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The Haal of Pakistan: Osman Samiuddin dissects the chaos of Pakistan cricket
by Osman Samiuddin May 18, 2018 - 4:08pm 10 minute read
Osman Samiuddin looks for cultural answers to why Pakistan can turn it on like no other team in world cricket
Originally published in 2013
One November night in Sharjah, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene came together to do what they had been doing for what now seems like forever. It was a warm, oily evening, the air heavy and lubricated. The pair had joined forces at 53 for 3, chasing 201 for the win. The pitch was a grubby orangey-brown, where batsmen were regularly through their strokes too early. Pakistan were 2-1 up in the series and playing in a recrudescent stadium, but this was still pretty routine firefighting for the Sri Lankan pair.
Neither batsman was comfortable to begin with because you couldn't really be on that surface. But once they got past the first 20 minutes, the familiarity of the task took over. Boundaries were bonuses – only three came in 17 overs from the 18th onwards – so, like good traffic cops, they simply kept the flow moving along. Single here, double there, single here, double there, nice and steady. By the 38th over, they had put on 102 and were looking as settled as two old buddies watching the game on an old, much-shared couch.
Sri Lanka now needed just 46 with 74 balls still to come (the required run-rate wasn't high, but the nature of the pitch made it a little steeper). The crowd, largely Pathan, were still pretty cheery but attention from the match had slipped, and was focused on the occasion itself; Pakistan were, after all, returning after many years to a venue where they had created love and magic and darkness.
There was less gusto, more the resignation of a man who'd done a hundred takes of it already and this, really, was just one too many.
We were sitting in the press box which, in the revamped stadium, was at Sangakkara's long-on when, from around the wicket, Shahid Afridi skipped in to bowl his sixth over. He'd had an eventful game and an even more eventful but inactive six months preceding the series. In that time, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had stripped him of the limited-overs captaincy after he made public a dispute with Waqar Younis, the coach at the time with whom his relationship had always been the wrong side of edgy.
It went the way all big feuds in Pakistan cricket do. It became legal after the PCB, in a fit of pique, stopped Afridi from playing for Hampshire. Then it became political, Afridi pooling the many cards permanently at his disposal – Pathan by birth, a lifelong Karachiite, the land's most popular cricketer, a true celebrity and among their best limited-overs bowlers in recent years – and bringing them to bear down on the board. The interior minister got involved, as did the President (rumoured only, and in the kind of detached way he is said to be ultimately involved in everything, at the level of invisible ombudsman).
Compromises were reached, petitions and objections withdrawn. Afridi, who had "conditionally" retired in protest, eventually withdrew his retirement but only after Ijaz Butt had been replaced by Zaka Ashraf as board chairman. Now in his fourth game back, he'd first steadied Pakistan with the bat: his 75 from 65 balls, plump with loudly cheered singles and doubles, meant Pakistan survived being 97 for 6. The innings was slow by Afridi's standards but his best and most mature in some time.
Now he came in, shining with sweat, and angled one in. First he beat Sangakkara on length, the batsman pressing then pushing forward but realising he wasn't forward enough. Then his leg-break spun, which doesn't always happen, zipped through Sangakkara's attempted drive and bowled him. Chewing gum, Afridi turned around and produced his trademark, star-man celebration. It was muted though, chest not as far out, legs only slightly apart. There was less gusto, more the resignation of a man who'd done a hundred takes of it already and this, really, was just one too many. Apart from the wicket-keeper Sarfraz Ahmed, happy just to be in the side, none of the players who gathered around Afridi looked overly chuffed.
Kumar Sangakkara is bowled by Shahid Afridi during the Sharjah ODI in 2011
In the press box I turned to Shahid Hashmi, the AFP sports stringer for Pakistan, and we both silently acknowledged a possibility. We did it knowingly, but without knowing precisely what we were being knowing about. As most agency guys would have done, he'd already prepared much of his copy, reporting a comfortable Sri Lanka win. Only the details needed to be put in. Now we looked at each other and he decided, just to be safe (which, as a rule for agency writing, is top five), to start writing an alternative version, describing a Pakistan win.
On air in the commentary box was Waqar Younis and he left behind a thought that, like a trail of cigarette smoke, hung around deliciously. "Has this come too late or is there a twist in the tale?" A few days later we were discussing the game and that moment in particular. "I was doing commentary and I said it very clearly on air, what I am saying to you right now, I can sense something here, we just need one wicket," Waqar said. "When Sanga got out, I said OK. Roshan [Abeysinghe] was with me and he said, no it's over. They showed some girls praying, he said those prayers aren't going to work. I said hold on, I can sense something here. Just one more wicket here and you watch this game, seriously, you watch this game."
Indeed the game demanded watching. The night gave in to Afridi and Pakistan. He had been limping until then, the result of a nasty knee injury picked up while fielding that had forced him off the field and put in doubt his further participation. But now he took four more wickets. Sri Lanka lost seven for 19 including Sangakkara's wicket in around seven overs to lose a game they had won in everything but the actual winning, by 26 runs. Hashmi sent in his copy, complete with alternative opening and end, on the dot of the last ball.
Shahid Afridi celebrates taking the final Sri Lanka wicket to win the ODI at Sharjah in 2011
A week or so after the game, I met Younis Khan for an interview and asked him about the turnaround. "See, this is the tradition of Sharjah. Janaab-e-Aala [Gentlemen], 25 runs are needed and [Abdul] Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood come and take four wickets, three wickets, or Wasim Akram comes on and puts in a spell… this is a tradition we keep alive."
I don't know how or why it was that I, like Hashmi and Waqar, sensed the continuation of this tradition at that precise moment. There was no sound reason for it. Even after that wicket, Sri Lanka could and should have coasted it. But millions of others had it as well, probably, a fleeting feeling when Sangakkara went that Pakistan were about to turn it on, a feeling as real as a smell you smell, a sound you hear, a taste you taste and a dance you dance.
What we know about what happens, roughly, is this. Pakistan are in the field (almost exclusively so), drifting, amiably and contentedly, to defeat over five days, or one. They are comatose flat. Bowlers, uninspired, are on autopilot, the fielders heavy and ponderous. If there is a target, it's down to, say, 45 off the last 10 with seven wickets in hand. If it's a Test, the target being chased is a small one, under 200, or if it is the first innings, the opposition are 200 for 2. Coasting.
Sometimes, but not always, it takes an unusual dismissal to turn on the light – a run-out, an electric catch, a part-timer taking a wicket. And then there is total frenzy, so overwhelming and real you can almost hold it in your hands. Such is its force that it can be deeply moving even through the sensory dilution and sanitisation of TV, even on ball-by-ball commentary online. But to let it get right inside your head and start rearranging your brain – like acid but a lighter, less paranoid burn – you have to be there as it happens.
There is an appeal almost every ball, most justifiable
There is music, not heard but felt, a beat somewhere in the background, rising, unrelenting. Up front is the dissonance of a reality that is proceeding swiftly but with an impact that is unveiled languorously. Wickets begin to fall in heaps, twice, thrice in an over and each one seems the only logical conclusion to that particular spell of play. There is an appeal almost every ball, most justifiable. Fielders start hitting the stumps and taking catches which, in other situations, we can easily imagine them dropping.
If you're a Pakistani, to watch this phase is to be removed into the elemental tape-ball game you might've played at the weekend in some street somewhere which only has a field on the leg-side. It is a devolved version of cricket; amateur, random, frantic. There is no ICC code, no strategy, no rules, no coaches, no support staff, no coaching manuals, no formality.
Pakistan begin to inflict their own chaos on the opposition, except that where they are using it as a force for good, the opposition is crumbling under the weight of it. If one moment accurately captures this frenzy – not the skill or beauty of it, but just the two-sided chaos – it is the run-out of Jonty Rhodes in an ODI Pakistan played in Durban in February 1993.
Pakistan had limped to 208 in their innings and South Africa were cruising, first at 101 for no loss, then with 10 overs to go, when they needed just 50 with nine wickets in hand. Asif Mujtaba, of all bowlers, began the collapse and by the time Rhodes fell – the sixth wicket – the show was in full, uncensored flow. Brian McMillan plays and misses at a Wasim Akram delivery. Spooked by the collapse, Rhodes tries to sneak a single. The wicket-keeper Rashid Latif, alert to this now, hits the stumps with an underarm throw. McMillan is safe but Rhodes has just arrived at the same end and, defeated, runs on, his fate decided.
He deliriously points Akram to the stumps: "Behind you, behind you!" as if Akram may not recognise the three stumps he's been bowling at.
Akram has run halfway down the pitch and appeals to nobody in particular as the stumps are broken, maybe just celebrating a direct hit. Realising that it isn't a run-out but instead an opportunity for one at the other end, he starts running back. Mujtaba comes jogging in from point, still aware, picks up the ball and lobs it gently and high to the non-striker's end. There, along with the retreating Akram, are now assembled Mushtaq Ahmed, Salim Malik and Inzamam-ul-Haq. They look like people who congregate around a road accident in the subcontinent within a second of it happening with nothing to offer but curiosity: haanji [yes, so] what's happening?
Mujtaba's lob is a little high for Akram, who has to leap to get it as he's backpedalling, his momentum carrying him past the stumps as he grabs the ball. Momentarily, as he turns and finds no stumps in front of him, there is panic. Meanwhile, Malik also tries to catch the ball behind Akram – just to make sure? – and as he moves back he hits the stumps, nearly falling over, and knocks the bails off. More panic. Luckily little Mushy is at hand logging everything that is going on (Inzamam, as always, is inert) and he deliriously points Akram to the stumps: "Behind you, behind you!" as if Akram may not recognise the three stumps he's been bowling at for the better part of his life.
Akram plucks out a stump and gleefully taps it with the ball, relief, elation, adrenaline all coiling into one another. Rhodes is halfway back to the hotel by this point, unaware of the mess he has left behind. It's YouTube gold (type in "Waqar Younis 5 for 25 vs South Africa 1992–93" and go to 6:47). Put it in black and white and it's a Three Stooges out-take (and check out the contrast with the pristine, natural athleticism of the next run-out, again Akram; the story of Pakistan cricket in two run-outs).
Waqar calls these moments a tamasha, a spectacle, but also a cross between a rolling circus and a fair. "I don't think you need anyone at that time to calm you down because if somebody calms you down, you just break the rhythm. The other day, when Afridi and Saeed Ajmal was happening, thak-thak-thak it was going, you don't need anyone to come and say 'no, no, we need to do it like this or that'. Misbah was just sitting waiting, letting it run: 'Tamasha lag gaya he, chal ne do isse [let the tamasha run]'.
"And it is a tamasha. I swear to God, we used to say it, we used to talk about it like this. Chal para kaam, chaloji, pakro ['It's begun, come, grab on to it'], that kind of language in the middle."
To the spectator, the entire passage can be supremely disorienting, the head buzzing like a mobile phone on silent. You're trying to understand what's happening in front of you – how it's happening, when it started happening, how it will finish, will it ever finish, do you even have time to enjoy it – and before you know it, it's over and you're sitting there stunned, like the first reaction to death and not knowing how to react and you're alive and flushing and you're a fool because it's happened already and it's over… and what the fuck just happened?
WTF just happened is that Pakistan did a Pakistan, a tamasha that is so unique and delirious and Pakistani, that it says something specifically about them.
There were guys like Wasim, myself, Inzi, Saeed Anwar, you know, one-man-show kind of players.
Pakistan doing a Pakistan represents the occasional triumph of raw over manufactured, of organic over processed, of individual craftsmanship over mass production. That is to appreciate it. To understand it? That is important because we're talking here about moments or days during which life doesn't work as we know it should.
There are rational ways to look at this, no less compelling for their reasonableness. And each incident has its own specific context. After the Abu Dhabi Test win over England in 2012, when Pakistan bowled them out for 72 (defending 145), Misbah-ul-Haq rationalised how they had done it (he seemed also to be consoling England): fourth-innings targets, you know, always tricky no matter how small; five days' worth of pressure aggregating itself in one chase; struggled against spin, and so on.
In the '90s these passages of play came to personify the Pakistan side so much, in England, Sri Lanka, in the West Indies, in Sharjah, in New Zealand (especially and always New Zealand), they became so abundant that it looked like it was happening to formula. It was the unplanned plan: wait for the ball to become old (or make it so), get it reversing, hand it to either Wasim or Waqar or maybe one of the new kids who's just come in but was born with balls of steel and knows just what to do with the ball. And then watch the tamasha.
Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, two masters of reverse swing with a combined 787 Test wickets
Alongside Wasim, Waqar remains the most vivid ringmaster of the tamasha and as he'd also just had a productive stint as the side's coach, I asked him to make sense of it. "I tell you what, you know why this happens?" Waqar begins. "Because we've always had match-winners, individual match-winners. Not the team. Our team used to be titther-bitther [literally meaning scattered, but in this sense disunited and disparate] in the early days but there were guys like Wasim, myself, Inzi, Saeed Anwar, you know, one-man-show kind of players. We used to have so many that we would never lose hope.
"Even the game you are talking about, the Total Trophy, 40 runs with seven or eight wickets left… I still remember. I remember very few things from the ground, some big wickets of course, but there are certain things you do remember. I ran when Kirsten got out to Mujtaba, I ran to the guys and said, look, they need 40 runs, we need seven wickets, but we can see a window, there is a window. I said, it's one wicket, the ball was swinging, new batsmen, no chance."
Pakistan's traditionally rich variety of unorthodox bowlers also means they pounce on new batsmen like no other side in the world. But in that situation, before it happens, why are they so flat?
"No, no, it's not flat. It's a waiting game. Sometimes in any game when the momentum goes to the other side, the fielding side becomes a bit flat. But we knew, back of our minds, every guy, Wasim, me, Inzi, Moin, even he could see and sense those small things, that there is an opportunity. Suddenly, jaan aajati he [you become alive]. When you have match-winners, when your bowler senses something, then your fielders pick up on it, they go along with them, you can see, you can see it in the eyes."
You could tell that day in Durban?
"Not just in that match, but in that series, where Wasim also got five wickets in East London and they needed 30-odd runs in a similar situation, and thak-thak-thak, gone. You can sense those things. That was us."
We've never given importance to coaching. We were never analytical or scientific.
But how have Pakistan been so good at doing this?
"We've never given importance to coaching. We were never analytical or scientific. That guy is there [he points to the video analysis man on the dressing-room balcony], yeah sure he's there. And he's sitting there, and it's kind of a highlights package and you can sit and analyse moments. But actually in the '90s we never did analyse anyone: 'he plays well here, don't put it there.' It's not how long do you bowl at him there, what kind of field, what lengths, what is the B plan, the C plan, after that if it goes wrong, what happens? We had one plan. Go out there, get a wicket. We had resources. We sensed it and said, OK, bring Waqar back. Not even the captain [decided]. Sometimes I would go to the captain, give me two overs, let me do it. It was a kind of teamwork within the team but not like we'll have a plan from before.
"No other country does it. Match-winners are always handy. Shoaib Akhtar? Match-winner. He'll be ugly throughout the game, but with one or two overs he'll change it, one spell. That's why you play those characters. You can't put the game in a shell where you have to be calculating, or planned or on this laptop, seeing how often this guy has gotten that guy out. Don't do that."
And then, quite unprompted, he inadvertently revealed just how powerful a thing it is to be part of (or, unsaid, to watch). He spoke of it like someone who's gone cold turkey.
"It's that thrill I miss, you know. If you ask me what I miss about cricket, I don't want to go out and bowl again because I'm dead tired. But I miss that part, the thrill… in that [South Africa] match, we were so hyped up, so much adrenaline was pumping. When we got back to the hotel, my eyes were swollen. I had to go to a doctor, there was so much there. That I miss, that rush of blood."
Sarfraz Nawaz playing for Pakistan against Australia in 1981
But the easiest mistake to make would be to assume that this is only about the pressure of fourth-innings totals, or the ability to reverse, or even that this is a recent manifestation. Take Sarfraz Nawaz's spell of 7 for 1 in 33 balls in Melbourne in March 1979 (just repeat that slowly to yourself, roll it around your head slowly like some fine wine to fully appreciate the flavour: yup, it's that crazy a spell). Not only is it commonly thought to be one of the first sightings of reverse swing as we now know and love it, but it's also one of the most startling instances of Pakistan doing a Pakistan: Australia were coasting at 305 for 3, chasing 382 for victory. Soon they were all out for 310.
The only thing is, it's not so clear if it was reverse swing. The frazzled footage available of it does reveal swing, and late swing in particular, but it's not conclusive. Wisden Cricketers' Almanack records that Allan Border and Kim Hughes, in putting on 172, had "carried on steadily through the second new ball and until half an hour after tea, when Sarfraz bowled Border off a deflection with a beautiful ball that cut back sharply." That dismissal began the slide and it seems the ball was oldish by then. In his autobiography, captain Mushtaq Mohammad freely admits that players gave "the seam a bit of a lift" during the spell, as well as the more legal application of "good old-fashioned sweat, spit and polish" to get such swing; in other words, it was probably reverse (and Sarfraz could nurse the ball like he nursed grievances, carefully and deliberately).
In the unintentionally comic post-match TV interview, Sarfraz credits this bowling starburst to the dowdy black-and-white virtues of sticking to line and length, though it seems like interviewer and interviewee are playing some Candid Camera-type practical joke on the viewer. (It is entirely possible that Sarfraz was still hiding the idea of reverse swing from the public.) But a few years ago, I asked him about that spell and he was emphatic. "That wasn't reverse swing," he said, as if offended that he was being reduced to a one-trick pony. "I had taken two wickets with the new ball, then three or four with the old ball, and then the new ball again."
Sarfraz is often an unreliable teller of stories though. The evening he told me this, he also tried to explain the connections between match-fixing, Benazir Bhutto's assassination and a Scotland Yard cover-up. But in his earliest autobiography, Imran Khan also makes no mention of late swing of any kind; only that Sarfraz, as he always did, used the conditions extremely well and had a good eye for picking the new ball that might swing most.
The Nightwatchman: Issue 1
Forget this and go further back for more definitive proof that this is about the soul of Pakistan cricket and reverse swing was merely a means of expression. What else but an intrinsic condition could explain the manner of Pakistan's landmark 24-run win at The Oval in 1954? England were 109 for 2 on the fourth day of that last Test, chasing 168, with Peter May and Denis Compton at the crease. Pakistan were playing their ninth Test ever, against arguably the strongest side of that decade (between 1951 and 1961 England won nine out of 11 home series) and reverse swing was not yet even a twitch in someone's fingernail.
And yet, led primarily by Fazal Mahmood, Pakistan managed to drop catches and still instigate a remarkable collapse of eight for 34 in about two hours. Fazal began landing the ball every time exactly where he wanted. So sharp and overpowering had his intuition become that once, as Kardar was about to take him off, he snatched the ball before another bowler could be found, ran in and bowled. He immediately got the critical wicket of Peter May, caught (to cross the "t" and dot the "i" of this tale) by Kardar himself.
