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Catholics don't see contraception mandate as threat to religious freedom
Posted on March 16, 2012 by spokanefavs | Leave a comment
By Lauren Markoe
A vocal contingent of Republican presidential candidates and church leaders are railing against the Obama administration's "war on religion," but most Americans can't seem to find the fight.
A majority (56 percent) of Americans say religious liberty is not threatened in the U.S., according to a new poll released Thursday (March 15) by the Public Religion Research Institute, which conducted the survey in partnership with Religion News Service.
The poll, which asked a wide range of questions, also found significant support for same-sex marriage.
Even though Catholic bishops are leading the charge that the new White House mandate requiring insurance plans to cover birth control for employees is a threat to religious liberty, Catholics reject — by a 57 to 38 percent margin — the idea that religious liberty is under siege.
What's more, nearly two-thirds of Catholics support the contraception requirements for publicly held corporations (65 percent), compared to 62 percent of all Americans. A strong 60 percent of Catholics say religiously affiliated colleges should have to comply, compared to 54 percent of Americans in general.
Catholics would not have seemed supportive of the Obama policy had they been asked a different question, argued Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"If you were to ask, 'Should the government force churches to violate their religious beliefs?', you'd get different results," she said. "This is an issue of religious freedom, not one of access to contraceptives, which are ubiquitous and relatively inexpensive."
The mandate, the bishops say, tramples on religious liberties by forcing church-affiliated universities and hospitals to provide a service that Catholic teaching deems sinful.
And though a majority of Americans generally disagree with the bishops on the morality of using contraception, a significant minority (39 percent) does worry about religious freedom.
"The argument made by Catholic bishops and other religious leaders that religious freedom is being threatened is likely to resonate with a minority of the public," said Daniel Cox, PRRI's research director. "But not because of the contraception issue."
When those who perceive a threat were asked how religious liberty was being threatened, only 6 percent mentioned the new contraception mandate specifically — a number Cox found startlingly low given how often the issue has headlined the news in recent weeks.
The most frequent response was that religion is being removed from the public square (23 percent), followed by a concern about general governmental interference in religion (20 percent).
Among those who felt religious liberty is less than secure, unsolicited responses included:
"I think we should have prayer in school and display the Ten Commandments and no one should take it down if we chose."
"Working people are not allowed to say Merry Christmas."
"The government is poking their nose into people's religion and telling them what they should and should not do."
Pollsters also asked the flip side of the religious liberty question: Is the principle of the separation of church and state threatened in the United States today?
Americans divided on this question, with 45 percent agreeing that it was threatened, and 48 percent saying it was not.
Who is worried about religious liberty in America? White evangelical Protestants, the only major religious group in which a majority (61 percent) believes religious liberty is in trouble, according to the study.
That makes sense to Kenneth P. Minkema of Yale Divinity School.
"Evangelicals historically have tended to see conspiratorial forces at work," said Minkema, who teaches American religious history. "It comes in part from this sense that there's a constant struggle between the forces of light and darkness, that something is either an agent of God or the devil. It contributes to a sense of religion being under attack."
The poll also confirmed upward trends in attitudes toward gay Americans.
Last year, surveys detected for the first time that a majority of Americans support legalizing same-sex marriage. This latest poll again pins that number above 50 percent, as well as support for gay couples adopting children.
Of the 52 percent who favor gay marriage, 22 percent strongly favor and 30 percent favor it.
Of the 44 percent who oppose gay marriage, 19 percent oppose it and 25 percent strongly oppose it.
Most Americans (54 percent) believe gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt children, while 40 percent are opposed.
The poll also found that a slight majority of Americans (52 percent) believe birth control should be generally available to teenagers 16 or older without parental approval; 46 percent disagree.
The survey of 1,007 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Posted in Belief, Christian-Catholic
Tagged Catholic, catholics and contraception, health care mandate, Obama
Obama exempts religious groups from contraception mandate
Posted on February 11, 2012 by spokanefavs | 1 comment
By David Gibson
Facing growing furor from religious groups, President Obama on Friday unveiled an "accommodation" in which health insurance companies, rather than religious institutions, will provide employees with contraception coverage.
The revised approach effectively removes all faith-based organizations — not just houses of worship but also hospitals and universities — from covering employees' contraception costs.
"Every woman should be in control of the decisions that affect her own health," Obama said in a midday address at the White House.
"Now, as we move to implement this rule, however, we've been mindful that there's another principle at stake here — and that's the principle of religious liberty, an inalienable right that is enshrined in our Constitution," Obama said. "As a citizen and as a Christian, I cherish this right."
At issue was a mandate, part of Obama's 2009 health care overhaul, that employers provide free birth control coverage. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the mandate Jan. 20.
Religious groups, particularly Catholics, fiercely objected, saying the federal government should not force institutions to violate the tenets of their faith. Women's advocates argued that employees should have access to birth control regardless of where they work. The furor over the contraception mandate appeared to catch the White House off guard, as it struggled to keep the focus on access to contraception, which is broadly used by American women, even Catholics.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which led the charge against the contraception mandate, said on Friday that it would study the revised rule. "While there may be an openness to respond to some of our concerns, we reserve judgment on the details until we have them," said New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of USCCB.
"We hope to work with the administration to guarantee that Americans' consciences and our religious freedom are not harmed by these regulations."
Obama was under fierce pressure to forge a compromise. Conservatives labeled the mandate an abridgment of religious freedom, a rallying cry taken up by GOP presidential candidates, including front-runner Mitt Romney.
Under the new plan, a religiously affiliated institution would not be required to provide contraception coverage. Rather, the institution's insurance company would offer the coverage for free and without raising premiums.
Sister Carol Keehan, head of the Catholic Health Association, an umbrella group for more than 600 Catholic hospitals, said Friday she was "very pleased" with Obama's compromise, which she said "protects the religious liberty and conscience rights of Catholic institutions."
Keehan was a key supporter of the president's health care reform law — against the wishes of the U.S. Catholic bishops — but she had voiced strong criticism of the initial contraception regulations.
Keehan was joined by a range of progressive Catholic groups and leaders in praising the new rules. Many of them had been upset with the administration's initial decision on the mandate.
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, also welcomed Friday's decision: "We believe the compliance mechanism does not compromise a woman's ability to access these critical birth control benefits," Richards said.
The president's plan still has some critics, however.
Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski told CNN he thought Obama is "just kicking the can down the road."
"He's hasn't really addressed our concerns," Wenski said. "I think the only thing to do is…to take back the whole thing."
In recent days, as they sensed the political tide turning in their favor, several USCCB officials have indicated they wanted to go for more than just a broader exemption and wanted the entire contraception mandate eliminated.
That tack may have less appeal in light of the White House's new plan. But that may not stop Catholic conservatives from keeping up the pressure on Obama.
William Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League, called the new policy a "ploy" and said Catholics "will only be impelled to revolt."
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins likewise called the proposal "paperwork gimmicks."
"This revised HHS mandate does nothing to change the fundamentally anti-religious, anti-conscience and anti-life contraceptive mandate," he said.
On the other side, some abortion rights supporters were also unhappy.
"This administration has shown that it will not stand with women when it comes to supporting access to, and easing the availability of, reproductive healthcare services," said Jon O'Brien, head of Catholics for Choice. "One wonders what has been gained by this 'accommodation.' It certainly isn't the support of Catholics."
Posted in Culture, Legislation, Politics, Social Issues
Tagged birth control, contraception, Obama, places of worship and birth control
Panel: Should all employers provide contraception/birth control coverage at no cost?
Posted on February 10, 2012 by spokanefavs | 9 comments
By Tracy Simmons
This morning President Barack Obama announced that faith-based organizations will not have to provide free birth control to their employees. Instead, insurance companies will be directly responsible for providing free contraception.
The change to the administration's health care policy comes after an uproar from religious leaders, many from the Catholic church, who say mandating religious employers provide free birth control and contraception coverage violates religious liberties.
Still, not everyone is satisfied.
We asked our SpokaneFAVS panelists what they thought.
Should employers be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost?
Sam Fletcher
Insurers need to cover birth control at no extra cost. Obama's original proposal was good. Americans want it (even a majority of Catholic Americans), there's an exemption for churches and religious non-profits, and in this tough economy, Americans need it. Not only that, but in some states the same law has been in effect for a decade or more — without objection from people in those states, religious or otherwise. It's a utilitarian good in that it encourages parents to raise children when they are financially and emotionally prepared, and like any form of contraception, reduces the overall number of abortions — a compromise that should appeal to religious conservatives.
Faith in America runs and thrives on a social contract that enables everyone in America to practice their faith as they see fit: Constitutional freedom of religion. No one in America should feel imposed upon by a religious belief that they do not share. Catholics, protestants, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, and others benefit from this great and elegant compromise. If the Roman Catholic Church demands that all Americans — Catholic or not — be obliged by its edicts on contraception, who is to say that all Americans shouldn't be obliged by Muslim rules of halal, Orthodox Jewish regulations concerning menstruation, or Hindu beliefs about eating meat?
In America, you are allowed to practice your faith openly and without fear of persecution because of a singular and elegant compromise: Your rights end where the rights of another begin. You are free to believe that contraception is sinful, but as an American, you are asked to give the same respect and tolerance for the beliefs of others that are afforded to yourself.
– Sam Fletcher
Laura Kipp
