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Dr. John LipmanGynecology, Vascular & Interventional Radiology Dr. Kimberly CrittendenOBGYN (Obstetrics & Gynecology) Dr. Madeleine CastellanosPsychiatry, Neurology See All
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Find a Doctor/Urology/MN/Chaska
Dr. Jason Kemberling, MD
UrologyUrology
Urology Associates Ltd111 Hundertmark Rd Ste 410Chaska, MN 55318
Dr. Kemberling's Background
Dr. Kemberling, MD is a practicing Urologist in Chaska, MN. Dr. Kemberling graduated from Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in 1997 and has been in practice for 21 years. He completed a residency at Medical College of Ohio Hospital. He currently practices at Urology Associates Ltd and is affiliated with North Memorial Medical Center. Dr. Kemberling accepts multiple insurance plans including Aetna, Medicare, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois. Dr. Kemberling also practices at Urology Associates Ltd in Minneapolis, MN.
Dr. Kemberling, MD is a practicing Urologist in Chaska, MN. Dr. Kemberling graduated from Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in 1997 and has been in practice for 21 years. He compl...Dr. Kemberling, MD is a practicing Urologist in Chaska, MN. Dr. Kemberling graduated from Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in 1997 and has been in practice for 21 years. He completed a residency at Medical College of Ohio Hospital. He currently practices at Urology Associates Ltd and is affiliated with North Memorial Medical Center. Dr. Kemberling accepts multiple insurance plans including Aetna, Medicare, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois. Dr. Kemberling also practices at Urology Associates Ltd in Minneapolis, MN. More...Less
North Memorial Medical Center
Medical College of Ohio Hospital
Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine
Learn More About Urology
Worst Case Scenario: I Hold In My Pee
We've all been there: You know you've gotta go, but you're late to a meeting, or you're on a deadline and you really need to finish that project. Or maybe you're on a Netflix binge......Read More
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111 Hundertmark Rd Ste 410Chaska, MN 55318
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3900 Park Nicollet Blvd Fl 3 Minneapolis, MN 55416


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Čikečka vas (węg. Csekefa, prek. Sečečka ves) – wieś w Słowenii, gmina Moravske Toplice. 1 stycznia 2017 liczyła 69 mieszkańców.

Przypisy

Miejscowości w gminie Moravske Toplice

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
West Cap Renaissance
A fresh downtown on a road less traveled
Back Article Feb 1, 2012 By Andrea Kennedy
West Capitol Avenue is looking pretty snazzy these days. Modern buildings with shiny, chrome lettering line clean, wide sidewalks. Newly planted trees lead to bright bus stops stylized with sculptured 'W's nearly 10 feet tall.
In the words of Capital Improvement manager Maureen Pascoe, "I like to say that the W stands for 'wow.' "
After about 50 years of decline, West Sacramento's West Capitol Avenue has been rejuvenated. First recommendations to upgrade the street came shortly after the city incorporated in 1987, but it wasn't until Pascoe joined City Hall in 2003 that real change began.
"I've worked on the West Capitol Avenue project since the day I started. In fact, I was given this assignment along with an 'I'm so sorry,'" she says. "It really seemed insurmountable."
West Cap was once the main thoroughfare between Sacramento and the East Bay until freeways and bridges started absorbing the traffic in the 1960s. As cars dwindled, so did upkeep. Transit-oriented establishments went belly up, motels degraded along with their clientele, and when the street transitioned away from its auto-packed heyday, it lost local friendliness. With no dedicated bike lane, cyclists battled what traffic remained. Small sidewalks discouraged pedestrians, and several years of repaving created an elevated crown along the median.
"It was almost impassible for ped-estrians trying to cross," says West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon. "You were almost taking your life in your own hands."
After years of efforts from Pascoe and the City Council — plus an intense 18-month construction revamp — West Capitol Avenue has evolved into the downtown city officials hoped for. In addition to housing City Hall, restaurants, two supermarkets, two major drug stores and a post office, the street has welcomed a college, community center and updated library and transit centers.
"It has all the ingredients of a downtown," Pascoe says, "so we needed to create the look and feel of a downtown."
The first step was changing what Pascoe calls the road's "diet."
"We decreased the ratio of the road from being 10 percent for people and 90 percent for cars to making it more like 60 percent for people and 40 percent for cars," she says.
Spanning the half-mile between Jefferson Boulevard and Garden Street, the city encouraged foot traffic by reducing the number of vehicle lanes from four to two each way and increased the width of sidewalks to 20 feet. They added bike lanes and street parking and upgraded bus stops, landscaping and water and sewer systems.
The $7 million in streetscape refurbishments were funded chiefly by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. "[SACOG] is interested in making investments here because the funds support the region's Blueprint program," Pascoe says.
The Blueprint program, which promotes sustainable infill city development, paid for 65 percent of the street upgrades, with the remaining funding provided by a combination of redevelopment money and utilities fees, she says.
Additional local, state and federal funds underwrote more growth across the street from City Hall at West Capitol Avenue and Merkley Street. Los Rios Community College's $7.8 million extension sprung up, along with the renovated $7.3 million Arthur F. Turner Community Library and a $2 million transit center. The $10 million West Sacramento Community Center also welcomed its first guests, who now can access its art gallery, café, public meeting rooms, senior center, daycare center, preschool and small, black box theater.
"West Capitol Avenue has all the ingredients of a downtown, so we needed to create the look and feel of a downtown."
Maureen Pascoe, capital improvement manager, West Sacramento
Pascoe says the upgrades have tripled activity in the area.
"It wasn't the kind of place where you'd say, 'Honey, let's take the kids downtown to West Sac,'" Cabaldon says. "Now, on the weekend that's a perfectly reasonable proposition for family activities."
Cabaldon and Pascoe project the new environment won't only attract local, public investment, but private dollars as well. "We've made a significant amount of community investment in recreating a main street for our community," Cabaldon says. "It really is now time for the private sector to step forward."
Investment already is visible. At the Jefferson Boulevard intersection, a prominent new Chase bank branch is covered in signage reading "Now Open."
"This is what we're after," Pascoe says. "This is exemplary use for what you have in a downtown. Having a full-service bank branch here is exactly what we hoped would happen."
Bryan Turner, principal of West Sacramento Land Co., which owns the property, says he was surprised by how much interest the site drew from potential tenants.
"Because of the streetscape improvements, Los Rios, the library and all the energy and focus paid to West Capitol Avenue, we had almost a disproportional amount of interest in that property," he says.
What's more, Turner adds, the quality of tenants has improved.
"Especially in this market, it's rare to lose a tenant and be able to replace it with an even better tenant," he says. "If the improvements hadn't been made, we'd probably have a 7-Eleven there or a convenience market of some type."
Existing businesses are keeping up with improvements, too. Ross Amin, owner of local hangout Capitol Bowl at West Capitol Avenue and Garden Street, invested more than $600,000 to refurbish his bowling alley's kitchen, bar and reception area. Amin says he has enjoyed a 15 percent boost in business since upgrading the venue.
"I see more clients and better clients," he says. "People like the new, clean area and a more family-friendly atmosphere."
While more and better establishments are the new rule, remnants of the old West Cap still pepper the block — specifically, a few remaining dive motels and their patrons.
"The motels are not good for business," Amin says. "They draw the wrong people sometimes. But it has improved."
The 23-year-old Carol's Restaurant sits adjacent to a motel. Owner Carol Baker says she's seen a drop in what she calls an "unsavory" population. The change bolstered her already-large following.
"We've been busier," she says. "I think the upgrades did make a difference. More people like coming down now that the atmosphere is cleaned up."
Even more sprucing up is expected as the likely influx of incoming businesses organically phases out less-desirable establishments.
"We are making the street suitable for the desired kind of uses we want to attract here," Pascoe says. "That may mean that some of the old uses will be bought out or remodeled to the new environment."
West Cap's improvements represent the beginning of more upgrades citywide, rippling out from the fresh-faced street to the waterfront's Bridge District, which could soon provide a more regional-scale downtown.
However, needed redevelopment dollars might not be available for future city improvements. In January, the California Supreme Court ruled to disband state redevelopment agencies. That decision spells the end for such agencies unless lawmakers pass a new redevelopment plan.
Those funds would have allowed additional work to West Capitol Avenue, extending improvements to Sycamore Avenue by 2014 and, eventually, reaching Harbor Boulevard.
"Frankly, I don't know how we will do that without redevelopment," says Cabaldon, who, with Pascoe and others, is on the lookout for alternative funding sources. SACOG support is anticipated to continue for such projects, but its contributions are insufficient to cover all expenses.
Redevelopment dollars also would have helped bridge the current financing gap for the West Sacramento streetcar planned to run from West Capitol Avenue over Tower Bridge to downtown Sacramento.
"Voters approved a sales tax measure in 2008 to support the streetcar. Developers in the Bridge District and Raley's Landing have pledged several million, and we have funds programmed in our Capital Improvement program," Pascoe says. "But it doesn't cover everything we expect we will need to contribute."
With West Sacramento's history of fiscal prudence, the breadth of upcoming redevelopment at a time of financial uncertainty has city officials scratching their heads.
"It's a challenge on a scale we've never had to deal with before," Cabaldon says.
Regardless of the loss of redevelopment dollars, the enthusiasm of city officials such as Pascoe and Cabaldon shines a bright light on the city's vision for the future.
"You just have to walk across the Tower Bridge and see what's going on in the waterfront or walk down West Capitol Avenue," Cabaldon says. "You can see that vision as clear as day."
What the Waterfront
The evolution of West Sac's shoreline
As a resident of fabulous West Sacramento, I was going to start this column with my standard opening line of "West Sac is the best Sac," but flipping through the pages of our July '92 issue, I found a quote from Val Toppenberg that said, "Cross-river bashing is not productive." What a fun-killer.
Jun 10, 2014 Christine Calvin
Small City, Big Vision
Acuity with Chris Cabaldon
There is nobody more bullish on the City of West Sacramento than Mayor Chris Cabaldon. He says no city in the region can boast of a better location and, perhaps most importantly, a better water supply. With these two key attributes, the mayor believes the west-bank city is well positioned to attract business, jobs and residents for the foreseeable future.
Feb 13, 2013 Douglas Curley
Jayson Carpenter