Later, Fazal would show to Shujauddin exactly where he wanted him to stand at short square leg: "You put your right foot here, left foot there, unfold your hands and stand ready for a catch. The ball will come right into your hands and you just grab it." Next ball the last remaining English hope, Johnny Wardle, prodded Fazal's leg-cutter straight to Shujauddin, who didn't need to move.
The most forceful evidence that this unique ability to summarily summon chaos is a character trait more than just a skill, has come recently. The shows Pakistan put on in Sharjah against Sri Lanka and in Abu Dhabi against England were not even created by fast bowlers. Spinners wrote these scripts.
As partial explanation, I'm tempted to put some stock in simple Pakistani bluster and bluff. It's the old Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (the first truly populist and most seminal prime minister of Pakistan) trick of being down and out but fooling – or willing – everyone into believing that you've never been as powerful as this before. Bhutto's political career and legend was built on this tricky but captivating duality.
The most outrageous and instructive example was his abetting in the splitting of the country in 1971 and then pretending that it was a gargantuan slight upon him and the country. It was crystallised in a memorable address to the UN Security Council in December 1971, a day before Pakistan surrendered to India in the war that turned East Pakistan into Bangladesh. Lounging back in his seat, allowing for the full effect of his feudal lordship, Bhutto promised that his country would fight (he had earlier promised they would fight for a thousand years, as they had already been fighting for the last thousand years), admonishing the Security Council, chiding and taunting them. It was all bluff because he himself – and West Pakistan – had played such a role in matters coming to this pass. Then, mid-rant, he tore up the notes in front of him and walked out, vanquished to everyone, but victorious to himself and his country. He then proceeded – briefly – to shake the country alive.
It's a combination of three major national characteristics – laziness, impatience, and latent brilliance.
On a cricket field, this is like Pakistan strutting around pretending that the opposition needs 30 runs to get off two balls with a single wicket in hand, when in reality they need 35 runs off eight overs with seven wickets left. A game lost, in other words, merely being the apparition of a game won. Bhutto was the most potent symbol of this. But running through the list of the greatest names of Pakistan cricket, note how many of them were of similar blood, some to the point of delusion: Abdul Hafeez Kardar, Fazal, Sarfraz, Waqar, Afridi, Wasim, Javed Miandad, Imran, Shoaib.
The more illuminating examples are actually those with less talent still bluffing the opposition with their bluster. Ask yourself how on some days guys like Aaqib Javed, Azhar Mahmood, Aamer Sohail (on most days), Moin Khan and Ijaz Ahmed walked around like they owned not only the pitch, but the world itself? I had an email discussion with Saad Shafqat about this, suggesting to him that this bluster, the sense that even if they're wrong or losing, they are right and winning, is critical to such moments. A little denial perhaps, or even a refusal to accept matters for what they are. Saad is a cricket writer by love and a leading neurologist by reason. He ghosted Javed Miandad's autobiography and writes regularly for ESPNcricinfo, an elegant and rational voice on screen, and a loving, believing one off it. He is untouched by cynicism to the point of being a Pollyanna. In true Saad style, he kind of agreed but saw a rosier picture.
"I see it more as self-belief and hubris, not so much denial," he wrote back. "You could say denial if the outcome ended in failure; but here the outcome is success. Most times that self-belief is latent, but it gets triggered by some unexpected circumstance. And once triggered, it feeds on itself and explodes. I guess another way of seeing it is that this self-belief has an activation threshold, and once the threshold is met, there's no stopping it and it goes all the way. The biological parallel would be a nerve action potential or a sexual orgasm."
This leads to another imprecise consideration. In an article on Pakistan cricket last year, a state-of-the-nation kind of piece, I'd suggested that "Pakistan lives fullest in the imagining of its own imminent death. It is at – and for – this moment that Pakistan and its citizens stir and fight and burn bright." It was written in the context of the wider troubles afflicting country and cricket, to explain how Pakistan had managed to turn things around in arguably their darkest moments.
In hindsight that could work as an explanation for these moments too. Only when Pakistan realise that they are on the verge of losing the game do they begin to do something about not losing it. It was a point Ramiz Raja, who's lived first-hand through many such days, made to me just before the Abu Dhabi Test against England.
"We don't know how the team is coping with the logic of method," he said. "In our times it was always up to the brilliance of certain individual players. So when you get to a desperate situation, where you know you are going to lose, when you know you are going to get killed, for example, your reflexes and body matter reacts absolutely differently.
Ramiz Raja batting for Pakistan against Australia during the 1992 Cricket World Cup
"If you were jumping 5ft and suddenly you know you have to jump 10ft to save yourself from a kill, you do that. It's the kind of mechanism that, in a desperate situation, brings out the best in our make-up, and individual brilliance comes through and we look not only to survive but to kill our opponents. The aggressive mechanism within a defensive frame, that comes out and becomes haavi [heavy or overbearing] on the opponent.
"In our time we used to wait for the ball to get old and then ek naara lag jaata tha [a chant went around the team], a feeling on the field that it is happening now, a trigger point. We then had the quality to knock them over. Now it's a different team altogether and a different opposition and different rules. But the principal mechanism is the same, where in a desperate situation it brings out the best in us. Fielding becomes better and you know you cannot make any more mistakes, that kind of a desperate mindset."
Where Ramiz sees desperation, Saad sees opportunity. Of course. "It's a combination of three major national characteristics – laziness, impatience, and latent brilliance. Since we're lazy, we don't get engaged until we sense an opportunity. But once we do get engaged, our impatience drives us to get the job done quickly, and our latent capacity for brilliance makes it all happen. Seen another way, we are an enormously gifted team that's too lazy to apply itself. But when the circumstances are right and an opening appears, our natural gifts take over, with our innate impatience ensuring a speedy resolution."
What Ramiz is talking about could be an offshoot of a tangible phenomenon which, most popularly, manifests itself in those apocryphal tales of mothers suddenly finding the strength they didn't know they had to lift cars under which their babies are trapped. In his book Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger, the science journalist Jeff Wise goes deep into this, but one brief extract (prefacing the tale of a man who did lift a car to save a cyclist trapped underneath) is too relevant not to reproduce here.
"Here's how it is: one minute, you're going through your daily routine, only half paying attention. And the next you're sucked into a vivid, intense world, where time seems to move slower, colours are brighter, sounds more perceptible, as though the whole universe has suddenly come into focus."
In an email discussion, Wise equated this to the idea of the clutch performer. "There's been a fair amount of debate as to whether there is such a thing as a 'clutch performer' – someone who's so-so most of the time but consistently plays at a markedly better level when forced to come from behind to win a game," he wrote. "Physiologically, there might be some people who are able to use that rush of adrenaline that comes over us in a high-tension situation and lets us run faster and react more quickly. On the other hand, some argue that this kind of clutch performance is just a statistical fluke, that inevitably sometimes sports people are going to come from behind in the end, and by chance some people will wind up doing so more often."
Listen if you can to "Chori Chori". An old folk song, it has been reconstructed by Coke Studio, an intelligent and hip Pakistani music show created by the soft-drinks giant which has managed to defy the fact of its own polluting commercialist birth, and produced more freewheeling creative authenticity than could be expected from such a union between art and commerce. Every season – this year will be Coke Studio's sixth – the creative force behind it, Rohail Hyatt, digs out musicians big, obscure and lost from any scene or tradition, throws them together into a studio with a house band, and has the entire process of creation and final output filmed, recorded and then aired. Broadly, the formula is to mix contemporary sounds of Pakistan with older, more traditional ones. But really there is no formula and it's not fusion in the Peter Gabriel style of forced fusion. Hyatt has fused sounds from Pakistan with those from elsewhere, from a previous age to this, so organically that he has created something anew.
To me, this was a partial epiphany because it sounded like the musical and emotional resonance of what Pakistan do.
"Chori Chori" was sung originally by Reshma, one of Pakistan's greatest folk singers, and is rendered modern by Meesha Shafi. It was once written of Jimmy Connors that he played women's tennis inside a man's body; Reshma's voice could be that of a man inside a woman's body. Shafi – an elfin, glammed-up Beth Gibbons – is different but no less striking, bringing to the song a sore throat and smoking sexiness. Her voice has pain.
As the song begins to end, about five minutes and 45 seconds in, it does so with a quietly gathering gravitational pull. A gentle auditory whirlpool ropes in the different threads, building a pyramid of sound, higher, narrower. To the listener, vision and sense is tunnelled into nothingness, but in this crashing and mild percussive chaos, everything can actually be seen. When I first heard it, it was an indescribably powerful and briefly paralysing moment. That denouement, the world ending and simultaneously beginning, has become one of the many leitmotifs of Coke Studio: the slow, long build, the gradual bringing together to make one, the swift finish in ecstasy.
To me, this was a partial epiphany because it sounded like the musical and emotional resonance of what Pakistan do. Specifically it pushed me into thinking about Qawwali, even though "Chori Chori" is not Qawwali at all.
Briefly – and dryly – Qawwali is a form of devotional music, originating centuries ago but in the form that we now know it around the 13th century by one order of the Sufis. (Sufism is a practice of Islam but, with its modern puritanism belt much loosened, it asks for a more personalised relationship with God.) Generally but not exclusively, the lyrics will be the work of great Sufi poets, rendered in soaring, shrieking voices but to bare music; a tabla or dhol for a beat, a wheezing harmonium for rhythm and the clapping of an entourage. The voice, the clapping, the chanting: these are the structural planks. But the spiritual base is the most important because Qawwali is not just music. To those versed, it is a call to prayer, to ritual, to contemplation, to faith, to hope, to despair, to love, to mourning, to celebration. Other music, especially modern music, asks you primarily to listen. Qawwali asks that you submit, that you immerse yourself. Otherwise it asks – and gives – you nothing.
Taken casually, it can be a mood thing. Sometimes it's left me flat, a mish-mash of voice and noise that, to an ear attuned to Western music, is too disparate and incoherent. But sometimes – live especially and, thus, raw – it catches. Maybe it's the right lyric or the force of repetition but then – forget mind, body and soul – it can set fire to eternity.
The more I thought about it, the more apparent Qawwali became as a revelatory point of reference for Pakistan's cricket in those spells. Is it too crazy? I spoke to Abu Mohammad, one of the country's leading Qawwals (better known alongside his brother Fareed Ayaz) about it. I'm not sure that the argument struck him immediately but, by the end of our conversation, as he promised to send me articles from 2005 (when former President Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan cricket team and Mohammad and his troupe were all in Delhi together) linking Qawwali and cricket, I thought he might have warmed to it.
There were two questions I really wanted to put to him. Could it be said, I asked, that to the uninitiated, a Qawwali can sometimes feel like a living, breathing but random collection of voice and sound until, suddenly at one moment, it surges together. And then transformed, it becomes momentarily a single, powerful force. (Take also, I thought but didn't ask, the alaap, that sudden vocal burst in a Qawwali. Is that not exactly like a riff of wickets by one bowler from out of nowhere, at odds with everything that has gone before?)
He thought about it a little. "Yes, completely. When Qawwali is being read it takes a little time for it to get warm, to get into line and get going. But there comes a time when a Qawwal and his audience both become like one, they both come to one side together."
But it was the next question, about haal, that had really gnawed away in my head. The literal meaning of haal is state, as in a state of being, and it can refer to a number of different states. But it has come to be interpreted, more often than not, as one ultimate state of ecstasy, much sought after but rarely achieved, in man's journey to get closer to God. "In the ecstatic state," explains Idries Shah in his book Oriental Magic, "Sufis are believed to be able to overcome all barriers of time, space and thought. They are able to cause apparently impossible things to happen merely because they are no longer confined by the barriers which exist for more ordinary people."
One of the primary objectives of Qawwali is to attempt to bring the performer as well as the listener to haal. Mohammad recites a Sufi poem and then says: "The state of haal is such that if you, God willing, get there in a gathering, after coming back from haal, you will not be able to describe or explain the feeling. This is just that state that only he knows who has experienced it. Haal or wajd [the literal translation for ecstasy] is such a state that comes to that man and takes him to the goal that he has been in search of all his life. Then he is not with himself, he has reached somewhere else."
Is there a moment in live performances when you can identify that haal has been achieved? "No, no, no. You cannot identify this moment [haal ultimately can only be granted to you, you have no control over its arrival]. Sometimes it is the traditional chant Allah hoo and it happens, sometimes a verse like Dam a dam mast qalandar and it's there. This is dependent on the individual and their state of existence, the mood of the moment, where their point of thinking is taken from."
As a relevant aside, Pakistan's 1992 World Cup triumph was soundtracked by the Qawwali of the late, great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The players listened to him obsessively (on a stereo picked up by Ijaz Ahmed in Singapore on the way there) every day during practice, during lunch breaks, after games, before games. The entire tournament was, for Pakistan, like a Qawwali itself; disparate, floating aimlessly initially before suddenly coming together with such force that they became the best in the world.
Imran Khan celebrates the final England wicket to win the 1992 Cricket World Cup for Pakistan
Mohammad likes cricket and so I put to him that what Pakistan do when they do a Pakistan, when that tamasha erupts, could it be that they have come to haal? "The thing you have said about a team or group spirit, that happens directly, automatically, but not because of them. It happens naturally that they link together as one. You cannot understand how it happens. It happens to you."
This isn't so radical a connection because, from the off, the concept of haal struck me as a familiar one. In a way it's what all athletes strive towards. Only in sports they call it "the zone", that state of supreme focus which sees athletes perform for periods at the very peak of their potential. How similar is it? Well. Dr Roberta Antonini Phillipe, a sports psychologist at the Institute of Movement Sciences and Sports Medicine, University of Geneva, says that when a player is in the zone, it is like being in a trance.
"The zone is when your mind fully connects with achieving a goal," she explains. "When you're in the zone your mind only processes the thoughts and images that help you execute your task successfully. In that state of mind the athlete explains that he has positive thoughts, positive images and sometimes also music in his head."
The trope that the zone has spiritual components and implications is not unexplored. The psychologist Andrew Cooper did so in his 1998 book Playing in the Zone: Exploring the Spiritual Dimensions of Sports. Cooper is a devout student of Zen. "The zone is the essence and pinnacle of the athletic experience, for it reveals that, at their root, sports are a theatre for enacting the drama of self-transcendence," he writes. "Athletes and fans alike, focused as we so often are on the game of winning and losing, miss the deeper significance that is right before our eyes. But in the zone, the extraordinary capacities that lie within each individual are made manifest. To grasp this hidden dimension is to transform the very meaning of athletic play."
Net practice and training – the rehearsed recordings of sport – are generally imprisonment for Pakistani players
Where haal deviates from the zone is in the idea that the latter can be sought, that through a series of steps or rigorous preparation and practice it can be achieved. Many sports psychologists – but not all – believe that using different techniques of visualisation, goal-setting and self-motivation can help athletes to achieve and stay in the zone. Pakistan employs no such techniques and never has done. Just as Abu Mohammad says that Qawwali rehearsed and recorded in a studio is the imprisonment of the form, so it is with Pakistan. Net practice and training – the rehearsed recordings of sport – are generally imprisonment for Pakistani players. That is not where they shine. For them, as with Qawwali, it happens live and it happens unprepared. Enlightenment, goes one saying of Zen, is an accident, as it could be in haal and as it is in Pakistan cricket.
There are other points to consider in Pakistan's deviation. How often, for example, do you hear of a group of athletes going into the zone collectively? It can and does happen. According to Ed Smith, Mike Brearley recently described a team in a zone: "Each player breathes in the others at their best, is strengthened by that identification, and gives off similar vibes to the rest of the team." Choking, almost an opposite of the zone, does spread through teams. But the most striking aspect of Pakistan's haal is the effect it has on the spectator. When Pakistan achieve haal, to be there live is to almost achieve haal yourself, in unison, as is the hope of every performance of Qawwali.
Pakistan celebrate beating England in the second Test in Abu Dhabi, 2012
The Abu Dhabi Test win over England in January 2012, to pull out just one instance, managed this. I wrote a piece in which briefly I wondered about haal and Sufism. One spectator, part of the English travelling support, read it and wrote in. "As part of the visiting England fan base we sat yesterday in awe of what unfolded. Seldom do you see a side in any form of cricket dismantled in two hours of play. What struck many of us – and we have all played the game throughout our lives – was the seeming inevitability of what was about to unfold. From the very start of the England second innings one could sense a quiet but definite shift in ownership of the moment, something beyond the playing conditions and the participants solely. It was like karma, strange as that may sound. Your article summed up the sense of 'other worldliness' some of us felt."
In other words, submission. Because, finally, what Pakistan are doing in these moments is asking you to submit. They are asking you, opponent and spectator, to submit to their reality, their chaos, their unplanning, their spur of the moment, their pox, their talent, their wretchedness, their beauty, their spirit. They are inviting you to dance with them. Except that it isn't just a dance. It is the dance of that great Sufi poet, Jalaluddin Rumi:
Dance, when you're broken open.
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you're perfectly free.
This article was first published in issue 1 of The Nightwatchman in 2013. Buy a hard copy of this article today.
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Reverse stock splits rarely work. When a company is in serious trouble a silly reverse stock split will not change its fortune. Fundamental changes including new management, growth and other things have to occur in order for a reverse stock split to be successful. In most cases this does not happen. Rather the same incompetent managers would be in control of the company hoping the reverse stock split would save the company, their jobs, stock options, etc.
National Bank of Greece S.A(NBG) is one such company. I have written about the bank's reverse splits before here and here.Despite two reverse stock splits, NBG is trading at just $1.81 today. Another example is Puerto Rico-based Doral Financial Corporation (DRL). Doral got into a financial mess even before the global financial crisis. In August, 2007, as the stock price continued to decline the company initiated a 1 for 20 reverse stock split. The stock failed to stabilize and grow. So the bank implemented a second reverse split in the ratio of 1:20 again in July, 2013. Today a share of Doral goes for about $3.94. More recently the FBI visited its office in PR in connection with the fraud investigation.
Doral is down over 93% and NBG is off by an astonishing 96%.
The key point to remember is that reverse splits will not automatically cure a company's ills. Hence investors have to be very cautious and take actions when a company initiates a reverse stock split.


