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our forgotten ancestors
March 19, 2020 Philip Waring Leave a comment
In the Milky Way galaxy alone there may be a hundred billion worlds—neither close by, nor too distant from, the local sun, around which they orbit in silent gravitational homage. This is a story about one such world, perhaps not very different from many others—a story, especially, about the beings that evolved upon it, and one kind in particular.
Just to be alive billions of years after the origin of life, a being must be tough, resourceful, and lucky: There have been so many hazards along the way.
from Sagan, Carl. and Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors . Random House Publishing Group.
Lifeforms endure by being patient, say, or ravenous, or solitary and camouflaged, or profligate with offspring, or fearsome hunters, or able to fly away to safety, or sleek swimmers, or burrowers, or sprayers of noxious, disorienting liquids, or masters at infiltrating into the very genetic material of other, unsuspecting, beings; or by accidentally being elsewhere when the predators stalk or the river is poisoned or the food supply dwindles.
The creatures with which we are particularly concerned were, not so long ago, gregarious to a fault, noisy, quarrelsome, arboreal, bossy, sexy, clever, tool-using, with prolonged childhoods and tender regard for their young. One thing led to another, and in a twinkling their descendants had multiplied all over the planet, killed off all their rivals, devised world-transforming technologies, and posed a mortal danger to themselves and the many other beings with whom they shared their small home. At the same time, they set off to visit the planets and the stars. ——
Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we this way and not some other? What does it mean to be human? Are we capable, if need be, of fundamental change, or do the dead hands of forgotten ancestors impel us in some direction, indiscriminately for good or ill, and beyond our control? Can we alter our character? Can we improve our societies? Can we leave our children a world better than the one that was left to us? Can we free them from the demons that torment us and haunt our civilization? In the long run, are we wise enough to know what changes to make? Can we be trusted with our own future?
Many thoughtful people fear that our problems have become too big for us, that we are for reasons at the heart of human nature unable to deal with them, that we have lost our way, that the dominant political and religious ideologies are unable to halt an ominous, long-term drift in human affairs—indeed, that they have helped cause that drift through rigidity, incompetence, and the inevitable corruption of power. Is this true, and if it is, can we do anything about it?
In attempting to understand who we are, every human culture has invented a corpus of myth. The contradictions within us are ascribed to a struggle between contending but equally matched deities; or to an imperfect Creator; or, paradoxically, to a rebellious angel and the Almighty; or to the even more unequal struggle between an omnipotent being and disobedient humans.
There have also been those who hold that the gods have nothing to do with it. One of them, Nanrei Kobori, late Abbot of the Temple of the Shining Dragon, a Buddhist sanctuary in Kyoto, said to us God is an invention of Man. So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery. The deep mystery is the nature of Man.
Had life and humans first come to be hundreds or even thousands of years ago, we might know most of what's important about our past. There might be very little of significance about our history that's hidden from us. Our reach might extend easily to the beginning. But instead, our species is hundreds of thousands of years old, the genus Homo millions of years old, primates tens of millions of years old, mammals over 200 million years old, and life about 4 billion years old. Our written records carry us only a millionth of the way back to the origin of life.
Our beginnings, the key events in our early development, are not readily accessible to us. No firsthand accounts have come down to us. They cannot be found in living memory or in the annals of our species. Our time-depth is pathetically, disturbingly shallow. The overwhelming majority of our ancestors are wholly unknown to us They have no names, no faces, no foibles. No family anecdotes attach to them. They are unreclaimable, lost to us forever. We don't know them from Adam.
If an ancestor of yours of a hundred generations ago—never mind a thousand thousand or ten thousand—came up to you on the street with open arms, or just tapped you on the shoulder, would you return the greeting? Would you call the authorities?
We ourselves, the writers of this book, have so short a reach into our family histories that we can peer clearly only two generations back, dimly three, and almost not at all beyond that. We do not know even the names—much less the occupations, countries of origin, or personal histories—of our great-great-grandparents. Most people on Earth, we think, are similarly isolated in time. For most of us, no records have preserved the memories of our ancestors of even a few generations back.
A vast chain of beings, human and nonhuman, connects each of us with our earliest predecessors Only the most recent links are illuminated by the feeble searchlight of living memory. All the others are plunged into varying degrees of darkness, more impenetrable the farther from us they are in time. Even those fortunate families who have managed to keep meticulous records range no more than a few dozen generations into the past. And yet a hundred thousand generations ago our ancestors were still recognizably human, and ages of geological time stretch back before them.
For most of us, the searchlight progresses forward as the generations do, and as the new ones are born, information about the old ones is lost. We are cut off from our past, separated from our origins, not through some amnesia or lobotomy, but because of the brevity of our lives and the immense, unfathomed vistas of time that separate us from our coming to be.
We humans are like a newborn baby left on a doorstep, with no note explaining who it is, where it came from, what hereditary cargo of attributes and disabilities it might be carrying, or who its antecedents might be. We long to see the orphan's file. Repeatedly, in many cultures, we invented reassuring fantasies about our parents—about how much they loved us, about how heroic and larger than life they were.
As orphans do, we sometimes blamed ourselves for having been abandoned. It must have been our fault. We were too sinful, perhaps, or morally incorrigible. Insecure, we clung to these stories, imposing imposing the strictest penalties on any who dared to doubt them. It was better than nothing, better than admitting our ignorance of our own origins, better than acknowledging that we had been left naked and helpless, a foundling on a doorstep. As the infant is said to feel it is the center of its Universe, so we were once sure, not just of our central position, but that the Universe was made for us. This old, comfortable conceit, this safe view of the world has been crumbling for five centuries. The more we understood of how the world is put together, the less we needed to invoke a God or gods, and the more remote in time and causality any divine intervention had to be.
The cost of coming of age is giving up the security blanket. Adolescence is a roller coaster ride. When, beginning in 1859, our very origins, it was suggested, could be understood by a natural, unmystical process—requiring no God or gods—our aching sense of isolation became nearly complete. In the words of the anthropologist Robert Redfield, the Universe began to "lose its moral character" and became "indifferent, a system uncaring of man."
Moreover, without a God or gods and the attendant threat of divine punishment, will not humans be as beasts? Dostoyevsky warned that those who reject religion, however well-intentioned they may be, "will end by drenching the earth with blood."
Others have noted that drenching has been in progress since the dawn of civilization—and often in the name of religion. The distasteful prospect of an indifferent Universe—or worse, a meaningless Universe—has generated fear, denial, ennui, and the sense that science is an instrument of alienation.
The cold truths of our scientific age are uncongenial to many. We feel stranded and alone. We crave a purpose to give meaning to our existence. We do not want to hear that the world was not made for us. We are unimpressed with moral codes contrived by mere mortals; we want one handed down from on high. We are reluctant to acknowledge our relatives. They are strangers to us still. We feel ashamed: After imagining our Antecedent as King of the Universe, we are now asked to accept that we come from the lowest of the low—mud, and slime, and mindless beings too small to be seen with the naked eye.
Why concentrate on the past? Why upset ourselves with painful analogies between humans and beasts? Why not simply look to the future? These questions have an answer. If we do not know what we're capable of—and not just a few celebrity saints and notorious war criminals—then we do not know what to watch out for, which human propensities to encourage, and which to guard against. Then we haven't a clue about which proposed courses of human action are realistic, and which are impractical and dangerous sentimentality….
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LAST DAY IN FORCALQUIER, HAUTE PROVENCE
This Blogger
Am retired. With my wife Josée I Iive in Tampa, and go often to Paris. There's not yet a land bridge between the two cities so to go back and forth we fly, in the dead of night on the way over, and in the light of early and late afternoon on the way back.
Tampa, I believe, is America, the best and the worst of it, mostly the best. And Paris, well, Paris is Paris, not yet a museum, but almost.
What he does or What he thinks
"There is no human nature; man is what he does." Jean-Paul Sartre
"A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes." – Mahatma Gandhi
Maria Popova, Bulgarian Writer
I live in Tampa
4200 W Santiago St.
I used to live in Paris
Rue des Fossés St. Bernard
Richard Rorty would create a social democracy, one that is, classless, casteless, and egalitarian. July 14, 2021
It was not idealism that drove him, or big ideas, … It was this: "Warto być przyzwoitym"—or "Just try to be decent." Whether you were decent—that's what will be remembered. July 6, 2021
If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation it would appear that God has a special fondness for stars and beetles. J. B. S. Haldane July 4, 2021
Us vs them morality July 4, 2021
Voting Rights? Is that what democracyis all about? July 4, 2021
Bayard, Robine and James June 21, 2021
Putting their own political interests before country June 7, 2021
The Banality of Democratic Collapse May 26, 2021
Democracy, what have we done? Have we lost you? May 26, 2021
must read, the great story of Donald Trump's complete failure to save himself. November 30, 2020
Trump's Ten Top Lies November 29, 2020
two beings converged in infinity November 23, 2020
reason and science one November 23, 2020
Science and religion 2 November 23, 2020
gail collins the worst of Trump's worst November 12, 2020
The big news today October 2, 2020
Yes, This Is The Face Of A Tyrant September 26, 2020
Liberté, egalité, fraternité September 12, 2020
Is democracy dead September 9, 2020
my Blogging September 4, 2020
every word he says is a lie, including "and" and "the. September 1, 2020
more from Charlie August 22, 2020
Albert Einstein once said —
there are only two things that might be infinite: the universe and human stupidity.