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I have been speaking to Mr. Hammond about our draft contract with Stuart Brisley. This I had discussed with Mr. Hammond before Stuart Brisley started at Hille.
1) The charge for APG Research Ltd. We charge 15% on the artists' fee on placement to cover our research costs. In Stuart Brisley 's case it would be £150 on £1000. At our original meeting 2 years ago we were a trust and so unable to charge fees, only receive grants and gifts. We now operate as a company limited by guarantee and are responsible for financing our research activities and so are expected to charge for our services wherever possible. Our Arts Council grant is obviously insufficient to cover the work which is building up.
2) The second point was the question of budgetary estimate for materials and facilities for the projects put forward by Stuart, so as to avoid misunderstanding and possible future escalation. I gather Stuart Brisley has already discussed this with Mr. Hammond.
I feel it would be a good idea in the near future if the three of us might meet at your London showrooms, so you could hear at first hand something of Stuart's initial thoughts on the 3 projects he put forward. Maybe you would prefer the meeting to be at Haverhill? I feel that a meeting with Stuart would be beneficial as he has very specific ideas on the artist's role in an industrial situation, which I feel sure would be interesting to you. Did you perhaps read about his show in The Times last week?
The APG has been invited to Germany (Dusseldorf & Munich) in the Spring of next year and we hope to include Stuart Brisley's experiences at Hille. The Germans want us to get APG going for them over there.


Akshat Singh surprises Simon Cowell on Britian's Got Talent – but who is he and what's his age?
SIMON Cowell was left speechless after watching Akshat Singh's Britain's Got Talent audition. But who is he, what's his age and what was his performance? Here's the lowdown... Who is Akshat Singh and how old is he? At just 13 years of age, Britain's Got Talent isn't actually Akshat's first TV appearance. He's originally from Mumbai, India, and currently lives there with his parents. He's actually a well-known Indian dancer who came into the spotlight by showing his funky moves in the Bengali dance reality show: Dance Bangla Dance. He then took part in India's reality show India's Got Talent and became an overnight sensation. Akshat also appeared on the American talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show. What did his performance entail? Although the audience and judges seem confused as soon as Akshat walks on stage, he manages to impress everyone watching him soon after. He tells the judges: "I have two mottos in life - to make everyone happy and to show everyone that nothing is … [Read more...] about Akshat Singh surprises Simon Cowell on Britian's Got Talent – but who is he and what's his age?


Ageing is an independent risk factor for many different diseases including cancers, ischaemic heart disease and diabetes.
With telomere testing we can now assess an individual's biological age and consequently their susceptibility to certain diseases.
Telomeres are the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes and as all cells replicate and age, the telomeres get shorter. Cells with short telomeres lose function and die – this is an essential part of the ageing process on a cellular level.
The length of telomeres (and the ageing process) can be altered by lifestyle changes such as exercise, stopping smoking, reducing alcohol, changes in nutrition, reducing stress and improving sleep.
Essentially by identifying an individual showing accelerated ageing we can tailor a management programme to slow or reverse telomere loss and consequently slow down the ageing process and reduce risk of developing age-related disease.


Cooking for two lazy people.
Cut the carrots in small cubes.
Place the potatoes and carrots in a oven safe pan and put the chicken leg over them.
Mix the wine with the olive oil and the spices.
Pour the wine mixture over the chicken and veggies.
Cover the pan with aluminium foil and roast at 385 F for 35 minutes.
Remove the aluminium foil and let roast for another 20 minutes.


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Artist News Business News Deals Labels & Publishers
Little Simz renews AWAL deal
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 19 June 2020
Kobalt's AWAL recordings division has renewed its artist services deal with Simbi Ajikawo, aka Little Simz, and her label Age 101. The agreement covers global marketing and promotion, digital and physical distribution, campaign coordination, A&R support, sync licensing and brand partnerships.
"Simbi is a multi-talented creative force – rapper, songwriter, performer, producer and actor – and as an artist with a singular vision for her career, she is a perfect artist for the AWAL model", says the Kobalt division's President Paul Hitchman.
"It has been hugely rewarding for the AWAL team to be involved in her growth as an artist over the last few years", he goes on. "We firmly believe that she is now poised to break through to global success. We look forward to working with Simbi and her team to make that success a reality".
Her manager, Starwood Management's Robert Swerdlow, adds: "Renewing her relationship with AWAL felt like the natural move for Little Simz. She is a true independent artist, and has her own creative vision in every aspect of her career. The team at AWAL completely understand this way forward and we feel very positive about keeping a winning partnership".
Little Simz released her third album, 'Grey Area', last year. In May, she put out new EP, 'Drop 6', written and recorded on lockdown. Her next album is set for release in 2021.
READ MORE ABOUT: AWAL | Kobalt | Little Simz


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CalPERS gets tougher on companies over compensation
Arleen Jacobius
Simiso Nzima said CalPERS officials now are looking at corporate directors if a company fails to follow a plan that aligns executive pay and performance.
When it comes to executive compensation issues at the corporations in CalPERS' portfolio, pension fund officials have made corporate board member actions personal.
In 2020, the $410 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System, Sacramento, for the first time voted against compensation committee members when voting against executive compensation plans, said Simiso Nzima, investment director and head of corporate governance, in an interview.
In the 2020 proxy season, CalPERS voted against 2,716 board members on the annual meeting ballot due to their roles as compensation committee members in failing to properly align executive pay and performance.
If CalPERS officials are unhappy with a company's compensation plan, they are now holding corporate directors accountable for failing to institute a plan in which executive pay and performance are aligned, Mr. Nzima said.
Out of 2,256 say-on-pay votes cast as of June 30, CalPERS voted against the executive compensation plan 52% of the time, down slightly from 53% during the 2019 proxy season. CalPERS voted against compensation committee members at every company it voted against executive pay. It did not vote against members who had been on the compensation committee for a year or less, he added.
"I don't think others of our size are voting against members of compensation committees," he said.
Since say-on-pay votes are advisory, voting against compensation committee members is a way to hold company executives accountable for their actions.
"We don't want to say that we don't like what you are doing, but will vote for you anyway," he said.
Typically, say-on-pay shareholder proposals are supported by an overwhelming majority of shareholders. Executive compensation proposals received 90% average support in the 2020 proxy season, about the same as last year, according to analysis from Willis Towers Watson PLC released in September. The majority of shareholders voted against 3% of say-on-pay proposals in 2020, also flat with the year-earlier proxy season.
The Willis Towers Watson analysis was based on information from 2,003 Russell 3000 companies from Jan. 1 to July 17.
Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., Rockville, Md., recommended negative votes on say-on-pay proposals 11% of the time in 2020, down from 13%. ISS recommended shareholders vote against compensation committee members at only 14% of the companies at which the most shareholders voted against say-on-pay proposals, Willis Towers Watson analysis revealed.
This is the second year CalPERS has used a new five-year quantitative pay-for-performance model as part of the framework it uses to review executive compensation proposals, Mr. Nzima said. CalPERS officials compare the pay of the company's CEO with the pay of his or her peers. For example, if a CEO's compensation is in the 50th percentile but the company's performance is in the 25th percentile, then the CEO is being overpaid relative to peers, he explained.
CalPERS officials also consider the CEO's compensation compared to rank-and-file workers, Mr. Nzima said. The problem is that how companies pay contract workers is not standardized. Every company uses a different business model for employee pay relative to its peers, he said.
Also new this year, CalPERS not only voted against committee members when it voted against say-on-pay plans, pension plan officials followed up with requests to discuss their votes with company executives.
The response rate was low, 30% as of the end of August, most likely due to the pandemic, Mr. Nzima said. He added that the rate is likely to rise as some companies wait to respond to meeting requests in September, October and November.
Executive compensation issues are not the only ones leading to a CalPERS vote against board or committee members. On the issue of making corporate board's more diverse, CalPERS voted against 164 directors at companies where meetings or other contact with executives about the lack of diversity on its board failed to produce constructive outcomes. By comparison, CalPERS voted against 314 directors in 2019 and 468 directors in 2018.
The decline is a sign of progress, Mr. Nzima said. Some 67% of the 733 companies CalPERS officials met, spoke or otherwise engaged with since July 2017 have added a diverse director to their boards.
In the past, CalPERS tended to vote against board directors on an ad hoc basis such as when company executives exhibited poor oversight resulting in a controversy, he said.
Now CalPERS is voting against board members on thematic issues such as climate change.
"This is relatively new for us," Mr. Nzima said.
CalPERS is leading engagements at 22 companies, including six Japanese firms on the issue of climate change. However, CalPERS votes against corporate directors on climate change issues only on an ad hoc basis, Mr. Nzima said.
"We may vote against directors on other thematic issues as well," he added. In March, the team will report to the board on its new ideas for 2021.
CalPERS officials have been holding 15 to 20 meetings with company executives on corporate governance issues each week since the middle of June.
CalPERS' willingness to vote against board members has gotten the attention of company executives. Almost half of those engagement meetings that CalPERS held through mid-September on executive compensation included at least one board member in attendance, Mr. Nzima said. This is a huge difference. In general, a board member will attend a proxy meeting, regardless of the issue, only 5% of the time, he said.
"This is true for most investors," that board members attend shareholder engagement meetings only on rare occasions, Mr. Nzima said.
Institutional investors generally end up meeting mostly with corporate counsel or investor relations executives, he said.
"When you talk to a board member ... you have a conversation where you are actually solving the problem," Mr. Nzima said. "At the end of the day, for us, this is about investment returns."
As large as it is, CalPERS on its own does not own that much of a single company, he explained. CalPERS' largest public holdings are Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc, which each accounted for 1% of the pension fund's total assets as of June 30.
"If more investors really hold people accountable, we will see change," Mr. Nzima said. "We need directors, we need boards working for us. We are using our capital the right way so we can have the investment returns."
CEO COVID-19 pay cuts merely 'window dressing' – report
More pension funds, managers targeting excessive CEO compensation – report
BlackRock gives institutional investors proxy-voting choices
Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance picks new director
Shareholders escalate climate-related proxy action – ISS


