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The Pandemic. Reflections in light of anthropology and history
José Ignacio Ruiz Rodríguez
Health inspection of immigrant children. Ellis Island during fear of typhus. New York, 1911.
In the field of politics and analysis of social reality, I do not like to appeal to emotions. I leave them to channel the love I feel for all those around me and whom I love; I leave them to feed my spirit; to stop time with my dreams, my desires and the stimuli I perceive with my senses. When I try to understand political and social reality, I make every effort to place myself on the side of reason, isolate myself from passion and submit myself to the rigours of understanding things. I leave my artistic and emotional side behind and transform myself into what my profession as a social scientist or intellectual has made me rational. I examine the data and when I want to analyse it, I submit it to the rigour of a scientific method, knowing that I am doing so from a certain epistemological approach. No need to mention that this means that I have to remove from the analysis any hint of ideology. Whenever I have the opportunity, I explain that ideologies, all of them, are false representations of reality, no matter how coherent they want to be presented to us. Foucault spoke of the exercise of power over people from the submission of bodies by the control of ideas. This is precisely what predominates in our society and which in the present epidemic crisis is not only not abandoned, but is reinforced, both by those responsible for politics and their extensions, the large media, and also by the networks. At the moment that we are living most people are appealing to feelings, emotions and low passions, and this is fed from ideologies, which operate like a chisel engraving in the minds their messages to submit the bodies to their control. It is true that ideas can serve to build utopias and horizons of salvation, more or less achievable, or to change reality, but not to understand it.
But why do you resort to so much ideology and why is it so successful? Because man can depart from everything except his depths, from the telluric in him, from his longing for the absolute, from his passions, from his creeds; that is to say, from his emotional side, from the animal. And if his creative force is born from this, the destructive one also arises. It is then that it moves away from reason, which with its codes of language, of abstraction to understand what we do not see, has led us to the human, to transform the most primitive animality into humanity and thus to its survival. This means, that if we feed the sentimental side and the animality, then, the theoretical balance, between feeling and reason that has made humanity triumph, breaks from the side of the animal, and the human disappears. Petrarch said that reason speaks and feeling bites. If we cultivate the sentimental animal side, we turn man into a beast and the mass into the bestial. The examples of these imbalances are dotted throughout history; it is enough to remember the era of totalitarianism, with its ideologies of hatred, to see to what extent man, however cultured he may be, becomes an animal; and I am not referring only to fascism, I am also referring to communism, nationalism and other ideologies. There is no social system where man becomes good. He is always the same, capable of doing good and evil, and the result of those totalitarian experiences should teach us what we are capable of when man is pushed towards his animality.
Dance of Death. Picture representative of the plague, taking people without distinction.
Today we are faced with one of those situations that history has in store for us, which makes it man. And when I say man, I mean the human being who, in search of his happiness, security, well-being, becomes ambitious, selfish and many other things, which anthropology explains to us and which helps us to understand that man is never satisfied and wants to ensure tomorrow in an unlimited way. This has led him repeatedly in history to enormous catastrophes. Suffice it to say that in the 14th century European man, through trade with the East, imported the bacillus of the pasteurella and caused the famous Black Death, which killed half the population of the whole of Europe. The worst thing about that pandemic, however, was that it disrupted the whole system, with socio-economic and political disorder that took away the lives of innocent people and property, and brought hatred, much hatred, misery, desolation, persecution, civil war and chaos. And that situation lasted a century and a half, year up, year down. I am not going to tell you this story, which many will know and which I have written in some of my books. The only thing I will say is that it came out of that when there was a coherent project that produced a change in the world view, that is, when the new reality was understood and the structures were adapted to it, leaving behind the demons that we built.
We are in a difficult situation, which should make us reflect on the danger of activating animality and on how to get out of it with the least possible damage. It is difficult to face misfortunes when we do not know where we are. Today, in addition to the epidemic, we are facing a change of worldview that is not understood by our politicians, here or there, or by social communicators or political marketing operators who, with their old and outdated ideologies, are the creators of opinion and chimeras for the masses, who only think about the now. And what is more serious, the current crisis, is not resolved by activating animality from ideologies.
Let's look at ourselves with a little historical and sociological perspective. The Apollonian and Promethean man, who came out of the Enlightenment movement that exemplified progress and hope, has become Dionysus who only seeks hedonism, pleasure, the momentary; the absolute I, that is the archetype of individual man that we have reached. The summit of anthropocentrism. The very idea of progress, oriented towards the mythical and utopian conquest of the future, has left the sequence of time, remaining in the present, in the instantaneous; the past has become useless and the future dystopian, retrotopian or at least nostalgic, with the consequent loss of Hope. Reason has been transformed into desire, into what I want and choose, which is consumption. This consumption has transformed us citizens into consumers, also of politics. And even the power of the word, as an instrument of communication and encounter, which defines us as human, has succumbed to the seductive power of the image, of the spectacle and of the verb that is thrown around (the misnamed debates, which should have been called combats); the word of dialogue, persuasion, the intellectual, the dialectic has vanished, because it has very little to do with any image-spectacle that provokes emotion and feeling and that distances us from reason. When do we see, those who know, dialoguing, persuading, reasoning, talking? However, we are overwhelmed by the seducers, converted into imposed and studied images that only know how to appeal to emotion and passion in order to subject bodies to an ideological control that even they do not know (I will leave the new phenomena of "youtubers" and "influencers" for another time). Chomsky said that today the control of people is not done by force, but by acting on their consciences. Politics is marketing that inscribes in the minds messages of training and submission in an individualistic society and whose action is based on the conquest of power for the benefit of reduced oligarchic groups (partycracy) and far from the political community they serve but do not serve. The political campaigns that are being sold to us should embarrass us, instead of making them our own and using them as arguments against our ideological adversaries. The citizen is a consumer of everything and, of course, of political ideologies that are used to indoctrinate and subdue, but we are not participants in politics. We have been turned into a social entity to be manipulated. Chomsky himself said that media manipulation was more lethal than the atomic bomb because it destroys brains. There are no longer people, all are tendencies, taken from the Big Data, which act on brains properly classified by social segments.
We are against the Truth. The Truth no longer exists because so many truths have been built up as individuals. Today everyone has HIS truth, which they confuse with their creed, and demand that they respect it. The Truth, the force that has driven knowledge, has been drowned in that liquid culture of Bauman. It can no longer be sought because it is handled to one's liking, it is a tailor-made suit. This is the breeding ground of the fake; it is what they now call, quite naturally and without blush, post-truth. We live, therefore, outside the Truth, they tell us and we accept it. Now the fool is worth more than the wise. Today the liar is accepted naturally. It does not matter how false he is if his speech fits in with what everyone believes. The messages are duly instrumentalized with a language conditioned and perverted by ideologies to penetrate minds and appropriate them. In this way, new identities are created or invented based on creating an Other that makes the I different and forces us to identify ourselves by opposing this Other. Nothing could be further from universal brotherhood. In our national sphere, apart from the attempt at transition, the identity of the Spanish being does not unite us, it is given to us by being on the left or the right, being feminist or sexist, being separatist and others that are imposed on us. But this is pure invention, these are newly invented things because they operate for manipulation. The society of the exploited and exploiters has been perishing for many years. Today's society is something much more sophisticated.
The disciplinary society (Foucault) of duty, in which some previous generation grew up, has disappeared and become what the philosopher (Byung-Chul Han) calls the society of fatigue. This society is based on the new paradigm that he calls neurological, where the I MUST is replaced by the I CAN. The individual freely submits to the positivity that is imposed by the I CAN with the result of psychically ill people -- I usually say even psychopathic -- because the enemy, contrary to the society of duty, of what should be done, is within each one, and that produces neuronal diseases (...Stress, fatigue, depression and other diseases to the point of exhaustion). Positivity, openness to multi-tasking, the imperative of performance and self-exploitation are our own chains that do not allow us to look beyond the WhatsApp; they take us away from contemplation, from thinking, from controlling instincts and passions and that brings us back to animalism. We are in absolute individuality, immersed in emotional subjectivism and very far from objectivity and Kantian reason. We have finished with everything that has roots. Nothing remains. Everything becomes old when we stop looking at it. Everything has to be changed, everything is ephemeral, utilitarian, disposable. Even what some call culture. Culture rooted in tradition, the one that gives a society structure and consistency, does not exist. We are in the gaseous and volatile "culture" where momentary opinion dominates, invented, manipulated by professional opinion makers who have elevated the absurd to the category of normal. I leave out of this summary a specific reference to the "millennials" and the "Z" generation, the addicts to likes, groups or cohorts more harshly affected by social networks, telematic media and brain manipulation, which they believe are for THEIR freedom of thought and information.
These are some of the constituent parts of our modern social system, not what we are led to believe. This is the world of the last few years that has gone global. Some have called it the society of abundance, of information, but also that of tiredness, neurologically ill. A universal social model whose economic structure has proved dysfunctional in many ways. Does this mean that we must return to the "tribe"? I don't think so, although there will be no shortage of those who propose it with this crisis. Many dysfunctions appear in this globalism that certain strongly ideological movements will soon take advantage of in their favour. But I don't think things should go that way. They should run through the understanding of the new cosmovision that is affecting us and that surpasses the perception of that reality that all politicians in the world have. We should call upon the world's intelligence, which is many and has long been "confined" in its studies and knowledge, but which no one listens to because it is not even known to exist and because it is alien to consumer shows and produces "laziness".
This confinement is giving us the possibility to think and reflect, to get out of the constant manipulation if we want to. It is true that the WhatsApp does not allow us much time for reflection, but we have recovered the possibility of talking, of listening to friends and of thinking, because television already bores many people. We have the opportunity to meditate on who we are and where we are going. This situation brings to light a less visible corruption, that of the misuse of public money that comes from the sweat of the taxpayers, and above all the corruption of the minds through the spurious use of the perversion of language that inoculates hatred in search of conflict through the invention of opposing social groups. Do we not realize that we are witnessing the breakdown of the social harmony that was what sought the transition and what makes a nation great? Is it so difficult to understand the enormous danger that this poses to a society?
