text:
Aaron Curry on Intergalactic Orgies and His First Painting Show in New York
The LA artist gets his first painting show in New York.
Henri Neuendorf, September 15, 2016
Aaron Curry at the Michael Werner Gallery, New York. Photo by Henri Neuendorf.
Beards seem to be in fashion at Michael Werner's uptown gallery in New York, where last week both artist Aaron Curry and gallery archivist Jeff Alford were sporting facial hair that would not have looked out of place at the downtown biker bar Hogs and Heifers. It is only Curry's thoughtful and soft-spoken demeanor and Alford's impeccable custom suit that belies their tough guy outward appearances.
The exhibition, titled, "Headspace," is the artist's first show devoted to paintings in New York, having debuted his return to painting in Los Angeles at David Kordansky Gallery last year. Despite training as a painter, the Texan artist rose to prominence for his sculptural works, which reinterpret Picasso and Calder-esque dimensions through innovative materials and vibrant colors. At Michael Werner, Curry demonstrates the breadth of his palette, tying in acrylic, gouache, and airbrush, while also incorporating his sculptural disposition in his shaped and layered canvases. His familiar visual language and themes shine through in these new works, albeit in a variety of different painterly mediums.
From September 9-October 29 at Michael Werner, Curry is showing a new series of paintings influenced by 20th century modernism and Curry's personal preoccupation with sci-fi, cosmology, and skateboard culture; the works blend a series of influences into vibrant and colorful semi-abstract pictures.
Aaron Curry Cosmic Bricoleur (2016). Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York.
Speaking in a surprisingly soft tones, the artist sat down with artnet News in the gallery's office to talk about his work, his influences, and the cosmos.
How were you first exposed to art?
My grandmother had bought a Salvador Dalí book and a Picasso book and I remember being really drawn to them. As a kid I was always taken more by art that wasn't mainstream. Maybe illustrative art, art from album covers, or skateboard graphics. But "real art" was through books.
When I moved to Chicago to study, I had no knowledge of art at all, so I went headfirst into learning art history. It wasn't until I got there that I had really been around art in serious, and started to discover things, it took me until I was probably around 18.
You blend personal influences such as skateboard and BMX culture, with sci-fi and art historical references. Can you discuss how you bring those different aspects together.
A lot of the illustrative art or popular culture was already taking modernism and filtering it. So a lot of cartoon artists were looking at Picasso and all those weird faces he was making and they were turning it into something else, like Basil Wolverton, who I was a big fan of.
I try to keep the door open to anything that can come in as far as inspiration.
Aaron Curry My Brain is an Antenna (2016). Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York.
You started out as a painter, but then became known for sculpture. What made you revisit the medium of painting?
It never really went away. A lot of the time I would do these sculptures, they would be works that were shown around the same time that would either be a wall piece or some of these leaning pieces that I used to do. They were sculptural because they touched the floor, but essentially it was almost like a painting that just wasn't hung up on the wall.
I started getting really attracted to really bad CGI movies because it was a similar kind of idea. When George Lucas made those new Star Wars films that were really terrible but it was interesting to see a live acting-ness to the weird reality that he created because everything was CGI. And we knew it was fake but it was so labored that you kind of had to believe it as a new reality. In a way I related it to this place that is in between dimensions.
In your paintings you've retained a lot of the familiar shapes from your sculptures. Is that a conscious decision?
For me it was really about creating a visual language.
I've brought in all of these references and they're things that I'm naturally drawn to, that I like. I've made up my dialogue that I like to talk about to put out there visually.
Aaron Curry Cover Up (2016). Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York.
How has your process changed as you've transitioned from sculpture to painting?
It's different because with sculpture if you get stuck with it or you decide that its not working out you have to destroy it a lot of the time. With painting you can just paint over it or over part of it; it's a different way of working.
It's interesting to note that your paintings retain a sculptural element with the shaped and layered canvases. Is it difficult to leave sculpture behind?
It's probably the sculptor in me that wanted to go back to cutting out space somehow. But it also created a huge problem because sometimes the shape was really good and maybe it shouldn't be painted on. Sometimes I'd start working on 'em and I realized that it's almost working against the shape, which was a bit of a struggle at times.
Aaron Curry My Head Feels Weird (2016). Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York.
What do you mean by "working against the shape?"
Sometimes I felt like if I was putting too much on creating an illusion on top of the shape. If the shape is powerful enough on its own it doesn't need to have that. It's almost like I'm looking in it and not paying attention to what's happening around it, or they were working against one another.
The theme of cosmology and the skies is a recurring theme in the exhibition, can you speak about that?
In Los Angeles we've been in this drought for going on five years now. I don't flush my toilet until I've gone number two, and I take really quick showers, so were dealing with this whole idea [of environmentalism].
The earth is like this beautiful heaven for all of us to live on. And until we start to contemplate the cosmos, we're taking for granted. I started looking at all these images from the Hubble Telescope which have been coming out now. They redid the lens on it and they have these fantastic images of space.
I did a show last year at Dave Kordansky's and I was thinking a lot about the creation of matter. So I did all of these space orgies that I was thinking about, like stars and matter having sex and things being born, these interstellar nurseries, that's how I got to that.
Aaron Curry Compositional Abstraction with a Weird Headdress (2016). Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York.
How has LA influenced you?
I studied with Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Richard Hawkins, Liz Lerner—a lot of great professors. I hadn't become a mature artist until I got to LA, and when I got there, it kind of embraced me as an artist, and who I was, and I really feel like it's my home now.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Henri Neuendorf
Specialist, Post-War and Contemporary Art
Gallerist Michael Werner Is Given France's Highest Cultural Honor
By Henri Neuendorf , Feb 22, 2017
Gallery Hopping: Jonas Wood's New Portraits at Anton Kern
By Brian Boucher , Sep 15, 2016
See Yayoi Kusama's Sold Out Show at the Glass House
By Rain Embuscado , Sep 14, 2016


At Island Lake, you will enjoy busy, productive days following your personalized schedule of "majors" and "minors" that you design. The instruction you receive is geared to your interests, needs, and talents. The Island Lake program furthers your growth, independence, and sense of decision making while giving you the responsibility to create your own exciting summer. Visit their website.


I've been thinking a lot about the anger of partners.
I wonder sometimes about the correlation between anger & empowerment.
I've never been a plate-breaking type; I've never thrown someone's stuff out a window. And I wonder, when I see the kind of rage that partners can kick up, what it is in their brains that allows them to go so out of control. I have a lot of anger; Betty sometimes says I'm one of the angriest people she's ever met. But at some point in time, I found yelling and screaming at the injustice of it all was perfectly futile, so I (mostly) stopped doing it. That's not to say I don't rant – I'm a professional ranter, actually – but I stopped thinking that my ranting was going to change anything.
My mother always tells me that I spent more of my time convincing her of why I shouldn't have to do more chores than it would have taken me to do them, and it strikes me that misplaced anger is a similar waste of time. If being angry or sad or screaming is not going to change the situation, then why keep doing those things?
But what I've noticed is the anger and sadness don't satisfy people either. They stop being angry just at the thing that made them angry, and start spreading it around. In our case, we had to deal with an ex of Betty's who not only targeted Betty, but me, and a friend of ours who introduced us, Betty's parents, etc.
I've heard recently that one of the reasons therapists used to recommend divorce if one partner was transitioning is for fear the therapist, or doctor, might be sued by the angry partner. And while I can understand the urge of a partner who wants to sue a therapist for being "encouraging," I don't really understand the misplaced anger: the therapist didn't cause the transsexualism.
A couple of weeks back I put up a post about having to decide what to do when you're done crying, and sometimes I wonder if the crying and anger doesn't continue for some people because they simply can't face doing something, either because they don't feel that they can do anything, or have generally felt unable to exert real power over their lives, or that they don't feel up to following through on whatever decision they might make. That is, I wonder if they keep being angry and sad because the other emotion they'll have to confront is outright fear.


text:
Q: RESULTADO NO ESPERADO al hacer consulta SQL (POSTGRESQL 9.5) con BETWEEN - en java Netbeans Tengo una las siguientes tablas en mi base de datos en PostgreSQL

*

*usuario : la cual contiene usuario, contraseña y tipo de usuario

*accesos : contiene código de accesos , y nombre del acceso

*usuario_acceso: contiene el código de acceso , y código de usuario para enlazar a que lugares tiene acceso el usuario.

CREATE TABLE public.usuario
(
  cod_usuario integer NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('usuario_cod_usuario_seq'::regclass),
  nombre character(25),
  contrasenia character(25),
  tipo_usuario smallint,
  CONSTRAINT pk_usuario PRIMARY KEY (cod_usuario),
  CONSTRAINT fk_tipo_usuario FOREIGN KEY (tipo_usuario)
      REFERENCES public.tipo_usuario (cod_tipo_usuario) MATCH SIMPLE
      ON UPDATE NO ACTION ON DELETE NO ACTION,
  CONSTRAINT unico_nombre_usuario UNIQUE (nombre)
)

CREATE TABLE public.accesos
(
  cod_acceso character varying(25) NOT NULL,
  nombre character(25),
  nombre_boton character varying(25),
  CONSTRAINT pk_acceso PRIMARY KEY (cod_acceso)
)

CREATE TABLE public.usuario_acceso
(
  cod_usuario_acceso bigint NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('usuario_acceso_cod_usuario_acceso_seq'::regclass),
  cod_usuario integer,
  cod_acceso character varying(25),
  CONSTRAINT pk_usuario_accesos PRIMARY KEY (cod_usuario_acceso),
  CONSTRAINT fk_acceso FOREIGN KEY (cod_acceso)
      REFERENCES public.accesos (cod_acceso) MATCH SIMPLE
      ON UPDATE NO ACTION ON DELETE NO ACTION,
  CONSTRAINT fk_usuario FOREIGN KEY (cod_usuario)
      REFERENCES public.usuario (cod_usuario) MATCH SIMPLE
      ON UPDATE CASCADE ON DELETE CASCADE
)

lo que ocurre es que al hacer la siguiente consulta en el query del mismo postgresql si funciona y sale lo que necesito :
SELECT ua.cod_acceso
FROM usuario_acceso ua,accesos a
where ua.cod_usuario=2 AND ua.cod_acceso=a.cod_acceso AND (ua.cod_acceso BETWEEN '1.2' AND '1.68') ORDER BY a.cod_acceso ASC;

pero cuando hago exactamente la misma consulta en java netbeans 8.2 de la siguiente manera:
el resultado es este:

me está mandando
1.2

.

