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March Madness: Disney Songs Bracket
March 30, 2018 October 23, 2018 | srbraddy
Not much time for preamble today. If you spend any time on Twitter at all, you've probably seen a slew of different brackets making the rounds, usually pitting great movies or Internet boyfriends against each other. Yet of all the brackets, though, only one truly begged for completion:
ROUND ONE
Now, I imagine I would have seeded this a little differently, but we play with the memes we're dealt. First round went pretty quickly. Wherever possible, the edge went to the iconic song over the merely nostalgic.
A few items of note:
The behemoth "Let It Go" lost in an early season upset to "Part of Your World." Whether this demonstrates the strength of longing over empowerment, or whether the judge was simply some random thirtysomething unable to set aside his childhood, we may never know.
Classic dad-rockers Phil Collins, Billy Joel, and Elton John all survive into Round 2. Joel is probably the biggest surprise there, but even "Why Should I Worry" performed well against the cut-rate Prince ripoff from The Goofy Movie.
The defeat of "I See the Light" hurt far more than I expected. Although Tangled is one of my all-time favorite animated movies, "Part of Your World" is easily among the best Disney songs ever composed and readily curbstomped the competition.
On the other hand, "Go the Distance" and "How Far I'll Go" aren't even close to the same level. The Hercules song is fine enough, but, thematically, Moana just hangs together so much better, and "How Far I'll Go" plays an indispensable part in that film's execution.
"You're Welcome" and "Friend Like Me" made for a tougher competition than I expected. The difference came down to performance. The Rock does well enough, but there's no world at all where he out-sings Robin Williams.
Something really interesting happened this round: I realized just how much I esteem the songs of A Little Mermaid. I can't discount the fact that Mermaid was one of the first movies I ever saw in the theater, but I also suspect that there's something objectively timeless and classic in the songs from that film.
Some more notes:
Perhaps no song in Disneydom is more revered than the villain song, and "Hellfire" is among the best of those, easily trouncing the iconic "Beauty and the Beast." Given a choice between love and damnation, leave it to me to make the… questionable choice.
This same tendency is on display again on the other side of the bracket, as "Poor Unfortunate Souls" wins out over "Remember Me."
Of the dad rockers, only Elton John endures. Likely this is due to the relatively weak competition. "Heffalumps and Woozles" worms its way into your brain, but "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" managed to pull ahead, perhaps demonstrating some awareness that it alone remains to represent the best film of Disney's second golden age.
Let's jump straight to the commentary:
The Little Mermaid continues to impress, sending two of its numbers to the Final Four. Its third representative, "Part of Your World," loses its footing against "Hellfire," but it goes home with its head held high, having made a good showing to this point.
"When You Wish Upon a Star" may carry a questionable message, but it's undoubtedly classic. Not even Elton John stands a chance.
ROUND FOUR
At this point, there is nothing more I can do but be true to myself. When forced to pick between a pair of villain songs, one of the most charming and romantic Disney songs of all time, and a song that is arguably the MOST Disney song of all time… how I could I not pick the villain songs?
And now, we come to…
ROUND FIVE – THE FINAL ROUND
"Poor Unfortunate Souls" is a delightfully, unapologetically wicked number, easily among the best Disney songs ever composed. Its opponent, "Hellfire," lacks the tongue-in-cheek fun of "Poor Unfortunate Souls," but it makes up for it with deep feeling and pathos. So who wins in the battle between earnestness and camp? In the end, there was really no question:
Well, I Guess I'm Old Now (or: How I Broke Myself Trying to Impress a Pretty Girl's Family)
March 26, 2018 | srbraddy
I texted my boss today:
I managed to sprain my ankle pretty badly this weekend. I should be okay to work, but I would like tomorrow off, just in case.
He responds:
Please do. A sprain is no joke, especially when we aren't 12 years old anymore. Get wel.
You know, like you do.
This probably isn't the first time that I've sprained my ankle, but it's definitely the first time I've sprained it so severely that I felt the need to run to urgent care. A few hours had passed since the injury, and I was trying to muscle through the pain with the help of a cheesy Netflix martial arts movie and some Little Caesar's pizza (which I stood in line for fifteen minutes to get) (yes, that means I stood in line on a sprained ankle) (no, it was not worth it) (I mean, how could it be?). After a while, I decided I probably ought to at least wrap the thing up, and I think it was my frustration with trying to wrap my own ankle that finally led me to get in my car and drive to the urgent care, about twenty minutes away.
The doctor was nice. He wore a green scrubs top and khakis, and he had a very strong vibe that said, "As me about my trip to Amsterdam." We bonded over a mutual interest in the "Yoga with Adriene" YouTube channel, and he joked about charging me hundreds of dollars more than he was supposed to. You know, normal doctor stuff. He did some X-rays to confirm that it was a sprain and not a break, gave me an ankle brace, and wished me luck. Pretty sure the luck was for dealing with the ankle brace. It's a complicated tangle of cords and velcro that took both me and the nurse poring over the instructions to figure it out.
So I've been dating someone fairly seriously, which is incredibly important to the story, because of COURSE me hurting myself involves trying to impress a girl, right? Well, only sort of. See, at this point, we've been dating for about ten months, which I think is probably enough time for her to see right through any attempts at flattery. Her family, on the other hand, doesn't know me that well yet. So this is really about me trying to impress them. Specifically, the two people whose negative opinion of me would put our continued couplehood in jeopardy.
No, not them. I'm referring to her six-year-old nephew and her four-year-old niece.
Saturday night finds me with my lady friend at her cousin's wedding reception. Her niece and nephew, hopped up on youth and wedding brownies, decided that they were done sitting around and wanted to run outside to play. The girlfriend and I joined them, and we tracked around the grounds surrounding the church where the reception took place, our feet unsteady in the wet grass.
"Boy, this ground sure is soft," I said, demonstrating a little principle known as dramatic tension.
The game we wound up playing is a popular one among all kids of a certain age. It's called, "Watch the grown-ups do silly things." The grown-up in this case was me, and the silly thing was attempting to chop down a tree using a bunch of those long, brown seed pods. You know, these ones:
Darn things are everywhere.
After slapping the side of the tree a few times, the pods would break, leaving me with a comically short stub pinched between my fingers. The kiddos, of course, thought this was hilarious, and I, pleased with the impression I was making, started playing up the comedy by employing increasingly ludicrous wind ups. Truly, a great time was had by all…until I bashed my hand into the tree.
The shock and pain from the impact sent me staggering back a couple of steps, where my ankle decided to do a Gordon Hayward (don't look that up). My memory of the immediate aftermath is a little fuzzy, but I'm reasonably sure that's right when my ladyfriend's parents came out to get us for the cutting of the cake. Which means that they, and the girlfriend, and her niece and nephew, all beheld the exact moment I realized that I'm not a kid anymore.
When I was younger, of course, I'd walk of a rolled ankle like it was no big deal, because it wasn't. I tried to play it off the same way last night, turning down my girlfriend's offer to pick up some drugs and an ankle brace from Wal-Mart. I even lied to myself about it (hence the standing in line at Little Caesar's). Eventually, though, I realized that I no longer have the resiliency of a six-year-old, and so I drove myself to urgent care.
When the girlfriend found out, she was… frustrated, to say the least:
Dude!!!! Why didn't you call me?? Sheesh, you shouldn't be driving.
Oh brother. If you weren't hurt I'd be so mad at you right now. But you are hurt and it's kind of my fault so I can't get mad.
Ugh. Men are the WORST.
So there you go. I guess part of the process of getting older is learning to accept help again after striving so hard to be independent for so long. I eventually accepted some help from my parents, who brought me ace bandages and an old prescription for Ibuprofen 800 mg, which is GREAT STUFF.
Seriously, I'm not much for taking medicine, even when I need it, but nowadays, I'm all singing, "Ibuprofen! He be profen! She be profen! We're all profen! Wouldn't you like to be a profen too?"*
I even let the girlfriend finally help me – she brought me a pair of crutches, which was absolutely lovely of her to do. I could have saved myself a big headache by simply accepting her help in the first place. Which means.. which means… all that time spent watching Home Improvement as a kid taught me not a blasted thing.
Thanks for nothing, Tim Allen!
Apologies to Dr. Pepper.
Happy National Puppy Day!
Opera Night: Pagliacci
When I was a child, I remember seeing this commercial on PBS on a Saturday afternoon about opera. Specifically, about how ridiculous it is that the opera has a reputation for being "boring," especially since the most famous operas are chock full of sex, violence, and murder. I get where that reputation comes from. It's difficult to get engaged in a plot where you don't understand anything the major characters are saying. Heck, I went to the opera once in the Czech Republic. The singing was in Italian, while the supertitles were in Czech, so I was utterly lost in two languages at once.
That said, I've been at least curious about getting into this opera thing for years. For example, a song from Madame Butterfly inspired the only bit of writing I ever got paid for (a poem which netted me a whole dollar bill!). I've attended a broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, which was great, although somewhat pricey. However, when I finally got the chance to go see a real, live opera (with supertitles I could actually understand), I leapt at the opportunity.
Utah Opera put on a double feature at the Capital Theater. One of the shows, a comedic little episode called Gianni Schicchi, provides some much needed context to the operatic standard "O Mio Babbino Caro." It is not, as I first suspected, a lullaby sung by a mother to her baby. Rather, it's a plaintive plea from a young girl to her father, claiming that she will die if she can't be with the man she loves. It's, you know, dramatic and all, but in the context of a comedic opera, it carries about as much depth of emotion as Veruca Salt demanding that daddy buy her a goose that lays golden eggs NOW.
The real draw to me, though, was the classic Pagliacci. I'm pretty sure everyone's heard of Pagliacci by this point. You know, it's the opera about the sad clown.
I first encountered Pagliacci in that one episode of Batman: The Animated Series where the Penguin tries to show off for his date by singing "Vesti la Giubba." From there, I associated the song with the cliches of opera – stilted, boring, overly dramatic, and inaccessible. And yet… in the context of the show, "Vesti la Giubba" is really unbelievable. A brutish man, completely and utterly destroyed by his wife's infidelity, has to dress up in a clown outfit and make a buffoon of himself, because that's what show business demands. It's a real gut punch of a number, and it's absolutely worth checking out.
But go to a live show, if you can. Operatic recordings are nice and all, but there's something to be said for seeing the production live. If nothing else, watching the singers overpower the orchestra with nothing but their voices (no mics) is truly awe-inspiring.
Also, in commemoration of the occasion, I drew a sad clown:
New Gods, Old Fears
News broke today that Ava DuVernay, director of the divisive (but visually-stunning) A Wrinkle in Time will now also direct New Gods, an upcoming entry in the DC Comics cinematic universe. As this is news involving a superhero movie, you might expect that I have some opinions on the matter. And you would be right.
I am 100%, absolutely, totally excited for this jazz!
See, New Gods is based on the "Fourth World" saga, which is easily one of my favorite comics, one of the best things DC ever published. The story begins as something of a Superman spin-off, but it quickly turns into its own thing, combining The Lord of the Rings with the soft sci-fi of superhero comics and a liberal dose of hippy-dippy social allegory. And, with art and writing by Jack Kirby, it's a truly beautiful thing to behold.
Kirby is one of the most influential artists in comics for good reason. The artistic mind behind some of the most popular superheroes in the world (Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, the X-Men…), Kirby had a flair for wild, imaginative visuals. The Fourth World is one of Kirby's most important creations, and he filled those pages with some of the weirdest and most wonderful drawings he ever did. This is material that is perfect for a visual-oriented director like Ava DuVernay.
But it's not just about the visuals. The Fourth World is full of some of the richest, most colorful characters to ever grace the comics page:
Mister Miracle – a high-tech escape artist and conscientious objector in the war between light and darkness
Orion – the son of an evil god, whose dark nature makes him the perfect soldier for the forces of good
Granny Goodness – a motherly figure who "nurtures" all the free will out of her charges
Glorious Godfrey – basically just Alex Jones, but somehow even worse
Steppenwolfe – a warrior who… Wait, we've seen this guy recently, haven't we?
Oh… Oh crap.
Um… so, yeah, before I get too excited about this project, I need to remind myself that New Gods is slated to be part of the DC Extended Universe, a cinematic monstrosity that now includes five films, of which only one and a half are any dang good at all (and those are Wonder Woman and maybe a quarter part each of Man of Steel and Justice League). I know, I just know, that there's going to be a real temptation to follow in Zach Snyder's deconstructionist grimdark footsteps. That's a huge problem for the material, which is so straightforward and earnest that it literally named its chief antagonist Darkseid.
He wears a minidress, so he is clearly the best and most evillest.
Darkseid is probably the best known of all of the New Gods. He's popped up in a few major Superman adaptations over the years, including that one time someone decided that the best way to make Superman relatable was to have him date Kristin Kreuk. He is also (and I know I'm using this word a lot recently) my favorite super villain of all time.
There's a lot of great stuff about Darkseid. He's every bit the physical match of the heroes he faces off against. He can easily beat the tar out of Superman or Wonder Woman, and he actually killed Batman once (and by "killed" I mean "turned into a caveman"… long story). But the best stories about Darkseid don't involve him throwing a single punch. Darkseid wins the same way evil wins in the real world: by slow, imperceptible, inevitable corruption.
See, Darkseid preys on the "dark side" of human nature. He seeks, like so many do, to "take over the world," but he's a theological villain more than a standard super villain. He doesn't control people using mind beams or hypnosis. Rather, he controls them by appealing to their weakest, most shameful elements – their fear, their selfishness, their anger and pettiness. In the world of the New Gods, he is the devil.
If you ask me, the last great Darkseid story was Final Crisis, a 2008 comics series by writer Grant Morrison. In this story, Darkseid succeeds in placing the world under his control. The heroes of the DC Universe have to unite to fight a war that, frankly, they've already lost. Their great strength, their ability to punch evil into submission, is of no practical use here. The big fist fight between Superman and Darkseid never happens in this story. In fact, Darkseid is probably at his physical low point here, having possessed a weak mortal body. He even wears leg braces the whole time, apparently unable to stand on his own.
And yet… he's never been more terrifying than he is in this story.
I remember that the end of Final Crisis drew a fair bit of criticism, as Darkseid was ultimately defeated by Superman singing a song at him. It's slightly less ridiculous than it sounds, but only slightly. But I think that ending illustrates an important point: the darkness in humanity cannot be overcome through violence.
That's a difficult message to portray in superhero stories, where violence is almost as much a part of the medium as ink and paper. However, the fact that Darkseid is an antagonist in a superhero comic means one thing for certain: he will always lose, in the end. That makes for a pretty inspiring message, if you think about it. The literal "dark side" of human nature can be beaten, and goodness and virtue can win, no matter how bad things get.
As much as I love the New Gods and the character of Darkseid in particular, I'm very nervous about how these characters will appear on the big screen. See, I can now, very easily, picture Henry Cavill trying on his best Christopher Reeve smile and saying, "Well, Darkseid, time to send you to the 'dark side' of the moon!" before punching him in the face and sending him shooting into the stratosphere, while Darkseid (played by yet another wildly inappropriate actor… I'mma say Colin Firth) screams "Noooooooooo!" before finally disappearing with a distant twinkle, Team Rocket style.