Crises are the origin of new opportunities and make it possible to throw away the decomposing waste that all societies end up generating with the passing of time. History teaches us that all social systems, after a difficult search for relative harmony, have a period of splendour and when they reach the peak of prosperity they end up decaying; in the Old Testament fat cows are followed by lean cows. What is happening to us is not the fault of just a few, but of society as a whole in order to understand each other; because of its blindness and its pride. Years ago, a journalist asked me, with regard to the crisis of 2008, how can you say that crises are neither good nor bad with five million unemployed? I answered that a social crisis is like a biological disease where the fever or the symptoms warn you that you are not well; from there, you decide if you go to the doctor to be cured, or you let yourself die. Crises give the social body a chance to heal. From the falls and from knowing how to face the suffering you come out stronger, because they teach us how much of the bad we have done. These circumstances force us to rethink and try to know ourselves better as people, not gods, and to know that we depend on the collective. The fracture weakens us. Our primitive ancestors survived and overcame the dangers and the beasts because they united with the help of language, and civilizations rose up so that humanity would not succumb by closing in on the tribes.
I dare not lose hope and in view of what I see I risk formulating, now yes, some ideas, for that which some call civil society, very aware that many will reject them as impossible. I myself am one of those who believe this, but I cannot stop thinking about the model that the American political scientist Lustick explained: how, at certain moments of socio-political changes, what is impossible for a time in history, can become possible and even become probable from certain actions and circumstances. In any case, it is a way of not losing Hope. History also teaches, especially in critical moments, that the third ways have few possibilities, at least in the short term. In radicalizations, you are either with me or against me. This happened to Erasmus of Rotterdam in the 16th century during the confessional conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, as well as to Jovellanos, Feijoo and many others.
Spain is going through a very difficult situation, not only because of the epidemic, geopolitical and global crisis, but also because of the internal political situation of the country as a political community. We are losing a minimum and necessary structure. Certainly, we have a democratic government because it has emerged from the majority result of the representation of national sovereignty, made up of the citizens' vote at the ballot box. So far, nothing to say, regardless of its dysfunctions, is the law. It is the game of democracy in more or less normal circumstances, as long as we consider that the crisis of the autonomous State -separatism- is part of the normal. The issue now, with the Covid crisis19 , is that we are facing a global catastrophe in which the national one is subsumed. The internal political problems should now be relegated to a situation of extreme gravity, before an uninvented enemy, an unknown virus that attacks all humanity, from which important social, economic and even cultural consequences will derive. This is not the first time this has happened in history. I have already referred to the crisis of the 14th century which gave birth to a new world, the one we culturally know as the Renaissance. There is not only this example. In more recent times, at the beginning of the last century, the famous influenza virus, known as the Spanish flu because it caused real havoc here, broke out in 1917 and took tens of millions of lives, in addition to those already caused by the Great War. The result of that convergence of events was that the world changed, not without leaving a long period of anguish, the well known Great Depression or the crash of 29 and what came after, with the totalitarianisms of both signs (in which one was no better than the other) and which led to the Second World War. That was the end of the long road that history had to travel when what happened at the beginning of the century was not well interpreted. The false start of World War I led us to World War II! We should learn the lessons of the past. The above circumstances should make us think, although "man is the only animal that stumbles twice on the same stone", today we should put aside our ideological differences, because the priority is not the world that each one wants, but saving the support that we have left: the united nation is the table of salvation.
For Spain, I would propose (this is an ideal because any rationality would reject it) that the non-political society, that of the taxpayers, should stop playing the game that the parties, the social agitators and the "mass media" propose to us of confronting some ideologies with others; that is for the moments of stability. Because, as we have already explained, ideological confrontation leads us to animality and distances us from reason, and without reason we cannot speak of rationality. This is the best and only way to unite us as Spaniards, as the historic nation that we are, in order to fraternally face the current crisis. We have already lived through tragic moments in which the nation, abandoned by its political leaders, knew how to respond with unity in the face of the French invader and, contrary to the above, we should remember the past Civil War which confronted the nation with ideological visions. I know that my proposal involves a good dose of idealism and that it does not have to be a reality. I always remember Ortega when he distinguished between what should be and what really is. But I also remember Lustick, when he explained how an impossible thing can become probable.
The national state is based on representation delegated by the citizen vote which is national sovereignty. Sovereignty is not power, it is legitimacy. Therefore, the people are the sovereign, they do not have power but they base and legitimize it. Thus power is born for its exercise that in theory, is organized in the Legislative, where laws are born, in the Executive that executes them and in the Judiciary that guarantees that its practical exercise is in accordance with the law. This is neither the place nor the time to analyze if all this theory is fulfilled or not. Let us say that this division of powers shows cracks. However, one of the most serious dysfunctions lies in the system of representation through the parties. These are the institutional way to channel social demands into the seat of sovereignty. The development of this system of parties has derived in a partisan democracy (corporative aristocracy), this means, that has ended up predominating the corporative interest of the parties in front of the one of their represented, this way it is manifested in the discipline of the vote that is put before the electoral commitments, in detriment of the represented ones. It is likely that this, together with corruption, has led to the fall of the two-party system and the emergence of new parties, which were born with the vocation of renewing the old ones, but have been phagocytized by this system. This being within the law, it supposes in fact, the kidnapping of democracy by the parties because they put the corporate interest before the general interest. In circumstances like the present one, this leaves citizens unarmed, vulnerable and subject to constant manipulation because, as we have explained, the truth does not flow and everything becomes the interest of the party, with a greater radicalisation and increase in social fracture.
I see very little that can be done, because the State concentrates all the power in a monopoly regime, but something can be done. First, to recover the knowledge of reality, this essay is a modest approach. Second, ignore the excess of information, which is always processed ("cooked") and whose abundance is the best way to cover up the truth as the only form of knowledge. Thirdly, to unfold our critical spirit and flee from manipulations, both media and partisan. Fourthly, to activate social pressure exercised in good faith and without partisanship, promoting a great social movement in whose head we ask those who had political responsibilities in the past of one or the other sign, in order to demand the unity of parties in the seat of national sovereignty to build a majority as representative as possible to face the epidemic crisis and the economic and social catastrophe to come. This is the only way to overcome party manipulation and regain control of sovereignty. Fifth, unity around the Constitution. You can add any points you want
I know that there are political leaders, accustomed to party politics, for whom none of this enters into their plans. The point is that, in the absence of national leadership, it is the nation, in a process of integrating different social sectors, that should take the lead and demand that its representatives comply with what their constituents are asking of them. In this way, those who serve the people would be distinguished from those who only seek hegemonic projects in order to exclude and segregate a part of the Spanish people. Let us turn this misfortune, which we have only begun to experience, into the probability of a national fraternity, with respect for the Other, the basis for the healthy functioning of a democracy. Democracy is not about voting; it is about ceasing to be submissive to the parties in order to serve the general interest; it is about respecting one's adversary, and I fear that we are living in times of little respect for one another. Let us open our eyes, let us leave the voices that incite us to confrontation and let us think for ourselves. This would be democracy from the bottom up.
Recently, I was reading the historian Harari, who said that Homo sapiens was able to conquer the world through language. I hope we won't be able to destroy him with that same instrument too. Let us take advantage of this to demand and banish the falsehoods and perversions of the meanings of words so that our brains are clean.
As a flamenco fan I can't help but remember some beats in which the cantaora Lole Montoya recited with a cry of lament: "The thistle always shouts and the flower always keeps quiet, let the flower shout and let the thistle and anyone who is my enemy keep quiet". Put on the music and see in the thistle whoever you want, but in the flower the people or the nation.
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Doctor in Modern History by the Autonomous University of Madrid. Currently, he is performing research and teaching at the University of Alcalá de Henares as Professor of Modern History.
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– in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 11th June 2018.
John Bercow Speaker of the House of Commons, Chair, Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, Chair, Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, Chair, Commons Reference Group on Representation and Inclusion Committee, Chair, Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, Chair, Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, Chair, Commons Reference Group on Representation and Inclusion Committee 12:00 am, 11th June 2018
I note in passing that today is the 31st anniversary of the election to the House of a number of right hon. and hon. Members still serving, including—there is a piquancy about mentioning this—Keith Vaz. I call Mr Keith Vaz to ask the urgent question.
(Citation: HC Deb, 11 June 2018, c591)
Keith Vaz Labour, Leicester East 3:36 pm, 11th June 2018
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the reports of an imminent attack by the Saudi-Emirati-led coalition on the port of Hodeidah and the humanitarian impact of such an attack.
Alistair Burt Minister of State (Department for International Development) (Joint with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office), Minister of State (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (Joint with the Department for International Development)
I congratulate Keith Vaz on both his length of service and his question. Last Thursday, it was 35 years since I was first elected to the House—so there are a few of us old ones knocking around.
I would say long-serving rather than old.
On these occasions, I am grateful that you have such a gift for words, Mr Speaker.
On a serious matter, reports have been circulating for some time of a possible assault on either Hodeidah or Hodeidah port. Information at the beginning of last weekend, including from troop movements, suggested that such an attack might be imminent. In view of our responsibilities to aid agencies, the Department for International Development issued a statement based on that information. It read:
"We are doing everything we can through diplomatic channels to discourage an assault on Hodeidah. However despite these actions, a military assault now looks imminent. The Emiratis have informed us today that they will now give a 3-day grace period for the UN [and their partners] to leave the city. Please take all precautions necessary to prepare for this and let us know if there is anything we can do to assist you in any way. We are thinking of you and your staff at this very difficult time."
That is the email that was reprinted in The Guardian today.
The Government are and have been concerned about the potential impact of any assault on the city and port of Hodeidah for some time and have made their concerns clear to the Saudi and Emirati Governments. The UN assesses that an attack on Hodeidah could displace up to 350,000 people and leave hundreds of thousands of Yemenis without access to basic goods or healthcare. The Foreign Secretary spoke to his Saudi and Emirati counterparts over the weekend, and we are in close touch with the UN humanitarian co-ordinator and the UN special envoy.