And, he confessed, he wasn't sure about the universe.
1905 — HG Wells — The plain message physical science has for the world at large is this, that were our political and social and moral devices only as well contrived to their ends as a linotype machine, an antiseptic operating plant, or an electric tram-car, there need now at the present moment be no appreciable toil in the world, and only the smallest fraction of the pain, the fear, and the anxiety that now makes human life so doubtful in its value. There is more than enough for everyone alive. Science stands, a too competent servant, behind her wrangling underbred masters, holding out resources, devices, and remedies they are too stupid to use.
1932 — Charles Beard begins his introduction to J.B.Bury's The Idea of Progress by observing that "the world is largely ruled by ideas, true and false.'
1957 — Ludwig von Mises "The genuine history of mankind is the history of ideas. It is ideas that distinguish man from all other beings. For it is ideas, theories, and doctrines that guide human action, determine the ultimate ends men aim at, and the choice of the means employed for the attainment of these ends.
Horace Mann et al.
"There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than is required to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure."
from Isabel Paterson, author of The God of the Machine (1943)
Germany has supplied ample evidence that it is quite possible to read Rilke poems in the morning, play Beethoven at night, and shoot Jews during the day.
Roger Cohen, NYTimes, April 1, 2016
Hatred, fomented in the name of utopian illusion, returns. It is unbearable for some to accept Kant's "crooked timber of humanity" out of which no straight thing was ever fashioned.
The essence of liberalism is acceptance of our human limits and our human differences. It is acceptance of multiple and perhaps incompatible truths.
In Europe and America, liberalism is threatened today. Anger rises. Bullies have workable material.
Aristotle says that —
"To take no part in the running of the community's affairs is to be either a beast or a god!"
Well I take no part in the community's affairs, and I'm not a god, ...
The Passion of Liu Xiaobo, Perry Link in the July '17 NYR
Liu, born in 1955, was eleven when Mao closed the schools, but he read books anyway, wherever he could find them. With no teachers to tell him what the government wanted him to think about what he read, he began to think for himself—and he loved it. Mao had inadvertently taught him a lesson that ran directly counter to Mao's own goal of converting children into "little red soldiers."
But this experience only partly explains Liu's stout independence. It also seems to have been an inborn trait. If there is a gene for bluntness, Liu likely had it. In the 1980s, while still a graduate student in Chinese literature, he was already known as a "black horse" for denouncing nearly every contemporary Chinese writer: the literary star Wang Meng was politically slippery; "roots-seeking" writers like Han Shaogong were excessively romantic about the value of China's traditions; even speak-for-the-people heroes like Liu Binyan were too ready to pin hopes on "liberal" Communist leaders like Hu Yaobang. No one was independent enough.
"I can sum up what's wrong with Chinese writers in one sentence," Liu Xiaobo wrote in 1986. "They can't write creatively themselves—they simply don't have the ability—because their very lives don't belong to them."
Evolution and Our Inner Conflict
By Edward O. Wilson
Are human beings intrinsically good but corruptible by the forces of evil, or the reverse, innately sinful yet redeemable by the forces of good? Are we built to pledge our lives to a group, even to the risk of death, or the opposite, built to place ourselves and our families above all else? Scientific evidence, a good part of it accumulated during the past 20 years, suggests that we are all of these things simultaneously. Each of us is inherently complicated. We are all genetic chimeras, at once saints and sinners — not because humanity has failed to reach some foreordained religious or ideological ideal — but because of the way our species originated across millions of years of biological evolution.
Kin selection alone doesn't adequately explain our complex natures.
Don't get me wrong. I am not implying that we are driven by instinct in the manner of animals. Yet in order to understand the human condition, it is necessary to accept that we do have instincts, and will be wise to take into account our very distant ancestors, as far back and in as fine a detail as possible. History is not enough to reach this level of understanding. It stops at the dawn of literacy, where it turns the rest of the story over to the detective work of archaeology; in still deeper time the quest becomes paleontology. For the real human story, history makes no sense without prehistory, and prehistory makes no sense without biology.
Within biology itself, the key to the mystery is the force that lifted pre-human social behavior to the human level. The leading candidate in my judgment is multilevel selection by which hereditary social behavior improves the competitive ability not of just individuals within groups but among groups as a whole. Its consequences can be plainly seen in the caste systems of ants, termites and other social insects. Between-group selection as a force operating in addition to between-individual selection simultaneously is not a new idea in biology. Charles Darwin correctly deduced its role, first in the insects and then in human beings — respectively in "On the Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man."
Even so, the reader should be warned that the revival of multilevel selection as the principal force of social evolution remains a hotly contested idea. Its opponents believe the principal force to be kin selection: when individuals favor kin (other than offspring), the evolution of altruistic behavior is favored. The loss suffered by the genes of the altruist are compensated by genes in the recipient made identical by common descent of the altruist and recipient. If the altruism thus created is strong enough it can lead to advanced social behavior. This seems plausible, but in 2010 two mathematical biologists, Martin Nowak and Corina Tarnita, and I demonstrated that the mathematical foundations of the kin selection theory are unsound, and that examples from nature thought to support kin selection theory are better explained as products of multilevel selection.
A strong reaction from supporters of kin selection not surprisingly ensued, and soon afterward more than 130 of them famously signed on to protest our replacement of kin selection by multilevel selection, and most emphatically the key role given to group selection. But at no time have our mathematical and empirical arguments been refuted or even seriously challenged. Since that protest, the number of supporters of the multilevel selection approach has grown, to the extent that a similarly long list of signatories could be obtained. But such exercises are futile: science is not advanced by polling. If it were, we would still be releasing phlogiston to burn logs and navigating the sky with geocentric maps.
I am convinced after years of research on the subject that multilevel selection, with a powerful role of group-to-group competition, has forged advanced social behavior — including that of humans, as I documented in my recent book "The Social Conquest of Earth."
In fact, it seems clear that so deeply ingrained are the evolutionary products of group selected behaviors, so completely a part of the human condition, that we are prone to regard them as fixtures of nature, like air and water. They are instead idiosyncratic traits of our species. Among them is the intense, obsessive interest of people in other people, which begins in the first days of life as infants learn particular scents and sounds of the adults around them. Research psychologists have found that all normal humans are geniuses at reading the intentions of others, whereby they evaluate, gossip, proselytize, bond, cooperate and control. Each person, working his way back and forth through his social network, almost continuously reviews past experiences while imagining the consequences of future scenarios.
A second diagnostic hereditary peculiarity of human behavior is the overpowering instinctual urge to belong to groups in the first place. To be kept in solitude is to be kept in pain, and put on the road to madness. A person's membership in his group — his tribe — is a large part of his identity. It also confers upon him to some degree or other a sense of superiority. When psychologists selected teams at random from a population of volunteers to compete in simple games, members of each team soon came to think of members of other teams as less able and trustworthy, even when the participants knew they had been selected at random.
All things being equal (fortunately things are seldom equal, not exactly), people prefer to be with others who look like them, speak the same dialect, and hold the same beliefs An amplification of this evidently inborn predisposition leads with frightening ease to racism and religious bigotry.
It might be supposed that the human condition is so distinctive and came so late in the history of life on Earth as to suggest the hand of a divine creator. Yet in a critical sense the human achievement was not unique at all. Biologists have identified about two dozen evolutionary lines in the modern world fauna that attained advanced social life based on some degree of altruistic division of labor. Most arose in the insects. Several were independent origins, in marine shrimp, and three appeared among the mammals, that is, in two African mole rats, and us. All reached this level through the same narrow gateway: solitary individuals, or mated pairs, or small groups of individuals built nests and foraged from the nest for food with which they progressively raised their offspring to maturity.
Until about three million years ago the ancestors of Homo sapiens were mostly vegetarians, and they most likely wandered in groups from site to site where fruit, tubers, and other vegetable food could be harvested. Their brains were only slightly larger than those of modern chimpanzees. By no later than half a million years ago, however, groups of the ancestral species Homo erectus were maintaining campsites with controlled fire — the equivalent of nests — from which they foraged and returned with food, including a substantial portion of meat. Their brain size had increased to midsize, between that of chimpanzees and modern Homo sapiens. The trend appears to have begun one to two million years previously, when the earlier prehuman ancestor Homo habilis turned increasingly to meat in its diet. With groups crowded together at a single site, and an advantage added by cooperative nest building and hunting, social intelligence grew, along with the centers of memory and reasoning in the prefrontal cortex.
Probably at this point, during the habiline period, a conflict ensued between individual-level selection, with individuals competing with other individuals in the same group, versus group-level selection, with competition among groups. The latter force promoted altruism and cooperation among all the group members. It led to group-wide morality and a sense of conscience and honor. The competitor between the two forces can be succinctly expressed as follows: within groups selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. Or, risking oversimplification, individual selection promoted sin, while group selection promoted virtue.