1.219

se traga el del centro
como notaran necesito la respuesta que me da el postgresql.
tengo que aclarar que el código de acceso está character varying.
he intentado lo siguiente

*

*ua.cod_acceso>='1.2' and ua.cod_acceso<='1.68'

*ua.cod_acceso like'1.2%' and like '1.68%'

A: Creo que ya se cuál es el problema:
Llamas a rs.next() en el while (esto está bien), y lo imprimes
Llamas a rs.next() dentro del System.out.println() (no está bien, porque no lo imprimes)
Ya viste dónde está el error?
Saludos!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
135.110 Iowa domestic abuse death review team powers and duties.
1. The review team shall perform the following duties:
a. Prepare an annual report for the governor, supreme court, attorney general, and the general assembly concerning the following subjects:
(1) The causes and manner of domestic abuse deaths, including an analysis of factual information obtained through review of domestic abuse death certificates and domestic abuse death data, including patient records and other pertinent confidential and public information concerning domestic abuse deaths.
(2) The contributing factors of domestic abuse deaths.
(3) Recommendations regarding the prevention of future domestic abuse deaths, including actions to be taken by communities, based on an analysis of these contributing factors.
b. Advise and consult the agencies represented on the team and other state agencies regarding program and regulatory changes that may prevent domestic abuse deaths.
c. Develop protocols for domestic abuse death investigations and team review.
2. In performing duties pursuant to subsection 1, the review team shall review the relationship between the decedent victim and the alleged perpetrator from the point where the abuse allegedly began, until the domestic abuse death occurred, and shall review all relevant documents pertaining to the relationship between the parties, including but not limited to protective orders and dissolution, custody, and support agreements and related court records, in order to ascertain whether a correlation exists between certain events in the relationship and any escalation of abuse, and whether patterns can be established regarding such events in relation to domestic abuse deaths in general. The review team shall consider such conclusions in making recommendations pursuant to subsection 1.
3. The team shall meet upon the call of the chairperson, upon the request of a state agency, or as determined by a majority of the team.
4. The team shall annually elect a chairperson and other officers as deemed necessary by the team.
5. The team may establish committees or panels to whom the team may assign some or all of the team's responsibilities.
6. Members of the team who are currently practicing attorneys or current employees of the judicial branch of state government shall not participate in the following:
a. An investigation by the team that involves a case in which the team member is presently involved in the member's professional capacity.
b. Development of protocols by the team for domestic abuse death investigations and team review.
c. Development of regulatory changes related to domestic abuse deaths.
2000 Acts, ch 1136, §3; 2000 Acts, ch 1232, §48
Referred to in § 135.112
Previous Section 135.109
Next Section 135.111
Last update: Mon Jan 22 17:13:42 CST 2001
URL: /DOCS/IACODE/2001/135/110.html

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Moon Cake is the special food of the Mid-Autumn Festival. People sacrifice moon cakes to the moon as an offering and eat them for celebration. Moon cakes come in various flavors according to the region. The moon cakes are round, symbolizing the reunion of a family, so it is easy to understand how the eating of moon cakes under the round moon can evoke longing for distant relatives and friends. Nowadays, people present moon cakes to relatives and friends to demonstrate their goodwill.
This year Chatrium Hotel Riverside Bangkok is proud to present a collection of meticulously handcrafted mooncakes for this seasonal gift during this Mid-Autumn Festival. Our Chinese Chef creates home-made mooncakes filled with custard, lotus seeds, red beans and durian in a premium box set as a gift for your relatives and friends to wish them fortune and longevity.
Celebrate this celestial tradition with our Mooncake Creations, available at Silver Waves Restaurant and Treats Gourmet from August 27 until September 27, 2015. 1 Box (4 pieces) is Baht 320 and a 10% discount is available exclusively for Chatrium Privileges Card Members.
Visit our Silver Waves or Treats Gourmet to select your flavors of mooncakes or call Chatrium Hotel Riverside Bangkok at 0 2307 8888 ext. 1948, 1921 for further information.


Lyrics and video of songs from Movie / Album : Dil Tera Deewana (1962); . Dil Tera Diwana Hai Sanam . 4.46 . Dhadakane Lagata Hai Mera Dil Tere Naam Se . 4.50 .. Watch Dil Tera Deewana movie now.. The "Most Anticipated Indian Movies and Shows" widget tracks the real-time popularity of relevant pages on IMDb, . Title: Dil Tera Diwana (1996) .
World's Largest Online Community.. The acid of Love full movie free download in kickass torrent Love com movie download 1080p Dil Tera Diwana telugu movie . Get Out . tamil dubbed movies free .
Watch Dil Tera Diwana full movie online in HD quality for free on hotstar.com. It is a Hindi Romance movie directed by Lawrence D'Souza starring Saif Ali Khan, Twinkle Khanna.
Play Dil Tera Deewana hindi movie quiz game online on Gomolo.com.. Watch Movie Dil Tera Diwana Online.


text:
New Research on Health Equity and Health Workforce Diversity
Friday, March 13, 2015 Categories: Newsletters
The Learning Collaborative is gearing up for its next in-person meeting on March 24-26 in Scottsdale, AZ. At this meeting, we will use data gathered by our demonstration sites to construct a prototype of the metrics dashboard – one of the primary deliverables of the Urban Universities for HEALTH project. We will also review and select some of the sites' accomplishments for publication and dissemination, so that we can better share our work with other universities. Please stay tuned for updates regarding these publications and additional events in April.
The AAMC AHEAD (Accelerating Health Equity, Advancing through Discovery) Initiative has issued a call for proposals. The initiative aims to build an evidence base of effective policies and practices that improve community health and minimize health inequities. The RFP will fund three AAMC-member institution projects over three years to evaluate the impact of their existing medical-legal partnerships on community health measures, cost savings to the health system, and learner outcomes. Applications are due March 20, 2015.
Nursing scholars may be interested in the Distinguished IOM Nurse Scholar in Residence program, which provides a year-long residential leadership opportunity in health policy in Washington, DC. Applications are due April 1, 2015.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has announced the Awards for Eliminating Health Disparities program, which recognizes individuals who have successfully implemented systems changes related to the determinants of health. Ten national non-profit membership organizations or associations will be chosen to administer the awards programs. Organizations must have experience with systems change in areas that influence health outcomes. The deadline for proposals is April 14, 2015.
The Missouri Foundation for Health has issued an open call for concept papers proposing time-limited, outcome-focused approaches designed to address a pressing community health need. Funding varies based on the need identified in the proposal. Concept papers will be accepted through April 20, 2015.
Nominations for a number of AAMC awards are due May 1, 2015 – find out more.
The NIH has announced that training and research project grants and an institutional training grant are available to enhance predoctoral and postdoctoral research training and education to ensure that a diverse and highly qualified workforce is available to address the nation's biomedical and social sciences research agenda. Applications for both competitions are due September 25, 2015.
The deans of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, and the University of Kansas School of Medicine convened in front of students, faculty, and community leaders to highlight their commitment to multicampus collaboration and sharing best practices in medical education.
Dean Greer Glazer, Co-PI from the University of Cincinnati for Urban Universities for HEALTH, was re-elected to the board of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN).
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released its Budget "In Brief" for FY 2016. Highlights include a 4% increase in funding for NIH and $14 million for a new Health Workforce Diversity Program within HRSA. However, the Title VII Health Careers Opportunity Program and Title VII Area Health Education Centers program (AHEC) would be eliminated.
In Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder has proposed a 2016 budget calling for repeal of all state funding for graduate medical education (GME) – which will also result in the loss of matching federal funds.
A study published in the Journal of Higher Education found that public medical schools affected by bans on race-conscious admissions experienced a 17 percent decline in the share of first-time matriculants who were black, Hispanic, or Native American, a figure in keeping with studies of the impact of such bans on selective undergraduate programs, graduate programs, and law schools.
On the same topic, an opinion piece written by Harvard Graduate Jeff Yang criticizes the recent lawsuit filed against Harvard University for its race-conscious admissions practices and argues that the suit is politically motivated. Yang states that holistic review has helped students from all backgrounds succeed in higher education, and that getting into college is about "more than just scores."
An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that simply filling the pipeline with students from diverse backgrounds won't be enough to diversify STEM fields. According to a recent study of biomedical Ph.D.'s, underrepresented minorities and women showed disproportionately low interest in pursuing an academic career at a research university upon completing graduate school. The study's lead author noted that getting more people into the system was "a laudable goal, but it takes the attention away from the structural elements that have a profound impact on career choice."
A new report entitled Double Jeopardy: Gender Bias Against Women of Color in Science describes how Black and Latina women scientists are routinely discriminated against – including being mistaken for janitors.
A study from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce finds that despite the nationwide nursing shortage and strong interest in nursing careers, nursing schools can't expand quickly enough to admit as many students as they would like. The study highlights nursing faculty shortages as a persistent problem underlying schools' inability to expand.
Ricardo Azziz, president of Georgia Reagents University, authored an op-ed in the Huffington Post suggesting that universities should apply lessons learned from the health care industry toward their efforts to measure apparently unmeasurable student success outcomes such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and civic engagement. The experiences of health care providers, who have already developed methods to evaluate health care quality and patient outcomes, may be instructive to university leaders.
Early registration ends March 31, 2015 for the USU Summer Meeting, which will take place June 15-16 at Cleveland State University.
The Hispanic-Serving Health Professions Schools (HSHPS) are holding a professional development workshop aimed at junior faculty, post-doctoral students, and doctoral students interested in research careers that focus on Hispanic health disparities. The workshops will be held June 28-30 in Bethesda, MD.
Save the date for the Anchor Institutions Task Force (AITF) Annual Conference. The meeting will take place in New York City on October 29-30.
The Latino physician shortage has worsened over the past 30 years according to research published in Academic Medicine. At the national level, the number of Latino physicians per 100,000 people dropped from 135 to 105, and the same trend occurred within five states examined by the researchers. The authors recommend immediate action on the national and local level to increase the supply of Latino physicians.
Also in Academic Medicine, a survey finds that 30 percent of LGBT medical students reported hiding their sexual and gender identity due to persistent fear of discrimination. The researchers stressed the need for physicians to lead the way in fostering a higher level of diversity and inclusion in the field of medicine.
Two perspective pieces in the New England Journal of Medicine addressed the "White Coats for Black Lives" die-ins, the largest coordinated protests at US medical schools since the Vietnam War era. David Ansell and Edwin McDonald reflect on the impact of discrimination and systemic bias on health disparities. Mary Bassett, New York City's health commissioner, highlights the lack of action to address issues of racism and health, and proposes three courses of action for health professionals: critical research, internal reform, and public advocacy.