text:
Keyword Search of histart
History of Art Major
Helicon Undergraduate Student Group
Accelerated MA Program in Transcultural Studies
History of Art Minor
History of Art Honors Program
Arts in Paris Summer Program
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Alumni Video
Professor Jennifer Robertson interviewed on current affairs program The Agenda with Steve Paikin
by sharrell
Jennifer Robertson, professor of anthropology and history of art, was interviewed on The Agenda with Steve Paikin, the flagship current affairs program of TVOntario, Ontario's public broadcaster.
The episode, titled "Japan's Robot Nation," explored what the homogeneous country of Japan tells us about technology and social interactions.
Robertson is currently writing and editing articles and books on the cultural history of Japanese colonialism; eugenics, bioethics, and ideologies of "blood" in Japan and Israel; the genre of war art; and humanoid robots and cyberculture in Japan and elsewhere. Although her primary area specialty is Japan, where she has lived for about two decades, Robertson has also worked in Sri Lanka (1982-1992) and since 1997 has been working in Israel as well.
Tappan Hall
855 South University Avenue
histartadmiss@umich.edu


text:
The 2011–12 Northern Football League season was the 114th in the history of Northern Football League, a football competition in England.

Division One

Division One featured 19 clubs which competed in the division last season, along with three new clubs, promoted from Division Two:
 Guisborough Town
 Marske United
 Newton Aycliffe

Also, Stokesley changed back name to Stokesley Sports Club.

League table

Results

Division Two

Division Two featured 17 clubs which competed in the division last season, along with five new clubs.
Clubs relegated from Division One:
 Esh Winning
 Ryton, who also changed name to Ryton & Crawcrook Albion
 West Allotment Celtic
Plus:
 Alnwick Town, promoted from the Northern Football Alliance
 Easington Colliery, promoted from the Wearside Football League

League table

Results

References

External links
 Northern Football League official site

Northern Football League seasons
9


text:
Visit sheds light on vibrant Ukrainian Church
Don Clemmer July 22, 2018
Bishop John Michael Botean (right) listens as Redemptorist Bishop Mychajlo Koltun leads a tour of a church. Photo by Don Clemmer
Article based on Our Sunday Visitor's participation in a June 25-July 6 solidarity visit to Ukraine made by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Subcommittee on Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe.
People walk miles to participate in the pilgrimage to Stradch, a village about 12 miles northwest of the city of Lviv in western Ukraine. Here the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church gathers every June 26 to honor its beatified martyrs in an outdoor liturgy before a carpet of pilgrims that stretches to the surrounding woods and hills. The liturgy is presided over by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kiev-Halych, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church since 2011.
Near the end of the liturgy, Archbishop Shevchuk introduced some of the concelebrating bishops in attendance, including one American, Bishop John Michael Botean of the Romanian Catholic Eparchy of St. George's, based in Canton, Ohio. Archbishop Shevchuk noted that Bishop Botean's presence represented the solidarity of the U.S. bishops and Catholics in the United States. Bishop Botean was in fact on official business, representing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Subcommittee on Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, which distributes funds from a national second collection (taken up Ash Wednesday in most U.S. dioceses). Last year, the collection gave $2.3 million in funding for 75 projects in 23 countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe.
Bishop Botean's June 25-July 6 solidarity visit brought the vibrancy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church into particular focus. This Eastern rite fold makes up some 8-10 percent of the country's population and is a fraction of the size of Ukraine's Orthodox majority, but it's still the largest Church in Ukraine in communion with Rome (Roman Catholics comprise only 1 percent of the population).
As the U.S.-based shepherd of a Greek Catholic Church himself, albeit one rooted in neighboring Romania, Bishop Botean told Our Sunday Visitor his background offered him "opportunities that no Latin rite bishop would ever have here." Calling Byzantine Catholicism "an extended family for me," he said he wanted to use the shared identity "to strengthen the sense of solidarity."
Adversity past and present
It's nearly impossible to disentangle the story of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from the painful traumas its people have endured, past and present. For instance, the Holodomor — the Soviet-engineered famine that caused millions of Ukrainians to starve to death in 1932-33 — is a horror that elderly grandparents still remember. But Ukrainian Catholics most frequently reference the experience of their Church being driven underground from 1946 till the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bishops died in jail. Church properties were confiscated. Worship took place in people's homes in the dead of night. Several people who spoke to OSV said, "They were like the first Christians."
More recently, Ukraine has experienced the revolution of late 2013 and early 2014 that saw the ouster of its president. Early 2014 also saw the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the beginning of a war that continues to be fought in the country's eastern and southern regions. Meanwhile, the new government struggles to overcome corruption and financial instability. All of these factors make the role of the U.S. bishops' collection even more critical for the Church.
"The support is something absolutely necessary," Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, told OSV. "There are reforms going on, but it takes an awful lot of time, and people are in need." The economic state of the country is keenly felt in the tradition of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, he noted, where over 90 percent of priests are married.
Vibrancy, evangelization
Archbishop Shevchuk called U.S. support for the Church in Ukraine "outstanding," adding that Catholics in the United States and in his country can help each other fulfill their mission. (In the States, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has eparchies in Philadelphia; Chicago; Stamford, Connecticut; and Parma, Ohio.)
Archbishop Shevchuk, who is only 48, despite his already having led Ukraine's Greek Catholics for seven years, sees an evangelizing vitality in his Church. "Because of our evangelical position," he said, "our Church is very attractive. We have much to say to the Ukrainian society, and young people are attracted by the witness of our Church."
'Shoulders of Giants'
In addition to the adversity it has overcome, the life of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has been marked by the leaders who have transformed the Church and even helped ensure its existence from one generation to the next:
Archbishop Andrey Sheptyski, metropolitan archbishop 1900-44: Archbishop Sheptyski occupies a space in the minds and hearts of Ukrainian Greek Catholics comparable to a Pope St. John Paul II, but stretched across the first half of the 20th century. Much of what Ukrainian Catholics know today was pioneered under him, such as the push for Eastern rite Catholics to reclaim more of their liturgical customs and Byzantine identity, things that had been "Romanized" over the centuries since their re-establishing communion with the pope. Archbishop Sheptyski was also a pioneer in ecumenism, and his ideas would influence the Second Vatican Council. Two years after his death, the Communists officially liquidated the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, driving its adherents either into Orthodox churches or underground.
Cardinal Josyf Slipyi, major archbishop 1944-84: Archbishop Sheptyski's successor was imprisoned for nearly 20 years at the beginning of Ukraine's Communist period. Archbishop Slipyi was released in time to participate in Vatican II, though a conditional gag order prevented him from speaking about his treatment by the Soviets. He would live out his years exiled from his home country. Blessed Pope Paul VI made him a cardinal in 1965. His story is associated with the novel and subsequent film "The Shoes of the Fisherman," in which a bishop is released from a Soviet gulag only to be made a cardinal and subsequently elected pope.
Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, major archbishop 2001-11: Cardinal Husar is considered the modern father of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. After coming to the United States with his family as refugees after World War II, he was ordained a priest of the Stamford, Connecticut, eparchy in 1958. In 1977, Cardinal Slipyi clandestinely ordained Husar and several others bishops, though this would not be recognized publicly till 1996. As major archbishop, Cardinal Husar hosted John Paul II on his 2001 visit to Ukraine. In 2004, he returned the seat of the major archbishop from Lviv to the capital city of Kiev, a move that provoked some Orthodox but which he saw as a necessary reclamation of the identity of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. He retired in 2011 and died in 2017 at age 84.
Tetiana Stawnychy, who oversees the USCCB National Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe and who led the delegation on its two-week solidarity visit, agreed. "One of the things that I think the Church really has to offer society is that kind of prophetic speaking into civil society, into the fabric of life — through values, through Catholic social teaching," Stawnychy told OSV.
She added that the experience of being driven underground has a consequential impact. "There's something very genuine and vibrant about its witness. I think many of the faithful would tell you … that they stand on the shoulders of giants."
Bishop Botean noted that he was struck by how the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church "really gets it" when it comes to mission and that the staff are "doing really creative work, with very few resources."
This was evident in his visits to the administrative offices of the Patriarchal Curia in both Lviv and Kiev, where a structure comparable to the USCCB — and made possible through funding from the collection — helps the bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to work in collaboration.
An effort like building marriage preparation programs from the ground up would sound familiar to Catholics in the United States, but other efforts are more innovative, such as intentionally facilitating exposure between the elderly and young people.
"I spent my time with my grandparents," Father Bohdan Tymchyshyn, who oversees the family life efforts of the Patriarchal Curia, noted of his own formation in the Faith. Meeting with the U.S. delegation June 27, Father Tymchyshyn highlighted the role of family in evangelization. "Transmission of faith — it belongs to the family." He added that families come to church together, not just for faith, but for the community that parish life engenders. "It helps the family itself and also the young people to learn from each other … especially on the moral issues."
Projects that the U.S. bishops help to fund in Ukraine have largely fallen into two areas: helping rebuild church facilities that, when returned after Communism's collapse, were in grave disrepair; and seminary education, ongoing formation for priests (who often studied underground), and other programs. This coupling of aid was evident on a June 26 visit by the USCCB delegation to the Eparchy of Sokal-Zhovkva, where Redemptorist Bishop Mychajlo Koltun showed his guests a roofing project currently underway thanks to USCCB funds, then introduced Bishop Botean to mothers of Ukrainian soldiers who participate in a program for grieving military families.
At the House of Mercy, a center for children with special needs in Chortkiv in the Eparchy of Buchach, Stawnychy of USCCB emphasized how unheard-of such care would have been under Communism and is still unusual in Ukraine today. She noted that the Church's efforts have allowed for this dynamic growth at the service of people in need.
"When Communism fell apart, there was suddenly this upswelling of faith, of belief that I think really helped to move each of the countries back in the direction of regaining all these things that were lost — restoring a sense of initiative, restoring a sense of trust." The fruits, she said, are "healing, both to the human person and to society."
Don Clemmer is managing editor of Our Sunday Visitor. Follow him on Twitter: @clemmer_osv
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1/26/2004 S Referred to EDU, WAM.
2/3/2004 S The committee on EDU has scheduled a public hearing on 02-06-04 at 1:45 pm in conference room 212.
2/6/2004 S The committee(s) on EDU recommend(s) that the measure be PASSED, WITH AMENDMENTS. The votes in EDU were as follows: 6 Aye(s): Senator(s) Sakamoto, Hooser, Kawamoto, Menor, Tsutsui, Hogue; Aye(s) with reservations: none ; 0 No(es): none; and 1 Excused: Senator(s) Chun Oakland.
2/20/2004 S Reported from EDU (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 2262) with recommendation of passage on Second Reading, as amended (SD 1) and referral to WAM.
3/5/2004 S Reported from WAM (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 2759) with recommendation of passage on Third Reading.
3/9/2004 H Received from Senate (Sen. Com. No. 116) in amended form (SD 1).
3/25/2004 H Reported from the committee on HED (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 970-04) as amended in (HD 1), recommending passage on Second Reading and referral to the committee on FIN.
4/7/2004 H Reported from the committee on FIN (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 1116-04), recommending passage on Third Reading.
4/8/2004 S Received from House (Hse. Com. No. 350).
4/14/2004 S Senate Conferees appointed: Sakamoto, Chair; Taniguchi, Kawamoto, Co-Chair(s); Hogue.
4/19/2004 H House conferees appointed: Takai, Takamine Co-Chairs; Tamayo, Kawakami, Ontai.
4/23/2004 H This measure has been deleted from the meeting scheduled on Monday 04-26-04 at 3:00 pm in conference room 329.
4/23/2004 H Bill scheduled for Conference Committee Meeting on Tuesday, 04-27-04 at 3:00 pm in conference room 329.
4/28/2004 H Conference Committee Meeting will reconvene on Thursday 04-29-04 at 3:30 pm in conference room 329.