So it appeared that humans are forever conflicted by their prehistory of multilevel selection. They are suspended in unstable and constantly changing locations between the two extreme forces that created us. We are unlikely to yield completely to either force as an ideal solution to our social and political turmoil. To yield completely to the instinctual urgings born from individual selection would dissolve society. To surrender to the urgings from group selection would turn us into angelic robots — students of insects call them ants.
The eternal conflict is not God's test of humanity. It is not a machination of Satan. It is just the way things worked out. It might be the only way in the entire universe that human-level intelligence and social organization can evolve. We will find a way eventually to live with our inborn turmoil, and perhaps find pleasure in viewing it as a primary source of our creativity.
Liberté, Égalité, et Fraternité
A walk on the beach
Josée Delcroix, Drawing, Paris 1954
The Constitution and its Articles were adopted into the United States on September 17, 1787 during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
The Articles of The Constitution work to establish the branches of the federal government and describe what powers they have.
Article 1 gives Congress its powers and limits. Congress is the branch of the government who can make laws for the country. Article 1 also creates the two sections of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Article 2 makes the executive branch of the government. The Executive branch has the responsibility and authority for the administration on a daily basis. In the United States, the executive branch is made up of the President and executive officer
Article 3 creates a judicial branch in the United States. The Judicial branch is the court system that interprets the law. In the United States, the judicial branch includes the Supreme Court and the lower courts which are made by Congress.
Article 4 talks about the states. Article 4 talks about what responsibilities and duties the states have along with what responsibilities the federal government has to each States.
Article 5 says that the only way the Constitution can be changed is by adding an amendment.
Article 6 says that any debts or engagements that the country had before adopting the Constitution are still valid. Article 6 also says that the Constitution is the highest law and that all officers and judges have to uphold the Constitution.
Article 7 is the final article of the Constitution. This article explains how many states need to ratify the Constitution.
The Cosmos as seen from an observatory in Hawaii.
The map shows roughly 800 million stars in the neighborhood of the Milky Way. At first, it looks like a planet: dark, snow-speckled and slashed down the center by a deep red scar. But zoom in a little closer, and you realize you're looking at something much larger than a planet — larger even than 100 billion planets. Hidden within this mosaic image of the Milky Way (that's the big, red smear in the middle) and its near cosmic neighborhood are the more than 800 million stars, galaxies and roving interstellar objects visible from the Pan-STARRS mountaintop observatory in Maui, Hawaii.
It is one of the most remarkable things that in all of the biological sciences there is no clue as to the necessity of death. And because everyone has always died, we live under the "death and taxes" assumption that death is inevitable. We think of aging like time—both keep moving and there's nothing you can do to stop them. But that assumption is wrong. If you say we want to make perpetual motion, we have discovered enough laws as we studied physics to see that it is either absolutely impossible or else the laws are wrong. But there is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death. This suggests to me that it is not at all inevitable and that it is only a matter of time before the biologists discover what it is that is causing us the trouble and that this terrible universal disease or temporariness of the human's body will be cured. The fact is, aging isn't stuck to time. Time will continue moving, but aging doesn't have to. If you think about it, it makes sense. All aging is is the physical materials of the body wearing down. A car wears down over time too—but is its aging inevitable? If you perfectly repaired or replaced a car's parts whenever one of them began to wear down, the car would run forever. The human body isn't any different—just far more complex. —Richard Feynman
The Free Trade of Ideas
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's 1919 dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States :. "The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas," he wrote. "The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." The corrupt information that dominates the private square does not rise to the top of a free and fair competition of ideas. It wins in a rigged game. No democracy can survive this game.
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Hokusai, Japanese Artist, (1760 – 1849)
In a postscript to his work, Hokusai writes: " From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie. "
Free Trade in Ideas
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's 1919 dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States is a touchstone. "The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas," he wrote. "The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market."
The United States, now a segregated class society.
I now believe that the United States is evolving into a segregated class society in which the remaining remnants of the original American project—limited government, free people running their own lives, communities solving their own problems—will soon have been lost altogether. Charles Murray. 10/15/2014
We're just one among millions
There are thought to be somewhere between 5 million and 100 million species of plants and animals on Earth, of which 2 million have been identified. We're one of these.
Umberto Eco, If I were to rule the world
Men are religious animals. Dogs are not religious. It's true they bark at the moon but it's probably not because of religion. Humans have the tendency to search for the reason in their situations. There is a beautiful sentence attributed to GK Chesterton: "When men don't believe in God any longer, it is not that they believe in nothing; they believe in everything."
The ruler of the world can't eliminate religion. You can be an atheist or a non-believer, but you have to recognise that the great majority of humans need some religious beliefs.
Prospect Magazine, December 2015
"Learn as if you were to live forever." – Mahatma Gandhi
The Earth is Weeping
They came on horses and with guns, a martial culture overrunning a more peaceful one unprepared to meet the fight. It was a stunning and successful invasion over a short period of time. The invaders treated the indigenous people as barely human. They committed unspeakable acts of brutality. Those not massacred fled from their homeland, never to return. The invaders were the Lakota, a Siouxan tribe who swept west in the 1700s, taking for themselves the most prized hunting grounds throughout the Great Plains. Or, to put it in the words of one of their chiefs, "These lands once belonged to the Kiowas and Crows, but we whipped these nations out of them, and in this we did what the white men do when they want the lands of Indians." Peter Cozzens, NR, 1/17
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow." Mahatma Gandhi
'DARWIN'S THEORY IS THE SINGLE GREATEST IDEA ANY HUMAN BEING HAS CONCEIVED, Daniel Dennett
Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country, 1998
You have to describe the country in terms of what you passionately hope it will become, as well as in terms of what you know it to be now. You have to be loyal to a dream country rather than to the one to which you wake up every morning. Unless such loyalty exists, the ideal has no chance of becoming actual.
"now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell"
"I SEEM to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
Those words, ascribed to Sir Isaac Newton, might still be spoken, with the appropriate correction for sex, by any scientist today.
The discipline of natural science that Newton helped found in the second half of the 17th century has extended humanity's horizons to a degree he could scarcely have envisaged. Newton lived in a world that thought itself 6,000 years old, knew nothing of chemical elements or disease-causing microbes, believed living creatures could spring spontaneously from mud, hay or dirty bed-linen, and had only just stopped assuming that the sun (and everything else in the universe) revolved around the Earth.
Yet even today, deep problems and deeper mysteries remain. Science cannot yet say how life began or whether the universe is but one of many. Some things people take for granted—that time goes forwards but never backwards, say—are profoundly weird. Other mysteries, no less strange, are not even perceived. One is that 96% of the universe's contents pass ghostlike and unnoticed through the minuscule remaining fraction, which solipsistic humans are pleased to call "ordinary matter". Another is how, after billions of years when the Earth was inhabited only by single-celled creatures, animals suddenly popped into existence. Perhaps the deepest mystery of all is how atoms in human brains can consciously perceive the desire to ask all of these questions in the first place, and then move other atoms around to answer them.
The Economist, August 7, 2015
Anti-Intellectualism ion American Life
One of the major virtues of liberal society in the past was that it made possible such a variety of styles of intellectual life—one can find men notable for being passionate and rebellious, others for being elegant and sumptuous, or spare and astringent, clever and complex, patient and wise, and some equipped mainly to observe and endure. What matters is the openness and generosity needed to comprehend the varieties of excellence that could be found even in a single and rather parochial society. Dogmatic, apocalyptic predictions about the collapse of liberal culture or the disappearance of high culture may be right or wrong; but one thing about them seems certain: they are more likely to instill self-pity and despair than the will to resist or the confidence to make the most of one's creative energies. It is possible, or course, that under modern conditions the avenues of choice are being closed, and that the culture of the future will be dominated by single-minded men of one persuasion or another. It is possible; but in so far as the weight of one's will is thrown onto the scales of history, one lives in the belief that it is not to be so.
Richard Hofstadter, 1963
No Longer a Center-Right
Thomas Friedman would ask the candidates:
"Would you agree to raise the gasoline tax by 5 cents a gallon today so we can pay for our highway bill, now stalled in Congress over funding?"
Why, he asks, is this such a key question? And he answers because it cuts to the core of what is undermining the Republican Party today and, indirectly, our country: There is no longer a Republican center-right that would have no problem raising the gas tax for something as fundamental as infrastructure. Sure, there are center-right candidates — like Jeb Bush and John Kasich. But can they run, win and govern from the center-right when the base of their party and so many of its billionaire donors reflect the angry anti-science, anti-tax, anti-government, anti-minorities, anti-gay rights and anti-immigration views of the Tea Party and its media enforcer, Fox News? NYTimes, August 5, 2015
"free" public schooling
Abdennour Bidar
age graded classrooms
Albert Scheitzer
Amur falcons
Bob Taft
brain size
Catacombes
CES or the Coalition of Essential Schools
Chester Finn
Ed Reform
Le Temps Retrouvé
NATO Dog
Roger Cohen
Schooling and Education
Waring School
The process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.