Health research-intensive universities such as University College London (UCL), are key to changing the way we think about health and disease and how best to manage them.
UCL works through interdisciplinary partnerships with its NIHR Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs), the NHS, patients and Industry. Through 'translation' we aim to transform scientific discoveries arising from laboratory, clinical or population studies into new therapies, technologies, clinical tools and applications that improve human health.
The research translational ecosystem has changed significantly over the past 10 years. Pharma and biotech industries have reorganised; cutting back on internal research to free-up resource to fund more open innovation and collaborative science. This has led to fragmentation of the delivery of innovation with an increase in the number of SME's and growth of CROs to fill the gap. Several pharmaceutical companies have established open innovation offices and funding schemes to promote translational partnerships with universities.
The aims of industry, universities and partner hospitals are very similar, in trying to deliver new solutions to improve patients' lives. However, the culture, philosophies and motivators of these organisations have traditionally been very different, leading to mistrust and uncertainty of the benefits of working together. This situation has radically changed with all partners adopting a more outward looking collaborative approach. In addition, investment in industry expertise embedded within Universities such as UCL's Translational Research Office (TRO) are bridging this cultural divide.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) established in April 2006, has invested over £1 billion into health research. 2007 saw the establishment of Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs – NHS/University partnerships focused on the translation of biomedical interventions in clinical settings).
Working alongside this investment in the NIHR, the government in 2007 gave an additional £132 million to the Medical Research Council (MRC) targeted towards translational research. The MRC introduced several initiatives including the Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme (DPFS).
The impact of this translational research funding strategy is beginning to be realised. The UK has enhanced its standing as an excellent place for industry to invest in performing early clinical trials, enhancing the access of our patients to novel treatments. In the past 10 years the UK has participated in 3601 industry supported Phase I/II trials (Jan09-Dec18) compared to 1137 in the previous 10 years (Jan99-Dec08 – data from Clinicaltrails.gov), second only to the U.S.
A key mission of UCL in partnership with our three BRCs – University College London Hospitals (UCLH), Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), Moorfields Eye Hospital) has been to develop a culture of enterprise and facilitate the translation of discovery science at UCL into patient care. The Translational Research Office has been fundamental in linking UCL's translational infrastructure with the BRCs, by bringing together the necessary expertise in design, research management and governance of early phase trials, technology transfer expertise in various disciplines as well as providing links to industry.
We have recently established six Therapeutic Innovation Networks (TINs) to accelerate the development of novel therapeutics. The scheme was piloted in 2015, with the establishment of the Cell, Gene and Regenerative Therapies TIN. A comprehensive survey of activity demonstrated UCL's extraordinary strength and depth in this novel set of therapeutic approaches.
UCL, working with UCL Business (UCL's tech transfer office) to create spinouts and partnerships, is a world leader in the clinical translation of cell, gene and regenerative therapies (we perform 59% of all UK cell, gene and regenerative medicine trials). The research excellence and clinical potential has resulted in a number of high-profile Pharma collaborations and spin-out companies including: Orchard £392 million, Autolus £251 million, Freeline £123 million, MeiraGTx £77 million, and Achilles £13 million of investor funding.
UCL has a growing CAR T-cell programme based at UCLH and GOSH. There are currently ten phase I/IIa clinical studies of experimental CAR T-cell approaches open at UCL affiliated hospitals which stem directly from this programme (the largest CAR T program in the UK) many of them funded through UCL spin-out Autolus. As an example of pull through from discovery science to clinical application for patient benefit, NHS England announced last year that children and young people in England with B cell leukaemia will be able to benefit from Europe's first full access deal on CAR-T therapy.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency granted a Promising Innovative Medicine Designation to OTL-101, a gene therapy product under development at UCL/GOSH BRC with MRC support, in partnership with Orchard. This designation recognises the significant clinical benefits for treatment of adenosine deaminase deficiency, commonly known as "bubble baby" disease, relative to alternative treatment options.
In March 2018 the first results published from a clinical trial using a new stem cell technology showed that patients regained sight after receiving retinal tissue engineered from human embryonic stem cells. The results of this ground-breaking clinical study described the implantation of a specially engineered patch of retinal pigment epithelium cells derived from stem cells to treat people with sudden severe sight loss from wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a major cause of blindness in the over 60s (supported by the London Project to Cure Blindness, a partnership between UCL and Moorfields BRC/NHS trust).
Through this long-term commitment to interdisciplinary research, NHS and industry collaboration, and the adoption of innovative treatments and technologies, UCL is well positioned to develop further novel approaches to all types of disease and to genuinely and fundamentally improve people's everyday life.
Must Read >> What is the future for clinical and health research in Europe?


Rebecca Ramsden is one of the headliners at this event. Please join Rebecca in an evening of music and haunted tales performed by Loren Niemi at the Black Forest Inn Festaal Room on April 13th, 2019 from 7:00–8:30 pm. This event will celebrate the release of Loren's new story collection What Haunts Us. The Black Forest Inn is located at 1 East 26th Street, Minneapolis MN, 55404.


text:
package com.vomilas.services.impl;

import com.vomilas.dao.FriendDao;
import com.vomilas.models.Friend;
import com.vomilas.services.FriendService;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;

import java.util.List;

/**
 * Created by anush on 19.11.17.
 */
@Service("FriendService")
public class FriendServiceImpl implements FriendService {
    @Autowired
    private FriendDao friendDao;

    @Override
    public List<Friend> getFriends(String userName) {
        return friendDao.getFriends(userName);
    }

    @Override
    public void addFriend(String fromLogin, String toLogin) {
        friendDao.addFriend(fromLogin,toLogin);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Iberdrola Commissions Herrera II Wind Complex in Spain
Iberdrola has begun commissioning the Herrera II wind complex in Castilla y León, Spain. It consists of three farms – La Huesca, Valdesantos and Orbanejoa – with 63 MW of installed capacity and a total of 14 wind turbines. It will generate enough electricity to supply the equivalent of 60 000 households per year and will prevent the release of 50 000 t CO2/yr into the atmosphere.
Iberdrola has spent €70 million developing the wind complex and stimulating the region's industrial sector. The development employed around 800 people and almost all the on-site civil works were entrusted to local companies. Likewise, in most cases, the components of these wind turbines have been manufactured in Spain: the multipliers in Burgos, the nacelles in Soria, and the turbines in Cantabria.
The SG 4.5-145 wind turbines installed at Herrera II, with 70 m long blades and a diameter of 145 m – three times larger than that of the first wind turbines ¬– are the most powerful and largest onshore wind turbines in Spain, with a unit power of 4.5 MW, almost seven times greater than that of the first wind turbines installed in our country more than two decades ago.
The Orbaneja and La Huesa wind farms have been built in the municipalities of Isar, Las Quintanillas, Rabé de las Calzadas and Estepar: the first of these consists of seven wind turbines, with a total installed capacity of 31.5 MW, while the second has four turbines totalling 18 MW. Valdesantos, on the other hand, has been built in Estepar and has three wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 13.5 MW.
With this project, the company is ratifying its commitment to Castilla y León and its leadership in renewable energy in the region, where it already operates 5200 MW – of which 1600 MW are wind – making this the largest autonomous community in terms of 'green' capacity installed by the company.
With the commissioning of the Herrera II wind farms, Castilla y León is establishing its position as an important centre for renewable energy developments in the company's investment cycle up to 2025.
In the province of Burgos alone, the company has recently built or is developing more than 550 MW in projects such as Ballestas and Casetona (69 MW), Fuenteblanca (10 MW), Buniel (114 MW), Valdemoro (50 MW), Iglesias (94 MW) and Alcocero de Mola (102 MW); as well as the Revilla Vallejera photovoltaic (PV) installation (50 MW) and two hybrid PV plants in the pipeline in Ballestas and Casetona (69 MW).
Over the coming years, Iberdrola plans to develop more than 2400 MW of renewable energy in the region – wind and PV – for which it will allocate investments in excess of €2 billion. According to PNIEC estimates, this volume of resources will stimulate industry and create jobs for 18 000 people.
The start-up of Herrera II comes on top of other renewable projects launched by the company in the past 12 months, despite the pandemic: the Núñez de Balboa, Campo de Arañuelo I and II PV plants in Ceclavín, in Extremadura; the Cavar wind farm in Navarre; the solar project in Andévalo (Andalucía); the Barcience PV project (Castille - La Mancha), the Fuenteblanca wind farm (Castilla y León) and the Azaila PV plant in Aragón.
Iberdrola is building 1700 MW of renewable capacity in Spain and has a pipeline of more than 17 000 MW on the Iberian Peninsula. In Spain, the company is the leader in the renewable energy sector with an installed capacity of 17 000 MW, which will increase to 25 000 MW with its investment plan up to 2025.
Iberdrola has been leading the energy transition for two decades, acting as a key driving force to transform the industrial fabric and in the green recovery of the economy and employment.
To achieve this, the company has launched a major investment plan worth €150 billion over the next decade (€75 billion by 2025), to triple its renewable capacity to almost 100 000 MW, doubling its network assets and taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the energy revolution the world's leading economies are facing. In Spain, investments until 2025 account for some €14.3 billion, €7 billion of which will be used to develop renewable projects.
Investments worth €120 billion over the last 20 years have made Iberdrola a leader in renewable energy with nearly 35 000 MW installed worldwide, a volume that makes its generation fleet one of the cleanest in the energy sector.
Spain Herrera II Wind Iberdrola
Enel Green Power España Starts Building Wind Capacity in the Province of Cuenca, Spain
Wind Power Generated 31.4% of Electricity in December in Spain
Spain Approves the Offshore Wind Energy Roadmap
Spain Aims to Install 1-3 GW of Floating Wind Turbines by 2030
Spain's Lantania Starts Development of 250 MW of Wind Projects in Galicia
Spanish Wind Developer Unveils 500MW Quartet


