text:
The Longstanding Crisis Facing Tribal Schools
A new lawsuit accuses the Bureau of Indian Education of repeatedly failing to improve the learning environment at Havasupai Elementary School.
By Alia Wong
Children walk between buildings at a BIE school in Arizona. A new lawsuit could affect BIE schools. (John Locher / AP )
Havasu Canyon is home to turquoise waterfalls, billowing cottonwood trees, and red sandstone cliffs that attract thousands of tourists each year. It's also home to the Havasupai people, a federally recognized Native American tribe allegedly subject to education conditions so dreadful it's as if many of the reservation's children don't attend school at all.
That's according to a lawsuit filed in Arizona's U.S. District Court on Thursday, which accuses the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)—the federal agency responsible for funding and overseeing tribal schools—of repeatedly failing to improve the learning environment at Havasupai Elementary School. Despite federal obligations to offer a diverse curriculum that incorporates the Havasupai culture and language, the suit contends, the school doesn't even teach subjects beyond reading and math. Extracurricular activities are nonexistent, as are special-education services—even though roughly half of the school's 70 students have special needs. Students are repeatedly suspended or referred to law enforcement, with one of the plaintiffs attending class for just 20 percent of the school year when he was 8 years old. The school is so understaffed, according to the suit, that the school janitor occasionally fills in as a teacher. Sometimes it allegedly shuts down entirely.
The Subtle Evolution of Native American Education
Alia Wong
Math Is Personal
Jessica Nordell
"The conditions at the Havasupai School deny to these students fundamental access to education that children across the country simply take for granted," said Kathryn Eidmann, a staff attorney at the pro bono law firm Public Counsel and one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, during a phone call with reporters. "This institutional disregard communicates an unmistakable message: that the government believes these children are disposable, that their education is a responsibility that the government would rather wash its hands of." Students at Havasupai Elementary performed at the first percentile in reading and the third percentile in math, according to 2012-13 federal data cited in the complaint, meaning it placed last among the BIE's 183 schools.
It's unclear whether the allegations will be substantiated. Both Jeff Williamson, the principal of Havasupai Elementary and a defendant in the case, and a spokeswoman for the BIE, which falls under the U.S. Department of the Interior, declined to comment. Still, the lawsuit is likely to bring greater attention to problems that have dogged BIE schools across the country for decades—challenges the Obama administration has sought, but struggled, to address. Arne Duncan, the former U.S. education secretary, once described the BIE as "the epitome of broken" and "utterly bankrupt." Even the secretary of the interior, Sally Jewell, has acknowledged the bureau's shortcomings, calling Indian education "an embarrassment." In demanding that the BIE commit to providing a quality education to all its students, the case, according to Eidmann, wouldn't only be "a potential prototype for BIE schools all across the country"—it would also establish "a precedent that applies to students in every BIE school."
Federal law requires that the BIE provide education at least as good as that offered to non-Native students, but it's well-established that that's rarely the case. Graduation rates on reservations are among the lowest of all student subgroups—the graduation rate for Native American students broadly is just 69 percent. At BIE schools, it's 53 percent. Eight in 10 Native students are not proficient in reading, according to 2007 federal data cited in the complaint, and children at BIE schools perform significantly worse than their Native peers at regular public schools. "These issues that the children and the community of the Havasupai face are endemic to the BIE," Alexis DeLaCruz, a staff attorney at the Native American Disability Law Center and one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, said during the call. While the vast majority of Native American students attend traditional public schools, the BIE serves nearly 50,000 children. The BIE published a "Blueprint for Reform" in 2014, but change has been slow.
The alleged conditions described in the new complaint have long been the norm for the Havasupai community—and not because no one has pushed the BIE to change things, critics of the bureau say. Don Watahomigie, the chairman of the Havasupai Tribal Council, said on the call that the council has repeatedly approached the BIE to little avail. Laila R. (the suit does not include full last names), whose two sons attended Havasupai Elementary, said during the call that she's tried for years to improve conditions at the school, writing letters to bureau officials in Washington, D.C., and even suing the agency. "Nothing works," she said. Her sons fell so far behind, she continued, that she decided to move them out of the reservation.
Instruction aside, the lawsuit, in describing excessive and harsh discipline practices, hints at why so many Native Americans end up in the criminal-justice system. Frank C., the grandfather of one of the plaintiffs, said on the call that his 11-year-old grandson, who has special needs, was suspended and prosecuted in federal court simply for pulling wires out of a computer monitor.
Children who are disciplined in school are far more likely to end up in prison as adults; it goes without saying that being disciplined as a child via formal law enforcement has similarly deleterious, if not worse, effects. The alleged practices at Havasupai Elementary are, the suit contends, characteristic of those at tribal schools across the country. Indeed, a March 2014 U.S. Department of Education report found that Native Americans across the country are disciplined at disproportionate rates. Unsurprisingly, they're also incarcerated at a rate 38 percent higher than the national average.
The Havasupai Reservation lies at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It's so remote that one can only access it by hiking, or riding a horse, or helicoptering in; the village doesn't have any cars. But its remoteness, Watahomigie said, shouldn't be "used as a tool by BIE to ignore our educational demands or to turn a blind eye to our needs or to [justify] providing substandard educational services to our people."


Acclaimed has over 23 years experience on projects like yours, performed by highly experienced and trained technicians. We are NADCA and COR certified, carry $2,000,000 in liability insurance, have WCB coverage on all employees and never use "third party" contractors.
At Acclaimed! Heating, Cooling & Furnace Cleaning in Edmonton, we use state of the art equipment and practices. In addition to the finest PowerVac trucks, we use specialty cleaning tools inside your furnace air vents and air ducts. These include: brushes, rotors, and whips of many different configurations. We tailor our equipment and cleaning processes to the unique requirements of the heating and cooling systems in your building.
Though our primary focus is furnace cleaning, we also specialize in the cleaning of MUAs (Make Up Air) systems, RTUs (Roof Top Units), AHUs (Air Handling Units).
In addition to heating and cooling systems, many companies also utilize Acclaimed! for the cleaning of dryer vents (from the outside hood only, the back of the dryer only, or from both the outside hood and the back of the dryer), the replacement of hot water tanks, furnaces, and air conditioners, and general maintenance on these units.
The certified technicians at Acclaimed! use specialized equipment to thoroughly clean the entire vent duct exhaust line, from the dryer to the exterior exhaust vent hood, effectively removing lint buildup and allowing your dryer to operate at its peak efficiency. Customers experience the immediate benefits of reduced drying time, energy savings, and greatly reduced fire hazard . . . plus less wear and tear on your dryer itself.
For optimal air flow, sanitization, hazard reduction and performance of your appliances, we suggest that your furnace, ducts and dryer vent be cleaned annually.
Using state of the art equipment and techniques, Acclaimed! can transform your furnace and ductwork system. Don't let your HVAC system grow dirty, musty, and germ-laden. Allow our cleaning techniques to freshen the air improving the health of your building. The cleaning process depends on the size of the building. Request an on-site estimate today.
For your furnace air vents and air ducts, Acclaimed! uses the finest PowerVac trucks and various specialty tools. Brushes, rotors, and powerwhips are available in various configurations to accommodate your building size and shape. We prefer to use our PowerWhip and Rotor method which can match the unique requirements of your HVAC system.
Our PowerWhip and Rotor method uses a strong scrubbing of your entire duct system with latex whips and rotor. If you have gone a long time without duct cleaning or your building has experienced renovation work, our PowerWhip and Rotor method is recommended.
There are no extra charges for our dual zone hook-ups, deluxe hot water tank cleaning, or scrubbing of the main runs. However, all of our cleaning services do include a waste removal fee of $19.95.
Our certified technicians use specialized equipment to thoroughly clean the entire vent duct exhaust line, from the dryer to the exterior exhaust vent hood, eliminating fire hazards and increasing your dryer's efficiency.
In the United States, the Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that over 15,000 dryer related fires occur each year, causing an estimated 97 million dollars in property loss. At the same time, clogged dryer vent pipes cause your dryer to work harder and can greatly increase the time it takes to dry your clothes, thereby increasing energy costs.
We remove accumulated oil soot (unburned carbon and sulfur) from the walls and base of the chimney. This reduces corrosion and increases exhaust flow so that combustion and flue gases don't spill back into the building.
Furnace chimney cleaning is a keystone service for the safe and efficient operation of your HVAC system. It is performed to ensure proper exhaust of flue gases and prevent blockages in the furnace chimney. It allows for combustion that produces carbon monoxide to be properly vented.
In order to get the most value out of regular HVAC system maintenance, it is best to have the furnace chimney cleaned and serviced when a furnace cleaning and inspection is performed.
Most ducts can be clogged with excessive amounts of dust and debris and/or particles – as much as 40 lbs. can be accumulated in a year. These particles are continually cycled through the living space of your home through your supply registers.
Substantial mould growth can be hidden within ductwork and inside other components of your heating and cooling system.The debris accumulation within your ductwork can provide a perfect breeding ground for other indoor air contaminants such as bacteria, fungi and dust mites.
This can lead to significant respiratory issues for people who suffer from asthma or allergies.
Ductwork can also be infested with vermin, such as rodents and insects. It gives them an entry point to every room in your home. At times these critters die within the duct system and homeowners are left with a terrible stinky mess. We can help! We will first need to do a through duct cleaning of the duct system. One We can sanitize the full duct system with a fogging process. The sanitizing solution we use is 100% safe to use and to breathe, and is endorsed by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), ensuring it's safety.