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Andy Bloomgarden gets you
By: Devyn Blandford
Andy Bloomgarden, academic advisor for the Department of Criminal Justice and 2018-19 Advisor of the Year
What's on a typical student's to-do list?
As you might guess, it's much more than "get to class" or "study for the next exam." Today's students are juggling short-term and long-term goals, such as fulfilling degree requirements while charting an on-time course to graduation. At the same time, they're often searching for internships that might lead to a future career or a part-time job that might help offset their student loans.
Being a student can be overwhelming at times, but Andy Bloomgarden, academic advisor for the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences Department of Criminal Justice, understands what students are going through.
He gets you.
For Andy, the key to advising students is maintaining a delicate balance between challenge and support, based on what each student needs.
"There are some times when students may need a little bit more challenge and certainly sometimes when they need a lot more support," Bloomgarden says. "I'm probably more support than challenge because I feel that there's a lot of pressure out there – the cost of an education has gone up significantly in the last 20 to 30 years. A lot of students have loans or will graduate from school owing a lot of money. I feel like they should get a high level of customer service while they're undergraduates, and academic advisors have the opportunity to really provide that."
Born and raised in Bloomington, Andy began his undergraduate education at Indiana University and completed it at the University of Oklahoma. He earned his bachelor's in communications and his master's in adult and higher education, picking up skills he would go on to use in a variety of jobs in Seattle and Oklahoma before coming back to Bloomington and IU.
Bloomgarden's main goal is to make sure students feel more confident after an advising appointment than when they arrive. Gleaned from his experience advising countless students, Andy has a piece of advice he consistently gives during appointments. "I always try to encourage students to not compare themselves to other students," he says, "because maybe their roommate is pursuing a degree in Kelley and it seems like they have it all figured out for the next 40 years of their life. Truth be told, none of us has the next 40 years of our life planned out, or the next 20, or the next 10. It tends not to work that way."
Bloomgarden's main goal is to make sure students feel more confident after an advising appointment than when they arrive.
Andy's approach highlights how academic advisors work to get to know their students as individuals in order to help them craft a college experience that acknowledges who they are as people and offers the best expression of their unique skills and goals.
"I tell students it wouldn't have mattered whether I had a B.A. in communications, a Bachelor of Liberal Studies, a B.A. in criminal justice or history – it wouldn't have affected where I am now. I think sometimes students get concerned that they're not pursuing the right credential, whatever that means. I think it's really good to look at the value and strengths of a liberal arts education, to think about all these skills students are developing that they may not even know they're getting throughout their education."
During and between student appointments, Andy finds a lot to appreciate about advising students in the College and being back at IUB. "I really enjoy different parts of just working on a college campus, getting to see everything start again each year. Each year brings with it a different group of students, but being able to see similarities between students that are starting now versus those who started when I was a freshman here – technology may have advanced and things may change here and there – but students are still students. They're figuring a lot of things out and they need plenty of support."
Looking for advising resources + support?
Learn more about academic advising


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North Ayrshire & Arran
Conservative and Unionists
Campaigning With Us
Jamie Writes to Justice Secretary
Thursday, 2 August, 2018
Jamie Greene MSP has today written to Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Humza Yousaf, asking for details on what action the Scottish Government is taking to protect emergency service workers in North Ayrshire.
This follows two Freedom of Information requests that found assaults on emergency service workers in Irvine (particularly the town centre) remained high, whilst across Ayrshire there were 191 properties that ambulance staff would not enter without a police officer out of concern for their own safety.
Jamie has previously stressed that the Scottish Government must do more to protect emergency service workers as they undertake their heroic duties in keeping the public safe.
Jamie Greene MSP commented:
"My position is simple – one assault on an emergency service worker is one too many. These brave men and women are on the front line everyday keeping people across Ayrshire safe, so it is unthinkable that people would actually go out and attack members of our emergency services.
"Unfortunately, these incidents are far too common across North Ayrshire and the West Scotland Region.
"The responsibility falls on the Scottish Government, as well as opposition parties, to do everything in their power to ensure that our emergency service workers are afforded the proper protection as they undertake their heroic duties."
By joining the Conservative Party, you're doing your bit to help change Britain.
Your support is vital to our campaign to build a better future.
We need to build a strong voice for local Conservatives and we can only do that with your help.
Any donation will make a difference.
North Ayrshire & Arran Conservative and Unionists
Promoted by Richard Wilkinson on behalf of North Ayrshire and Arran Conservative and Unionist Association, both of 52 Princes Street, Ardrossan, Ayrshire, KA22 8DF.
Copyright 2020 North Ayrshire & Arran Conservative and Unionists. All rights reserved.