Have you read about the Dunn Family?
van Schalkwyk has been a popular minister in the role, with the surprise moved announced earlier.
Re-elected South African president Jacob Zuma has been keen to overhaul his government, with the appointment of ministers in the key areas of transport, public enterprises and the establishment of a new ministry for small business development taking place in recent days.
The director general of the department of tourism, ambassador Kingsley Makhubela, welcomed the new minister, to the department earlier.
The director general also congratulated deputy minister Tokozile Xasa on her re-appointment to the role.
The appointment of Hanekom was also welcomed by the Tourism Business Council of South Africa.
TBCSA board chairman Mavuso Msimang said: �Derek Hanekom is a �salt of the earth� type of leader who brings into the portfolio considerable administrative experience.
�He served in the Mandela administration as minister of agriculture and land affairs.
Hanekom has had a varied past.
After completing his compulsory conscription, he travelled abroad where he worked for various organisations including working on farms, factories and building sites.
He returned to South Africa in his early twenties and continued farming for six years.
After serving a three year period in prison, Hanekom worked with the trade union movement in Johannesburg, until his wife�s release from prison in 1987, and subsequent deportation to Zimbabwe.
He spent three years in exile in Zimbabwe.
During this period he served as the co-ordinator of the Popular History Trust in Harare.
Hanekom provided the ANC with information about the apartheid defence force�s attempts to overthrow the Mozambican government through the rebel movement, Renamo.
This led to their arrest in 1983, initially charged with High Treason, but subsequently reduced to lesser charges as a result of the international sensitivity of the case.
He returned to South Africa after the unbanning of political organisations in 1990, to work at the headquarters of the ANC, where he was responsible for policy formulation on land and agricultural matters during the period of negotiations prior to the first democratic elections in 1994.
Prior to his appointment as minister of science and technology Hanekom served as deputy minister of science and technology from April to October 2012; as minister of agriculture and land affairs from 1994 to 1999 and he served as member of parliament from 1999 until 2004.
He serves as the deputy chairperson of the board of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.
In 2006 almost 8.4 million foreign nationals visited South Africa. This was easily the highest number of arrivals South Africa has ever experienced, and it represented a 13.9% increase over the previous year (2005). The global average growth was 4.5% over this period.
"Tourism has been recognized at the highest possible level for its significant impact on the economy. The industry's contribution to the GDP has increased from 4.6% in 1993 to 8.3% in 2006. We are now looking to increase our GDP contribution to 12% by 2014," says Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.
Tourism brings in over R66 billion per annum to the economy and contributes over half a million jobs and the industry just keeps growing.
It is known that for every visitor that comes to a country and has a good experience, three more people are likely to come! For every visitor that comes and has a bad experience, 10 more people are likely not to come. It is also known that 70% of customer brand perception is determined by experiences with people.
Thus South Africa's critical imperative is to constantly improve if not perfect its frontline strategy while packaging products - this will assist in shaping perceptions about the country, whether a visitor is a tourist or an investor coming to trade. Just to paint the picture more vividly, investors look past the clever advertising and look for quality and reliability.
This is not different in terms of product branding as tourists look beyond the brand promise and look for depth of experience. Therefore, as a developing country South Africa has so far succeeded to create something special which, differentiates it from the competition.
Comments Nthato Malope of the International Marketing Council of South Africa: "For tourism to consistently grow before, during and after the 2010 Soccer World Cup, South Africa would have to create the appropriate brand behavior, brand discipline, brand language, brand culture and brand leadership. This is critical in starting to create the depth of experience when people engage with the country".
The importance of this is evident in other countries' commitment to improving their branding. For example, India has a budget of $300 million a year to promote tourism and investment to its shores.
It is also known that some parts of India are worse than Alexandra Township in Johannesburg, but this has not dented the image of that country as its economy continues to grow while it enjoys a successful pull-factor for international investment and tourism.
"Our competitors are far more advanced in terms of defining who they are, their size and scale of the economy. What is going to set us apart is the depth of experience when people come to South Africa, feeling very welcomed in the country, with us having a sense of ubuntu" declared Fikile Dilika, Chief Director, Investing in Culture, at the Department of Arts and Culture.
However, South Africa would have to do more than branding if it hopes to capitalize on international markets. At the Italy &endash; South Africa tourism seminar that was held in July 2007 in Johannesburg, Guiseppe Boscoscuro, president of ASTOL (Italian Tour Operators Association) cautioned: "Until a direct flight between Italy and South Africa is reinstated, nothing can be done to boost Italian arrivals". This after the seminar heard that 680 000 Italians have expressed interest in traveling to South Africa, compared with the 53 600 who actually did in 2006.
Daniel Winteler, Chairman and CEO of Alpitour in Italy, said this is not due to airlift constraints, but also due to ineffective marketing practices. "Effective marketing needs to be achieved collaboratively. Co-marketing is vital as South Africa needs to find the engine that connects demand with supply", said Winteler.
For the South African economy to grow there needs to be in place an active black population. Beyond the obvious grounds, this economic imperative should drive BEE from both a Government and a private sector point of view.
The principles espoused by the Tourism BEE Charter of measuring BEE success beyond equity ownership, and the spread of that ownership, are crucial. To this end the Tourism BEE scorecard will be a powerful driver of real BEE transformation in South Africa.
Furthermore, one by one, the different industrial sectors of the country's business landscape are coming to the party, with aggressive "charters" mapping out the route that will be followed over the next five to ten years to put BEE sensibly into effect. There is no doubt that in a relatively short period of time BEE will be just as much part of the South African business community as watching the exchange rate.
According to Nikki Kearns, director of business banking at Standard Bank, one of the sponsors of the 2005 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report (GEM), black economic empowerment legislation could potentially have a positive effect on stimulating entrepreneurial activity in South Africa &endash; and with the country's level of early stage business activity measured to be at a relatively low level in comparison with other developing nations around the world, such an effect could not have come at a better time.
"GEM 2005 indicates that South Africa's level of entrepreneurial activity has decreased since the 2004 survey. However, as the effects of broad based black economic empowerment legislation take place in this country, it is my view that as the level of people entering the formal economy &endash; as well as gaining access to banking systems increases, more people will be in a position to exercise their business creativity than was previously possible," says Kearns.
However, with the introduction of the BEE Financial Sector Charter in 2003, certain provisions and responsibilities have been set out for financial institutions to contribute to the redress of past economic imbalances. While many of these responsibilities focus on an increase in the executive-level participation of the previously disadvantaged, there is a believe in the combination of certain measures that will contribute to improved entrepreneurship, such as requirements for skills development, corporate social investment and notably, the introduction of an initiative to extend bank services to more South Africans.
Sindiswa Nhlumayo, Head of the BEE Charter Council at the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) reflects: "We see BEE as a benefit to the economy and business in South Africa. BEE enables economic growth and by bringing on an empowerment partner will give businesses access to new markets, which in turn will lead to business growth".
The 2010 FIFA World Cup will have a greater impact on the South African economy than previously thought, with consulting firm Grant Thornton estimating the event will contribute at least R51.1 billion to the country's gross domestic product (GDP). This is against the original estimate of R21.3 billion, which was presented in a financial impact report by Grant Thornton's tourism, hospitality and leisure division for South Africa's World Cup bid committee in 2004.
Business Report reported that R15.6 billion of this new estimate will be brought in by foreign tourists. The revised estimates of the impact of the World Cup on the economy include direct expenditure of R30.4 billion, up from R12.7 billion initially. According to the paper, this additional GDP contribution will sustain the equivalent of 196 400 annual jobs, some of which already exist.
According to Grant Thornton, the economic impact was based on 289 000 overseas visitors watching three to four matches each and 48 000 African visitors watching three matches each. About 115 000 domestic tourists will watch two matches each. Calculations are based on a stay of 15 days because foreign tourists are not expected to stay for the month-long tournament.
Standard Bank economist Goolam Ballim said that "There will be a big direct injection for the economy. But the indirect impact may be more meaningful for a sustainable economic lift in subsequent years ... it will help change the perceptions that a large number of foreign investors hold of Africa and South Africa".
On his visit to South Africa in June 2007, FIFA president Sepp Blatter told local media that "nothing, nothing can be against a World Cup in South Africa, nothing but God."
At the forty fifth meeting of the United Nations World Tourism Organization's Commission for Africa in May 2007 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia South Africa was unanimously elected as the Chair of the UNWTO / FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup Steering Committee.
"This is indeed confirmation of expectations to see South Africa playing a leading role towards the successful hosting of the 2010 Soccer World Cup" said Patience Molokoza, Director, International Tourism Relations at DEAT.
"As a consequence we have been communicating with citizens of the world that the "Win in Africa with Africa" slogan that was presented and adopted in Ethiopia is itself an affirmation that the 2010 Soccer World Cup should be a collaborative project which is to be led by Africans" concluded Molokoza.
While leading a delegation to South Africa in June 2007 to strengthen relations that are aimed at promoting the country in the United States of America, Agrippa Ezozo, president of the US-based African Diaspora Foundation pronounced that "special emphasis would be placed on prospects for tourism development and sports related businesses in anticipation of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup".
"We are confident that the 2010 Soccer World Cup will do the same to consolidate our self-respect and dignity, gained when we attained our freedom and democracy in 1994 and, in a unique way, help our own nation and the continent of Africa, also to bask in the 'miracle of South Africa'," said Thabo Mbeki, President of the Republic of South Africa. "Every day we take important steps to unite what was a divided nation," he concluded.
It is so far convincing that the tourism sector in South Africa is making interesting strides in positioning the country internationally. The pay-off line that the country is "alive with possibilities" holds true in this age than it never was before. The challenge would be how the country plans to keep alive the momentum. This because the ultimate beneficiaries of these interactions would be ordinary South Africans who should emerge from the poverty trap that afflicts the continent, increase employment and more equitably spread the gains of economic growth. At this stage, more than any other in the history of its democracy and freedom, South Africans must hold steadfast and deliver on the pledge to build a better life for all.