…actually, now that I've typed that out, it really doesn't sound that bad.
My point is this: the New Gods don't really function the same way other superhero characters do. They aren't about over the top action sequences and quippy comedy. They're a Book-of-Genesis style myth about the nature of good and evil within humanity. In other words, they're the one place the whole "Superman is disaffected Jesus" thing might actually work (but seriously please don't try that again).
The New Gods are going to be really, really difficult to film. I think DuVernay is up to the task. At the very least, the film should be pretty. But if what we get is just another "pretty and competent" superhero beat-'em-up, then we'll have wasted a lot of potential, and that would be too bad.
It's amazing how much emotion can be expressed in very simplistic faces. Kinda phoned it in when it cam time to add texture to the trees and the bird. But, you know, it's a Sunday afternoon, and I need a nap.
Wonder Woman's Theme: A Pretty Good Song?
March 7, 2018 | srbraddy
***Warning: this post contains hot takes.***
I know I'm not the first person to notice that the music of superhero films has been less than stellar since the Marvel renaissance began with Iron Man back in 2008. Heck, the last iconic superhero soundtrack was probably the score from Tim Burton's run on the Batman franchise. Ask me to hum the John Williams Superman theme, and I can do so pretty easily. Ask the same for the X-Men films, though? Every time I try to hum the theme from The Avengers, I invariably slip into The Fellowship of the Ring. With only a few exceptions, most superhero soundtracks all sound like the same old summer blockbuster fare: excellent at setting a tone, but not exactly something you'll be whistling on quiet afternoons.
The only exception for a while there, if you ask me, was Hans Zimmer's score to The Dark Knight – specifically, the Joker's theme. Unfortunately, that song, while a brilliant piece of soundtracking, doesn't make for a terribly listenable track on its own. Its most memorable feature is a single note played on the cello with such excruciating deliberation that my fists ball up just thinking about it. The Joker's theme sets a mood, but it's not a "theme song" in the traditional sense.
As far as I can tell, we've only had four movies with soundtracks that can possibly come close to reaching the same level as the classic John Williams/Danny Elfman scores for Superman and Batman. The first two of those movies – Guardians of the Galaxy and its sequel – are full of wonderfully iconic tunes, but both are disqualified on account of plagiarism.
The most recent of the four, Black Panther, has some of the only songs I can actually remember at all after leaving the theater. The theme songs for the two maincharacters (I stand by my claim that Wakanda, not T'Challa, is the actual protagonist of BP) are powerful pieces built around some absolutely ridiculous* rhythms. That said, I think my favorite track plays over the closing credits. The film ends with throngs of people chanting the name of their king, returned to power: "T'Challa! T'Challa!" It's moving and operatic and over the top and I love every bit of it.
Despite my effusion, though, Black Panther's score is so new, and the buzz so high, that it remains to be seen whether the songs will actually endure beyond the current craze.
And then there's Wonder Woman, the last one, the song I expect to have the most staying power, but also the one I'm most ambivalent about.
On the one hand, the Wonder Woman theme originated with the movie Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which has only and exactly two good things in it: Jeremy Irons and the savage electric cello theme that accompanied Wonder Woman's first big screen appearance. When you get down to it, the song itself is all slashing rhythm and wails. It's an excellent piece to accompany a thrilling action sequence, but it doesn't really say that much meaningful about Wonder Woman herself.
I mean, John Williams's Superman theme is dramatic and triumphant, befitting a man who has all the power in the world and chooses to do the right thing. You can almost hear the word "Superman" shouted during the song. Meanwhile, Danny Elfman's Batman theme is dark and brooding, but it still has those victorious brass notes in there, indicating a man who uses the darkness to fight for justice. These songs are really about their subjects in a way that most soundtrack pieces aren't.
Not being the biggest Wonder Woman fan, there are three things I know about her from general nerd osmosis:
She is a powerful warrior from a tribe of warrior women.
She has a magic lasso that makes people tell the truth.
She came to the "world of man" as an ambassador of love and peace.
The Wonder Woman theme really captures that first bullet, but, if you ask me, there's nothing in those notes that really says "truth" or "love and peace."
All that said, though, the song itself has grown on me, thanks in large part to the inspired work of Rupert Greyson-Williams, who managed to build a pretty workable soundtrack for Wonder Woman around what is arguably just the hook to some arena rock piece. I've also gotta give props to one of the major inspirations for the song: cellist Tina Guo, whose performance legitimately rocks my socks off. Add to that some great think pieces that analyze the Wonder Woman theme much better than I can (here and here), and I think I finally get exactly why the song works so well and remains so memorable when other superhero scores fall flat. I'm not convinced we've managed to create anything nearly as simple and fundamental as the Superman or Batman themes from the 80s and 90s, but we're certainly close.
The Wonder Woman soundtrack reminds me, strangely, of the history of superhero costumes. When superhero comics were born, they got costumes that were all simple shapes and primary colors. As comics consumers developed more sophistication, they demanded a bit more verisimilitude in the pictures on the page. Costumes developed seams, laces, buttons and snaps, but they kept pretty true to the original flashy designs, for a time. Eventually, though, all those colorful costumes gave way to armor with shoulder blades, leather jackets, and a notable lack of red briefs worn overtop blue tights. Comic book designs seemed to want to be seen as anything but the the colorful daydreams of children.
Similarly, the scores for superhero films draw little inspiration from the earnest adventures of Christopher Reeve or Michael Keaton (or, for that matter, Adam West). The goal doesn't appear to be "fun" as much as "action." That's not necessarily a strike against the superhero score, but it isn't exactly a distinction, either.
The truly great thing about the Wonder Woman soundtrack is that it takes the grimdark Batman v. Superman track – which is powerful but seems embarrassed to own its source material – and manages to build something somehow optimistic and inspirational. I don't think the Wonder Woman theme is on quite the same level as the Williams or Burton theme songs. At the end of the day, it's really just a song that'll get you hyped up to deadlift a truck at the gym.
…actually, that sounds pretty cool. Good enough!
* – "Ridiculous" here being a word that means "intricate and powerful."
Sins of the Nation: Wakanda and Asgard
Spoilers for Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok, if you care about that sort of thing.
It's been about a week now since I watched Black Panther. The movie was great, possibly my favorite MCU film second only to Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (which, as you might recall, I liked quite a bit). In the time since I watched it, I've been keeping an eye out for interesting articles and tweets. I've read up on the costuming, the cast… I've even researched some apparent plot holes, all of which confirm to me that Black Panther really is that good.
I also found this:
Now, it turns out that the original Amazon review was some sort of gag, but the tweet did get me thinking again about Thor: Ragnarok. The more I thought about the two films together, the more I saw a pretty strong connection between them. I mean, most superhero movies have quite a bit in common, but let me describe the plot of one of these films. You guess which one I mean:
"After the death of his father, a young prince must defend his home (an isolated technological wonderland) from an invading usurper to the throne, a mysterious and terrifying individual with an uncanny knack for warfare, a blood-relationship with our protagonist, and a serious grudge against the dead king stemming from the king's dark and secret past."
Yeah. More than a couple similarities.
Truthfully, though, I'm less interested in the similarities between the films than I am in the differences. To begin, I'll attempt to summarize the twists of the two movies as best I can. Bear in mind that I've only seen these films once apiece, so there may be some minor details I get wrong.
In Thor: Ragnarok, we learn that, before he became the benevolent ruler of the Nine Realms, Odin employed the violent skills of his oldest child, Hela, to ruthlessly wage war and accumulate wealth and power. Because he feared her (and possibly because he was ashamed?), Odin had Hela sealed away. She returns and seeks to conquer Asgard almost immediately after Odin's death.
In Black Panther, T'Challa's father T'Chaka visited the United States on a mission to find his own brother. Upon learning that his brother planned to violate Wakanda's isolationist policy by selling their futuristic weaponry, T'Chaka killed his brother and left a child (T'Chaka's nephew and T'Challa's cousin) to be raised an orphan. This child grew up to become the villainous Killmonger, who attacks Wakanda in order to secure weapons for a worldwide race war.
One of the first things that struck me about these stories is how they manage to explain, to some extent, the racial makeup of both our fantastical settings. The Asgard of the Thor movies was a colonizing empire, a fact that would almost certainly create more genetic diversity. Conversely, Wakanda adopted a strict isolationist policy early in its existence, likely well before European nations came in contact with Africa.
Thus, it is entirely plausible and, in fact, expected that Asgard in the MCU would have black people, while Wakanda wouldn't have any white people. Racists can now shut up forever.
As fun as it is to find handwavy continuity excuses, I wanna go deeper. I think there's something a lot more interesting going on with the histories of these two fictional countries. In addition to being wild, colorful technological pseudo-paradises, both countries have some pretty awful secrets lurking in their histories. Both movies use their respective villains (Hela and Killmonger) to embody these dark histories, but, beyond that, these movies explore how a country copes with its troubled past in very different ways.
By the end of Thor: Ragnarok – the same movie in which we learn about Asgard's history of horrifying warfare – the entire nation is destroyed, and its citizens are cast to the stars in search of a new place to call home. The message here appears to be that a country with a history as violent as Asgard's does not deserve to exist. While there's a part of me that appreciates the idea that karma functions on such a global scale, I consider the somewhat shameful past of my own country and find myself hoping that there's a better way than utter annihilation.
Ultimately, I don't think Ragnarok is interested in dealing with the repercussions of Asgard's history. It is, after all, a Thor movie, and it's therefore more concerned with getting Thor from point A to point B along his hero's journey. But this is the first major difference between Ragnarok and Black Panther. The main character of Thor: Ragnarok is, unsurprisingly, Thor. The protagonist of Black Panther, on the other hand, is the nation of Wakanda itself.
True, the Black Panther performs most of the significant actions, but while Thor is very much the comedic action hero, T'Challa is, in all things, the king of Wakanda. Although T'Challa grows and changes, as most good film characters do, his journey is nothing next to the seismic paradigm shift that the country of Wakanda goes through. Wakanda starts as a reclusive (dare I say selfish?) utopia, but it ends a neighbor and citizen-state of the world.
Early on in the film, T'Challa visits some sort of ghost world to commune with his father and the other past kings of Wakanda. During this meeting, T'Chaka tells T'Challa that "it's hard for a good man to be a king." Indeed, by the end of the film, we learn that King T'Chaka likely no longer considered himself a "good man" by the end of his reign. He sacrificed much – his integrity, his honesty, even his own brother – in the name of preserving Wakanda's much-treasured secrecy. T'Chaka represents the nation's history, and his violent crime represents the very real pain inflicted by an individual (or, indeed, a nation) that can help but chooses not to. As the new king, T'Challa commits himself to protecting Wakanda by continuing the isolationist tradition, although he does not yet recognize how destructive this tradition has been.
When set against a young king committed to keeping the secrets of his country safe from outsiders, Killmonger becomes a far more interesting villain. His main goal is to use Wakanda's advanced technology to arm struggling communities so that they can conquer in the name of Wakanda. It's tempting to dismiss Killmonger as just another megalomaniacal cartoon-book supervillain. The trouble is, though, the narrative refuses to portray Killmonger as entirely villainous. In fact, the narrative appears to side with Killmonger, allowing him to repeatedly chastise the leaders of Wakanda for keeping to itself while so many fellow Africans suffered.
Killmonger's radical philosophy of "helping those less fortunate" has another ally: Nakia, a Wakandan spy and T'Challa's ex-girlfriend. Rather than adhere to Wakanda's non-interventionist policies, Nakia chose to work covertly, rendering aid and comfort in war-torn, struggling areas. This decision drives a wedge between her and T'Challa – as long as he chooses to follow in his father's footsteps, they cannot be together. The audience sympathizes with Nakia… which means, to some extent, we sympathize with Killmonger, too.
At the end of the movie, T'Challa abandons his father's path, and it is implied that Killmonger is part of what persuaded him. Wakanda ends its isolationism and opens a series of outreach centers throughout the world, including one in the same neighborhood where Killmonger was born and raised. The new Wakandan way resembles Killmonger's scheme, except with fewer laser guns. Although the villain dies… he also kinda wins? And it's a happy ending?
Moral ambiguity is delicious to us former English majors.
Wakanda is still a beautiful, vibrant country, but it is far from perfect. In fact, it has some flaws that run deep and go back, possibly centuries. Wakanda's past does not invalidate the culture's right to exist, as did Asgard's; rather, Wakanda recognizes its obligation to atone for the past. Wakanda atones by doing what all of us with means should do, and what it should have been doing all along. Wakanda chooses to help its neighbors.
The story of Ragnarok seems to be one of national comeuppance – cathartic, maybe, but ultimately a bit limited. Black Panther, on the other hand, is about national repentance. And that's something that every country could stand to consider more seriously.
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Here you will find one or more explanations in English for the word Change. Also in the bottom left of the page several parts of wikipedia pages related to the word Change and, of course, Change synonyms and on the right images related to the word Change.
Change Change, v. i. 1. To be altered; to undergo variation; as, men sometimes change for the better. For I am Lord, I change not. --Mal. iii. 6. 2. To pass from one phase to another; as, the moon changes to-morrow night.
Change Change, n. [F. change, fr. changer. See Change. v. t.] 1. Any variation or alteration; a passing from one state or form to another; as, a change of countenance; a change of habits or principles. Apprehensions of a change of dynasty. --Hallam. All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. --Job xiv. 14. 2. A succesion or substitution of one thing in the place of another; a difference; novelty; variety; as, a change of seasons. Our fathers did for change to France repair. --Dryden. The ringing grooves of change. --Tennyson. 3. A passing from one phase to another; as, a change of the moon. 4. Alteration in the order of a series; permutation. 5. That which makes a variety, or may be substituted for another. Thirty change (R.V. changes) of garments. --Judg. xiv. 12. 6. Small money; the money by means of which the larger coins and bank bills are made available in small dealings; hence, the balance returned when payment is tendered by a coin or note exceeding the sum due. 7. [See Exchange.] A place where merchants and others meet to transact business; a building appropriated for mercantile transactions. [Colloq. for Exchange.] 8. A public house; an alehouse. [Scot.] They call an alehouse a change. --Burt. 9. (Mus.) Any order in which a number of bells are struck, other than that of the diatonic scale. Four bells admit twenty-four changes in ringing. --Holder. Change of life, the period in the life of a woman when menstruation and the capacity for conception cease, usually occurring between forty-five and fifty years of age. Change ringing, the continual production, without repetition, of changes on bells, See def. 9. above. Change wheel (Mech.), one of a set of wheels of different sizes and number of teeth, that may be changed or substituted one for another in machinery, to produce a different but definite rate of angular velocity in an axis, as in cutting screws, gear, etc. To ring the changes on, to present the same facts or arguments in variety of ways. Syn: Variety; variation; alteration; mutation; transition; vicissitude; innovation; novelty; transmutation; revolution; reverse.