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�Dedicated to the advancement of sugar glider medicine & stewardship for Veterinarians and the pet owners they serve.�
INTERACTIVE CARE GUIDE
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How to Fabricate and Install an E-Collar
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Sugar Gliders (also commonly known as Sugar Bears and Honey Gliders) are small marsupials similar in appearance to a flying squirrel. They are native to Australia, Indonesia and New Guinea and have become extremely popular pets in the United States, Canada and Japan. They were first imported into the United States in 1993.
At the present time, they are legal to own as domestic pets in 46 of the 48 contiguous states; with Pennsylvania and California being the only exceptions.
Due to their small stature, and the fact that they enjoy cuddling and curling up with their owners in shirt pockets or pouches, they are generally included in a group of animals commonly known as pocket pets. They have grown rapidly in popularity over the last decade to the point where it is now estimated their commonality is comparable with other traditional pets such as hamsters and guinea pigs.
With proper care and nutrition, sugar gliders can live between 12-15 years in captivity. Males reach sexual maturity at 12-15 months out of pouch (OOP) and females mature at 8-12 months OOP. Adult sugar gliders typically reach 5-6 inches in length (with a tail of equal length) and and weigh between 3-6 ounces.
Dietary Advancement
Most health problems are the direct result of following insufficient, outdated diets found on the Internet. Previously accepted diets such as Leadbetters, HPW, and BML have been steadily replaced by more nutritionally-balanced, less-complicated pellet foods specifically designed for Sugar Gliders. The two most common pellet foods are: (Glide-R-Chow - Award Winning Sugar Glider Food) and NutriMax (www.vetspride.com)
A healthy diet should consist of 75% pellet food, 25% fresh fruits/vegetables. A calcium-based multivitamin formulated specifically for sugar gliders is also required. The two most common multivitamins are: (Glide-A-Mins - Sugar Glider Multi-Vitamins) and VitaMax (www.vetspride.com).
Sugar gliders, like human children, will eat sweet, fatty foods to the exclusion of healthy items. Intake of fruits/vegetables should be limited as noted above, and removed each morning. Pellet food should be left in cage at all times. Insects are typically high in fat, and should only be fed on rare occasions as treats.
Sugar gliders are particularly susceptible to toxicity poisoning. All fruits/vegetables must be thoroughly washed prior to feeding, and only bottled, filtered water should be used.
Changing the diet to which a young Joey is accustomed can induce significant stress on the animal and is not recommended.
Sugar Gliders should not be presented with a wide selection of foods, as they will almost always eat sweet items excessively (and to the exclusion of other more nutritious foods) when portions are continuously made available. Again, the damaging effects of this behavior cannot be overemphasized enough and necessitate proactive management by owners as it is believed to be a substantial contributing factor to many illnesses seen by practitioners. Uneaten fruits/vegetables should be removed from the cage each morning.
Copyright © 2014 Association of Sugar Glider Veterinarians™ All Rights Reserved