Of course! It's cheaper than paying for an unwanted baby's birth and healthcare. Reproductive needs are one of the most important things healthcare should be covering and birth control should always be covered. People have to be given a chance to behave responsibly. And not providing birth control, or ignoring reality, is not going to change it. On the other hand, making birth control available hardly compels those that don't want it, to use it. An argument could be made about the harm chemical birth control can cause, but it is besides the point. Just like a decrease in high school sex education (abstinence only programs) in this country has led to an increase in teen pregnancy rates. Yet some will still bury their head in the sand. In summary, whatever leads to less unwanted babies should always be a priority, as unhappy babies don't go away and aren't cheap. It's an investment for the company if nothing else.
– Laura Kipp
Pastor Eric Blauer
I would hope that there will be a number of "Health Care" options for employers that make room for Religious tradition and conviction.
Growing government mandates and requirements are a path towards a greater confusion of separation of church and state in my opinion.
Forcing religious organizations to provide access and coverage to abortion services and other family planning options is guaranteed to create a massive exodus of service providers or a reorganization of mission and services to the general public.
The result of these types of legislative endeavors against religious service providers will be that city and state social services will be crushed by the inflow of people and costs. Taxes will have to be significantly raised to cover services private organizations used to cover.
In a time when city and state budgets are being slashed, this type of civil moralizing is going to produce crippling problems all in the name of progressive social engineering.
– Eric Blauer
Mark Kadel
Yes. However if for religious reasons they do not believe in contraception, they should be allowed an exception without fines or penalties.
– Mark Kadel
M.C. Paul
Yes they should, for several reasons.
Have we lost sight of the fact that birth control is foremost a healthcare issue? Pregnancy is risky for women, even in our country with all our modern medical resources. A report in 2009 from the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, found that about 500 out of the four million American women who give birth every year die during childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications. That's an arguably small percentage and might not seem to be of great significant — until it's your own mother, sister, aunt, niece or yourself who dies.
A recent opinion piece by Amy Goodman quotes Loretta Ross, national coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective in Atlanta addressing the notion that if women can't get birth control through their (Catholic) employer, they can simply go elsewhere. She says, "This rule (that employers provide birth control at no cost to employees) really allows low-income women, women who are dependent on their health care, to access birth control — women of color, in particular … if you don't want to use birth control, don't buy it, don't use it. But don't block others who do want to use it, who cannot afford it, from accessing it."
Birth control pills in particular are often prescribed for myriad women's health issues beyond preventing pregnancy. Women with irregular periods, including those in perimenopause, are often prescribed birth control pills to regulate their menstrual cycle. Taking birth control pills can decrease the risk of ovarian or endometrial cancer, lessen heavy menstrual bleeding that can lead to anemia and lessen debilitating menstrual pain.
Like any other health related issue, the discussion of who should be taking birth control pills, and why, should be between a woman and her healthcare provider. But that won't happen if a woman is financially prohibited from purchasing this drug because she is not covered under her employer's health insurance policy.
– M.C. Paul
Thomas J. Brown
If the question were merely should businesses provide this type of health care, then I would say, yes they should. Whether or not the business agrees with the use of contraceptives from a moral standpoint, the decision to use birth control is one that should be left solely at the discretion of each individual employee. Moreover, having employees who are in good health (use of certain contraceptives help prevent the transmission of STIs), and who are not taking leave due to pregnancy, increases productivity and is good for business.
However, the question is not asking about moral obligations, it's asking about legal ones. Should a business be required to provide such insurance. While there are laws that require businesses of certain sizes to provide health care to their employees, those laws do not mandate which plans the business should choose. Our government is already overreaching in many areas, and a private corporation deserves to make private decisions about how it operates. There are a number of low and no-cost resources available to those whose health care does not cover family planning, as well as for those who lack health care altogether.
To sum it all up, it's in a business's best interest to do so, but I don't think it should be legally mandated. With that said, I'm in favor of social medicine, which I think should be required to provide contraception and birth control.
– Thomas J. Brown
Rev. Bill Ellis
We live in a country in which employers are not, on the whole, required to offer health insurance. So I assume this question applies only to those employers who do offer health insurance to employees. And yes, if an employer offers health insurance then it ought to cover contraception. Pregnancy is not a disease, but if we are serious about cutting down on abortion then we need to get serious about making sure that contraception is universally available and very inexpensive. Our abortion rate is as high as it is not because we are more careless or less moral than, for example, the Scandinavians. It is as high as it is because we refuse to take birth control for granted, at significant social cost. The moral dilemmas created by funding contraception are real for some people and institutions, and this isn't the venue to address those issues, which can be rather complex. What we can say is that safe and effective contraception is the best way to control population, and prevent abortions.
It gets sticky when the employer is the Roman Catholic Church, or an institution such as a hospital founded and run under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church. I can see why the American bishops are upset at the idea that such institutions could be required to offer services they believe are fundamental contrary to the doctrines of the church. I am glad I don't have to make this decision, but if I did have to make it, I would except those organizations that can prove as a matter of religious doctrine that they are opposed to contraception.
– Rev. Bill Ellis
Rev. Alan Eschenbacher
No, not in the current format. Medical coverage is expensive in any form, medications are also expensive, everyone should take some responsibility for their own coverage and expenses. Unless we are going to go to a government operated "medical coverage for all" type of system, which would be very difficult to administrate (not impossible though). All that to say this — unless we go to that government run system, employers will not stand for mandatory coverages and impositions ; they never have. It is all about costs, profits, greed etc. Doing the "right" thing will not be a factor for 80 percent of employers. The other 20 percent already do the right thing in most cases.
– Rev. Alan Eschenbacher
Readers, what do you think?
Posted in Christian-Catholic, Christian-Protestant, Culture, Legislation, Politics, Social Issues
Tagged birth control, contraceptive, health care, Obama
Obama to exempt religious groups from contraception mandate
Posted on February 10, 2012 by spokanefavs | Leave a comment
Facing growing backlash from religious groups over the administration's birth control insurance plan, President Obama on Friday will unveil a new arrangement whereby insurers at religiously affiliated institutions — such as Catholic hospitals and universities — will not have to provide contraception coverage.
The new approach effectively removes faith-based organizations from any involvement in providing contraceptive coverage or even telling employees how to find such coverage. It also maintains Obama's pledge to ensure that almost all women with health insurance will not have to pay for it.
"These religious institutions will not have to offer it [contraception coverage] to their employees and do not have to pay for it," said a senior administration official about an hour before the president is to make the official announcement, which is expected at 12:30pm EST.
Posted in Christian-Protestant, Legislation, Politics
Tagged birth control, contraception, Obama
Five reasons why Obama is losing the contraception fight
Posted on February 9, 2012 by spokanefavs | 4 comments
David Gibson
The White House has surprised observers and disappointed some liberal allies by signaling that it is willing to compromise and provide a broader religious exemption in its controversial regulations requiring all employers to provide free contraception coverage.
Given that birth control use is almost universal – even among Catholics – many wonder why the Obama administration could wind up retreating on its pledge.
Here are five reasons that may help explain the political dynamic the president is facing:
1. It's about religious freedom, not birth control: U.S. Catholic bishops, who led the battle against the Health and Human Services Department mandate, know that they long ago lost their own flock on the contraception issue — 98 percent of Catholics use birth control, according to surveys. So they have carefully reframed the issue as a fight for religious freedom – an effort to keep the government from forcing the Catholic Church and other religious groups to subsidize something that goes against their teachings. That makes it a violation of conscience, a sacred principle that transcends any specific tenet of faith.
That argument also lends itself to the kind of heated rhetoric that plays well in today's supercharged political atmosphere. For example, bishops and their allies are accusing the president of "anti-Catholicism" and worse: "The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, 'To hell with you!' " Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik said after the HHS regulations were announced.
The bishops don't have as much credibility with the laity as they used to, thanks to the clergy sex abuse scandal, among other things. But Catholics are still a potent tribe, and if outsiders are seen as attacking the church, Catholics can get defensive – and they can get even.
2. Obama has lost even the support of his liberal Catholic allies: Case in point: the HHS mandate has been opposed by liberal and centrist Catholics who have supported the administration on a range of other issues — including the Catholic Health Association and the NETWORK social justice lobby — and even went to bat to help pass health care reform despite threats from the bishops.
The president "utterly botched" the religious exemptions issue, wrote Washington Post columnist and liberal Catholic E.J. Dionne, and "Obama threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus."
"J'accuse!" Michael Sean Winters, a columnist for the liberal National Catholic Reporter, wrote in a florid column that channeled Émile Zola's famous 1898 letter accusing the French government of anti-Semitism in the Dreyfus affair. "The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again."
3. It's not just Catholics: Even though evangelicals and other conservative Protestants generally don't have religious objections to contraception, they do have a big problem with "big government" and with perceived infringements on religious freedom. Evangelicals – both their leaders and their troops – have never been big Barack Obama supporters anyway, so they were happy to provide any electoral and rhetorical muscle the Catholic hierarchy could not muster.
"We do not exaggerate when we say that this is the greatest threat to religious freedom in our lifetime," evangelical leaders Timothy George and Chuck Colson wrote in an open letter to their fellow believers on Wednesday (Feb. 8). George and Colson compared the administration mandates to policies enacted in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.
4. It gives Republicans a potent campaign wedge issue: Mitt Romney wasted no time in accusing Obama of launching an "assault on religion" by way of the contraception mandate, and he declared that his first act as president would be to overturn the HHS regulations. "Remarkably, under this president's administration, there is an assault on religion, an assault on the conviction and the religious beliefs of members of our society," Romney said.