The majority of Yemen's food and fuel imports enter through Hodeidah and Saleef ports and it is crucial that humanitarian and commercial imports continue to flow through the port. We urge all parties to facilitate access for essential imports of food, fuel and medical supplies into the country, including through Hodeidah. As with all aspects of the conflict, all parties must respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians.
No attack has yet taken place. Accordingly, we continue to urge all sides to de-escalate as a matter of urgency and to engage in the political process in good faith. The UN special envoy has previously expressed concern that conflicts in Hodeidah could take peace off the table "in a single stroke". It is essential for him to be given the time that he needs to facilitate a negotiated solution that avoids conflict in the city and we support his efforts to do so.
It is important to recall the wider conflict. The conflict in Yemen is now in its fourth year. Houthi rebels took the capital by force in 2014 and displaced the legitimate Government of Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition action is designed to facilitate the restoration of effective governance. The Houthis have consistently failed to adhere to UN Security Council resolutions: they have, for instance, launched missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, prevented access to humanitarian supplies—which has led to significant damage to civilians—and prevented vital vaccinations.
We have been clear about the fact that there can be no military solution to the conflict. We continue to encourage all parties to show restraint, to return to negotiations and to engage in the UN-led political process in good faith, to work towards a comprehensive political settlement.
Keith Vaz Labour, Leicester East
Thank you for granting the urgent question, Mr Speaker, and for your kind words. I also thank the Minister for what he has said.
The port of Hodeidah accounts for the entry of between 70% and 80% of humanitarian aid. As we have just heard, it is at risk of an imminent military assault by forces supported by the Saudi and Emirati-led coalition—a coalition strongly supported by this Government, who, of course, supply it with arms.
The three-day period that has been given to the aid agencies is simply not enough. Hodeidah has been the last lifeline to Yemen's civilians since the conflict began —2.2 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance—and an attack on the port would be a catastrophe. The United Nations estimates that it could lead directly to the deaths of a quarter of a million people, roughly the population of the city of Leicester. It would devastate the peace process. As we heard from the Minister, Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy to Yemen, who has just taken up his post, has said that such an assault
"would, in a single stroke, take peace off the table."
Will the Minister ask the Prime Minister today, after her statement to the House, to speak to Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, and tell them that they must immediately stop the military preparations for the offensive? Will he instruct our UN ambassador, Karen Pierce, to convene an emergency meeting of the Security Council to discuss this matter? At that meeting or before it, will the Government make a statement directly condemning an attack on Hodeidah and calling for a ceasefire as a matter of urgency?
Will the Minister convene, as a matter of urgency, a meeting of the Quint nations on Yemen this week? That was promised several months ago. Finally, if an attack on the port does take place—against the wishes of our Government—will we reconsider our support for the coalition, or in what way will we ensure that the peace process succeeds?
I know that the eyes of the world are on Singapore at this moment, but they should be on Hodeidah. Failure to take this action will lead to more slaughter of innocent Yemenis, and will be a stain on the conscience of Ministers, the Government and the House.
Obviously, we share much of the concern expressed by the right hon. Member for Leicester East. That is why we have consistently made the case to the coalition that an attack on Hodeidah could have very serious displacement effects, and we have expressed our concern over a lengthy period. We will continue to do so. The Foreign Secretary did so over the weekend and those conversations will continue. I stress that no attack has yet happened and, even as we speak, the UN special envoy is engaged with both sides to see whether anything in the imminence of circumstances might move the negotiations along.
I have made the case to the House before that this is not a one-sided conflict. Areas under Houthi control have prevented humanitarian access. Abuses of international humanitarian law have occurred. The Houthis stop vaccinations and steal medical supplies.
The coalition came into effect to restore legitimate government to the people of Yemen. We have expressed our concern about any action taken by the coalition that might be in breach of international humanitarian law. We will continue to do so. The Foreign Secretary is in contact with other members of the Quint and those who are concerned about potential action. However, it remains the case that a negotiated solution could still be found. We are continuing to urge that the UN special envoy has the space to be able to do that. That has been our consistent approach over a lengthy period and we will continue to do that.
Several hon. Members:
Order. A good many colleagues are seeking to catch my eye and this matter is urgent, which is why I granted the question, but there are two important ministerial statements to follow and, unusually, today it may not be possible to accommodate all who wish to take part. However, participation will be maximised if questions and answers are brief. To be blunt, there is no time for preamble.
Is Iran involved on one side in this conflict and is that a complication in the wish to find not only a brokered peace in Yemen but a solution to the Iranian situation?
My right hon. Friend is right: Iran does have a relevance to this conflict. It is engaged in supplying weaponry and support to the Houthis and we have consistently called on Iran to recognise the damage and danger done through its actions. It is still possible that Iran can be part of the solution and part of the answer to the conflict, as many parties that take part in conflicts clearly are.
Fabian Hamilton Shadow Minister (Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs), Shadow Minister (Defence)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I congratulate my right hon. Friend Keith Vaz, the chair of the all-party group on Yemen, on securing it.
There is a bitter sadness in the fact that, less than three weeks ago, we were welcoming the publication of the all-party group's latest report, a blueprint for bringing about a peaceful political solution to this terrible conflict and an end to the humanitarian crisis, yet here we are, 20 days later, facing the exact opposite—facing an attack on Hodeidah by the UAE, which according to the UN envoy, Martin Griffiths, will
"in a stroke, take peace off the table. "
And not just that but, as has already been observed by Members on both sides and by every aid agency working on the ground, this planned attack will not just threaten the lives of the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Hodeidah, but turn the humanitarian crisis facing the rest of Yemen into a full-blown humanitarian disaster. Why is this happening? After all, we are used to hearing the mantra in these debates that "There is no military solution to the conflict in Yemen." However, let us be clear what that actually means. What it means is that we take it on trust that the Saudis and the Emiratis have the good sense and humanity to understand that any conceivable military solution would cause such catastrophic loss of life that both politically and morally it would be impossible to pursue. But that, I am afraid, is exactly what we now face in Hodeidah.
Trusting to the good sense and humanity of the UAE and the Saudis is therefore clearly no longer a viable option, so may I ask the Minister today whether, at the emergency session of the Security Council due to take place in a matter of minutes, the UK will take action and table an immediate resolution demanding that the UAE stop this assault on Hodeidah before it is too late, and will he immediately suspend the sale of arms for use in this conflict?
The United Kingdom will continue to do what it has done for a lengthy period, which is to seek to discourage any attack on Hodeidah or on the port. The Foreign Secretary has been engaged in this over the weekend, we will continue to be so and that same case will be made through the United Nations.
In relation to arms sales and the like, I remind the House again that this is covered by international humanitarian law. Any suggestion of breaches of that will be subject to the law, as always, and the UK will continue to consider any possible risk of that in any future arms sales.
Thomas Tugendhat Chair, Foreign Affairs Committee, Chair, Foreign Affairs Committee
I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend joined on the Front Bench by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development and the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend Mr Ellwood; they demonstrate the joined-up effort that needs to go on here. However, has my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East had time to urge our defence attachés in the region to emphasise to the Emiratis that taking a city of 400,000 is not an easy task? Having served in the operation that captured Basra 15 or so years ago, I can assure him that the invasion is the easy bit; it is the governing it afterwards that makes life incredibly hard.
My hon. and gallant Friend speaks from experience. I can assure him that everyone who has been in contact with the coalition in relation to this has done exactly what he and everyone else in the House would expect in terms of expressing concern about how any assault might be carried out and the dangers involved. That is why we have sought to discourage an attack. The port and the city are separate—they may be separate targets—but our advice has been consistently the same in that we seek to discourage such an attack.
Chris Law Shadow SNP Spokesperson (International Development), Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Climate Justice)
The United Kingdom Government must decide which side of history they want to be on. The imminent Saudi-led attack on Yemen's largest port, Hodeidah, is set to cut off essential food, fuel and medical supplies, and the United Nations has estimated that
"as many as 250,000 people will lose everything—even their lives."
Can the UK Government therefore unequivocally assure the House that no UK personnel will assist in this attack and that no UK-made weapons or equipment will be used? Do the UK Government agree that they must take the side of Yemeni civilians over Saudi Arabia and that this attack will be a line in the sand for the UK's support for the coalition campaign? Given the imminent threat of major loss of life and starvation to an entire nation, will this Government finally and immediately cease all arms sales to Saudi Arabia? This is not in our name. Will the UK Government do the right thing, or will they go down in history as having blood on their hands?
In this House, mention is hardly ever made of the humanitarian abuses by the Houthi forces, with which the coalition is engaged, after the insurgents sought to remove a legitimate Government. There have been violations such as attacks on civilians in Aden and Taiz, intimidation of UN ships attempting to dock in Aden, the use of schools and hospitals for military purposes, the use of child soldiers, the targeting of aid workers and the imposition of restrictions on humanitarian access. We are on the side of Yemeni civilians—[Interruption.] We are on the side of the Yemeni civilians who face those things in Houthi areas every day. I repeat what I said earlier: we will continue to use our influence to discourage any attack on Hodeidah port. It would be nice to hear something about the Houthis every now and again from different sources.
Crispin Blunt Conservative, Reigate
Along with the rest of the UN Security Council, we are unanimously on the side of the Saudi-led coalition, which is trying to bring order to Yemen in the face of the Houthi rebellion. As we have heard from the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen, Keith Vaz, the port accounts for 70% to 80% of the imports into Yemen. Surely, our policy should be to aid the coalition we are supporting to take control of the port and the access into Yemen.
Order. We are short of time, and I have tried to make the point that if people asked short questions and got short answers, we would get through everybody.
My hon. Friend makes a serious point about the tactics being used to try to bring this conflict to a conclusion. Only a conclusion and a peace settlement will truly serve the interests of the people of Yemen. It is not for the United Kingdom to get involved in those tactics, but my hon. Friend makes a point about access to the port and how that can be used to benefit civilians.
Alistair Carmichael Liberal Democrat Chief Whip, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Northern Ireland)
Surely, though, unconditional support for the Saudi-Emirati coalition will never bring us to a point at which we can legitimately and credibly say that there is no military solution to this conflict.
Seeking to discourage an attack on Hodeidah is hardly unconditional support.