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Godlessness In Theory
The Time I Designed An Ambigram (And Finally Finished A Project)
Podcast: On Hair Loss, Queer Aesthetics and Ritual
We Need To Talk About How We Talk About Religion
My Atheism Will Not Be Politically Correct
Where I've Been, And Everything I Wrote Last Month
bdeye51 on Four Things The Orbit Is Doing Differently, And Why We Founded It
JerryO on Four Things The Orbit Is Doing Differently, And Why We Founded It
Caroline Kelly on Four Things The Orbit Is Doing Differently, And Why We Founded It
AMM on Four Things The Orbit Is Doing Differently, And Why We Founded It
Brian Pansky on Four Things The Orbit Is Doing Differently, And Why We Founded It
Sexism and feminism
'Shut Up, I'm Talking': Why I Refuse To Educate Bigoted People
December 29, 2015 September 23, 2016 Alex GabrielBi, Biphobia, Education, Queer, Relationships, Sex and relationships, SJW, Social justice5 Comments
'I don't really understand what biphobia is,' a partner told me once. It was, he felt, a useless word. 'If you're a male bisexual, you're normal except attracted to guys. The only people who object are homophobes.' Like so many gay men, he thought the bi label was a way of clinging to a comfortable life, one foot in the straight camp for appearances' sake. 'You seriously think it's harder to come out as bi?' he asked when I said it had been for me. 'Then you have no idea what you're talking about.' ('To say it's worse for bi people,' he added later on, 'I just found ignorant.')
In the US, a quarter more bi men than gay men live in poverty, while fifty percent more abuse alcohol and contemplate suicide. Three times as many bi women as lesbians are raped, a third more abused by partners, two thirds more severely beaten by them. (Their numbers are also far worse than straight women's.) Bi men are sexually assaulted more than gay men are and abused by their partners fifty percent more. Police attack three times as many bisexuals as monosexuals, and health workers place bi patients at risk of undiagnosed STIs by asking about their activities with one sex and not the other.
I could have offered statistics like those about our comfier, more normal lives. Instead I talked about my own. When the other guy informed people he was gay, how many told him he was lying or in denial? How many other gay men said he was untrustworthy and spread diseases? How many people said he should make up his mind, or wasn't really gay? That he was misleading partners and making things more difficult for real gay people? How many kept calling him bi, despite him saying he wasn't? 'Wait,' he replied. 'Your point is that people don't believe you're bisexual? Why do they have to?'
If he wanted to understand biphobia, I said, he only had to listen to himself—but he insisted people not understanding something didn't mean they were bigoted. 'Instead of blaming them and calling them biphobic, it's important to educate them. When the reaction is aggressive and defensive, of course people start to form their own weird opinions. You think every time someone makes a stupid comment about gays, I should just freak out? How is that supposed to help? It won't change their mind. I'd rather stay put and explain. If you don't have any patience, don't moan about people not getting it!'
It's conceivable people who disparage bisexuals should be able to reason for themselves, but cis gay men regularly tell LBTs to pipe down and be more polite, that they didn't get where they are today with confrontation, anger or entitlement; that we won't make strides of our own till we accept we owe people an education who demean and degrade us nonstop. Forget Stonewall and who was there, that bi people threw bricks at police while homophiles told them and poor, black, brown, Jewish and trans queers to be quiet: abandoning self-respect was what Pride was all about.
Shut up, I'm talking
Anger has changed my mind plenty of times, and I know mine has changed other people's—alienating those you care about, it transpires, is a good incentive to adjust how you act—but when at-risk groups are told we need to school people who treat us badly, it's always as if there's no overlap. Bi people need to educate gay and straight people, not to scream at them. Trans people need to educate cis people, not to bully them. Black people need to educate white people, not to frighten them. People with disabilities need to educate people without, not throw a fit. It's always one or the other.
I told the other bloke what people like me tell people like him, that it isn't marginalised people's duty to be teachers—but I think there's another issue here. Lots of us want to be educators, and we know the difference between being listened to and being talked over, between salient, responsive questions and irrelevant ones—between privileged people who know where their knowledge ends and those who speak like they know more than us. We know the ones who value our input are the ones who know we don't owe it to them. We know the ones who order us to school them are never the ones who want to learn.
Here's my experience: when someone I've called ignorant demands I educate them, they don't want me to be patient—they want me to have infinite patience, to listen to them affably, without anger, however they behave, and to treat anything they say as valuable. They want me to teach them what I know, but not to act like I know more than them. They don't want me to assert any control of the discussion, to set limits on what I'm willing to explain, on where and when and for how long, or to impose any kind of boundaries. When they tell me to educate them, what they mean is 'Shut up, I'm talking.'
Professional educators—teachers, lecturers, instructors, sports coaches, health experts—are authorities in their field who expect to be listened to, not talked over. Good educators expect students to learn on their own instead of being spoonfed; they reward some contributions more than others and impose boundaries on how their students act. Bad educators display infinite patience; good ones are patient but know where to draw the line, as well as how and when to get angry. Good ones nurture relationships with their students but allow bad attitudes to harm them.
When I request input from someone with a background I don't share—legal advice, tech help, perspective from a black or trans colleague—that's the kind of relationship I want. When people ask for my input, I sense it's what they want as well. When I needed an education in the past, getting kicked round the room for being ignorant was a pretty effective one—but when people who've just insulted me tell me I'm obliged to educate them, I don't think an educator is what they want at all. I think what they want is an enabler and a doormat, and I have better things to do than supply one.
And that partner of mine? We didn't last.
What if rape at university wasn't impossible to prove?
September 2, 2014 March 13, 2016 Alex GabrielBureau of Investigative Journalism, College rape, Education, Maria Marcello, Oxford, Oxford University, Rape, Rape culture, Sexism, Sexism and feminism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Statistics, Universities, University9 Comments
Discretion advised if graphic details of this subject upset you.
Somewhere or other, you've probably read the last post on this blog by now. Other versions of Maria Marcello's article 'I Was Raped At Oxford University. Police Pressured Me Into Dropping Charges' have appeared at the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Mail, the Tab, the Huffington Post and openDemocracy – the fact it's the first thing she's ever written is why you should follow her and why I'm privileged to be her editor. (It's also why if you're looking for one, you should hire me. Just saying.)
In the follow-up she published today, Marcello dissects what users at the Mail told her. Among other things, many fixated on her assumed inability to prove she was raped after falling asleep drunk.
I would ask this lady[:] Just what does she know about the event?
If you are so drunk that you have lost your memory or passed out how can you remember if you consented or not?
What evidence can she provide that she said 'no' to the main she claimed raped her?
How do you know you were raped if you don't remember the night? In the period between being put to sleep and waking up with a man next to you, consensual sex could have been initiated, due to the heavy state of intoxication.
If you're drunk and passed out, then who knows what happened? She could have dreamed the whole thing!
There would little to no evidence to bring a successful prosecution in this case. No DNA, no witnesses, no other evidence apart from a statement from someone who was so drunk they were passed out at the time with only a dim memory as their evidence.
In other words, her assault was just another case of 'he-said-she-said college rape' where nothing could be proved.
As she notes in the sequel, the point of the original post was how much she could prove.
According to the Crown Prosecution Service and the Sexual Offences Act, extreme inebriation makes consent impossible. To prove her attacker raped her, Marcello had to establish a) that she was in such a state and b) that he had sex with her. What evidence did she – or rather, since I was with her at the time, we – have?
Well:
We had Marcello's word, mine and up to three other people's that she was so drunk she had to be helped to bed (i.e. couldn't walk unassisted).
We had photos and several minutes of close-up video footage taken of her on the floor, unable to speak coherently and obviously extremely drunk.
We may also have had forensic evidence of how much alcohol she'd consumed had police physicians examined her. (The CPS advises they present this sort of evidence to courts in rape trials.)
We had Marcello's word that she woke up while her attacker was having sex with her.
We had the word of guests who believed this was about to occur when they left.
We had the rapist's statement witnessed by half a dozen people over dinner that he'd had sex with her, and possibly other statements to this effect.
We had bruises on her upper thighs and her statement she had difficulty walking, which police physicians would have confirmed had they examined her.
We had several used condoms which were presented to police.
We had clothes and bedsheets covered in forensics which were presented to police.
This was the case a police official informed she didn't have once they'd got her upset and alone, before making her decide on the spot whether to press charges. The pretext for making others leave the room, gut wrenchingly, was that she not be coerced out of doing so.
Says Marcello of the official:
She said she got called to investigate a number of rape reports each day and her job involved deciding which of them it was worthwhile to pursue and which it wasn't. In her opinion, as she made clear from the start, mine fell into the latter category.
I have to wonder: if this wasn't a case worth pursuing, what was? I'm not a lawyer, but my guess has always been that if she'd been allowed to speak to one before making her choice, they'd have told her it was stronger than average. Even without the forensics, it should have been enough for her college to expel the undergrad who raped her – if a student's shown to have broken the law any other way, they don't have to lose a court case before there are consequences.
The received wisdom about rape, especially where alcohol's involved, is that it's impossible to prove – a matter by definition of one person's word against another's. Since that day in Maria Marcello's kitchen, I'd always assumed her case must be exceptionally good.
When Stephanie Zvan said this, as so often when I read her, my assumptions changed.
This is what drunken "he said-she said" college rape usually looks like. https://t.co/u6hS2sf0p8
— Stephanie Zvan (@szvan) August 29, 2014
We know victims of sexual assault skew young. According to Britain's Home Office, women aged 16-19 are at the highest risk of sexual victimisation, closely followed by those aged 20-24, and are four and a half times as likely as the next hardest hit age group to experience rape. (Marcello had just turned 20 at the time of her attack.) In other words, university-age women are the most raped demographic.
We know that, according to a rightly maligned set of government posters, 'one in three reported rapes happens when the victim has been drinking'. I'd speculate that since only one in five rapes is reported and alcohol commonly used to dismiss complaints, the real-life figure is higher – and that it's especially high on campuses and among young people where drunkenness is more common in social settings, men and women live in close quarters and a culture of sexual assault has been widely observed.
'I've heard lots of stories similar to mine', Marcello writes, 'from people assaulted [at university].' All factors suggest the reality we're looking at is a very high number of rapes that share the broad outline of hers: heavy social drinking, a vulnerable or unconscious woman and a man who 'took advantage'.
She had, I take it you'll agree from the list above, a large amount of evidence both that she too drunk to consent and that her attacker had sex with her. But how much more was it than the average woman in her situation has?
Hours afterwards and with law enforcement's tools, it's not that hard to prove two people had sex – or at least, that someone with a penis had sex with somebody else in one of the ways the law requires for rape. Often seminal fluid can be found, either in used contraceptives or the when victim is examined. Often there are physical signs they were penetrated, including internal injuries. Often there are external marks left on them or forensics at the scene that point to sex. Sometimes the attacker thinks they did nothing wrong and <i>tells people</i> it happened, in person or by other (e.g. online) means. Sometimes they're interrupted in the act, whether or not the witness views it as assault.
Many women in Marcello's situation, I'd guess, have at least some such evidence.
Proving the absence of of consent can be more complex, but it doesn't need to be when someone's so drunk they can't walk, talk or consent to sex. The video footage we had always struck me as an exceptional clincher, but then drunk photos and videos often appear on students' social media accounts. Even when drunk victims aren't filmed, they may be seen collapsing or needing help by far more people than a handful in their room – by crowds at a college party, for example. They may be assaulted after receiving first aid, being admonished by bouncers or no longer being served by bar stuff – all evidence of drunkenness. They may still be suffering symptoms of severe intoxication the next day, or have signs of it in their system police physicians can record.