Romney's rivals, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, were not to be outdone, and ramped up their rhetoric against Obama – while also noting that Romney had accepted similar policies while he was governor of Massachusetts.
In short, this is a political fight that the White House neither wants nor needs in an already tough re-election campaign.
5. Obama needs the Catholic vote: In particular, he needs the support of white Catholics, which is the core of this large swing vote (nearly one-quarter of the electorate). They are concentrated in crucial battleground states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and while Obama won the overall Catholic vote 54 percent to 46 percent in 2008, he lost the white Catholic vote, 47 percent to 53 percent.
"To the extent Catholic voters think of this as a religious liberty issue, it does have the potential to pull Catholic voters toward Republicans or away from Democrats," John Green, an expert on religious voting patterns and director of the University of Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, told Bloomberg Businessweek.
A poll on the contraception mandate released Tuesday by the Public Religion Research Institute showed Catholics overall tended to support free contraceptive coverage, but white Catholics were evenly split on the issue. The Obama campaign can't afford to sacrifice any of those votes, or risk watching the issue grow as a political liability when the election season heats up.
Posted in Belief, Christian-Catholic, Legislation, Politics
Tagged birth control, catholics and contraception, contraception, Obama
Friday's Religion News Roundup: Obama's sermon; Eddie Long's divorce; Saudi virgins
Posted on December 2, 2011 by spokanefavs | 11 comments
POTUS got a little preachy at last night's lighting of the National Christmas Tree near the White House: "Christ's birth made the angels rejoice and attracted shepherds and kings from afar. He was a manifestation of God's love for us." Full text here.
More troubles for Atlanta megachurch pastor Bishop Eddie Long: His wife has filed for divorce.
A federal judge says a police officer in Tulsa can continue with his case over not wanting to attend an event at a mosque, but not on free speech grounds.
POTUS joined Bono, Kay Warren and other luminaries in D.C. yesterday to call for an "AIDS-free generation" by 2015. Gay rights groups are boycotting the Salvation Army's iconic Red Kettle campaign.
The good folks over at the Pew Forum are defending the methodology that led them to conclude that theU.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is the second-largest religious lobby in Washington, even as the bishops heavily dispute that conclusion.
Read full post here.
Posted in Government and Politics, Politics
Tagged Eddie Long divorce, gay rights and Salvation Army, National Christmas Tree, Obama
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Put a 2D character in an isolated layer and let's suppose lighting comes from top left. Select character's contour, move selection down-right, blur it a bit, invert selection and make some curve work on remaining area: this way you can get a credible lighting effect.
BTW, the base trick in all this is to have diffuse-light photos (sadly most 2D people and tree libraries are sun-lit, which is bad).
Now, let's suppose i want to reproduce this effect automatically into LW. So i have a mapped plane facing to camera, and i want to build a setup or a material which is able to reckognize sun's position and lighten proper character's side.
How would you do this ? I have some ideas but i cant get it work. Sadly i'm still too weak at nodes to solve it.
not sure, first step, mix the DP Edge and DP Blur node somehow?
How about creating a soft mask in PS inside of the image, then use that as a bump map?
Basically white at the edge of the object, black at the centre (or vice versa).
This is always the issue with these cut out people, they have lighting direction baked in. Which is why they always look stuck on.
Can you not find some people that have the lighting in roughly the right direction to start with?
Lightwolf - nice, but it works just if light is in the hemisphere behind camera, i'd like to get some border light even when sun has other angles.
Matt - sure, this is a theoric experiment. In pratice i tend to use diffuse light people in every situation and i do this trick manually. Already-lit people look *always* fake, because they can have non matching gamma and sun intensity, and usually they are much harder to tweak than diffuse only photos. In general i tend to avoid direct-lit photos in every case.
Anyway, for curiosity, i'd like to find if this is something nodes can cover..
You might be able to combine it with translucency then.
mmm yes i thought about translucency, but i got bad results. I'll test further.
Simply buy more well lit people, diffuse lit people are not that good. I prefer people with light coming from one side, so i can rotate them 180 deg if needed. If nothing works i add an extra sun just for the people.
I think it's quicker to have more people. & as said above have people partially covered by objects, even if only a tiny percentage of the figure is covered it can really help. Or have the figures where columns of detailed objects are, not with a blank wall behind them.
If the figure is in the very foreground & is walking a small amount of motion blur can help.
If the lighting on the figure is on wrong side. Just put a Negative number for the X value in the clip map image & the same for the Alpha to flip the images. After hitting automatic size the change the X value to a "-" number.
If the person is walking past a light source on one side than the other side, you could have the same figure set up with different sequence of Alpha maps as you have shown. Fade out the first figure & fade in the second figure.
I'll try to explain better: the issue i presented in first post is an example which made me wonder about a nodal setup to automate this. In this case i've more interest for the technical challenge than for production tricks.
... I like these challenges/tips you throw at us Pavlov, tho I must admit I got nowhere with this one yet. Got some interesting results but nothing solid I'm afraid.
basically i instanced the image and took only the alpha from it.
then combined them in node editor.
maybe you could ad a color node to tint it bit to fit better in your environment.
i used only node which you might not have, but you can find it here (http://www.db-w.com/content/view/137/175/).
download the db&w Tools 1.5.
Would it be possible to play with the gamma curve in the green channel to try and normalize the luminance, then create a feather mask along the edge that the light is coming from and apply a gradient mask to fake a blown out highlight?
Might be totally off base here - more thinking out loud than answering.
... just some test with bumps (moving the light around) & masks (moving the mask).
The mask looks promising in my view & bump is too tricky.
sorry, it was 3am at that moment and i only spent 10 minutes with it.
Hmm, i used a "spherical" polygon for trees instead of the usual flat polygon to catch the sun more realistic, maybe you can do that too for your peoples; thats much better than bump mapping.
Maybe you can connect the nodes to a null that represents the sun. Or how about making a normal map ?
bump trick works. Strangely enough, bump behaves correctly even when sun is *behind* object. As you see in the pics, first two are with sun within the emisphere behind camera, but in third one sun is going behind polygon and you still see the effect. I dont understand why, since gaussian blur makes a linear gradient and thus the "embossed" part of the pic should get lit only upon a certain sun's angle. Maybe the high bump's value can raise this angle up to nearly 90° from normal's angle.
Now i'll try to avoid the embossy-look trying a non-linear blur in photoshop.
if this is for a project you are doing, i could refine a bit the lighting part of nodes to help you more. as i said, i was fast just to see the blur and the mask, but not the result.
Hi zarti, i get an error - it doesnt find item motion node. It's into Dpont's collection, i have it installed butwhen loading scene i get the error.
do you have 'installed' the Node Item Motion from dpont ?
i cleaned the scene from another node, which might not affect the scene ... but just to not give you errors.
I gave this a try too. blured the silouette then used nvidia's normal map plug in photoshop to convert it to a normal map. on this image I have a red, orange and red light to test it out. On my tests it worked better than a bump map.
Zarti - seems interesting, thanks, even if it's not fully automated but it requires your intervention everytime you move the sun. Also, i think slider should move X pos of blurred texture, but last scene has not any envelope there - maybe you turned it off ?
Danner - normal map looks surely better than bump. As side note, it seem you too start from a gaussian blurred pic, which goes linearly from Black to white. This causes an "embossy" look which is evident in my child test. I tried some gamma tricks in PS to get a non linear gradient on border to get a more round look, but it's not so easy as i expected.
you could get close enough to a nonlinear gradient in PS combining layers with diferent blur amounts.
What surprises me is that Ps has not an easy way to do this.
it is automated; you move the light on left or right and the shading follows its logic.
1] the sun in your renders will be never near the axis of the camera and 2] your 'people' are 2d, i believe you have a good control with that template scene.
in the scene i uploaded, you can use a light as the real Sun and the slider in that case would serve only as a scale-multiplier.
so if Sun would be 1Km over the People, the scale-multiplier of 0.0001 would convert that distance to 10 cm. that's how i meant it.
if you want another solution; this might be a General control on viewport "How much the Lighted part is moved on every Surface (People)".
one question; are you generating stills or animation ?
Hi Zarti, yes i got what you say, problem is the scene you linked misses a linking somewhere and moving sun doesnt do anything. I dont get anymore missing plugin errors, so i really dont know what's happening. Are you on LWHC ? I'm on 9.6 32 bit.
Regarding me, my main work area is archviz, both stills and animations.
EDIT - markus, yes Bup was already suggested on this thread and it works nicely. read back, there's just a minor and solveable issue in getting a non-bevel bump effect.
i found that the instance on Image Editor caused the crash. deleted instance. regenerated it and no more crashes.
strange also that the surface wasn't saved. so i remade it.
Zarti, i see - i'll try to clean the scene too, now i'm at home.
Wcameron - yes there are some around, one was mentione in this thread somewhere.
Hah, holey crap i completely missed a page of the thread. heh. oh well, never mind.
here i made a scene totally in lightwave 9.6 (and everything inside the surface Node Editor).
and here is the video of it in action.
(sorry for not letting some renders to finish but my laptop is 5 years old and when i captured video rendering times were unacceptable.
+no 3rd party nodes or tools are used.
+basic ColorCorrection controls + a simple Color Overlay within the same affected zone.
+control the amount on zone to be affected (oc, its orientation depends from the SUN light).
+i suggest to separately create and load blurred alphas/masks, because it is not safe to use instances created in Image Editor. maybe you can offset it out a bit.
+to use in another surface, just copy paste the surfaces and simply replace the respective images.
+in the same way like this one, a Shadowed setup could be build.
here you have; scene, surface, plane object and the image.
hope this works for you or someone else.
Thanks a bunch for the descriptive node names as well ... will help figuring out what's what.
if this solution would be useful, maybe i should describe and organize them a bit better so everyone could use those easily or make more complex things starting from it.
i do not have any appropriate ( arch previz ) scene to test Load From Scene scenario.
if that would load and still be functional, that would mean that my setup might be useful not for learning purposes only, but used in real projects too.
theoretically it should work. can someone confirm this ?
Zarti, your setup is awesome !
Very useful and instructive, thanks a lot.
BTW it works well with load from scene.
just don't use it for crowd simulation it's slow!


text:
Q: Achieve homepage with two different possible routes google.com is the homepage. I need two different routes for the homepage. The first route works while the user is not logged in (Auth) and the second route works while the user is logged in (Dashboard).
The hard part is when both auth and dashboard pages work on a single homepage, not different URLs.
Note: Both modules have multiple components. Auth has (login - signup - reset) components and Dashboard has (index - users - posts) components.
const routes: Routes = [
  {
    path: 'index',
    loadChildren: './modules/index/index.module#IndexModule'
  },
  {
    path: 'error',
    loadChildren: './modules/error/error.module#ErrorModule'
  },

  // Fallback when no prior routes is matched
  { path: '**', redirectTo: 'not-found', pathMatch: 'full' }
];

@NgModule({
  imports: [RouterModule.forRoot(routes, { useHash: false })],
  exports: [RouterModule],
  providers: []
})
export class AppRoutingModule { }

const routes: Routes = [
  {
    path: '',
    children: [
      {
        path: '',
        loadChildren: './modules/home/home.module#HomeModule',
        canLoad: [AuthGuard],
      },
      {
        path: 'auth',
        loadChildren: './modules/auth/auth.module#AuthModule',
        canLoad: [NoAuthGuard]
      },
    ]
  }
];

@NgModule({
  imports: [RouterModule.forChild(routes)],
  exports: [RouterModule]
})
export class IndexRoutingModule { }

const routes: Routes = [
    {
        path: '',
        component: HomeLayoutComponent,
        pathMatch: 'full',
        children: [
            {
                path: '',
                redirectTo: 'dashboard',
                pathMatch: 'full'
            },
            {
                path: 'dashboard',
                component: DashboardComponent,
                data: { title: 'Dashboard' }
            },
        ]
    },
];

@NgModule({
    imports: [RouterModule.forChild(routes)],
    exports: [RouterModule]
})
export class HomeRoutingModule { }

const routes: Routes = [
    {
        path: '',
        component: AuthLayoutComponent,
        pathMatch: 'full',
        children: [
            {
                path: '',
                redirectTo: 'login',
                pathMatch: 'full'
            },
            {
                path: 'login',
                component: LoginComponent,
                data: { title: 'Sign In To Admin' }
            },
        ]
    }
];

@NgModule({
    imports: [
        RouterModule.forChild(routes)
    ],
    exports: [
        RouterModule
    ]
})
export class AuthRoutingModule { }

The problem is only with routing, not guards and not anything.

A:
The first route works while the user is not logged in (Auth) and the second route works while the user is logged in (Dashboard).

It's tricky because the user's state is difficult to access from the router configuration.
I recommend you use a UrlMatcher to control which route configuration is used and when it is used.
https://angular.io/api/router/UrlMatcher
The tricky part is accessing the current user's logged in state, and I assume this state is only known by a service. Something like UsersService.isLogged() that returns an observable of true/false, because maybe it needs to contact the server to restore a previous session.
So what I would do is used an activator to read this state into a global variable, and then use that variable from the UrlMatcher. The activator doesn't do any logical control of the route, because it will always yield a true to activate the route. We just want to gain access to a service and perform an async operation.
If you define an empty parent route that uses an activator, then I assume that Angular will resolve the activator before processing child routes.
let globalUserState = false;

class UserActivator implements CanActivate {
    public constructor(private users: UserService) {
    }

    public canActivate(): Observable<boolean> {
        return this.users.isLoggedIn().pipe(
            tap(value => globalUserState = value),
            mapTo(true)
        );
    }
}

const routes: Routes = [
    {
        path: '',
        canActivate: [UserActivator],
        children: [
            {
                // you can define more than one child using different matching rules
                matcher: (url: UrlSegment[]) => {
                    return url.length === 1 && url[0].path === '/' && globalUserState ? ({consumed: url}) : null;
                },
                children: [
                    {
                        // lazy modules must be loaded as children
                        path: '',
                        loadChildren: '../lazy/home/home.module#HomeModule'
                    }
                ]
            },
        ]
    }
];

A: There's a detailed answer on another question about matching different routes with the same URL depending on an asynchronous condition.
In short, in Angular 14.1+ use CanMatch guards. In fact, CanLoad is planned to be deprecated in Angular 15.1 in favor of CanMatch.
There is an issue with using CanLoad for this purpose in the first place: you would also need CanActivate, since CanLoad only runs once (if the child routes were loaded it will not run again).
Now with CanActivate added, it does not run before the routes' matchers, so the previous answer for this question is incorrect. Angular first determines the route (the entire route path from the parent to the innermost child), and only then runs CanActivate guards.
For the approach from that answer to work (using matchers with a variable that gets updated in the CanActivate guard), you could redirect in canActivate if the new value is different, to trigger another route matching with the updated auth state. You'd also need to make sure both of those routes match the other's sub routes (or add a wildcard child route), or there will be cases where the current auth state will cause no child route to be matched, and canActivate will not run.
One last thing is replacing CanActivate with CanActivateChild.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


My friend called me up the other day and offered me some napa cabbage from her CSA. Awesome. When I went to pick up the cabbage, she'd also thrown in some collard green leaves. I had just gotten out of an intense Spinning/cycling workout with a friend (see below), and thought some lettuce wraps were in order, collard green style.
Post-intense Spinning workout. Always better w. friends!
Every week I also get a juicing bin from Organics to You (if you're local, I highly recommend). I typically juice every day, but hadn't juiced in two days and my fridge was overflowing with large quantities of produce (juicing is a great way to keep produce from going bad while still getting all of the nutrients btw!). I had a cut-up cantaloupe in the fridge and another whole one in my produce basket ready to go. What to do? I then remembered about a week ago a reader posted she had made a raw cantaloupe juice with some greens and I knew that's what I wanted to add to my post-workout lunch. And so, I did. This post-workout lunch was energizing and filling AND well-rounded for its macronutrient ratio (carbs, proteins and fats) 🙂 Anytime you need a quick lunch idea, grab some veggies, tempeh, tofu or grass-fed meat, sauté with some seasoning and herbs, throw it in any kind of lettuce that you can wrap, add your favorite sauce. Bam! Lunch. Snack. Or dinner.
It's all about the seasoning, sauce and veggie combo and you can make any kind of wrap and create fusions of your own. Have fun trying different things out.
For your leaves: You can use butter lettuce, romaine, collard green leaves, cabbage, even iceberg, or any kind of lettuce with big leaves.
Flavors to play around with: Mexican (cilantro, chili powder, cumin, lime, garlic, salsa, hot sauce, bell peppers, onions, avocado, tomatoes, rice, beans, eggs, beef, chicken, or tempeh, nutritional yeast, etc.). Asian (ginger, garlic, sesame or peanut oil, garlic, basil, green onions, cabbage, carrots, broccoli, edamame, mushrooms, chicken, beef, shrimp, tofu or tempeh, Bragg's Aminos/Tamari, peanut sauce, chili sauce, cilantro, bean sprouts, etc.). Greek (oregano, tomatoes, olives, lemon, cucumbers, olive oil, chicken, tempeh, or tofu, parsley, basil, feta, Greek dressing, etc.). Lebanese (chicken, beef, lamb, tofu or tempeh, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, rice, olives, feta, hummus, tzatziki, tahini sauce, tabouleh, etc.).
This meal took about 5 minutes to make because I used leftovers. Lettuce wraps are great for that. I combined grass-fed beef that already had corn and zucchini added to it, cut up some organic tempeh and stir-fried it all together until it was heated through. I placed my stir-fry mixture in each collard green leaf, added fresh, shredded carrots, sprinkled some nutritional yeast on top, and drizzled chili sauce + Trader Joe's siracha sauce for some spice. I wrapped the leaves and voila! Fantastically good collard green wraps. I was surprised at how good collard green leaves are this way. Happy lettuce wrap making!


text:
Us Weekly Magazine
Celebrity Directory
Woman Crush
Buzzzz-o-Meter
Celebrity	>
Full Name: Tori Spelling
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Relationship Status: Married to Dean McDermott
Birthday: May 16, 1973
Daughter of legendary producer Aaron Spelling, Tori Spelling was born in 1973 in Los Angeles. Her big break came in 1990 when she landed the role of Donna Martin on the hit teen soap, Beverly Hills, 90210, a role she reprised in its 2008 revival.
When the series ended in 2000, Spelling appeared in films, including 2001's Scary Movie 2 and 2004's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. In 2007, Spelling became the subject of her own reality show on the OXYGEN network called Tori & Dean: Inn Love. The show featured Spelling and her new husband Dean McDermott, whom she married in May 2006, as they ran their own bed & breakfast. A second season of the show – this time called Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood, premiered in 2008. The actress is also an accomplished author, as her first memoir, 2008's sTORI Telling, hit No. 1 on the New York Times Best-Sellers List.
The couple currently has five children together: Beau, Liam, Stella, Hattie and Finn.
Us Weekly has affiliate partnerships so we may receive compensation for some links to products and services.
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text:
Q: Trying to add up hours in excel I have an IF formula adding up the hours in my rota: =IF(AC5>AB5, AC5-AB5,AC5+1-AB5), but in the total hours column, the addition isn't working.
A different site said to multiple it by 24. Neither has worked: =(SUM(G5,K5,O5,S5,W5,AA5,AE5))x24 or =(AE6+AA6+W6+S6+O6+K6+G6)
I have tried editing the custom formula to be either h:mm or [h]:mm which also isn't working.
I have tried a sum formula also, but it is now a simple =1+2+3, etc.
Rota screenshots
Rota Master

A: In Excel, date and time is treated in a special way. Once you enter a value in a format that is recognized by Excel as a date or time format, it will be displayed as such and will help you automatically with adding / subtracting in a natural way - just as you tried doing (=SUM(A1:A3) will just some up the hours).
Time should be inserted in the format [h]:[m] - [h] representing hours, [m] minutes. And, you could also enter seconds if you'd like, like this: [h]:[m]:[s].
For an example, I've entered 3 time values and summed them up just below them:

P.S: When entering a value in time/date format, excel actually stores a numeric value - each integer represents a whole day (starting from 1/1/1900) and the fraction represents the time of the day, so 10:00 will have the value of 10/24 (~0.42). You can see it by yourself, by entering a date or time and changing its cell format afterwards.


This is the inaugural post in a series of interviews with successful food businesses. We'll go over how they started, successes and failures, and general advice for other food entrepreneurs.
Our first guest is David Ferguson, the owner of the Mason Jar Cookie Company. They let you make your own cookie mix, so you pick a base cookie flavor, add-ins, and they'll send it to you in a beautifully packed mason jar for you to bake at home. It's a great gift, party favor, and kids love it.
Like a lot of our customers here at ReciPal, you have a unique background. Can you tell us about it?
I actually have a software background going back to the '80s. Back in 1993 we started one of the first web development shops in San Francisco. Recently, we were building a framework for a client that would allow companies to easily create e-commerce stores with customization – so as a website visitor you could make your own bicycle, jeans, or even jerky!
We developed the technology, but needed our own example to demonstrate to the client. Sitting around the office kitchen table we were struggling to come up with a good idea. There was a mason jar sitting on the counter, one of us noticed it and the idea of cookie mix in a mason jar was born.
Very interesting, if only we knew about you guys at SlantShack our website development might have been accelerated a bit! So, you came up with the mason jar packed cookie mix to demonstrate the software, but you went a little beyond that, right?
Naturally, we did. We wanted to demonstrate the software beyond just the website, so we kind of went all the way! I did a little research and found a copacker to produce for us. We made sure they would be able to produce small quantities, but also scale just in case we got some momentum.
This was Thanksgiving 2011. We launched the website, and within 6 hours we had our first order. We'd developed the site with a little SEO built-in, but we still weren't expecting much. That week we sold probably 20 jars and kept asking ourselves "how is this happening?" – we were a little bit surprised.
So you kept selling online and it grew via e-commerce?
Actually, no. The e-commerce side kept running, but things got interesting once we started getting calls from NY Mag, Hearst, MTV. Everyone started calling. Then we starting doing the Williams & Sonoma Sunday Artisan Markets and we were absolutely crushing them. Record sales every weekend. Around then, the idea of doing private label mason jars came up and took off.
A hotel will want their own flavor and branding for an event gift bag, or a retail store will do their own line, corporate Christmas parties, more weddings and baby showers than you can count. Sometimes I'll be in the grocery store and will get a random phone call from a law firm in Denver I've never heard of that wants 800 jars. It's crazy. It's as if we invented fire, but we're running with it.
It sounds like you have a crack marketing team pushing this stuff!
You'd be surprised. The growth has been very organic. We have great experience with paid online advertising, but that actually didn't work. We do very little advertising aside from the two Fancy Food shows every year.
It sounds like people just want cookies, and they want them nicely packed in a mason jar.
I've never been in a business where you receive so many "Thank You"s - from the bride buying jars as gifts for her wedding, to the corporate event planner, all the way down to people receiving them as gifts. It makes a lot of people happy, and that's what it's all about. It's a really nice business to transition into after doing consulting and software for so long. You'll get a "Thank You" in that business, but not in quite the same way.
At what point did it go from a demonstration project to a company?
It quickly became a project at our software company that everyone wanted to work on because it was so much fun, almost to the point where it was detracting from our clients. So, a few of us split off to focus on the cookie company. It's mostly me, our tech team in Nebraska, and our co-packer. When we found ReciPal, it really accelerated the process. Before that, we were hand making labels in Photoshop and it was a huge pain. Between the co-packer and ReciPal we're able to remain a very lean business.
A lot of our customers are just thinking about co-packing, what advice would you give them for finding the right co-packer?
We have a great relationship with our co-packer, Mid-Hudson Workshop. You can do A LOT with a good co-packer, so finding the right one is key. Our office in NYC stares directly at Ground Zero, so I wanted to tie the company to a cause. I Googled "military work force" and found Mid-Hudson Workshop for the Disabled, which employs disabled veterans. I called them up, they sounded like a great fit, and when I visited the plant the good vibes were confirmed.
We rely on them tremendously and they allow us to be a very lean team, so having that military precision and judgment is huge. Some of these guys are ex-military chefs and they know when a kid makes a blend with too many gummy bears or marshmallows to back off on the mix to make sure it still turns into a cookie. They know how to pack, how to get the assembly line going, and they always show up. Like a lot of things in this project, it was sort of accidental finding them. It's a gut feeling and knowing they will be reliable and a good partner.
That's great advice for everyone. And how has ReciPal helped you along the way?
It's pretty important for private label partners, since their product might end up in grocery stores. ReciPal allowed us to quickly take care of this for any cookie customization option. This was a real problem before ReciPal when we needed labels dynamically generated. Other software was not user-friendly and felt like old school DOS software. I think if Apple had designed nutrition labeling software, it would look like ReciPal.
Plus, we have an interesting project for you guys with the API.
Exactly. If we can dynamically generate labels for online customers as well, that would be a great user experience, and allow us to streamline the process for private label customers even more. So we're really looking forward to that.
This has been great and really educational. Any parting words for fellow food businesses?
For me, I was never in this to make money, so I've been focused on keeping it fun. If it's not fun, I'm out! To that end, we've tried really hard to work with the right partners, from our co-packer to our private label customers. They have all been really great. Even the brides, you'd expect some stereotypical Bridezillas, but we haven't had any of that.
Being flexible also helped us. Like I mentioned earlier, we thought we'd be mostly online customization, but it turns out most of our business is private label, so we had to be flexible enough to allow that to happen.
Lastly, with any food business following all the rules and guidelines is arguably the most important. We didn't expect to scale, but were prepared for it and prepared for disaster all the way. We wanted to be ready when something fell apart downstream, and that's saved us a few times. Mostly though, enjoy your work, work hard and a lot will fall into place.
And that's the story of The Mason Jar Cookie Company. Hope you all learned something. Feel free to add any thoughts or questions in the comments.


text:
Science/TechnologyUniversity
Premodern life and the tough old days of dyeing, weaving and smelting
USC Dornsife offers an offbeat course giving Trojans hands-on experience in age-old skills — and no matches are allowed
BY Susan Bell
In the class "Exploring Ancient Ways of Living: Experimental Archaeology," students learned unconventional skills. (Photo/Mitchell Lee)
Students try their hand at blacksmithing and smelting. (Photo/Zhichun "Norman" Peng)
Learning how to make candles, weaving, dyeing and making cord were some of the tasks taken on by Trojans. (Photo/Yunmi Kim)
Cooking over a fire and grinding acorns to make flour was a time-consuming experience. (Photo/Yunmi Kim)
A student takes aim during archery practice. (Photo/Tiffany Chen)
Lynn Dodd offers trenchant tips to Trojans. (Photo/Yunmi Kim)
Making fire isn't as easy as you think.
And neither is crafting ceramics, spinning wool, dyeing, weaving and copper smelting.
Those were just some of the unconventional activities taken on by 20 Trojans in "Exploring Ancient Ways of Living: Experimental Archaeology," a Maymester course offered by the School of Religion at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Led by Lynn Dodd, associate professor of the practice of religion, the month-long course, which included a three-day field trip to Catalina, let students explore premodern life by offering hands-on experience in ancient skills.
"The students jokingly call this course 'How to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse,' but what I want them to understand is the diversity of resources and skills that underlie everything that we take for granted in our lives today," Dodd said.
Among the key components of that aspect are the human elements: planning, learning, communication, collaboration and cooperation. Students, Dodd noted, will never look at a knife the same way again after smelting the metal to make their own.
Premodern life: make fire or fail
Forbidden from using matches, students must master the ability to make fire using a fire stick to pass the class. The process is a lot harder than it looks on YouTube videos, Dodd noted — until students understand that collaboration is the key to success.
The process also teaches students to be attentive to group dynamics, different proclivities and ways of communicating.
"There are a lot of reflective assignments in this process," Dodd said, "so they're thinking about: How am I reacting? How are others reacting? How am I learning? How are these skills transmitted? What are different ways to learn?"
Forging steel
Under the direction of a professional blacksmith, students forge their own steel strikers from which sparks can be generated. This is an essential task on a course that teaches students how to make cheese, bread, candles and soap, all of which require fire.
One of the key concepts Dodd wanted students to grasp was a sense of the time and quantity of materials needed to make essential items.
By making their own mozzarella, students learned that a gallon of full cream milk yields a relatively small amount of cheese.
"As a result, people look at cheese in a different way and really think about what an incredibly potent source of calories and nutrition it is," Dodd said.
A shared human past
Native American tribal members from the Tongva community shared their traditional food practices, such as roasting agave and grinding acorns and mesquite into flour.
Students were surprised by what is available in the environment, Dodd noted, from food and medicinal plants to materials to create fire, weave, dye and make cord — which was important for everything from sailing to horseback riding and making traps.
During their visit to USC Dornsife's Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina, students were able to identify many of the plants and animals that supported people who lived on this island.
Although the students learned important survival skills, Dodd stressed that she wasn't teaching a survival course.
This is an experimental archeology class — we are using traditional techniques to understand how we create knowledge about our shared human past.
Lynn Dodd
"Maybe someday I will, but this is an experimental archeology class — we are using traditional techniques to understand how we create knowledge about our shared human past. There's real innovation in the fact that traditional ways of living can teach us something today."
Bonding experience
Dodd said the course, which is open to all undergraduates regardless of major, is designed to provide a group bonding experience as well as an intense reflection process.
"As much as students come to understand how we create knowledge about how we, as a human species, have developed, innovated and survived, they're also learning about themselves and about ways that they can succeed in the future," she said.
More stories about: Archaeology, Students
ArtsUniversity
Mork Family Scholar Max Novak visits the Getty Villa. (Photo/Zoie Petrakis)
Meet a digger of ancient artifacts, french fries food truck owner and USC Trojan
Max Novak's fascination with Greek and Roman history could lead to a career as a museum curator.
Max Novak works in Onchestos, Greece, creating a "sondage" (a little hole) at a dig where he later excavated a Hellenic — fourth or third century B.C. — votive sword. (Photo/Courtesy of Max Novak)
Student finds ancient Greek sword in Thebes — just another day on a dig
Overseas research opportunities, like the one in which Max Novak unearthed a centuries-old sword, help the department expand its reach.
Tight quarters: The tunnels archaeologists dig into Maya pyramids leave little elbow room. (USC Photo/Robert Perkins)
USC archaeologist discovers Maya royal burial site
Tom Garrison, lead investigator at the El Zotz site in Guatemala, encourages USC students to go with him when he returns next field season.
Video	 January 7, 2016
Zooarchaeologist Sarah Newman carefully sweeps the area surrounding the remains of prize-winning racehorse Native Diver at Hollywood Park. (USC Photo/Lynn Swartz Dodd)
Archaeologists exhume a racing legend
A team of USC Dornsife archaeologists and students help to preserve a part of history at Hollywood Park.


text:
(Image: Global Panorama/flickr/cc)
Can Google's Soul Be Saved?
Rank-and-file Silicon Valley tech workers are using their leverage to push companies toward more ethical business models, or at least away from destroying the environment and undermining human rights.
Michelle Chen
November 15, 2019 by The Progressive
With its ubiquitous and astronomical digital infrastructure, Google has put the world at our fingertips. But in some ways, it's also making the world dirtier and less democratic.
Under the slick veneer of clean, youthful, innovation-loving Silicon Valley, big tech firms like Google have colossal carbon footprints, and some have shady ties to military and police operations seeking new systems of repression and surveillance. While tech giants like Facebook and Amazon have drawn sharp criticism from rights groups and lawmakers, some of the most incisive criticism of Silicon Valley has come from within its own ranks.
On November 4, Google Workers for Action on Climate, a grassroots group representing rank and file Googlers, published a list of environmental and political demands for their employer, signed by more than 1,640 Google employees and addressed to the company's chief financial officer, Ruth Porat. The workers are demanding that the company reduce its carbon emissions to zero—in line with the benchmarks proposed by international climate authorities like the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"Under the slick veneer of clean, youthful, innovation-loving Silicon Valley, big tech firms like Google have colossal carbon footprints, and some have shady ties to military and police operations seeking new systems of repression and surveillance."
In addition, the workers are calling for "zero contracts to enable or accelerate the extraction of fossil fuels"—a response to reports that Google and other tech giants have collaborated with oil companies to develop tools to boost their extraction operations. And they are seeking a reduction in Google's carbon footprint and "zero funding for climate-denying or -delaying think tanks, lobbyists, and politicians." (Google has come under fire for revelations about its substantial financial contributions to rightwing lobbying groups that push climate denial.)
Finally, the workers demand "zero collaboration with entities enabling the incarceration, surveillance, displacement, or oppression of refugees or frontline communities." Google—which once boasted the slogan "Don't be evil"—has been widely condemned for its partnerships with various branches of government, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol.
The petition condemns the company for failing to adhere to its own AI principles, which "state that Google will not build technologies 'whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.' By any interpretation, CBP and ICE are in grave violation of international human rights law." As the Trump Administration ruthlessly cracks down on undocumented immigrants and their communities, the workers note that Google has failed its own employees by failing to provide "a diverse, inclusive, and psychologically safe workplace for all its workers, including immigrants and Latinx people—the very populations whose communities, families, and friends are being terrorized by CBP and ICE."
On the issue of climate change, Google has branded itself a model corporate citizen. The company has boosted its efforts to shift to renewable energy sources and aspires to achieve zero net carbon emissions and use 100 percent carbon-free energy sources year round, though it is unclear when it plans to reach these goals.
Google declined to comment to The Guardian on the letter to Porat, and instead cited Porat's recent blog post reiterating the company's commitment to keep lowering carbon emissions.
The open letter from Google employees is one of several attempts to leverage the collective voice of Google's professional workforce. It is also an attempt to hold Google to its own stated principles.
So far, Google has not bent to their demands, but there are signs that its top executives are listening.
Last June, after 4,000 employees signed a letter demanding "a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology," Google dropped its bid for a lucrative Pentagon contract to develop AI technology that could be used to aid drone strikes.
Around the same time, Google's CEO Sundar Pichai posted a list of "AI Principles" on the company blog, declaring that the company would only engage in artificial intelligence projects that adhered to basic ethical standards, such as being "socially beneficial" and "publicly accountable."
The rebellious energy percolating among Google's rank-and-file reflects the political alchemy between the company's liberal ethos on the one hand, and the moral burden that the company has accrued by virtue of its enormous size and power.
In late 2018, pressure from workers, consumers, and shareholders pushed Google to suspend another collaboration to build a censored search engine for Chinese authorities, known as Dragonfly.
Hundreds of workers at Amazon, Github, Salesforce, Tableau and Microsoft have launched similar campaigns protesting their respective employers' collaboration with security agencies. Amazon, in particular, has incurred backlash from workers and consumers over its collaboration with the data analysis firm Palantir, which contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to provide investigative software for tracking immigrants.
While the Google worker-activists express solidarity with fellow tech worker-activists in other companies, they also highlight some of the unique contradictions between the lines of Google's public-relations messaging.
Despite its eco-friendly PR, Google's business model requires consuming enormous amounts of energy to fuel its tremendous cloud storage and data systems. The company officially claims carbon "neutrality" by spending massively on carbon offsets and renewable-energy purchases, to cancel out its emissions on paper.
Sharon Campbell-Crow, a senior technical writer at Google, stresses how repressive immigration enforcement policies and climate change intersect in many areas, making Google doubly complicit in the plight of climate refugees and their communities.
"Google shouldn't be deploying technology for any entity or institution in a way that will harm those most vulnerable to the climate crisis," Campbell-Crow tells The Progressive via email. "Today, rich countries are building border surveillance and detention infrastructure to keep people who need help out, many of whom are being displaced by the climate crisis already."
And Google workers are agitating for internal reforms as well.
The political rebellion at Google is rooted in a long-simmering internal crisis that led to a #metoo-inspired, 20,000-strong walkout by workers who were fed up with the company's lack of action on sexual harassment charges. The walkout garnered international attention and became a template for mass actions at other tech firms like the game designer Riot Games (on sexual harassment) and Amazon (on climate change).
The rebellious energy percolating among Google's rank-and-file reflects the political alchemy between the company's liberal ethos on the one hand, and the moral burden that the company has accrued by virtue of its enormous size and power. Google workers know they are uniquely positioned to help steer their company toward a more ethical business model, or at least away from destroying the environment and undermining human rights.
"I think the bigger picture here isn't about just tech," says Ike Hollander McCreery, a Google site reliability engineer, in an email interview. "It's about tech workers across the industry joining a global movement of people (students, communities fighting for their own health and survival for many decades) standing up for our collective well being and future."
Silicon Valley may be famous for its inventive rule breaking and disruptive imagination, but rank-and-file tech workers are challenging their bosses with the same creative zeal—imagining a tech future that bolsters democracy, supports human rights, and protects the Earth. With their demands, workers will test whether the titans of Big Tech can truly live up to their promises.
© 2021 The Progressive
Michelle Chen is a contributing editor at In These Times. She is a regular contributor to the labor rights blog Working In These Times, Colorlines.com, and Pacifica's WBAI. Her work has also appeared in Common Dreams, Alternet, Ms. Magazine, Newsday, and her old zine, cain.
'Huge Victory' as Judge Blocks Biden's Oil Lease Sale in Gulf of Mexico
"The Biden administration must end new leasing and phase out existing drilling," said one advocate. "Anything less would be a gross failure of climate leadership."
Jake Johnson · Jan 28, 2022


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Ole Miss Steers Clear of the Nike Controversy
nationaldefender	Journalism 377, Stories	 September 10, 2018 October 29, 2018 2 Minutes
"For most people [the Nike Swoosh] didn't register," Professor of Sport and Recreation Administration Kim Beason said. "Most people probably knew we were sort of Nike but they didn't care, but now does it register. Does the swish register with people. Are they gonna see it more than they did before? Nike likes that."
One stroll around the Ole Miss campus and there is no question who our sponsor is. From the countless Nike apparel in our bookstores to the many student athletes draped head to toe in Nike. the brand is very visible on campus.
Last Thursday Nike shook the country when they released an ad that featured ex-NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick prompting backlash from certain groups and even prompting a response from President Trump.
Following the release of the ad, the University of the Ozarks ended its partnership with Nike and the Mayor of Kenner, La advised people close to him to avoid using Nike products for the recreational activites.
The University of Mississippi has yet to release a statement or response to the ad continuing business as usual.
The University of Mississippi is 1 of 10 sec schools who have a partnership with Nike or one of its affiliates and after a 12 year extension in 2015 they are contracted to remain with Nike until 2027. Under this contract Nike promises to pay Ole Miss $1.9 million annually to be the exclusive provider. Ole Miss is also sheltered from having to spend cash for Nike Products.
"Does the university benefit from Nike or does Nike benefit from the university," Beason said. "That's what it comes down to. If its mutual we'll stay with nike until Nike isn't mutual beneficial to us."
The release of the ad was as controversial as the act itself but most school that are contracted with Nike are bond by a contract which doesn't allow the school to leave unless Nike goes bankrupt or doesn't pay it the money they promised.
Here at the university student athletes have largely been unbothered by the ad being released some even going as far as saying it brought the team together.
"Everybody on the team is a family," Ole Miss Track and field team member Emanuel Foster said. " Everybody agrees with each other so there isn't really any racism or anything like that."
Support for Kaepernick's and Nike's actions were widespread amongst student athletes.
"I think its good for the brand because the stand that Colin Kaepernick took with all that is going on in America and the world it shows that they don't care about just one Side but care about anything," Ole Miss football player Brenden Williams said.
Ole Miss has largely attempted to avoid any controversy itself with coaches recomending their players to stand for the anthem out of respect.
The communications department for athletics couldn't be immediately contacted for comment.
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Published September 10, 2018 October 29, 2018
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History Graduates Survey Update
The AHA recently ran a History Graduates Survey, which closed on 1 July 2021. We received an overwhelming number of responses – approximately 800. Thank you to everyone who submitted responses as we now have a rich set of material through which to track the diverse employment pathways of those with history degrees at all levels. The AHA has appointed a Research Assistant, Rochelle Chand, to work with A/Prof Nancy Cushing and Dr Emily O'Gorman in analysing the material. The funding for this assistance has been generously donated by the AHA ($500); ANU School of History ($500); anonymous donors ($900); ACU School of Arts ($100); Prof Melanie Oppenheimer ($100) and Monash University ($500). Many thanks to these donors! A preliminary report will be produced by A/Prof Cushing, Dr O'Gorman, and RA Chand in December 2021 with a full report to follow in July 2022.


Yesterday, I reported here on two members of the leftwing group Anarchists against the Wall that were invited to a meetings with a Shabak (Israel's internal security agency) operator calling herself "Rona". Apparently, this was the same person who conducted a political interrogation of former IDF pilot Yonatan Shapira a few months ago.
Today (Tuesday), a third activist received a phone call from "Rona", asking him to report to a meeting with her. The activist refused, demanding to be issued a formal subpoena. According to his report, "Rona" replied that she is aware of his actions, and that it would be in his best interest to come to the meeting. She ended the conversation by informing the activist that she would call him again next week.
The activist noted that the conversation was friendly.
According to the reports of Yonatan Shapira and another activist who attended a meeting with "Rona" last week, it seems that the purpose of these conversations is to send a warning message to leftwing protestors.
The Shabak has declared in the past before the Supreme Court that it follows the activities of foreign pro-Palestinian activists [Hebrew link]. The head of the organization also admitted that it is conducting surveillance activities on organizations that are seeking "to change the Jewish nature of the state" [Hebrew] even when those organizations are not suspected of doing any illegal activities.
The recent warning calls might mark another escalation in the Shabak's supervision of political activity in Israel.


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Leo Cullen is facing a selection headache regarding his overseas players ahead of the Champions Cup semi-final – and Luke Fitzgerald thinks that wing James Lowe should definitely be in the Leinster team to face Toulouse.
Head coach Cullen can only select two of Lowe, second row Scott Fardy and scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park, with the electric back three player the man to miss out in the Champions Cup quarter-final win over Ulster.
Lowe has been excellent for Leinster since arriving in late 2017, but missed the semi-final and final last year as Cullen's side won a fourth European Cup.
With Leinster coming into Sunday's final four clash in indifferent form, and given the threat Toulouse pose out wide, Fitzgerald thinks that Lowe should be one of the first names on the team-sheet.
"He has to play," Fitzgerald said on The Left Wing, Independent.ie's rugby podcast.
If Lowe starts, Cullen will have to decide whether to pick former Wallaby Fardy or go with Gibson-Park as the back-up scrum-half to Luke McGrath. Fitzgerald thinks that Fardy's body-of-work since arriving before last season should see him retained in the team.
"The issue then becomes between the other two guys and you would have to pick Fardy," Fitzgerald added.
If Gibson-Park does miss out, Cullen would be deciding between Munster-bound Nick McCarthy and academy nine Hugh O'Sullivan. McCarthy was selected for last year's quarter-final win over Saracens, but struggled off the bench, while O'Sullivan has only played six minutes of Champions Cup rugby.
Even so, Fitzgerald thinks selecting either option would be worth it to get Fardy and Lowe in the team.
"Nick McCarthy is a nice player," Fitzgerald said.