FrightFest to World Premiere To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story.
Masterfully Macabre Entertainment's emotionally powerful look into the private and public life of legendary horror icon Kane Hodder is having its World Premiere at FrightFest in London, England on August 26, 2017.
Masterfully Macabre Entertainment ("MME") announced today that their highly anticipated documentary, To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story is having its World Premiere at FrightFest in London on Saturday, August 26, 2017. This in-depth biographical documentary on horror icon, Kane Hodder, features interviews with cinema legends, including Bruce Campbell (Ash vs. Evil Dead), Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), and Cassandra Peterson (Elvira: Mistress of the Dark).
Festival and day passes are available on the festival website (FrightFest.co.uk) with individual film tickets going on sale on July 29, 2017.


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(February 27, 2018) - The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for review of a US Circuit Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit decision on February 20, allowing the lower court ruling to stand that the Court of Appeals lacked jurisdiction to consider a challenge to an EPA decision related to blending and bypasses. The case -- Center for Regulatory Reasonableness (CRR) v. EPA, litigated February 28, 2017 -- involves a 2013 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Iowa League of Cities v. EPA, which struck down the EPA's efforts to regulate blending by applying secondary treatment limits internal to the treatment plant. The Agency has since stated that the decision applies only in the Eighth Circuit, and that it will apply the decision elsewhere in the country on a case-by-case basis.
The DC Circuit litigation challenged the Agency's refusal to apply the Iowa League decision nationwide. The court denied CRR's petition, finding that it did not have jurisdiction and that if CRR wishes to challenge the non-acquiescence statement, it must do so in a federal district court. Because the DC Circuit's ruling was procedural in nature, application of the Iowa League of Cities decision, and EPA's corresponding authority to regulate blending outside of the Eighth Circuit, remains an open legal question.
NACWA was not a party to the DC Circuit litigation and did not choose the venue, but the Association filed an amicus curiae brief to provide a critical national utility perspective on the important and substantive issue of blending. NACWA will remain engaged on this issue with EPA, and through litigation where appropriate, to preserve blending as an important treatment option for clean water utilities.
For more information, contact Amanda Waters, NACWA's General Counsel.


