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Thoughts on a Chinese Artist Studying a Western Old Master [Jin Shangyi]
Thoughts on a Chinese Artist Studying a Western Old Master
Jin Shangyi is a quintessentially official artist of the People's Republic of China. His paintings are prominently displayed in the National Museum in Beijing and other State institutions, he is past president of the leading State-sponsored university of fine arts, honorary chairman of the National Artists Association, member of the People's Political Consultative Conference and regularly serves on art-related committees of the government. Yet, this cultural exemplar of Chinese civilization would be right at home in a European art academy. His works are not brush-and-ink landscapes and flower paintings characteristic of the Chinese tradition, but oil-on-canvas figure studies that exemplify his lifelong study of European old masters.
This seeming contradiction underlies the current exhibition of Jin's work at the newly constructed art museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Rather than a career survey, such as the 2005 retrospective at the National Art Museum of China, the Central Academy exhibition focuses on three paintings made in 2010, each inspired by the Dutch 17th-century master, Johannes Vermeer (1632-75). These pictures are copies of famous works by Vermeer that Jin has modified in order, he says, to express his own emotional perspective on contemporary life.
Jin's act of homage, his "Compliments to Vermeer," raises a number of issues that this essay will examine from the perspective of an art critic trained and working in the West.
What does it mean for a contemporary Chinese artist to abandon traditional brush-and-ink painting to adopt the medium and manner of the European Old Masters? Why devote himself to acquiring the techniques of classic academic painting and absorbing the artistic traditions of the West? Does Jin's project underscore differences or shared values between Chinese and Western cultures? What role has classical realism played in modern Chinese history, and what place does it have in China and the West in an era dominated by abstract and Conceptual approaches? Can ancient European compositions be adapted to express ideas that are relevant today? How may we consider Jin's work in a global context?
Jin Shangyi's "Compliments to Vermeer"
Let us begin with a look at Jin's three oil paintings and the masterpieces that inspired them.
Vermeer's View of Delft (c. 1660-61; Mauritshuis, The Hague) is one of the most admired landscapes in the history of Western art. It shows the Southern Dutch city from the southeast as seen across a small harbor. Jin visited the site and noted how things had changed: the old houses on the left had been replaced with modern structures, the stone gates to the inner harbor at the center and right had been altered, and all that remained of the old skyline were some church towers and the conical turrets of one of the gates.
At first glance, Jin's New View of Delft could be confused with the original. The composition and scale are more or less the same, and the sky, which fills around two thirds of Vermeer's canvas, is an exact copy. But on closer inspection the ruse becomes clear. Jin has updated the scene to depict the contemporary townscape, and although he reproduces a barge from Vermeer's original and the little triangle of land in the foreground, he adds a few figures in modern dress.
He plays a similar game with Vermeer's The Little Street (c. 1657-58; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Again, the composition is generally the same as Vermeer's, with the alley and the sky on the left half of the picture copied from the original. But in Jin's revision, titled Old Street of Delft, the right side of the picture is changed. Jin says that he walked the town in search of the brick house that Vermeer had painted, which still survives, but he could not find it, so he photographed a similar building as his model for the upper right area of the canvas. And for the foreground, instead of the lady in the doorway and children on the sidewalk, Jin substitutes a scene he captured with his camera in another part of town. A man stands next to a motorcycle and there is large photographic advertisement in the plate-glass window on the ground floor.
The third Vermeer that Jin modifies is Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. 1665-66; Mauritshuis, The Hague), a bust of an unknown woman in three-quarter view looking over her left shoulder to the viewer. Jin duplicates the figure's position, her blue and yellow turban and yellow dress, the glinting highlight on the earring, and the dark background. But he subtly alters her gaze to suggest trepidation and adds in the lower center her left hand brought to her breast. Though he titles his work Terrified Girl with a Pearl Earring, she seems less scared than slightly apprehensive.
In each case Jin has preserved the composition and atmosphere of Vermeer's paintings, and placed his canvases in Dutch-style black molded-wood frames to further lead the viewer to mistake the variants for the originals. A closer look reveals the unexpected additions and alterations of subject matter, as well as differences in painterly technique. Whereas Vermeer painstakingly built up paintings with many layers of semi-translucent pigments, sometimes melding brushstrokes into an enamel-like finish, Jin employs a more summary technique, describing forms superficially with a single application of carefully selected dabs of paint, each of which remains visible up close.
What led Jin to focus on Vermeer? In his travels to European and American museums, Jin was most impressed by Rembrandt and Vermeer. "My personality is somewhat different from Rembrandt's," he says, "but I think I share the same characteristics of personality with Vermeer, which makes it easier to paint works that look similar to his." Vermeer exudes a "quiet and tranquility" for which Jin feels an affinity.
Jin's primary purpose in visiting Western museums was to learn how the Old Masters painted, but he says that copying these three works was not about studying technique. "It's a different issue," he says. "I want to express an idea: specifically, my puzzlement with contemporary society, my being unable to adapt to the fast-changing world, particularly in China."
"Because I grew up in these times of change," he says, "that is why I am puzzled. And I think many young people also cannot adapt to the world. Young people are having psychological problems — problems that in China are more serious than in other parts of the world — because the changes are so rapid that you cannot adapt to them. The contradictions are very acute. This perspective is what makes me different from other people," he says.
In his updates of the Vermeers, Jin attempts to express his unease. "I combined together the modern and the old," he says of his New View of Delft and Old Street of Delft. "And when I looked at [Girl with a Pearl Earring], I wondered, if the girl had lived long enough what would she feel about this fast changing world? I thought that she would have felt very disturbed, too," he says. Jin gives his version of the girl a troubled look, and acknowledges that she is a surrogate for himself, looking at the world with a little fear.
Learning Western Techniques
The Western tradition of figurative realism was propagated through fine arts academies founded in Paris, London, Düsseldorf, Copenhagen and other cities in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their strict regimen of instruction – about line, modeling in light and shade, the properties of oil paint, and composition – was the norm until the later 19th century. Then French Realists and Impressionists broke with tradition to paint modern life and explore personal modes of expression that opened the door to the various forms of Modernism.
It was only in the 20th century that elements of the academic system of realist oil painting were introduced to China. Jin's exposure came through two sources: the works of Beijing painter Xu Bei Hong (1895-1953) who had studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and instruction by Konstantin Maximov [1913-93], the Soviet artist who came to Beijing from 1955 to 1957 to teach Socialist Realism.
"When I started in the 1950s, it was very difficult for Chinese to study oil painting," he says. "There were only several teachers and the techniques were not good at that time. Some artists had studied abroad but their level was not very high, such as their understanding of teaching drawing and painting…I got the most elementary parts of oil painting," he says, referring to his instruction from the Russian Academy's Maximov. "Very few people painted in oil. The conditions were so bad — you could not afford the materials and the pigments were very scarce [because] there were no imports at that time. And you could not see any original work," he adds. China was economically underdeveloped, museums and collectors had acquired virtually no works by European old masters, and none were on permanent display. Artists had access only to a few poor-quality reproductions, and travel abroad was extremely limited.
"I was so excited when I first saw Soviet originals in 1954," says Jin, recalling his visit that year to the exhibition of the Achievements of the Soviet Construction in Beijing. In 1957 he was assigned to the engraving department at the Central Academy, at that time under the influence of the Soviet model, and he began to work on paintings of revolutionary historical events – particularly portraits of Chairman Mao — in the official mode demanded by the Communist regime. "The Soviets proposed that you create Soviet Socialist Realism," he recalls. "The painter was required to reflect the life of the workers, the farmers and the soldiers. So individuality, a personal style, never came to my mind."
In addition to the logistical obstacles to learning the Western tradition, there were more fundamental barriers. Oil painting and the Western manner of representing the world are essentially different from Chinese artistic traditions. Chinese monochrome painting in brush and ink on paper or silk describes form in a linear manner with individually distinct brushstrokes. Images tend to be two-dimensional with light and depth conveyed mainly by scalar shifts and atmospheric effects. Western oil painting on wood panel or linen canvas builds form with layers of integrated brushstrokes to create finely rendered surfaces and volumes modeled in contrasting light and shade. Spatial effects are achieved with optical precision using scientific methods of three-dimensional perspective.
Jin was exploring a medium and a mode of description that was new territory for a Chinese artist. "Three-dimensional space is an important way to realize Western beauty," he says. "The Chinese way of viewing is two-dimensional and linear. We are not used to three-dimensional space observation," he says. "I first had to change from the more traditional ways of seeing and adopt Western ways of seeing."
Developing a Personal Style
Jin says that he began to think about developing a personal style in the 1960s. But economic conditions and the dictates of Socialist Realism precluded stylistic development. "It is hard to imagine an individualized artistic expression when you still had problems finding enough food, when the basic needs of your life could barely be met," Jin explains. "One only thought of learning the techniques, and one was happy to paint a commission from the government, which was the sole patron at that time…But very soon the Cultural Revolution started and everything stopped. No painting — it was total chaos," he remembers. "The whole society just stopped. It was only social movements."
Finally, at the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Jin was able to expand his mastery of the oil medium. He was appointed deputy dean of the oil painting department at the Central Academy and permitted for the first time to travel to Europe to study original paintings by the Old Masters. "After 1979 or 1980 things started to return to normal and the economy was recovering," he says. "Everybody started talking about personal style and I experimented with Western classicism."
Jin Shangyi, Tajik Bride
On a technical level, Jin advanced from the workmanlike craft useful to illustrate popular propagandistic political messages to a more sophisticated technique that resulted from diligent study of the high-art tradition of oil painting. Yet, in the context of his Western contemporaries, his accomplished technique, though radical for China, appears highly conservative, even retrograde. At the time he embraced Classical Realism the academic tradition had long been superseded by Modernism. Jin himself recalls, "At that time [i.e., the early 1980s] we were going backwards instead of forward," learning a style that already was passé in the West.
In the West, numerous artists, galleries, and collectors specialize in figurative Realism, but Realist works generally are considered apart from the mainstream of contemporary art unless critics deem them conceptually or theoretically sophisticated. For example, in the 1970s Photo-Realists painted meticulous reproductions of photographs, erasing the brushstroke that is the traditional hallmark of artistic authenticity. In the 1980s the New York artist Eric Fischl (b. 1948) made figurative paintings of suburban decadence and childhood trauma that were heralded for introducing contemporary social and psychological dimensions to contemporary Realism.
Since the 1980s the German painter Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) has worked in many styles, among them a blurry Realism based on photographic images from newspapers, television, and other sources. He is one of many artists who continue to give a contemporary spin to the Realist tradition. Another is New York painter Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977) who portrays African Americans as if they were the subjects of Old Master paintings. Now, with his "Compliments to Vermeer," Jin Shangyi makes a bid to add his name to the list.
But, Jin's contribution to art on the global stage must be gauged in relation to the declining value and relevance of Classical Realism. Until the invention of photography in Europe in 1839, artists strove to represent the world with increasing accuracy. Naturalistic verisimilitude was prized, although subject matter, the formal qualities of the composition, the attitude and psychological resonance of the figures, and painterly style all came into play. After the birth of photography, visual likeness was downgraded as a factor in determining quality in painting. The camera's mechanical means obviated the need to perfect realism, and artists increasingly began to explore other avenues of expression.
Maintaining the (Socialist) Realist Tradition
The problem with embracing realism in the 20th or 21st centuries is that it runs counter to the currents of history. Western artists moved on to Conceptual and other Modernist approaches to image making, launching revolution after revolution, one movement upending the last, leading audiences to ever more complex understanding of art and human expression.[1] In the context of these historical developments, paintings such as Jin's, which adhere to a mode of representation established long ago, are often disregarded by artists and critics who consider Classical Realism behind the times and out of touch with the urgent aesthetic, intellectual and social issues that contemporary art engages.
The opposition of Modernism and Realism is a battle between the individual and the collective. Modernist developments trace a path inward, away from the visual world outside of us and inward to the mind's eye and self-knowledge. This Western emphasis on individual realities is profoundly democratic, but can seem distant from the realities of daily life and traditional notions of shared human values. An alternative reading sees Modernism as a road to solipsism: artists creating a world in and about themselves, accessible only to a select group of insiders.
It can be argued, for example, that abstraction emptied visual art of accessible meaning by failing to communicate specific ideas and feelings from the artist to the viewer; Pop Art diminished the profundity of art with its ironic celebration of low culture. Conceptualism and Minimalism operate in a hermetic field of art theory that excludes the majority of society. In this light, Classical Realism can seem like a refuge from the new.
Should we promote what is new and individualistic or what is familiar and shared? The Russian "formalist" critic Viktor Schlovsky (1893-1984) insisted that art should be made difficult and unfamiliar to challenge complacent habits of perception and thought. His proto-Modernist attitude maintains that by constantly questioning received ideas, humankind can explore new regions of thought and experience, perhaps gaining essential knowledge about existence. This is the credo of the avant-garde: continual revolution will lead to enlightenment.
But just as classical music and ballet are no longer the cutting edge in the fields of music and dance, yet still attract devoted followers who appreciate their beauty, Classical Realism, too, can be a source of aesthetic pleasure and meaningful content. For most people the comfort of a more conservative approach is preferable. They do not wish to learn a new language in order to understand the personal expressions of artists.
That is the appeal of the Realist who projects a shared reality. His art speaks a visual language accessible to all, and therefore has the potential to communicate to a broad audience. Jin knows this, and it is one reason he adheres to Realism. "With traditional realistic painting you don't have to learn to appreciate it," he says. "You naturally gain a sense of beauty from it, [which is one reason] in China the majority of people are still interested in realistic work."
Jin Shangyi, Cultural Revolution, 1973.
The natural preference for Realism is nearly universal, in the West as well as in the East. But the Chinese predilection for Realist oil painting is also a result of official policy. Throughout most of Jin's early career the State art bureaucracy dismissed, and at times forbade, the Modernist emphasis on the individual. The Soviet Union had abolished the Russian avant-garde's plans to "liberate subjectivity" and instituted instead a policy of Socialist Realism that deployed figurative painting to tutor the masses. China followed this example, using Realism as a State instrument of social engineering.
Jin Shangyi, Drunken
Today there is far greater tolerance of subtly critical artistic visions, but in the decades following the establishment of the People's Republic, artists were commissioned to invent scenes calling for social justice and conformity to prescribed moral behavior. Socialist Realist artists painted idealized and optimistic visions of society that served as propaganda for the regime. Jin began his career producing triumphant images of Chairman Mao and the Communist revolution, but since the 1980s he has focused on informal portraits, academic studies of the human figure, and perfecting the technique of oil painting. It makes sense that an artist trained to serve a political regime would aspire in his private practice to eschew politics and escape into the quiet realm of the studio. He has dedicated himself to aesthetic refinements of painting, examined the psychology of his sitters, and even painted explicit nudes – activities that would have been condemned in the Cultural Revolution as bourgeois individualism, but today are widely accepted in China as in the West.
Jin Shangyi, Indoor, 1999
Appropriating the European Past and Accepting the New
Asian art in general, and Chinese art in particular, has profoundly influenced the art of the West – Asian ceramics, Chinese landscape and flower painting, Japanese woodblock prints, not to mention spiritual and philosophical thought found their way into Western decorative and fine arts. But until the 20th century the reverse influence was far less evident. Western impact on Chinese art took place mainly during three distinct phases: first with the arrival of Jesuit painters such as Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) who introduced Western perspective to the 18th-century Qing court; second, with the influx of Soviet Socialist Realism as an agent of Communist propaganda in the decades after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949; and then with the opening up in the late 1970s which allowed increased attention to Western contemporary art and photography that accelerated since the 1990s with movements such as Political Pop.
Jin delved into Western-style oil painting during the middle to late phase, a period marked by mutual suspicion between China and the West. The Cold War era saw little cultural exchange other than so-called "Ping Pong Diplomacy" involving joint participation in sporting events in the 1970s. United States President Richard Nixon's famous trip to China in 1972 furthered the thaw, but transcultural exchange remained sporadic and superficial. But, Jin's artistic ambitions were outside the realm of politics. He recognized that Western artists were not enemies of the Communist Party, but individuals engaged with aesthetic and technical problems similar to his own.
From a Western perspective, Jin appears as a leading artistic figure in the pivotal phase of Chinese art history that saw a shift from Socialist Realism inspired by Soviet models to more personal avenues of expression — in his case through study of the aesthetics and techniques of the Old Masters. In this sense, Jin has been a gentle liberator of expressive freedom in China. The fact that Jin not only admired the Western Old Masters, but dedicated his life to a study and emulation of their work can be seen as an extraordinary gesture of cultural refinement and respect at a time of political tension, one that goes beneath the level of nationalist politics to engage with the humanistic values shared by East and West.
With the paintings after Vermeer Jin has endeavored to express a broad cultural theme – namely the unease he and others feel with the rapid changes transforming modern society. "Mostly I want to convey human feeling in this fast changing world," Jin says. Jin has chosen as a vehicle for this idea compositions he has appropriated from an Old Master. There is precedent in China, where copying the ancients and absorbing their styles is the accepted manner of learning brush-and-ink painting. In the West also there is a tradition of artists reinterpreting the work of their predecessors. For example, a direct lineage connects Edouard Manet's Olympia (1863) to Francisco de Goya's Naked Maja (c. 1800-05), Diego Velázquez's Rokeby Venus (c. 1647-51), Titian's Venus of Urbino (1528) and antique Roman and Greek sculptures. And Modern artists have continually mined art history in order to critique the canon of aesthetics. In taking Vermeer as a model for reinvention, Jin follows accepted practice, just as in adhering to Classic Realism he extends a long tradition.[2]
As a professor at the Central Academy and other schools, Jin helped develop the oil painting curriculum that has trained generations of Chinese artists. Some of his students – and their students in turn – adopted the conventions of Classical Realism. Others developed more contemporary variations of painting that have become more highly regarded in international art circles. The work of China's most successful contemporary painters, though quite distinct from Jin's, might not have developed so rapidly without the presence of academic courses in the techniques of oil painting that Jin helped to establish.
Yet, Jin is the first to admit that new forms of expression are valid reflections of the modern condition. "I like Western modernism from Impressionism to Abstraction," he says, singling out in particular Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Egon Schiele, Alberto Giacometti, and Francis Bacon. And he has great sympathy for contemporary artists, as well. "Some young painters paint like [me], but most use modern and contemporary approaches because they can better reflect their agitated emotions," he says. "They start from realism and eventually they learn expressionism and abstraction and they transform. I agree with them," he says. "I want to do it, too, but it's easier for them. I am not familiar with the language and it's very difficult to turn from detailed depiction to a more expressive approach. I painted expressive works when I was young, then turned to classicism. Now," he says, "if I turn again it would be hard. I don't have the energy. It's simple – I'm old."
In his late career, as China opens itself to more Conceptual approaches current in the international art world, Jin finds himself at odds with prevailing attitudes. He likes the Realist paintings of Liu Xiaodong (b. 1963), but not all contemporary art appeals to him. "If you don't have Realism as a foundation you cannot paint abstraction or expressionism well," He says, citing several celebrated Chinese contemporary painters. According to Jin, "What is lacking in China is not thinking, but technique. No matter how good your idea, without the proper technique you cannot realize it." But as Classic Realism drifts ever further into the past, and the speed of change continues, we might ask if Chinese art schools should abandon Realism and focus instead on teaching contemporary modes of expression. Jin believes there is room for both Classic Realism and Modernism, as well as for traditional ink painting. He is right, of course. With its easy-to-read imagery and admirable technique, there is still demand for Realism in China and abroad, and there will be for years to come. "I have no doubt in the future existence of oil painting. Oil painting is still something new for the Chinese," he says, "and the more the Chinese see the more they will like it." But as the Chinese audience becomes increasingly familiar with new technologies and sophisticated alternative forms of expression, their aesthetic horizons will expand to encompass not only the Classic Realism of Jin, but new forms of art as yet unknown.
[1] By the early decades of the 20th century, the Symbolists and Surrealists had explored poetic and fantastic realms. Juxtaposing images that would not be found together in the real world, they posited new and varied meanings for things we thought we had understood, and explored psychology and the world of dreams first charted by Sigmund Freud and others. The Expressionists amplified reality in unexpected ways by veering from realism into distortion of line, color and proportion. They discovered the expressive properties of formal elements that until then always were linked to describing the way scenes and objects appear to the eye.
The Cubists devised an analysis of form and space that reflected the action of the mind and eye. They incorporated multiple perspectives in a single static image, developing a graphic means to reflect visual experience as durational over time, and modulated by thought as well as sight. Abstract artists eventually abandoned representation altogether and investigated the expressive potential of form itself — color, shape, line and texture existing in their own purely artistic dimension.
These new modes enabled art to critique and question the basis for knowledge and epistemology. Marcel Duchamp, for example, in exhibiting a urinal as sculpture, overturned received notions of aesthetics and high art, and urged viewers to consider artistic aspects of everyday objects. His strategies were echoed decades later in Pop Art, which brought a new range of commercial subject matter into the field of art. Previously the imagery of commerce and advertising had been considered beneath the realm of high art, but with the onslaught of the mass media in the economic boom of the later 20th century, artists recognized consumer culture as an unavoidably prominent feature of our social landscape, and a necessary subject in art.
Since then visual artists have delved into Minimalism, Conceptualism, and revivals of various Modernist styles from the past. They have incorporated photography, film and video into their practice, increasingly merging visual art and other media and disciplines. They have combined found objects in assemblages and installations that bring aspects of theater into the gallery, and conducted social actions and performances that lately have come into vogue in museums. And in the digital age artists have begun to explore the internet and social media as tools for self-expression. Today there are no limits to the means available for an artist to communicate ideas and to interpret the contemporary condition.
[2] In the 20th century, Pablo Picasso paid homage to Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres, Velázquez, and other earlier masters. Picasso's Cubism itself spawned scores of followers, as did Mondrian's balanced geometric abstractions.
Jason Edward Kaufman is an art critic and cultural reporter based in New York. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Art Newspaper and numerous other publications. For more information and to subscribe to his IN VIEW Culture Bulletin visit https://jasonkaufman.com.
This essay appeared first in Jin Shangyi: Compliments to Vermeer [catalogue accompanying exhibition of the same name], Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, 2011, pp. 90-103.