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In this section: Applying for Funding
Developing your proposal
Resources and tips
Key questions for researchers
Institutional letters of support
Kristal Phase 2
After submission
Response to reviewers
What if you're not successful?
All proposals for research funding and related agreements require internal approval prior to submission to the Funder and also prior to acceptance of awards. The university scheme of delegation Annex A, which describes who has authorisation to approve Research grant applications and awards, can be found here.
In practice, the process involves assessing the risk by completing a Risk Review Dashboard (RRD) or a simpler Declaration form (DEC). The risk review dashboard or declaration will be initiated by the Faculty Research Office and sent to the Principal Investigator for completion. The PI and the FRIO will work together to complete the risk assessment to indicate the approval level required:
Primary (typically requires an approval from a member of the Faculty Research and Innovation Office),
Secondary (typically approved by a Head of School, Faculty Research Manager or Director of Research) or
Central (approved by the Director of Research and Innovation Development, Director of Commercialisation or Head of Research Operations and Reporting).
The approval process is managed through the Kristal system with notification emails being sent to approvers to check the application or award acceptance and record notes & mitigating actions in Kristal. If an approver is comfortable with the cost/price and the outcome of the risk reviews they will approve your project. If an approver is not comfortable with any aspect of the cost/price or reviews they have options to escalate to the next level of approval, reject or ask that it is revised. In some cases the project may be rejected completely in which case it will proceed no further.
For standard applications, PIs should submit proposals for approval at least two weeks before the funder deadline, although some departments may require longer. Whilst the Faculty Research and Innovation Offices will strive to approve proposals, if insufficient notice is provided this may lead to authorisation being withheld and deadlines missed. Late submissions will be referred to the Head of Division who will assess the risk level and agree an approach in consultation with relevant Heads / Deans.
It is policy that contracts for research grants, including sub-contracts with suppliers and partners, will not be signed unless the appropriate level of approval has been obtained. Delays in the signature process will occur when contracts are presented for projects which haven't been communicated to the Faculty Research office. In these cases, it takes time to complete the risk review document, verify the costings and pass the grant through the approval process, with suitable sign-offs, before the contract can be signed.
Request new funder call
Request new funder, sponsor, third party or credit check
Full details of the process including videos showing how the process works on various operating systems are available on the SharePoint page (staff only).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