It's still true, of course, that proving rape isn't quite as straightforward as proving a crime where issues like consent aren't involved. But it's not true drunken college rapes are simply a case of he-said-she-said: on the contrary, extreme inebriation where demonstrable makes the absence of consent much more clear-cut.
Writes Marcello:
There would be more convictions if the police process didn't pressure women with viable evidence to drop their reports. In 2012–13, official treatment of victims like me meant only 15 percent of rapes recorded by the police even went to court.
According to a report at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, official treatment of victims like her means evidence of vulnerability that should guarantee conviction – including drunkenness as well as things like disabilities – is routinely used precisely to dismiss reports, stop charges being pressed and get rapists off.
The best way to convict more is to stop telling victims with a strong case that they have no evidence.
To the atheist tone police: stop telling me how to discuss my abuse
August 17, 2014 March 13, 2016 Alex GabrielAbuse, American Atheists, Atheism, AtheistTV, Beth Presswood, Chris Stedman, Christianity, Civility, Daniel D'addario, Diplomats, Education, Faitheist, Faitheists, Family, FGM, Firebrands, Freethinker, Genital cutting, Greta Christina, Harassment, Huffington Post, Humanism, Jonny Scaramanga, Matt Dillahunty, Oxford, Queer, Rape, Religion, Rhetoric, Salon, Secularism, Self-harm, Sex, Sexual assault, Shaheen Hashmat, Sue Cox, Suicide, The Freethinker, Tone, Violence57 Comments
This post is currently getting a lot of traffic. If you like it, here are some of the other things I write.
As an undergraduate I chaired a group for student atheists — at least, that's what I assumed it was. The finalist who'd stopped being in charge officially a year before I got elected, but who most people still answered to in private, disagreed. When we ran a stall at freshers' fair together, he insisted I not tell punters Oxford Atheist Society was for people who didn't believe in God, in case this stopped religious people joining.
It turned out what the ex-president wanted was a humanist discussion group welcoming believers and working with them for church-state separation, so once he'd done a lot of talking, we became the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society. Supposedly this made us all-inclusive, but anything deemed antitheist was discouraged lest it put believers off — things I had to say, for instance, about being taught I was satanically possessed or trying to kill myself because of the things I believed.
I hear a lot about constructiveness, especially from fellow atheists convinced people like me should pipe down and behave. Calling religion harmful, they've told me, is immature and stops us 'breaking down walls'. What, they've asked me, does it achieve?
Since I started talking publicly (mainly in print) about it, I've been informed I'm inflammatory; that I need to keep things civil; that I'm hateful, encourage stereotypes and impede mutual understanding; that atheists like me are a liability, holding the movement back; that I need to smile more.
I've noticed that often, atheists saying these things have no real religious past.
'If you're arguing that confrontationalism — arguing with believers about religion, or making fun of it, or insulting it — is hurting our cause,' Greta Christina wrote in 2011, 'which cause, exactly, are you talking about?' In the same post she proposes two competing atheist agendas: working against sectarianism and for secularism with believers on the one hand, opposing religion qua religion on the other. How polite or fiery we should be, Greta suggests, depends which of the two our mission is.
Chris Stedman, constable of the atheist tone police, responded at the Huffington Post: 'If your "top priority" is working to eliminate religion, you are not simply an atheist activist — you are an anti-religious activist. . . . I do not wish to be associated with narrow-minded, dehumanising generalisations about religious people'. Several combative bloggers, he pointed out, had said blinkered things about Muslims and Islam, therefore all attacks on religion were dehumanising.
American Atheists has launched a television channel. At Salon, Daniel D'addario calls the four hours he spent watching it horrific.
'Despite my own lack of religious belief', he writes, 'I find it hard to imagine that even a casual nonbeliever would tune in . . . AtheistTV adheres to nasty stereotypes about atheism — smugness, gleeful disregard for others' beliefs — to a degree that's close to unwatchable.'
Matt Dillahunty of The Atheist Experience is skewered in particular for 'feed[ing] viewers a diet of scorn'. This translates to wearing a flame-patterned shirt, calling a Bible story 'absolutely horrible' and using the word 'stupid' about God. (No context is given.)
Fair enough if D'addario dislikes the channel, but by suggesting its tone does nonbelievers actual harm — that is, none will tune in because it hurts their movement's image — he goes beyond writing a bad review.
AA has thousands of fee-paying members. The Atheist Experience has over twenty thousand fans and Dillahunty over thirty thousand Twitter followers. Whatever stereotypes their tone fits weren't concocted by conservatives: obviously, it speaks for many real atheists. Smug or not, aren't they allowed a voice?
Last month a column of mine went up at the new site of the Freethinker. I talk there about how as a queer teenager I tried to kill myself, and how I hold responsible the mainstream, nonfundamentalist Christianity I practised at the time: about letting go and letting God, convinced he never gave me more than I could handle while I was assaulted and harassed into self-harm; about declining to defend myself because the turning the other cheek was Christlike.
There's a lot I don't talk about there.
I don't talk about how when I overdosed, I lost consciousness afraid suicide would land me in Hell, where aged six I'd been told relatives burned and where aged nine I'd been told I would go for lying.
I don't talk about wondering what I'd done wrong to make that cycle of harassment and self-harm God's plan for me and what I should learn from it.
I don't talk about being pressured to pray in tongues once I was convinced aged eight the devil had possessed me, nor being aged seven to perform 'faith healing'.
I don't talk about the demons I believed entered our home, the one I believed was my father or the Hallowe'ens when year on year I hid from trick-or-treaters chanting prayers in abject terror.
I don't talk about fasting till it hurt.
I don't talk about the children who couldn't visit on my birthday since they went to different churches, my childhood belief Hinduism was Satan's work or result fear of anything Asian — yoga, Indian art, a woman in a sari.
I don't talk about being told all Muslims practised FGM and 'want[ed] to die for Allah', or that Muslim men were instructed to rape Christian women.
I don't talk about the schoolteachers I had who, sermonising, told me God 'deplore[d] homosexuality'.
I don't talk about the preacher in the streets of my hometown who called me an abomination, or how when I mentioned it online I was accused of 'having a go at Christians'.
I don't talk about my brother calling me an offence against nature and God.
I don't talk about the magazine cutting my mother kept that said I was an atheist because I had a stubborn heart.
I don't talk about being preached at by guests at my friends' church wedding or glared at by the vicar when my friend's body was buried because I hadn't joined in with the hymns.
I don't talk about being threatened with hell for being an atheist.
I don't talk about being told I'd have my head cut off.
When I do talk about these things, people don't usually suggest I smile more.
It's other times I talk about religion I'm called bitter, hateful, counterproductive, told I need to quieten down. But when I talk about religion, I always have the above in mind.
When you tell me to speak more respectfully, this is what you're telling me how to discuss.
Remembering it I return to Greta Christina and Chris Stedman, and want to say that after what it did to me, talking as rudely as I like about religion is my goal, not just a means to it. I return to every time I've heard atheists like me aren't constructive, and want to say that after years holding my tongue, speaking freely is a huge achievement. If it hampers outreach by faitheists with no inkling of my experience*, I don't give a fuck.
*A clarification: it's in no way my intention to suggest no 'faitheist' has a history of this sort. Especially in Britain, where secular upbringings are much more common, I maintain they often accompany the silencing of confrontationalists – but I don't mean to erase the trauma of people who challenge me.
I will say this: if you're telling me to shut up for no reason except finding my tone unpalatable – if it's not (see below) about consequences or factual errors – it's a charitable assumption that you're doing it because you don't know better. If you survived what I survived or worse, you have no more right than anyone to shush me, and (I'd have thought) more reason not to.
I return to Daniel D'addario at Salon. I want to ask: what's it to him if other atheists are more barbed than he is? Isn't switching off his TV enough?
I return to my atheist group's ex-president. I wnt to ask: if a secularist mission means atheists can't speak freely about religion, what is the point of it?
Others I know are called hateful.
Beth Presswood has family who refuse to acknowledge her long-term partner — Matt Dillahunty. Some have declared him, if memory serves, to be the devil. Except because 'he thinks it's nuts to rely on a book for wisdom and guidance', D'addario can't see why he's 'bothered' by US Christianity. Could this not be at least a factor?
Jonny Scaramanga writes, occasionally snarkily, of the ultra-extreme Christian upbringing that left him alone, depressed, uneducated, socially unequipped and with wildly skewed attitudes to gender, race, sexuality and politics. Those he criticises label him bitter and his work a hate campaign.
Sue Cox has spoken publicly about the Catholic priest who raped her when she was a minor and her family's decision to tell her this was part of God's plan for her. When a television clip was posted on the Internet, some commenters called her an anti-Catholic bigot preaching hate.
Shaheen Hashmat lives with mental illness resulting from 'honour' abuse in her Scottish-Pakistani Muslim family. Because she sees Islam as central to her family's actions, she is accused of 'fuelling Islamophobia' (demonisation of Muslims) and being a puppet of white racism.
These are extreme cases, but extreme manifestations of religion aren't the only abusive ones. Many in religious communities…
…fall victim to genital mutilation. (About one human in seven or eight, specifically.)
…suffer violence, physical or sexual, in other contexts — by parents, clergy, organisations or states.
…are taught not to defend themselves from violence, as I was.
…are told traumatic experiences are punishments from a higher power.
…are terrorised with lurid images of damnation and hell.
…suffering 'knowing' those they care about are damned.
…have no chance to mourn loved ones properly due to religious differences.
…are seriously maleducated, including facing abusive learning environments, being fed fundamental scientific mistruths or being denied facts about sex and their bodies.
…are shunned or isolated for leaving religion or not following it as expected.
…are harassed in the workplace or at school for being skeptical.
…are denied child custody explicitly for being atheists.
…are rejected by family members or have to endure painful relationships with them.
…are forced into unwanted relationships or to end desired ones.
…are taught to submit to their male partners.
…are taught sex and sexuality are sinful and a source of shame.
…are taught their bodies, when menstruating for example, are sinful and a source of shame.
…are taught their bodies are a cause of sexual violence — including violence toward them — and must be concealed to prevent it.
…are taught their minds, because they live with mental illness, are gripped by cosmic evil.
…are medically or socially mistreated in hands-on ways while mentally ill.
…are told they're sinful, disordered or an abomination because they're queer.
…are told skepticism makes them a traitor to their race or culture.
…are denied medical care they need urgently — birth control, condoms, HIV medication, hormone therapy, transitional surgery, abortion, blood transfusions.
…give up much-needed medicine voluntarily due to religious teachings and suffer severe ill health.
…perform rituals voluntarily — fasting for instance — that seriously endanger their health.
…are manipulated for financial gain by clergy, sometimes coerced out of what little they have.
…are manipulated for social gain, often too reliant on their congregation to leave when they have doubts.
If this is true in religious communities, it's also a reality for those who've fled them. Atheists who were believers have frequently been profoundly harmed; I suspect movement atheists are especially likely to have been; confrontational atheists, even likelier.
When you tell us how to talk about religion, you are telling us how to discuss our abuse.
There are times when rhetoric should be policed or at least regulated through criticism. It's true many attacks made on religion, especially by those still forming atheist identities, are ill-informed, sectarian or oversimplistic — and that such attacks often punch down, reaching for racism, classism or mental health stigma as antitheist ammunition. (There are many other examples.)
It needn't be so. I've challenged this because I think we can and should go after God without harming the downtrodden through splash damage. Doing so on everyone's behalf who's been downtrodden by religion is itself, I adamantly believe, a mission of social justice. Failing at it by making substantive errors or throwing the marginalised under the bus invites and deserves criticism; a rhetoric powered by justified anger needs to be carefully controlled.
But that is not a question of tone.
And it does not discredit the mission.
Bigotry and imprecision in antitheism have often been treated as intrinsic to it, conflated with the very notion of (counter)attacks on faith. Stedman, who states in his book Faitheist that he once 'actually cried — hot, angry tears' because of atheist vitriol, is especially guilty of this, treating racist comments on Islam like they invalidate all opposition to religion. D'addario's attack on AtheistTV as smug and scornful has, similarly, covered my feed where secular 'social justice warriors' congregate.