A document shredder is an excellent tool for destroying confidential information in a short span of time which makes them essential for businesses of all sizes. But as they're simple to use, their maintenance and cleaning often goes neglected. What regular users of this device aren't aware of is that they can prolong its life with basic care, periodic maintenance and adequate cleaning.
While the issue of 'paper jams' can be addressed by tapping the reverse button a couple of times (that should prompt the blades to release the papers which would fall into the waste basket by themselves), proper document shredder maintenance requires extra work. Below we've listed the important steps you need to take to achieve optimal shredding.
Document shredders should be occasionally lubricated with high-quality shedder oil to ensure a prolonged lifespan for its cutting heads. In addition to increasing its service yeas, timely lubrication should also prevent motor burn outs. Additionally, it should be able to remove the hardness of the sediments that might have accumulated near the blade and allow free movement of the cutting head. Document shredders can be oiled once a week. Once a day works too if they're being heavily used. Cross cut shredders need more oiling than strip cut shredders as they produce finer particles of dust.
Also, oiling should be carried out when the document shredder is not functioning by holding the lubricant over the shredder's blades and squeezing them through the opening's length. The entire process takes a couple of minutes and once the oiling has taken place, the user should run the shredder in reverse function so that the oil gets transferred to all blades in uniformity. Lastly, once the oiling ends, remove any excess strains by running a few pieces of paper through the shredder.
Unless your machine is designed to operate continuously, it would function for a specific period, and then it'll have to shut down to prevent overheating. Even the models that are promoted for the capability to run continuously need a break now and then. To ensure optimal run time, have the vendor's technician visit and service the machine now and then. Make sure you call the technician regularly, with the first call happening after the month of your purchase.
To discover the run time of your document shredder, read through its manual. If the runtime isn't mentioned on the manual, it might be worth getting in touch with the technician to find that out. Additionally, there are a few steps you can take yourself to ensure the shredder keeps functioning at peak capacity. For instance, users are advised to never go overboard with the shredding capacity of their equipment. Shredding too much could result in paper jams. Moreover, shredding a lot is hard on the shredder's resources and could significantly reduce runtime if you're not careful.
The shredder shouldn't be plugged into a power switch when it's not in use. Take unplugging as an opportunity to clean the machine from inside out (and remove the container's main lid before doing so). You can refer to the manual for instructions if you have difficulties but in most instances, you can wipe the dust off by lifting the lid and using a paper towel or cloth. If you spot an ink smudge, soap in lukewarm water (diluted) can also be applied for all the cleaning.
Of course, you shouldn't directly pour the liquid onto the shredder, especially if it's near a power plug (that could lead to an electricity outage). Moreover, dip the towel or paper cloth in the liquid and wring things out so that it doesn't get dripped. The paper towel can then be used to clean the ink off as well as any residue before you leave it for air drying. Another thing you can do during this process is take out the plastic paper guard from the slot of the feed. Use a dull blade or a butter knife to take off the guard (strictly when you're unable to remove it using your fingers).
This step is self-explanatory and there's a good chance that you've already attempted it several times. The bin of the shredder should just be taken near a trash and disposed. But before you do, check whether the piles of paper you put in have been destroyed completely (preferably beyond unreadable). If that isn't possible, or if there's another way to clean it, you should carefully go through the manual and ensure you are correctly using the paper manual. Or, purchase a high-end version of a shredder, like a micro-cut instead of a cross-cut.
Another helpful step is to use clear plastic for the waste bin of the shedder. Clear plastic is almost a necessity for micro-cut shredders, which are quite easy to fly away and often suffer mess up of spaces. Moreover, it's often frustrating to have leftovers at the shredder waste bin's edge. Making the dustbin of the shredder would prevent it from overload, which is often the cause of paper jams and reverse shredding. The shapeup of the waste bin significantly correlates to the future performance of the shredder.
If there is a minor jam in your shredder, reversing its function will resolve the matter. However, in worst case scenario, the shredder could jam again while in reverse function. If that happens, unplug the shredder, put it in forward or auto mode, and plug it in once again.
Also, know that you might have to alternate between reverse and auto. A jam that is worse enough to cause the shredder to gum up when it is functioning in reverse might also be worse enough to jam it once again when the shredder is running forward once again. That said, by switching between reverse and forward, it's mostly possible to work a paper out of shredder jam if you work on it gradually.
By taking the above mentioned steps, you'd be able to keep your shredder in tip top condition, which also means less expense, as you won't need to invest in a new one till long.