text:
Covering the Health Care Fight
Arkansas reporters slam senators for 'stonewalling' local news on health care
By Trudy Lieberman, CJR
Arkansas US Senator Tom Cotton in 2016. Photo by Michael Vadon, via Creative Commons
IN MAY, TOM COTTON—Arkansas's junior senator, a promising GOP star with ambition and an Ivy League pedigree—became one of 13 Republican senators tasked with drafting new health-care legislation. During the weeks that followed, Cotton stayed conspicuously tight-lipped about the Republican bill.
In June, James Arkin wrote for Real Clear Politics:
"Cotton hasn't made any public comment about the measure since it was released last Thursday—the press release on his Senate website the day GOP leaders unveiled the bill is one sentence linking readers to the legislative text. Normally one of the more visible GOP senators when it comes to cable TV appearances, Cotton hasn't conducted any interviews since the Senate health care bill was unveiled."
Cotton's media strategy has made it difficult for local news outlets to offer his constituents any substantive thoughts from their senator on potential changes to their health coverage, or on his role in shaping an Obamacare replacement.
"Senator, why do this whole thing behind closed doors?" asked Kevin Miller, host of KARN News Radio's "First News," last week before the Senate quashed its bill. Cotton replied that his involvement with the health care working group allowed him to make a greater contribution to the bill:
"Kevin, I can tell you from my perspective, it's actually been very beneficial for Arkansas and for me. If this bill had gone through either the Senate Finance Committee or the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, I would have had a much smaller role in it… overall, I think that most senators, if they've been at all interested in the matter, have had more say in this than they would had it gone to either of the two normal committees."
After the Better Care Reconciliation Act failed Monday night, Cotton provided a statement to Arkansas's Talk Business & Politics, a statewide news site, and to Little Rock public radio station KUAR about his support for ACA repeal efforts. He repeated much of the statement, which was light on substance, during a friendly interview with Hugh Hewitt's nationally syndicated conservative talk radio show:
"The American health care system is still groaning under the weight of Obamacare and we can't simply accept failure as an outcome. I am pleased that Senator McConnell has decided to move forward with the very bill to repeal Obamacare on which 49 Republican senators currently serving in the Senate supported just 18 months ago in December 2015."
On Tuesday, Cotton again voiced his support for an Obamacare repeal during a segment on conservative commentator Laura Ingraham's radio show, which airs on one station in Arkansas. By the end of the day, repeal efforts had stalled.
He controls access and wants to control the message, and if he gets with people who are unfriendly, he can't control the message.
COTTON'S SELECTIVE MEDIA SILENCE has hampered the efforts of Arkansas newsrooms to cover a major policy story for their audiences.
"Tom Cotton decided long ago that he would talk only to media friendlies," says Max Brantley, senior editor and blogger for the alt-weekly Arkansas Times. Brantley tells CJR he hasn't talked to Cotton in several years. "He controls access and wants to control the message, and if he gets with people who are unfriendly, he can't control the message."
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist John Brummett tweeted last week, "Tom Cotton's style of representing Arkansas is to nurture his ambition and bank on his constituents being generally uninformed."
Tom Cotton's style of representing Arkansas is to nurture his ambition and bank on his constituents being generally uninformed.
— johnbrummett (@johnbrummett) July 14, 2017
Brantley says the Arkansas Times is "on a blacklist probably because I've been pretty critical of him." One short Arkansas Times piece, about costs associated with the health bill's defunding of Planned Parenthood, accused Cotton of "hiding from questions about this legislation." Another, headlined "Terrified Tom's patience wearing thin: Sen. Cotton's office calls cops on disabled protestors," calls Cotton "elusive" and "MIA on the punitive health legislation."
Brantley and the Times aren't the only ones criticizing Cotton's media strategy. Jacob Kauffman, who covers politics and hosts "Morning Edition" for KUAR, wrote a week ago that both Cotton and US Senator John Boozman "are now entering yet another week where they've declined interviews and stonewalled questions from multiple media organizations." When Kauffman asked their offices for comment, both senators basically said nothing: Cotton's office said the senator was "still reviewing the legislation," while Boozman's said, "the senator is continuing to work with his colleagues on a path forward."
Kauffman says Cotton's staff typically doesn't respond to his station's media inquiries, but will occasionally say they can't do the requested interview. On Tuesday, following the failure of efforts to repeal and replace the ACA, Kauffman sent Cotton's staff a note with a few questions and an interview request. Cotton's office responded with the senator's boilerplate statement of support for an Obamacare repeal.
"That's as close to responsive as they get," Kauffman says.
Dan Holtmeyer, who covers health and business for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, said that Cotton "has taken the position he won't give his position until the final process is over." Boozman, the state's other senator, has given interviews, Holtmeyer told me, "but what he says has been about as vague."
However, Cotton may be sensitive to some of the criticism.
Roby Brock, who hosts ABC-affiliated KATV's "Talk Business & Politics" Sunday show, wrote last week on the show's blog that Cotton and Boozman "have remained quiet over the past three weeks regarding their positions on the entire healthcare debate." Brock added that his show made "repeated efforts to interview both senators…but those requests have been declined." That critical blog post earned praise from the Democrat-Gazette's Brummett:
Pleased to see Roby Brock kind of call out Cotton & Booxzman this a.m. for evading his interview requests on where they stand on health bill
Yesterday, after senators met with President Donald Trump to discuss health care, Cotton spoke with Talk Business and Politics in what the site called an "exclusive interview."
Cotton, who appeared on Brock's show several times during the past year, told the host, "Repealing Obamacare and working in a replacement over a two-year period isn't the best solution. It seemed like earlier this week that was the most practical solution, given where we were." Cotton said Republican senators are "going to be working on negotiating a replacement bill right now that we can vote on next week."
Caroline Rabbitt, Cotton's communications director, did not respond to CJR's questions about Cotton's media practices.
On this most important issue to their state and nation, our U.S. senators behaved timidly when the opportunity was ripe for them to behave boldly.
AS YESTERDAY'S MEETING between Trump and GOP senators proves, the national health-care debate is far from over. Medicaid remains a vital program for more than 70 million Americans, but threats to the program persist in numerous states, including Arkansas. Questions linger for many of Cotton's constituents—about Medicaid, certainly, but also rising premiums and high deductibles for those buying coverage in the individual market. Reporters must play a role in answering those questions, even when faced with silence and avoidance from elected officials.
In Arkansas, the media are starting to come down hard on Cotton and his lack of access. John Brummett, the Democrat-Gazette columnist, took Cotton and Boozman to task on Wednesday, the day after the Obamacare repeal efforts failed:
"Here's the deal: Boozman—and Cotton, too—weren't simply stonewalling me. They were stonewalling you. They were stonewalling Arkansas. They were stonewalling their governor. They were stonewalling the Arkansas Hospital Association, Arkansas Children's Hospital, UAMS, home-state medical providers generally and home-state poor folks especially. …On this most important issue to their state and nation, our U.S. senators behaved timidly when the opportunity was ripe for them to behave boldly."
Surely Cotton isn't the only member of Congress who leans on friendly outlets and familiar talking points. Judging from his town hall in February, his constituents are clamoring for policy details. Cotton has yet to provide them.
When politicians can expect friendly journalists to ask inconsequential questions, media outlets become little more than a megaphone for their views. That can slant important stories—not just on health care, but on all critical policy matters. Without fierce pushback from reporters—especially at the local level—such friendly coverage can constrict debate and rule out alternative perspectives.
In Arkansas, local reporters are providing that pushback. "I'm not finished with Boozman and Cotton," wrote Brummett after his Wednesday column. "Another'n tomorrow."
I'm not finished with Boozman and Cotton. Another'n tomorrow. I do say that Asa ain't bad considering his party.
He made good on his promise today, with a piece that criticized Cotton's selective media appearances. (Hewitt's conservative national talk radio show provides Cotton with "the real constituency for his ambition," wrote Brummett.) He also blasted Boozman and Cotton for their silence on specific policy matters:
Vital Medicaid expansion in Arkansas will continue. If you like Medicaid expansion, Cotton and Boozman will be fine with your thinking they were for it all along. If you oppose Medicaid expansion, they'll be fine with your thinking they were trying their hardest to kill it.
Perhaps there will be "another'n" tomorrow, as well—if not from Brummett, then from another Arkansas reporter. As it should be.
CJR's health care reporting is sponsored in part by a grant from the Commonwealth Fund.
Trudy Lieberman is a longtime contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review. She is the lead writer for CJR's Covering the Health Care Fight. She also blogs for Health News Review and the Center for Health Journalism. Follow her on Twitter @Trudy_Lieberman.
Black and white: why capitalization matters