text:
Swan Lake is a lake in Ballard County, Kentucky. At , it is the largest natural lake in Kentucky. It is part of a twelve-lake confederation known as Cummins Tract Lakes.

References

Bodies of water of Ballard County, Kentucky
Lakes of Kentucky

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Tradition and crafts since 1946, in a winemakers family with history
Every family has a story. Ours is tied for almost 75 years to the wine world.
Juan Rubio cuenca was our grandfather. A country man, weathered by the sun, self made, hard worker and lover of Extremadura, where he had his roots and where he grew up and lived all his life.
He produced the first wines of the Winery on 1946. Wines made with craftsmanship spirit, in a rudimentary way. He worked the land with his own hands, like it was always done. From sunrise to sunset. Lots of passion, hard work and care. That's how the first wine were born. By the old style.
Time passed and the generational change happened. Juan's daughter, Agapita Rubio, who shared with her father his passion for the vineyards, got on control of the winery with her husband José on 1982. Production was growing, wine's variety as well. That's how our wines "Cerro Cabrero" and "Señorío de la Raña" were born that year.
They were growing in oak barrels, to get all the particular taste of this land of Extremadura, gaining a strong personality that you can notice on their taste.
The different varieties of wines in our Winery have been shaped with respect for the raw material and with a craftsmanship technique very neat and respectful.
We are leaders in production and distribution of the famous "vino de pitarra", a traditional and exclusive wine from the area with great personality and that is widely valued.
Agapita and José not only kept the legacy of their father but expanded it thanks to their effort and work in the Winery, they devoted all their life to make their Winery a national reference for quality wines from Extremadura.
And they always have been faithful to one idea: keep the tradition, the craftsmanship style that made the wines acquire that special taste from Extremadura, which delight palate and are the best companion for the impressive gastronomy of the area, creating this way a fantastic duality of taste and pleasure at the table.
Our family grew around the Winery and kept incorporating new members to a lineage of wine passionates. We, Agapita's children, are born, and, step by step, old traditions transmitted by our grandfather are permeating us until we became the third winemakers generation of the family.
Production grows so the expansion of the winery does as well. On 1992 our wine "Tío Juan" gets born and from 2000 we incorporated "Pitarra Garrucho", "Sierra Carihuela", "Caserío del Coronito" and "Campo Royero" until 2017 when our wine "Valdemujeres" appeared.
So, after a history of almost 75 years we arrive to these days. Today we keep being a family of wine artisans, loyal to a tradition of taste and quality that shapes the production of our wines.
Winery name, Agapita, is the name of our mother. A tribute to her hard work and dedication. On the same way one of our flagship wines has the name of our grandfather Juan.
Contact the winery
Each designation of origin, each vintage , vine and grape is a connection point with the history of our area and with Cañamero, a traditional wine land, and with his nature, the places, the culture and the gastronomy of Extremadura.
We bring together tradition and craftsmanship with leading edge and innovation to obtain the best wines. With a work philosophy targeted to achieve the higher satisfaction of our clients, we continue improving the legacy of our grandfather Juan and the one of Agapita and José, which is allowing our growth and expansion during almost 75 years.


text:
Adobe announces Windows-only Encore DVD
More than a year after Adobe Systems Inc. announced the acquisition of DVD authoring technology from Sonic Solutions, the company today announced Encore DVD, a Windows-only DVD authoring application. Adobe will debut the product next week at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada. To find out more about both Encore DVD and Adobe's Windows-only strategy for the software, MacCentral recently spoke to Giles Baker, Encore Product Manager at Adobe.
Baker confirmed that Encore DVD is Windows-only, at least for the moment. When asked about Macintosh compatibility, Baker noted that Adobe hasn't announced a Mac version of the product.
"We've made the first version Windows-only because that's where most of our Premiere users are," Baker told MacCentral. Premiere is Adobe's digital video editing software. While Premiere remains popular among Windows users, it's been supplanted on the Mac in recent years by competing products like Apple's Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express and Avid Xpress DV.
In fact, there don't appear to be any plans to bring Encore DVD to the Mac yet. When asked about the possibility, Baker explained, "It's a market-driven decision. Adobe isn't seeking to alienate the Mac users we already have, or the Mac platform in general."
Baker noted that Sonic Solutions' underlying DVD authoring technology is cross-platform compatible. If there was enough of a demand, would Adobe bring Encore DVD to the Mac?
"We're always interested in hearing feedback from our clients, and from users of other products," Baker responded.
Adobe is leveraging its suite of professional imaging, compositing editing projects in Encore DVD by tightly integrating with Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects to provide menu editing, motion menu creation, chapter point importing and more. The integration goes both ways, according to Baker, with users able to instantly edit elements in Encore DVD with their native Adobe applications -- not unlike what Apple has accomplished with iDVD and its integration with other iLife applications.
iLife is $50 and also comes bundled on new Macs, while DVD Studio Pro costs $1000. DVD Studio Pro offers a host of added features and integration capabilities with products like Final Cut Pro and Photoshop, for producing professional-quality DVDs. Encore DVD, meanwhile, costs $550, which may give the best idea about its position -- more as a low-level professional or prosumer product, according to Baker. Potential applications cited for Encore DVD include burning corporate training videos, wedding videos and other similar content onto DVD.
"Encore DVD is aimed at professionals who are now working in video and are interested in using DVD as a publishing medium," said Baker.
With products like DVD Studio Pro in the Macintosh market, does Adobe perceive Apple as a competitive threat? Baker downplayed the suggestion. "We see DVD Studio Pro as a complementary product in the DVD authoring space," he told MacCentral. "And since we're a Windows-only product, Encore DVD and DVD Studio Pro will not compete."
"I think that every product that's out there adds something to the DVD authoring market" Baker went on. Citing the anticipated growth of DVD authoring in the PC space in the months and years ahead, Baker added, "We're only scratching the surface in terms of commercial possibilities."
Adobe anticipates shipping Encore DVD in the third quarter of 2003.
This story, "Adobe announces Windows-only Encore DVD" was originally published by PCWorld.
Graphics and Design Software