What estimate has the Minister made of the amount of rockets and other munitions that have been fired by the Houthis into Saudi Arabia during the four years of the Yemeni conflict?
It is difficult to say. A recent rocket attack killed three Saudi civilians, and there have been a number of different attacks. Attacks on the airport and the royal palace in Saudi have been prevented. Should one of these missiles land on such a target, the whole circumstance in the middle east would change radically.
Stephen Twigg Chair, International Development Committee, Chair, International Development Committee
The Minister is of course right to condemn the Houthis; I have never heard any Member of this House defend them. The reason for the focus on the Saudis and the Emiratis is that we are allied with them. Can I press him to answer the question from my right hon. Friend Keith Vaz about clearly condemning this proposed attack, and will the Prime Minister speak to the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as a matter of urgency?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said about the other side of this conflict, because it refers to why the coalition is engaged in the first place and why the UK should recognise its right to act to defend Yemeni civilians. We will continue to discourage action, and I will of course take the requests of the hon. Gentleman and Keith Vaz to the Prime Minister.
John Howell Conservative, Henley
Some 22 million people in the Yemen are in need of humanitarian aid. How can we deliver that aid when we are in the middle of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia?
It is difficult, but we have remarkable people who seek to deliver UK aid. On 3 April, we pledged an additional £170 million to Yemen to cover the financial year 2018-19, and we are the fourth largest donor to the UN appeal, but we should all remember the courage and bravery of the aid agencies that are working to deliver aid in difficult circumstances.
Hilary Benn Chair, Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union, Chair, Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union
Is there any prospect of the UN special envoy's proposal to deal with the problem, which is to hand over control of the city and/or the port to the international community, making any progress?
The right hon. Gentleman asks a good question. There are several different possibilities for resolving the situation peacefully, but that possibility is certainly being discussed by various parties. Anything that allows a negotiated end to circumstances that cannot provide an answer for one party or the other should be encouraged.
The sooner this port is out of the control of the Iranian-backed Houthis, the more aid will get to civilians in Yemen. Why did the UN refuse to accept the requests from the Saudi-led coalition in March last year and April this year for the UN to take over supervision of the port? If the UN will not do that, surely there is no alternative but for the Saudi-led coalition to do it.
My hon. Friend makes the point that various offers have been made to bring the situation to a conclusion and for a peaceful solution to Hodeidah port, which requires the Houthis to do something in response to the entreaties made, but that has not happened so far. If the Houthis were to do so in the next 48 hours, that would make a significant difference.
Graham Jones Chair, Committees on Arms Export Controls, Chair, Committees on Arms Export Controls, Chair, Committees on Arms Export Controls, Chair, Committees on Arms Export Controls, Chair, Committees on Arms Export Controls, Chair, Committees on Arms Export Controls
It is fair to say that there are few Saudi forces on this battlefront and that it is largely an Emirati-run operation, with Emirati troops, but led by 25,000 Yemeni soldiers. The Houthis are currently laying mines at the airport, and they are escalating the conflict in Hodeidah. They have mined the port, which has significantly reduced the amount of aid that can get in, and if they destroy it, that will adversely affect Yemen. If the Houthis blow the port up, would that constitute a war crime?
The hon. Gentleman's knowledge is extensive. The Houthis might do just that, which is a demonstration of the dangers that have been caused by Houthi control of the port and other areas and one of the reasons why the coalition is engaged.
Tom Brake Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (International Trade), Liberal Democrat Spokesperson (Exiting the European Union)
What assessment have the UK Government made of the number of people who will be killed or become refugees if the attack takes place? In what way is that influencing UK policy?
The UN has made various calculations. I referred in my statement to the fact that some 350,000 people might be displaced. It is not necessarily a question of numbers, however. Should an attack take place and people become displaced, we are all aware that the impact would be considerable. That is why we have sought to discourage the attack and to encourage a negotiated end to the conflict for the benefit of the Yemeni people.
A negotiated settlement is clearly the only way forward, but what more pressure can be put on Iran, which is fuelling the conflict by supplying missiles and other armaments to the Houthis? If pressure was put on the Iranians, surely we could get some movement towards a settlement.
Iran is aware of the international concern about the role it is playing and about some of the areas where it is alleged to be playing a role. That pressure is being applied, and Iran has an opportunity here to demonstrate that it wishes to play a less disruptive role in the region.
Following on from the question from my hon. Friend Graham P. Jones, if the port were taken out of action by an attack, would that be a breach of international humanitarian law?
It depends entirely on the circumstances. If deliberate starvation is caused as an act of policy, that is a breach of international humanitarian law. Should the Houthis decide to destroy the port, which they are being driven away from, purely to cause such action, that would probably be such a breach.
Richard Burden Labour, Birmingham, Northfield
The Minister, once again, has said there can be no military solution to this conflict, but would not an attack on Hodeidah mean a military solution is precisely what the coalition is intending to impose, irrespective of the cost in human lives? If he is not able to secure the guarantees he has been seeking on access to Hodeidah and humanitarian supplies, what action will the UK Government take to enforce international law?
In an active conflict, one side or the other often believes that, even though a military solution is not possible, military pressure may lead to a negotiated outcome more quickly. This happens in conflicts in many places. I repeat our view that no overall military solution is possible and that negotiation is best.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle Labour/Co-operative, Brighton, Kemptown
The Minister is of course right to condemn the jihadi Houthis, but will an attack on the port not push them into the city, causing far more deaths? Will the British Government draw a red line under this and ensure that no UK personnel service these weapons?
We will continue to discourage such an attack, and we urge the Houthis to take the opportunity for negotiations that is currently available.
John Woodcock Independent, Barrow and Furness
Is it not right that this deeply perilous attack could be avoided if the UN took a more robust stance against the way the Houthis are deliberately squandering aid to starve their own citizens and create a worsening humanitarian crisis?
Again, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has knowledge of these things and is prepared to express it. Houthi conduct has been devastating to the people of Yemen. The Houthis have an opportunity to end such a conflict and take part in negotiations for a peaceful future.
Can the Minister confirm that Iranian naval vessels are supplying the Houthis? Can he also confirm that Hezbollah is also engaged in supporting the activities of the Houthis?
I have no direct information to confirm precisely the terms that the hon. Gentleman uses. These allegations have been made, and we are aware that the UN special panel did indicate that missiles used by the Houthis were of Iranian origin.
I cannot recall operations on this scale having previously been conducted by the Saudis or the Emiratis. Given that the excuse often given for civilian casualties is that they have not previously conducted air campaigns, what hope does the Minister have that we will not be in that same disastrous situation after this operation?
The hope we have expressed to the coalition is that such an attack does not take place and is discouraged. That has been the consistent position of the UK Government.
Gill Furniss Shadow Minister (Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) (Steel, Postal Affairs and Consumer Protection)
When will the Government realise they will have blood on their hands if they continue to co-operate with the Saudi-led coalition, not least by selling it the arms it is using to kill hundreds and thousands of civilians indiscriminately?
I am grateful that this afternoon there have been a number of illustrations of activities by the Houthis that have caused severe damage to the Yemeni population. The House needs to understand there are two sides to this conflict, which is why the coalition has been involved.
Joanna Cherry Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Justice and Home Affairs), Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Justice), Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Home Affairs)
As the UN and other non-governmental organisations are leaving the port, how will the UK deliver humanitarian aid to alleviate the suffering in the absence of operational partners?
The hon. and learned Lady asks a perfectly fair question. If we have information in relation to an attack, our responsibility is plainly to let those who might be affected know. As soon as such a danger has passed, aid agencies will be able to move back. Again, this is another reason why we have sought to discourage such an attack.
Andrew Slaughter Labour, Hammersmith
The UAE is only one force in the Gulf that is increasing belligerence and destabilisation, but it is a very close ally of this country. Why are the Government not either using their influence with the UAE or reconsidering some of those links and co-operation? They appear to be doing neither at the moment.
As I have indicated, we have been in contact with the parties in the coalition over a lengthy period. The Foreign Secretary has been in contact with them this weekend, and it has been our consistent position to seek to discourage the attack on Hodeidah, while understanding what drove the coalition to be involved in the first place, which is to seek to defend the Yemeni people.
Nick Smith Opposition Whip (Commons)
How many British citizens are currently working on aid programmes in Yemen, and what steps are the Government taking to protect them?
Very few UK citizens are involved in the aid programmes; my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had a meeting on that, and they have been given the same information as others on the availability of leaving. Obviously, the circumstances of UK aid workers is a matter of priority, as are those of other aid workers. That is why we issued our warning notice.
I thank the Minister for his response. What talks are taking place between all those involved in Yemen's daily life? Coming from Northern Ireland, I recognise the importance of all sides being engaged in talk-talk, rather than war-war. Where is the peace process?
The peace process is in the hands of the UN special envoy, Martin Griffiths. Since his appointment in March, he has been working hard to get through to both sides and find a way in which he can put a proposal to them. I understand that he is coming back to the UN Security Council shortly to do just that. It is possible that the events that are currently going on might concentrate minds and assist that process—we earnestly hope so.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Pale-bellied Myna - BirdForum Opus
Acridotheres cinereus
25cm. A medium-sized, greyish Myna.
Blackish head with crest
Grey hindneck and upperparts, paler on rump
Dark brown wing with white patch
Brownish-black tail with white tip
Ashy-grey chin, throat and breast
Paler buffy grey belly, white vent
Lemon-yellow to brownish-orange eye
Yellow bill with small blue-grey patch at base of lower mandible
Yellow legs
Sexes similar. Juveniles undescribed.
Endemic to south peninsular Sulawesi.
Introduced in Kuching, Borneo.
Locally common, but poorly known. Increasing in Kuching.
This is a monotypic species.
This species has been involved in several rounds of splitting. It has been considered conspecific with Javan Myna and together with the latter it has also been included in Jungle Myna. The name usage is somewhat confused; see the disambiguation page for White-vented Myna
Open areas like paddyfields, villages and cultivated areas. Occurs from lowlands up to 1500m.
Feeds on insects and fruit.
Often seen foraging on the ground among cattle, usually in small groups, also singly or in pairs.
The nest is placed in a tree hole. No other information about breeding.
Presumably a resident species.
Clements, JF. 2009. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2009. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019.
BirdForum Opus contributors. (2023) Pale-bellied Myna. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 30 January 2023 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Pale-bellied_Myna
Search for photos of Pale-bellied Myna in the gallery
Retrieved from 'https://www.birdforum.net/wiki/index.php?title=Pale-bellied_Myna&oldid=201359'
Missing Images