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This year, we shipped twelve major releases of Jetpack — one a month, like clockwork — with dozens of improvements and new tools.
This year, we rebuilt VideoPress from the ground up, did a major overhaul of the settings interface, and redesigned the hugely popular contact form.
A full settings redesign makes Jetpack more intuitive for everyone.
We made more than a hundred free WordPress themes available to every Jetpack site. We also added unlimited premium themes for folks running Jetpack Professional.
We also launched social media scheduling, a beta version of Elasticsearch-powered search, and added monetization tools like PayPal payments and high-quality ads.
Now you can earn money from your site with ads.
Easily add our new Jetpack Simple Payments button to earn money selling your products.
Google Analytics integration is now a breeze for Professional plan customers, and we now also accept PayPal for plan purchases. We also introduced full support for Android users on the WordPress.com app.
And finally, the past couple of months have brought full WordPress 4.9 compatibility, plus ecommerce tracking for WooCommerce users.
Our team now includes 33 Happiness Engineers in timezones around the globe to provide better coverage and service.
We introduced live chat for Jetpack customers for fast, in-the-moment help.
Professional plan customers now enjoy concierge service — a face-to-face session to guide you through setup and answer questions.
Some of our wonderful Jetpack Happiness Engineers standing by to lend a hand.
On top of this fantastic effort by our Happiness Engineers, we're proud to mention that our automated services are still going strong, too. In fact, Jetpack has now blocked a total of 50 billion malicious login attempts by bots and spammers.
We were once again sponsors for WordCamps all over the world. Jetpack had well-staffed booths at major events including WordCamp London, WCEU, WordCamp Nashik, and WCUS.
We also proudly sponsored Post Status Publish (Atlanta), YoastCon (Nijmegen), CloudBazaar (Mumbai), and attended World Hosting Days in Germany.
Jetpack sponsored and attended events around the world throughout 2017.
In March, we launched our affiliate program which enables anyone writing about or working with WordPress to refer others to Jetpack plans and share in the revenue.
We're also working closely with hosting companies to bring our unique knowledge of WordPress best practices to the global WordPress community.
Ajk Palikuqi, Alexandru Bucur, Andrew Munro, Adrien Missemer, Bartek Wilczek, Benyamin Shoham, Brandon Hubbard, Christian Wach, Crystal Barton, Daniel Swiatek, David Page, Devin Samarin, Gagan Deep Singh, Ignacio Cruz Moreno, Jacob Morrison, James Fraser, Jared Wenerd, Jason Caldwell, Jason Day, Jason Stallings, Jose Jaureguiberry, Kaspars Dambis, Kurtis Rader, Mark Samman, Michael Torbert, Neil Hainsworth, Patrick Rauland, Peter J. Herrel, Richard Gunning, Ross Wintle, Ryan Kanner, Shahul Hameed, Stanimir Stoyanov, Stephen Edgar, Stuart Dum, Takuya Matsuyama, Umang Vaghela, Weston Ruter, Wibowo Sulistio, and Yoga Sukma.
The keen-eyed among you will have noticed our logo looks different! It's not a redesign, but more of an iteration.
The Jetpack logotype (that is, the typeface within the logo) is now in sentence case and is cleaner and easier to read. The icon, meanwhile, has sharper lines that play well with the new font and highlight our commitment to helping you create sleek sites.
You may also have noticed that our site looks a little different. We now have lighter, fresher colors, brand new illustrations, and a product tour that better explains Jetpack's benefits.
A look at the new Jetpack.com.
The really exciting part is that 2017 was just us getting started.
Our 2018 plans include hiring more developers and happiness engineers. So if you'd like to work on great products with smart people from anywhere in the world, send us your application! We'd love to hear from you.
We also have some improvements and new features coming that we're really proud of and excited about sharing with you. We'll announce the juicy details in February. In the meantime we'll say that you should be on the lookout for a completely revamped security suite, brand new performance services, and Elasticsearch coming out of beta.
This entry was posted in Jetpack News and tagged 2017, 2018, community, Events, support, Themes. Bookmark the permalink.
Thanks for all you do. I have had BruteProtect on my site as a separate plugin, yet I "think" this is built into Jetpack? Should I deactivate the separate plugin? I'm concerned that it might not be updated, etc.
I just deactivated and deleted Brute Protect – Saved all the whitelisted IP addresses and pasted them into the area to whitelist IP Addresses – Clicked Save Settings and it said it saved, but after going away from the page and back, that area is now blank? Any idea what I might be doing wrong or why they aren't saved?
Thank you for keeping Jetpack going, it is indispensable.
Actually, the IP Addresses were saved in Chrome but for some reason, could not see them in Firefox.
Could you contact our support folks about this?
We can help you figure out if this is a bug or something else. 🙂 Thanks!
Awesome job jetpack. Can't wait to see what you have in store for us in 2918.
Thankful for WordPress, Automattic, Jetpack… the entire 'full-stack' of related minds here behind all of this continued development. Where WOULD we be without it!? It's peace of mind security mixed with beauty. You're all amazing. I hople to continue to learn a fraction of some of it – with the goal of becoming a better front-end (and perhaps full-stack) developer. So much to learn – and feeling secure about it, helps. You spread the love… thx for that too!
Great. Jetpack is the best plugin i used.
Thank you, Jetpack, for existing and making my WordPress experience better. Looking forward to everything you have for us in 2018!
Great job! Your work is fantastic. I'm a Jetpack user and I love it. By the way, is it possible to export all Jetpack stats to an Excel file (*.xls)?
Thank you for all the great stuff. Have a good start in 2018!
Thanks Team. You're doing wonderful work up there.
Nice but all e-mails sent automatically to the audience (like sharing, subscribing…) are still english-only, non editables and un-translatables… Huge problem for any professionnal website.
Jetpack should send emails in the same language you have set for your site (under Settings > General). There is an exception though: if an email is sent to a WordPress.com user, we already know their language preference from their settings, so we use that language instead.