If this is you — if you're an atheist progressive who wants barbed, confrontational atheists to shut up — we're likely on the same side most of the time… but there's something I need to say.
People like us are infamous for words like 'privilege', 'splaining', 'problematic'; part of the power of concepts like these is that when transferred between activist contexts they expose parallels. I'm deeply aware there can be only limited analogy between atheism and the concerns of more marginalised groups, and would hate to devalue their language. But I'm convinced of the following:
It is a form of privilege to be an atheist who's never experienced religious abuse, as many of us have who are antagonistic.
It is privilege blindness to expect — without a clue what we've experienced or what it means to us — that we give up our self-expression so that you can form alliances with faith communities that deeply injured us.
It is tone-policing if when you're not telling us to shut up about it, you're telling us how to talk about it. How dare you tell us to be more respectful.
It is splaining if your answer when we detail histories of religious abuse is 'Yes, but' — or if you tell us we can't blame religion for it since not all believers do the same. We know the details. You don't.
It is gaslighting dismissing justified anger about widespread, structural religious abuse by telling us we're bitter or hateful.
It's civility politics implying our anger, bitterness or hatred is just as unacceptable, siding with the aggressor by prioritising believers' feelings over ours on the false pretence of neutrality.
It's respectability politics implying we need to earn an end to bigotry we face by getting on politely with believers, throwing those of us under the bus who can't or won't sing kumbaya.
It's internalised bigotry shaming atheists for being stereotypical — smug, scornful and the rest — for letting the side down, instead of asserting our collective rights however we express ourselves.
It is victim-blaming to treat atheists who are stereotypical as a legitimate cause of anti-atheist bigotry or hatred.
It is tokenisation to impose on any individual the burden of representing atheists so our collective status can be judged by how they act.
And it is deeply, deeply problematic to cheer for snarky, confrontational firebrands of social justice who take on mass structures or beliefs that ruined their lives… then boo snarky, confrontational atheist firebrands off the stage who've survived religious abuse.
I must talk about religion and the things it did to me, and must do so however I like. This is my goal, not just a means to it — it's my hill to die on and matters enough that nothing can compete. I don't care if it sets back my career, hampers others' work or hurts religious feelings.
Actually, hang on — yes I do.
If you feel your texts, traditions, doctrines, revelations, fantasies, imaginary friends or inaudible voices are licence to ride roughshod over other people's lives, I want to hurt your feelings.
If your god, in whom billions believe, tells you to terrorise or mutilate children, deny them basic knowledge of their bodies or their world, jeopardise their health, inflict physical violence on them or assault them sexually;
If he tells you to inform them their trauma is deserved, that their own bodies were to blame or that their flesh and broken minds are sinful; if he tells you to instruct them against defending themselves or if their thoughts of him drive them to suicide;
If he tells you to preach racism, queerphobia or misogny; if he tells you what consensual sex you can and can't have and with whom, or to destroy loving relationships and force nonconsensual ones on others;
If he tells you to threaten and harass others, subject them to violence or deny them medical aid;
If your god, in whom billions believe, inspires the fear, abuse and cruelty I and countless others lived through:
Fuck your god.
Class dismissed: how I went from homelessness to Oxford, and what Richard Dawkins has nightmares about
December 24, 2013 March 13, 2016 Alex GabrielBritain, Class, Education, Family, Life, Oxford, Oxford University, Politics19 Comments
Say this city has ten million souls
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes
A letter in a too-large envelope came five years ago this week. The paper had shifted in the excess space so the plastic window meant for the address showed its initial lines of text instead. I am pleased on behalf of Wadham College, it began, to offer you a place. Oxford's 2013 interviewees sit, as I write, in hope of such a letter.
Legends abound about the Oxbridge interview, referred to always with a definite article as in 'the Eucharist' – an arcane, unalterable rite shrouded in mystery. Oxford and Cambridge hopefuls have stories thrust on them of rugby balls, bananas and trick questions, and access workers' first task (I was one once) is to dispel these myths. Interviews in reality amount most of the time to cordial, relaxed if mentally rigorous exchanges – nothing worse. Oxford's bizarrenesses are many, but kick in for the most part only once successful candidates take up their spots. You might imagine by my fourth year there, I'd have acclimatised, but you'd be wrong: few ever wholly do. Memories of finals, now eight months ago, are among my most surreal.
Oxford's exam dress – gown, mortarboard and suit or skirt-and-jumper – looks centuries out of date because it is. Amendments made to rules in 2012 eliminated reference to gender, making my year the first whose men could wear ordinary black ties rather than ivory bows, an aesthetic and practical step up that nonetheless resembled funeral garb. (Appropriate, I felt, for long dead academic prospects' burial.) Tradition, though I'd no time for it, dictates white carnations be worn on top for first exams, pink ones thereafter and red for the final one, a colour scheme it's always seemed to me suggests loss of virginity. Finalists in most subjects file thus dressed into Examination Schools – venue, incidentally, of next year's World Humanist Congress – to sit exams between ornate wood-panelled walls, observed by ancient portraits, gazing periodically up at giant clocks that may or may not be as Victorian as they appear. The whole ritual feels close to religious; I can tell you, since he once told me, that Richard Dawkins has nightmares about it.
Being, unlike him, an academic slacker, I never felt much strain during my finals. I didn't expect a very good degree, nor feel in need of one. (Upper second, as it turned out, English and Modern Languages.) One memory persists, though. Returning to college down Queen's Lane from a twentieth century English paper (I managed a first there), three stocky, plum-voiced undergrads fell boorishly about ahead of me, red carnations near-invisible through baked beans, flour and confetti. 'Trashing', as it's known, is another Oxford custom, inflicted on students finishing exams. I'm thankful I escaped it. Stumbling on down the road, the boy on the right shook vigorously and then uncorked a bottle of champagne, dousing the middle one in the resulting spray of foam. His accomplice on the left, still guffawing, restrained their target as he tried to flee, and the boy with the bottle upturned it over him, releasing every drop till none remained.
More than half Oxford's students are state-schooled. Few attended England's ancient public schools, as alarmingly many did in Britain's cabinet, and it's lazy to equate the two: Oxford is no costlier than any major university, and the ten percent of students with parents on less than £16,000 a year pay fees of three thousand instead of nine. It's true though that an air of privilege pervades. Trashing is harmless fun for students in historically male garb well off enough to dry-clean it. It wouldn't have been for me. My stomach turns recalling that champagne, but only since it spoke to the whole practice's louche insensitivity. I saw this often at Oxford – in colleagues who wore designer clothes to bed and insisted a time passed when their parents 'only' made £250,000 a year; in those who casually forked hundreds out to replace a blemished croquet set; in the drunken braying outside pubs of boys in tailcoats who thought they owned the place. (Perhaps they did.)
The day I arrived, hauling luggage from a taxi to my first year room, a woman in her fifties with a warm Oxfordshire accent greeted me whose name was June, and whose role my fresher's pack had told me was to clean my room, make the bed and change the sheets. Her job description, like the figure she earned, should have been longer: when it turned out I'd no duvet of my own, June snuck me a college owned one reserved for conference guests; when I spent my first week bedridden with swine flu, she brought food to my door; when I failed to lock it, she chided me good-naturedly. A surrogate mum a hundred miles from home, I loved June as I've read England's public schoolboys love their domestic matrons – but flinched inwardly at how clearly this seemed the basis of her role. Early on, she referred in passing to wealthy parents funding my degree – the truth, I told her immediately, was that I belonged to that poorest tenth of students, reliant on a student loan and grants. A bedmaker who cleaned my floor felt as embarrassingly alien as meals served in the college hall by staff in black bow ties. (Their supervisor held the telling title of Head Butler.) When possible, I ducked these to eat privately or in the cafeteria.
My appetite – in one sitting, I can polish off whole cakes or quiches – was a subject of fun now and again in my tutorial group. They discovered it as time went on, but never why. I'm able to do this for the same reason I'm able, more or less, to function normally for two or three days without food: I know how it feels to be hungry for years.
It wouldn't be true to say my mother and I starved at any point, but nor were cupboards ever adequately full. The two of us were homeless before I turned a year old; fleeing her then-husband, a man who broke her heart and numerous other parts of both of us, it took officials the best of two years to house us properly. The benefits on which we spent the next few years allowed, after expenses, a household budget of £70 a week or so, meaning that on my mum's trips to the shops, counting the pennies wasn't a metaphor. From the staples of our diet, bread, cheese, pasta and potatoes, she fashioned an uncanny range of meals, many of them my comfort foods today, but supply was limited. I still recall her voice, frustration masking despair, telling me when circumstances bit that there was 'no food in the house'. Free school lunches, such as they were in the nineties, meant I rarely went without for longer than 24 hours, but if it was a weekend when this happened and no neighbours, church members or friends were forthcoming with help, nothing could be done about it. If I overeat at times, it's because the concept still feels new.
Mum was 42 when she had me, but lived for the following years as students are imagined to. Our furniture, food itself if still vacuum-packed, came out of skips. Even the fridge in which the latter sat, she got by swapping the inferior original with another single mum's named Shirley; the washing machine next to it, her first husband bought us. Almost all my clothes were second hand, donated by parents from church or the school gates, though always in good nick. It's hard to get across just how poor we were, except that it shows in subtler ways too. Some nights, Mum taught keep fit at the local primary school, unpaid monetarily (a stipulation of her benefits) but provided in exchange with household goods – among them, a stereo. CDs from Woolworths being an unthinkable expense, I grew up with her cassette tape collection from the sixties, seventies and eighties, and my childhood's songs as a consequence were by Dusty Springfield, the Pointer Sisters and Diana Ross. I was seven before I listened intently to contemporary music (a copy of Cher's 'Believe' bought in a fit of decadence), and half way through my teens before I paid real attention. A gap of fifteen years or so in my musical knowledge, despite attempts to close it, has resulted.
The cost of a bottle of champagne, even from the cheap end of the shelf, would for us have meant an extra two or three days' food. The hatred stirred in me by seeing one used as a water pistol is as incommunicable as our thriftiness back then, but prompts even now a hot, breathless nausea and impulse to lash out. I felt it at Oxford many times, though never more acutely than then – when a friend schooled for a six figure price complained a degree unfunded by his parents would saddle him with debts; when alumni of such places, 7 percent of Britain's populace in total, mentioned their attendance as casually as if discussing where to buy socks; when I heard it said my feeling in response, called class hatred by those who've never had it, was the last accepted prejudice (a stupid phrase if ever there was one).
Pointing to class in any personal context is considered impolite. Praised by the Daily Mail last year, actor Tom Hiddleston – a product of the prep-school-Eton-Cambridge assembly line – complained the 'artistic, political or intellectual has to be refracted through [a] prism of class consciousness'. Even a left wing, feminist friend opposed politically to fee-paying education shot me down for saying I wouldn't date Eddie Redmayne of Les Mis fame since he went to boarding school with Hiddleston. Analogies in these areas are treacherous, but it's tempting to think class, like gender or race, is something a friendly liberal politics encourages us not to see from day to day – dismissing and disregarding it as academic or off-limits, concerned as we might be in principle for that elusive thing, 'equality', in case the marginalised should make the privileged uncomfortable. Doing so prompts frequent accusations of bigotry, spreading the politics of envy and having a chip on one's shoulder – canards, surely, that feminists and progressives like my alma mater's ought to recognise.
If this post was unexpected, I know why. With my tweedy prose, unfashionable vowels (the 'a' amuses friends and enemies alike) and Latin postnominals, I'm something of a caricature – but 'caricature' is the word. Look closely for the giveaways: teeth affluent parents would have set in braces, hair only recently cut by professionals, voice without the real upper crust's affected twang. I spot signs like these from a mile away: a partner of Hiddleston's or Redmayne's ilk, like the boys on Queen's Lane who used champagne like water, would mean a barrage of emotional slaps in the face, a reminder in Wystan Auden's words that they lived in mansions while I lived empty-stomached in a hole.
Try telling me I oughtn't resent that. Try.


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