President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said this during a joint press conference, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
"Today I have once again received assurances from you, Mr. President, that the territory of Belarus will never be used for aggressive actions against Ukraine," Poroshenko said, referring to Lukashenko.
The Head of the Ukrainian State also noted that the Belarus-Ukraine border "will never be the border of war."
As reported, President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko makes an official visit to Ukraine on July 20-21.


Pssssst... Hey, kid, the first one's free!
If you sign up for their weekly free email service, Insound will send a link to an MP3 to your inbox, free of charge.
I can't say for sure yet, because I just signed up, but if these tracks are as good as Insound's Free MP3 page, signing up will be worth it. It's like a podcast for your email account.


text:
===============
Citing SpiceyPy
===============

If you are publishing work that uses SpiceyPy, please cite SpiceyPy and the SPICE toolkit.

SpiceyPy can be cited using the JOSS DOI (`https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.02050`) or with the following:

    Annex et al., (2020). SpiceyPy: a Pythonic Wrapper for the SPICE Toolkit. Journal of Open Source Software, 5(46), 2050, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.02050

Instructions for how to cite the SPICE Toolkit are available on the NAIF website:
    https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/credit.html.

To cite information about SpiceyPy usage statistics, please cite my 2017 and or 2019 abstracts as appropriate below:
    1. 2017 abstract: `<https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017LPICo1986.7081A/abstract>`__.
    2. 2019 abstract: `<https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019LPICo2151.7043A/abstract>`__.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Follow SI's latest stories and updates from Thursday's NCAA tournament action.
Everything you need to know about Thursday's NCAA tournament action.
In his last game before the NCAA tournament, Arkansas-Little Rock's Josh Hagins scored five points on seven shots against Louisiana-Monroe. You didn't even notice him on the court, especially if, like me, you weren't watching the Sun Belt championship game and had no idea who Hagins was. But I know now.
Hagins scored 31 points against Purdue on Thursday, but that's like saying Usain Bolt won the Olympic 100-meter dash or a hockey locker room stinks. It's true, but it still feels like a massive understatement. The Trojans trailed Purdue 63-49 with 4:06 left. Hagins scored 11 points in that 4:06, including a three-pointer from Steph Curry territory to force overtime. Later he hit a floating, leaning two that should have counted for four. Little Rock won, 85-83.
Day 1 of the NCAA tournament was not an all-time classic, but a) that just means Day 2 probably will be, and b) Day 1 was still pretty great.
To be fair: Wichita State could give a lot of coaches the night sweats. The Shockers sent the Wildcats and Miller packing, preferably with fresh shirts, and if you were surprised, you must be on the selection committee. The Shockers are No. 9 in Ken Pomeroy's rankings (Arizona is No. 16) and are an established national power at this point. (Wichita State's last three tournaments: Final Four, loss to eventual finalist Kentucky, Sweet 16.) Making Wichita State a No. 11 seed was unfair—not just to the Shockers, but to Arizona.
Speaking of non-surprise "surprises": Officially, 12th-seeded Yale stunned Baylor in the West Regional, but really: Were you stunned? Have you ever watched the Bears in the tournament? With each passing minute, Scott Drew looked more like Marco Rubio, and that's not a political cheap shot: He really did look kind of like Rubio to me. I couldn't tell if it was the hair or the fact that he came in with so much hype and showed no ability to adjust in key moments. Yale looked just as good as Baylor, and better if we're evaluating uniform designs, and if you're wondering how Yale outrebounded Baylor, you shouldn't be surprised. Yale is a terrific rebounding team, ranking 20th in the nation in rebounds per game. Yale vs. Duke on Saturday should be a blast.
The performance of the day, though, belonged to Hagins, who joins Bryce Drew and C.J. McCollum and Kemba Walker and Tyus Edney and, well, you can insert nine other names off the top of your head. We have to move along before Friday's games start.
Safe to say, though, that the names you come up with will be guards. This is a guards' tournament. This has been true for a long time. Tim Duncan made one Elite Eight in four years at Wake Forest. Shaquille O'Neal won one tournament game in three years with LSU. That was eons ago (Shaq averaged 27.6 points, 14.7 rebounds and five blocks as a sophomore, then returned to school—imagine THAT today) but the tournament has not changed as much as you might think.
Purdue earned a No. 5 seed thanks to a bruising inside game led by 7-footer A.J. Hammons and 6'9" freshman Caleb Swanigan, who is so big that his nickname is "Biggie". That's just not a recipe for NCAA tournament success.
Teams that rely heavily on one or two great post players usually don't last long. There are a lot of reasons for this. For one, by the time a 7-footer rounds out his game, he is usually in the NBA, and for another, the three-pointer has traditionally been a bigger factor in college games (though that has changed). Guards rule in March. We saw this clearly when Hagins hit those ridiculous shots, and when Purdue had the ball late in regulation and nobody knew how to dribble it.
There are exceptions, but really: Not that many. This is why the people who picked Stony Brook to beat Kentucky didn't really think it through. You don't beat a team with several future NBA players, including an outstanding college point guard (Tyler Ulis) with a team led by one impressive big guy (Jameel Warney), unless the team with all the NBA players is shaving points, drunk or both.
Look around Thursday, and you saw great guards making big plays. Wichita State had Fred VanVleet and Ron Baker. Butler had Kellen Dunham. Yale had Makai Mason, who drained all 11 of his free-throw attempts on his way to 31 points. There are 16 more games waiting to be unwrapped Friday. Enjoy.
College basketball fans had to stay up late to watch the last of Thursday's slate of NCAA tournament games. The Seton Hall-Gonzaga game didn't tip off until 10:53 p.m. ET and when it finished early Friday morning on the East Coast, the Bulldogs became the seventh lower-seeded team to win in the first round with a 68–52 win.
Gonzaga's frontcourt duo of Kyle Wiltjer and Domantas Sabonis carried the load (34 points and 21 rebounds) for the Bulldogs while Seton Hall's leading scorer, sophomore guard Isaiah Whitehead, struggled mightily to score the ball. Whitehead was 4 of 24 from the field and an NCAA tournament-record-tying 0 of 10 from behind the arc for a team-high 10 points. He appeared physically and mentally frustrated, needing to breath from an oxygen mask multiple times in the game and committing a flagrant-1 foul wrestling for a loose ball in the first half.
Whitehead did a nice job setting up his teammates with eight assists, but the Pirates' shooting woes weren't limited to him. As a team, Seton Hall was 20 of 61 (32.8%) from the field and 8 of 21 (38.1%) from the free throw line. The Pirates cut their deficit to six points with less than seven minutes left in the game but their comeback bid fell apart.
Forward Angel Delgado fouled out with 4:45 left in the game and Ismael Sanogo had to be helped to the locker room with a dislocated right shoulder 23 seconds later. On the next play, Michael Nzei turned the ball over on the inbounds pass, which led to a bucket for Sabonis that put the game out of reach.
For the eighth straight season, Gonzaga has won at least one game in the NCAA tournament. The Bulldogs won their sixth straight game at a road or neutral site by knocking off a surging, incredibly athletic Seton Hall team. After a regular season that left more to be desired, the Zags defeated one of the hottest teams in the country and held one of the country's premier scorers to the worst shooting night of his career.
Even with its first round exit, Seton Hall took a step forward as a program this season, winning the Big East tournament and making its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2006. The team has a strong core with six sophomores and it only loses rotation guard Derrick Gordon to graduation. The future looks bright at Seton Hall, but the Pirates will have to experience the rest of this year's tournament as viewers, while Gonzaga advances to the second round yet again.
A second round matchup against No. 3 seed Utah awaits Gonzaga on Saturday, which will be a battle between strong West Coast teams with prolific big men. Sabonis will match up against fellow sophomore Jakob Poeltl, who is averaging 17.6 points and 9.0 rebounds per game. Both teams have tremendous size and experienced veterans, setting the stage for an exciting matchup in Denver.
Kris Dunn did everything he could to make up for his absent first half. The Big East Player of the Year's outstanding second half elevated the Friars, and Providence grabbed its first tournament victory since 1997.
Rodney Bullock found a seam in the USC defense with 3.3 seconds remaining, and his lay-in propelled Providence to a thrilling 70–69 win over the Trojans on Thursday night in Raleigh. USC looked prepared to seal the game in the final 30 seconds, but two missed free throws on the front ends of one-and-one fouls opened the door for Dunn and Providence. Dunn's long-range three tied the game at 68 with 1:27 remaining before a series of chaotic sequences of turnovers, blocked shots, missed free throws and, eventually, Bullock's game-winning layup with 1.5 seconds remaining.
Dunn sat the final 11:20 of the first half with foul trouble, but had 13 points in the second half to help keep the Friars in a game they looked ready to lose on several different occasions. Sophomore forward Ben Bentil led the Friars with 19 points and Bullock, the hero, finished with 16.
The game was fast-paced, much the way USC coach Andy Enfield likes it, and the Trojans looked primed to grab their first tournament win since 2009. But a disastrous final minute of poor ball movement and missed free throws denied Enfield his signature win since taking the USC job in 2013.
It gives the nation at least one more opportunity to see Dunn, who is expected to be a lottery pick in this summer's NBA draft. The Friars were forced to play at USC's kinetic pace, but still established an inside presence with Bentil and knocked down nine three-pointers to hang in the game. While coach Ed Cooley's team will be heavy underdogs against North Carolina on Saturday, the Friars showed they can handle and win against teams with high tempo.
Providence meets No. 1 North Carolina on Saturday afternoon in front of a heavy Tar Heel presence in Raleigh.
A wild finish between No. 9 Providence and No. 8 USC on Thursday night ended with the Friars scoring on a last-second, go-ahead layup.
After a bizarre final two minutes filled with missed opportunities, free throws, and turnovers on both ends, Providence salvaged a late chance and completed the come-from-behind win. After a loose ball deflected off USC, setting up an out-of-bounds play under the basket, Rodney Bullock freed himself beneath the basket and banked in a wide-open look.
The Trojans missed a full-court attempt with a second left to seal the result, 70-69.
Providence advances to face No. 1 North Carolina on Saturday.
Ron Baker scored 13 points and Fred VanVleet added 12 as No. 11 Wichita State beat No. 6 Arizona, 65–55, in one of the more impressive performances from the opening day of first-round play in the NCAA tournament.