text:
Home > Tamil National Forum > Selected Writings - Adrian Wijemanne > Sri Lanka�s adventure is over - Now it must face Reality
Sri Lanka�s adventure is over - Now it must face Reality
Third party mediation is now an established part of the academic discipline of conflict resolution or conflict management as it is now called. Much has been written on it but, apart from the theory, it is very much a part of the world�s current practice.
And for Sri Lanka, the practice holds far greater lessons than the theory.
For anyone living in the UK it cannot be otherwise, for we have lived through 22 months of a difficult third party mediation exercise, which ended dramatically on Good Friday, 10 April 1998.
We know third party mediation at first-hand and in the immediate present.
Four third party mediations in intra-state wars have been concluded recently.
They are: the Israel/Arab-Palestinian conflict in which the USA mediated; the Bosnia conflict in which the USA mediated under UN auspices; the Philippines/Bamgsamoro conflict in which the Organisation of Islamic Conference mediated; the Northern Ireland conflict in which the USA mediated through the on-the-spot presence of ex-Senator George Mitchell.
The Israeli -Arab/Palestinian Accords.
Crucially, the third party mediator in this case was not a disinterested or neutral party at all, but the chief supporter and guarantor of one of the protagonists. The USA is the open and declared supporter of Israel and the principal guarantor of Israel�s continued existence. In this stand, the USA resolutely opposed the entire Arab world, which sought the extermination of Israel. The basic policy of the USA is, and continues to be, the peaceful co-existence of Israel and its Arab neighbours. That policy accommodated the long term interests of the Arab states as well.
US mediation proceeded in two stages.
First, the Camp David Accord between Israel and Egypt in which (for the first time since the founding of Israel in 1948) an Arab state (Egypt) acknowledged Israel�s right to a permanent and secure existence within its territory. The second stage of the mediation -- the Washington Accord between Israel and the PLO -- was based on the two-state solution which had been anathema to both parties for 45 years.
Israel, under the courageous leadership of Itzhak Rabin, did an 180 degree U-turn in acknowledging that the surest guarantee of its security and safety was not merely the strength of its own arms but the existence of a stable, democratic Palestinian "authority" (the euphemism for a future state) which could rein in Arab extremists of all kinds.
The PLO, for its part, abandoned its basic goal of exterminating Israel and recovering its forcibly expropriated homes and land, as a quid pro quo for the eventual establishment of a sovereign Palestinian State having the recognition of the international community, including Israel.
The third party mediator succeeded in painstakingly leading the protagonists to understanding and accepting the basic, bedrock realities of their environment, a recognition which had been utterly repugnant to both sides in the heat of the conflict.
The mediator could not change the realities, despite being the closest and most committed ally of one of the protagonists (Israel); all it could do was to lead both parties to a recognition of them.
The basic, bedrock realities of the environment were the invincible strength of the Israeli nation and the equally invincible strength of the Palestinian nation.
Neither side could exterminate the other or even subjugate the other.
There was no alternative to co-existence as equals other than continuous war, which is not a rational option. The lesson of this third party mediation experience is that the mediator could see the basic bedrock realities more clearly than either of the protagonists and could lead them to a recognition of those realities and their inevitable consequences from which the desired goal of peace could be attained.
The Bosnian Conflict and the Dayton Accord
The artificial post-World War II state of Yugoslavia dissolved into its five constituent national states under the impetus of rising nationalism within each of them. That impetus continued within Bosnia-Herzegovina which accommodated Serb, Croat and Muslim cultural populations. They were ethnically one (Southern Slav), spoke the same language (Serbo-Croat) but were separated by religion and culture.
Even that shallow divide was enough to set off nationalist, separatist aspirations especially among the Bosnian Serbs, who were soon supported by their Serbian brethren in neighbouring Serbia. The attempt to contain these tensions within the fragile new state of Bosnia-Herzegovina proved too much for it. With remarkable speed, a war of national secession broke out, cascading refugees into all the countries of Europe. UN intervention followed the failure of the European Union to do anything much and finally the USA -- after much footdragging -- accepted the UN mandate to mediate.
This resulted in the Dayton Accord, arrived at after a powerful US mediatory effort spearheaded by Richard Holbrooke, one of the "heavy hitters" of the US State Department. The Dayton Accord seeks to preserve the territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina and, at the same time, satisfy the nationalist aspirations of the Bosnian Serbs for a state of their own.
The result is a fudge which is unlikely to survive for long.
The Serb-populated enclaves of Bosnia are now part of the Republika Srpska, which has all the attributes of an independent sovereign state (including an army and currency of its own) save international recognition; Croat- and Muslim-populated areas have a state of their own with similar attributes.
Overarching both is a federal government with a rotating presidency which represents Bosnia internationally.
The Dayton Accord introduces a novel phenomenon on the international stage -- a state which has lost the monopoly of armed might within it, the monopoly which is the quintessential attribute of the modern state.
This has resulted from the inescapable necessity of recognising the irreversible reality of the situation, namely, that the right of the Bosnian Serbs to self-determination in the area of their domicile and to organise their security therein cannot be overthrown by military force and must find expression if the people of Bosnia are to have peace.
Once again the lesson is the same -- the third-party mediator, however powerful (the only superpower in this case) cannot alter the basic bedrock reality of the situation, a reality which has had to be reflected in the settlement whatever violence it does to the classical form of the modern state.
Institutional structures, however sacred, have had to be transformed to accommodate irreversible reality in order to secure peace. The territorial integrity of Bosnia has been preserved notionally by a fig-leaf of constitutional structures, while the reality is the self-determination of national entities.
The Philippines/Bangsamoro Settlement.
The war of Bangsamoro Independence in The Philippines lasted 28 years -- the second longest war in Asia this century (the longest is the still-continuing war of tribal independence in Myanmar now in its 51st year).
The third party mediation itself lasted 20 years from 1976 to 1996.
The third-party mediator in this case was The Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), all of whose members had supported the Moro independence movement in Mindanao throughout the conflict.
So, once again the mediator was partisan, being a direct supporter of one of the protagonists.
The government of The Philippines accepted the OIC as the third party because of the latter�s commitment to peace and its influence over its prot�g�, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
The whole process was possible only because of the government�s eventual conviction that Moro nationalism could not be stamped out by military force.
The settlement attempts, as in Bosnia, to preserve the territorial integrity of The Philippines while accommodating the right of the Moro nationalists to self-determination in the area of their domicile.
It does so by recognising an Autonomous Region in Mindanao comprising 14 provinces and 9 cities.
The Autonomous Region is to have an Interim Council in which the Moro nationalists have a majority and the Chairman of which is to be Nur Misuari, the leader of the MNLF.
The MNLF merges some of its armed forces in the armed forces and police of the government, but they remain within the Autonomous Region with their government commanders acting in agreement with the Chairman of the Interim Council.
This arrangement was possible in practical terms because there are no ethnic or language differences between the two sides: as in Bosnia the cleavage is only religious and cultural.
Most significant of all is the introduction of the principle of parallel consent -- this means that any law passed by the Philippine Congress will apply in the Autonomous Region only if, and when, it is also passed by the Interim Council of the Region.
The settlement provides, too, for the holding of a plebiscite (referendum) in the Autonomous Region in 1998, to decide whether these arrangements should continue or whether the Autonomous Region should secede from The Philippines and become an independent state.
The lesson of this third party mediation too is the same as that in the two former cases -- the irreversible reality of the situation dictated the nature of the settlement regardless of the violence done to the classical conception of the state as a sovereign, plenipotentiary body.
The ineradicable challenger is accommodated by being accorded self-rule with a right to eventual secession.
This was the inevitable consequence of the military impossibility of overwhelming and dissipating the armed challenge to the state.
Third party mediation only helped the protagonists to recognise the basic bedrock realities of the situation and to develop a settlement in accordance with those realities.
The existence, and indefinite continuance, of the armed nationalist secessionist challenge -- grounded in its own territory -- was the basic, bedrock reality that both the mediator and the government had to acknowledge and accommodate.
The Northern Ireland Settlement.
The Northern Ireland scenario is more complicated than a straightforward challenge to the state by a nationalist, secessionist adversary.
Here the majority of the population does not wish to secede. The minority that does, seeks not independence but a joinder of the province of Northern Ireland to the neighbouring state, The Republic of Ireland, so that the island of Ireland could be a single, all-island state.
The third party mediator in this case was provided by the United States government in the person of ex-Senator George Mitchell who handled with consummate skill and near-superhuman patience the difficult quadri-partite negotiation involving the UK government, the government of The Irish Republic, the Protestant Unionist parties opposed to secession and representing the majority of the population, and, finally, the Roman Catholic nationalist (or Republican) parties seeking secession and joinder with The Republic.
The basic bedrock reality of the situation was that the UK government could not overwhelm and dissipate by military force the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which is the armed protagonist of Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland.
28 years of unrelenting military effort proved this conclusively.
The settlement provides for the voluntary decommissioning (an euphemism for surrender) of weapons after new legislative and executive institutions satisfying the aspirations of all sides have been set up and proved functional.