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Zdob și Zdub este o formație de muzică rock din Republica Moldova.

Înființată în 1994 de un grup de amici din orașul Strășeni, Republica Moldova, Zdob și Zdub combină mai multe stiluri muzicale.

Zdob și Zdub a reprezentat de trei ori Republica Moldova la concursul muzical Eurovision.

De-a lungul timpului Zdob și Zdub a cântat în deschiderea unor concerte cu formații și artiști de renume mondial, precum sunt Red Hot Chili Peppers, Emir Kusturica & No Smoking Orchestra, Biohazard, Rollins Band, Rage Against The Machine, Soulfly, The Garbage, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Linkin Park ș.a.

Istoric
Zdob și Zdub a concertat în peste 20 țări europene. Printre festivalurile importante pot fi numite:
 Ungaria – Sziget;
 Danemarca – Roskilde;
 Serbia – Exit;
 Franța – Sin Fronteras;
 Belgia - Esperanzah!;
 Elveția - Open Air Gampel;
 Germania - Krefelder Folkfest, Tanz&Folk Festival Rudolstadt, S.O.M.A., Eurovision Song Contest 2011;
 Republica Cehă - Rock For People, Colours Of Ostrava;
 Republica Slovacă - Aerorock, OKEY Leto Fest, Hodocvas;
 Polonia – Przystanek Woodstock;
 Ucraina – Zakhid;
 România - Fete de la Musique, Cerbul de Aur, Stufstock, Peninsula;
 Olanda – EuroSonic, Mundial;
 Rusia – Maxidrom, Nashestvie, Krilya ș.a.

Zdob și Zdub a înregistrat unele piese și a cântat live cu interpreți de folclor, artiști ca Vasile Dinu (MC Vasile, din România), Surorile Osoianu (Moldova), Trio Erdenko (Rusia) ș.a.

Zdob și Zdub a fost invitată să participe într-o serie de proiecte, unul dintre ele fiind Linz Europe Tour 2007-2009 - un proiect cultural european care a întrunit artiști din țările dunărene. Ca rezultat au fost lansate piesa-colaborare dintre Hubert von Goisern, liderul Linz Europe Tour, și Zdob și Zdub, plus ultimul album, numit "Ethnomecanica" (Lavine/Sony Label).

Zdob și Zdub a reprezentat Republica Moldova la concursul muzical Eurovision 2005, unde s-a clasat pe locul 6.

În octombrie 2010 trupa a lansat un album în limba rusă, numit "Beloe Vino/Krasnoe Vino" (din rusă – "Vin alb/Vin roșu"). Pe parcursul unei perioade îndelungate, cu ocazii diferite au fost înregistrate piese care, la fel, din varii motive, nu au fost lansate. Acum sunt aduse sub o copertă. Albumul conține câteva colaborări, versiunea rusească a unor piese proprii și cover-uri.

În 2011 a participat din nou la Eurovision unde a juns pe locul 12. În ianuarie 2012 Zdob și Zdub a lansat, sub egida casei de discuri germane Asphalt Tango Records, un album în limba engleză, intitulat "Basta Mafia!". Pentru prima oară formația a colaborat cu un producător străin, Marc Elsner. Albumul a fost înregistrat atât la Chișinău, în "Cuibul Studio", cât și în Germania, la Headroom Studio. În perioada februarie-martie 2012 trupa s-a aflat într-un turneu de promovare al noului album prin cele mai mari importante orașe din Germania, Austria, Ungaria, Elveția și Danemarca. S-a realizat și o versiune adaptată pentru publicul din România și Republica Moldova și a fost lansată de către MediaPro Music în primăvara 2013. Noua versiunea a albumului "Basta Mafia!" a fost prezentată publicului din România în cadrul unui concert desfășurat la Hard Rock Cafe București.