The Wildcats struggled to score early against the Shockers' defense, which entered Thursday leading the nation in adjusted points allowed per possession, according to Kenpom.com. Arizona missed 12 of its first 15 shots, scored only 0.64 PPP in the first half and trailed Wichita State by double digits going into the break after VanVleet and Baker, the Shockers' star senior guards, combined for 17 points. It only got worse from there for Arizona, as Wichita State opened up a 24-point lead midway through the second half. The Wildcats cut into the lead with an 11–0 run, but the Shockers regained control with a pair of baskets by forward Anton Grady and then cruised to a comfortable victory. The defining image of the final 20 minutes was Wildcats coach Sean Miller, having already perspired through his dress shirt, frustratingly shouting instructions from the sidelines.
Wichita State was considered a bubble team entering selection Sunday. In its two games, however, it's looked like one of the better squads in the tournament. After notching a 20-point win over a Vanderbilt team with multiple NBA prospects in the First Four, the Shockers rolled an Arizona team that led the Pac-12 in offensive efficiency during conference play, per Kenpom. The Wildcats could not contain VanVleet and Baker, and the Shockers stifled Arizona on the other end of the floor. If there were any skepticism about Wichita State when it dropped two of three games to Illinois State and Northern Iowa during conference play, the Shockers have erased it. Coach Gregg Marshall's team looks primed to make a deep run.
Wichita State will take on No. 3 Miami in the second round on Saturday in Providence. The Hurricanes beat No. 14 Buffalo, 79–72, earlier on Thursday. Miami should pose a tougher challenge for the Shockers than Arizona, as the Hurricanes are of the nation's top offensive teams, ranking 12th nationally in adjusted points per possession, according to Kenpom.com, and are also led by a talented and experienced backcourt.
Fresno State turned a budding blowout into an interesting game in the second half, but Utah was ultimately too much, using a 19–2 run after falling behind by one point to notch an 80–69 win in its first-round matchup in Denver. Lorenzo Bonam led the way with 17 points, while Jakob Poeltl had 16 to go along with a career-high 18 rebounds.
The Utes won nine straight games before getting waxed by Oregon in the Pac-12 championship game last weekend, so even though they were 8.5-point favorites over Fresno State, it had to feel good to get back on the right path. Utah was absolutely dominant on the glass, but it racked up 20 turnovers, which kept the Bulldogs in the game much longer that it appeared they would be at halftime. Fresno State was among the most active defenses in the country this season, but Utah is going to have to play a much cleaner game on Saturday to advance to the Sweet 16. It also can't afford a scoring drought from Poeltl like the one he suffered in the second half against the Bulldogs.
Utah moves onto the second round to take on the winner of Seton Hall and Gonzaga in what should be a wildly entertaining game, regardless of the opponent.
North Carolina's 25–6 run over the first 8:30 of the second half put away any hope that history would be made in Raleigh, but the Tar Heels may have some concerns after a difficult first half in their 83–67 win over Florida Gulf Coast on Thursday. Senior forward Brice Johnson anchored a blistering start to the second half to keep the Heels from becoming the first No. 1 seed to ever lose in the first round in front of a raucous home crowd just 27 miles from campus. The win showcased some of the best and worst that Carolina has to offer. Their usual breakneck pace on offense and Johnson's tenacious interior defense withered the Eagles as soon as the second half started, but a host of defensive lapses in the first half kept the game unnecessarily close at half.
The No. 16 Eagles, three years removed from their magical run to the Sweet 16, pulled to within one point at halftime after making nine of 11 their last eleven shots to end the first half. But that energy disappeared within the first minute of the second half as North Carolina overwhelmed the smaller, thinner and presumably tired Eagles both inside and from the perimeter.
The second half was a prime exhibition of why some pundits have North Carolina winning the NCAA tournament. Johnson, the runner-up for ACC player of the year, finished with 18 points, seven rebounds and an astounding eight blocks, but it was his post play that prevented FGCU from keeping the game close. After the Eagles succeeded with a series of interior passes and close-range baskets in the first half, Johnson and junior forward Kennedy Meeks locked down the post to keep the Eagles to just 27 second-half points. Johnson's eight blocks set a North Carolina record for an NCAA tournament game.
Florida Gulf Coast's one-point deficit at halftime was due primarily to strong interior play and effective finishing near the basket. The Eagles entered halftime shooting 60.0% from the floor and 11 points from burly sophomore forward Antravious Simmons, a reserve who averaged only seven points per game all season. It was a surprise that the Eagles thrived against North Carolina's large lineup early, sinking nine of their last eleven shots of the opening 20 minutes and outrebounding the Heels in the first half. The Heels' interior defense wasn't considered a weakness entering the tournament, but surrendering 40 first-half points (16 in the restricted area) in the opening 20 minutes was troubling. Johnson's standout second half may have mitigated those worries, but it was hardly the mark of a No. 1 team to be exploited so seamlessly.
North Carolina will take on the winner of No. 8 seed USC and No. 9 Providence on Saturday afternoon.
No. 12 seed Chattanooga stayed competitive for the first 15 minutes or so against No. 5 seed and Big Ten regular-season champion Indiana, but ultimately fell to the Hoosiers, 99–74. A three-pointer by reserve sophomore guard Robert Johnson with 3:58 left in the first half gave Indiana a six-point lead, which ballooned to nine points at the half and didn't shrink below seven for at any point in the second half. Senior guard Yogi Ferrell led IU with 20 points and 10 assists, his first career double double.
Indiana looked like a potential No. 2 or 3 seed in the NCAA tournament at the end of the regular season, but a loss in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals to Michigan helped to put the Wolverines in the Big Dance—and dropped Indiana to the five-seed line. But the Hoosiers looked motivated to show they were undervalued heading into the NCAA tournament. Five Hoosiers—Ferrell, freshman forward OG Anunoby (14), freshman forward Thomas Bryant (13), junior forward Troy Williams (12) and senior forward Max Bielfeldt (10)—scored in double figures. Indiana's offense is elite, coming in at No. 7 in adjusted efficiency on kenpom.com, and it showed on Thursday, as Indiana shot 64.9% from the floor and 58.8% from three.
Indiana will play the winner of No. 13 seed Stony Brook and No. 4 Kentucky. If the Wildcats prevail, as they are favored to, it will set up a colossal second-round matchup between two of the most storied programs in college basketball. Des Moines could be the place to be on Saturday.
After it looked like No. 5 Purdue was pulling away in the middle of the second half, No. 12 seed Arkansas-Little Rock stormed back on an 18-5 run in the last three and a half minutes to force overtime on a step-back, 25-foot three-pointer from senior guard Josh Hagins with just five seconds left. It took two overtimes for these two offensively challenged teams to settle it, but the Trojans finished the upset, beating the Boilermakers 85-83 in Denver to advance to the second round of the Midwest Regional. Hagins led all scorers with 31 and shot 8 of 10 from the free throw line. Junior forward Lis Shoshi added 14 points and nine rebounds. For Purdue, sophomore forward Vince Edwards led his team with 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.
Little Rock, the Sun Belt champions, was a popular upset pick in this game, and it proved it has the talent to advance even further in the bracket. Led by the third-ranked scoring defense in the nation and offensive punch from Hagins (12.8 ppg), the Trojans are uncomfortable to play against and have enough offensive punch (39% from three, 17th in the nation) to stay in games.
On Saturday in Denver, Arkansas-Little Rock will face No. 4 Iowa State. The Cyclones beat No. 13 Iona 94-81 earlier in the day.
Austin Peay kept this one close—through the first two media timeouts. The Governors started 3 of 4 from the field but a 6–5 lead was the biggest, and last, advantage they had in the game. Kansas sophomore guard Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk came off the bench and made back-to-back threes as the Jayhawks were off to the races. Guard Josh Robinson was the lone bright spot for the Governors, scoring 14 first-half points—10 more than any of his teammates—and finishing with 24. Their offense dissolved into too much dribbling and isolation offense while Kansas's size, depth and athleticism was too much to handle. The Jayhawks took a 48–28 lead into halftime. A 10–2 Austin Peay run early in the second half forced Kansas coach Bill Self to call a timeout, but Kansas quickly regrouped and coasted to a 105–79 victory. Four Jayhawks scored in double figures, led by Mykhailiuk's career-high 23 points.
First and foremost, No. 1 seeds are still undefeated against No. 16 seeds. Kansas put away a pesky Austin Peay team with relative ease and took away the Governors' strengths in the process. Austin Peay senior center Chris Horton is the nation's leader in offensive rebounds and the Governors made a team-record 16 threes in their last game. Kansas out-rebounded Austin Peay by seven and held the Governors to 4 of 15 from behind the arc. The Jayhawks handled the early resistance and the second-half foul trouble of Devonte' Graham and Wayne Selden Jr. with composure. Kansas played like the No. 1 overall seed in the first round.
Kansas will face No. 9 seed Connecticut in the Round of 32 on Saturday in Des Moines. The Huskies overcame an 11-point deficit against Colorado in the first half for a 74–67 first-round win Thursday afternoon. Kansas has won 15 straight games and UConn has won its last five.
Yale sophomore point guard Makai Mason scored 31 points as the No. 12 Bulldogs upset No. 5 Baylor, 79–75, in a West Region matchup at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence. Yale came out firing against a Bears team with superior length and athleticism. Mason knocked down seven of his first 12 shots for 17 points in the first half, and forwards Brandon Sherrod and Justin Sears tallied 18 points and nine rebounds to give the Bulldogs a strong presence inside against Bears senior big man Rico Gathers. After taking a five-point lead into the break, Yale weathered an early surge by Baylor and then retook control midway through the second half. A three-point shot from Blake Reynolds gave the Bulldogs a six-point advantage around the 13-minute mark, and then Yale kept exploiting Baylor inside, with Sears converting a layup with just under nine minutes remaining to make it a nine-point edge. Wing Taurean Prince sparked the Bears with a powerful putback dunk a few minutes later and Baylor cut the Bulldogs' lead to one inside the final minute, but Sherrod hit a pair of key free throws late to seal the win.
Yale will face No. 4 seed Duke on Saturday in Providence. The Bulldogs fell to the Blue Devils, 80–61, in Durham, N.C., in November. Duke handled UNC Wilmington, 93–85, in its first-round matchup earlier on Thursday.
No. 12 Yale upset No. 5 Baylor 79–75 in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Thursday.
Oh wow, someone else bailed a Yale man out of his own obvious mistake. That never happens.
Good to see kids from Yale finally catch a break in life.
Seriously though, congrats to the kid from "Blank Check."
Yale will play Duke in the round of 32.