With San Diego being such a beautiful location, it's easy to see why so many families vacation in our gem of a city! And when multiple generations of a family travel across the country, it's no wonder they consider a family photo session to capture sweet memories of their loved ones! It's hard enough to find time to spend together, so I really love it when out-of-town visitors think through their visit and schedule a photo session!
I was delighted to have a sweet conversation with Allison prior to the extended family vacation. We knew with two little ones, we'd have limited time to capture some gorgeous shots. But in just half an hour, we captured some wonderful memories for this lovely family.
I had a fabulous time working with this three-generation family and hope they loved the experience!


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Love and Happiness
Artist: Al Green
Love and happiness, yeah Something that can make you do wrong, make you do right Love Love and happiness But wait a minute Something's going wrong Someone's on the phone Three o'clock in the morning Talkin' about how she can make it right, yeah Well, happiness is when, you really feel good with somebody But nothing wrong with being in love with someone, yeah Oh, baby, love and happiness Love and happiness Love and happiness (love and happiness) oh I have to say Love and happiness (love and happiness) Love and happiness (love and happiness) You be good to me I'll be good to you We'll be together, yeah We'll see each other Walk away with victory, yeah oh baby Love and happiness (love and happiness) Love and happiness (love and happiness) Hey, hey, hey, hey Make you do right, love'll make you do wrong Make you come home early Make you stay out all night long The power of love Wait a minute Let me tell you Oh the power Power of love Power of love, power Make you do right, love'll make you do wrong Ha yeah (Love and happiness, love and happiness) Say love (Love and happiness, love and happiness) Make you want to dance Love and happiness Love is, wait a minute, love is Yeah, walkin' together, yeah, talkin' together Say it again, say it together, yeah Say wanna moans Moan for love, say, hmm Moan for love, hmm Moan for love Talkin' 'bout the power
Love and happiness (love and happiness)Love and happinessMake you do right, love'll make you do wrong(Love and happiness, love and happiness)Love and happiness, yeahSomething that can make you do wrong, make you do rightLove and happinessBut wait a minute
When You Believe (from The Prince of Egypt)
Right By You (for Luna)
Coming Down
Don't Matter (Calypso Remix - Main)
Kiss on My List
Daryl Hall & John Oates
Honey Love (Radio Fade)
Gang (feat. Davido)
Room in Here
Anderson .Paak
No Good For Me
Let's Take A Ride