Angelique Kerber of Germany meets Serena Williams of the US, right, at the net after defeating her in the women's singles final match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Photo / AP.
Once the men's semi-finals had finally concluded – a mere 26-and-a-half hours after they began – Angelique Kerber reminded everyone at Wimbledon that tennis can be short and sweet as well as long and arduous.
Kerber needed just 65 minutes to upend the narrative of this fortnight and eject the undeniable heroine of SW19 – Serena Williams – in straight sets. Dramatic tension might have been lacking during her 6-3, 6-3 victory but the shock factor was huge.
Williams choked up with tears as she spoke to Sue Barker at the presentation ceremony. She has talked all fortnight of the responsibility she felt to all the mothers of the world, and her desire to be a role model for them to follow.
Some might have wondered whether she really meant those things, or whether she was simply out for the glory of an eighth Wimbledon title – which would, incidentally, have carried her level with Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 majors. But after this emotional post-match interview, the argument is surely settled.
"For all the mums out there, I was playing for you today and I tried really hard," said Williams, her bottom lip wobbling in a manner that will surely convert a new generation of fans. During her most exalted spells at the top of the game, she has sometimes come across as untouchable and intimidating, but this was a very humanising moment. We have seen with other tennis champions how the heartfelt emotions of defeat can bring a new approachability to their public image.
Kerber's profile has been contrastingly low. Even in her home country of Germany, she is barely recognised in the street, despite having won both hard-court majors in her previous annus mirabilis of 2016. But that, too, might be about to change, for Wimbledon impresses the parts other slams cannot reach.
It is often said that the German tennis boom of the late 1980s – when Boris Becker and Steffi Graf were at their peaks – provided the finance for the redevelopment of the Wimbledon grounds, because of the amazing sums broadcasters like RTL were prepared to pay for TV rights. Yet no German had lifted a title here since Graf's swansong in 1996.
Kerber's humility is one of her great strengths. This was typified by the way she celebrated Thursday's semi-final victory over Jelena Ostapenko, grabbing a meal with her family in Wimbledon village and then jumping on the No. 93 bus for the short trip back to her rented house. No chauffeur-driven limousines for her.
She plays an understated game, too, with a shotput-style serve that barely gets up over 100mph and a frying-pan forehand. But those legs! They used to be known as the second-strongest on the tour, behind those of the Amazonian Williams. Yet while Williams continues to work her way back towards optimal physical conditioning, Kerber has become the ultimate road-runner.
Angelique Kerber of Germany celebrates defeating Serena Williams of the US in the women's singles final match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, in London. Photo / AP.
How do you beat Williams? The evidence suggests that it is not the big hitters who usually get the job done. It's the players who are all about the legs rather than the arms, the ones who run every ball down and force her to play an extra shot or three.
Kim Clijsters, back in the day, had success with this tenacious approach. So did Jelena Jankovic. But Kerber has now beaten Williams twice in major finals – a boast that no-one except sister Venus Williams has ever been able to make before.
The previous instance came at the 2016 Australian Open final, when Kerber toughed out a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory that left a significant psychological imprint. That remains the only time Williams has lost a major final in three sets, and it established a precedent. Both these players went into yesterday's match knowing that Kerber – unlike so many other players – would simply refuse to be bullied off the court by Williams's body language and aura.
Williams has made two comebacks since the complicated birth of her daughter Olympia in September. The first one – which came in Indian Wells and Miami in March – was essentially a toe-in-the-water exercise. The second, which began at Roland Garros seven weeks ago, had previously delivered nine straight wins and one withdrawal, on account of the right pectoral injury she sustained in Paris.
But how often had Williams been tested? At Wimbledon, she had only dropped one previous set and that came against Camila Giorgi, a fast-swinging, short-rally sort of player. The obdurate Kerber provided a dramatic contrast, and required Williams to cover so much more ground. She was breathing hard from early on, and the absence of many cheap points gave her little chance to recover.
Kerber proved herself to be the female Novak Djokovic yesterday as she returned serve with extraordinary accuracy. Before the final, just over half of Williams's serves had won the point on their own. Yesterday, 80 per cent of them came back into court, and once the baseline rallies began, Kerber was irresistible. Tennis matches are so often won and lost through mistakes, but Kerber's unforced error tally yesterday stood at a miserly five.
Early in the second set, Williams tried to rouse herself. She became more vocal, came to the net more often, and even went for a "tube" – tennis jargon for the bodyline shot straight at your opponent. But Kerber managed to dodge out of the way, just as she dodged trouble all day long. The ball flew long in what felt like a metaphor for the whole match.
During her post-match press conference, Williams was asked about the scheduling decision to delay the women's final until after the men had finished. Her answer, like her on-court interview, showed great poise.
"I just feel like it was a necessary evil," Williams replied. "Not knowing how [long] this match would go, I don't think they could put the men's semi-final behind the women because they have to come back the next day.
"If the tables were turned, hopefully they would have done the same with the women. But if you look at it that way, it was probably really the only way to schedule it."