text:
Review: The Harder They Fall (2021)
Image: ©Netflix
Directed by Jeymes Samuel, and starring Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, RJ Cyler, Delroy Lindo, Danielle Deadwyler, Lakeith Stanfield, and Regina King, The Harder They Fall is a new Western which has just landed on Netflix. The movie tells the story of an outlaw called Nat Love, who sets out on a quest for revenge against the man who murdered his parents.
At the beginning of the movie, Love is a young boy, living with his mother and father. One day there is a knock at the door and in walks Rufus Buck. Buck promptly kills Love's parents, before using a knife to scar the boy's forehead.
Years later and having survived the incident, Love has grown up to be an outlaw, who spends his time tracking members of Buck's gang, in order to exact revenge. However, he has no plans to find Buck, because he knows Buck is locked up in prison serving a life sentence.
But Buck's stint in jail comes to an abrupt end when he is freed and given a pardon for his past crimes. He then heads to the nearby town of Redwood, and takes it over.
When Love becomes aware of Buck's newfound freedom, he and his posse travel to the town for a showdown. But exacting revenge is a deadly business, and not everyone will get out of Redwood alive.
The first thing to note about The Harder They Fall is how damn cool this movie is. From the cast and the costuming, through to the sets and use of colour, the whole vibe of this film is slick and playful, and it makes watching The Harder They Fall a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
If you're not a fan of the Western genre, I recommend you check out this movie. It may change your mind about cowboy pictures, or at the very least give you one Western you might like.
The reason I say this is because The Harder They Fall approaches this genre with fresh eyes and a different perspective. Firstly, it features a predominantly African-American cast, and secondly it brings modern touches to the table, through the use of its soundtrack.
In terms of its cast, this film is loaded with great performances. There's not a duff turn from anyone in this picture, and the end result is a collection of strong, well-rounded characters.
Leading the film is Jonathan Majors who plays Nat Love. Majors is extremely likeable in this part and he commands the screen at every opportunity.
But although Majors is good, he never over shadows his fellow actors. So, whether it's Delroy Lindo, RJ Cyler, Danielle Deadwyler, Zazie Beetz, Idris Elba, Regina King, or Lakeith Stanfield, every key player in this ensemble gets to make their mark.
Elba and King in particular are superb pieces of casting. Elba plays the role of chief villain, Rufus Buck with perfection, while King gets to be suitably evil as his right-hand gal, Trudy Smith.
King's character is so intriguing that if ever this film leads to a sequel – and I really hope it does – I would love to see more from Trudy Smith. This is a character with a lot of potential, who is backed by an actor who knows how to convey this part effortlessly.
With regards to this movie's soundtrack, I must simply say "wow". The majority of the music for The Harder They Fall was written by director Jeymes Samuel, and these songs add so much to this movie that I simply can't undersell them.
This is not the soundtrack of a traditional Western – it is more modern, it is more energetic, and it feels as if it is aimed at a more contemporary audience. And yet, this soundtrack also feels as if it captures the entire mood of the Western genre.
All of the music in this film has been meticulously composed, so that it brings both something new to the screen, while also paying respect to what has come before. It pushes the genre forward in an exciting new direction, but at the same time refuses to let go of the past.
I guarantee, anyone watching this movie will walk away from this picture with only positive comments about this soundtrack. It plays such an important role in this film, and cannot be overlooked.
So, the cast and the music are what make this movie, but how about the story?
Honestly? It's fine – it's nothing particularly original, but it works well enough.
As far as the narrative goes, The Harder They Fall doesn't break any new ground. The story is largely Western 101, and hits all the beats one might expect.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means the film goes through a standard Western plot, complete with a big shoot-out at the climax. Those looking for something a little more imaginative may find themselves a tad underwhelmed by this.
The film also hits a little pacing issue toward the middle of the story, when things slow down a touch. At no point does this change in tempo derail the film, it simply would have benefited from a little more action around the mid-section.
But once the film heads towards its conclusion, it really brings out the big guns. Sure, the shoot-out ending has been done countless times before, but that doesn't mean it's not a heap of fun to watch.
The highlight of this showdown is a fight sequence which takes place between Zazie Beetz's character, Stagecoach Mary, and Regina King's Trudy Smith. This is close combat stuff, it is expertly choreographed, and it creates a nice break from all the shooting.
Although, who am I trying to kid? Seeing Majors and Co. blasting their way through the screen is a sheer delight and I loved every minute of it! The only issue I had was that I liked the heroes and villains equally, so I didn't really want to see anyone bumped off.
All-in-all, I found much to like in The Harder They Fall. I'm not a huge lover of Westerns (although the genre continues to grow on me), yet I found this to be a great film.
As highlighted, the story is nothing original, but it's certainly nothing bad either. The costuming, the lighting, and the staging is solid, the aforementioned casting and music is spot-on, and the movie looks outstanding.
Those who love this kind of picture will be in their element. Those new to the genre or who have never found a way into Westerns before, should certainly give it two hours of their time.
The Harder They Fall is good. It's really good.
50 best Netflix movies to watch
Review: Beast (2022)
Why is Will Smith not in The Suicide Squad?
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How many Pacific Rim movies are there?
Is The Suicide Squad suitable for a 13 year old?
Tags: 2021 movies, Films, Idris Elba, Movie reviews, Movies, Movies 2021, Netflix, Retro, The Harder They Fall, The Harder They Fall 2021, The Harder They Fall 2021 movie review, Western
Categories: Films, Nostalgia, Streaming
3 Responses to Review: The Harder They Fall (2021)
sheila dugan November 4, 2021
Yuk! The Harder They Fall was just plain gory! Worse than the 1956 version.
Wylene Edwards November 20, 2021
Could not finish the harder they fall!
Turned it off before it was done. What a drag! Worst movie ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Aaron Cady November 16, 2022
What kind of morons comment on this page?
Hannah Swensen Mysteries star for new Hallmark movie: Open By Christmas
List of Roseanne / The Conners Thanksgiving episodes