La 21 mai 2013, a fost prezentată și publicului din Republica Moldova versiunea dată a albumului, la Teatrul "Eugène Ionesco" din Chișinău, în cadrul unui show grandios "Moldovenii s-au născut" – titlul primului single de pe album, pentru care a fost filmat și un videoclip.

În anul 2022 Zdob și Zdub a reprezentat Republica Moldova pentru a treia oară la concursul muzical Eurovision. De data aceasta s-a clasat pe locul 7.

Eurovision

 În 2005 formația Zdob și Zdub a reprezentat Republica Moldova la Eurovision unde cu ușurință au trecut semi-finala cu un număr de 207 puncte și s-au clasat pe poziția a doua care duce Moldova în finală. În semi-finală Moldova a primit 4 note de 12 de la: România, Rusia, Ucraina și Turcia.
 În finală Zdubii s-au clasat pe poziția a 6 cu 148 de puncte, primind 2 note de 12 din partea României și Ucrainei și 3 note de 10 de la Rusia, Lituania și Portugalia.

În 2011 Zdob și Zdub a reprezentat din nou Moldova la Eurovision cu piesa "So Lucky".

Membrii formației

Membri actuali
 Roman Iagupov (n. 13 septembrie 1973, Volgograd, Rusia) – vocal, chitara, fluier, ocarina, turuiac, iorgafon, dramba, buhai, tartacuta, cimpoi, telinca, doba (1994 - prezent)
 Mihai Gîncu (n. 5 martie 1975, Straseni, Moldova) – chitară bas, cobza, sitar, mandolina, chitara acustica, organ, keyboards, mellotron, acordeon, pian, percutie, tobe, backing vocal (1994 - prezent)
 Sveatoslav Staruș (n. 8 noiembrie 1974, Chișinău, Moldova) - chitară (1996 - 2004, mai 2010 - prezent)
 Andrei Cebotari (n. 4 august 1975, Soroca, Moldova) – tobe (2000 - 2003, mai 2010 - prezent)
 Valeriu Mazîlu (n. 12 septembrie 1978, Chișinău, Moldova) – trompetă, fluier, cimpoi (ianuarie 2001 - prezent)
 Victor Dandeș (n. 3 aprilie 1972, Chișinău, Moldova) - trombon, vioara, acordeon, caval, fluier, telinka, melodica (2001 - prezent)

Foști membri
Dumitru Cuharenco (1994 - 1995) - vocal
Serghei Cobzac (1994 – 1996) – chitară
Serghei Pușnina (1996) - chitară
Igor Buzurniuc (n. 23 iunie 1981, Soroca, Moldova, ianuarie – iunie 2005, februarie 2008 - mai 2010) – chitară
Victor Coșparmac (aprilie 2002 – decembrie 2004) – chitară 2
Vadim Bogdan (noiembrie 2005 – aprilie 2006) - chitară
Vitalii Caceaniuc (1998 – 2000) – tobe, percuție
Anatol Pugaci (n. 6 octombrie 1973, Chișinău, Moldova, 1994 – 1997, februarie 2004 - mai 2010) - tobe, percuție
Pezza Butnaru (ianuarie 2004 – martie 2004) - tobe, percuție
Vadim Eremeev (ianuarie 2003 – februarie 2004) – chitară bas
Sergiu Vatavu (n. 28 septembrie 1967, Chișinău, Moldova, mai 2006 - februarie 2008) - chitară
Eugen Didic (ianuarie 1999 – septembrie 2000) – trompetă
Ion Stavilă (septembrie 2000 – decembrie 2000) – trompetă

Albume
 1997 - Hardcore Moldovenesc
 1999 - Tabăra Noastră / Zdubii Bateti Tare!
 2001 - Agroromantica
 2003 - 450 De Oi
 2006 - Ethnomecanica
 2010 - Beloe Vino/Krasnoe Vino ("Vin Alb/Vin Roșu")
 2012 - Basta Mafia !
 2015 - 20 De Veri

Muzică
Melodii:
 2001 Țiganii și OZN
 2003 Dj Vasile
 2004 Miorița
 2005 Bunica Bate Doba
 Zdubii Bateți tare
 Hora Cosmică
 Bună Dimineața
 2006 Everybody in the Casa Mare
 2010 Dj Василий (versiunea în rusă și ucraineană)
 2011 So Lucky
 2022 Zdob și Zdub & Frații Advahov - "Trenulețul"

Videoclipuri muzicale

 Lume
 Manea Cu Voce
 Olimpia

Note

Legături externe
 Website oficial . În limba engleză, română și rusă.
 Pagina Facebook
 Youtube
 Pagina MySpace
 Twitter
 Artisti - Zdob și Zdub

Interviuri

 Pentru dvs., de la Chisinau, formatia... "Zdob si Zdub", Formula AS - anul 1999, numărul 386
 Asii adolescentilor, Formula AS - anul 2001, numărul 456
 "Asta-i telul nostru: soarele, lumina pe care o aducem publicului", Formula AS - anul 2002, numărul 507
 "Pentru noi, asta-i viata! Nu putem merge inapoi, ci numai inainte", Iulian Ignat, Formula AS - anul 2005, numărul 671
 Zdob Si Zdub in tara colindelor, Bogdana Tihon Buliga, Formula AS - anul 2006, numărul 747
 VIDEO Roman Iagupov: "Suntem Zdob și Zdub și nu avem limite muzicale", 30 ianuarie 2011, Ruxandra Grecu, Adevărul

Fondări în 1994
Cântăreți în limba română
Formații rock
Reprezentanții Moldovei la Eurovision
Participanți la Eurovision 2011
Formații din Republica Moldova
Eurovision 2005
Eurovision 2022

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


We offer camps throughout the year at MotoX.
Whether it's Spring Break, Winter Break, or Summer Break, anytime that riders are out on a break, MotoX Compound has you covered!
When we do our Camps, we allow the riders to come train alongside our full time riders and join in on their weekly program both in the gym and on the track.
When you leave our camp. You will receive a detailed analysis on what the trainers saw that you need to work on with your riding and training.


text:
Kognitive Poetik (cognitive poetics) ist die Sammelbezeichnung für zeitgenössische, kognitiv-empirische Forschungsansätze in der Literaturtheorie, bzw. Literaturwissenschaft, in denen die Untersuchung der Wirkung narrativer und sprachlich-stilistischer Kunstmittel auf den Leser im Vordergrund steht.

Die Kognitive Poetik versucht, Literaturrezeption aufgrund allgemeiner Prozesse der menschlichen Informationsverarbeitung (d. h. Kognition) verstehbar zu machen. Der Name des Forschungsfeldes setzt sich folgerichtig aus Kognition, d. h. jene die menschliche Erkenntnis strukturierenden Mechanismen, und Poetik, d. h. Theorie zum Verständnis von Literatur, zusammen. In ihrer methodischen Ausrichtung ist die Kognitive Poetik damit eine Tochterdisziplin des jungen Feldes der sozialen Neurowissenschaften, die sich der Untersuchung kognitiver Korrelate sozialer Prozesse im menschlichen Gehirn widmen.

Innerhalb des genannten Forschungsparadigmas lassen sich aktuell thematische Spezialisierungsfelder ausmachen (zumeist verbunden mit einzelnen Forscherpersönlichkeiten), obwohl ein integrativer programmatischer Ansatz bislang nicht formuliert worden ist. Dominierende Ansätze hierbei sind ein (kognitions-)psychologischer, ein linguistischer sowie evolutionsbiologisch orientierter Ansatz. Dennoch gehen die verschiedenen Ansätze oder Ausrichtungen von bestimmten gemeinsamen Grundannahmen aus.

Historische Entwicklung
Die Erforschung sprachlicher Besonderheiten im Hinblick auf ihre Auswirkungen auf den Rezipienten war bereits Thema der klassischen Rhetorik und Poetik, wurde jedoch von den russischen Formalisten in den 1920er Jahren erneut aufgegriffen. So wies vor allem Šklovskij (Die Kunst als Verfahren, 1917) auf die Zusammenhänge zwischen den Abweichungen von linguistischen oder erzählerischen Konventionen und den Effekten der Entfremdung und Deautomatisierung hin. Das Gedankengut des Formalismus wurde nach dessen Verbot durch Stalin 1930 von den Strukturalisten weiterentwickelt und von den Exilanten in andere Länder überliefert. In seinem grundlegenden Aufsatz Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics (1960) führt Jakobson die poetische Sprachwirkung auf Äquivalenzstrukturen zurück, die die Aufmerksamkeit des Rezipienten auf die Sprache bzw. das sprachliche Medium selbst lenken. Die Prinzipien der Deautomatisierung und Verfremdung wurden im angelsächsischen Raum beispielsweise im Rahmen der Analyse von found poems auch unter dem Begriff des foregrounding weiterverfolgt.

In den Ansätzen zur strukturellen Poetik werden zumeist Konzepte des Lesers sowie die Rezeptionsanalyse mit einbezogen oder aber zumindest, wenngleich nicht immer in expliziter Form, mitgedacht. Beispielsweise sieht J. Culler eine linguistische Analogie auf Seiten des Lesers im Sinne einer "literarischen Kompetenz" (J. Cullers, Structuralist Poetics, 1975, Kapitel 6).

Im Verlauf der 1970er Jahre wurden zunehmend Konstrukte und Modelle aus der Kognitionswissenschaft richtungweisend, die sich in den sozial- und informationswissenschaftlichen Disziplinen mit den mentalen Prozessen der Wahrnehmung, des Verstehens sowie des Lernens beschäftigen. Der Begriff cognitive poetics wurde in Analogie zum Terminus cognitive linguistics (kognitive Linguistik) eingeführt. R. Tsur verwendete den Ausdruck im Zusammenhang mit der Analyse und Interpretation poetischer Texte (R. Tsur, What is Cognitive Poetics, 1983). Dabei entwickelte er einerseits aus Beobachtungen am Text Annahmen über mentale Prozesse beim Leser, bezog andererseits jedoch ebenso Überlegungen und Vermutungen ein über Repräsentationen menschlicher Kognition und Erfahrung in den Texten.