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Focus on the whisky process: Distillation
Greg March 5, 2018
One of the key parts in the Whisky making process, distillation is where the alcohol created during fermentation is removed from the wash to form a concentrated liquid that goes on to be matured into Whisky.
Scotch is distilled twice and in some places, three times, although this is more commonly done in Ireland.
First Distillation
The wash from fermentation is poured into stills that are heated with steam. This can be done in two ways. The first is in a pot still, which acts as a large kettle that is heated.
Alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, and therefore will evaporate first.
As the still is heated the alcohol evaporates and is separated off into another container called a condenser through the swan neck of the still. In the condenser, constantly running cold water turns the vapour back into liquid.
In a column still, the wash is trickled down a series of plates, with steam rising up the opposite direction. The steam heats the alcohol as it goes and it evaporates off.
Traditionally stills have been heated with a direct flame from a wood, coal or gas burning fire. These days it is more likely to be done through steam that is piped into coils at the base of the still.
Some distilleries still use gas fires, including, Glenfarclas, Glenfiddich, Macallan and Springbank.
Direct heat has its downsides however, as it is not as consistent as steam and can create hot spots that burn the wash.
This can either create a burnt flavour or encourage the production of more roasted, sulphur notes.
The stills have small glass windows that allow the distiller to watch the process, ensuring that the wash does not boil over or foam too much.
Foam is more likely to be created from a wash that has only been fermented for a short period of time.
This foam carries solids that will spoil the liquid in the condenser should the get into it, so it is important for the distiller to keep a close eye on the process.
The distiller is able to control the amount of foam produced by reducing the heat and maintaining the level of foam at a certain point. The longer the distillation goes on for the less chances of the foam boiling over.
In this first distillation, lasting around 6 hours, the alcohol and some water is separated from the solids and liquids of the wash. The result is called low wines, which are at an ABV of around 21-30%.
These low wines must be distilled again as there are still some compounds present that are not desirable in the final product.
Second Distillation
The second distillation creates an even more concentrated liquid as more water is removed. There is no chance of frothing either as there are no solids in the liquid.
The distiller must be sure of when to stop distillation, as different flavour compounds boil at different levels. This is called "making the cut".
The ABV of the liquid that comes out after the second distillation is around 70%, with some distilleries such as Auchentoshan and Hazelburn going on to distill a third time.
Making the Cut
In order to assess whether the liquid can be cut or not, the distiller must look at the run of the liquid that has been produced.
This is done through a spirit safe, a small metal box where the distillate can be viewed.
The first to arrive in the spirit safe are the "heads" or foreshots. These are compounds with a low boiling point such as methanol, acetaldehyde and some ethyl esters.
These are elements that must be removed, for various reasons such as being unhealthy or unpleasant to taste. These are moved to another container called a feints receiver.
Next to go through the spirit safe are the hearts of the wash. This is the bit that the distiller wants to preserve, as it will go on to make up the new make spirit that is then matured.
The distiller is able to manipulate the route of this spirit and directs it into a Intermediate Spirit Receiver.
After this comes the tails of the spirit, which is similar to the heads, as in they are undesirable. Again, the distiller is able to redirect their path and move them into a separate container from the hearts.
The distiller must know when to cut the spirit, or in other words, when to change the speed of the running spirit and when to start separate each different element of the liquid.
This is what it means to make the cut.
Congeners
There are some elements in the foreshots and feints that contribute a pleasant and desirable flavour to Whisky.
The distiller must be able to discern when it is time to make the cut and still allow some of these flavours into the mx, without spoiling the taste with the other bad elements.
Some of the foreshots contribute sweet, fruity and citrus notes while the heavier, oily feints contribute smoky notes. In between these there is a more floral and grassy taste.
The point at which the distiller makes the cut will determine the overall texture of the Whisky, whether it is light of heavy. The earlier it is cut, the lighter it is and vice versa.
Heavily peated Whiskies are more likely to be cut later, as the feints contain a lot of smoky notes and phenols.
The foreshots arrive in the mix at around 75% ABV and the feints at 62-65% ABV, but this can vary greatly from distiller to distiller.
Traditionally the distiller also used thermometers and hydrometers to know when to make the cut. In modern days there are many different electronic machines to aid the distiller in his decision.
With each distillation the spirit becomes lighter and as such, Whisky that is distilled a third time is usually very light in taste.
The feints are often run until there is only 1% ABV. The liquid left after this will then be discarded or sprayed over fields.
The low wines and feints will be run again into the next distillation.
In some cases, the ISR can contribute to a certain wax like note in the new make spirit and as such it will not be fully emptied or cleaned, in order to preserve this waxiness.
Striking a balance
Many distilleries are designed in such a way that the machinery matches up in terms of volume.
This means that the volume of the wash created in the washback will be enough to fill one still, or two small stills.
This creates a balance in the distilling process, which creates efficiency. If a distillery is not balanced in this way, it can take a lot of time to sync up both the cycles of the washbacks and the stills.
Most stills are made from copper and for good reason too. Copper reacts with the alcohol vapour in such a way that it creates compounds and filters others.
In the case of sulphur, which is harmful to have in the final Whisky product, copper reacts with this and creates copper sulphate.
This is a harmless compound that is easily filtered out and appears as green filtration in the spirit safe.
It also removes cyanides, acids and carbonates and the more acidic the wash the better the copper reacts. Stills are often allowed to air between distillations as a way to allow air to circulate and restore the active processes of copper to a normal level before they start again.
This means that every dimension of the still will play a big part in the overall flavour of the Whisky.
Speed also plays a part in copper contact. The distiller can decide whether to speed up distillation or not, with a slower distillation resulting in more copper contact and therefore a lighter spirit.
Still shapes
There are three main types of still shape; plain neck, boil ball (try saying that three times fast!) and lamp glass.
Boil balls are the most commonly used for wash stills and will add a hint of pine to the spirit. Lamp glasses have a tapered waist, which allows the vapour to hit off it and run down to be vaporised again.
As such there is more contact between the copper and the vapour. This is called reflux and results in a lighter spirit.
The height of a still effects flavour as reflux will also take place if the neck is long enough.
After the neck of the still there is a device called a lyne arm that will sometimes include a purifier. This device will be cooled or uncooled and allows some of the heavier elements to be condensed and for reflux to occur when they are returned into the still via a pipe.
Distilleries that have uncooled purifiers in the lyne arms include Ardbeg, Strathmill, Talisker, Glen Spey, Glenlossie and Tormore
Glen Grant has purifiers on both its wash stills and spirit stills and is the only distillery to have this.
There are two types of condensers. These machines are used to cool the vapour and turn it back into liquid spirit.
The first is the shell and tube condenser. This is a series of around 100 copper tubes that are cooled with continuously flowing water. The vapour is run through the tubes where it reverts back to liquid form due to the cooling effect of the water.
These are usually housed within the still house itself, but some are installed outside.
Worm tubs, which sound pretty strange but are actually a lot less gross, are large wooden tubs with a copper tube coiled around the inside. This is why they are called worm tubs.
These are kept on the outside of the still house and are topped up with cold water that is pumped into the base. The warm water is then removed from the top.
The diameter of the copper tube inside the tub gradually decreases and the distillate is removed at the bottom, where the tube runs into a spirit safe.
Worm tubs do not offer a lot of copper contact and therefore create heavier and richer drams. They were first invented in Germany in 1540 and were the most widely used condensers I Scotland until the invention of the shell and tube in the 1880s.
Shell and tube condenser are now the most widely used and only fifteen distilleries, Royal Lochnagar, Edradour, Speyburn, Glen Kinchie, Balmenich, Talisker, Benrinnes, Cragganmore, Dalwhinnie, Craigellachie, Glen Elgin, Springbank, Pulteney, Mortlach and Oban, continue to use worm tubs.
CondensersCongenersdistillationdistilleriesDrinkWireStill shapesWhisky Making Process
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My name is Greg, and I'm a brand strategy consultant, writer, speaker, host and judge specialising in premium spirits. My mission is to experience, share and inspire with everything great about whisky, whiskey, gin, beer and fine dining through my writing, my brand building and my whisky tastings.
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text:
Council Will Proceed with Water Project
Unclear whether public will weigh in on pipe
By Erin Foote Marlowe
"name": "Air - Ad - Rectangle - 2 pack - Inline Content - 1",
A majority of the Bend City Council voted last week to proceed with the pipe portion of the city's $68 million surface water improvement project.
The decision may mean there will be no public hearing on the installation of the approximately 30-inch-diameter pipe along Skyliners Road, which would replace two aging pipes that currently bring water from Bridge Creek to the city's water storage facility west of town.
Three councilors—Sally Russell, Doug Knight and Jim Clinton—voted to halt the project in favor of a major public involvement process.
Four councilors—Victor Chudowsky, Mark Capell, Scott Ramsay and Jodie Barram—voted to proceed with the city's current plan of installing the 30-inch pipe.
It was something of a surprise move from Chudowsky and Barram. Both had indicated support for gathering more information before proceeding with the project.
Chudowsky, who was elected to his first council term last November, had campaigned on a platform of concern about the surface water project but said that after carefully examining the council's options he felt the best option was to go forward with the 30-inch pipe.
"The time for a grand reassessment of the whole thing... it would be wonderful—if it was three or four years ago," Chudowsky said Monday. "I'm afraid the time for that has passed."
At the council meeting the group voted unanimously to maintain both a groundwater and a surface water system.
Chudowsky said, in that case, because of the costs already sunk into the design of the 30-inch pipe, as well as some "regulatory issues" with simply using the current piping system, he felt it best to avoid a full-scale public look at alternatives because of the time it would take.
The council is trying to time the laying of the pipe with a county repavement of Skyliners Road. Still, Chudowsky said the discussion does not have to be over.
"The vote we took last Wednesday doesn't necessarily preclude somebody from coming forward and saying, 'I have a better idea,'" said Chudowsky.
He said it is incumbent on Knight, who did propose an alternative plan at last week's meeting, or another councilor to propose something different, vet it and gain support for it.
Knight's plan is to hold off on installing a new pipe and instead use the current pipe from the 1950s until around 2025, when the county might be likely to repave Skyliners Road again. At that time, the city could upgrade the pipe if the community supported it and not lose any of the costs already sunk into the design of that pipe.
"There might be millions of dollars in savings," said Knight. "It's really more of showing an earnest effort to work with the folks at Landwatch."
Knight said he is hopeful that other councilors, such as Barram and Chudowsky, will have "woken up" to the need for more public involvement by the time the council meets next on Feb. 20.
As it stands, he said, Chudowsky is coming across to the community as a "flip-flopper" and Barram appears to have had a "lapse in understanding of her true morality" when it comes to allowing for involvement of the public in this process.
Barram did not return a request for comment Tuesday.
Knight said he did not expect an "awakening" from Ramsay and Capell.
Chudowsky and Barram were criticized by others, as well.
Paul Dewey, executive director of Central Oregon Landwatch, said he was extremely disappointed in Chudowsky and Barram's decision to proceed with the current plan without opening the decision up to more public comment.
"To do so before even hearing from the public is a violation of the trust people had in electing them," said Dewey.
Bill Buchanan, a Bend attorney who has strongly opposed the surface water improvement project, said he, too, was disappointed in Chudowsky's decision.
"He sort of played both sides of the fence all along, I now realize," said Buchanan.
The council will hold a public hearing on Feb. 20 about two other aspects to hear from the public about how best to comply with an Environmental Protection Agency rule requiring treatment of surface water for cryptosporidium, an organism found in Bend's surface water, that can cause illness.
The council's recent vote means members are also still open to input on the question of whether a hydropower plant should be part of the overall project.
Knight and other critics of last week's decision said they aim to bring a direct conversation about the pipe to the fore, as well.
"I think there's a lot of people that are upset," said Knight. "It ain't over till it's over."
Erin Foote Marlowe
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text:
Q: Opening multiple kernels in command line for batch operation I have been searching around for a while, and perhaps I'm just using the wrong terminology, but I haven't found a way to do this.
I have a mathematica notebook converted and saved as nobel_test.m, which runs perfectly on my own computer. Because it takes about an hour to run, I'm trying to run multiple at one time on a computer cluster that can have 100 instances going at once (named nobel). I converted my original notebook by making everything InputForm, ending with Exit[], etc, and changing outputs so that they are saved in external text files instead of printing into the notebook.
When I tested this, it ran fine by itself - the script ran, read the correct contents, created and printed the files it needed to, etc. I used the command
math -noprompt -run "<<nobel_test.m"

I also tried
math -noprompt -script "nobel_test.m"

which also works for single cases.
However, the banner opens ("The following versions are available...mathematica-8.0.4.." etc.), and while no In[1]:= or anything like that prints, it seems to enter an input-less front end that can't be closed (without quitting the kernel). It automatically closes about an hour later when the notebook finishes evaluating.
Because of this, I can only run sequentially, rather than in parallel. I thought -noprompt was supposed to prevent the banner from opening, so that you could just submit job after job to the max of your licenses; but because it opens and holds there, I have to wait until the current job is done before starting a new one.
Is there a way to quit that section without closing the kernel, or other good ways to execute several mathematica scripts at once?
Again, apologies if this is commonly asked, I'm probably not searching the correct things. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

A: From image_docter's comment:
If you are running on Linux then you may try using MathKernel and putting the command in the background using '&' ? For example :
MathKernel -script myscript.m &

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text:
Amoris laetitia, in italiano La gioia dell'amore, è la seconda esortazione apostolica di papa Francesco. Benché porti la data del 19 marzo 2016, solennità di San Giuseppe, il testo è stato reso pubblico solo l'8 aprile successivo.

Il testo raccoglie le sintesi dei due sinodi sulla famiglia indetti da papa Francesco: quello straordinario del 2014, sul tema "Le sfide pastorali della famiglia nel contesto dell'evangelizzazione"; e quello ordinario del 2015 sul tema "La vocazione e la missione della famiglia nella Chiesa e nel mondo contemporaneo".

Subito dopo la pubblicazione, ha suscitato un ampio dibattito riguardo ad alcuni punti controversi del testo.

Contenuto
Dopo una breve introduzione, l'esortazione apostolica si articola in nove capitoli e 41 sottocapitoli.
 Alla luce della parola
 La realtà e le sfide delle famiglie
 Lo sguardo rivolto a Gesù: la vocazione della famiglia
 L'amore nel matrimonio
 L'amore che diventa fecondo
 Alcune prospettive pastorali
 Rafforzare l'educazione dei figli
 Accompagnare, discernere e integrare la fragilità
 Spiritualità coniugale e familiare.

Introduzione
Papa Francesco ha iniziato l'opera notando le divisioni di opinione durante i sinodi: "I dibattiti portati all'attenzione dai media, in certe pubblicazioni e persino tra i ministeri della chiesa, spaziano da un immoderato desiderio di un totale cambiamento senza sufficienti riflessioni o sondaggi, verso un'attitudine che vorrebbe risolvere tutto con l'applicazione di regole generali o derivando conclusioni da particolari considerazioni teologiche." Il papa ad ogni modo non propone una risoluzione per queste differenze tramite l'imposizione dell'unità: "L'unità di insegnamento e pratica è necessaria nella Chiesa, ma questo non preclude varie vie di interpretare alcuni aspetti degli insegnamenti [...]. Che lo Spirito ad ogni modo ci guidi sempre a comprendere la completa verità [...]" (paragrafo 3)Egli ammonisce inoltre il lettore del documento: "Non raccomando una lettura frettolosa del testo" chiedendo al lettore di considerarlo "pazientemente e attentamente" (paragrafo 7). Un commentatore dell'opera l'ha ritenuta una ricca riflessione e una risposta alle critiche alla relazione finale del sinodo dei vescovi del 2015 che si è concentrato più sulle pratiche sociologiche che sulle Scritture.

Alla luce della parola
Questo capitolo rappresenta una "meditazione biblica sui punti chiave del matrimonio e della vita famigliare" ed include una sezione sull'importanza del lavoro. Secondo alcuni "si basa su una collezione di Scritture che però non si agganciano tra loro" con "alcuni buoni passaggi" come una immaginaria discussione tra Eva ed Adamo come componenti della prima famiglia.

La realtà e le sfide delle famiglie
Qui papa Francesco considera la realtà contemporanea della vita famigliare, vagliando i cambiamenti unici con cui essa si deve confrontare, inclusi i fenomeni come immigrazione, mancanza di case, disattenzione alle disabilità, mancanza di rispetto degli anziani e "rifiuto ideologico delle differenze tra i sessi." Egli conclude che solo adottando un punto di vista di realismo possiamo evitare nozioni astratte e artificiose sul matrimonio che hanno poco a che fare con le vere esperienze con le famiglie del mondo

Lo sguardo rivolto a Gesù: la vocazione della famiglia
Il capitolo terzo si occupa della vocazione della famiglia secondo la tradizione cattolica ed i vangeli. Esso si concentra sulla natura sacramentale del matrimonio, sulla sua indissolubilità e sul suo ruolo nella trasmissione della vita. Questo capitolo include anche "situazioni imperfette" e "famiglie ferite" e chiama i pastori a "esercitare attento discernimento delle situazioni" (Familiaris Consortio, 84).

L'amore nel matrimonio
Francesco esamina ogni singola frase del passaggio della Lettera di San Paolo ai Corinzi circa l'amore. La progressiva "trasformazione dell'amore" che ha luogo nel matrimonio è un punto focale e di come il continuo rinnovamento dell'amore nel rapporto sia necessario.

L'amore che diventa fecondo
In questo capitolo il punto centrale è interamente dedicato alla procreazione nel matrimonio. Francesco discute le questioni spirituali e psicologiche che entrano in gioco con l'accoglienza di una nuova vita al mondo, e tocca fasi come l'adozione ed il ruolo delle famiglie estese. È interessante come l'Amoris Laetitia non parli solo della "famiglia nucleare", insistendo che la famiglia debba essere concepita come un nucleo in connessione con altre relazioni (paragrafo 187).

Alcune prospettive pastorali
Il capitolo sei si rivolge ai ministri che devono accompagnare le coppie nei loro primi anni di matrimonio, che nella cultura contemporanea rischiano maggiormente in quel periodo. Questa discussione porta naturalmente a discutere di quelle persone abbandonate, separate o divorziate, rendendo necessarie le prescrizioni adottate recentemente dalla Santa Sede. Il papa inoltre parla alle famiglie in cui vi sono membri con tendenze omosessuali. Si parla inoltre della morte e della vedovanza.

Rafforzare l'educazione dei figli
Come suggerito dal titolo, il capitolo sette è incentrato sulla pedagogia. Il papa incoraggia la formazione etica, la disciplina, le punizioni prudenti, il realismo e l'educazione sessuale adeguata, ammonendo contro le tendenze di chi vuole controllare ogni esperienza dei bambini classificandolo come un desiderio di dominare. Al contrario, Francesco chiede ai genitori di aiutare i figli a crescere in libertà così da raggiungere in autonomia la coscienza di sviluppo e disciplina

Accompagnare, discernere e integrare la fragilità
Il capitolo otto si focalizza sulla cura pastorale dei membri della chiesa verso i divorziati e risposati, su quanti sono interessati da queste "unioni irregolari". Gran parte delle critiche all'Amoris laetitia si sono incentrate su questo capitolo. Se il documento non dice esplicitamente che va concessa la comunione anche a persone divorziate e risposate civilmente, i critici ritengono che il testo sia tanto ambiguo da portare alla conclusione che tale atto sia permissibile. Secondo altri, Francesco starebbe semplicemente spostando l'enfasi sulla questione, chiedendo ai pastori di "prendere coscienza sulla necessità di integrare i divorziati ed i risposati nella vita della Chiesa, e che questo è molto più importante della chiarezza teologica."

Spiritualità coniugale e familiare
Il capitolo conclusivo è dedicato alla spiritualità coniugale e familiare. Tutti, a partire dal gruppo famiglia, sono chiamati a crescere, svilupparsi e maturare, aiutandosi reciprocamente nelle debolezze e nelle limitazioni di ciascuno.

Reazioni

Pubblicazione
Alla conferenza stampa sponsorizzata dall'Ufficio Stampa del Vaticano, il cardinale Christoph Schönborn, O.P., arcivescovo di Vienna, ed il cardinale Lorenzo Baldisseri, Segretario Generale del Sinodo dei Vescovi, assieme a Franco Miano e Giuseppina De Simone, una coppia sposata, entrambi insegnanti che hanno partecipato ai sinodi, hanno discusso il documento. Schönborn ha scherzato quando alcuni giornalisti gli hanno rivolto delle domande sulla nota a piè di pagina n. 351, che riguarda la questione controversa dell'accesso alla comunione per divorziati e rimaritati civilmente: "Sono sorpreso del fatto che tutti abbiano letto questa nota a piè di pagina! Ma papa Francesco intende presentare una fotografia ad ampio raggio, non focalizzarsi su un unico punto".

Schönborn ha inoltre positivamente evidenziato come durante il sinodo diversi gruppi di discussione abbiano iniziato a portare le loro storie famigliari, scoprendo lati interessanti in relazione ai lavori sinodali. Egli stesso ha portato la propria esperienza (i suoi genitori divorziarono quando egli aveva appena 14 anni) che l'ha fatto pensare ad un modo per "andare oltre l'artificiale, il superficiale, una divisione netta tra regolare e irregolare, ponendo ciascuno sotto la lente comune del Vangelo, in accordo con quanto detto da San Paolo: "Dio ha consegnato tutti gli uomini alla disobbedienza, per usare con tutti misericordia".

Reazioni iniziali
Le reazioni iniziali hanno evidenziato diverse problematiche circa dei temi contemporanei della moralità e della pratica della chiesa nelle discussioni relative a comunione, divorzio, costumi sessuali e pratica pastorale.

Sin dalla sua pubblicazione, era chiaro che l'Amoris laetitia sarebbe stata foriera di potenziali cambiamenti negli insegnamenti della Chiesa in particolare sulla possibilità di ricevere la comunione eucaristica da parte dei risposati e nei divorziati civili, ai quali papa Francesco si dice abbia implicitamente fatto riferimento nella nota n. 351 che cita testualmente:

Alcuni commentatori hanno segnalato apparenti contraddizioni tra questa nota a piè di pagina e le esortazioni apostoliche Familiaris consortio e Reconciliatio et paenitentiae di papa Giovanni Paolo II. Quando venne interrogato direttamente sulle relazioni tra il lavoro di Francesco con la Familiaris consortio, in particolare nella parte in cui si dice che i divorziati risposati debbano vivere "come fratelli e sorelle" così da poter essere in comunione, il cardinale Schönborn disse che entrambi lavori hanno il medesimo impianto: "non vi sono cambiamenti, bensì uno sviluppo". Alcuni tradizionalisti, tra cui il vescovo kazako Athanasius Schneider ed il gruppo inglese "Voice of the Family", hanno apertamente criticato l'esortazione di papa Francesco. Voice of the Family ha chiesto al papa "di riconoscere i gravi errori presenti nell'esortazione apostolica Amoris Laetitia recentemente pubblicata, in particolare in quelle sezioni dove si vuole portare alla dissacrazione dell'eucaristia ed alle minacce verso i nostri figli, ed a ritirare l'esortazione apostolica con effetto immediato". Edward N. Peters, referendario della Signatura Apostolica, ha scritto a tal proposito che l'Amoris laetitia "non è un documento legislativo, non contiene linguaggi legislativi o interpretativi, e non mette in discussione il can. 915". Pertanto su questa base il diritto canonico non è in discussione: i matrimoni cattolici irregolari non hanno diritto ad accedere all'eucaristia.

Richiesta di chiarificazioni: i dubia e la "correzione filiale"

Nel giugno del 2016, un gruppo di 45 studiosi cattolici inviarono una lettera a tutti i cardinali nella quale si chiedeva che papa Francesco ripudiasse un "numero di elementi che possono essere intesi in una maniera contraria alla fede ed alla morale cattolica".

Negli ultimi mesi del 2016, il dibattito sull'Amoris laetitia è continuato. Quattro cardinali (Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmüller, Joachim Meisner) hanno, sia formalmente che privatamente, chiesto a papa Francesco dei chiarimenti. Hanno sottoscritto cinque dubia (dubbi), con una risposta si/no. Papa Francesco ha rifiutato di rispondere ed i cardinali pertanto hanno aperto il confronto al pubblico. Le loro domande si sono focalizzate prevalentemente sul cap. 8 dell'esortazione apostolica, "dove vi sono delle circostanze con le quali divorziati e risposati civili possono ricevere la comunione, quando pure vi siano in vigore delle "norme assolutamente morali" che proibiscono ai cattolici di compiere tali atti, e di come il papa intenda gli insegnamenti della chiesa cattolica in coscienza di decisioni morali."

Alcuni prelati e studiosi cattolici, tra cui i cardinali Paul Josef Cordes e Renato Martino, i vescovi Athanasius Schneider e James Conley, ed il filosofo tedesco Robert Spaemann, hanno espresso supporto a tale iniziativa. Il cardinale George Pell chiese: "come si può non essere d'accordo su una domanda?" Nel dicembre del 2016, il prefetto della Congregazione per la dottrina della fede, il cardinale Gerhard Müller, se da un lato ha dichiarato che la Congregazione non aveva intenzione di entrare nel merito della controversia, ha indicato di non credere nella possibilità di cambiare la dottrina della comunione.

A Oxford, il filosofo John Finnis ed il teologo Germain Grisez hanno espresso i loro concetti in una lettera dettagliata, chiedendo al papa di condannare otto posizioni contro la fede cattolica "che sono supportate, o potrebbero esserlo" dall'Amoris laetitia.

Ad ogni modo, secondo il consigliere di papa Francesco, Antonio Spadaro, le controversie sulla comunione hanno già avuto risposta. L'arcivescovo di Brisbane Mark Benedict Coleridge disse che i prelati favorevoli a supportare i dubia stavano inseguendo una "falsa chiarezza". In linea con questa visione, da alcuni è stato suggerito che papa Francesco si sia rifiutato di rispondere ai dubia per enfatizzare un approccio più umano e pastorale, de-enfatizzando il ruolo legale del documento.

In una lettera privata consegnata a mano il 6 maggio 2017 a papa Francesco, il cardinale Carlo Caffarra, per conto dei quattro cardinali, ha chiesto udienza al papa. Caffarra ha indicato che "le interpretazioni di alcuni passaggi oggettivamente ambigui" dell'Amoris Laetitia sono state date "non in forma divergente, ma del tutto contraria al magistero permanente della Chiesa". A giugno, non avendo ancora ricevuto risposta dal pontefice, i cardinali hanno reso la questione pubblica ancora una volta.

A luglio del 2017 un gruppo di conservatori del clero, dell'università e laici, tra i quali l'intellettuale tedesco Martin Mosebach, l'ex Presidente dello IOR, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi e il vescovo Bernard Fellay, superiore della Fraternità sacerdotale San Pio X, hanno siglato un documento chiamato Correctio filialis ("Correzione Filiale") all'opera di papa Francesco. Il documento di venticinque pagine viene inviato l'11 agosto con le firme di 61 laici e reso pubblico a settembre dopo l'ennesima mancata risposta da parte della Santa Sede. Esso critica il papa accusandolo di aver promosso sette proposizioni eretiche nelle proprie parole, azioni e omissioni, nel suo pontificato. La correzione filiale è un'iniziativa rara nel corso della storia della chiesa: la prima correzione è stata fatta all'epoca di papa Giovanni XXII, ammonito nel 1333.

Secondo Ross Douthat, con i dubia, la Chiesa Cattolica Romana è "entrata in una terra incognita."

Implementazione
A livello pratico, divergenze di interpretazione si sono presentate tra i vescovi. Alcuni vescovi hanno pubblicato delle linee guida per le loro diocesi insistendo sul fatto che divorziati e risposati civilmente debbano rimanere ineleggibili ai sacramenti di riconciliazione ed eucaristia a meno che non dimostrino di vivere in continenza, mentre altri vescovi hanno aperto a tutti la possibilità di questi sacramenti. In una lettera privata al vescovo di Buenos Aires, papa
Francesco ha dichiarato di essere d'accordo su un'interpretazione più aperta del testo.

L'8 gennaio 2017, i due vescovi di Malta hanno rilasciato le seguenti linee guida "per l'Applicazione del Capitolo VIII dell' Amoris Laetitia." Le linee guida sono state pubblicate dal giornale semi-ufficiale del vaticano, L'Osservatore Romano, sei giorni dopo. In tali indicazioni si ribadisce che, dopo un serio processo di discernimento, coppie di divorziati e risposati civili possano ricevere la Santa Comunione se si sentono "in pace con Dio". Queste linee guida sono state immediatamente criticate dai conservatori come un "disastro". Nel contempo, il vescovo Steven Lopes ha emesso una lettera pastorale ammettendo divorziati e risposati civili all'assoluzione e alla comunione solo se avessero perseguito "una completa continenza". Secondo il vescovo Lopes, la "coscienza" non può giustificare l'accesso alla comunione per i risposati civili.

In reazione a queste linee guida sulla comunione, tre vescovi kazaki hanno inviato una lettera congiunta al pontefice implorandolo di "confermare l'assoluta immutabilità della prassi della Chiesa relativamente all'indissolubilità del matrimonio". In questo stesso appello, i tre hanno riportato anche come le recenti "guide pastorali abbiano già contraddetto l'universale tradizione della Chiesa Cattolica."

Il cardinale Caffarra, uno degli autori dei dubia, ha dichiarato dopo la pubblicazione dell'Amoris laetitia che "solo un cieco può negare che vi sia una grande confusione, incertezza e insicurezza nella chiesa."

Il 1 febbraio 2017, la Conferenza dei Vescovi Tedeschi ha pubblicato delle linee guida considerate come l'interpretazione più ampia dell'Amoris laetitia permettendo quindi la comunione anche a divorziati e risposati civilmente solo in certi casi che comprendono situazioni difficili.

Il 14 febbraio 2017, il cardinale Francesco Coccopalmerio, presidente del Pontificio Consiglio per i Testi Legislativi che si occupa di interpretare le leggi della chiesa, ha pubblicato un libriccino di 50 pagine stabilendo che nel capitolo 8 dell'Amoris laetitia venga permessa la comunione solo a quei divorziati e solo per quelle coppie che si siano risposate in seno alle normative della chiesa cattolica. Coccopalmerio ha ribadito inoltre che se divorziati e risposati possono ricevere la comunione se seriamente intenzionati a cambiare la loro situazione, non possono riceverla per mero atto del loro desiderio. Le sue posizioni sono state criticate nel famoso TV show cattolico della EWTN dal titolo The World Over.

Il cardinale Gerhard Müller, prefetto della Congregazione per la dottrina della fede, ha ribadito che l'Amoris Laetitia debba essere interpretata meramente in linea con la dottrina e che con essa non vi è un cambiamento nella disciplina della Chiesa. In questa visione, divorziati e risposati civili possono avere accesso ai sacramenti di Riconciliazione e Comunione solo se si astengono da relazioni sessuali tra di loro.

Summa familiae cura
Il 19 settembre 2017, esattamente un anno dopo la pubblicazione della lettera dei quattro cardinali nella quale si chiedevano chiarimenti circa l'Amoris laetitia, papa Francesco ha promulgato un motu proprio dal titolo Summa familiae cura che ha rinominato ed espanso la missione del Pontificio Istituto Teologico per il Matrimonio e le Scienze Famigliari voluto da Giovanni Paolo II. Il papa ha scritto che le volontà di Giovanni Paolo II espresse nel sinodo del 1980 e nella Familiaris Consortio che ha fondato l'istituto, sono state ampliate col sinodo dei vescovi nel 2014 e nell'Amoris laetitia del 2015. Il giornale francese La Croix ha dichiarato che questa "è una risposta chiara" a quella lettera.

Note

Voci correlate
 Opere e documenti di papa Francesco
 Lista di esortazioni apostoliche

Collegamenti esterni
 Testo dell'esortazione apostolica sul sito della Santa Sede
 Sintesi, capitolo per capitolo, della costituzione apostolica

Esortazioni apostoliche
Papa Francesco

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Q: What is my error in this $\nabla_{\vec{v}} f(x,y,z)$ at $\vec{a} = (-1, -1, 4)$ and $\vec{v} = (\frac{\sqrt 2}{2}, \frac{1}{2}, \frac{1}{2})$ problem I want to find gradient of $f(x,y,z) = \sqrt{xyz}$ in the direction of $\vec{v}$ at a point $\vec{a}$.
That is, $\nabla_{\vec{v}} f(x,y,z)$ at $\vec{a} = (-1, -1, 4)$ and $\vec{v} = (\frac{\sqrt 2}{2}, \frac{1}{2}, \frac{1}{2})$
I computed gradient of $f(x,y,z)$ along $\vec{v}$ to be
$\left(\begin{matrix} \sqrt{\frac{yz}{4x}} \\ \sqrt{\frac{xz}{4y}} \\ \sqrt{\frac{xy}{4z}} \end{matrix}\right)$.
So my answer for the value of gradient at $\vec{a}$ is $\left(\begin{matrix} 1 \\ 1 \\ \frac{1}{4}\end{matrix}\right)$.
But the answer given is
$\left(\begin{matrix} \frac{yz}{\sqrt{4xyz}} \\ \frac{xz}{\sqrt{4xyz}} \\ \frac{xy}{\sqrt{4xyz}} \end{matrix}\right)$.
So the accepted answer for value of gradient at $\vec{a}$ is $\left(\begin{matrix} -1 \\ -1 \\ \frac{1}{4}\end{matrix}\right)$.
Why is my answer wrong?

A: You need to be careful to differentiate the form $\sqrt{ax}$ when $a$ can be negative (in this case $a=yz$)
Especially $\sqrt{ax}=\sqrt{a}\sqrt{x}$ does not hold when $a$ is negative. I guess this is why you got wrong.


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Home / Programs & Degrees / Avalanche Science / Avalanche Science - Faculty
Expert Instructors, Real-World Lessons
CMC Faculty Partner with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center
Highly regarded industry experts developed the Avalanche Science program. Their invaluable experience in the nation's most active snow sports region shaped the curriculum. This expertise is available to you through CMC's partnerships with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, nearby ski areas, and leading industry professionals who will teach you both in the classroom and on the mountain slopes.
During your field internship, you'll have the opportunity to monitor, track and measure mountain snowpack over two full winters and observe how snow behaves in various weather conditions.
Hands-on learning activities include:
Performing high-altitude fieldwork in the Rocky Mountains
Observing snow behavior at CMC's on-campus snow study plot
Tracking data from two remote-sensing weather stations: one on campus and one in the nearby Sawatch Range
Using state-of-the-art equipment in daily lessons
Meeting in "smart" classrooms that deliver the latest technology
Learning in hybrid classes that combine online and on-site education to fit the schedules of working students
Access to a regional forecasting office and personnel
Elder, Kelly
Dr. Kelly Elder
Instructor, Avalanche Science; Research Hydrologist, USDA Forest Service
719-486-2015 | elderrmrs@gmail.com
B.A. Physical Geography, University of Colorado
M.A. Physical Geography Hydrology, University of California, Santa Barbara
Ph.D. Physical Geography Hydrology Statistics, University of California, Santa Barbara
Professional Certifications and Associations
American Avalanche Association, Certified Instructor
American Geophysical Union
Dr. Kelly Elder is a research hydrologist with the USDA Forest Service at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, CO. He studies water distribution and the water yield from mountain snowpacks and his specialty is snow. He has worked to develop information and methods for measuring snowpack properties, distribution of snow cover and water equivalents in alpine and subalpine basins. Dr. Elder's passion for snow hydrology and mountain climatology can be found in his numerous scholarly articles and professional publications.
In addition to his research efforts, Dr. Elder served as a faculty member for the Colorado State University Watershed Science Program from 1995 - 2000. He has taught courses on snow, avalanches, snow hydrology, physical geography and the geography of water resources.
As an expert in the snow science field, Dr. Elder was involved in the development of the Avalanche Science program from concept to curriculum. He hopes that students graduate the program with a fundamental working knowledge that will allow them to pursue careers in the industry and benefit from the hands-on, applied approach.
"The Colorado Mountain College Avalanche Science program is designed to prepare snow and avalanche professionals for career paths in a new comprehensive fashion not available in any other venue." says Dr. Kelly Elder, "It will change the way we train and prepare people for the professional snow worker industry."
When he isn't "buried" in avalanche and hydrology research or teaching students, Dr. Elder enjoys skiing at Arapahoe Basin, and spending time with his children and dogs.
Greene, Ethan
Dr. Ethan Greene
Instructor, Avalanche Science; Director, Colorado Avalanche Information Center
719-486-2015 | emgreene@coloradomtn.edu
B.S. Meteorology, University of Utah
M.S. Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University
Ph.D. Geosciences, Colorado State University
Wilderness First Responder
State of Colorado -Type I Explosive
Certified Instructor, American Avalanche Association
Pro I and II Instructor, American Avalanche Association
Avalanche Operations - Level 3, Canadian Avalanche Association
Mountain Meteorology, American Meteorological Society
American Meteorological Society, Member
American Avalanche Association, Professional Member
International Association for Cryospheric Sciences - Snow and Avalanches, Division Head
Dr. Ethan Greene has been the Director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) since 2005. He currently lives in Leadville and grew up in Boulder, skiing Colorado's Front Range. Prior to his time with the CAIC, Ethan spent several winters in the San Juan Mountains, at Big Sky Ski Resort as a ski patroller and at the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center as an avalanche forecaster. Ethan approaches snow and avalanches from both a practical and theoretical perspective.
Ethan has studied meteorology at the University of Utah and Atmospheric Science, specifically snowdrift formation, at Colorado State University. He has also examined and researched the microstructure of snow and its metamorphism in Colorado and Switzerland, earning a Ph.D. in Geosciences. Ethan has published various scholarly articles on snow, weather and avalanches and been a member of national and international working groups on snow and avalanche projects.
Dr. Ethan Greene is one of the original supporters of the Avalanche Science program and helped with the initial efforts to design and approve the curriculum. As an avalanche professional, Dr. Greene recognized the need for an experiential based program geared towards industry professionals.
He specifically looks forward to showing students how to define and address avalanche safety problems and preventing avalanche tragedies in Colorado.
"The Avalanche Science program gives students a chance to dig into the fundamentals of snow, avalanches and provides time to learn, experience and experiment." says Dr. Ethan Greene, "I look forward to meeting, teaching, and working with a fantastic group of people."
Lazar, Brian
Brian Lazar
Instructor, Avalanche Science; Deputy Director, Colorado Avalanche Information Center
719-486-2015 | blazar@coloradomtn.edu
M.S. Civil Engineering, University of Colorado
B.S. Environmental Science and Biology, University of Colorado
American Avalanche Association (AAA), Certified Instructor Pro 1 and 2
AIARE, Curriculum Developer, former Executive Director, Board Member
AIARE Course Leader Levels 1 - 3
Snowmobile Safety Instructor, Colorado Parks and Wildlife
AMGA training, Ski Mountaineering, Rock, Alpine
Type 1 Explosives training, Permit for Avalanche Control, Colorado Dept. of Labor and Employment
Brian has been the Deputy Director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) since 2010. Prior to his work with the CAIC, Brian was an avalanche educator and curriculum developer as well as the Executive Director with the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE), and former member of the American Avalanche Association Education Committee.
After more than a decade of guiding in a variety of snow climates on both sides of the equator, Brian returned to graduate school where he studied snow and ice mechanics in Alaska's Chugach Range, and conducted research at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.
Thanks to a collaboration between Colorado Mountain College and the CAIC, Brian brings his years of expertise in avalanche education to the Avalanche Science curriculum. He looks forward to assisting in individual student development through the program's unique mentorship structure.
"My hope is that students leave with a core skill set and competency that allows them enter the role as an avalanche professional," says Brian, "and can easily accept and Incorporate training and mentorship."
Local Avalanche Experts and CMC Instructors
CAIC staff bio
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