text:
'The connection with society is always closer than you think'
On the Things That Talk platform, students publish stories about objects from museums from the many collections of the university library and the city. An interview with Fresco Sam-Sin, its creator. Sam-Sin: 'Things That Talk is a way to talk to each other about the structure of our education and about how we want to work together with the world outside of the university.'
How did you come up with the idea for the platform?
'For my own research field, the study on the Manchu Qing Empire (1636-1912), I created an online platform for digital maps. It provides information about regions like Russia, Siberia and China. You can compare different periods of the atlas. Together with students and lecturers, we added stories to it. We added a diary of a soldier to the map, for example, in order to better understand where he was, at what time, and what he experienced there. The maps are very detailed, the largest one would be about six by nine meters when printed. One of the maps hangs in the Museum Volkenkunde with an online module next to it.
Students are very excited about this way of working. On the one hand, they like bringing an object into contact with the text. On the other hand, they like being able to publish their findings for a wider audience. When I contacted Sanne Arens, who is responsible for the implementation of the educational vision within the faculty, she decided to work together to further develop and expand this interconnectedness of education and research and publishing on this topic to more courses and study programmes.'
How do you make this kind of programme interesting for other courses and study programmes?
'Quality comes first, but if you ask students to publish their work, you must have a nice and modern website. This way they can proudly present it in their own network. The infrastructure has to be smooth and publishing must run smoothly. That's why we called in external agencies, Fabrique and Q42, to translate what started out as a map platform into a new and widely applicable platform. Organically, we came up with the concept of creating a platform where people could share their research and their stories about objects.
When we went from specific maps to objects in general, more ideas started coming in. Students wanted to combine historical objects with modern variations of those objects. Lecturers wanted to visit museums with students to examine their collections, while some students were very interested in objects in people's homes.
With these and other ideas, we started talking to even more students, lecturers and chairs of the programme boards within the faculty. New ideas and connections between history and the present, and between objects and text are constantly being added. Students and lecturers who are active on our platform know that all of their ideas are taken into account and considered. That is how Things That Talk encourages the discussion about the structure of our education and about how lecturers, researchers and students want to work together with the world outside of the university.'
What role do students play?
'This summer we appointed student ambassadors to promote and boost the project. They are the point of contact for the lecturers and students who are active on Things That Talk. The ambassadors ensure that new ideas for the platform are collected and ensure that unexpected technical obstacles are cleared.
The student ambassadors also help to establish and maintain contact with heritage institutions and other involved parties. They put out their feelers to collect stories about people with interesting objects. From the National Museum of Antiquities to the National Museum of World Cultures, the ambassadors know which exhibitions are planned for the next five years. This way, the students can get ahead of what's to come and help the museums with telling stories about planned exhibition pieces.'
What will the students be doing next semester?
'This academic year, students will work with a lot of objects within a very diverse curriculum. They will tell their stories. Not only lecturers will evaluate the stories, but also fellow students inside and outside of Leiden. Technology makes it possible to ask students outside of your own field for feedback, and we are currently thinking about how we can do that in such a way that students learn to give constructive feedback, which the receiver can use to improve himself/herself. At the end of the semester, the students will draw up a paper about their vision on how a project like Things That Talk fits into our education system and how we, as a faculty, can learn from it.'
The students' stories are also intended for society. How do you want to include this?
'What I want is for students to learn from the city and for the citizens to come into contact with what the university does. Some students want to tell stories about Chinese restaurants in Leiden, for example. What can we see there? How did objects end up there? Why do the owners have those specific objects? The figurines, the window decorations and the tableware – they all tell stories. And among the objects that are made to disappear, such as food, students want to see how they are adapted to the taste of Dutch guests. The things we see in restaurants have a direct link with museum collections; the figurines and the tableware with the collection in the Museum Volkenkunde, the napkins with the collection of the Textile Research Centre.
We are constantly looking for partners with whom we can collaborate. The more partners outside of the university warm to our plans, the more interconnected our university becomes with what lives and moves outside of the university.'
The platform is currently only available in English, why is that?
'Leiden University is located in Leiden and The Hague. It is therefore quite natural that in the next phase we will have to move towards Dutch. But there are a lot more languages that are spoken within our society; Surinamese, Hindi, Berber, Syrian. And here, too, I see many opportunities to use the skills of our student population: because the languages we learn are also used in the cities. How wonderful would it be if we could ask people about their objects in their native language?'
You have obtained a scholarship from the Leiden incentive programme Museums, Collections & Society. What are you going to use it for?
'The Museums, Collections and Society programme is about the dynamics and implications of collecting. Pieter ter Keurs, the coordinator of this program, describes Leiden as a kind of Smithsonian; a large museum group. His ambition is to bring together pieces from different collections. Not under one roof, but by connecting pieces from different museums. When the collections were purchased or brought back from faraway places, decades or even longer ago, they were scattered across various museums. As a result, a lot of information was lost at the time.
I will investigate how items from collections are spread across the various museums in Leiden and The Hague; and how that relates to collections worldwide and why. I also want to tell and visualize this in such a way that a broader public can enjoy it and that perspectives are chosen that will cause the online visitor, who normally has nothing to do with this subject, to have access to this subject.'
Do you have any tips for colleagues?
'Try to truly include students in your research during lectures and make them co-owners. Even research that is further away from society can be made interesting for a broad audience. In a lot of applications, there is a paragraph about 'knowledge valorisation'. We need to fill that with more vision and not make it an obligatory part that we only look at when we are granted the scholarship.
If you set up structures within your research project that reach an audience outside of the university, it is not only satisfying but also guarantees that you will get to know people outside of the academic world who have knowledge and experience in the field of your research. That is exciting. If our researchers start doing that, this will become normal for our students.
Join forces with people within your network to see where your research comes together. This way you can build robust platforms that don't need to be covered by just your application. It will surprise you, but Things That Talk can play a role in this because the technology can be used for more than just objects.'
Courses that are, in any case, going to work with Things That Talk this academic year:
Pre-University College The Hague
Plastic: A cultural history (Honours College Humanities Lab)
Museologie van het Oude Nabije Oosten (BA Oude Nabije Oosten Studies)
Seminar Japanese food (BA Japanstudies)
Food, Globalization and National Identity (Honours College Humanities Lab)
Cultural Translation (Human Diversity: Culture, History & Society)
La tradizione novellistica (BA Italiaanse taal en cultuur)
Material Culture, Heritage, Museums in the Koreas (BA Koreastudies)
Klassiek Mantsjoe en Mantsjoerologie II (BA Chinastudies)
Global History (BA International Studies)
Materiële cultuur van het oude Egypte (BA Oude Nabije Oosten Studies)
Material Culture of Modern Japan Lecture course (BA Japanstudies)
Language and culture by area, (BA International Studies)
Egyptische Epigrafie (BA Oude Nabije Oosten Studies)
Moderne Italiaanse letterkunde (BA Italiaanse taal en cultuur)
The Mycenaean World: Culture (Ma Classics and Ancient Civilizations: Classics)
The material and visual culture of exchange between Asia and Europe, 1500-1800 (Art, Architecture and Interior before 1800 (MA)
Communicating through clay in the Ancient Near East (MA Classics and Ancient Civilizations, Assyriology)
Word and Image in Premodern Japanese Culture: Reworking the Classics (MA Asian Studies 60 EC, MA Asian Studies 120 EC)
Summer School in Languages and Linguistics
Text: Nathalie Borst | Send an e-mail to the editors
Museums, Collections & Society Museums, Collections & Society is a programme of the humanities and archeology faculties of Leiden University that aims to promote research with these collections, stimulate education in this field and ask ethical questions about the provenance of these collections.
The research project for MCS
Fresco Sam-Sin Gastonderzoeker
Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities
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text:
Manager Brian Snitker
The Atlanta Braves competes in MLB as a member of the National League East division, the franchise is based in Atlanta, Georgia. The "Braves" name, that was first used in 1912, comes from a term for the Native American warrior and they are nicknamed "the Braves", and often referred to as "America's Team" because the team's games were broadcast on the nationally available TBS from the 1970s until 2007, giving the team a nationwide fan base. The Atlanta Braves were founded in 1871 but only in 1966 established in Atlanta. From '91 to '05, the Braves were one of the most successful teams in MLB, winning division titles an unprecedented 14 times in a row. After various name changes, the franchise began operating as the Boston Braves, which lasted for most of the first half of the 20th century. But, in 1953, the team moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and became the Milwaukee Braves, followed by the final move to Atlanta.
- Nick Markakis Right Field
- Charlie Culberson Left Field
- Matt Joyce Left Field
- Austin Riley Left Field
- Ronald Acuna Jr. Left Field
- Dansby Swanson Shortstop
- Johan Camargo Third Base
- Josh Donaldson Third Base
- Ozzie Albies Second Base
- Freddie Freeman First Base
- Brian McCann Catcher
- Tyler Flowers Catcher
- Jacob Webb Pitcher
- Josh Tomlin Pitcher
- Julio Teheran Pitcher
- Grant Dayton Pitcher
- Max Fried Pitcher
- Dallas Keuchel Pitcher
- Mike Soroka Pitcher
- Touki Toussaint Pitcher
- Jerry Blevins Pitcher
- Anthony Swarzak Pitcher
- A.J. Minter Pitcher
- Luke Jackson Pitcher
- Chad Sobotka Pitcher
Atlanta Braves next online matches:

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Balcony King Rooms provide all the comforts listed above and offer fantastic views of the river where you can relax in two comfortable chairs with drink holders and take in the serenity of the water. Our guest rooms are designed with a unique floor plan and cleanliness in mind so each guest can feel like the first to ever enjoy this space. We paid extra attention to the bed, as a great night's sleep is the hallmark of a memorable stay. Our Hula Bed, a coconut foam-based mattress offers a healthier, luxurious sleep surface with breathable support and softness. Luxuriously soft Comphy brand sheets give the sensation of sleeping on a cloud. Each room is equipped with the essential mini-fridge, hair dryer, lush Turkish towels, robes, and, of course, wine glasses and a bottle opener.


Atlanta Office Cleaning now provides office cleaning services in Atlanta, Georgia!
Our company is now pleased to announce that our coverage area now extends into Atlanta with our quality services.
Atlanta Office Cleaning is a provider of all your office cleaning needs. Our goal is client satisfaction with excellent services and relations with every Atlanta facility cleaned. In order to do this, we are committed to providing both a professional and pleasant work environment, always!
In Atlanta, our clients have came to know the name "Atlanta Office Cleaning" as a trusted leader in the professional office cleaning. Armed with over 28 years of industry knowledge and state-of-the-art deep cleaning technology, our trained technicians have the skills and equipment to meet all your commercial cleaning needs.
We look forward hearing from you and we greatly appreciate the "open arms" welcome that so many in Atlanta clients have graced us with. Thank you and we look forward to serving your Atlanta company soon!
Copyright � 2005-2007. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Los 60 metros vallas es una prueba de velocidad de atletismo que se disputa en pista cubierta. Las carreras de vallas de velocidad al aire libre son de 100 metros vallas para las mujeres y 110 metros vallas para los hombres.

Cada atleta debe recorrer los 60 metros en el menor tiempo posible superando un total de 5 vallas antes de cruzar la meta, en categoría masculina la primera valla está situada a 13,72 metros de la salida y las cuatro siguientes en intervalos de 9,14 metros, la altura de las vallas es de 1,067 metros.

En categoría femenina, la primera valla está situada a 13 metros de la salida y las cuatro siguientes en intervalos de 8,50 metros, la altura de las vallas es de 0,84 metros.

Esta prueba también forma parte de las siete pruebas que componen el heptatlón en pista cubierta, donde los atletas masculinos en su segundo día de competición tienen que correr los 60 metros vallas.

Récords
El americano Grant Holloway posee el récord del mundo masculino con 7,29 segundos, conseguido el 24 de febrero de 2021, en Madrid, España. La sueca Susanna Kallur posee el récord del mundo femenino con 7,68 segundos, conseguido el 10 de febrero de 2008 en Karlsruhe, Alemania.

Récord del mundo y récords de cada continente masculino y femenino.

Mejores marcas de la historia

Categoría masculina

Doce hombres han logrado bajar de manera oficial de la barrera de los 7,40 segundos. Algunos de los hombres que aparecen en la ranking han conseguido bajar en varias ocasiones de los 7,40 segundos pero solo se ha tenido en cuenta su mejor tiempo.

Categoría femenina

Trece mujeres han logrado bajar de manera oficial de los 7,76 segundos. Algunas de las mujeres que aparecen en la ranking han conseguido bajar en varias ocasiones de los 7,76 segundos pero solo se ha tenido en cuenta su mejor tiempo. Actualizado el 29 de agosto de 2020.

Véase también
 100 metros vallas
 110 metros vallas
 400 metros vallas
 Carreras de vallas

Referencias

Pruebas atléticas
Carreras de vallas

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


just got an rpm for limewire. but i need j2re>1.4.1.
Any idea how i upgrade java?
Desktop (Cassius) Pentium 4 1.5Ghz, 512MB SDRAM, 40, 60 and 80GB HardDisks, DVD/CDRW! Laptop (Copy) AMD Athlon XP 1.8Ghz, 448MB RAM, 64MB Radeon Graphics, 60GB HD, DVD/CDRW!
do it through yast online update, they have the 1.5.x versions now.


All high school youth and their friends are invited to become part of First Congregational's vibrant youth ministry. Opportunities are designed to challenge faith, strengthen friendships and deepen our commitment to one another and to God. Through worship, fellowship, education and service, we aim to engage youth in activities that allow them to experience Christ's love in many ways.
Visit the Church Calendar or download the Printable High School Calendar.
Sunday morning Youth Group allows teens to get to know others, share the everyday happenings of their lives and develop their faith.
Other fun events are offered throughout the year. These include service projects—like apple crisp baking, packing sack lunches for homeless people in our community, and writing Christmas cards for elderly church members—and fellowship activities like our summer day trip to Noah's Ark. These are fabulous ways to meet new people!
Each year, children and youth of all ages are involved in worship leadership. High school students have unique opportunities to serve in meaningful worship roles throughout the year. Additionally, youth are encouraged to bring their diverse talents in the areas of drama, music, public speaking, creative set design, and more.
Our youth mission trip is a big event each summer. Several dozen youth and adult mentors take a week-long journey of hands-on service, worship and crazy fun. This is an opportunity to serve others in need and experience a change in faith, friendships and outlook. Learn about this summer's High School Youth Mission Trip.
On select Sunday mornings, the high school ministry prepares breakfast at Homeless Connections shelter. It's a lot of fun, a great way to serve our community and a requirement for those planning to participate in the youth mission trip.


text:
<?php

namespace dface\sql\placeholders;

class NumberPlaceHolderNode extends PlaceHolderNode
{

	public function acceptVisitor(NodeVisitor $visitor, $args)
	{
		return $visitor->visitNumberPlaceHolder($this, $args);
	}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Universal property of X//G? Given an operation of say a topological group on a topological space, one can form the quotient stack X//G:
the stack associated to the action groupoid.
Does this stack satisfy some kind of universal property?

A: Probably the simplest example is when the space $X$ is a single point. Then $pt//G$ classifies principal $G$-bundles. Here, the action groupoid is just $G$ considered as a one-object groupoid. The one object, $pt$ becomes an atlas for the stack, so we have a representable epimorphism $pt \to pt//G$. This is in fact the universal principal $G$-bundle! Given any map $X \to pt//G$, the 2-fibered product $X \times_{pt//G} pt\to X$ is a principal $G$-bundle. What we have in general is, given any topological groupoid $H$, its associated stack (stackification of $Hom(blank,H)$ ) is equivalent to $Bun_H:T \mapsto Bun_H(T)$, where $Bun_H(T)$ is the groupoid of principal $H$-bundles over $T$. So, by Yoneda, we have for all spaces $T$, an equivalence of groupoids $Hom(T,Bun_H) \cong Bun_H(T)$. Moreover, you can show that for any map $T \to Bun_H$, the principal bundle $P$ to which the map corresponds is the 2-fibered product $T \times_{Bun_H} H_0 \to T$. Applying this to the case when $H$ is the group $G$, we get what I claimed. Now, if instead $H$ is the action groupoid of $G$ on a space $X$, we get that $X//G$ classifies principal $G \ltimes X$-bundles. This answers the question as far as what maps INTO the stack yield.
As Chris suggested, for any topological groupoid, you can take its enriched-nerve to get a simplicial space. Applying Yoneda on each component, you get a simplicial stack. The weak 2-colimit of this, is equivalent to the stack associated to the groupoid. (In fact, you only need to consider the 2-truncation of this diagram). Spelling this out, you get Proposition 3.19 out of Noohi's Foundations of Topological Stacks I. This roughly says that maps from the stack associated to a groupoid $H$ into another stack $Y$ are the same as maps $f:H_0 \to Y$ (or by Yoneda elements $f \in Y(H_0)_0$) together with an isomorphism $f \circ s \to f \circ t$ satisfying some obvious coherencies, where $s$ and $t$ are the source and target map of the groupoid $H_1 \rightrightarrows H_0$. In the case where $H$ is the action groupoid $G \ltimes X$, you get maps $f:X \to Y$, together with isomorphisms $f \circ proj \to f \circ \rho$, where $\rho:G \times X \to X$ is the action. This becomes more concrete, if for example, $Y$ is not some arbitrary stack, but instead the stack of principal $K$-bundles for some group $K$. Then $Hom(X//G,Bun_K)$ is the groupoid with objects principal $G$-bundles $P$ over $X$ together with an isomorphism $proj^*P \cong \rho^*P$ (satisfying a cocycle condition), with the obvious arrows.
If you were wondering why $X//G$ was the "like the ordinary quotient but better", then the following heuristics should help. The 2-truncated guy whose colimit equals $X//G$ is "like the colimit expressing $X/G$ but with the action built in more". In fact, we we took the UNtruncated guy, so, the simplicial space associated to the action groupoid, then it "IS" the Borel construction (or rather its geometric realization). In particular, this implies the homotopy type of $X//G$ is the same as the homotopy quotient $EG \times_G X$. Now consider one more thing- if $G$ is acting on $X$ we have the commutative square with $G \times X$ on the upper left, $X$ on bottom left and on the upper right, and $X/G$ (the coarse quotient) on the bottom right, with map up top being the action, and the map down below being the projection, then this is a pullback diagram if and only if the action is faithful. If you replace $X/G$ with $X//G$, then this is ALWAYS a (2-)pullback diagram. Hence, going to stacks "makes all actions faithful up to homotopy" (more accurately, stacks allow us to encode the isotropy data that would otherwise be lost in such a way that any action becomes as good as a faithful one).

A: Yes. It is the (homotopy) colimit in stacks of the simplicial diagram:
$$\cdots X \times G^2 \Rightarrow X \times G \rightrightarrows X $$
(here $\Rightarrow$ is a substitute for three arrows). This simplicial object is built from the action of G on X.  Since stacks form a 2-category, the natural thing is a "weak" or "homotopy" colimit. See the n-lab pages. The inclusion from spaces into stacks doesn't preserve colimits, so even though this is a diagram of ordinary spaces, the colimit is an interesting stack.
Since it is a colimit, there is a clear associated universal property for maps out of this stack.
It is also the stackification of the presheaf of groupoids associated to the action groupoid, hence from this description it satisfies another additional universal property for maps out of it, and there is a concrete description for maps into it. It is a fun (but tedious) exercise to see that the two universal properties are in fact the same.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Once again, this simply proves that the best place for guns to be is not necessarily in the hands of government agents, but in the hands of law-abiding citizens who look out for their fellow man. The story of armed citizens bringing an end to a string of attempted carjackings comes to us from the State of Washington, a state that continually attacks the rights of its citizens to keep and bear arms.
On Sunday, Tumwater Police responded to a report of a possible DUI because the driver was driving in the wrong direction, but while heading to the scene they were dispatched to the scene of a carjacking in which shots were fired.
Upon arrival, the officers discovered a 16-year-old male who received non-life threatening injuries during the carjacking. Another victim was also treated for minor injuries.
The officers then located the stolen vehicle.
All of this began around 5pm.
"This guy could have taken out more people, wounded or killed," Brian Adams said.
Indeed, as the Seattle Times reported, while some people hid under cars and ran to get away from the danger, armed, confident citizens sought out the criminal and dealt with him. Mr. Adams is most definitely a hero!
Day had a criminal history, including violations of a domestic-violence protection order, felony assault and making death threats, according to the Seattle Times.


text:
The Peacock and the Platypus
Obama / Trump / Caesar
Why Delta Airlines pulled their funding from Oskar Eustis's Trump-inspired production of Julius Caesar and not from my Obama-inspired one
Heidi Bohenkamp
This week, Delta Airlines announced they are pulling funding from The Public Theater in reaction to its production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, in which a Trump-like emperor is assassinated by left wing radicals.
Contrast that with the production of Julius Caesar I directed in 2012 in which an Obama-like Caesar was stabbed by right-wing conservative conspirators. Starting in Minneapolis, the show -- co-produced by the Guthrie Theater and the Acting Company -- toured the country before a month-long run in New York. There was no public outrage, and Delta, which happened to be funding the Guthrie that season, did not pull their funding.
Even though Oskar Eustis's wonderful Trump / Caesar production was in many ways an inverse version of the production I directed, the president-as-Caesar conceit worked beautifully and both productions come to the same conclusion -- one that that should give comfort to Republicans, Democrats, and indeed all Americans: that no matter how righteous you think your cause is assassination as a way of changing a political regime has dire consequences and controlling history through violence is impossible.
In de-funding the Public now but not the Guthrie in 2012, is Delta saying they were OK with Obama's assassination, but not Trump's? Before answering, it's important to tackle misconceptions in the press about modern dress productions of classics, as well as the nature of theater itself.
Modern Dress Productions
When a Shakespeare production is put into a contemporary setting, characters and events of the play don't change. Caesar is still Caesar, Brutus is still Brutus, Rome is still Rome. Unless the lines have been rewritten or the play adapted, it is still Shakespeare's play and Shakespeare's story. The reason for updating sets and costumes is to illuminate the work for a modern-day audience.
In a contemporary setting, the audience is given a wealth of visual cues about the characters and the situation. Actors can bring nuances to their roles that we can identify with and recognize. A smooth, easy going Obama-like Caesar lends one feeling to the production, while a brash, boisterous Trump-like Caesar gives another. An actor in a toga can work, too, and of course it has. But often it feels like an actor reciting famous lines with no context and no life.
An added benefit of a production in a contemporary setting is that an audience can then use the events of Shakespeare's play to reflect on current times. I would argue, however, that this is the secondary benefit. Interpretations that try too hard to make Shakespeare come down on a specific side wind up doing damage to the play.
The Nature of Theater
The wonderful thing about theater is that each character has a specific point of view. Each argues their side, and the playwright, or director, never has to reveal their own opinion. A production can provoke questions without giving definitive answers. It is in many ways an antidote to cable news culture. Spending two hours hearing multiple viewpoints engaged in dialogue rather than a shouting match is a far more useful way of forming a political opinion than by watching two opposing pundits for three minutes.
A play has the added benefit of exploring the emotional and physical aspects of a situation, not just the intellectual ones. And plays can explore issues from many points of view. Just because something happens in a play doesn't mean that the playwright is advocating for it. When the title character in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is assassinated, some characters think it is a good idea, some characters think it is a bad idea. What did Shakespeare himself think? We will never know.
Directing Julius Caesar
What we do know is that Shakespeare was a man of the theater, an actor as well as a playwright. He knew the spectacle of Caesar's assassination would be gory, chaotic, and horrible. The conspirators dip their arms into his blood up to their elbows while senators flee screaming. This stage picture is in direct contrast to the cool, intellectual soliloquy that comes earlier, in which Brutus carefully considers the pros and cons of this dreadful act.
This is why it is important to see plays rather than only reading them.
The assassination is a transgressive, bloody act. And in case the audience at this moment still thinks that Brutus's line of thought was correct, Antony delivers a powerful expression of outrage and emotional trauma. Brutus and Antony then have funeral orations giving opposing points of view. Whomever you agree with, one thing is clear, things do not go well for the conspirators. Brutus and Cassius wind up dead, and Rome is pushed farther down the path of tyranny toward the next Caesar: Augustus.
It is hard to imagine a production of Julius Caesar advocating the idea of assassination as a political tool.
Whenever a director starts work on a production of Caesar, whether in modern dress or not, he or she will inevitably think about the current political climate. In 2012, I thought, "Can I imagine a circumstance in which a small group of people would be so passionate about their beliefs and find the current situation so dire that they would resort to assassinating the president?" The Tea Party was in full effect, the birther movement well underway, and Mitch McConnell had stated that his main goal was to deny Obama a second term. It wasn't hard to imagine one of these groups pushed to the point where they would consider violence.
I had recently read The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Rome, in which Michael Parenti argues that Caesar was a man of the people who wanted to give land to the poor, while the conspirators were a group of wealthy elites who were threatened by this plan. The fact that Cato opposed Caesar during Roman times, and today we have the conservative think tank called the Cato Institute was another connection too good to pass up.
In our production both Caesar and Brutus were played by African-American actors. As Caesar, I cast the tall, charismatic, and confident Bjorn DuPaty. He conveyed an ease and a grace that made him an effective leader of the people. Will Sturdivant played Brutus and is, in my opinion, one of the best speakers of Shakespeare's verse on the planet. His voice is a combination of Sir John Gielgud and James Earl Jones. My inspiration was drawn from any number of smart, serious African-American conservatives -- Clarence Thomas being but one example -- who at times can find themselves in a conflicted alliance with their fellow conservatives.
The difference in these two characters was a beautiful contrast and their similarities made the "Et tu Brute?" moment of the assassination absolutely devastating. It is precisely this kind of specificity (whether the audience knows the decisions behind it or not) that brings fresh salience to a 400-year-old play.
In the current production, Oskar Eustis imagines what would happen if a group from the left also felt that they were justified in resorting to violence. It not hard to envision a group of "Bernie or Busters" or despondent Hillary voters reaching a point of desperation where violence seems like the only answer.
Regardless of the politics of the director, actors, or audience, the moment of this latest Caesar's assassination is shocking and horrific. Elizabeth Marvel gives the performance of a lifetime mourning over the body of someone who looks like Donald Trump. It is moving, poignant, and heart-rending: a beautiful execution of the play Shakespeare wrote.
Why Defund One Caesar and not The Other?
I think one key difference in the corporate response to the two productions is simply that most people who wrote about and talked about our production -- the one with an Obama-like Caesar -- actually saw the show, where it is clear that most of those outraged by The Public Theater's Trumpian emperor either didn't see the play or didn't stay to the end.
The Breitbart article that started the controversy is -- I kid you not -- a review by someone who talked to someone who saw the show. This second-order correspondent also thinks the play ends with the death of Caesar, as if they are killing the bad guy at the end of a superhero movie. In fact, the assassination takes place in the middle of the play, the rest of which deals with the terrible consequences of this action. Shakespeare built the outrage into the text. Mark Antony is so outraged -- for himself, and on our behalf -- that outrage suffuses the play's entire second half. If you see a production, you get outraged with the play, not against it.
Our Obama-inspired production also didn't have any gestures that tipped our hand to say "this is definitely Obama." We wanted to make sure audiences could make the Obama connection if they wanted to -- or could ignore the connections if they only wanted to live inside in the circumstances of Shakespeare's play. In Eustis's production, the Trump connections are more overt : Caesar wears an overly long red tie, Calpurnia speaks with a Slovenian accent (or "Slavic" if you are writing for Breitbart). There is also much more humor and satire in the Public Theater production. Caesar usually is not a very funny play, and I tip my hat to Oskar Eustis for finding so many genuinely funny moments. That may have bristled some people as well, but Eustis is hardly the first person to make fun of the president.
In 2012, the producer of The Acting Company, was very concerned that this production was going to get us into trouble, and she really didn't want us talking too much to the press about the concept. The reaction by Delta and Bank of America to the current production suggests that her fears then were well founded. I was content not to talk a lot to the press, because directors like the production itself, not interviews or reviews, to be the final word. So I was happy for the audience enter the world of our production without pre-knowledge of the interpretation -- experiencing it for themselves in the moment.
And because I trusted in the work we were doing and in Shakespeare's play, I was not worried that people would leave the theater thinking that we were advocating for the assassination of President Obama or being disrespectful to him in any way.
Non-Profit Organizations, Politics, and the Role of Theater in Civic Life
In the 2008 presidential campaign, Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin said that people criticizing her were trampling her First Amendment rights. This was a low point in people's understanding of our Constitution, and really hasn't been properly corrected (the First Amendment, of course, protects people's ability to speak freely about their governor – it doesn't allow the governor to say things without being criticized).
Something similar is happening today with our understanding of theater and its ability to explore political themes. Now is a golden opportunity for us to correct this understanding, reminding theater boards, audiences, and funders about the important role the theater plays in the civic life of our nation. These waters are all the more fraught for non-profit productions that often depend on the good graces of image-sensitive benefactors.
Moreover, while non-profit organizations are legally barred from advocating in favor of a particular candidate or campaign in any way, that does not mean non-profit theaters must be devoid of any political discourse. To the contrary, theater was invented in Ancient Greece for the very purpose of exploring the aspects of life that can't be expressed in a simple debate. All voting citizens went to the theater and it was an important part of being an informed person. I think the theater is a much better place to explore the nuance and the consequences of our politics than a TV show every issue is reduced to black and white, left side or right side.
In many countries, government is the primary funder of the arts. Germany, for example, spends forty times on the arts per capita than the U.S. In the U.S., individuals, foundations, and corporations do their best to pick up where the government falls short. For the most part, that puts the arts in America in a constant state of scarcity.
Ironically, the advantage we have is that in the event an arts-unfriendly regime comes to power, we are not dependent on government alone. European countries don't have the same kind of individual, foundation, or corporate philanthropy.
For arts to serve their true civic function, all of our funders need to respect and understand the power of theater and its role in our political lives. They need to embrace that role and defend it, it even when it brings up issues that are unpopular and uncomfortable.
Who Killed Shakespeare?
thoughts on OSF's Play On! project
by Rob Melrose
Was it Bill Rauch in the Elizabethan Theater with the candlestick? Was it Lue Douthit in the OSF dramaturgy office with the rope? Or was it Campo Santo's Sean San Jose in Library with his brand new "translation" (gasp) of Shakespeare's Coriolanus?
This past week has been a bad one for my friends at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival who have just embarked on their Play On translation program in which 36 playwrights will translate (and not adapt) all 39 plays attributed to Shakespeare that we currently have (we still can't find Cardenio – it is still lost or at the very least misplaced) with the help of a number of dramaturges including me for Sean's Coriolanus. The press release is here and the project's leader Lue Douthit's answers to questions are here. They've been getting a lot of criticism for the project. It has also been a hard week for the people who think that this project is going to cause great harm to the Shakespeare canon or at the very least be a monstrous waste of time and money. For me, it has been one of the best weeks of my life. Why? Because for one week, Facebook and the internet has been abuzz with people passionately arguing about two of the things I care about most: Shakespeare and Translation.
I am savoring this moment and reading everything, knowing that the honeymoon period will be over soon and people will be going back to talking about what I care nothing about: sports. So while we are in this sweet spot between OSF's announcement and baseball playoffs heating up, I'm going to make hay while the sun doth shine and weigh in with my perspective.
I have an interesting take on all this because I am both a Shakespeare-lover and a translator and I spent a year in Europe in 1997 on a Fox Foundation grant studying productions of Shakespeare in translation in France, Germany, and Italy and since have seen dozens more now including many productions in Poland. I've directed Shakespeare plays at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Public Theater, The Guthrie Theater, and The Cutting Ball Theater where I am the artistic director (currently on sabbatical which is why I have time to write this!). I've also translated plays from French, German, Italian, and Swedish and am deeply interested in the issues of translation. Because I've been engaged with the Shakespeare world and the translation world, I'm in the interesting position of knowing most of the people who have been arguing for and against this project and I'm able to see the logic in the arguments on both sides. So if you will indulge me, I'd like to do a deep dive into what this is all about and where I come down in all this.
First some background: my first encounters with Shakespeare were neither easy nor love at first sight. Like most people, I starting reading Shakespeare in junior high and high school in English class and found it pretty hard. Fortunately I lived near the Guthrie Theater and saw excellent productions of Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Hamlet. I also played Orsino in my high school's production of Twelfth Night. Still I didn't really get, "what was so great about Shakespeare" but trusted that older, wiser people knew better than I did and that I should keep studying. I took four semesters of Shakespeare classes in college as well as a year and a half of Shakespeare classes in drama school. That didn't prevent my first two productions of Shakespeare from being utter failures. When I was nineteen, the first review of my direction of Shakespeare was the Trentonian's pronouncement "Twelfth Night is Inexcusable!" Harsh huh? Then in graduate school, I studied Macbeth until I was blue in the face. Intimidated by all the experts around me, I turned in a very reverent and very boring production (despite great work by the actors). Master design teacher Ming Cho Lee said (in his cutting wisdom) to my directing teacher (the wonderful David Chambers), "That Rob Melrose, he knows everything there is to know about Macbeth! The only thing he doesn't know is what he wants to do with Macbeth." So far, so bad. I still had a long way to go. Shakespeare is not easy, his plays are like big symphonies and there is a lot going on in them. I do not blame anyone for feeling intimidated by these big, thorny plays.
Global Shakespeare
My last year in graduate school changed my life. Knowing of my dogged perseverance with Shakespeare and my love of European theater, my directing professor David Chambers suggested I read a book called Foreign Shakespeare by Dennis Kennedy (had it been written today, it would probably have been called Global Shakespeare). In it, Kennedy argued that productions of Shakespeare translated into languages other than English are able to take more production risks than productions in English both because in a contemporary French, German, or Italian translation every word is understood by the audience and since the language is contemporary and doesn't have strong associations with a previous era. In French, German, and Italian, the plays are still richly poetic but it feels like poetry written today, not something from the past. These bold productions of Shakespeare in translation really intrigued me. Then I also took Paul Schmidt's translation class. I was working on my translation of Pelléas and Mélisande and Paul was working on his translation of Phèdre for the Wooster Group as well as a translation of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens into contemporary English for Erin Mee's production at HERE. This was in 1996 and definitely not the first contemporary English translation of Shakespeare, just to show that OSF isn't the first theater to do this, they are just the first to do it on such a big scale. Paul had a very interesting set of rules for himself. They were that he would replace any word that no longer had any meaning in contemporary English or that had shifted meaning substantially. He would replace the word with another word that both scanned and existed during Shakespeare's lifetime. What resulted was a beautiful, poetic, very readable and playable version of a play that most people don't know or experience. He was making a good case for Shakespeare's Timon of Athens which really wasn't being done at all back then.
Fueled by both of these experiences, I applied for a Fox Foundation Fellowship (with great encouragement and guidance from David Chambers) to be in Europe for a year observing productions of Shakespeare in translation. I received the grant and my whole theatrical world was opened wide over the course of a year. Kennedy's book was absolutely correct, I saw productions of Shakespeare unlike any I had seen before: deconstructed productions in France by Danielle Mesguich, Brechtian productions in Germany by Dieter Dorn, commedia dell'arte inspired productions by Glauco Mauri, kabuki productions, post-modern productions, etc. It was all really exciting. I was determined that when I came back to the U.S., I would do my own productions of Shakespeare with this bold spirit.
When I returned to the U.S., I moved to San Francisco and founded The Cutting Ball Theater with Paige Rogers. Our first foray into Shakespeare was being a part of Trevor Allen and Karen McKevitt's Shakespeare Marathon in 2000, in which theater companies from the Bay Area did staged readings of all Shakespeare's plays of the course of a couple of weeks. Cutting Ball got Timon of Athens in the Easter Morning slot (believe it or not people actually came). I wanted to do Paul's translation of Timon but Karen and Trevor wanted the festival to be strictly Shakespeare. At first I was disappointed, but as I worked on the play, I found that I loved Shakespeare's original and that Paul's translation had helped me find a way into the play but that now I was enjoying having an experience of Shakespeare's language. It reminded me of something David Chambers had told us in our Shakespeare class. For him, the tricky grammar and the rich, strange language were the actors' and director's challenges and for him that was the point of doing Shakespeare. It was then I realized that I wanted to have the best of both worlds. I wanted bold risky productions with clear, invested, beautifully spoken Shakespeare. This led to a series of productions at Cutting Ball: a surreal Macbeth centered on the death of Lady Macbeth's baby, a Richard Foreman-inspired As You Like It in the wilds of California, a meta-theatrical, gender-bending Taming of the Shrew, and a dream-like Tempest set in a psychiatrist's office at the bottom of a swimming pool. These led to directing productions of Troilus and Cressida at OSF set during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, a Julius Caesar inspired by the Obama Administration at the Guthrie with The Acting Company, and a highly theatrical Pericles that drew from all over the Mediterranean and the Middle East at the Public Theater. More on all these productions can be found on my website here.
So in many ways I seriously considered doing translations of Shakespeare in my own career and rejected it (or at least chose not to go down that path for the time being). I have spent lots of time with former RSC text and voice directors Andrew Wade and Cecily Berry as a part of Theater for a New Audience's Actors and Directors Program and have also worked with Andrew at The Guthrie, Cutting Ball, The Acting Company, and The Public. Andrew and Cecily have developed countless ways of leading a company to embrace Elizabethan verse in order to make the most difficult passages in Shakespeare felt by an audience. A tiny, simple example that Andrew loves is representative. He asks his actors to say, "What a pother," and then asks them what they think "pother" means. By saying it and hearing it and with this little bit of context ("what a…"), a lot of the meaning is there even though we've never encountered the word before and don't have a dictionary definition in front of us. As Professor James Shapiro points out, Shakespeare was coining new words in his plays all the time and perhaps only he understood every single word of his play. It is up to the director, designers, and actors to create the context that allows us to learn the new and unfamiliar words as they come.
I had the wonderful pleasure of working with Professor Shapiro (Jim) on my production of Pericles at The Public Theater. I agree and sympathize with all he says in his New York Times Op-Ed, "Shakespeare in Modern English," save for the opinion that the project is a waste of time and money. I don't believe that, and more on that anon. I do, however, feel great kinship with his passion for the original language and for the challenges and rewards it affords directors, scholars, actors, and dramaturges who are willing to put in the time to understand the text and who delight in sharing that understanding with an audience. Our Pericles was similar to the Much Ado Jim describes. They were both part of the The Public Theater's Mobile Shakespeare Unit. Our Pericles was 90 minutes, used the original language albeit significantly cut, and was extremely well received at the community centers, homeless shelters, and prisons it toured as well as its run at the Public. There was very little in the way of set and costumes in many ways the production was the language. The fact that it is possible for contemporary audiences to enjoy the plays in the original language makes it understandable many people (the people in Jim's camp) don't want to give in and have Shakespeare adapted to fit perceived current tastes. There is a very long history of producers adapting the plays in ways that seem embarrassing to us now: giving Lear a happy ending, bowlerdizing the plays (making them family-friendly with no bawdy parts), and rearranging the scenes to accommodate the clunky scenery of proscenium theater so that instead of jumping from location to location – all the scenes in one location are put into act one and all the scenes in the next location are in act two, etc. While these might have seemed like experiments to please current audiences, they were actually so popular that they were played for decades so that you couldn't see a production of the plays the way Shakespeare wrote them.
I don't think anyone wants to go back to those days (especially my friends at OSF), and while I'm hoping for this project's success, I don't think it is possible that it will be so successful that we ever see a day when "translated" productions outnumber original language productions. I don't think that is what anyone at OSF would wish for either. I do, however, see a wonderful opportunity here. Just as I wanted the best of both worlds for my productions of Shakespeare: bold direction and original language, I think the American Theater can stand to have original language and translated productions. I'd love to see what that does to productions and if, like I've experienced in Europe, if it leads to more freedom in direction and production.
As a director of many original language productions, I think it is important to come clean about what an audience is really seeing when it sees an original language production. No one since the Elizabethans and Jacobeans has seen a production of the plays Shakespeare wrote them. First Shakespeare did not oversee the publication of his plays so there are a number of different versions of most of them and directors have to choose what versions to use and what editors to trust. Even an uncut production by an absolute purist is going to have to make artistic choices. Secondly, most productions done today are cut and words are changed here or there to accommodate the cut or to make a really tricky passage more clear. On some level, you've been watching translated Shakespeare for years but just haven't known it. The guidelines the playwrights have been given for OSF's Play On project are to have a very light touch. These are translations and not adaptations and many of Shakespeare's lines are going to stay as they are – quite possibly 90%, the estimated percentage of words that are still completely clear to a contemporary audience. This project can be seen as having playwrights doing with consistency and rigor throughout the entire play what a director will often do on the fly in the middle of a rehearsal with troublesome sections of the text here and there.
An even deeper issue is the issue of translation itself. I've read Crime and Punishment, but since I don't speak Russian I haven't actually read one word that Dostoyevsky wrote or would even recognize, and yet I feel like I've read it. When I tell people I've read Crime and Punishment, I don't make a point to say, "but only in translation." When we read a translation, especially a good one, it feels like we have access to the original. We feel this way with Madame Bovary, The Iliad, and the Bible even though we may not be able to read a word in the original language. How is it that we feel we have read Crime and Punishment without reading a word of Russian but we feel like something wrong is happening when ten to twenty percent of Shakespeare is updated?
I think there are few things more rewarding than reading a work in its original language. It is for this reason that I've studied (but in no way mastered) eight different languages. There are lots of works I want to read in the original. It is something I value highly. At the same time, people have rich experiences of works in translation all the time. Did you know that the most produced playwright in France, Germany, and Italy is consistently Shakespeare? It's not Racine, Goethe, and Goldoni. We often talk about Goethe as "the German Shakespeare," but the German Shakespeare is really Shakespeare. Each country has made Shakespeare its own. German's love to say, "Hamlet is better in the original German." I recently went to Abu Dhabi for NYUAD's Global Shakespeare. People came from England, India, Egypt, Chile, Yemen, Bahrain, the UAE, and the US to talk about what Shakespeare means to each of their countries. It is amazing and exciting to hear about how Shakespeare changes from culture to culture. Each one interprets Shakespeare in its own way. In India, there are numerous Bollywood films of Shakespeare's plays, sometimes stripped of everything we associate with Shakespeare: the language and the setting. The good news is that the originals still exist are totally unharmed by other artists and cultures building on Shakespeare's work. It is not unlike Shakespeare himself building on his sources Plutarch and Boccaccio (through Chaucer) to write Julius Caesar and Troilus and Cressida.
Dante is one of my favorite writers. I've studied Italian so that I can read him in the original and it is extremely rewarding. At the same time, I have a bookshelf full of English translations of The Divine Comedy: beautifully reverent ones by Robert and Jean Hollander and by Robert M. Durling, very contemporary versions by poets Robert Pinsky and by Mary Jo Bang, and then an absolutely crazy, irreverent and delightful one by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders complete with drawings of California strip malls from hell. In the Birk and Sanders version, there are none of the endless notes that usually accompany an edition of The Divine Comedy. They've really done their best to update the references themselves so that a reader doesn't need to constantly flip to the back for the notes in order to understand what is going on. Is it Dante? Sure! It is a version of Dante and the experience of reading straight through without flipping back and forth is really pleasurable and offers something the other versions don't. Each translation has something new to offer. English speakers who can't read Italian are missing out on a lot by not being able to read Dante in the original, but at the same time Italians who can't read English are missing out on a lot by not being able to read all these wonderful and different translations of Dante. By having about five or six major English translations of Dante each generation, we are keeping him alive and continuing to find new things in his work. This is what happens in non-English speaking countries with Shakespeare every generation. Each translation finds a new Shakespeare and this is something we as English speakers have not been able to experience…until now!
I love translators and playwrights almost as much as I love Shakespeare scholars. Some translations are going to be better than others, but each playwright is going to have to wrestle with Shakespeare and that to me is going to be really exciting. I recently got in a Facebook debate with my playwright friend Christine Evans. Christine proposed that we have a moratorium on Shakespeare for five years and to do new plays by women in their place. I said it was a good idea but that she was picking on the wrong guy. I proposed that we keep doing Shakespeare and we stop doing endless regional repeats of the play that was a hit in New York the season before and that there is how we could find space for lots of new innovative plays. I've always contended that playwrights benefit from seeing excellent productions of great classic plays (especially Shakespeare). While I still believe this is true, I realize that it only the playwright who is out of an opportunity when we choose to do Shakespeare. The actors, designers, and director still have a job. I can see how they feel left out of the party. What I love about this is that Lue Douthit at OSF has chosen some really wonderful playwrights to work on these translations. I think they are going to bring their own artistic sensibilities to the project but even more importantly, they are going to get what until now only the actors, directors, and designers have gotten: the chance to work deeply on a Shakespeare play. James Shapiro wishes the money were being spent on commissioning the next Hamilton. I would argue that there are tons of theaters and foundations trying to commission the next Hamilton. I think this experience will help playwrights think bigger, write bolder plays, and take better advantage of those commissions when they come.
Shakespeare Can Be Tough
After over 25 years of working on Shakespeare, his work comes to me much more easily than it did when I was in high school. At the same time, it is important not to forget how daunting those first steps can be for some people, not all. I was reminded of this when I was preparing for my production of Troilus and Cressida at OSF. I thought that it would be a good idea if I read Shakespeare's source for the play, Chaucer's Troilus and Creiseyde. It was really tough. I have Chaucerian friends who talk about Chaucer the same way Andrew Wade, James Shapiro, and I talk about Shakespeare. They think Chaucer is the greatest author who ever lived and they think that one can read him in the original with no problems. Well I couldn't. I bought modern translations, courses on tape about Chaucer, books on how to read Chaucer. Eventually I made it through the original but I needed lots of help and it wasn't easy. Of course, today most people read Chaucer in a modern version unless they are at a University and I can see why. It is tough to do on one's own. This might be what Shakespeareans fear: that one day the general public will only read Shakespeare in translation unless they are in a college class. It could happen, but I think Shakespeare is such a deep part of our culture in a way that Chaucer isn't (sorry Geoffrey), that it will be a long time from now. Still, I have no judgment for people who feel they need their No Fear Shakespeare or their Cliff's Notes to help them through the original. While I don't need those now, I definitely had times in the beginning where I did. And I don't judge the many people who are going to benefit from reading and hearing these plays in these new translation and having access to them in a way they are not previously had.
Linguistics Professor John H. McWhorter wrote a great piece in the Wall Street Journalabout the project. McWhorter is a wonderful teacher and has a whole series of audio courses through the Teaching Company. I'm a huge fan and have listened to all of them. He has a very fluid attitude towards language (descriptive rather than prescriptive) and constantly reminds us that language is always changing. To get a sense of who he is, he tells a story of a woman who told him that she broke off her wedding plans with her fiancé because he kept making the same grammatical mistake again and again and she just couldn't live with that. McWhorter thought it was a sad reason to end a potential marriage and to top it off the mistake the fiancé was making (I think it was a double negative) was actually the correct upper class way of talking just 50 years ago. Language had shifted since then, it wasn't wrong, it was just not how the ruling class was speaking anymore. In his WSJ article, he points out that for the most part we can't really understand much of the advice Polonius gives his son anymore. Polonius is a pedant, so that can make sense in a production, but even a relatively famous speech of Macbeth's has challenges because of the way the language has changed. The original language is beautiful, but wouldn't it be nice to have the experience of hearing a Shakespeare play and understanding every word for a change? Not forever, but just every once in a while. In the same way that I enjoy my California strip mall version of Dante, in the end it is not as rewarding as reading it in the original Italian, nor even as rewarding as reading a faithful translation with all the necessary notes, but it offers its own relaxing and pleasurable experience that gets you ready for the trickier stuff.
Playwright Dipika Guha Makes the Case for the Whole Project
Nothing I can say, however, can make the case as well as playwright Dipika Guha has in her recent Facebook post which I quote here in its entirety:
I am not first generation Shakespeare.
My great-grandmother read him in Bengali between bouts of giving birth to her thirteen children. I also learnt recently, that she would, despite relentless poverty and no education, save up her money to pay local actors to come to her house and perform for her and all her children in the evenings. When she made the long walk to Calcutta on foot during partition, I wonder whether she took her dog-eared copy in Bengali with her or if she was forced to leave it behind.
Our borders are bleeding all over the world. And who knows how many lives are being changed by the words people are carrying in their pockets; they just may be words in translation. I will, when I begin my translation of Merry Wives of Windsor, be writing it for my great-grandmother, and in tribute to people, living and dead, who have long sought solace in Shakespeare's language.
Let's not forget the primary function of translation is to create access. Not only to the language but to an imaginative space, something in our culture that's all too often under threat. Shakespeare, for better or worse, gives us permission to imagine and access to it just may be potent enough to change a life.
The project is just underway, but already Dipika's post makes me think that it is already worthwhile: both the project itself and the diversity of voices OSF and Lue have put at the heart of this project. This beautiful testament to Shakespeare's power and reach wouldn't have been written if the translators and dramaturges were all white men (like me) and if this project had happened fifty years ago, that is most likely what it would have been. I am extremely excited to read Dipika's translation of The Merry Wives of Windsor and the many other translations by extremely talented playwrights from a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds. I am a huge fan of the Public Theater's Mobile Shakespeare Unit James Shapiro so lovingly describes and the access it provides. I also love this project and think the access and perspective it will provide will prove to be invaluable.
Posted by Unknown at 11:33 PM 2 comments:
Obama / Trump / CaesarWhy Delta Airlines pulled th...


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Wonderful Peninsula
_BAJA CALIFORNIA
_BAJA CALIFORNIA SUR
_CABO SAN LUCAS
_SAN JOSÉ DEL CABO
_SAN DIEGO
_LOS ANGELES
HomeMEXICO Mexico to keep US border closed to non-essential travel
Mexico to keep US border closed to non-essential travel
Larry Thompson Thursday, August 13, 2020
Mexico plans to extend the closure of its shared border with the United States for another month to non-essential travel, Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said Thursday.
The current agreement runs through Aug. 21, but Ebrard said it does not make sense to reopen the border at this time.
"We already told the United States that we're of the idea that it's extended because of what we have along the strip on their side," Ebrard said, referring to a surge in cases in the southwestern United States.
The travel restriction at the shared land border was first announced March 18 and has been renewed monthly. It has included the U.S.-Canada border as well.
"The border couldn't be opened right now," Ebrard said. "It wouldn't be logical that we change it right now, so it will be another month."
Mexico has reported about 500,000 confirmed COVID-19 infections and about 55,000 deaths, both considered to be significant undercounts due to very limited testing. (AP).
Posted by Larry Thompson
I'm passionate about Baja California peninsula. Since I came to live in this place and know its beautiful landscapes and the kindness of its people, I said I would live here for the rest of my life.
Baja California Sur is the safest state in Mexico
Four Seasons Resort Provides Seamless On-Site Testing in Response to Latest CDC Travel Guidelines
Vaccinations begin in the Baja California peninsula
To prevent contagion, some beaches in Los Cabos are closed
Public Health Announces First Confirmed Case of U.K. Variant as Los Angeles confirmed 253 new deaths
Jail for those who do not use mask in Baja California Sur
For the use of herbal remedies they are late to hospitals in Los Cabos
California Hoy USA
Is a news site specialized in topics of the Baja California peninsula. California Hoy/USA is member of Medios Digitales del Pacifico group.
Email: californiahoyoficial@gmail.com


text:
Category Archives: Social Work Ethics
Alcoholics Anonymous, Destructive Cults, Fraud / Malpractice, Government / Law, Social Work Ethics
Cartoon about Therapy at Samaritan Counseling
March 27, 2017 tgleason	Leave a comment
Demanding Apologies from NYS OASAS for Using the F-word About Father Peter Young Industries
Here on Capital Tonight is a heated debate about using the F-word between 12-stepper OASAS Chief Counsel Robert Kent and 12-stepper Father Peter Young, with neither of them involved in the actual discussion. There is a side of this debate that is not even being recognized, and has nothing to do with anybody using the F-word.
Why apologize for being upset by bullshit?
Father Peter Young halfway house exec charged
Ex-official of Schenectady nonprofit sentenced for theft
Investigation crippling Schenectady-based ministry
Schenectady charity official facing charges
"Hello Representative McLaughlin,
As a former resident of Albany NY, I have to speak out against any state funding of 12-step programs, because it is a violation of the Establishment Clause. I was an OASAS client, and witnessed 12-step coercion among OASAS and OMH employees that brought political battles into my personal therapy. I was terminated and banned from all communications with my therapist over this issue, because after two years of AA meetings and 'treatment', I decided that I did not want to be involved in turning my will and my money over to 12-step programs anymore. This is an issue of religious indoctrination, comparable to Scientology corruption but bigger. Probably bigger than the Catholic Church sex scandals. It needs to be addressed in discussions like this. I watched your interview with Liz Benjamin, and was upset that, again, this issue is very much about 12-step but nobody ever mentions very fundamental issues with the program.
Here are some examples of letters I've sent from myself and others, including a petition with over 150 signatures. http://notpowerless.com/letters-and-petition-sent-to…/
See here: https://www.oasas.ny.gov/mis/bulletins/lsb2014-22.cfm
and thebusinessofrecovery.com which is a documentary about systemic fraud and lack of accountability in the 12-step programs and features an Albany judge.
and the13thstepfilm.com which explains how widespread this problem is which goes beyond money and insurance issues, but to basic human decency. I've met many people who have such similar concerns and are being completely ignored by the government agencies they are supposed to be able to trust.
I have written to the Department of Health and Human Services, OMH, State Education Department, Office of Professional Discipline, Samaritan Institute, Attorney General, Inspector General, Justice Center, and have largely got complete non-responses.
I don't think this is about Kent using the F-word. There is a much deeper discussion to be had than decorum. When complaints are being deleted and ignored, people do get mad. I'm personally furious at the lack of concern for my very legitimate complaints and investigations into this matter on my blog. I've made my case over and over again for almost three years now, and because I got angry at one point, I've been banned from all communications with a long-time therapist. I am not about to apologize for being upset by this treatment racket that is leaving people dead and sweeping evidence under the rug.
Tom Gleason
notpowerless.com"
"Invitational Intervention" Read the reviews
Please read the reviews of the ARISE Intervention method, and the comments. There are only two.
But here are my concerns and comments about this, a search for ARISE on my website. http://notpowerless.com/?s=arise
Alcoholics Anonymous, Destructive Cults, Government / Law, Social Work Ethics
Response (or non-reponse) from New York State Inspector General
I kind of had hopes that there was someone to complain to. This makes me sad. Unless OMH executive management sees a problem with OASAS providers, this isn't going to go anywhere. Yes, they referred my complaint about OMH to OMH. Maybe it will go a little higher up to people who haven't heard about it before. I don't know.
Cease and Desist
February 11, 2017 tgleason	Leave a comment
Looking up "Cease and desist" I found this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cease_and_desist
Apparently I am being threatened by NYS government with a lawsuit for filing legitimate complaints and further complaining that those complaints have been ignored. Jenness Clairmont, the former Clinical Director of Samaritan Counseling, is on that board.
"A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to halt purportedly illegal activity ("cease") and not take it up again later ("desist"). The letter may warn that if the recipient does not discontinue specified conduct, or take certain actions, by deadlines set in the letter, that party may be sued."
And here is what the OPD said to me after that:
I've not said anything new worth examining in two and a half years, according to NYS Investigator Michael Kinley
update Jan 20 2020: Samaritan Institute is now called Solihten Institute.
Actually, the whole point of this blog is that there is something worth investigating, and I have presented lots of new information since June 2014. The Attorney General's office just referred me back to this Office of Professional Discipline department that is now asking me to stop complaining. I'm mad.
In fact, I have discovered a lot in the past 2 and a half years that I had no idea about before. I learned about regulatory capture of government agencies. I learned about the history of coercive 12-step programs like Straight Inc. and how doctors and pilots and nurses are extorted by 12-step programs. I learned that it's a $35 billion dollar industry. I learned about sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse and the role of shunning. I learned about cults. I made connections suggesting that this was not a personal disagreement or an isolated incident at all, but very systemic. I have made that information available to the government in every way possible in the form of petitions, letters, complaints, news articles, research, etc. I learned that my own interventionist has trained hundreds of professionals to 'treat' people this way. I learned about the Establishment Clause and why religion, how it's funded and subsidized, matters. I learned about censorship and HIPAA laws. Freedom of Information laws and why they are important. I learned about Medicaid fraud, drug testing, and 'parity' for 'treatment' that is 'not treatment' that is lifelong and never ends. I've connected lots of dots and I don't appreciate being seen as an annoyance for trying to share this information with the people who could potentially do something about it.
I would not have even thought about any of this if I hadn't been banned from all communications with Samaritan Counseling and wondering why David Olsen and Jenness Clairmont banned me from speaking to people that are right there in my community. They also banned me from the church that I was told to go to to remedy this. Yes, it makes no sense.
I learned that the Office of Professional Discipline 'doesn't look into the AA thing', as a matter of policy! Which is why I explained the problem to the Attorney General's office who deferred to the opinion of this office that told me it has no jurisdiction:
"We have investigated your complaint against Samaritan institute and have explained to you in the past that While we cannot address the complaint against the Samaritan institute as we have no jurisdiction we did not find any violation of Education Law regarding your complaint against licensed professionals that work at the Samaritan center. In all the emails you have sent after that determination there has been nothing new to be investigated that wasn't brought to our attention in your initial and subsequent complaints. Therefore I request that you cease and desist from sending these complaints to us.
If in the future you have any NEW information we will be happy to look into these matters for you.
Michael A. Kinley
Deputy Director of Investigation
Office of Professional Discipline
"Confidentiality Notice
This email including all attachments is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. This communication may contain information that is protected from disclosure under State and/or Federal law. Please notify the sender immediately if you have received this communication in error and delete this email from your system. If you are not the intended recipient you are notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited."
This is how my last email conversation with him ended.
Attorney General's Health Care Bureau Sends Me To NYS Office of Professional Discipline Which is Where I Started Two and a Half Years Ago
February 8, 2017 tgleason	Leave a comment
"Please be assured that we have documented your concerns"
I'm not sure the AG's Health Care Bureau understands the situation. I did send a complaint to OPD two and a half years ago, and the Office of Professions investigator told me nothing I say makes any sense. That's why I've tried to find somewhere else to complain to!
Could it have had anything to do with the fact that one of the people I was complaining about (Jenness Clairmont) is on the Office of Professions board, and another one, who seemed to be telling her what to do and how to do it, was her 12-stepper boss (Executive Director David Olsen)?
The whole point of contacting the Attorney General was because they are incapable of even acknowledging their problem (perhaps because they know it would sound criminal, not just problematic, if anybody said out loud how it actually works and for how long they've dealt with complaints by retaliating).
She (Jenness Clairmont) DID acknowledge a widespread (underground) negative sentiment toward 12-step, privately. On the surface, you'd never know it because her boss doesn't allow that discussion to happen. For some reason she's fine with being on the NASW and the licensing board and pretending all this is perfectly reasonable to actively promote something you don't agree with… (NYCPG does pay her as a consultant, and NYS OASAS funds them).
She expected me to just happily go along with the licensing board that SHE'S ON saying I make no sense at all, ignoring my complaints and literally acting like I'm making this stuff up out of nowhere as the addiction fraud specialists bankrupted me financially and spiritually and then OMH tried to drug me into oblivion as everybody involved acted like they had no idea what I was talking about.
This cult stuff is sick. It's like 1984, or Scientology or something. It's beyond dumb; they are actually letting people die or erasing them from history to just to keep pretending AA has no problems whatsoever (to keep their own jobs, in many cases). I don't know how to get this across to the people who could do something about it. The Attorney General has taken down isolated rehab rackets before. I am just not sure he realizes how systemic it is. These are not isolated incidents. They are pretty much systematized by OASAS….which is why I'm doing my best to let people know.
I will have to send more information to the Attorney General as well as the Inspector General, which is 1-800-367-4448 (1 800 DO RIGHT). It says "this will put you in contact with trained staff who can discuss with you the specifics of your complaint". Worth a shot.
"You can also write us at:
Office of the State Inspector General
Empire State Plaza Agency Building 2 16th Floor
Albany, NY 12223″
The Justice Center (who I've got zero response from) is at
Alcoholics Anonymous, Destructive Cults, Government / Law, Hypocrisy, Social Work Ethics
Oxford House Tradition Four
February 3, 2017 tgleason	2 Comments
Tradition_Four
"Oxford House is not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, organizationally or financially, but Oxford House members realize that only active participation in Alcoholics Anonymous and/or Narcotics Anonymous offers assurance of continued sobriety.
Every Oxford House member attributes his sobriety to Alcoholics Anonymous and/or Narcotics Anonymous. Each Oxford House member, as an individual, considers himself a member of AA and/or NA. Without that, sobriety would be short-lived.
As individual members of Alcoholics Anonymous…"
The Surgeon General's report (Big PDF) says:
They also left out the word 'religion' in the Office for Civil Rights notice…What's up with that?
From Oxford House Traditions:
"If a house member does not regularly attend AA or NA meetings, the house may — as a group conscience — decide that an individual resident should attend a set number of meetings each week for both the individual's well-being and the well-being of others who live in the house."
In fact, they seem to like to think of Oxford House as a kind of endless AA meeting:
"In fact, Oxford House creates an environment whereby each member can more fully realize the benefits available from active AA or NA membership. A house full of sober, recovering alcoholics and drug addicts invites informal AA or NA "meetings after the meeting" and each day finds many informal AA or NA meetings before individual members each go off to their regular AA or NA meeting."
What's Going on at Pennsylvania DDAP?
NYS OASAS needs a similar investigation, because the situation is similar (my analysis of OASAS), because the rehab industry works in every state like this (disruptedphysician) to become entrenched in health systems and gain regulatory capture (disruptedphysician).
A series of articles by Ford Turner of the Reading Eagle exposed serious conflicts interests that are not unique to the employee, the department Secretary, the Department, or to Pennsylvania for that matter. This is happening nationwide and state workers need the freedom to speak out about it. It's disgusting to hear how much money these rehab industry people are making and the lengths they go to to hide the realities of addiction treatment from the public (which is what this blog is about). Here is a quick overview, with links to the articles:
"I spoke loud and clear while I worked within the department via the allowable channels. Any disgruntelment I had was expressed while I was a Bureau Director. Current employees for DDAP, however, are not permitted to speak to the press. I believe in full transparency in government, and I will answer any direct questions that are asked. Part of going out on my own was to have the true freedom to speak my mind." -Ex-state employee responding to comment about 'sour grapes'
– Top state lawmaker commends Gov. Wolf's dismissal of drug chief (Reading Eagle)
"In an email to the Reading Eagle's top management shortly after the story was published, the chairman of the board of a large and influential member of DASPOP in Berks County attacked the story and said it "could lead some to surmise a suggested scandal in the government or treatment field."
The latest federal filings of financial information by nonprofit members of DASPOP show that their three highest-paid leaders receive compensation packages of $4,760,306, $1,015,577, and $736,244." – Pennsylvania Secretary of Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs loses his job (Reading Eagle)
This follows up on investigative work from October 2015 on the connection between Caron Treatment and DASPOP: On drug abuse policy, one group wields enormous clout but is shrouded in mystery (Reading Eagle)
"The concern is whether the state agency has in some sense been captured by the substance abuse (treatment) industry as represented by this lobbyist or trade association," Clark said. "It is a situation in which that agency is at risk of being dominated by the industry."
"Reactions from four professionals told of the agency-lobbyist interaction varied from surprise, to disbelief that such a scenario might not violate laws, to outrage.
"This is just so wrong, I think, in so many ways," said Sen. Mike Folmer, a Lebanon County Republican whose district used to include part of Berks County. "A lobbyist should not be interviewing prospective state employees. It opens the door for corruption, whether it is intended or unintended." – Ex-state employee says she interviewed with a lobbyist (Reading Eagle)
State lawmaker criticizes Wolf's plan to merge agencies (Reading Eagle)
Feb 2, 2017 – Pennsylvania drug treatment program uses 'archaic practices,' 2 ex-state employees say (Reading Eagle)
Department of Drug and Alcohol Prorgrams recognized support options (all 12-step…DDAP website).
Alcoholics Anonymous, Destructive Cults, Fraud / Malpractice, Government / Law, Junk Science, Social Work Ethics
Deceased Patient Records – HIPAA Concerns and Rights for Substance Abuse Treatment
January 31, 2017 tgleason	Leave a comment
I am sure many parents whose children have died after drug rehab become curious to know what exactly happened. I am concerned that dissent in rehab is not being correctly documented, perhaps even censored. I know this is possible because I have unsuccessfully attempted to get my complaints amended to my therapy records from Samaritan Counseling Center of the Capital Region (which is a HIPAA right). These included detailed accounts of my own experience which did not necessarily put all the professionals in a very positive light. Instead, I found that without these complaints, it looks like I was no more than tragically non-compliant and personality disordered due to 'untreated alcoholism'. The two letters he sent me was the one telling me I could resume therapy if I went to 12-step programs, and the termination letter saying that I was no longer under any circumstances to contact anyone at Samaritan because I hand-delivered my complaint.
"Q: Is access to a deceased person's psychiatric or substance abuse records treated any differently than access to other medical records?
A: HIPAA governs most healthcare providers and the records they keep; however, a different federal law governs many substance abuse programs (42 CFR Part 2). A substance abuse program can be covered under one, both, or neither regulation, depending on how it is funded."
"In your complaint, you allege that on or about July 18, 2015, the Center denied your request that your medical records be amended to include complaints, the content of which are available on your online blog"
Accessing Deceased Patient Records—FAQ


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Q: PHP script to extract specific href links
Possible Duplicate:
Grabbing the href attribute of an A element

I would like to make a php script that extracts all the href links from a webpage (mine) but only links with "/view/" in their string.
http://www.example.com/roger/that => not extracted
http://www.example.com/roger/view/that => extracted
And if possible all the links would be set in an array
So basically the script would be in my admin section and I would run it to get all the links containing the specific string '/view/'  in an array to use later in another script.
I've done my research and found this script but can't modify it to only include the specific links (with "/view/")
I know you guys are not my slaves so even if you have any tips for modifying the existing script I would be happy !
My script
http://pastebin.com/gYf9DZ8i
Thanks !

A: Fetch the page contents using file_get_contents.
$input = file_get_contents("http://www.yourpage.php");

Then do a preg_match to extract the set of links you want.
Regex:    /\<a href(.*?\/view\/.*?)<\/a>/
$pattern = '/\<a href(.*?\/view\/.*?)<\/a>/';
preg_match_all($pattern, $input, $matches);
print_r($matches);

(Example)

A: You just need to change this:
preg_match_all ("/a[\s]+[^>]*?href[\s]?=[\s\"\']+".
                "(.*?)[\"\']+.*?>"."([^<]+|.*?)?<\/a>/",
                $var, &$matches);

into this
preg_match_all ("/<a.*href=\"([^\"]*\/view\/[^"]*)\"/", $var, &$matches);

A: $var = file_get_contents("http://www.entendu.info");

preg_match_all ("/<a\s+[^>]*?\bhref\s*=\s*([\'\"])(?=[^\'\"]*\/view\/)(.*?)[\'\"]/",
  $var, &$matches);

$matches = $matches[2];

foreach($matches as $var)
{
  print($var . "<br>\n");
}