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Being able to communicate is critical during an emergency. If you don't already include a ham radio in your survival gear, I would recommend getting one.
Getting an amateur radio license can help you receive accurate information in the face of a crisis. Known as amateur radios, these gadgets can be the tool you need before help finally arrives.
In this article, we'll be discussing the following questions (and looking at different resources):
How much does it cost to get a ham radio license?
Can you get a ham radio license online?
Do you need a license to operate a ham radio?
How long does it take to get a ham radio license?
Let's discuss ham radios and how to get a ham radio license.
How to Build Underground Bunkers & Shelters
How to Escape a Sinking Car (& Get Out While Underwater)
1 How does a Ham Radio Operate?
2 Power Output
3 What You Need Before Getting on Air
4 Determine Your Preferred Ham License
5 The Technician Class License
5.1 Technician Class Ham Radio License Frequencies
5.2 Technician License How To Video
6 General License
6.1 General Class Ham Radio License Frequencies
7 Extra License
8 Studying for the Test
8.1 5 Easy Steps Video
9 Take the Test
10 Acquire a Ham Radio
11 Get Familiar with Radio Service Rules
12 Additional Practice Makes Perfect
13 What does Ham Radio Stand for?
14 What to Expect During Your Ham Radio License Test
15 What You Need for the Ham Radio License Test
16 Exam Registration
17 Taking the Test
17.1 How Long Does Test Take?
18 Complete the Test
18.1 What Grade Will I Need to Pass?
20 Ham Radio License FAQ
20.1 Can you get a Ham Radio License Online?
20.2 Do you need a License to Operate a Ham Radio?
20.3 How Old Should you be to Get a Ham Radio License?
20.4 How much does the FCC Ham Radio License Cost?
20.5 How Long Does It Take to get a Ham Radio License?
How does a Ham Radio Operate?
A ham radio is made up of a receiver and a transmitter.
These are often purchased as a single unit known as a transceiver. Modern-day transceivers come with slightly complex menu systems and controls. You may have to read through a manual to understand how to use them. Still, you can find an old model transceiver complete with easy to understand controls in the market.
These come with analog controls and are more ideal for beginners. Hand-held transceivers come with individual antennas. The majority of hams operate from an automobile with the help of a magnetic mount antenna connected to a hand-held radio, or under-ash receiver.
The amount of power required can vary between a few milliwatts depending on the size of the desktop or handheld gadget.
Many ham radios are an upgrade from the citizens band (CB) radio. However, unlike the CB radio whose power limit is watts, hams require more power. Ham radio can easily fit in various locations. These include: inside your shirt pocket, inside your car, on your desk, at your garage, or even in the attic area.
What You Need Before Getting on Air
Before you can finally use a ham radio, you should be familiar with the radio service rules involved in operating a ham radio legally, prepare by taking an online test, as well as pass the final written test.
Today, acquiring a license is an easy process. The following will show you how to learn about using these radios, and, finally, how to get your ham radio license using online classes to prepare.
Determine Your Preferred Ham License
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates digital and analog station communications across radio service bands and the ham radio network – and has developed an operators test for licensing in the form of an exam session.
Interested parties can choose between three types of licenses: general, technician, or extra.
Each amateur operator license you hold grants you varying privileges on the air. It's worth noting that the technician license is critical and the FCC requires that everyone must pass these examinations before getting the remaining licenses.
The Technician Class License
This is an entry-level amateur radio communications licensing certification.
To qualify for the technician class license, you need to tackle a simple 35 multiple question sheet in your class exam. Each examination question is derived from a collection of questions. The ham technician class license examination is ideal for you if you only want to talk within a community, town, or city.
Technician Class Ham Radio License Frequencies
Band Frequencies (In MHz) Mode Notes
80 Meters 3.525 – 3.600 CW 200-watt limit
15 Meters 21.025 – 21.200 CW 200-watt limit
10 Meters 28.100 – 28.300 CW, RTTY, Data 200-watt limit
10 Meters 28.300 – 28.500 CW, Phone, Image 200-watt limit
Above 50 MHz All amateur privileges
Technician License How To Video
This is a secondary level communications license class.
To qualify, you should complete a moderately difficult 35 multiple choice class exam. Each question is derived from a collection of 500 questions in these exam sessions.
This license is specially designed to facilitate communication during emergencies. With general licensing, both you and the emergency crew will communicate over ham frequency bands when local lines malfunction.
General Class Ham Radio License Frequencies
Band Frequencies (in MHz) Mode
160, 60, 30 Meters All amateur privileges
80 Meters 3.525 – 3.600 CW, RTTY, Data
3.800 – 4.000 CW, Phone, Image
20 Meters 14.025 – 14.150 CW, RTTY, Data
14.225 – 14.350 CW, Phone, Image
17, 12, 10 Meters All amateur privileges
Extra License
The amateur extra class license is the most advanced communications class exam.
Attaining it can be a daunting task. To qualify in these exam sessions, you need to complete the 50 multiple-choice question examination. Each class exam question is derived from a collection of 70 questions.
The additional amateur extra class license gives you comprehensive licensing privileges within the ham radio bands network. Further, it enables you to communicate at a local, national, and international scale.
Studying for the Test
Here, licensees will concentrate on studying for the first ham radio technician license. As we've mentioned before, you'll need this license issued before you can acquire the other licenses.
According to Steve Whitehead, a volunteer examiner from Provo, Utah, you'll need to be conversant with various frequency bands, basic safety, operating regulations, basic arithmetic, and electronic and electrical principles to study for the technician license.
After passing the technician test, attendants will have access to frequencies above 30 megahertz. This allows users to communicate locally, and also allows users to communicate locally with minimal struggle.
With the technician license, you can enjoy some limited privileges on shortwave bands. You may be interested in knowing that you can search all the questions and answers for the different licensing exams in books and online.
You can get a majority of the study materials for exam sessions free and all you need is to conduct extensive research to find an answer for them.Note that that the questions available for classes online with different licensing categories change every two years.
Often, websites will take longer to update the licensing test questions, which is why you should exercise caution to make sure you're using the updated version.
5 Easy Steps Video
In many states, the Amateur radio classes exam costs 15 dollars. Exam sessions are available every month in various states. Interested parties will need to contact a ham radio club in their locality to establish how much the test costs. Parties will also need to establish the exam session in their state. Once you get your FCC amateur radio license, it remains valid for the next 10 years. When you pass the test, the FCC assigns you a call sign. This is an identifying marker or code name that you can use across radio bands.
If you're worried about having to learn morse code, the rules have changed and now morse code is no longer required.
Acquire a Ham Radio
Now that you're licensed, it's time to find a radio.
While the exam classes may not be costly, the radio itself can be a costly investment and prices can fluctuate. For instance, an amateur radio license holder from Virginia acquired his first radio and got a Handie Talkie that cost $130.00 along with a car antenna that cost $40.00.
Today, his radio costs $700.00. The price fluctuates depending on various factors such as; how you plan to use your radio, your experience, and understanding of the amateur radio lingo, and where you'll use the radio.
Assuming you want to purchase a radio but have no idea how to go about it, the best thing to do is consult your club members. They can guide you through the best radio depending on your situation. They can also recommend ideal places to buy a radio at friendly prices.
Get Familiar with Radio Service Rules
"just like any other community, there are established procedures and behavioral expectations using a Ham Radio. You need to fit in and know what others expect of you on the air. You gain this knowledge by using your radio and talking to other Hams. Swearing and CB "lingo" used on citizen band radios are not tolerated and are a violation of FCC rules. All communications must be "in the clear" and hiding the meaning of your communication is not permitted." – Steve Whitehead
Additional Practice Makes Perfect
Even after taking your classes, you'll need to practice until you perfect the art of using an amateur radio. Your skills will come in handy during an emergency. Remember, one of the best ways to survive an emergency is to be prepared.
With a proper strategy and the knowledge of what you need to do, you can make it through an emergency much easier.
To become an experienced radio operator, you should use it regularly. Waiting to use it during an emergency can put you in a difficult situation since using amateur radios to connect with others across different bands can be difficult.
What does Ham Radio Stand for?
Ham radio is a term popularly used to describe an amateur radio. The term was derived from HAM, which is the casual name for an amateur radio operator.
It was not until 1920 when the term gained popularity in the United States. After that, the term would later be adopted in various other English speaking countries.
What to Expect During Your Ham Radio License Test
In the past, amateur radio license tests were conducted by FCC employees at the federal office buildings. Today, however, the tests are offered conveniently by friendlier examiners in classes. Still, taking an exam can cause feel daunting.
Preparation is the key to performing well. Take time to prepare for different aspects of the exam. This way, you'll feel prepared when examination day finally arrives.
What You Need for the Ham Radio License Test
You will need the following items during your license test:
Two identification forms complete with one photo ID. This can be an employer's identity card or even your driver's license.
Some pencils
A blank scratch paper
If you're taking the test to upgrade to a higher class and you already have a license…. you may have to bring;
Your current original license as well as a copy
Any original certificate of Successful Completion of Examination you possess and a copy of the same. Remember, this certificate will prove that you passed the test to qualify for one or more licenses. In case you only passed the Technician exam, you'll need to wait for the FCC to allow you to get on the air. If you're seeking to acquire other license changes, then the Certificates of Successful Completion of Examination allows you to start operating immediately with your newly acquired privileges.
Though optional, you can use your FCC Federal Registration Number (FRN) in place of your social security number.
Remember, the use of any online gadget isn't allowed during the exam. However, disabled persons can be allowed to use them. Still, they'll need to confirm with the test administrators about the use of these gadgets. Every test period comprises three basic steps as seen below.
Sign in at the exam session using your name, address, and call sign if you already have one. The test administrator will then inspect your identification and other documents you may have.
Proceed to pay for the test.
Taking the Test
The starting time will depend on the number of people already signed up for the test and the different types of tests you have to complete. You could begin immediately in a smaller session.
However, in the case of a larger session, you may have to wait longer.
How Long Does Test Take?
Each test takes between 15 and 45 minutes. Organizers can have everybody begin and finish the test together. They can also choose the continuous method.
Complete the Test
Once you're done with the test, you can complete it and hand over your test papers to the supervisors. You may need to wait a little longer for paper grading.
What Grade Will I Need to Pass?
To pass, you'll need 75% or better than that.
Amateur radio can come in handy to help you communicate with rescuers during a crisis. Getting a license will help you purchase and utilize one for your safety and that of your loved ones.
And that's how to get a ham radio license…
https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/amateur-radio-service
Ham Radio License FAQ
No. It's impossible; however, you can prepare online and tackle the test from a computer. Confirm the rules with your local clubs that could supervise the tests in local colleges and schools, and on computers.
No. you'll need a license to buy the equipment and to listen to the numerous amateur radio frequencies. Still, you'll need an FCC license to communicate on amateur radio frequencies in the USA.
How Old Should you be to Get a Ham Radio License?
18 years and above.
How much does the FCC Ham Radio License Cost?
The technician ham radio license shouldn't cost more than $15.
it takes approximately 90 to 120 days to get your license.