text:
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German Baking Disasters (and How to Avoid Them)
Jo's Girls: Little Women 2019
The Man Behind Big Bird
World Violin Day
Introducing Discover Skills and Disability Awareness Storytime Backpacks!
Quick, It's Cherry Blossom Season!
by Karen April 4, 2017
A friend and I planned a museum day because there was rain in the forecast...so imagine our surprise when stepping out of SFMOMA, opens a new window and into Yerba Buena Gardens, opens a new window we encountered a park that was full of sunshine and sunbathers...and blooming cherry blossom trees! We celebrated by trying to get as many photos as possible with those lovely trees in the background.
Last Three Japantowns in America
San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival.
Source: Michael Ocampo, opens a new window, Flickr.
You, too, can invite cherry blossom trees to photobomb your Instagram feed. These trees, originally introduced as a gift from Japan to America in 1912, opens a new window, can be found all around, but are only in their peak blooming period for a few weeks. Washington DC cherry blossom trees, opens a new window are quite famous. But we are particularly lucky to live in California, since it is home to the three remaining authentic Japantown locations in the United States: San Francisco, opens a new window, San Jose, opens a new window, and Los Angeles, opens a new window.
Cherry Blossom Festival
Want to take your family on a fun adventure? Golden Gate Park, opens a new window is a good place to see cherry blossom trees any time in March or April. Try a visit to the Japanese Tea Garden, opens a new window.
And don't forget the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, opens a new window. It takes place in San Francisco's Japantown over two weekends: April 8-9 and April 15-16. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the event, and will feature food booths, cultural performances, martial arts demonstrations, music, and more. A parade will occur at 1pm on April 16, beginning at City Hall and ending in Japantown.
Family Reads
Families will enjoy these fun reads to set the mood for spring and dig into the history of cherry blossom trees.
Japanese Celebrations
Thea Stilton and the Cherry Blossom Adventure
Have you been to the Cherry Blossom Fest? Or have you been to all three Japantowns? Share your thoughts below.
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 * Description: Take the guesswork out of WordPress security. iThemes Security offers 30+ ways to lock down WordPress in an easy-to-use WordPress security plugin.
 * Author: iThemes
 * Author URI: https://ithemes.com
 * Version: 6.6.1
 * Text Domain: better-wp-security
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 * License: GPLv2
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$locale = apply_filters( 'plugin_locale', get_locale(), 'better-wp-security' );
load_textdomain( 'better-wp-security', WP_LANG_DIR . "/plugins/better-wp-security/better-wp-security-$locale.mo" );
load_plugin_textdomain( 'better-wp-security' );

if ( isset( $itsec_dir ) || class_exists( 'ITSEC_Core' ) ) {
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$itsec_dir = dirname( __FILE__ );

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Yesterday marked the 11 year anniversary of 9/11.
It's the day that I embraced an archetypal experience which led to Deeper Discovery, an extension of the Insights Discovery programme which launches next week.
I can recall the day's events as if it were yesterday. As I was addressing the group of officers in the morning of that fateful day, the Adjutant interrupted the session and she was visibly upset. She said to the class "I have unusual news - an aircraft has flown into one of the twin towers". As you can imagine the energy changed in the room immediately. Then the second aeroplane struck almost the same time as a third hit the Pentagon close by. The US was now on a war footing, and my 'class' were ordered to return immediately to their bases.
They left and I sat outside in the sun, listening to the pain of Washington that day as I tried to protect myself from the unfolding events inside my own little world. When I think now, I was probably in the grip of the unconscious. And it was during that afternoon, watching the smoke still rising from the Pentagon that I realised that some of the essences I'd been studying around Jung's deeper work, which up until then had been a mystery, was in some way being revealed.
The next morning I took the group again, they had returned to the seminar, unable to get flights to their various locations. That morning I had a new friend at my side – one of my class - an amazing American that I'd met just the night before who, most unusually, played the bagpipes and just loved Scotland. His name is Casey Jones. I asked Casey to help the group heal the pain they were all under by playing Amazing Grace on the pipes to start our session. It was an 'amazing' reaction. Within seconds, all these professional senior officers and hugged each other, comforted by the music. Some of them wept, perhaps for the first time in their lives. I like to think that little Scotland brought just a little bit of healing to a very painful event in the US that day.
Since that time, the first time that the bagpipes played a lament in memory of those lost during 9/11, every time there is a memorial service in commemoration of the dead you will hear Amazing Grace played. It has become the iconic sound of that particular tragedy. Casey's lament was the first time it was heard.
And for me, part of that amazement was that for the next three days I immersed myself in Jung's deeper work and Deeper Discovery was born in embryonic form that week.
So, here we are, 11 years later and a decade of research and great effort has gone into development of Deeper Discovery, which launches next week on 18 September. I know that it has the potential to touch the lives of thousands, if not millions of people, just as Discovery has already done. But only with the gift that you will bring to it firstly, will its potential to touch the lives of others be realised.
May comfort, blessings and joy stay with all of us, as we embark on this incredible journey.


text:
Lily Mihalik
The Food Industry Tries to Redesign the Nutrition Label, Fails
The food industry tried to beat the FDA to the punch by redesigning the nutrition label first. Surprise: It might actually confuse consumers.
In January, food industry giants launched a new food label for the front of packaged foods—Nutrition Keys (above)—which was widely seen as an attempt to influence or divert the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's ongoing efforts to create better labeling. That's a problem.
In an opinion piece published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, says that the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Food Marketing Institute's label is a "unilateral, unscientific, preemptive approach taken by the food companies." Brownell was even more blunt when I called him: "The industry has been given a chance to police itself and they've failed." In other words, it can't be trusted.
The label includes only four mandatory categories—calories, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar—and leaves plenty of room for food companies to highlight the nutrients of their choice. So rather than making nutritional information clearer, the design might actually confuse consumers now faced with rotating nutrients, making it more difficult to compare products.
Other nations are already testing out better alternatives, like Britain's "traffic light" label (above) that color-codes daily values as red for unhealthy, yellow for moderately good for you, and green for healthy. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway use the "keyhole" system (below), which indicates healthy food with a simple black or green keyhole mark of approval. If you see the keyhole, the food is deemed healthy.
Will we see that kind of Scandinavian simplicity here? Probably not. Brownell says the "keyhole" system wouldn't work in the United States because the food industry's powerful lobby would block such a black-and-white system that categorized every food as either healthy or unhealthy. "The problem is that the industry mantra is that there is no bad food," he says. "Why would the food industry want people to eat in a healthier way? That would mean they'd have to sell less food overall."
Perhaps it's worth exploring a more qualitative approach. Brownell told me he'd like to see "a label that provides the consumers with the evaluative part, not just the numbers. They need to understand what those numbers mean." Considering what we're up against, I'd have to say I agree.
Lily is part of Rethink the Food Label, an ongoing collaboration with GOOD and News21. For more about the project, click here.
Top image via GMA; middle image via FSA; bottom image via NFA.


text:
ACL_IMPL_FILE_PRAGMA_PUSH

namespace acl
{
	//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	// A basic string class that uses our custom allocator.
	// It is used exclusively for debug purposes.
	//
	// Strings are immutable.
	//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	class string
	{
	public:
		string() noexcept : m_allocator(nullptr), m_c_str(nullptr) {}

		string(iallocator& allocator, const char* c_str, size_t length)
			: m_allocator(&allocator)
		{
			if (length > 0)
			{
#if defined(ACL_HAS_ASSERT_CHECKS) && !defined(NDEBUG)
				for (size_t i = 0; i < length; ++i)
					ACL_ASSERT(c_str[i] != '\0', "String cannot contain NULL terminators");
#endif

				m_c_str = allocate_type_array<char>(allocator, length + 1);
				std::memcpy(m_c_str, c_str, length);
				m_c_str[length] = '\0';
			}
			else
			{
				m_c_str = nullptr;
			}
		}

		string(iallocator& allocator, const char* c_str)
			: string(allocator, c_str, c_str != nullptr ? std::strlen(c_str) : 0)
		{}

		string(iallocator& allocator, const string& str)
			: string(allocator, str.c_str(), str.size())
		{}

		~string()
		{
			if (m_c_str != nullptr)
				deallocate_type_array(*m_allocator, m_c_str, std::strlen(m_c_str) + 1);
		}

		string(string&& other) noexcept
			: m_allocator(other.m_allocator)
			, m_c_str(other.m_c_str)
		{
			new(&other) string();
		}

		string& operator=(string&& other) noexcept
		{
			std::swap(m_allocator, other.m_allocator);
			std::swap(m_c_str, other.m_c_str);
			return *this;
		}

		bool operator==(const char* c_str) const noexcept
		{
			const size_t this_length = m_c_str == nullptr ? 0 : std::strlen(m_c_str);
			const size_t other_length = c_str == nullptr ? 0 : std::strlen(c_str);
			if (this_length != other_length)
				return false;

			if (this_length == 0)
				return true;

			return std::memcmp(m_c_str, c_str, other_length) == 0;
		}

		bool operator!=(const char* c_str) const noexcept { return !(*this == c_str); }

		bool operator==(const string& other) const noexcept { return (*this == other.c_str()); }
		bool operator!=(const string& other) const noexcept { return !(*this == other.c_str()); }

		//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
		// Returns a pointer to the allocator instance or nullptr if there is none present.
		iallocator* get_allocator() const noexcept { return m_allocator; }

		//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
		// Returns a copy of the current string.
		// Explicit instead of using the assignment operator or copy constructor
		string get_copy() const
		{
			if (m_c_str == nullptr)
				return string();

			return string(*m_allocator, m_c_str, std::strlen(m_c_str));
		}

		//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
		// Returns a copy of the current string.
		// Explicit instead of using the assignment operator or copy constructor
		string get_copy(iallocator& allocator) const
		{
			if (m_c_str == nullptr)
				return string();

			return string(allocator, m_c_str, std::strlen(m_c_str));
		}

		const char* c_str() const noexcept { return m_c_str != nullptr ? m_c_str : ""; }
		size_t size() const noexcept { return m_c_str != nullptr ? std::strlen(m_c_str) : 0; }
		bool empty() const noexcept { return m_c_str != nullptr ? (std::strlen(m_c_str) == 0) : true; }

	private:
		iallocator* m_allocator;
		char* m_c_str;
	};
}

ACL_IMPL_FILE_PRAGMA_POP


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Multiplicity of the effective factors in drilling reflects the complexity of the interaction between rock mass and drilling bit, which is followed by the dependence of parameters and non-linear relationships between them. Rock mass or, in other words, the formation intended for drilling, as the drilling environment, plays a very essential role in the drilling speed, depreciation of drilling bit, machines, and overall drilling costs. Therefore, understanding the drilling environment and the characteristics of the in-situ rock mass contributes a lot to the selection of the machines. In this work, a 1D geo-mechanical model of different studied wells is built by collecting the geological data, well logs, drilling data, core data, and pressure measurements of the formation fluid pressure in various wells. Having the drilling parameters of each part of the formation, its specific energy is calculated. The specific energy index can be used for predicting the amount of energy consumed for drilling. In order to find the relationship between the drilling specific energy (DSE) and its effective parameters, the multivariate regression model is used. Modeling DSE is done using the multivariate regression, which contains the parameters rock characteristics, well logs, and a combination of these two features. 70% and 30% of the data are, respectively, selected as the training and test for validation. After analyzing the model, the correlation coefficients obtained for the training and test data were, respectively, found to be 0.79 and 0.83. The parameters uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), internal friction angle, and fluid flow are among the most important factors found to affect DSE.