Grundannahmen

Generelle Gültigkeit menschlicher Kognition

Ein zentraler Grundsatz der Kognitiven Linguistik ist die Verallgemeinerbarkeit der kognitiven Grundleistungen des Menschen, d. h. die das menschliche Erkennen strukturierenden Mechanismen, auf alle Arten von zu verarbeitenden Informationen, und damit auch auf die Verarbeitung literarischer Werke.
So werden, im Verlauf einer Textanalyse, Konzepte der Kognitionsforschung auf literarische Werke angewandt. Kognitive Literaturanalyse versucht also, die besondere Wirkung literarischer Stilmittel oder Textformen beim Rezipienten unter Rückgriff auf kognitive Grundmechanismen menschlichen Verstehens (i. e. Informationsverarbeitung) zu erklären.

Kognitionspsychologische Konzepte, die dabei besondere Beachtung finden, sind:
Figur-Grund-Wahrnehmung
Aufmerksamkeitssteuerung
Kognitives Framing
Prototypentheorie
Script-Theorie

Illustration der generellen Gültigkeit menschlicher Kognition

Die Fähigkeit des kognitiven Framings beispielsweise – das Verstehen neuer Umweltinformation durch deren Einbettung in einen kognitiven Interpretationsrahmen (frame) – lässt sich in vielfältigen menschlichen Sinnesleistungen beobachten; so werden beispielsweise Noten im Verhältnis zu einer gewissen Tonart (auditiven frame) interpretiert und als tonal/atonal bewertet, optische Täuschungen unterliegen gewöhnlich einem frame-Konflikt zwischen konkurrierenden Interpretationsrahmen (vgl. Kippfigur), und menschliche Äußerungen im Gesprächsfluss werden generell im Rahmen des bisherigen Gesprächs interpretiert (vgl. "Triff mich hier, heute in einer Woche, mit einem Stock der diese Größe hat" – ohne adäquates Framing kann dem Satz keinerlei Bedeutung zugemessen werden).
In Bezug auf literarische Texte schlägt beispielsweise Emmot vor, plötzliche Handlungsumbrüche am Ende einer Short Story als kognitives Re-framing zu betrachten, in dessen Licht vorherigen Handlungselementen eine völlig neue (und schlüssige) Bedeutung zukommt.

Körperliche Verankerung der Kognition
Die Kognitive Poetik berücksichtigt dabei besonders die grundlegende Verankerung menschlicher Kognition in der artspezifischen Körperlichkeit. Diesem Ansatz zufolge hat der Mensch im Laufe seiner evolutionären Entwicklung spezifische Mechanismen herausgebildet, um seine Wahrnehmung von Wirklichkeit zu strukturieren, die vor allem von seinem körperlichen Erleben abhängen. Solche körperlich determinierten Kognitionskonzepte lassen sich in der Folge auch im literarischen Rezeptionsvorgang aufzeigen.

Illustration der körperlichen Verankerung sowie kognitiver Leistungen

In diesem Sinne lässt sich beispielsweise die Figur-Grund-Unterscheidung als eine zentrale kognitive Fertigkeit betrachten, die der Mensch im Laufe seiner körperlichen Phylogenese entwickelt hat (zweifellos zu einem frühen evolutionären Zeitpunkt, da er diese Fähigkeit mit zahllosen Schwesterspezies teilt). Die spezifische Körperlichkeit des Homo sapiens, seine Situiertheit in einer physischen Umgebung voller beweglicher und starrer Objekte, die es erfolgreich zu manipulieren gilt, führte demnach zur Ausbildung der (primär visuellen) Unterscheidung zwischen Vordergrundobjekten (Figur) und einem starren Hintergrund (Grund). Diese Fertigkeit hat im Laufe der Evolution im Menschen eine besondere Entwicklungsstufe erreicht (vgl. tarnendes Mimikry betreibende Falter, welche von hochspezialisierten Raubvögeln nicht als separate Objekte identifiziert werden können, während dem Menschen diese Unterscheidung ohne Schwierigkeiten gelingt).
In Bezug auf Literaturrezeption ermöglicht diese kognitive Fähigkeit dem Menschen beispielsweise Protagonisten in größeren Textteilen als separate Handlungsträger zu identifizieren, eine Haupt- von einer Hintergrundhandlung zu unterscheiden oder die Isolierung bestimmter semantischer Felder vorzunehmen.

Interdisziplinarität
Die Kognitive Poetik ist, per Definition, interdisziplinär angelegt. Die geisteswissenschaftliche Literaturforschung steht dabei im Austausch mit zahlreichen Schwesterdisziplinen aus den Naturwissenschaften:
Kognitive Psychologie
Neuropsychologie
Kognitive Linguistik
Biologie

Spezialisierungsfelder

Evolutionsbiologischer Ansatz
Erste Überlegungen zur Biologie der Literatur finden sich schon bei Wilhelm Scherer in seiner Poetikvorlesung im Abschnitt "Ursprung der Poesie". Im 20. Jahrhundert war die Literaturwissenschaft von einem weitgehend kulturalistischen Menschenbild geprägt und selbst Forschungen zu literarischen Universalien kamen ohne explizit biologische Argumentation aus. Erst in den 1990er Jahren gab es wieder vereinzelte Überlegungen zur "Biologie der Poesie" und Versuche einer systematischen Einbeziehung der biologischen Evolutionstheorie. Im deutschen Sprachraum wurde die biologische Perspektive vor allem von dem Germanisten Karl Eibl vertreten, der schon 1995 in seinem Buch Die Entstehung der Poesie die Grundlagen menschlichen Kunstverhaltens mit evolutionsbiologischen und ethologischen Argumenten zu erhellen suchte. In Animal poeta (2004), Kultur als Zwischenwelt (2009) und zahlreichen Aufsätzen erweiterte Eibl seinen Ansatz mit Argumenten der Soziobiologie und der Evolutionären Psychologie. Ebenfalls 1995 initiierte der amerikanische Literaturwissenschaftler Joseph Carroll mit seinem Buch Evolution and Literary Theory eine Forschungsrichtung, die sich unter dem Namen des 'Literary Darwinism' etablierte. Die inzwischen recht zahlreichen Ansätze einer solchen Anthropologie der Literatur widmen sich insbesondere emotionalen Wirkungen von Literatur, evolutionsbiologisch ableitbaren Gestalterwartungen des Lesers, dem Erzählen als menschlichem Verhalten und dem Phänomen der Fiktionalität.

Kognitionslinguistischer Ansatz
In diesem Feld finden sich vor allem Arbeiten, die Konzepte und Ansätze der Kognitiven Linguistik auf die Kognitive Poetik übertragen. Besondere Bedeutung wird dabei dem "begrifflichen Blending" (nach Fauconnier und Turner) zugemessen, das jedoch bislang nicht durch neurokognitive Evidenz zu belegen ist. Ein anderer Schwerpunkt wurde an der FU Berlin verfolgt. Die von Peter Stockwell theoretisierte gestaltpsychologische Interaktion von foregrounding und backgrounding wurde unter Bezugnahme auf die Theorie des "fringe" neurokognitiv erklärt. Demnach lässt sich dieses Zusammenspiel von Figur und Grund durch das auf William James zurückgehende Konzept der Umrandung(fringe) von fokalen Bewusstseinsinhalten (Kerne oder Nuclei) durch nur dunkel erinnerte Kontextinformationen erklären und somit auch auf literarische Texte – etwa Lyrik – anwenden.

Produktionsästhetischer Ansatz
In der deutschen Literatur hat sich vor allem der Lyriker Durs Grünbein mit den Beziehungen zwischen Gehirn und schöpferisch-schriftstellerischer Tätigkeit beschäftigt. In den Gedichtbänden Schädelbasislektion (1991), Gehirn und Denken (2000) oder in Der cartesische Taucher. Drei Meditationen (2008), aber auch in Gesprächen mit Neurowissenschaftlern reflektiert Grünbein über das Verhältnis zwischen Kognition und Kunst.

Kritik
Methodologisch ist die Kognitive Poetik zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt eine reine Korrelationswissenschaft. Danach werden gewisse narratologisch-poetologische Phänomene mit kognitiven-neuronalen Mustern in Verbindung gesetzt; eine schlichte Korrelation zweier Datensätze jedoch liefert weder eine Erklärung der beobachteten Phänomene noch weiterreichende oder übertragbare Erkenntnisse.
Die Argumentation, man erforsche auf diesem Wege die neuronale Funktions- und Arbeitsweise des Gehirns, verschiebt die Frage nach funktionalen Erklärungsmustern dieser Phänomene auf andere Forschungsfelder, speziell die Neurowissenschaften.

Aus Sicht der Erzähltheorie kritisiert der Narratologe Sternberg, dass die Modelle und Verfahren der Kognitiven Poetik, mit Hilfe derer Texte und mentale Prozesse in Einzelheiten zerlegt werden, "zu starr und reduktionistisch seien, um der Beweglichkeit und Veränderlichkeit des lesenden Geistes gerecht zu werden."

Ebenso wird von den empirisch vorgehenden Literaturwissenschaftlern die fehlende Beweiskraft der Aussagen der kognitiv ausgerichteten Narratologen und Poetologen bemängelt.

Quellen

Weiterführende Literatur
 Eibl, Karl: Die Entstehung der Poesie. Frankfurt 1995, ISBN 3-458-16696-3.
 Eibl, Karl: Animal poeta. Bausteine zur biologischen Kultur- und Literaturtheorie. Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-89785-450-3.
 Eibl, Karl: Kultur als Zwischenwelt: Eine evolutionsbiologische Perspektive. Frankfurt 2009, ISBN 978-3-518-26020-3.
 Stockwell, Peter: Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. London: Routledge 2002.
 Vandaele, Jeroen und Brône, Geert (Hrsg.): Cognitive Poetics. Goals, Gains and Gaps. Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-020560-2.