Trial Kits contains: 2oz liquid, 2 - .5 ounce powders, primer, file, buffer, 30 forms, 3 styles of tips, glue, dish and instructions.
Kits are available for each enhancement system and come with small sizes of almost everything needed to perform the service. Our acrylic kits are now available in your choice of powder and liquid. We have also introduced The Works kit which comes with every liquid formula and powder shade available so you can try them all and determine which suits your style, without spending hundreds of dollars on products you dont like. Additional accessories are discounted when purchasing kits.


After only 5 days of use. For some reason I now see some sort of extension of my account. Can I expect to see any charges to my credit card? I would like to cancel my account completely, how do I do this?
Hope that helps! If you've still got questions, feel free to write in to help@moz.com and we'll do our best to sort them out for you!


We work best with companies and brands that need to advance growth initiatives through digital transformation. Our tools include custom transformation strategy, digital branding, web design and web development and aggressive digital marketing. We are priced accordingly.
The Idea People (TIP) is an aggressive digital transformation agency. We believe in only building long-term relationships as a partner, not a vendor. Leave the vendor stuff for your copiers.
Everything is crafted in-house by our own team here in Charlotte, NC.


"Doctors face ethical quandaries on a daily basis. Imagine: Osama bin Laden comes into your office and demands you take a look at a hair on his arm that's longer than all the others. Sometimes there's no one right answer."
"It's one of the hardest decisions a parent can make."
"If you need to focus on reading or writing something, feel free to press mute. I won't be offended. I'll still be there to strum for you after you're finished. But please, give me your full attention when you come back."


text:
Q: How Do I Extract a PHP JSON Array Name I have a PHP file that returns a JSON array. I need to extract the array name, in this instance, *Regulatory_Guidance_Library* with jQuery as a var to $('#navHeaderTitle').text(arrayName); of my function. I don't know how this is done.
Thnx for your help
My Function in the HTML Doc:
function loadNav(url, container, appendE) {
        $.getJSON(url, function(data){
                    var arrayName = "";
            $.each(data.Regulatory_Guidance_Library, function(){
                var newItem = $('#' + container).clone();
                // Now fill in the fields with the data
                newItem.find("h1").text(this.label);
                newItem.find("h2").text(this.title);
                newItem.find("p").text(this.description);
                // And add the new list item to the page
                newItem.children().appendTo('#' + appendE)
            });
            $('#navHeaderTitle').text(arrayName);
            //transition(pageName, "show");
        });
    };

The served PHP:
<?php
//MySQL Database Connect
include 'andaerologin.php';

mysql_select_db("andaero");
$sql=mysql_query("select * from regulatory_list");

$output = new stdClass();

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($sql)) {
    $output->Regulatory_Guidance_Library[] = $row;
}

header('Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate');
header('Content-type: application/json');
echo (json_encode($output));

mysql_close();
?>

A: Modify php:
$output = array();
  /* used "key" as name...could change to suit your app*/
$output['key']='Regulatory_Guidance_Library';

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($sql)) {
    $output['items'][]= $row;
}

AJAX:
$.getJSON(url, function(data){
        $.each(data.items, function(){
            var newItem = $('#' + container).clone();
            // Now fill in the fields with the data
            newItem.find("h1").text(this.label);
            newItem.find("h2").text(this.title);
            newItem.find("p").text(this.description);
            // And add the new list item to the page
            newItem.children().appendTo('#' + appendE)
        });
        $('#navHeaderTitle').text(data.key);
        //transition(pageName, "show");
    });

A: The other answer is probably more helpful, but if you want to get the names of an object's properties with javascript you can do:
for (var name in data) {
    alert(name);
}

In your case, since you have only one property you could do:
for (var name in data) {
    $('#navHeaderTitle').text(name);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD) and the Employment Policy and Measurement Rehabilitation and Research Training Center (EPM-RRTC), funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) launches new National Trends in Disability Employment (nTIDE) Lunch & Learn webinar series. On the first Friday of every month, corresponding with the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report, we will be offering a live broadcast via Zoom Webinar to share the results of the latest nTIDE findings. In addition, we will provide news and updates from the field of Disability Employment, as well as host an invited panelist who will discuss current disability related findings and events.


text:
George Mason University Mason
Vision of Change
Wilkins Plaza Memorial
Project Teams
Construction Construction Expand/Collapse Global Navigation
The Core Campus Project is an ambitious and transforming construction project which will create a vibrant, globally connected hub for intellectual exploration in the center of George Mason University's Fairfax Campus.
Sub-Navigation Menu
Locate Frequently Asked Questions
Access the Project Timelines
Read the Town Hall Presentation
At the Core of it All
The showcase will be a state-of-the-art, six-story, 218,000-square-foot building with classrooms, workplaces, meeting rooms, community space and the Mason Innovation Exchange. It also will be the central academic center for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The building, which will be erected on the site of the existing Robinson Hall, will serve as the defining center of academic life, both esthetically and practically, and offer maximum teaching and learning flexibility. Classrooms will accommodate 27-120 students and have video capabilities to enhance teaching creativity. Glass-enclosed classrooms will allow students, faculty and staff to be connected visually, putting learning on display. Large windows will bring in natural light.
The construction of the new academic building and the improvement and expansion of Wilkins Plaza will change the Fairfax campus in remarkable ways.
"The new building will be a living laboratory, where faculty will put into practice new forms of learning and bring student life closer to scholarship and research."
Ángel Cabrera, President, George Mason University
Core Campus Project: At-a-Glance
Classrooms:
• Sized to accommodate 27-120 students
• Equipped for video collaboration and instruction
• Glass enclosed, open to natural light and interior spaces
• Spiral meditation garden with sustainable plantings
• Terraced amphitheater for student gatherings and casual discussions
• Expanded and re-envisioned Wilkins Plaza
Harris Theatre:
• Upgraded lobby and front facade
• Renovated to become a standalone facility
Utility Infrastructure:
• Upgrades and re-engineering of underground heating and cooling pipes
• $170-million, mostly from the Commonwealth of Virginia
Because Robinson Hall, one of the oldest buildings on campus, is reaching the end of its useful life, as is much of the campus's underground heating and cooling infrastructure.
Mason, Virginia's largest public research university, also continues to grow and is committed to providing the kind of space and atmosphere students, faculty and staff are demanding, one where all can explore the power of ideas and better understand the world in which we live–a national example of a healthy and thriving educational community.
Sunlit Classrooms that Foster Discussion
The educational experience at Mason is getting a makeover. Sunlit classrooms with views into interior and exterior spaces are designed to encourage collaboration and curiosity.
A Gathering Point for the Vibrance of Campus Life
Outdoor spaces often host key moments in university experiences. The planned amphitheater outside the new academic building will provide a venue for impromptu presentations, discussions, or merely a central meeting point.
Blending Old and New with Reverence and Excitement
The central atrium of the new academic building is reminiscent of the wood-paneled hallowed halls of learning reimagined for a digitally connected future.
Celebrating the Power of Thoughts
"The mind, once enlightened, can never become dark." – Thomas Paine. Light, both from the natural environment and from intellectual exploration, are celebrated throughout the interior of the new academic building.
Improvements to Mason's utility infrastructure might not get as much attention as a fancy new building, but they are just as vital. Here's a quick primer:
Roger Wilkins Plaza replacement and expansion: The length of the plaza will be extended from Robinson Hall east to Southside Dining. It will provide event space, informal seating areas with wi-fi coverage and power hookups, areas where student organizations can provide information about campus happenings, and a new water feature to honor Roger Wilkins's important influence on Mason. The extension will require raising the existing high temperature hot water tunnel walls to bring surface walkway slopes into compliance with ADA guidelines.
Underground utility replacement and expansion: These improvements include replacing and/or installing 16,255 linear feet of chilled water piping within the campus thermal infrastructure loop system to provide improved reliability and flow. The project also builds 100 linear feet of new tunnel with 200 linear feet of high-temperature hot water piping to enable increased redundancy in the system in the northeast sector of campus.
Chilled water building feed replacements: Chilled water feeds will be replaced in EagleBank Arena, Planetary Hall, the Music Theater Building, Enterprise Hall, SUB I, and Commonwealth and Dominion student housing.
Hot water piping upgrade in The Commons student housing area: Existing high-temperature hot water pipes in The Commons housing area are at the end of their useful life and will be upgraded, including replacement and up-sizing to provide increased efficiency and redundancy for housing area heating systems.


text:
Q: (chart.js v3.5.1) change bar background, label font color on click I want to change bar background, label font color and label font weight.
But only the bar background color works.
How can I change font-color and font-weight on click?
Help me please
const backgroundColor = ['rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)','rgb(197,197,197)'];
const fontColor = ['rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)','rgb(153,153,153)'];
const fontWeight = [400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 400];
const barChart = new Chart(
            document.getElementById("barChart"), {
            type: 'bar',
            data: {
                labels: ["jan", "fab", "mar", "apr", "may", "jun", "jul", "aug", "sep", "oct", "nov", "dec"],
                datasets: [{
                    data: [8, 2, 3, 0, 5, 2, 2, 0, 0, 6, 10, 2],
                    backgroundColor: backgroundColor,
                    borderRadius: 6,
                    borderSkipped: false,
                    barThickness: 20,
                }]
            },
            options:{
                onClick: function(evt){
                    const points = barChart.getElementsAtEventForMode(evt, 'nearest', { intersect: true }, true);
                    if (points.length) {
                        const firstPoint = points[0];
                        for (let i=0; i<backgroundColor.length; i++) {
                            backgroundColor[i] = 'rgb(197,197,197)';
                            fontColor[i] = 'rgb(153,153,153)';
                            fontWeight[i] = 400;
                        }
                        backgroundColor[firstPoint.index] = '#2157e4';
                        fontColor[firstPoint.index] = 'rgb(32,32,32)';
                        fontWeight[firstPoint.index] = 600;

                        this.update();
                    }
                },
                scales: {
                    y: {
                        display: false
                    },
                    x: {
                        grid: {
                            color: 'white',
                            drawBorder: false
                        },
                        ticks: {
                            color: fontColor,
                            font: {
                                family: "'Pretendard', sans-serif",
                                weight: fontWeight
                            },
                        }
                    }
                },

});
I want to change bar background, label font color and label font weight.
But only the bar background color works.
How can I change font-color and font-weight on click?
Help me please

A: The key point is to address the correct properties in the chart configuration when changing the data. These are basically chart.data.datasets[0]backgroundColor, chart.options.scales.x.ticks.color and chart.options.scales.x.ticks.font.weight.
Please take a look at your amended code below and see how it could work.

new Chart("barChart", {
  type: 'bar',
  data: {
    labels: ["jan", "fab", "mar", "apr", "may", "jun", "jul", "aug", "sep", "oct", "nov", "dec"],
    datasets: [{
      label: 'Data',
      data: [8, 2, 3, 0, 5, 2, 2, 0, 0, 6, 10, 2],
      backgroundColor: 'rgb(197,197,197)',
      borderRadius: 6,
      borderSkipped: false,
      barThickness: 20
    }]
  },
  options: {
    onClick: (event, elements, chart) => {
      if (elements.length) {
        const dataset = chart.data.datasets[0];
        dataset.backgroundColor = [];
        const ticks = chart.options.scales.x.ticks;
        ticks.color = [];
        ticks.font.weight = [];
        const i = elements[0].index;
        for (let i = 0; i < dataset.data.length; i++) {
          if (elements[0].index == i) {
            dataset.backgroundColor[i] = 'rgb(32,32,32)';
            ticks.color[i] = 'rgb(32,32,32)';
            ticks.font.weight[i] = 600;
          } else {
            dataset.backgroundColor[i] = 'rgb(197,197,197)';
            ticks.color[i] = 'rgb(153,153,153)';
            ticks.font.weight[i] = 400;
          }
        }
        chart.update();
      }
    },
    scales: {
      y: {
        display: false
      },
      x: {
        grid: {
          color: 'white',
          drawBorder: false
        },
        ticks: {
          color: 'rgb(153,153,153)',
          font: {
            family: "'Pretendard', sans-serif",
            weight: 400
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
});
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/Chart.js/3.7.1/chart.min.js"></script>
<canvas id="barChart"></canvas>

A: The above solution guided me to my answer. But for some reason I was not able to update the weight by simply updating the ticks property and updating the chart. I am on chartjs 3.9.1 and the solution that worked for me was to use the scriptable options. I still had to ensure that I called 'chart.update()' from the onClick event.
I stored the index in a const variable which I then accessed under the chartOptions to set the weight:
ticks: {
          autoSkip: false,
          font: {
                   size: 12,
                   weight: (w) => {
                            if (highlighted.includes(w.index)) {
                                return 700;
                            } else {
                                return 100;
                            }
                    }
                }
            }

Hope this helps.


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The Asylum Insidious Toro stands apart from all the other offerings in their very notable catalogue. Master Blender Tom Lazuka created this blend to appeal to most any type of cigar smoker, as this style of cigar was previously missing from the Asylum portfolio. The Insidious Toro features an uncharacteristically smooth profile and the first sweetened cap of any Asylum cigar to date. Insidious utilizes the first Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper leaf of any Asylum release. Smooth and creamy, this wrapper conceals Honduran long-fillers and a Honduran binder, all combined to produce a relaxing, mellow experience.


text:
Following the Footsteps of the Central Pacific Surveyors
C. Barton Crattie, LS, CFS, CFM01.25.2020
The phantom of a road, once there, follows the lines laid by the surveyors. So close to Promontory, Crocker and Strobridge (CPRR) made the 10 mile bet, knowing that Durant and Casement (UPRR) had "not enough room . . . for them to outdo me."
The Survey—it was a charmed life for the time
Anna Ferona Pierce Judah penned these words in a recollection of her husband, Theodore Dehone Judah, some 26 years after his death. Because of his surveys through the Sierra Nevada mountains in the late 1850's and his untiring efforts in Washington, DC, our country was joined from the Atlantic to the Pacific by two thin ribbons of parallel steel. (See American Surveyor; Vol. 9, No. 5; 2012; Pacific Railroad Crazy). "Of the many competing ideas for the Transcontinental Railroad, a clear path was created in the early 1860's through the vision and advocacy of two prominent figures: Theodore Judah and Abraham Lincoln" (display in the Utah state Capital building June, 2019, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the golden spike). Don't forget Ted Judah and Abe Lincoln were both surveyors.
The story begins with the author on the campus of the University of California—Berkeley seeking information on the Judah's. On the uphill walk to the Bancroft Library (September 11, 2019), a group of students was encountered. One, a young lady, was wearing a U.S. Army t-shirt. All carried small American flags that were being placed in the ground in a geometric pattern. Wow! At U.C. Berkeley? One cannot do a Judah pilgrimage without a visit to Berkeley and the Bancroft.
The Summit of the Sierra. "Our line is carried down along the side hill of the spur . . . immediately above the lake with a grade of 105 feet per mile." T.D. Judah. Judah's grade is at picture right. I-80 is to the left.
The actual Beginning Point of the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR), though, was on the levee at Front Street in Sacramento, California (January, 1863). Sacramento is also the Capital of the state and the venue of the California State Library. More research.
From Sacramento, the road (and me) effortlessly headed eastward, following the line surveyed by T.D. Judah. The line then hit the mountains. The genius of Judah was mastering the grade of the road. At the time, 100-110 feet per mile was accepted as a maximum grade. Judah's challenge was to route a road, climbing 7000 feet with the distance from base to summit being 81 miles. Judah's grade never exceeded 105 feet to the mile. This was accomplished by some remarkable engineering feats for the time.
Leaving Sacramento, on Interstate Highway 80, I made the trip to Auburn, California and an interesting feature within a seemingly normal suburban neighborhood. Here, once hailed as the eighth "Wonder of the World," is the Bloomer Cut. By today's standards, at 68 feet deep and 800 feet in length, it is not so impressive. However, it was this location that the CPRR realizes and appreciates the importance of the contributions of the Chinese workers on the road. The cut remains virtually unchanged and is in use daily by the railroad 154 years following completion.
Drilled and blasted February, 1864 to May, 1865, the Bloomer Cut, a major construction feat for the time, is still used today, nearly identical to its original appearance.
Next stop, the Red Frog Lounge in Colfax (formerly Illinoistown), where I enjoyed a cold one on an expansive deck gazing at Cape Horn. Cape Horn is an amazing instance of railroad surveying and engineering. Take a bunch of ice cream cones and turn them upside down. Now, build a railroad through them. Cape Horn is a road having a curve with a delta angle of nearly 180 degrees, winding around a cut bluff 1200 feet above the American River. A second line was tunneled and the road widened over the years. Other than that, very few changes have been made from Judah's original survey.
It is at the summit of the Sierras, above Donner Lake (yes, those hungry Donners), that Judah's choice of line proved practicable. A pharmacist and part time surveyor, Doc Daniel Strong, presented this route to Judah. After their initial survey, Judah and Strong realized they had finally found a route that would bind New York and San Francisco as close neighbors. A route over the Sierras was now, indeed, practicable.
Off I-80, take the Soda Springs exit. Pull into the Donner Summit Resort parking lot on the left. Walk across the highway and enter into the splendor of the Chinese laborers' efforts in 19th century tunneling. CPRR tunnels 6, 7 and 8 (numbered from the west) are open to the public. Tunnel 6 is the "Summit Tunnel", 1659 feet long, the longest on the line. It was bored and blasted through solid granite. The "Associates" in Sacramento were unhappy with the lack of progress. A shaft was dug from above and excavation began in four directions. A locomotive named the "Sacramento" was disassembled and hauled to the summit to remove the tailings from the center tunneling efforts. The "Sacramento" was renamed the "Black Plucked Goose." Bolts used to secure the engine are still in place and the shaft is now covered with a steel plate.
It is truly a joyous experience to walk the summit overwhelmed with the view of Donner Lake one thousand feet below and then gazing into Nevada to the east, the second summit of the Sierra and the Truckee.
Excavated by nature, the Palisades served as a natural cut for the Pacific Railroad survey location parties. Here the Humboldt River has carved a natural route through some major Nevada mountains near Elko.
Judah writes (1861) "Our line is carried down along the side-hill of the spur or ravine immediately above the lake . . . with a grade of 105 feet per mile (Montague reduced this to 88 feet on the final road) from the summit. The Truckee (River) thus reached, all further difficulty of location ceases . . . with a uniform decline, not exceeding 40 feet per mile." Judah died from malaria (it's a long story) in 1863 at the age of 37. Samuel S. Montague, Judah's assistant, became the Chief Engineer of the CPRR. Judah never witnessed rails on the summit or racing along in the high desert of Nevada.
Right around 50 miles east of the summit, into Nevada, is the spot every man and woman rejoiced and celebrated following their dreams west in the mid-19th century. Truckee Meadows equaled succor, sustenance and salvation, clean water, good pasture. The horrible desert was now behind. Time to replenish and fatten up the livestock. The Meadows are now called Reno. There, I met up with Ray and Mary Root, two exceptionally fine Virginia surveyors. Ray is a former Vice-President of the Surveyors Historical Society (SHS) and Mary is the editor and soul behind "Backsights", the venerable journal of SHS. There, they joined me, following the Truckee and the Humboldt on our way to Utah and the Golden Spike.
Most probably the greatest surveying achievement for the CPRR crews, The Summit Tunnel. Surveyors, using equipment of the time set line and grade from each end and then sank a central vertical shaft to begin lines in both directions toward each end, at grade.
With the summit conquered, surveying became much less difficult, no more mountains to cut, fill, trestle or tunnel. Surveying got easy, but not the same for railroading. For 500 desert miles, look around. A locomotive must be fed. It consumes wood or coal. A steam locomotive perspired thousands of gallons of water in a hundred miles. A cross-tie is made of wood. For 500 miles of desert, none of these materials are available. The CPRR had mastered the Sierras and were constructing a road on relatively flat terrain but water, rails, cross-ties, fuel and food for the workers had to be carried over the summit into the desert. Water alone could be a nightmare for a dispatcher. Cars with horizontal cylindrical tanks (like an aspirin) were constructed. Car after car full of cord wood climbed the Sierras, feeding the iron beasts on their eastward route.
Leaving Reno, the Truckee River heads north to Pyramid Lake. Between there and Humboldt Sink, there is no water, only alkaline. The Humboldt River had water that would foul a boiler and kill the livestock if they could even consume it. The eastern traveler in the mid 19th century crossed (endured) what was known as the 40 mile desert, usually traveling at night and resting during the daylight hours. An 1850 survey made on this 40 mile stretch noted 1061 dead mules, almost 5000 dead horses, 3750 cattle and 953 graves. A railroad would alleviate these tragedies. On open ground, a well supplied surveying crew could cover some ground though.
T.D. Judah's compass displayed in Sacramento, the California hometown of Ted and Anna. Courtesy of the California State Railroad Museum.
Leaving Reno, our first memorable stop was Wadsworth. Here on the original grade of the road is a beautiful through-truss (1907) bridge, no longer in use but usable. In places, the original grade is obvious (cuts and fills) and in others, even a practiced eye can miss it. I-80 through Nevada, seen on a modern day map, resembles a sin curve. The highway generally follows the route of the CPRR chosen by Montague, ambling north and south, avoiding the many mountain ranges dotting that state. In good company with fellow surveyors, we spent two days on the 410 miles across Nevada.
Off I-80, to the south, take the first left past the school. Beowawe, Nevada, a few run-down buildings and a major railroad crossing. In about 40 miles of driving, a number of times we appreciated my choice of a four wheel drive rental Jeep. This road was not on a map or on the GPS receiver. Twice, we annoyed a cowboy, driving a small herd of cattle down the mountain, I guess to winter pasturage. Once, we had to open a gate to go down into a valley to cross another through-truss bridge decked with fairly rotten 2 x 12's, crossing the Humboldt and paralleling another steel bridge carrying the tracks of the road. It was a ride never to be forgotten, especially in the end. The Palisades. What an amazing geologic feature. Sheer bluffs rising above the winding Humboldt River and the now two sets of rails of the Pacific Railroad. With reluctance, we left the Palisades and headed to Elko.
One of the many remaining wooden culverts from the original road. Nick Montoya and Maybe Baby make the same traverse over the same trestle that many a CPRR train made prior to the Second World War and the Lucin Cutoff over Salt Lake.
Elko is home to Great Basin College. Great Basin has probably the largest enrollment in a Surveying and Geomatics program than any other University in the country. At last count, I was told they had 140 surveying students, mostly on line. Here, we met up with surveying student Nick Montoya and his wife, Emily. We had a hearty family style dinner at a Basque restaurant, named The Star. Leaving the restaurant, Emily pointed out, just down the road and over on the next block, two legal bordellos. This ain't Georgia.
Very early next morning, Nick and his pooch "Maybe Girl" followed us eastward into Utah. At Oasis, we left I-80. Nick brought his drone, a DJI Mavic Pro, and man, did we get some great pictures of a wye that was not discernable from our ground level vantage point. A drawback on this route was that about 90% of it was in military restricted airspace. No pics there.
The massive memorial to Judah is found in the old town of Sacramento. It was near this location that Judah introduced the plan for a cross country railroad to Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker, later, the "Associates".
Once again, at Montello, we were on gravel headed for Lucin, Utah. Lucin is where the railroad split in 1904 and headed southeast to cross the Salt Lake. The original route, our route, winds north of the Lake. During the Second World War, the rails were pulled. Our road is now the "Central Pacific Railroad Trail Scenic Backway". For ninety miles, we rode the grade and for a full ninety miles there was nothing to see but desert and sky. I think it was the first 17 miles that was a tangent. Not much of a challenge for a surveyor.
On the "Backway" one travels on the grade of Montague's original road and is detoured from the wooden culverts that still stand at creek crossings. Mind you, this is a desert but there are a number of these wooden culverts, most in pretty good shape. At one time, there were at least 23 thriving towns between Lucin and Promontory. Now, there's nothing. Each place there was a siding or wye, a town grew. Now, there are only foundations, trash or dump sites and grave yards. One forgotten town, Watercress, had a pond with cattails. The water actually was flowing from a pipe routed from the mountains far off to the north. What an amazing 19th century site in this desert.
Following the footsteps of the CPRR surveyors. A trek from Sacramento to Salt Lake City, joined here and there by great friends. (L to R) Mary and Ray Root, both LS's, both from Virginia; Bart Crattie, LS, Georgia and Nick Montoya, working on that LS, Elko, Nevada. Oh yeah, Maybe Baby too.
Ever eastward, we passed the old town sites, catching glimpses of the Great Salt Lake to the south. Flat deserts and all tangents, Monument Rock is a must. From Lucin to Promontory, there is only one major cut. We drove the ten mile grade that Strobridge's crew laid the rails upon in one day, winning a bet that was never paid. Here, the remaining culverts are stone. Also here, are the notorious parallel grades the Union and Central Pacific railroads built, taking the taxpayers' dollars, both being paid by the mile of grade constructed, not rails laid. Suddenly, we found ourselves at Promontory. T.D. Judah wasn't there for the driving of the golden spike (1869), having died six years earlier. His name was never even mentioned during the ceremony. The spike was driven on May 10, Anna and Ted's wedding anniversary. We drove through Promontory, on to Salt Lake City.
There, the Surveyors Historical Society were holding the 21'st annual Rendezvous. My duty was to present a paper. The subject? Nobody other than Theodore Dehone Judah, the raison d'être behind this fantastic journey of beauty, fellowship and surveying history.
From T.D. Judah's Practical Plan
(January, 1857) (edited)
"The engineer in charge of the survey goes over the country upon which it is proposed to construct a line, and carefully examines the ground with reference to the proposed location. He notes its character, water-courses, ravines, undulations of the ground, crossing points for rivers and decides the general course of the line. This done, he organizes a party, composed of what is usually termed a transit and leveling party.
The business of the transit party is to run a line over the route indicated, measuring distances with a chain, and taking courses or direction of the line by compass or goneometer (a transit with two telescopes mounted above one and the other on the same axis to enable measuring the angle twice for a check), leaving stakes every one hundred feet . . . as guides for the leveling party. The results are put on paper and gives . . .a correct representation of the line, showing curves, tangents, the crossing of roads, rivers, farms, townships, names of land owners and all points of interest along the line.
The leveling party follows the transit party, and runs, with the utmost accuracy, a line of levels, touching upon each stake, taking observations of the undulation of the ground. . . This plotted gives what is called a profile . . .
A topographer is also furnished, whose business will be to sketch topography, taking notes of every feature presenting itself.
Another leveling party is provided for the purpose of running a test level. The consequences of an error . . . on so long a line of surveys would be so annoying . . .
. . . the Engineer . . .knows that . . . this will be over level, open country, offering no obstacles, and that an ordinary party, on preliminary surveys, will make three miles per day without difficulty . . .
From Cab to Caboose
A full size surveying party in open country ordinarily consisted of from thirteen to sixteen men. Their function was to produce a map and profile of the line, together with topographic information. We lived in tents. I never knew a cook who didn't sleep in the cook tent. Maybe it was warmer . . . or possibly he had lost confidence in humanity. The cooks on these parties were generally pretty good and the food was plentiful. Most of the camp cooks could turn out good meals, but it was exceptional to find one who didn't have an irascible disposition. Whatever caused it, they were, as a class, hard to get along with. One morning during the cold winter . . . one of the chainmen burst into my tent and demanded, "Say Noble, can we get along without a cook?" I stopped lacing my boots. "I guess I didn't understand you. What did you say?" He repeated the question. I said, "Of course not. What brought this up?". "Well," he said, "my feet were pretty cold when I got up so I went to the cookstove, and was warming my feet and lacing my boots when Franklin began cursing me and yelling for me to get out of his kitchen. What he said to me I won't take from anybody and if it will not inconvenience you, I'll just kill the bastard." He was dead serious, so I said, "It would inconvenience me considerably. We are fifty miles from a town or railroad, in the middle of a blizzard, and have fifteen men to feed. Let's go talk to Franklin."
—Joseph A. Noble; "From Cab to Caboose"; University of Oklahoma Press; 1964
C. Barton Crattie, LS, CFS, CFM
Bart Crattie practices land surveying in Georgia and Tennessee. He has been a CFM since 2008 and a CFS since 2017 and teaches the Certified Floodplain Surveyor's course in Tennessee. Bart is the secretary of the Surveyors Historical Society and is the NSPS Director for the state of Tennessee.