In the meantime, until such decommissioning is completed -- which may be sooner or later or never -- the state co-exists with its armed challenger, thus losing the sole monopoly of armed might within its territory.
In the legislative sphere, the settlement introduces the concept and practice of parallel consent for the first time within the UK.
In the new 108-member legislative assembly for Northern Ireland, decisions require a majority of votes from each bloc -- unionist and nationalist -- to be passed.
The requirement of a double majority effectively vests a right of veto in each bloc.
The two governments also have to make significant constitutional changes.
The Irish Republic, which has a written constitution, will delete sections 2 and 3 thereof which advance a claim by The Republic to the whole island of Ireland.
The UK government, which does not have a written constitution, will legislate for the holding of a referendum in the province of Northern Ireland every 7 years on the issue of secession from the UK.
The right of a majority in the province to secede from the state is thus legislatively recognised for the first time.
"Cross-Border" executive bodies are to be established -- jointly, by The Irish Republic and the new Northern Ireland Assembly -- to administer a limited range of subjects on an islandwide basis.
They will function under the joint supervision of The Irish Republic and the Northern Ireland Assembly and will be the first experience of administrative activity on an all-island basis.
The vexed issues of the British military presence in the province and the allegedly partisan policing by the Royal Ulster constabulary (which is said to favour the Protestant Unionist majority) are to be reviewed by an independent commission with international participation.
It is hoped that this will result in new, mutually acceptable security arrangements which would enable the progressive reduction of British military forces in the province.
These terms of the settlement were approved overwhelmingly at referenda held in The Irish Republic and the province of Northern Ireland on 22nd May �98. Their implementation is now all set to begin.
The experience of this most recent third party mediation underlines the principal lesson of the three earlier cases -- that third party mediation is unable to alter in any way the basic bedrock realities of the situation.
The parties embroiled in the conflict had stubbornly refused to recognise these realities and had indulged the forlorn hope that somehow their preferred outcome would emerge.
All the third party mediator could do was to lead the parties involved to a clear recognition of the irreversible realities, which in this case were the unrelenting determination of the nationalists for an united, un-partitioned Ireland on the one hand and the imperative necessity of acting in compliance with the declared wishes of the majority of the population of Northern Ireland on the other.
The settlement accommodates these realities by institutional arrangements that are bound to present extreme difficulties in implementation, and which do violence to the established concepts of the supremacy of the state within its territory.
The British state co-exists on a settled basis with its armed challenger within its territory and in that territory itself sovereignity is shared with a neighbouring state i.e., The Republic of Ireland.
That is a price that has to be paid to secure peace in the context of the irreversible realities of this particular situation.
The Sri Lankan context.
A striking feature of governance in Sri Lanka has been the absence of a firm grasp of reality by every government that has held power since independence. Even the strongest government, that of J.R.Jayawardene, which had an overwhelming parliamentary majority, unequalled before or since, manifested this failing.
It could not comprehend the nature of the national conflict that was brewing; it took refuge in self-delusion in regarding the problem as a "law and order" issue concerning an outbreak of terrorism; it believed seriously that the LTTE could be forced to disarm in 72 hours as a result of Indian pressure; it was quite convinced that a constitutional change within the state would assuage Tamil nationalism and wean it away from its declared determination to secure a separate state for itself in the area it regarded as its homeland.
Every one of these beliefs is now known to have been an egregious folly.
The policies based on these beliefs have collapsed despite the huge parliamentary majority of the government that held these beliefs. They collapsed because they were based on fiction and not on fact.
The present ruling coalition has a negligible parliamentary majority of its own and is kept in power by an heterogenous assortment of Tamil parties which are not members of the coalition. In parliamentary terms, it is the weakest government Sri Lanka has had since independence.
However, it is the equal of the J.R. Jayawardene government in its failure to grasp manifest reality.
It is unable to understand the nature, vigour and rapid advance of Tamil nationalism both within the island and within the powerful international Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. It suffers from a pathetic misapprehension of the military realities of the war in which it is engaged. It has not the remotest suspicion that the longer the war lasts the stronger will its adversary become, which is the universal experience in all other theatres of such conflict without exception. It believes the opposite of the world�s reality in holding the view that the LTTE would be weakened with the passage of time. And despite being one of the world�s poorest countries (with a per capita g.n.p. of US $790 per annum) it believes it can win the war where far richer countries have failed in exactly similar wars against adversaries a small fraction of the size and power of the LTTE.
The UK with a per capita g.n.p. per annum of US $18,900 failed to overwhelm the IRA which is less than one-thirtieth the LTTE�s size.
The entire basis of the "War for Peace" is a belief in absurdities far removed from the realm of reality. It is inevitable that policies based on such egregious follies must collapse and end in disaster.
Already, the Sri Lanka armed forces have suffered massive reversals. The present campaign alone (in the northern Vanni) has incurred losses of 1,600 killed including 53 officers, 6,000 wounded and around 18,000 deserters in the course of a single year.
The Sri Lanka army is not a battle-hardened army steeled to absorbing such heavy losses and capable of replenishing them routinely. Worse still, it fields a ridiculously inadequate ratio of 10 troops to 1 LTTE guerilla whereas elsewhere ratios of an 100 to 1 have failed after far longer periods of conflict.
The military adventure of the Sri Lanka government either has collapsed already or is on the verge of collapse. The time has come now to face reality.
The realities which third party mediation has to accommodate. The most basic reality of the situation is that the state�s forces are unable to overwhelm the LTTE and dissipate its armed challenge to the state.
Ten years of direct conflict between the two sides have proved that conclusively.
The second reality is that the longer the war lasts, the stronger the LTTE becomes, despite all the losses it sustains. This too has been demonstrated conclusively during the long period of the conflict.
This is not unique to the Sri Lankan case for it has happened in all other theatres of similar conflict.
The long war has fomented the growth of Tamil nationalism in the north-east province of Sri Lanka, in the international Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora and in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
It could develop in the plantation areas of Sri Lanka as well in due course when its present leadership is gathered in by The Grim Reaper and the succeeding younger leadership sees a role on the larger Tamil nationalist stage.
Tamil nationalism, and its declared determination to secure for the Tamil nation on the island a separate sovereign state in the area of its domicile, cannot be extirpated militarily and has to be a cardinal factor in any settlement.
The Tamil nation in Sri Lanka has a specific area of domicile, already legislatively recognised as the "area of traditional, but not exclusive, Tamil habitation" which all Tamil political parties, militant and constitutional, within Parliament and without, regard as its homeland. This is a manifest and irreversible reality.
The Tamil people resident in the north-east province voted overwhelmingly at the General Election of 1977 (the last General Election before the outbreak of war) for a separate, independent, sovereign state of their own in their homeland.
That public declaration of the Tamil national consensus was reiterated unanimously by all Tamil political parties at the Thimpu talks in 1984.
It has been repeated by the LTTE�s leadership from time to time and, last, early this year.
Peace requires the negotiation of a viable relationship between the two states to which these realities give rise upon the island.
The implications of third party mediation.
Third party mediation is possible only if both parties to the conflict agree to it in principle and jointly request it.
Other issues such as who the mediator should be, the venue of the mediation, the practical arrangements for it etc., depend on and follow the first indispensable necessity of a joint request.
That first step presents a formidable challenge for the state and a much less daunting challenge for the LTTE. The state has created this difficulty for itself by investing all its resources -- political, material, psychological and moral -- on a military victory. It has designated the war (however incongruously) as a "War for Peace". Its current military campaign is code-named the Sinhala equivalent of "Certain Victory". The country�s only general -- who is a full member of the Cabinet of Ministers in another capacity -- has declared openly that the "War is 96% over". Never once in the last 14 years of the conflict has any government given even the barest hint that military victory is beyond its reach.
It is that entrenched (and oft-repeated) assertion that will be overthrown by a request for mediation by a third party. Such a request requires of the state a complete volte face on the central premise on which the war has been waged, carrying with it the inescapable consequence that the single all-island state inherited from the imperial power is at an end.
The Sri Lanka government and the Sinhala people are no strangers to such complete somersaults of policy -- every major policy of the first 30 years of government since independence under the Westminster type of parliamentary executive has been, and is being, totally reversed under Presidential rule.
Even so, the psychological and political costs of this particular reversal of policy are of a different order altogether.
The Sinhala people and their government have to confront the reality that they have not the power to overwhelm an adversary one-eighth their size, yet that is the manifest reality of the present situation.
In addition, the future portends a military failure on a far graver scale with consequences more damaging than can now be foreseen. It is by no means an unique predicament, for far stronger states than Sri Lanka have had to face the very same combination of manifest present reality and impending future disaster. It is that which led to superpower withdrawals from Vietnam and Afghanistan and the more recent Russian withdrawal from Chechnya.
That is precisely where the Sri Lankan state is now. It can swallow the bitter pill of third party mediation or continue in a fool�s paradise, risking a more grievous outcome.


