacity is on point. With multiple compartments and removable laundry bag and garment suiter, your clothes will stay put and feel well organized. However, the price tag also reflects the quality of the materials. If a smooth zipper, scuff-free exterior and overall weight are important to you, it might be wise to look around. This bag is going to make great storage for my winter clothes — under my bed. I doubt I will not be bringing it on any other trips unless I'm driving, and only unpacking once.


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Oct 28, 2019, 10:10am EDT
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ESPN Boss Declares eSports 'Not A Sport'
Paul Tassi
News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet.
Sep 7, 2014, 03:56pm EDT |
Though the sports and video gaming communities see far more overlap than they used to, there's still that ever present "nerd vs. jock" rivalry that still rears up from time to time, even as the landscape of society has changed. That's what happened this week when ESPN president John Skipper was asked about Amazon's recent Twitch acquisition, and the general rise of eSports.
"It's not a sport -- it's a competition. Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition....Mostly, I'm interested in doing real sports," he said, according to Re/code.
Most will recall that ESPN only just recently partnered with DOTA 2 to broadcast a preshow for The International on ESPN2, and aired the event itself on ESPN3, their streaming arm. It also seems like a rather hypocritical declaration for a channel that airs bass fishing and poker alongside "traditional sports" like baseball, football, basketball, etc.
When fans were first upset that ESPN wasn't airing the DOTA 2 championships on TV, I wrote a piece that said eSports didn't need ESPN, or really, TV broadcasting at all. To me, TV seems like a step backward for a scene that's far better to consume in online streaming format, rather than sliced and diced for TV time outs, and condensed for time given that many such tournaments take entire weekends to complete. The only real benefit to TV is the idea of being "accepted" as a real sport that deserves airtime alongside more traditional pastimes.
Fanboy Wars: The Newest eBook From Forbes
The Fight For The Future Of Video Games is a warts-and-all look at the clashes between the video game business and its passionate fans.
Now it seems we're getting into an old debate about the semantics between "sports" and "eSports," only this time it's a bigger deal because the president of ESPN (and by proxy, the "president of sports" essentially, in the west), has emphatically, and rather rudely, declared eSports not a "real sport."
You want to argue official definitions? I suppose we can for the hundredth time. The dictionary defines sports as:
"An athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc."
By that definition which includes skill OR physical prowess (or both, presumably), I would say eSports qualifies. Games like Starcraft or DOTA require honed physical skills in addition to larger decision making processes. In other words, clicking fast and often and precisely is essential to victory. That's less the case in newer eSports like say, Hearthstone, which only requires strategy and no physical ability whatsoever, but still, by that definition it should qualify.
And yet, I understand that when you look over the general eSports pro line-up, you wouldn't look at many of the players and deem them "athletes" by their physical prowess alone. Though the same can be said of many other "activities" that are on the fuzzy edge of being a "sport" or not.
Personally, I don't really think it matters whether eSports is technically a sport, a competition, or a game. It's a competitive experience that people enjoy watching, and I don't see why it's necessary to draw specific lines for events like these. Should we cut off the "sports" tag at curling? Hunting? Poker? The Spelling Bee? I don't know, and again, I don't think it matters.
With that said, Skipper's remarks in this context are unnecessarily dismissive, particularly when his network had so recently partnered with DOTA. If ESPN was smart, instead of dismissing Twitch and eSports as no competition to them because it doesn't involve "real sports," they would be bending over backward trying to figure out how to capitalize on what is very clearly an explosive trend of millions of fans around the world watching people play video games. Whether that would take the form of more partnerships like the recent one with DOTA, or trying to do something more advanced like actually partnering with streamers or sponsoring events directly, it seems like they're waving away what could be a promising opportunity, and instead are essentially letting Twitch and Amazon have a monopoly in the space.
Right now ESPN is as relevant to me as the Oxygen Network, given that I spend my nights watching League and Hearthstone streams instead of three hour baseball games. But rather than dismissing my choice of a "competition" I enjoy watching, ESPN would be wise to try to understand and embrace it.
Follow me on Twitter, like my page on Facebook, and pick up a copy of my sci-fi novel, The Last Exodus, and its sequel, The Exiled Earthborn, along with my new Forbes book, Fanboy Wars.
How should Destiny spend its $500M budget? I explain below:


Hey there … I am Ayandola Ayanleke. If allowed, I would regale you with unending stories about me, however, I am thinking that is probably not something you are looking for.
But guess what? That is exactly what you are getting.
I know that opening line makes it sound like I am tough but hey … I can be… Ayandola survived six years of tyranny in a boarding school in the beautiful ancient city of Zaria. I proceeded to the University of Lagos because of my love for new places (first time in the southern part of the country), where I studied History and Strategic Studies.
I am a Christian; I love God and try to do what is right. You would see this element reflected a lot in my writing.
I am also Afrocentric, a major proponent of the African culture. I believe strongly that one of the routes to happiness is genuine acceptance of whom you are and where you are coming from.
Ayandola is super fun and I like to think, with a sense of humour. So, you can be rest assured I will keep you entertained.
I am going to be honest with you though … This blog came up as a way of fulfilling the lifelong promise I had with writing. I don't necessarily enjoy writing but writing likes me and made me promise to touch lives with my pen, give hope to the hopeless, put smiles on the faces of folks who have little to smile about and generally make people happy.
Succinctly, there are three things you need to know about me. I am an African Christian who loves to … watch movies … read novels … WRITE. I hope you enjoy reading my thoughts and you have fun while at it.
I sincerely appreciate you visiting my blog.
You are welcome to send me mails via dolaleke@ayandola.com or visit the contact page here to contact me.