Online

 Begriff im Filmlexikon der Uni Kiel

Literaturwissenschaft
Kognitionswissenschaft
Literaturtheorie


text:
Sicario: Day of Soldado Movie Review: More action, less nuance
Katey Stoetzel July 2, 2018
As a sequel, Sicario: Day of Soldado stands on its own from predecessor Sicario, but it lacks the nuance of the other film. While there's certainly more action in this new installment, the story feels light where it requires depth. There are inspired moments from Tayler Sheridan's script, and they manage to make this a decent sequel to the superior Sicario. Setting aside those moments, the rest of the film falls into many action film tropes, losing the almost film noir atmosphere of Sicario.
After a bombing in Kansas City, America's government sets out to put an end to terrorists entering the United States via the U.S./Mexico border. Federal Agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) is told by his superiors to start a war between two Mexican drug cartels whom are responsible for trafficking the terrorists. Graver re-teams with Benicio Del Toro's Alejandro, a sicario (hitman).
There's a large immigration theme surrounding this film and it's difficult to separate it from the current political climate as the politics remain purely surface-level when the should've taken the opportunity to dig deeper. Once Graver and Alejandro set their sights on pitting the drug cartels against each other, the film becomes more focused. The questionable morality of Graver and Alejandro that permeated the original film make up for the most interesting aspects of this one.Emily Blunt grounded the moral gray area of Sicario and this time around Del Toro does great work in letting the audience root for him. Sicario handled the revelation of Alejandro's past with style but without Blunt as the moral compass, the stark reminder of who Alejandro is is greatly needed. His chemistry with Isabela Moner's Isabel Reyes, the daughter of one of the cartel leaders, is easily the guiding force of the narrative, and the only one that truly matters.
The biggest difference is the absence of Blunt. Brolin and Del Toro are engaging on screen, and their characters are some of the best new action characters in recent years, especially Alejandro, but that outside perspective to their activities provided by Blunt allowed the nature of their jobs to be more clouded, and thus, more interesting. The end of Sicario felt much more cynical and foreboding, but that uneasiness was largely lost in Day of Soldado when the mysterious lone ranger figure becomes the focus of the story. Because of this, not one action set piece matches up the infamous bridge scene in Sicario, which works because it's shown from Blunt's perspective.
That isn't to say Day of Soldado isn't worth watching. Once you get past the murky political reasoning the events are taking place, it becomes a much better and enjoyable film. It just fails to live up to the bar set by Sicario, or even Sheridan's Hell or High Water, which carries much of the same feel of Day of Soldado, but with better story direction. It's clear Sheridan's got his niche for storytelling in these dry, hot places of the world, where the oft-forgotten characters seem to find themselves in, and I'm interested to see his third take on these characters he's created as the end delivered a sense of danger and foreboding that will have us back in the theaters by the time the third rolls around.
Sicario: Day of Soldado Review
Tags Benicio Del Toro Featured Isabela Moner jeffery donavon josh brolin Sicario sicario day of soldado Taylor Sheridan
Katey Stoetzel
film/tv critic across the web. host of Get Slayed: A Buffy Podcast and its companion Angel unSlayed. member of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle (KCFCC). find me @kateypretzel
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


-10 Days of Lesson Plans that include everything you need for minilessons, independent practice, and share time.
This unit was made by Hope King and Amy Lemons! We hope you enjoy! There is a lot included in this unit, so make sure you check out the preview!


Refreshments will be served and if you bring your own reusable mug you will receive an extra raffle ticket. The cost to attend is $15 per person. Registration is required, so please contact the Yates County Cornell Cooperative Extension at 315-536-5123 or visit our website at yates.cce.cornell.edu/gardening/master-gardeners to register online.
Here at Cooperative Extension we believe that gardening is for everyone. So grab a friend or two and join the Master Gardeners as we celebrate the return of spring. See you there!
The Yates County Master Gardeners is a national program of trained volunteers who work in partnership with their county Cooperative Extension Office to share gardening and horticulture information throughout the local community. Interested in becoming a Master Gardener? Contact Cheryl Flynn, our fearless leader, at 315-536-5124 or by email at cj348@cornell.edu.


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The Wicked Warnings team is prepared to work with you to create a design that will increase the safety and practicality of your vehicle and ensure DOT compliance. After your consultation, you will be prepared to purchase the necessary products and schedule your installation! Below you will find available consultation times and respective pricing.
Wicked Warnings is here to help design the ideal safety and emergency lighting system on any vehicle, for any occasion. To begin your hassle-free consultation, please purchase the time on this page and fill out the form, or simply email us at info@wickedwarnings.com with images of the vehicle you need up fitted. For design purposes, please send images of the front, side, and back of the vehicle, and one of our design experts will contact you as soon as possible. You can also check out our Wicked Store for products you may be interested in. We look forward to working with you to create a fully customized solution to your safety needs!
To begin your hassle-free consultation, simply purchase your consultation time slot below. After checkout, please ensure that you fill out the form below with your details AND send a chaser email to (info@wickedwarnings.com) with pictures of the front, back, and sides of all vehicles and a description of what the vehicle is used for and what you need to be done. This is how we will contact you, so please verify that your information is correct. We're looking forward to helping you put your custom plan together for your vehicle!
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After you have paid for your consultation time, simply fill out the form below and a Wicked Warnings team member will contact you to schedule your call with us. Be sure to check out our online store for our latest LED strobe lights, safety lighting solutions, and more.


"Salu-salo" Reception with cultural entertainment.
ust inform Jeff or any member of the Youth Apostolate.
All are invited to our Annual Lenten Retreat on Saturday, March 9th, 9am – 5pm at Our Lady of the La Salette Shrine, 947 Park St., Attleboro, MA 02703. All are welcome. We ask that everyone please register. The Lenten Retreat is free. Complimentary Lunch will be provided by Fr. Cyriac. Kindly register online to be counted. A donation of $5 or more per person is requested from all participants. All donations will go to the La Salette Shrine. Your generosity is greatly appreciated.
Lenten Season started on Ash Wednesday, February 13 through March 30, Black Saturday. In observance of Lent, please be reminded that all Catholics over age 14 should abstain from eating MEAT (chicken, pork & beef) on Fridays of Lent. There are only two days of Fasting & Abstinence (meaning One Full Meal Only & No Meat) for Catholics ages 18 to 59 – Ash Wednesday, 2/13, and Good Friday, 3/29. Excluded to this observance are Catholics who are very sick.


text:
Legal & General UK Property Feeder Accumulation Inclusive
Legal & General UK Property Trust Feeder Inclusive - Class R - Accumulation (GBP)
Sell:78.49p Buy:83.10p Change: 0.04p (0.05%)
Sell:78.49p
Buy:83.10p
Also available as income units
Inclusive - Class R - Income (GBP) (Net ongoing charge 0.85%)
Class I - Income (GBP) (Net ongoing charge 0.75%)
Class I - Accumulation (GBP) (Net ongoing charge 0.75%)
Tax on loyalty bonus: 0.00% 0.13% 0.26% 0.2925%
Value of ongoing saving to you: 0.65% 0.52% 0.39% 0.3575%
£2,058 million
The Northern Trust Company
Annual return 9.17% 1.45% 8.16% 4.42% 2.53%
The objective of this fund is to provide a combination of income and growth by investing solely in the Legal & General UK Property Fund (the 'Master Fund'). It may also hold cash where necessary to enable the making of payments to unitholders or creditors. The fund aims to achieve investment returns very similar to those of the Master Fund. The Master Fund will typically invest at least 80% in a range of UK commercial properties (but this can be as low as 60% where the fund manager deems it to be in the interests of the fund and its shareholders). The Master Fund may invest in all types of commercial property. The Master Fund may occasionally invest in residential property and may also develop properties. The Master Fund may also invest from time to time in commercial properties in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The fund may use derivatives to reduce risk or cost, or to generate additional capital or income with no, or an acceptably low, level of risk. The Master Fund may also invest in other property-related assets, (including property-related UK shares and UK property-related authorised investment funds), money market instruments, deposits, money market-related authorised investment funds and government bonds.
28 November 2019 28 February 2020 28 May 2020 28 August 2020
28 January 20204 28 April 20204 28 July 20204 28 October 20204
This data is provided by Funds Library. HL accepts no responsibility for its accuracy and you should independently check data before making any investment decision. All yields are variable and not guaranteed. Information correct as at 31 December 2019.
L&G. UK PROP. ACC 57.88%
L&G. UK PROP. INC 42.09%
Managed Funds 99.97%
Michael Barrie
Michael Barrie is co-fund manager for the UK Property Fund and is also a Director of Legal & General Property Division. He joined Legal & General Property in 2005 from F&C Property Asset Management. Michael is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and has a postgraduate diploma in property investment from Reading University.
Matt Jarvis
Manager located in Londen
Matt Jarvis joined Legal & General Property as an Asset Manager in November 2004 and is Co-Fund Manager of the UK Property Fund, having previously been a Commercial Valuer with Jones Lang LaSalle. Matt holds a degree in Land Management from Reading University and is a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS).
More Legal & General funds »
More Property funds »


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The Zay Initiative
by Selvedge Team May 25, 2021
We're very excited to announce the first of our regular Tuesday Takeovers that will be taking place over the next few weeks. Follow Selvedge on Instagram using the handle @SelvedgeMagazine to find out more about the first of our collaborators, The Zay Initiative.
Image: Qabeh, A square breast piece, often cut separately, embellished in cross stitch.
The Zay Initiative is a non-profit, UK registered organisation that aims to preserve, collect, document, and conserve Arab historic dress and adornment and their stories. Through their work, events, and web content they open a global cross-cultural dialogue and educate others on the art of Arab dress.
Over the past few decades, Founder of The Zay Initiative, Dr Reem El Mutwall, has invested in a collection of historical dress. The core of the collection is based on UAE traditional dress, with additional key examples from Yemen, Morocco, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab cultures. The Zay Initiative will add new acquisitions in time while engaging with and promoting existing collections to encourage collaboration and knowledge exchange.
Image: Portrait of Dr Reem El Mutwalli. Photographed by Issa Al Kindy, Dubai, UAE 2018
In addition to seasonal exhibitions and museum loans, the collection can be viewed via the online archive. The first of its kind in the region, the digital collection is enriched by a pop-up glossary of regional and historical dress terminology in both Arabic and English. The Zay Initiative believe that each item in their collection conveys a valuable story and needs to be preserved for future generations. This growing digital archive contains over 100 pieces so far, and the splendour, imagery and historical information of the artefacts are available to view for free.
Image: Bū ghwanāt. Modelled by @maenoaf, photographed by @waleedshah
As the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in restrictions to travel and live events, The Zay Intiative's desire to share access to their collection led to a series of webinars called 'Dialogues on the Art of Arab Fashion' comprising conversations between Dr Reem El Mutwalli and speakers from all over the world focusing on dress, culture, and heritage of the Arab World.
The Zay Initiative aims to empower women regionally and globally by bringing their untold stories to life. To join their community become a Friend of the Zay Initiative.


National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS): Founded in 1904, the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) is the nation's oldest nonpartisan, professional organization for public officials. The association serves as a medium for the exchange of information and fosters cooperation between states governments in the development of public policy.
National Lieutenant Governor's Association (NLGA): The NLGA is the professional association for the elected officials who are first in line of succession to the governors in the 50 states and five territorial jurisdictions.
North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA): NASAA is the oldest international organization devoted to investor protection. NASAA is a voluntary association whose membership consists of 67 state, provincial, and territorial securities administrators.


For fans of the long running sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf there has been some excellent news lately. The date for the first episode of the new upcoming series Red Dwarf XII has been revealed as 12th October 2017 so make a note. Once again it will be airing on UKTV's channel, Dave.
Not only the titles names but we now know a few of the guest stars appearing. They include James Buckley, Johnny Vegas and Helen George. But wait the news just keeps getting better and better as it was revealed last week that Red Dwarf's ship computer Holly will be making a return. Wait which one I hear your say? Having originally being played by Norman Lovett with Hattie Hayridge later taking over, both of which I must add are excellent. That said there really is only one if I had to choose and it's great news for me and many other Dwarfer's as Norman Lovett will indeed reprise his role in one episode. As for which episode we will all have to wait.


text:
BOREHAM WOOD SNAP UP TURGOTT ON-LOAN
by admin | Sep 8, 2017 | Uncategorized
Boreham Wood Football Club are delighted to announce the capture of former West Ham winger Blair Turgott on a 93-day loan from Stevenage.
The 23-year-old from Bromley, will link up with the squad tomorrow morning and will be available for selection against his previous side Leyton Orient.
Turgott began his career in the academy at West Ham and made his Hammers debut in January 2014 against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup.
The winger enjoyed a series of loan spells with the likes of Bradford City, Rotherham United and Colchester United. He scored his first ever professional goal against his current club Stevenage in December 2013, while on-loan at Colchester.
Upon signing, the 23-year-old told the official club website: "I am looking forward to it and I can't wait to get started. I am excited to play some games and help the team to push forward.
"I have been at Stevenage this season, but I needed to get some games under my belt and I needed to be playing football.
"Luke Garrard got in contact with me and sold everything to me; the way that he wants to play, where he sees the team going and where he sees me in the team."
Turgott has represented England up to Under 19 level, including 14 appearances for the Under 17s. During his spell with the Under 17s, he helped them to top their group in the FIFA U17 World Cup, with a vital goal against Canada.
A short spell with Coventry followed his time at West Ham, before he was snapped up by Leyton Orient in 2015. The 23-year-old again opened his account against current side Stevenage, volleying in a "stunning" effort from 20-yards for the O's.
He had a year-long spell with hometown side Bromley in 2016, netting an impressive 16 times from midfield in all competitions. His spell with Bromley earnt him a move to his current side Stevenage.
Turgott continued: "I am an attacking threat, I like to score and make goals, I showed that last season and I want to show that again here, I just want to show what I can do and help the team really.
"I know that I can play at this level and I just want to crack on and help the team."
Boreham Wood manager Luke Garrard spoke of his delight at capturing the winger, praising the club's recent "Boost the Budget" Function Hire initiative.
Garrard stated: "He played at this level with Bromley last year and he was very successful; he has got goals in his game and I think that he can hurt defenders because of his pace and his trickery, so it is very exciting.
"I know that he is going to be a success, he brings added quality to what we've already got in the squad and he will boost competition at the top end of the pitch."
The 'Boost the Budget' Function Hire initiative was announced by the Chairman at the start of September. The Chairman promised that any increase in the club's function suite income would go straight into Manager Luke Garrard's first team budget.
On the effect of the initiative, Garrard continued: "The minute that I said of his availability to the Chairman, he got on the phone to the Chairman at Stevenage and got the deal done. So, fair play to Boost the Budget and fair play to the Chairman for backing myself to get him on-board."


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Finland, the Ukraine and Belgium!
in more than 10 years that it's been like this.
moose nearby, but I've never seen one here.
were also signs of deer.
The hike to the cabin is about a mile and a half.
there when I see the old dam and the pond.
again full of water. It's beautiful. Hooray for the beavers!
The band was quiet, but I managed to work a few stations.
kind enough to send me an email.
one! As your signal was rather weak, I guess you were QRP.
Could you please tell me what was your power and antenna for our QSO ?
I'm going to answer him soon and send this story and pictures.
look at the wonderful place.


Our winery is based in Mamoiada, which is a small city of Sardinian, north of Gennargentu. Mamoiada is well known for the quality of the wine produced by its grapes.
Our winery is gifted with a circular tasting room, from which you can enjoy the view on Mamoiada. It is possible to book a wine tasting session, just contact us by giving a call or sending an e-mail.


A quick glance at your company's income statement shows the total amount you spend on employee salaries, wages, and benefits. If your business is like most, this is one of your biggest expenses. Average labor costs vary by industry, with highly-automated companies spending less than their service-oriented peers. For example, some manufacturers may see labor costs dip below 10 percent, and restaurants can expect between 20 percent and 40 percent of total revenue to go towards payroll.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, trucking companies may see figures as high as 60 percent. Health care organizations come in at the higher end of the spectrum as well, and most feel constant pressure from labor costs. After all, it is simply not possible to replace physicians, nurses, and other support staff with automated alternatives.
Greater employee productivity means more revenue for every dollar your business spends on its workforce. That can translate into better profits and an overall stronger bottom line. Of course, as "the man who invented management" Peter Drucker once said, you can't manage what you don't measure, so the first step in maximizing productivity is taking a close look at where you are today.
There are a lot of ways to look at productivity, from a broad overview of the entire organization to a detailed examination of individual performance. Start your review with a few critical metrics that will make it possible to see total progress, as well as incremental improvements in productivity over time.
First, determine how much of your gross revenue goes to payroll by dividing total payroll by the gross revenue, then converting to a percentage. If this figure is far higher than the average for your industry, productivity may be an issue.
Next, drill down to get figures specific to productivity. You can do this by dividing the total value of work or quantity of work by the number of hours worked. In other words, productivity = output/input. The challenge here is making decisions about how you will quantify or measure output.
Choose the outputs that are most meaningful for your business, each department, and the individual employees being measured to maximize your success in improving productivity.
The next step in your productivity-improvement plan is mapping your business processes. It's true that this step can be time-consuming, but it is absolutely critical to your success. Process mapping defines the tasks that go into creating your products and services, as well as who is responsible for each item and how quality is measured. Once complete, you can see at-a-glance where you have obstacles that are keeping you from optimum productivity.
Process mapping can be done with a variety of generic office applications, but if you have a large company with many processes, you may wish to invest in specialized process mapping software. These platforms make it possible to measure a variety of metrics that simple process maps won't calculate. For example, they offer insight into the time spent on each task, and they pinpoint outliers who are much more or much less productive than their peers.
Define where each process begins and ends. For example, a customer service interaction may start when the client makes initial contact, and it ends when their concern is fully resolved. The invoicing process may begin when a patient visit is complete and end when the final document is submitted to the insurer.
List the steps required to move the process from start to finish. Put them in order, so that each logically leads to the next. Be as specific and detailed as possible, as this helps with later work on identifying inefficiencies and bottlenecks so that you can improve productivity.
Note which department or individual is responsible for each step in the process. If you are working on broad process maps that cover several departments, each department should create a sub-map detailing the steps taken to complete their portion of the work.
Review your process maps with the employees who do the job every day. Chances are, they will be able to point out missed steps, obstacles, and unofficial shortcuts that they have learned through experience. This improves the accuracy of your process maps.
Many business leaders create flowcharts to document the final process map. These are helpful, because they put the steps into a visually-friendly format that is easy to understand. If you decide to use process mapping software, the flowchart is created automatically for your convenience.
Efficiency and productivity aren't the same, but greater efficiency is an important component of improving productivity. In business terms, efficiency is how well resources are used. Increased efficiency means less waste and better-quality products and services. Productivity, on the other hand, is a simple measure of quantity. Quality is not part of the equation.
For example, a certain customer service representative may take twice as many calls as others in the department. That representative is exceptionally productive. Unfortunately, the high productivity is achieved by rushing callers off the phone, and most have to call back to resolve their concerns. This increases the total workload, which is not efficient. When you are working to improve employee productivity, keep the underlying goal in mind. Ultimately, you want more efficient, high-quality output, not just higher output.
Your process maps are the most important tool in your arsenal for increasing efficient productivity. Start with the low-hanging fruit. Are any steps redundant? Eliminate them. Are there too many checkpoints slowing the process down? Choose the checkpoints that are necessary to ensure quality, then scrap the rest.
Next, look for areas where bottlenecks are likely to occur. Are there five employees producing work that goes through a single employee in the following step? If so, that person may not be able to keep up - and one unexpected absence can bring your entire process to a grinding halt. While you are examining potential bottlenecks, take a hard look at individual performance. Do you have outliers producing far less than their peers? This is an opportunity to explore further. Perhaps more training or additional resources are necessary.
Finally, talk to the people who are doing the work, and gather their feedback on improving efficiency and productivity. Are there steps that cause unnecessary delays? Would a change in tools or technology make a difference?
These three steps will give you a solid foundation for creating an action plan to increase employee efficiency and productivity.
You have collected a massive amount of information from your employees, and now it is time to apply it. Begin by organizing specific concerns and suggestions into categories. The categories you choose depend on how you plan to approach the resolution, so you may choose to organize by department, by process, or by type of change (for example, technology, equipment, staffing, and similar).
Design an action plan to address each category. If you have a large business, you may need to enlist a team of managers and employees to help. Brainstorm solutions for each obstacle, choose the most appropriate, and implement the changes - then update your process maps as appropriate.
Keep in mind that making changes can be disruptive for your staff, and productivity may decrease if you don't handle this step carefully. Include your employees in the decision-making process and focus on transparency and excellent communication.
You probably already have goals for your business, including targets for growth, increased sales, and improved profits. Often, departments and teams have productivity goals of their own. Once you have implemented changes to your processes, rethink the numbers you have in place. Develop new figures that celebrate efficient productivity to ensure you don't run into problems with quality and ensure that the expectations are attainable - though they shouldn't be too easy to achieve. Stretch goals increase motivation, but impossible goals are likely to have the opposite effect.
Each of these has a relationship to productivity, and all contribute to your bottom-line profits. A comprehensive employee engagement strategy is key to improving your company's overall performance. That requires a culture of recognition, development opportunities, and work that challenges and inspires.
Show your commitment to your workforce - and increase engagement - with competitive compensation and a wide-ranging selection of benefits designed to fit the needs of your employees. For example, 2020 On-site's mobile vision centers bring eye care and eyewear to your office door. This makes it possible for your employees to maximize existing vision benefits and take care of their eye health and vision needs - all with unparalleled efficiency. Learn more about bringing 2020 On-site to your organization at 2020onsite.com.


text:
https://sputniknews.com/20181019/qipco-champions-day-ascot-1069031770.html
Champions Day at Ascot, Bold Czech Challenge and Football Predictions
The British Flat racing season reaches its end of season climax on Saturday, with Qipco Champions Day at Ascot. How will the big races pan out? Probably the... 19.10.2018, Sputnik International
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columnists, ascot, qipco champions day
© Sputnik / Yelena PakhomovaAscot Racecourse (File photo)
© Sputnik / Yelena Pakhomova
The British Flat racing season reaches its end of season climax on Saturday, with Qipco Champions Day at Ascot. How will the big races pan out? Probably the most important thing to bear in mind is the going, which will be quite testing following recent heavy rain. Focusing on the soft ground specialists should, therefore, pay dividends.
The first race on the card, at 1.20 is the Long Distance Cup. Stradivarius has been outstanding in the staying division this year and deserves to be an odds-on favorite, but he was beaten into third (albeit by only a length), in the race last year so isn't bomb-proof. Each-way alternatives include Thomas Hobson, Willie Mullins' Doncaster Cup winner, and Mount Mariah, who ran a big race at odds of 50-1 in this last year and who's come in for market support this week.
In the 2.00, the Champion Sprint Stakes, the market is led by the 2016 winner The Tin Man and the 2017 winner Librisa Breeze. Slight preference is for the latter but at much bigger odds don't rule out a good showing from Projection, who won a Group 3 on soft ground over course and distance two weeks ago.
On this day in 2013, SLADE POWER won the QIPCO British Champions Sprint!
He'd go onto win next year's Diamond Jubilee, the July Cup and over £1 million in prize money! pic.twitter.com/FaNUj3NaE1
— Champions Series (@ChampionsSeries) October 19, 2018
In the Champion Fillies and Mares at 2.40, Hydrangea could be each way value at around 8-1. Aidan O'Brien's filly has only beaten three horses home in her last two starts, but this will be the first time she's encountered soft ground since winning the same race twelve months ago.
The QE2 at 3.00 is a mouthwatering clash of the best milers, and you could make out an each-way case for several of the runners. Roaring Lion has the best form and is the highest rated, and even though he is dropping back in trip, he still rates the likeliest winner. French raider Recoletos, a winner five times on ground ranging from good-to-soft to very soft, is, however, a big danger. Lord Glitters (who won on the card last year) and Addeybb have something to find on the book, but they'll definitely go on the ground. Laurens has been in great form, but the best each-way value in the field at around 14-1, could be Happily, whose last win was on the soft ground at Chantilly last October.
The Champion Stakes at 3.50 should end up being a duel between last year's brilliant winner Cracksman and the King George second, Crystal Ocean, but romantics will be hoping for a bold showing from the Czech raider- and 100-1 outsider Subway Dancer. The story of this horse's journey to Ascot is a tale in itself. On Tuesday connections were informed by the British racing authorities that the horse was not eligible to run in the UK due to the rules requiring international runners to have samples collected analyzed beforehand. The quickest the various tests could be done was four days. The owner said the horse wouldn't be traveling as there was no point, but then the authorities got back in touch to say that the tests could be done in the UK in time for the horse to run. So Subway Dancer set off from France (where he had stayed following his last race), to travel via the Channel Tunnel, in a trailer, to the UK. But the French authorities don't permit this, so instead Subway Dancer came by ferry. Marketa Hind reports that Martin Wolf, the owner, says his gelding is in his 'best ever form' and he's very positive about the race. There's no problem if the Czech raider takes it up from the front, or comes from behind. It's worth noting that Subway's two wins have come on good to the soft and soft ground and his best run this year came when he was second to Talismanic in a Group 3 at Deauville. He faces a tall task to win as he's rated 21lbs inferior to Crystal Ocean, but let's hope he can at least win back entry fees and travel expenses for his very sporting connections.
Nations League Reflections
We've just had the latest round of UEFA Nations League matches and what have we learned? Firstly, the decline of Germany wasn't just a freak event in the World Cup. Last weekend Joachim Low's men lost 3-0 in Holland, then on Tuesday, they lost 2-1 in France. You could say there was no disgrace in that last result against the World Champions but Germany have now won just three of their last 13 matches. How long can Low keep his job?
England, by contrast, built on their promising World Cup with a 0-0 draw away at their semi-final conquerors Croatia, and then registered a historic 3-2 win in Spain. It was the first time England had won in Spain since 1987 and La Furia Roja's first home defeat in a competitive fixture for 15 years. Russia is another side who've built on World Cup success, registering a quick double against Turkey which has put them at the top of their group.
For the Republic of Ireland and Scotland though there was more disappointment. Ireland has regressed since the 2016 Euros and is in danger of relegation from their group following defeat at home to Wales. It's not just the results that irk supporters, but the team's boring style of play- which has seen 9 of their last 12 matches produce less than 2.5 goals. The embedded Paddy Power tweet below captures the frustration of Ireland fans with the current management perfectly.
It's 2023, Ireland have just secured a goalless draw in League Y, table 4 of the UEFA Nations League.
O'Neil: 'Should I have been more attacking? It's easy to say that now but it's a point away from home against a dangerous Narnia side.'
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) October 16, 2018
Playing in a more attacking way wouldn't guarantee better results, but it would be much more fun.
The Premiership returns this weekend with the match of the round being Chelsea v Man Utd at 12.30pm on Saturday. Was United's come-from-behind 3-2 win vs Newcastle two weeks ago a genuine turning point, or will it prove to have been another false dawn?
The trends stats favor the home side. Jose Mourinho has lost 1-0 on all three occasions he's returned to Chelsea as Man Utd manager and it's six years since his team's last League win at Stamford Bridge. Elsewhere Tottenham faces a potentially tricky fixture at West Ham, who they have lost away to three times in the last five season, while Eddie Howe's Bournemouth will be hoping to keep their cracking start going home to South Coast rivals Southampton.
Here are my Premier League, SPL and Friday night Championship predictions:
EPL:
AFC BOURNEMOUTH 3 SOUTHAMPTON 2
CARDIFF 2 FULHAM 2
CHELSEA 2 MAN UTD 1
HUDDERSFIELD 0 LIVERPOOL 1
MAN CITY 2 BURNLEY 0
NEWCASTLE 0 BRIGHTON 0
WEST HAM 2 TOTTENHAM 1
WOLVES 1 WATFORD 0
EVERTON 2 CRYSTAL PALACE 1
ARSENAL 3 LEICESTER 1
SPL:
CELTIC I HIBS 0
HEARTS 1 ABERDEEN 1
LIVINGSTONE 2 DUNDEE 1
MOTHERWELL 0 ST JOHNSTONE 1
ST MIRREN 1 KILMARNOCK 3
HAMILTON 1 RANGERS 3
Championship: SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY 1 MIDDLESBROUGH 1
The views and opinions expressed by the contributor do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
Follow Neil Clark @NeilClark66 and @MightyMagyar
Support his Anti-Stalker Crowdfund
Qipco Champions Day
08:06 GMT'Ready to Indoctrinate': Dems Panned For Saying Kids Are Taught What Society 'Needs Them to Know'
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This project uses data from 2004 to 2014 for 26 countries to make comparisons between South Asia and Africa, examining how the regional gap in child malnutrition varies with demographic and other characteristics. Specifically, how does child malnutrition vary with a child's gender and birth order? How much does poor maternal health explain? The policy aim of the project is to provide new facts that help us understand the root causes of malnutrition in India and inform policymaking to improve maternal and child nutritional outcomes.


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District of New Mexico
Albuquerque Man Sentenced To 20 Years In Federal Prison For Drug Trafficking
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Mexico
ALBUQERQUE, N.M. – Michael Anthony Hernandez, 46, of Albuquerque, was sentenced in federal court on March 23 to 20 years in prison for possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and maintaining a drug-involved premises.
Hernandez plead guilty to these offenses on Oct.21, 2021. According to the plea agreement, on Dec. 1, 2020, law enforcement executed search warrants on two of Hernandez's properties in Bernalillo County, New Mexico and discovered narcotics and other items consistent with packaging narcotics. Specifically, law enforcement discovered more than 12.75 kilograms of methamphetamine, an electric money counter, several scales and bulk currency.
The FBI Violent Crimes Task Force and Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office Community Action Team investigated this case as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program's operation Atonement. OCDETF is a nationwide Department of Justice program that combines the resources and unique expertise of federal agencies, along with their local counterparts, in a coordinated effort to disrupt and dismantle major drug trafficking organizations. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Maria Y. Armijo, Randy M. Castellano and Ry Ellison prosecuted this case.
USAO - New Mexico
Release Number: 22-64
Albuquerque man charged in drug, firearms investigation
Gerardo Rafael Lara-Yanez, 24, of Albuquerque, was charged in federal court with intent to distribute 400 grams and more of fentanyl, possession with intent to distribute 50 grams and more...
Las Cruces man sentenced to over 26 years in prison for federal firearms, narcotics conviction
Paul Michael Astorga, 36, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, was sentenced on Dec. 8 to 26 years and eight months in prison for being a felon in possession of a...
Albuquerque trio facing drug, weapons charges after FBI bust
Jeffrey Alan Chavez and Estevan Antonio Ramirez, both of Albuquerque, appeared today in federal court facing drug trafficking and firearms charges.
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