Introducing the R ockabye Baby Lullaby Renditions of Blink 182 CD. Rockabye Baby transforms rock favorites into beautiful instrumental lullabies. Guitars and drums are traded for xylophones and bells, and the volume is turned down from an eleven to a two. Tonight, the cradle will rock.
The Rockabye Baby Lullaby Renditions of Blur features lullaby renditions of: Tender, Song 2, Girls & Boys, Coffee & TV... and more!
The Rockabye Baby Lullaby Renditions of Maroon 5 CD features lullaby renditions of: Moves Like Jagger, This Love, She Will Be Loved... and more!
The Rockabye Baby Lullaby Renditions of Muse features lullaby renditions of: Uprising, Knights of Cydonia, Supermassive Black Hole, Starlight... and more!
Introducing the Rockabye Baby Lullaby Renditions of Taylor Swift CD . Rockabye Baby transforms rock favorites into beautiful instrumental lullabies. Guitars and drums are traded for xylophones and bells, and the volume is turned down from an eleven to a two. Tonight, the cradle will rock.


I believe the church has no right to refuse a DNA test. There are people out there who want to learn the truth. By refusing the test doesn't make them seem reliable and trustworthy. If they are sure that S. Mark is there , then why they refuse? I can't see the point. Or ....they are not sure at all; but they ( I repeat) have no right to refuse the DNA test.
Of coarse they're afraid. Let's face it - most everything (actually I can't think of anything that's been proven to be real but I could be very wrong about that) that's been dated has been proven to be a fake. To me, the claim that St. Peter is laid to rest there is completely false! If they were so certain about it being St. Peter then I don't think they'd hesitate to have it tested.
Now, if we knew for certain that it was Alexander-the-Great ........ that would be amazing. Even if I weren't an Alexandrian, I'd still find it more fascinating if it were found to be true. The whole story of it ending up being Alexander and the theories about how and why it ended up being Alexander would be far more interesting than another 99% certain fake!
If it's proved they're Alexander's remains I think ( like Cynisca said) they won't lose anything. It's going to be one of the greatest historical discoveries and not lose but they will gain a lot. After all if they have Alexander there instead of the Saint it is not their fault. It was somebody else's fault long time ago. Why are they afraid, then?
Exactly. BUT, there are millions and millions of people that have no doubt about what the church says is there. This is not a group they wish to become doubtful.
Time for egg on my face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is it supposed to be St Mark? I kept writing St. Peter!
Has Andrew asked people to sign a petition to ask for this testing to be done?
Actually, if the church played it right - Alexander is very important to Christianity. After all, the faith spread through the Greek language. This can be led directly back to Alexander and his resulting Hellinization of the world at that time.
I was reading the synopsis of Andrew Chugg's book and he mentions, as I've read in other places as well, that after Alexander died they say his body "remained curiously fresh and lifelike..., which may indicate a profound terminal coma". Now, I know medicine has come a long way since then but certainly they knew if someone is breathing and has a heartbeat they are alive!!! Now you can't be in a coma without breathing or having a heartbeat because then you would be dead!! This has always puzzled me greatly. I've taken care of a lot of people in comas and yes, you can tell they are alive.
So, was he dead yet his body appeared lifelike - if so, how? Did they put something on him to curtail the decomposition process - we know they eventually did because they mummified him. Or, did they just pronounce him dead because ??? they knew he wouldn't live? Or, did they not check for things like breathing and heartbeats????? Or, is the whole lifelike thing simply a myth???
Looks like another interesting read for us....!
THIS is the most interesting thing i found about alexanders tomb ubication. And i want to shear it with you.
In January of 2005 I was able to visit the Nebi Daniel mosque. The imam actually let me go down into the crypt and I took video and digital images of Nebi (prophet) Daniel's green covered sarcophogus. There was also a smaller sarcophogus near by but I don't recall who it was for.
I know that people are talking about Alexander being in Venice somewhere as St. Mark and anything is possible. My reasoning is similar since it could be applied to the pre-Christian prophet Daniel. In other words, why not do that DNA test on Daniel too since his remains are where the tomb of Alexander was supposed to be. Oh, by the way, there is also another shrine holding the remains of Daniel but that one is in Iran. When I saw the sarcophogus I wondered how much of a stretch it would be for those Christians at the end of the Roman empire to say, you know what guys, this is not Alexander (who died in Babylon) it is Daniel (who was from Babylon).
Now that people are talking about Alexander being in Venice somewhere as St. Mark and anything is possible. My reasoning is similar since it could be applied to the pre-Christian prophet Daniel. In other words, why not do that DNA test on Daniel too since his remains are where the tomb of Alexander was supposed to be. Oh, by the way, there is also another shrine holding the remains of Daniel but that one is in Iran. When I saw the sarcophogus I wondered how much of a stretch it would be for those Christians at the end of the Roman empire to say, you know what guys, this is not Alexander (who died in Babylon) it is Daniel (who was from Babylon).
I agree with that, I found it a little strange that a mosque was built over what is said to be Alexander's tomb and said to contain the remains of Daniel...although the site was obviously already known and revered, so where better to place a newer shrine......!
I wonder who is in the smaller sarcophagus....?
I just came across an online article written by Nicholas Martis, former Minister of the Hellenic Republic.
Alexander the Great placed his stamp onto the history of nations as an important precursor of Christ, since he (a) brought the Hellenic civilization to the East, (b) established the Greek language as the only common tongue of communication amongst all the nations of the then known world, which was used as a vehicle to promulgate Christianity, that addressed peace and love between nations, and (c) condemned racial discrimination and declared religious freedom.
I hadn't realised just how revered and important Alexander now is, to some believers of the Christian faith, who in their wisdom have now recognised Alexander's achievements as important, regardless of which Gods and Goddesses he loved and honoured.
In the circumstances, if it did turn out to be Alexander at St Marks in Venice....the Christian church should be proud of the fact....as should the Muslims if it turned out to be Nebi Daniel.
Didn't Alexander inspire Mohammed to a certain degree too....?
In 2004 Andrew Chugg's first book The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great was published to the accompaniment of international media attention, since it reported the first credible suggestion as to the current whereabouts of the long-vanished corpse of the illustrious conqueror. In the intervening years, direct progress on testing of the candidate remains has been thwarted by the Church authorities, yet much new information has emerged, casting the enigma in an ever more probing light. In this extensively updated and extended account, the tortuous meanderings of the evidence have been tracked with scrupulous care, thus teasing apart the tangled threads of erstwhile hidden history. In these pages the author lays bare the forgotten secrets of one of the greatest mysteries bequeathed to us by the ancient world.
Wow! how great Cynisca... thank you so much for posting that... something to look out for.
among the other curios from the past.
Thus shall we honour him!
What will he think of us?
when we come to stare?
Let him be too far from us to care.
Of course, I am certain there are those who would argue Alexander will not be forgotten, but part of his mystique is, I believe, that he is *not* found.. may it be ever so.
It's a nice poem, Sikander.
Yes I understand the point. But I still wish his tomb could be found.


If Your Business Doesn't Have At Least A 4+ Star Rating on Google, you are handing your Jersey City NJ customers over to your competition.
Over the next 30 days we're offering to provide you with a service designed to get you up to 15 REAL, Totally Legitimate Google 4 and 5 star customer reviews from your customers for your business – at Zero Cost.
If you're ready to start with your own personalized Reputation Management strategy, contact us today for your free, no-obligation consultation!
Why should you care about Google Reviews and the online reputation of your business in Jersey City NJ?
90% of consumers trust the recommendations of others.
So your company's online reputation has the power to either build up or destroy your business.
Even just one negative comment about your company can have a serious negative impact on your ability to generate new customers. The internet has provided consumers with the ability to voice their opinions from virtually anywhere they want, whenever they want.
If you make just one mistake when dealing with a customer it can really come back to haunt you if they turn to the web to vent their frustrations.
In fact, the damage is done even if their complaints are not necessarily true.
No. But it doesn't change the fact that other people can create your Jersey City NJ online reputation if you don't gain control over it yourself.
But fixing, building, and maintaining a positive online image isn't easy. It is time consuming and takes a lot of skills and knowledge to get the job done.
With our expertise and skills, Marketing Impact Solutions llc can help you with a variety of reputation services – whether you need to clean it up or build one from scratch.
In addition to that, we will help you build brand awareness in Jersey City NJ, ensure you are releasing positive content on a consistent basis, and generate more positive online reviews from your customers.
Whatever your current reputation situation, our online reputation management team can implement strategies to help strengthen your online image. As a result, you can expect a steady flow of new customers who may have otherwise moved on to one of your competitors.
Ready To Start Your Free 30 Day Trial?
Contact us now so we can get you signed up for your your 30 day FREE Google Reviews Management Trial.


CoverGirl is back at it again, bringing us two new drugstore products that will help us bring our brow game to the next level. The Easy Breezy Brow line is supposed to make filling and shaping your brows a breeze, no matter what kind of look you're going for. You may have spotted one of them in Monday's Valentine's Day makeup tutorial, where you can see my first impression… and spoiler alert, I was shocked.
The first of the two new products is the Easy Breezy Brow Fill + Shape + Define Powder ($11.99). It comes in four shades and, as the name suggests, claims to do it all. If you're looking for bold brows, this product is for you. It has a wand applicator with a soft yet stiff sponge at the tip that picks up and deposits the silky brow powder.
A light hand is key with this product, as it will lay down a lot of powder. I suggest starting around your arch and tail, then using what's left on the applicator to fill in the front. What's interesting— and probably my favorite part about this powder— is that it has some volume to it, so it doesn't look like you're just tinting the skin, like other powders do. The end result looks very similar to a natural brow, which makes the overall appearance more bold. It actually took me a while to get used to the look, because it looked I actually had bigger brows, not like I had just accentuated them with makeup.
My brows stay defined and filled all day, with very little fading by night time. Using a brow concealer or highlight can make the edge sharper for even more definition, which I did in the shot above. Since I like bold brows for almost any occasion, this is what I would consider a product I'm adding to my daily routine. There is a bit of fallout with this product, so make sure you flick the brush to get excess powder off before applying.
Then, we have the Easy Breezy Shape & Define Eyebrow Mascara ($8.99) which comes in 5 shades for a range of hair colors. Like most mascaras, combing this through your brows delivers a much more natural look versus the powder. It has a mousse formula that can build up volume to make brows look fuller, and the curved wand helps you with precision and grabbing the hairs exactly how you want to place them.
The mascara is still rather pigmented, which surprised me, so just a few swipes will make a difference. I use the Eyebrow Mascara on days where I'm doing extremely minimal makeup and just need a little bit of definition to key features. My no-makeup makeup look includes foundation, brows with this product combed through, a soft contour and highlight on the cheeks.
The new Easy Breezy Brow products both definitely have a place in my routine to achieve different looks. I'm absolutely using the powder more than the mascara, since I prefer bold brows always.
Which type of look do you prefer: bold brow or natural brow?
It's really unique and I'm definitely preferring it over brow compact powders! Thanks for reading!
The brow mascara looks fabulous. I prefer mousse, gel or liquid brow formulae instead of powders, because of fallout.
Oh hey girl, you totally sold me on both of these! Love both look, the dramatic one and the natural one.
They're definitely on opposite ends of the spectrum but I love them both!
I can't wait for these to hit my store's that brow mascara is defiantly on my list !!
Yes! I love the curved shape.
Your brows are so well shaped and these products just enhance them perfectly.
I want to try the powder, I have thin brows in front, and I'd like to experiment with bold brows, great review!
I like a more natural brow, myself.
I have total envy over your natural brows. They look amazing.


PARSIPPANY, N.J., April 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: WH) announced today that it will report first quarter 2019 results on Tuesday, April 30, 2019. Geoff Ballotti, President and Chief Executive Officer, and David Wyshner, Chief Financial Officer, will host a call with investors at 8:30 a.m. ET that morning to discuss the Company's results and business outlook.
Listeners can access the webcast live through the Company's website at www.investor.wyndhamhotels.com. The conference call may also be accessed by calling 877 876-9174 and providing the passcode "Wyndham". Listeners are urged to call at least five minutes prior to the scheduled start time. An archive of this webcast will be available on the website for approximately 90 days beginning at noon ET on April 30, 2019. A telephone replay will be available for approximately ten days beginning at noon ET on April 30, 2019 at 800 374-0934.
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: WH) is the world's largest hotel franchising company, with approximately 9,200 hotels across more than 80 countries on six continents. Through its network of approximately 810,000 rooms appealing to the everyday traveler, Wyndham commands a leading presence in both the economy and midscale segments of the lodging industry. The Company operates a portfolio of 20 hotel brands, including Super 8®, Days Inn®, Ramada®, Microtel Inn & Suites®, La Quinta®, Wingate®, AmericInn®, Hawthorn Suites®, The Trademark Collection®, and Wyndham®. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is also a leading provider of hotel management services, with more than 400 properties under management. The Company's award-winning Wyndham Rewards loyalty program offers more than 70 million enrolled members the opportunity to redeem points at tens of thousands of hotels, vacation club resorts and vacation rental properties globally. For more information, visit www.wyndhamhotels.com.