text:
Hutchinson Traylor Recognized for Providing Outstanding Benefits Assistance
Written By: Michael Dollar
A national article has put Hutchinson Traylor in the spotlight for its "fresh ideas and new funding techniques" as an employee benefits consultant. The West Georgia-based agency is probably best known as a property and casualty insurance agency but it has grown to add strategic investment and benefits services. The insurance industry publication Rough Notes recognized HT in February for growing an innovative and "robust employee benefits platform."
About a decade ago, Hutchinson Traylor Executive Vice President Edward Smith noticed employers were struggling to manage rising healthcare costs. "For many employers, benefits had risen to become the second or third highest business expense," he told Rough Notes. "For the most part, they were limited to fully insured health plans with perpetually increasing community rates."
Today, employee benefits are Hutchinson Traylor's fastest growing segment, as they serve both small and large area businesses. The agency offers everything from human resources consulting and technology implementation to high-performance network design and provider contract negotiations. HT's expert advisors look at cost, coverage and control to help companies combat double-digit increases.
Today, employee benefits are Hutchinson Traylor's fastest growing segment, as they serve both small and large area businesses.
One unique strategy is alternative funding, which shows small employers how to find self-funding opportunities for a portion or all of its costs. HT's employee benefits account executive Mike Stone calls it "a long term economic policy" that "can yield substantial rewards." The benefits management team seeks out creative options for its clients and also meets regularly to share successful tactics as they brainstorm new ideas.
Another way to drive down costs is with HT's prescription drug program, which has helped employers uncover immediate savings. The agency provides a suite of medical advocacy services through its WellTree program, which Smith believes is a good companion to company health plans. It provides 24/7 access to an on-call doctor, nurse and health coaches, as well as discounts on dental, vision and even veterinary care for pets.
HT has also helped Kia Motors launch an onsite employee health clinic at its local manufacturing facility. Smith told Rough Notes that it can "deliver a significant return on investment" because of its high utilization by employees who are more likely to seek early treatment. "They provide frontline health services to employees, giving them an opportunity to get regular medical tests and maintain care for both regular and chronic health conditions," he added.
Enter your email to subscribe to the Hutchinson Traylor Insurance Blog feed.
Hutchinson Traylor's Edward Smith to Speak in D.C. at the World Health Care Congress
Is Your Business Protected from Cyber Attacks?
How to Change Your Homeowners Insurance With an Escrow Account


text:
Microsoft Is Cutting 10,000 Jobs in Latest of Big Tech Layoffs
By Efthymis Oriaopoulos
Microsoft will cut 10,000 jobs in response to decreasing demand after the pandemic, its CEO said in a note to employees Wednesday.
The announcement comes after tens of thousands of job cuts across the technology sector. The layoffs are a response to decreased spending in cloud computing after the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft said: "First, as we saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we're now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less."
The same holds true for organizations that are fearing or impacted by recession, according to the note. Palantir Technologies Inc., a software company, said this week that reducing cloud spending was a top-ten priority of its customers.
The 10,000 jobs cut amounts to around 5 percent of Microsoft's total workforce. The company is cutting far fewer jobs than it had added during the COVID-19 pandemic; it expanded by about 36 percent in the two fiscal years following the start of the pandemic, growing from 163,000 workers at the end of June 2020 to 221,000 in June 2022.
The tech giant will also hire in some areas and focus on artificial intelligence (AI) for its future development plans.
"The next major wave of computing is being born with advances in AI, as we're turning the world's most advanced models into a new computing platform," it said.
The company will spend $1.2 billion for employee severance costs and changing its hardware portfolio.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said, "This is a rip the band-aid off moment to preserve margins and cut costs in a softer macro, a strategy the Street will continue to applaud."
Other Tech Layoffs
Other tech companies have also been trimming jobs amid concerns about an economic slowdown.
Amazon and business software maker Salesforce earlier this month announced major job cuts as they prune payrolls that rapidly expanded during the pandemic lockdown.
Amazon said that it will be cutting about 18,000 positions. It's the largest set of layoffs in the Seattle company's history, although just a fraction of its 1.5 million global workforce.
Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13 percent of its workforce. And Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, has slashed the company's workforce.
Microsoft said in July last year that a small number of roles had been eliminated, while news site Axios in October reported that the company had laid off under 1,000 employees across several divisions.
The company is also grappling with a slump in the personal computer market after a pandemic boom fizzled out, leaving little demand for its Windows and accompanying software.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Tagged: Business, Economic Depression, Economic Recession, Economy, Inflation, Markets (economy), Pandemic, Software, Unemployment


In phonics, we will learn one more digraph (ar), and a trigraph (igh).
In maths we will be counting on and back to find answers.
Our book of the the week will be Oliver's Vegetables. We will be talking and learning about healthy eating, using this as a stimulus.
Watch UK school teacher Mr Thorne and Youtube sensation Geraldine the Giraffe take you on a learning journey through the world of phonics, grammar, spelling and punctuation, learning letters and sounds along the way.