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text:
#include <stdint.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <assert.h>
#include <iostream>

#include "sequencer.h"

//state to maintain sequence
static bool state = false;

Sequencer::Sequencer() {
    Init_();
}

Sequencer::~Sequencer() {
    Init_();
}

void Sequencer::Init_() {
    memset(sequence_, 0, sizeof(sequence_));
    sequenceIdx_= 0;
    callback_ = NULL;
    callbackParams_ = NULL;
    callbackParamsLen_ = 0;
}

bool Sequencer::RegisterSequence(SequencerButtons_t *seq, uint8_t numElem, SequencerCb_Fn cb,
                                 uint8_t *params, uint32_t paramsLen) {
    // XXX IMPLEMENT ME - see sequencer.h for description
    // 1) Ensure input is correct
    // 2) Register the sequence for detection

    bool registered = false;

    if(numElem && (numElem <= NELEM(sequence_))) {

        memcpy(sequence_, seq, sizeof(sequence_));
        sequenceNumElem_ = numElem;
        callback_ = cb;
        callbackParams_ = params;
        callbackParamsLen_ = paramsLen;
        state = false;
        sequenceIdx_ = 0;
        registered = true;
    }
    else {
        std::cout << "Invalid sequence of len " <<  unsigned(numElem) << std::endl;
    }
    return registered;
}

void Sequencer::UnregisterSequence() {
    // XXX IMPLEMENT ME - see sequencer.h for description
    Init_();
}

void Sequencer::AddEvent(SequencerButtons_t event) {
    // XXX IMPLEMENT ME - see sequencer.h
    // 1) Check the base case
    // 2) Check events if they match the seqeuence.

    if(event == (sequence_ [sequenceIdx_])){
        sequenceIdx_ += 1;
        if(sequenceNumElem_ == sequenceIdx_){
            callback_(callbackParams_,callbackParamsLen_);

            std::cout << "Sequence Complete!" << std::endl;
        }
        state = true;
    } else if (state == true){
        sequenceIdx_ = 0;       //seqeuence progress is broken so reset the sequence
    }
}

/// @}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


You can pre-order the physical CD or mp3 version NOW.
Threatening smoke, odd beings and glorified body parts, create dark poetry in this twisted, visual representation of OSI's melancholic tune.
The first option includes a double LP set of the self-titled album with exclusive artwork, etched into 180g black virgin vinyl in gatefold jacket. You'll also get a digital download of high quality FLAC files of the album and a tasty 24″ x 36″ fold-out poster of exclusive artwork.
They also have a DVD/Blu-ray version… things take a step up with this package. You get all the contents of the Collector's Edition Double-LP Set (above), plus a digital download of the album the day BEFORE release, 5.1 audio mix of the album, two exclusive demo tracks and five instrumentals, and the full album on CD – all in a package containing over 2.5 hours of music!
You can click here to pre-order these packages now.
Click here to find Storm Corrosion on Facebook.
Fire Make Thunder marks the fourth undertaking for the collaborative duo known as OSI. Formed in 2002 by Jim Matheos (Fates Warning, Arch/Matheos) and Kevin Moore (Chroma Key, former Dream Theater keyboardist), OSI is a long distance partnership, both musicians typically writing and recording alone and sending song ideas back and forth for further elaboration. Written and recorded throughout most of 2011, this latest release once again reflects the eclectic influences of both Matheos and Moore.
Fire Make Thunder is slated for a March 27th release via Metal Blade Records. Today OSI unveils the artwork and the tracklisting for their fourth release.
Additionally, OSI has released an exclusive audio medley from Fire Make Thunder, which features audio samples from the upcoming release. The medley as well as pre-order opportunities can be accessed HERE (Pacificlectic NOTE: they have the CD for a really great price or a shirt/CD combo). it's also available for pre-order on Amazon.
Returning as the band's session drummer is Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree, this time co-writing one of the tracks with the band. All other instruments and programming were performed by both Matheos and Moore, while vocals and lyrics were handled exclusively by Moore.
All of the recording for Fire Make Thunder, with the exception of drums, was done by Moore and Matheos at each musician's respective home studio with drums being recorded at Harrison's home in London. Final overdubs as well as some additional writing/arranging was completed in July 2011 in Jamaica, Iowa, where the band mixed alongside engineer Matt Sepanic at Sound Farm Studio and Recording Environment. Mastering was handled by renowned engineer Roger Siebel. The record was produced by both Moore and Matheos.
We reached out to OSI for comments on the album. Our calls have not been returned.
@Jonopuppy There are plans in the works for a limited vinyl release in Europe. Don't know the release date yet though.
And another new Lasse Hoile video from Steven Wilson's impending 2nd solo album, Grace for Drowning. Behold, "Remainder the Black Dog"… another dark, visual mindf*ck from Lasse Hoile with a Dream Theater-esque fuzzy guitar and keyboard solo.
Grace for Drowning is out September 27th. Pre-order now on Amazon. Check out the video for "Index" over HERE and "Track One" over HERE.
Grace for Drowning is out September 27th. Pre-order now on Amazon. Check out the video for "Track One" over HERE.


text:
HBO Just Dropped the First Trailer for Its 'Game of Thrones' Prequel 'House of the Dragon'
The new series is set 300 years before its predecessor, and explores the story of House Targaryen.
2021 isn't over just yet, and none of us have worked through all the new shows currently sitting in our streaming queues. Still, 2022 is already shaping up to be a huge year in television. Stranger Things will finally return, for instance, and The Crown will also unleash its new cast. Oh, and HBO will debut a little prequel to one of its biggest hits ever.
Given how successful Game of Thrones proved for HBO — even after its eighth and final season caused plenty of uproar — the on-screen world inspired by George RR Martin's books was never going to simply disappear. Indeed, before GoT even finished, there was chatter about what would come next, with the network first announcing that it was considering five different prequel ideas. It then green-lit one to pilot stage, scrapped it and later decided to adapt Martin's House Targaryen-focused Fire & Blood for the small screen as a show called House of the Dragon. Next, it opted to give novella series Tales of Dunk and Egg the TV treatment, too, and to work on an animated GoT show. And, it's been reported that another three prequels are also under consideration.
Of course, all of the above announcements have been happening for so long that it's easy to forget that new GoT-related fare will eventually grace the small screen — starting next year. Although an exact premiere date hasn't yet been announced, we won't merely be talking about House of the Dragon in 2022. We'll also be watching its ten-episode first season.
And, thanks to the just-dropped teaser trailer for the series, we can get a glimpse of what's in store right now. HBO released a few images from the show earlier this year, but now they've gone one better. Yes, dragons are mentioned. Yes, everyone looks suitably broody. Yes, the Iron Throne shows up, because of course it does.
While the trailer really is just a teaser, viewers can expect to spend more time with flame-breathing scaly creatures and the family that adores them when House of the Dragon arrives in 2022. If you thought the Targaryens were chaotic already, delving into their history — and their love of using dragons to wage wars and claim power — is certain to cement that idea. We all know what happened to the last surviving members of the family in GoT, including Daenerys and her boyfriend/nephew Jon Snow; however, House of the Dragon, like Fire & Blood, jumps back 300 years earlier.
Cast- and character-wise, House of the Dragon stars Emma D'Arcy (Misbehaviour) as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, the first-born child of King Viserys; Matt Smith (His House) as Prince Daemon Targaryen, the King's brother; Rhys Ifans (Official Secrets) as Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King; Olivia Cooke (Pixie) as Alicent Hightower, Otto's daughter; and Steve Toussaint (It's a Sin) as Lord Corlys Velaryon, aka 'The Sea Snake', a nautical adventurer from a Valyrian bloodline as old as House Targaryen.
These Westerosi folk will all grace a tale that harks back to Aegon I Targaryen's conquest of the Seven Kingdoms — which is what started the hefty 738-page first volume in Fire & Blood's planned two-book series — and then works through the family's history from there. Aegon I created the Iron Throne, hence the returning favourite's prominence. And you don't have to be the Three-Eyed Raven to know that this tale involves plenty of GoT's staples: fighting, battles for supremacy and bloodshed.
Also set to pop up on-camera: Paddy Considine (The Third Day) as King Viserys, Eve Best (Nurse Jackie) as Princess Rhaenys Velaryon and Sonoya Mizuno (Devs) as Mysaria, Prince Daemon's paramour.
Behind the scenes, Miguel Sapochnik and Ryan Condal are acting as the series' showrunners. Sapochnik has a hefty GoT history, winning an Emmy and a Directors Guild Award for directing 'Battle of The Bastards', helming season eight's 'The Long Night', and doing the same on four other episodes. As for Condal, he co-created and oversaw recent sci-fi series Colony, and co-wrote the screenplay for the 2018 film Rampage.
Check out the first teaser trailer below:
House of the Dragon is due to start airing sometime in 2022 — we'll update you with further details when they're announced.
Images: Ollie Upton/HBO.
Published on October 06, 2021 by Sarah Ward
Lunar New Year Comedy Festival 2023

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Step-by-Step Travel Guide to CLARK
Also known as The Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone, Clark is an area in Central Luzon that covers the provinces of Pampanga and Tarlac. Part of it is Angeles City, Mabalacat City, and Porac in Pambanga and Capas and Bamban in Tarlac. It is divided into two zones: the
Step-by-Step Travel Guide to SAGADA
Sagada is a fifth-class municipality in the Mountain Province. It is a small, moderately developed village at the heart of the Cordillera with only 11,000 residents (based on the 2015 census). It has grown popular with tourists over the years as tours became more organized and it became more easily
Step-by-Step Travel Guide to LA UNION
La Union is one of the popular beach destinations in the Philippines. Located in Ilocos Region, it is also a known surfing spot and is dubbed as "the Surfing Capital of Northern Luzon". Only five to seven hours away from Manila, it is one of the most easily accessible surfing
Step-by-Step Travel Guide to BAGUIO
Dubbed as the Summer Capital of the Philippines, Baguio is one of the destinations in the country frequented by tourists because of its cooler climate. Its cool temperature is attributed to its location which is 1,540 meters above sea level in Luzon's tropical pine forests ecoregion. It is the reason
The Philippines may look pretty small on the world map, but when it comes to stunning beaches, it is a powerhouse. An archipelago of 7641 islands, the Philippines has over 36,000 kilometers of coastline! On the list of countries with the longest shorelines, it places sixth in the world. But
Words: Mariah Cruz
Rizal is a popular destination because of the many things the province has to offer. It is also an accessible destination whether you go by private or public transportation. One of the reasons Rizal is famous is the mountains one can climb. Some of these are beginner-friendly, which make them
7 Tourist Spots for Your ANTIPOLO ITINERARY
Antipolo is a first-class city and capital of Rizal. The city has a history that spans a handful of centuries. It has undergone a transformation from when missionaries formed a parish in the 16th century into a city home to hundreds of thousands of people.
Many go camping to experience nature and get away from the city's frenetic pace and concrete jungle. However, not everyone can rough it out with no clean toilet, a comfortable bed to sleep in and other comforts of home. For those who don't want the typical camping experience, they can
4 Helpful Travel Planning Tips for Your Next Getaway
One of the most intimidating parts of traveling abroad is getting around. It's often a challenge trying to use the public transportation, especially if a language barrier exists. There is always that risk of getting lost or confused. Thankfully, over the past few years, navigating has become less and less
Words: Yoshke Dimen


'T is the season for gift giving and lounging. The temperatures are dropping and we've found a red leaf heavyweight flannel by Wallace & Barnes along with a Yeti sweater too!!! There's plenty of rain and some snow. Very few other holidays call for pajama pictures and days of loungewear together with extended weekends and days off with family and friends. First up, is to get the guys in our life ready for some of this rest and relaxation in style. Dusang Exchange's holiday men's loungewear gift guide is the perfect place to start your search!
There are so many loungewear options for men to keep them warm, comfortable AND in style for the upcoming holidays. S'more the Merrier and a Yeti sweater! While there are just as many accessories that would make perfect AND unique gifts. This Baxter signature set comes pre-wrapped camo box. All of these and more featured on our holiday 2017 men's loungewear gift guide.
The list begins with the staple layer in men's loungewear of tees and henley. The S'More the merrier is a fun graphic tee. A heavy weight flannel doubles as a winter jacket. In addition to tops, there's coordinating bottoms in options from flannel pajamas to sweatpants. Next, keeping our guys feet warm is easy with thick socks or mocs. In addition, boxers and shower essentials are not to be forgetten on the men's loungewear gift guide list. Finally, a robe or a heavy weight flannel to throw on for an extra layer to keep warm. As for a few unique gifts in this category. A book on Italy and Bose bluetooth portable speaker would be extra special for our guys.
Happy holiday shopping for your guys and make sure to check back for more gift guides and selections on our Holiday Shop!
Affiliate links in post allow Dusang Exchange to receive a commission at no additional cost to you.


text:
A broad range of leftist media projects committed to democracy and transparency have flourished in recent years.
By Bécquer Seguín and Sebastiaan Faber The Nation September 15, 2015
Ignacio Escolar, founding editor of Público and founder of eldiario.es, is interviewed in 2009. (Enrique Dans, CC BY 2.0)
"The great problem of the Spanish press is the truth," a Peruvian colleague once told Alfonso Armada, a former El País correspondent in New York who currently works for the conservative newspaper ABC. Armada can't help but agree. "The press routinely twists the facts to fit the venue's ideology," he says. "The media themselves have helped spread the notion that there are no indisputable facts, just partial views of reality. As a result, what has taken root is the idea that, just like politicians, all media outlets lie." An increasing number of Spaniards these days are thirsty for political news—but they don't trust their journalists to deliver honest reporting. Journalism is the second-least-respected profession, right behind being a judge. And according to the latest Reuters Digital News Report, the Spanish media have the lowest credibility in Europe.
In fact, Spaniards distrust their journalists almost as much as their politicians. Mounting electoral discontent, however, has been shifting the country's political map. New parties like Podemos ("We Can"), Ciudadanos ("Citizens"), and broad progressive citizens' platforms are challenging the longstanding two-party dominance by the conservative Partido Popular (PP) and the center-left Socialist Party (PSOE). In regional elections this May, the two big parties lost more than 3 million votes. And in the local elections, also held in May, Barcelona and Madrid elected leftist women mayors who couldn't be further from the political class. The political crisis—as well as the growing public mistrust of the media—mounted in the wake of the Great Recession, and both have spurred significant change in Spain's public sphere.
On the face of it, Spain's media landscape is broad and diverse. The country's 47 million readers have some 85 newspapers to choose from. Leaving aside the sports papers, the largest of the country's six major national dailies is El País, with a print run of 360,000 and some 1.9 million readers per day, closely followed by the free sheet 20 Minutos (reaching 1.7 million) and El Mundo (1.2 million). The center-left El País, closely associated with the Socialist Party, was long considered the paper of record in Spain but has seen a decline in readers, resources, and reputation. El Mundo, the main voice on the free-market right, as opposed to the traditionalist, Catholic right, has been struggling, too, and even fired its legendary founding editor, Pedro Ramírez, last winter. The television supply is equally broad. A wide swath of commercial networks exists alongside publicly funded channels, both national and regional, with the commercial channels commanding about 80 percent of the market.
But this apparent variety of options is deceptive. The vast majority of the market is in the hands of some ten media conglomerates. The PRISA group, which publishes El País and its global editions in Spanish, English, and Portuguese, owns a stable of magazines, TV and radio networks, production companies, and, until last year, a massive publishing arm reaching across the Americas. The Vocento group holds 14 dailies, including the national ABC. The Planeta group, the world's largest Spanish-language publisher, has a major stake in television and owns the conservative paper La Razón. While many of the conglomerates started out as family businesses, they are now controlled by transnational corporations or a handful of powerful financial institutions.
Over the past decade and a half, dwindling advertising revenue has put these corporations under heavy pressure. The Great Recession led to spiking debts. Massive layoffs satisfied shareholders' desire for short-term profits. Meanwhile, the astronomical compensation packages for CEOs went untouched. In 2013, El País laid off 129 employees and cut salaries by 8 percent, but PRISA executive José Luis Cebrián took home more than $2 million that year. As journalist Gregorio Morán has pointed out, much of the current media leadership hails from the same elite bourgeoisie that flourished under the Franco regime.
"The difference between the highest- and lowest-paid employees at the traditional papers is outrageous." —journalist Berta del Río
What's left of slimmed-down newsrooms subsist on an army of underpaid freelancers and interns. "The difference between the highest- and lowest-paid employees at the traditional papers is outrageous," says young journalist Berta del Río. At major online papers today, she says, freelancers are paid between $35 and $45 for a piece of reporting, photography included. "Some don't pay anything at all. If they do, it's 90 days later." Moreover, she says, journalists are expected to produce six or seven stories per week, all while keeping up with social media. This leaves little time for research or fact checking.
The conglomerates' debt problem has directly curbed reporter freedom, says veteran journalist Guillem Martínez, who writes for El País in Catalonia. "Since the 2008 crisis, the banks have converted the media's debt into company shares," he says. "They have become the owners and exercise their role in 19th-century style." Sometimes this means stories are suppressed. On January 8 of this year, Martínez recalls, Banco Santander suspended trading on the American stock market. "The news was simply not reported in the Spanish press," he says. Other times, banks have wielded their power in the newsroom. Martínez remembers an instance in 2013 when a banking executive called up an editor and told him to fire a journalist who was tweeting critically about the bank. "I have worked for outlets where I've been told not to mention anything bad about a certain company or about such and such politician," says Mar Cabra, who now works from Madrid for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). "It was seen as normal. Some companies or some political parties were just taboo because of the media's affinity with them or because they were a big advertiser."
The indignados' takeover of the streets in May 2011 was meant to denounce not only Spain's lack of democracy, but also the media's failure to hold political and economic elites accountable to the interests of citizens. "The media in post-Franco Spain look like the very system in which they've flourished: a democracy with authoritarian tendencies in which citizen participation is reduced to a minimum," says journalist Trinidad Deiros. "Politics and journalism have been two elitist, unassailable towers connected with each other while completely ignoring the average Spaniard."
Nowhere is this connection clearer than in Spain's state-owned outlets. Unlike in other European countries, many Spanish citizens see their country's public television, radio, and news services as mere mouthpieces for the national and regional governments. And political interference is not limited to state channels. Taxpayers' money reaches the corporate media as well. "There are clear grounds to suspect that the national and regional governments play favorites when it comes to advertising contracts, licensing, and subsidies," adds David Cabo from Civio, a nonprofit pushing for transparency and open access to public data.
The new Citizen Security Law "throws us back to the times of the Franco dictatorship." —Miguel Mora, Contexto
Efforts like Civio's confront a political class that's not ready to give up control. Determined to clip the media's wings, the PP government has used its absolute majority in Parliament to pass the controversial new Citizen Security Law, known colloquially in Spain as the ley mordaza ("gag law"). The law, which took effect on July 1, not only limits citizens' right to protest—in person or in writing, in print or online—but also curbs the media's ability to cover those protests. Former El País reporter Miguel Mora wrote in the Italian magazine Internazionale that it "contains 44 articles that grant the government the power to fine citizens between 100 and 600,000 euros for three types of administrative infractions." The law's purpose, he added, is to elude the judicial system for the sake of expediency. "In effect this throws us back to the times of the Franco dictatorship, to a full-fledged police state," he concluded. The ley mordaza sparked protest from entities as diverse as the United Nations, the International Press Institute, and The New York Times.
Despite government hostility and the economic crisis, a broad range of new, leftist media projects committed to democracy, transparency, and ethics have flourished over the past few years. Many of the new progressive outlets trace their origins to the newspaper Público. Founded in 2007, Público presented perhaps the first real challenge to El País's hegemony over left-of-center media. The paper made a name for itself by breaking the taboo on airing the monarchy's dirty laundry and harshly criticizing a deficit-reduction amendment to Spain's Constitution meant to appease international markets. But in 2012, Público was gutted by its corporate owner, which shut down the paper's print edition and decimated its newsroom. Público's disappearance "worried many of us," says Miguel Urbán, who before joining the European Parliament for Podemos sat on the editorial board of the leftist magazine Viento Sur. "It was the first daily in a long time with a leftist editorial line—a gap left orphaned when El País abandoned it."
But what could have been a disaster served instead as a wake-up call. As the print edition disappeared and 85 percent of the staff lost their jobs, a number ofPúblico's editors went on to found innovative, independent media projects that were determined to sidestep corporate blackmail and shareholder strangleholds.
Leading the pack is eldiario.es, an online paper launched three years ago byPúblico's founding editor, Ignacio Escolar. Eldiario.es has quickly become one of the country's most-read originally digital news venues, second only to El Confidencial, which was founded 14 years ago. And, remarkably, it's turning a profit. Unlike other online newspapers, eldiario.es has nearly 12,000 paying subscribers, who for a little over $5 a month receive early access to content. It still relies on ads as its main source of income. (Committed to transparency, the paper publishes a yearly summary of its accounts.) "Ignacio has done what few others have been able to," says Berta del Río, a former Público reporter. "He's built a strong management team that he can delegate to. His editors run a tight ship, leaving him time to be the paper's public face on radio and television. He's really thought this through, no doubt with help from his father." Escolar is the son of journalist Arsenio Escolar, who runs the free paper 20 Minutos, the second-most-read newspaper in the country.
"Information comes at a price: either the readers pay, or the large corporations will." —Manuel Rico, InfoLibre
Eldiario.es is only one of a large number of progressive startups that are rejuvenating Spain's media landscape. In 2013 two other former Público editors launched InfoLibre, which specializes in investigative reporting and runs only a handful of stories per day. Associated with Mediapart, a French online news site, it subsists solely on subscription fees. "We maintain that information comes at a price," says InfoLibre director Manuel Rico. "And there are only two options: either the readers pay, or the large corporations will." "The staggering loss of politicians' and journalists' credibility has been lethal," Rico's fellow director Jesús Maraña said in a speech this summer. "We try to win it back, day by day, by showing that it is possible to practice rigorous journalism without depending on other interests than those of the readers."
Older generations of journalists are pushing for change as well. In January 2015, fourteen experienced reporters from major papers used their own money and crowdfunding to launch Contexto magazine (ctxt.es). Led by Miguel Mora, a former El País correspondent in Paris who quit his job in protest over a round of layoffs, Contexto pledges to deliver first-hand, on-the-ground reporting, and looks to cultivate long-form journalism in a Spanish media landscape that overwhelmingly publishes op-eds and short news items. With a clean layout, a blend of illustration and photography, and a focus on well-researched pieces,Contexto invites comparisons with the websites of major US magazines, setting it far afield from most other publications in Spain. "Our approach is minimalist and tries to respect the basic norms of classic journalism," says Mora. "The big challenge is finding stable sponsors that are willing to associate their brand with ours and respect our ethical code: no branded content, no opaque or aggressive advertising, respect for diversity of information and fundamental rights."
Like Público in its heyday, these new venues have risen to prominence with major scoops—often related to political corruption—and a willingness to break taboos while opening up their opinion pages to vigorous debate. In October, eldiario.es defied the courts by publishing leaked personal e-mails of Miguel Blesa, a bank executive who had provided politicians with lavish private expense accounts. InfoLibre ran a series of stories this summer that showed how the PP, PSOE, and United Left (the latter a political coalition helmed by the Spanish Communist Party) had received millions of euros from the same bank.
But securing a space for the left in print and online journalism isn't enough, says Urbán, the European Parliament member for Podemos. The indispensable medium to reach the majority of the population, he says, is television. "Here the left still has a lot to learn and a lot of terrain to conquer. Spanish television offers no space designed to satisfy citizens' right to information as a public service. Not even on the public channels, which are crudely controlled by the government." Still, on this front there is movement, too. Contratiempo, a radio show run by a historians' collective, arose from "the need to address the past from a space outside of the academy," says founding member Noelia Adánez. Adánez also collaborates on La Tuerka, one of a number of online television shows created by the academics and activists who would later go on to found Podemos. It features in-depth interviews and sophisticated political panel discussions.
For parties such as Podemos and the citizens' platforms that now govern the cities of Madrid and Barcelona, an independent progressive media is a key part of strengthening democracy. This means liberating the media from their corporate and political straitjackets. Recalling that the Spanish Constitution protects citizens' right to truthful information, Podemos has included media reform in its program. But good will and new regulations will not be enough, says Trinidad Deiros. Journalists will have to change the way they operate. This cultural shift will take time. "A lot of work remains to be done," she says, "for example concerning the press's traditional machismo. The glass ceiling has yet to be broken." Berta del Río agrees. "Journalism and politics are men's worlds in which women are just trying to survive," she says. And journalists will have to change the way elected officials operate, too. Unlike in the United States or Britain, says Deiros, Spanish politicians "would never stand for a journalist asking the same question forty times until it's answered." "But that's our own fault," she says. "We journalists have been too docile. Then again, our awful working conditions obviously don't encourage us to rebel."
The national elections in December will bring scores of new citizen politicians into Parliament. How will the new Spanish media relate to this different brand of elected officials? Ariel Jerez, a member of Podemos's Citizen's Council, thinks the country's journalists have a long way to go. "Even in the new media, there is no awareness, much less a proper diagnosis, of the legacy of serious structural problems that have yet to be addressed." Journalist Deiros returns the skepticism. "Will a government run by Podemos or a broad citizens' front have a greater respect for media independence? I can't say I'm too optimistic," she says. "Of course anything would be better than the freedom-killing government we now have to endure. But the problems are too ingrained to change overnight. It will take years for us to lose our terrible fear of free and truthful information."
GET A FREE PDF COPY OF [The Nation's] 150TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE. SIGN UP
By Rise Up TimesPublished On: September 16th, 2015Comments Off on  The Nation: The Spanish Media Are the Worst in Europe. These Upstarts Are Trying to Change That


The Walking Dead Season 4 Episode 6 ""Live Bait" airs November 17,2013 at 9 pm on the AMC.
Episode Synopsis: We flash back to shortly after the Governor's failed attack on the prison. After slaughtering his own people on the road, the Governor drives off with Martinez and Shumpert.
That night, the Governor sits catatonic by a campfire, barely taking note as a walker approaches. Martinez shoots the walker and looks disgustedly at the Governor.
The next morning, the Governor wakes to find that Martinez and Shumpert have abandoned him.
A bearded and disheveled Governor is passing through a town when he sees a young girl staring at him from an apartment window. He stumbles into the building and is confronted by two women wielding a bat and gun. He surrenders his own gun and bag.
Tara, one of the women, interrogates the Governor in their apartment. She threatens to kill him if he harms her family. Broken-spirited, he tells them his name is Brian Heriot – a name he saw spray-painted on a building during his travels – and that he only plans to stay one night.
Later, the Governor opens a can of tuna in his apartment. Lilly, Tara's sister, brings him a plate of canned pasta. He thanks her but later dumps the meal out the window and continues eating his tuna.
Meanwhile, Lilly's daughter Meghan plays backgammon with her grandfather David, who wears an oxygen tank. Tara finds the Governor leaving his dirty plate outside their door and orders him to wash it.
Afterwards, the Governor helps Lilly and Tara carry David to his bedroom. David reflects with the Governor on the importance of family, and asks him to retrieve a backgammon board from a neighbor's apartment in hopes that it will cheer Meghan up.
The Governor retrieves the backgammon board from the apartment and finds its occupant now a walker in the bathtub holding a revolver – the result of a failed suicide attempt. The Governor stabs it in the head, then pockets the gun.
The Governor returns and gives the backgammon set to David. Meghan smiles.
Alone in his apartment afterward, the Governor gazes at an old photo of himself, his wife and his daughter Penny.
The next morning, Lilly tries to return the Governor's gun to him. He tells her to keep it, explaining he found one in the neighbor's apartment. He also counsels her and Tara to kill walkers by aiming for the brain.Lilly requests one more favor: fetching oxygen tanks from a nearby nursing home to help David survive his stage-four lung cancer a little longer. "He's the only one who can put a smile on Meghan's face," she pleads.
The Governor goes to the nursing home and secures two oxygen tanks, narrowly escaping walkers on the way out.
Back at the apartment building, the Governor gives the tanks to Lilly and Tara. Lilly, a former nurse, dresses a cut on his forehead. While she goes to get ointment, Meghan chats with the Governor and asks about his eye patch. He explains that he got hurt trying to protect someone he loved.
Days later, a clean-shaven Governor teaches chess to Meghan in the living room. Nearby, Lilly and Tara sit vigil beside David in the bedroom. Lilly emerges with tears in her eyes: David is dead.
The Governor urges them to leave the bedroom but Lilly asks for a minute. As they mourn, David reanimates and grabs at Tara's head. To Meghan's horror, the Governor brutally bashes David's head with an oxygen tank.
Later, the Governor digs a grave outside and buries David. Back in the apartment, Tara thanks the Governor for saving her. But Meghan hides from him behind a chair.
In his apartment, the Governor burns his family photo, then tells Lilly that he's leaving. She insists that he take them along. He reluctantly agrees.
The Governor, Lilly, Tara and Meghan hit the road in the food truck that David operated. That night, the four of them sleep side-by-side. Lilly and the Governor lock eyes and kiss.The next morning, Tara tries to start the truck but it won't turn over. They abandon it and make their way down the road by foot. Tara sprains her ankle moments before the group encounters a herd of walkers. Meghan jumps into the Governor's arms and they flee into the forest.
The Governor and Meghan get separated from Lilly and Tara and fall into a man-made walker pit. The Governor kills the walkers inside and embraces Meghan. "I'm never going to let anything happen to you," he reassures her.
"Holy s—-," someone says from above the pit. The Governor looks up: It's Martinez.


As alternative to simple wire armatures, we introduce the Precast Flexible Armatures which are semi-finished figures known as Dollies that you may pose and use as the start of a new figure sculpture. These are just like pre-made human frame which will speed up the process of making your own miniature keeping the scale proportion consistently.
Sculpting armatures are all advantages specially for a novice sculptor, since they will help to get over problems with proportion and sizes. Dollies will save a lot of time during the building work that needs to be done with a wire armature. This armatures are considered "flexible" since they can be bent into a chosen pose to be worked on with sculpting putties to finish them off. They have lot of bending points along theis body to help on this task. An finally, as the latest innovation, they also have spikes in their feet to help when fixing them in the sculpting corks.
Take into account that they tolerate bending, but extreme bending might break them.
* These armatures contain LEAD and other metals to varying degrees and are not suitable for Children under 15 years of age. You should wear gloves to manipulate them.


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More From On the Shoulders of Giants
Explore This Series
How Mentorship Can Be Life-Changing for People Living With HIV
B.R.J. O'Donnell
An Artist Whose Mentors Are Scientists
Elisha Brown
The Odyssey's Millennia-Old Model of Mentorship
From Girl Scout to Girl Scouts' CEO
Ted Cruz's Thesis Adviser on How He's Changed Since College
The senator and his mentor look back on the 25-plus years since they met at Princeton.
By Caroline Kitchener
Ted Cruz in conversation with Robert George, his thesis adviser at Princeton (Courtesy of Robert George)
In the four years since he made national headlines for his infamous marathon speech against Obamacare, Senator Ted Cruz has become a household name—first as an ambitious young senator, then as a presidential candidate.
But 25 years ago, Cruz was an undergraduate student at Princeton. When he wasn't winning debate championships or provoking the ire of his freshman-year roommate, he was getting to know one of the nation's leading conservative academics, the professor Robert George.
George was Cruz's constitutional-law professor and his thesis adviser. Cruz credits George with pushing him to not only think about the Constitution more deeply, but to constantly revisit his own beliefs. In the years since they were student and teacher, the two have stayed close. On the presidential campaign trail, Cruz regularly turned to George for advice.
For The Atlantic's series "On the Shoulders of Giants," I spoke with Cruz and George about their mentor-mentee relationship. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Caroline Kitchener: How is the Ted Cruz that you know today different from the Ted Cruz that you knew when he was a student?
Robert George: A 20-year-old man is not going to have the maturity of a 45-year-old man. I'm a wine guy. If you know anything about wine, you know a great red Bordeaux in the cask, before it's ever been put in the bottle. That wine isn't ready to drink yet. It's not going to have the nuance, the depth, the sophistication. But boy, 20 years down the line, that's when the payoff comes. It's similar here.
The young Ted was more of a libertarian—but so are most kids. Then they get older. And they realize, "Gee, libertarianism would be fine in a world of mature adults with high educations, who have their passions under control and aren't tempted to do things that will get them addicted to drugs." But that's not our world.
Kitchener: How important was it for you to find a like-minded, conservative thinker to look up to during college? Was it difficult?
Ted Cruz: If you were a person on the left, you had a multitude of mentors available on the faculty. If you were a conservative, you didn't have nearly as many. One year when I was a student, Robbie was on sabbatical. The visiting professor who filled in for him was also conservative, and Princeton gave him the same telephone extension as Robbie. He joked that the university figured, "Ah, we've got one conservative, just dial the same number, they'll tell you the same ridiculous right-wing theory, and then you can dismiss it."
Kitchener: You were already a well-respected professor by the time Senator Cruz arrived at Princeton. How did he manage to catch your attention?
George: Ted took a number of my classes. And once I had him in class, he stood out immediately.
Kitchener: How?
George: He was someone who was always pushing up against the conventional elites on campus. At institutions like Princeton, there are always a set of orthodoxies. Ted was never shy about expressing opposition to those orthodoxies.
I was also struck by how deeply Ted had thought about the Constitution. Even before I taught him, he had clearly gotten beyond secondary-source accounts of the document. He himself had read it through and studied its history. He was committed to the idea that the Constitution actually means what it says.
Kitchener: What was he like with other students?
George: He loved to argue. But he wasn't a bully. I've had kids come in knowing a lot more than the other students, and use that knowledge to bully others. Ted never did that.
Kitchener: Perhaps that's why he was on the debate team?
George: I actually tried to discourage Ted from doing debate. Debate is great for sharpening the mind, but I worry that really skilled debaters might internalize the idea that the point of discussion and debate is victory, rather than truth. In debate, if you encounter a compelling counterargument, you just try to find a way around it. But you should argue for truth, not for victory. Really good debaters run the risk of ignoring valid counterarguments, and Ted was a really good debater.
Kitchener: Senator Cruz, when you think back on your time at school with Professor George, what memory sticks out most?
Cruz: When Robbie returned my junior independent research paper, the front corner was folded over. He had written on the flap, "C+." And I remember holding the paper with white knuckles, and the abject terror of a 19-year-old who was convinced his whole life was over. And then I flipped the corner over, and he had written, "Just kidding, A." And I believe my response was, "Professor George, you are an evil, evil man."
George: We have had something of a teasing relationship from very early days. Ted obviously was an extremely good student. I'm pretty sure he very rarely got a grade lower than an A-. But I also knew he was very ambitious. I thought Ted needed to have the experience that other mere mortals have, of not being a success every time.
Kitchener: What sets Professor George apart from other mentors you've had?
Cruz: Professor George is scrupulously fair. He's not someone who is domineering with his beliefs; rather he engages in the Socratic method. And whatever your beliefs, he challenges them. He helps teach you how to think, which is really the ultimate task of the university. Like most Princeton students, I was young and not fully formed, and I needed to have my presuppositions challenged.
Kitchener: What happens when the two of you disagree on an issue?
George: Frederick the Great had a line he would always use when people would ask him about free speech. It went something like, "My people and I have an understanding—they say what they want, and I do what I want." Ted has an understanding with me. I'll say what I want, and he'll listen, but he'll do what he wants. I never ask anybody to do anything more than permit me to state my view and state my reasons for it—if those reasons are persuasive to them, great. If not, they're on their own.
Kitchener: Is that the guiding principle for your mentorship?
George: I am there to help shape my student's character, not just sharpen his intellect and analytical skills. Professors are supposed to do that, too, but that's not the whole picture. As a mentor, I've been given a trusteeship of my students' moral character, along with their intellectual ability.
Kitchener: What is your relationship with Professor George like now?
Cruz: He is someone whose counsel I value greatly, and we speak regularly. When I was running for Senate, Professor George wrote a Facebook post in support of my campaign, which I didn't expect. He is someone who I respect, and I would even say revere. So to have him write a post on Facebook, saying "my former student is running for Senate," saying he thought I would make a fine senator—that meant a great deal.
George: I endorsed him in the last presidential campaign—and not just because he was my student. I thought he would make a great president. I'm not surprised he didn't win the nomination though. He's very young, and the competition was very fierce, laying aside the guy who won.
Kitchener: Professor George, why do you devote so much of your time to mentorship?
George: When I'm working with students like Ted, I always think, "This is what my mentors in college and graduate school did for me." And since you're never going to be able to repay them in kind, you repay them by mentoring the next generation. I fantasize that someday people like Ted will be doing the same thing for young people. When they're 50, they'll meet some 19-year-old, and they'll pass along to them what was passed along through me.


I watched a documentary on The Great Jimmy V (click on link!) back in July and have been trying to live by a bit of his sage advice ever since: Everyday laugh, think, and cry. He cited that as a key to a happy life. Today I checked all three of those off while watching Silver Lining Playbook. Now, I need to give you some background on this movie. Not the actual movie, but my experience with it. I originally saw the movie whenever it came out. How many years ago was that? If I were to guess, I'd put it in 2012. I was rolling solo that day and went to sit down with my diet Coke and popcorn because, truth be told, we know I go for the DC and popcorn just as much as I go for the actual movie. Now before booty found seat, somehow my popcorn was spilled. Like completely gone, on the floor. An appropriate beginning to a movie titled silver lining. I sat back into my seat with feelings of both curiosity and excitement to watch this movie. I had heard a lot about it and knew the basic premise was right up my interest alley. I didn't have to wait long before something was happening in my feeling department- there was no beach entrance into the heart-wrenching drama. I instantly was engaged and attached. I watched for two hours as layers of complex crazy were piled one right on top of the other. Jennifer Lawrence repeatedly screamed out in disgust, "I don't give an eff," and each time she said it, I felt my guts being pushed further inside. Some of the crazy was so relatable. I left that movie angry. I was shocked by my own emotion. I drove our Range Rover at speeds that made me feel something. I only mention The Range because, let's be honest, the visual of me peeling out in the minivan just isn't the same, and visuals are important. So anyway, I'm mad for a couple of days. Like something deep inside was awakened. I felt I related all too well to the movie and I also felt it was completely unfair that on top of just dealing with life that we all also have to deal with crazy. Because if that movie proved one thing, it's that we all have a little bit of crazy coursing through our veins. I was disturbed. That disturbed feeling in regards to the movie has stayed with me ever since I saw it although the anger left. Fast forward to today when I decided to revisit all those disturbed feelings and see if I could figure them out a little better by watching it again while doing some housework. Or computer work. Or possibly none of the above. Whatever. First and foremost, let's take note of the amazing character casting. Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence? I mean, nailed it. Perfection perfection perfection.
Ok, now for the things that made a little more sense to me this time around. This time around every time our girl JLaw found herself in situations that left her yelling, "I don't give an eff", I recognized the lie, that she was screaming those words with the passion of a girl that felt exactly opposite of what she said. It was a girl sitting on so much feeling and so much caring than she knew what to do with and was therefore left to declare time and time again, that she didn't give an eff. Every time she said it, I heard her. And slowly I connected it: if there could have been a theme for my teenage years, it would have been I Don't Give an Eff. That may have been my catch phrase. I said, thought, and believed that more times than I can possibly count. I don't need to continue on in the explaining, in the connection, in the paralleling, of a troubled girl who had so much screaming going on inside that all she knew how to say and do was I don't give an eff. I believed JLaw's unmistakable passion, and this time I didn't believe her words and I heard and felt every single thing she wasn't able to say. I recognized her as me. That's a hard way to live, to have your words and feelings so at war with each other. And apparently I had forgotten what it feels like to live that way. But when those buried feelings resurfaced, I remembered and they did something drastic to me. I'm glad I've changed. And the next thing that was a game changer for me. She gets so mad at Pat (Bradley Cooper) for not only bringing a book into HER time slot, but a book that is riddled with negativity and sadness and as if the negativity and sadness alone weren't bad enough, it didn't even have a silver lining. IT DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A SILVER LINING. That's the name of the movie, how had I missed the significance of this line?!! And as I've been thinking about that line for the last couple hours, I really think that's what I missed overall the first time around, I think I missed the silver lining. The crap they dealt with, which make no mistake was absolute CRAP, wasn't for naught. No, I'm not stupid, I noticed the first time around that they fell in love, that damaged relationships were repaired, that wrongs were made right. Yes, I caught onto the silver linings the first time around. But I think I was so focused and disturbed by the mess in between that I couldn't even give the silver linings credit. The work it took to create those silver lining were too painful, too much work, just too hard for me to deal with. I don't do messy, I don't do crap, and I might be missing out on love and repaired relationships and wrongs made right and silver linings. It might be time to reconsider my relationship with crap and messy. I feel a lot better this time around. Some might call sitting around for 2 hours a waste but I call it therapy. Not to mention, I didn't even have to pay anyone $75/hour. Already recouping my loss due to a spilt Diet Coke and popcorn the first time around. Now if that's not a silver lining then I don't know what is.


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Q: prevent beeprint or prettyprint from ordering dict keys in alphabetical order Hello everyone, here is my pb:
Since i'm using python 3.9, 'm aware that dictionnary keys are displayed in the order of their input.
Still, i'd like the resulting dict to be "pretty" displayed.
Below is the original dict with the correct key order:
{'intitule_semestre': 'adapt', 'semaine_debut': 38, 'annee_debut': 2020, 'semaine_fin': 44, 'annee_fin': 2020, 'nb_semaines': 7, 'plage_semestre': 2020-09-14T00:00:00 - 2020-10-30T00:00:00}
And here's the pprint result (using pprint or beeprint):
{
'annee_debut': 2020,
'annee_fin': 2020,
'intitule_semestre': 'adapt',
'nb_semaines': 7,
'plage_semestre': 2020-09-14T00:00:00 - 2020-10-30T00:00:00
'semaine_debut': 38,
'semaine_fin': 44,
}
=> alphabetical order!!! Why is that?
How can I pretty print my dict with keeping the original order?
Thank for your help
Zemaf

A: Finally figured out how to work this out : by setting PrettyPrinter parameter "sort_dicts" to False  keys are ordered according to input order, not alphabetical order (sort_dicts=True by default)!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I've updated my Etsy shop with a ton of new prints, etchings, drawings, and paintings! I'll be adding more in the coming weeks, as well as offering some special sales these coming weekends, so stay tuned!
Philly Raw Artist's Holiday Rawk was awesome! Sold a couple paintings, met some cool artists.
Decided to film a dino drawing. Oil markers on USPS Labels.


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Human Bio-Diversity (HBD)
Paleoanthropology
Ancestral Primate Discovered in China
Thread: Ancestral Primate Discovered in China
Thursday, January 1st, 2004 #1
Putinism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...114469,00.html
Ancestral primate discovered
Tim Radford
Thursday January 1, 2004
The oldest ancestor of humankind found so far ate beetles, weighed little more than a box of matches, and lived in China 55 million years ago.
Xijun Ni of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing and two colleagues report in Nature today that they have unearthed the partial skull and jaws of the most primitive specimen yet of the mammalian line which gave rise to modern primates - a group which includes lemurs, loris, monkeys, apes and archbishops.
The discovery throws fresh light on primate evolution. Although humans - and their nearest relatives, the chimpanzees and gorillas - clearly emerged in Africa in the last 7 million years or so, the origins of the primate group have been less certain. Teeth and jaw fragments have turned up in Europe and North America, but the discovery of Teilhardina asiatica in the Hunan province of China, with an estimated age of 54.97m years, could change the story.
The first mammals coexisted with the dinosaurs more than 100m years ago but got their big chance when the dinosaurs disappeared in a cataclysmic event 65m years ago. From that point mammalian evolution became fairly rapid.
"It was once thought that primates originated in North America because that is where the earliest fossils were found initially, but we should be more open-minded," said Robert Martin of the Chicago Field Museum, writing in Nature. "We still do not know the area of origin of primate lineage that eventually led to humans, and this new find firmly brings Asia into the picture."
Ancestral Airs/ Ancestral Memory
By verdasmedley in forum Genealogy & Ancestry DNA
Last Post: Wednesday, October 14th, 2009, 10:05 PM
Breakthrough in Primate Cloning
By Boche in forum Research & Technology
Last Post: Thursday, November 15th, 2007, 10:36 PM
The Negro: A Primate-Like Social Behavior
By Noddy in forum Cultural & Linguistic Anthropology
Last Post: Monday, October 9th, 2006, 05:10 PM
Claws Out Over Claim China discovered America
By Thruthheim in forum Articles & Current Affairs
Last Post: Thursday, January 26th, 2006, 10:23 PM


IGT is selling its social casino known as "Double Down". Anyone who loves slots has likely played this game at least once. Double Down is being sold to DoubleU Games Affiliate essentially signing a deal permitting the affiliate to offer IGT slots on their social casino website. The social casino wants to expand their platform and include IGT games AND DoubleU Games…. Double the fun?
You'll never guess how much the social casino brand is currently worth…. A whopping $825 million! The sale should be taking place and finalised this month of May so long as approvals and paperwork go smoothly.
Comment your thoughts about this sale! Do you think it will improve the company's debt reduction? Are you more likely to play Double Down now that they will be featuring IGT slots?


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Q: What's the difference between InstallExecute and InstallFinalize actions in MSI? In official MSI documentation, InstallExecute standard action is documented as

The InstallExecuteAgain action runs a script containing all operations
  in the action sequence since either the start of the installation or
  the last InstallExecuteAgain action or the last InstallExecute action.

Surprisingly, the InstallFinalize action, that is queued just after InstallExecute in all MSI files i have seen, is documented exactly the same!

The InstallFinalize action runs a script that contains all operations
  in the action sequence since either the start of the installation or
  the execution of the InstallExecute or InstallExecuteAgain actions.

If i read documentation correctly, the script is actually and installation script. And it is executed only once. How it happens that two sequenced actions are documented to do exactly the same work to execute it and it is executed only once?

A: InstallExecute, InstallExecuteAgain, and InstallFinalize all execute the installation script. The difference is that InstallExecute and InstallExecuteAgain let the transaction continue. So you can essentially "interrupt" the installation, do something else, and then let the installation continue by calling InstallFinalize if you're done or InstallExecuteAgain if you need to interrupt again.


Mega fan Ace inspired a whole team and fan community when his wish came true to be a part of the Brisbane Lions' inner sanctum.
18-year-old Ace suffers from a condition called dystonia. He is completely reliant on his electric wheelchair and can only communicate through an electronic device.
None of this stopped him from motivating the Brisbane Lions footy team to win when he visited their pre-game training session.
Ace had the entire group in stitches with his funny wise cracks and inspired them with telling his story. It was a special moment for everyone when his favourite player Daniel Rich presented him with his very own Lions guernsey.
Coaching staff, players and the high performance team all gathered around Ace to share key insights with him and get to know this incredible young man.
The Lions coach then asked Ace's mum Raylene if they could have the honour of her and Ace doing the coin toss at the upcoming game. They also thanked her for everything she does for 'their main man Ace'.
In the team's pre game pep talk, the Lions coach inspired the players with quotes Ace made when he visited their training session. Coach said, "the team had to win for themselves but most of all they had to win for Ace".
"As the boys prepared for the game, they chanted his name, "ACE, ACE, ACE"."
The Lions dedicated their game to him and as a constant reminder during the match why they had to win, players wrote Ace's name on their strapping tape.
And it worked! The Lions won!
As the players ran out the back to sing their team song they each stopped to thank Ace for all his support. The crowd was on their feet cheering for Ace and even the coach came up to him and his family and said it was all because of him that they won.
There are 700 kids like Ace on a Wish Journey in Australia right now. We rely on the generosity of donors, volunteers and local communities to make it happen.


text:
NIH enables imaging in lifestyle interventions trial for Alzheimer's disease
Written by Joe Balintfy Joe Balintfy
Category: Health News Health News
Published: 02 August 2019 02 August 2019
Washington, DC - The National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded the University of California, Berkeley a grant to capture PET and MRI images of participants in the U.S. Protect Brain Health through lifestyle Intervention to Reduce risk (U.S. POINTER). The NIA grant is for the U.S. POINTER Neuroimaging Ancillary Study and is expected to total $47 million over five years pending availability of funds (NIH grant number R01AG062689).
The fish that didn't get away
Written by John Grimaldi John Grimaldi
Category: News News
Edina, Minnesota - A pair of boys will have a spectacular fish story to tell their classmates when they return to school. And, says the Association of Mature American Citizens, they'll have the video to prove that they indeed did catch a more than six-foot long sturgeon.
Vanuatu National Day
Written by State Department State Department
Washington, DC - Michael R. Pompeo: "On behalf of the United States of America, I extend my heartiest congratulations to the people of Vanuatu in celebration of your National Day on July 30.
Premium Foods USA, Inc., Recalls Siluriformes Products Produced Without Benefit of Import Inspection
Washington, DC - Premium Foods USA, Inc., a Woodside, N.Y. establishment and importer of record, is recalling approximately 76,025 pounds of various Siluriformes fish products that were not presented for import re-inspection into the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. Additionally, the products were imported from Bangladesh and Myanmar, countries ineligible to export Siluriformes fish product to the United States.
Garlic on broccoli – study suggests that unfamiliar scents can disrupt invasive pests
Written by University of Vermont via EurekAlert University of Vermont via EurekAlert
Sacramento, California - Agricultural insect pests seek out familiar scents to find their plant hosts. However, they can also be repelled by odors from other plant species.
Patient Recruiter Pleads Guilty in Multi-Million Dollar Tricare Fraud
Governor Newsom Announces Appointments


TI LaunchPad kits are supported by a wide offering of software development tools. From intuitive, easy-to-use tools like the Energia integrated development environment (IDE), to cloud-hosted coding environments like CCS Cloud, to full-blown IDEs like Code Composer Studio™ IDE, developers will find the right tool for individual needs.
Regardless of the programming style that you are comfortable with, many of the IDE options below can support it. Happy coding!
The microcontrollers featured on the various TI LaunchPad™ kits are supported by various software resources and coding styles. You're not locked into a specific coding style with any of the IDEs - rather, you can easily migrate from one to another and back, utilizing the advantages of each option.
Explore some of the coding styles below, from Energia for Arduino users, Peripheral Drivers & Baremetal, and TI-RTOS.
TI's new SimpleLink MCU portfolio sets a new standard for developers – a single software environment that delivers flexible hardware, software and tool options for your Internet of Things (IoT) applications. With 100% code reuse you are no longer limited to one MCU or one connectivity standard. A one-time investment with the SimpleLink software development kit (SDK) opens the door to create unlimited applications.
Many TI LaunchPad kits are supported by Energia, a fork of the Arduino/Wiring framework.
This language offers high software abstraction that provides easy APIs ideal for rapid prototyping.
TI LaunchPad kits and their featured microcontrollers can also be programmed using lower level C coding (bare metal). MCU software packages include everything you need when developing on a TI microcontroller.
Robust packages include: GUI-based peripheral configuration tools, driver libraries, and application specific libraries such as motor control or touchscreen. These are augmented with an extensive set of examples, and documentation.
Libraries can also be used to create RTOS drivers.
Energia is an intuitive IDE that is based on the popular & easy-to-use processing (processing.org) IDE. In addition to being a simple IDE, Energia is also supported by a robust framework of intuitive APIs that is based on Wiring. The Energia IDE also supports in-line C, assembly & Driver Library based code.
*Note that not all LaunchPad kits are supported by Energia.
Leverage the same IDE for editing, compiling & flashing code. Seam-less code compatibility between MSP430™, MSP432™, TM4C, CC3200 & other MCU devices.
Communicate with your LaunchPad kit serially.
Energia offers a bult-in serial monitor. The terminal enables bi-directional communication to your LaunchPad kit at various baud rates.
Get going with open source sample code.
The Energia IDE comes with a huge set of code examples baked in. Learn to toggle I/O, read ADC channels, send data via SPI/I2C & more.
Rapid prototype your next application with Energia's easy-to-use API set based on the Arduino & Wiring open source projects.
Take a look at the source code & if you're interested, contribute to the project! We'd be glad to have you.
Run multiple sketches in parallel.
Some Energia-enabled LaunchPad development kits are supported by Energia MT (Multi-tasking). Run multiple sketches in parallel!
CCS Cloud is a cloud-based IDE that enables code editing, compilation & flashing of your TI LaunchPad kit - all in a web browser! Get started immediately without the need for a lengthy download/install process.
CCS Cloud enables both Energia & traditional C-code programming styles & is available for many LaunchPad development kits.
Get up and running ASAP.
CCS Cloud offers a powerful & instant browser-based IDE for editing, compiling & flashing code to your LaunchPad kit.
Debug your code in the cloud! Set breakpoints, watch variables & step through your code & squash bugs in a web browser!
CCS Cloud has auto-completion to prevent typos & improve coding efficiency! You can also jump to definition of variables/APIs for easy project navigation.
Clean up your project view.
Selectively hide and display – "fold" – sections of code to clean up the view of your code. Expose code only as-needed.
See multiple files at once.
CCS Cloud makes it easy to click & drag files around for a customized view of your project. Drag around debug, console & serial monitor windows as-needed.
Revert back to previous versions easily.
CCS Cloud makes it easy to revert back to previous versions of your project. Auto-save is also available so that you never lose your work.
Have access to your projects everywhere.
CCS Cloud provides a cloud-hosted workspace for projects. Continue to develop no matter where you are - simply log in & pick up where you left off.
Import code from TI Resource Explorer into CCS Cloud to immediately view, modify & compile code examples.
You can download your CCS Cloud projects to your local machine enabling you to take those projects to offline IDEs.
CCS Cloud makes it easy to leverage community-developed, open source code with the ability to clone/import GitHub repos.
CCS Cloud features an integrated terminal for communicating with your LaunchPad serially. Multiple baud rates are supported.
For a full-featured IDE, there are several options available for TI LaunchPad Development Kits. Code Composer Studio is TI's eclipse-based IDE that supports all of TI's embedded processor portfolio. CCS IDEis jam-packed with features, offering developers with the most flexibility & capabilities within the IDE.
TI LaunchPad Development Kits are also supported by other professional IDE options, including IAR Embedded Workbench®, Keil & more.
CCS is an Eclipse-based IDE that supports all Embedded Processors from TI, offering a consistent development environment.
CCS IDEoffers a powerful Eclipse-based IDE for code editing, compiling, debugging, power-profiling & more.
Drive down your application's current consumption with helpful power profiling & debug tools for improved power optimization.
Browse through datasheets, code examples & more in TI Resource Explorer. Import code directly into CCS to start development immediately.
Each LaunchPad kit offers a scalable & diverse software tool ecosystem. Each Launchpad kit is supported by third party IDEs, flash tools, peripheral configuration tools and more. Explore each LaunchPad kit offering to see more!
ARM® Keil® MDK is a complete debugger and C/C++ compiler toolchain for building and debugging embedded applications.
IAR Embedded Workbench is a complete debugger and C/C++ compiler toolchain for building and debugging embedded applications.
Open source compiler available for many TI LaunchPad embedded devices & microcontrollers.
Rapid prototype your next IoT application with Temboo. Generate code for your TI LaunchPad Development Kit to enable interaction with hundreds of websites and services through RESTful APIs.