Even reliable PC's come to reveal their age after possibly even a month or two and a good registry cleaner is but one program every single Windows PC operator will need to have in their tool box.
Today, we have released version 0.4 (codenamed "Ray Bradbury") of Little Alarm Clock. The last time Little Alarm Clock was updated was back in September 2008.


text:
Steven Fox
swfox@uab.edu
swfox@uabmc.edu
Assistant Professor (P), Medicine - Pulmonary, Allergy, & Critical Care Medicine , Department of Medicine
Dr. Fox completed medical school at Thomas Jefferson University in 2015. He then completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center, followed by a year serving as chief medical resident. He subsequently completed his fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and moved to Birmingham in 2022.
Dr. Fox's academic interests include promoting patient access to high quality care locally and globally, quality improvement and education in point-of-care ultrasound, and graduate education in pulmonary and critical care medicine.
In his outpatient general pulmonary clinic, Dr. Fox emphasizes listening closely to his patients and working together with them to come to an understanding of the cause of their respiratory problems and to develop a practical treatment plan.
2023 Lung Ultrasonographic Signs in Pulmonary Disease - A Video Review.. Journal of Intensive Care Medicine. 38:220-231. 2023
2022 Definitive Advantages of Point-of-Care Ultrasound: A Case Series.. Case :: Cardiovascular Imaging Case Reports. 6:293-298. 2022
2022 Impact of Point-of-Care Ultrasound in Medical Decision Making: Informing the Development of an Internal Medicine Global Health POCUS Curriculum 2022
2022 A confounding bronchopulmonary situs abnormality after bilateral lung transplantation.. Journal of Surgical Case Reports. 2022:rjac107. 2022
2021 Point-of-care ultrasonography for the hospitalist.. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. 88:345-359. 2021
2020 Developing and Evaluating a Remote Quality Assurance System for Point-of-Care Ultrasound for an Internal Medicine Residency Global Health Track 2020
2020 Evaluation and management of shock in patients with COVID-19.. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. 2020
2020 Point-of-care ultrasound and COVID-19.. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. 2020
2019 Motivations and Barriers Associated With Physician Volunteerism for an International Telemedicine Organization.. Frontiers in Public Health. 7:224. 2019
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Chief Resident
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Residency
Cleveland Clinic, Postdoctoral Fellowship
Doctor of Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University 2015
Bachelor's Degree in Physical Sciences, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education 2011


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'Namgis senior adminstrator George Speck and 'Namgis Chief Bill Cranmer watch the first Atlantic salmon smolts pour into the quarantine tank at the First Nation's closed containment aquaculture facility south of Port McNeill Monday.
Fish farm gets first occupants
Canada's first land-based, closed-containment salmon farm devoted to growing Atlantic salmon to market gets first smolts.
Rardon
Mar. 21, 2013 4:00 p.m.
PORT McNEILL—With a cry of "Here they come!" from beyond a roll-up shop door, the first fish arrived Monday afternoon to leap and circle in Canada's first land-based, closed-containment salmon farm devoted to growing Atlantic salmon to market.
"I hope this day will be marked down in history as the first day in our transition from open net to closed containment farming, to better protect our environment and the wild salmon," said Chief Bill Cranmer of the 'Namgis First Nation, which owns the 'Namgis Closed Containment Project on its territory just south of Port McNeill. "It's a very exciting day."
More than 23,000 atlantic salmon smolts were transferred from truck-mounted containers to the quarantine tank in the facility. They will spend the next four months there feeding, growing and undergoing a testing regimen before being transferred to one of five larger, grow-out tanks where they will be raised to market size in less than a year.
The smolts were provided by Marine Harvest, which operates a number of open net-pen fish farms on the B.C. coast.
"Marine Harvest is very much interested in the research and development of this facility, and the results we're going to be able to show in terms of growing these fish in a completely closed environment," said George Speck, 'Namgis senior administrator and member of the K'udas Limited Partnership, which administers the fish farm. "Everybody is interested in what we're doing."
The atlantic salmon farming industry will indeed be watching to see if the 'Namgis pilot project can succeed and develop into a commercial-scale operation, which will require as many as five modules of the type now in operation by the 'Namgis.
The pilot module utilizes a recirculation aquaculture system (RAS) in which almost all of the water used is treated and recycled back into the growing tanks. The solid wastes produced is sequestered and may be used as fertilizer.
It is the first such endeavour in Canada and one of the first in the world to apply the technology to Atlantic salmon, though the technology has been proven in other sites with species ranging from turbot and tilapia to sturgeon and Pacific salmon.
"I think we're the leaders in this industry right now," said Speck. "We're going to be the first ones leading the pack in terms of growing fish in this kind of facility out to full size, on land."
"I'm sure these type of recirculating aquaculture systems will be expanded to other communities as we prove the viability of this type of growing of salmon," said Cranmer.
A report released earlier this month by the Standing Fisheries Committee recommended the federal government support the efforts toward closed containment aquaculture.
Proponents have cited negative impacts of open net-pen aquaculture on the marine environment, though the Fisheries Committee was noncommittal on the science.
Critics point to the higher capital costs of land-based aquaculture, and concerns that a complete move from ocean to land-based aquaculture could cost remote coastal communities jobs and economic benefit because land-based farms could locate close to cities that have favourable shipping facilities.
As a pilot project, the 'Namgis Closed Containment project has already paid dividends. From the time federal government funding was announced in January of 2012, through construction of the facility, the operators have already learned valuable lessons that will shave costs from the building of future modules.
At the same time, the technology of land-based fish farming continues to evolve at a rapid pace, to the extent that one day the fish farm could actually be growing much of the food for its residents.
The feed pellets to be given to the smolts in the 'Namgis quarantine tank will be made up of fish meal, fish oil and plant material, said Jackie Hildering, community liaison for the project. But RAS-grown fish require 30 per cent less feed than ocean-reared salmon, and they grow to market size in roughly half the time.
"As we move along we're going to try to encompass more of the advances in feed, where it's moving more and more to algae," said Hildering. "In an ideal world, we'll be able to capture all the effluent and use it to grow a food source, like ragworm, that we could then completely close the loop. So you're actually feeding the fish food you've grown on the site."
Funding for the project has come from a variety of governmental and non-profit sources, including the Province of British Columbia's Investment Agriculture Foundation; Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Aquaculture Innovation and Market Access Program; the Pacific Salmon Foundation; Tides Canada; Enterprising Non-Profits; Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada; and the SOS Marine Conservation Foundation.
Bonus offered to docs.
Robbery investigation leads to drug charges


This textbook introduces the well-posedness theory for initial-value problems of nonlinear, dispersive partial differential equations, with special focus on two key models, the Korteweg–de Vries equation and the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. A concise and self-contained treatment of background material (the Fourier transform, interpolation theory, Sobolev spaces, and the linear Schrödinger equation) prepares the reader to understand the main topics covered: the initial-value problem for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation and the generalized Korteweg–de Vries equation, properties of their solutions, and a survey of general classes of nonlinear dispersive equations of physical and mathematical significance. Each chapter ends with an expert account of recent developments and open problems, as well as exercises. The final chapter gives a detailed exposition of local well-posedness for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, taking the reader to the forefront of recent research.
The second edition of Introduction to Nonlinear Dispersive Equations builds upon the success of the first edition by the addition of updated material on the main topics, an expanded bibliography, and new exercises. Assuming only basic knowledge of complex analysis and integration theory, this book will enable graduate students and researchers to enter this actively developing field.


text:
Q: Specific Movie Clip fame rate in Flash/ActionScript 3 I am using this code but it is not working correctly.
import flash.events.Event;

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, enterFrame);

function enterFrame(e:Event):void

{
    var targetFrame:uint = box.currentFrame + 2;

    if(targetFrame > box.totalFrames) targetFrame = 0;

    box.gotoAndStop(50);
}

Please let me know if I am doing something wrong.

A: In your code you are missing the block statement after an if
That means only the next line after an if condition will be processed.
It's unclear what is the logics of your code and why the box should stop at frame 50, but here's the code that will make the targetFrame = 0 and box.gotoAndStop(50);:
import flash.events.Event;

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, enterFrame);

function enterFrame(e:Event):void
{
    var targetFrame:uint = box.currentFrame + 2;

    if(targetFrame > box.totalFrames)
    {
        targetFrame = 0;
        box.gotoAndStop(50);
    }
}

A: box.gotoAndStop(50);

is firing every frame
if you want it to fire when targetFrame > box.totalFrames then use:
if(targetFrame > box.totalFrames)
{
     targetFrame = 0;
     box.gotoAndStop(50);
}

But still frame rate for that MovieClip will be the same as stage frame rate. If you want to change frame rate of specific animation you can play it every 2nd frame to reduce fps, if you want increase fps you should skip frame but that will look laggy.
I often use counter variable and put counter++ in onEnterFrame function. For reducing fps:
if(counter % 2 == 0)
{
     mc.nextFrame();
}

this way if your stage fps is 30, mc fps would be 15 because every 2nd frame counter % 2 == 0

A: change 50 to variable targetFrame:
import flash.events.Event;
addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, enterFrame);

function enterFrame(e:Event):void{
    var targetFrame:uint = box.currentFrame + 2;
    if(targetFrame > box.totalFrames) targetFrame = 0;
    box.gotoAndStop(targetFrame);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Grazjyna Engelbrecht (born 26 April 1982) is a South African former field hockey player who competed in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

References

External links

1982 births
Living people
Afrikaner people
South African people of Dutch descent
South African female field hockey players
Female field hockey goalkeepers
Olympic field hockey players of South Africa
Field hockey players at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Competitors at the 2003 All-Africa Games
African Games competitors for South Africa

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia