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December 26, 2017 January 3, 2018 Paul Hemphill 5 Comments
Reviewing 2017, I am reminded of Game of Thrones' Mance Rayder's valedictory: "I wish you good fortune in the wars to come".
On the international and the domestic front, it appeared as if we were condemned to an infernal and exasperating 'Groundhog Day'.
Last November, we welcomed Donald Trump to the White House with bated breath and gritted teeth, and his first year as POTUS did not disappoint. From race-relations to healthcare to tax reform to The Middle East, South Asia and North Korea, we view his bizarro administration with a mix of amusement and trepidation. Rhetorical questions just keep coming. Will the Donald be impeached? Are we heading for World War 3? How will declining America make itself "great again" in a multipolar world set to be dominated by Russia Redux and resurgent China. Against the advice of his security gurus, and every apparently sane and sensible government on the globe (including China and Russia, but not King Bibi of Iz), his Trumpfulness recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Jerusalem. Sure, we all know that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel – but we are not supposed to shout it out loud in case it unleashed all manner of mayhem on the easily irritated Muslim street. Hopefully, as with many of Trump's isolationist initiatives, like climate change, trade, and Iran, less immoderate nations will take no notice and carry on regardless. The year closes in, and so does the Mueller Commission's investigation into Russia's meddling in the last presidential election and the Trumpistas' connivance and complicity – yes, "complicit", online Dictionary.com's Word of the Year, introduced to us in her husky breathlessness by the gorgeous Scarlett Johansson in a spoof perfume ad that parodies Ivanka Trump's merchandizing.
Britain continues to lumber towards the Brexit cliff, its unfortunate and ill-starred prime minister marked down as "dead girl walking". Negotiations for the divorce settlement stutter on, gridlocked by the humongous cost, the fate of Europeans in Britain and Brits abroad, and the matter of the Irish border, which portends a return to "the troubles" – that quintessentially Irish term for the communal bloodletting that dominated the latter half of the last century. The May Government's hamfistedness is such that at Year End, many pundits are saying that the public have forgotten the incompetence of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and predict that against all odds, his missus could soon be measuring up for curtains in Number Ten.
Beset by devilish twins of Trump and Brexit, a European Union written-off as a dysfunctional, divided bureaucratic juggernaut, appears to have found hidden reserves of unity and purpose, playing hardball with Britain, dismissing the claims of Catalonia and Kurdistan, rebuking an isolationist America, and seeing-off resurgent extreme right-wing parties that threaten to fracture it with their nationalist and anti-immigration agendas. Yet, whilst Marine Le Pen and Gert Wilders came up short in the French and Dutch elections, and centrists Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel hold the moderate middle, atavistic, autocratic and proto-fascist parties have risen to prominence and influence in formerly unfree Eastern Europe, driven by fear of a non-existent flood of refugees from the Middle East and Africa (these are headed for the more pleasant economic climes of Germany, Britain and Scandinavia), and perhaps, their historically authoritarian DNA. Already confronted with the Russian ascendency in the east, and the prospects of the Ukrainian – Donetsk conflict firing up in the near future, the EU's next big challenge is likely to be reacquainting itself with its original raisin d'etre – the European Project that sought to put an end to a century of European wars – and addressing the potential expulsion of parvenu, opportunistic member states who fail to uphold the union's democratic values. As a hillbilly villain in that great series Justifed declaimed, "he who is not with is not with us".
The frail, overcrowded boats still bob dangerously on Mediterranean and Aegean waters, and the hopeful of Africa and Asia die hopelessly and helplessly. Young people, from east and west Africa flee poverty, unemployment, and civil war, to wind up in Calais or in pop-up slave markets in free but failed Libya. In the Middle East the carnage continues. Da'ish might be finished on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, with the number of civilian casualties far exceeding that of dead jihadis. But its reach has extended to the streets of Western Europe – dominating headlines and filling social media with colourful profile pictures and "I am (insert latest outrage)" slogans. Meanwhile, tens, scores, hundreds die as bombs explode in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan, with no such outpourings of empathy – as if it's all too much, too many, too far away.
Bad as 2017 and years prior were for this sad segment of our planet, next year will probably not be much better. The autocrats are firmly back in the saddle from anarchic Libya and repressed Egypt to Gulf monarchs and Iranian theocrats. There will be the wars of the ISIS succession as regional rivals compete with each other for dominance. Although it's ship of state is taking in water, Saudi Arabia will continue its quixotic and perverse adventures in the Gulf and the Levant. At play in the fields of his Lord, VP Pence declared to US troops in December that victory was nigh, the Taliban and IS continue to make advances in poor, benighted Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Africa will continue to bleed, with ongoing wars across the Sahel, from West and Central Africa through to South Sudan, ethnic tensions in the fragile nations of the Rift Valley, and further unrest in newly 'liberated' Zimbabwe as its people realize that the military coup is yet another case what The Who called "meet the old boss, same as the new boss".
In our Land Down Under, we endured the longest, most boring election campaign in living memory, and got more of the same: a lacklustre Tory government, and a depressingly dysfunctional and adversarial political system. Politicians of all parties, blinkered by short-termism, and devoid of vision, insist on fiddling whilst the antipodean Rome burns. All this only accentuates Australians' disenchantment with their representatives, warps their perception of the value and values of "democracy", and drives the frustrated, disgruntled, fearful and alienated towards the political extremes – and particularly the Right where ambitious but frustrated once, present and future Tory politicians aspire to greatness as big fishes in little ponds of omniphobia.
Conservative Christian politicians imposed upon us an expensive, unnecessary and bitterly divisive plebiscite on same-sex marriage which took forever. And yet, the non-compulsory vote produced a turnout much greater than the U.K. and US elections and the Brexit referendum, and in the end, over sixty percent of registered voters said Yes. Whilst constituencies with a high proportion of Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Chinese cleaved to the concept that marriage was only for man and women, the country, urban and rural, cities and states voted otherwise. The conservatives' much-touted "silent majority" was not their "moral majority" after all. Our parliamentarians then insisted on dragging the whole sorry business out for a fortnight whilst they passed the legislation through both Houses of Parliament in an agonizingly ponderous pantomime of emotion, self-righteousness and grandstanding. The people might have spoken, but the pollies just had to have the last word. Thanks be to God they are all now off on their summer hols! And same-sex couples can marry in the eyes of God and the state from January 9th 2018.
Meanwhile, in our own rustic backyard, we are still "going up against chaos", to quote Canadian songster Bruce Cockburn. For much of the year, as the last, we have been engaged in combat with the Forestry Corporation of New South Wales as it continues to lay waste to the state forest that surrounds us. As the year draws to a close, our adversary has withdrawn for the long, hot summer, but will return in 2018, and the struggle will continue – as it will throughout the state and indeed the nation as timber, coal and gas corporations, empowered by legislation, trash the common treasury with the assent of our many governments.
And finally, on a light note, a brief summary of what we were watching during the year. There were the latest seasons of Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. The former was brilliant, and the latter left us wondering why we are still watching this tedious and messy "Lost in Zombieland". Westworld was a delight with its fabulous locations and cinematography, a script that kept us backtracking to listen again to what was said and to keep up with its many ethical arcs and literary revenues. and a cavalcade of well cast, well-written and original characters. Westworld scored a post of its own on this blog – see below. The Hand Maid's Tale wove a dystopian tale all the more rendered all the more harrowing by the dual reality that there are a lot of men in the world who would like to see women in servitude, and that our society has the technology to do it. To celebrate a triumphant return, our festive present to ourselves were tee-shirts proclaiming: "'ave a merry f@#kin' Christmas by order of the Peaky Blinders". And on Boxing Day, Peter Capaldi bade farewell as the twelfth and second-best Doctor Who (David Tennant bears the crown), and we said hello to the first female Doctor, with a brief but chirpy Yorkshire "Aw, brilliant!" sign-on from Jodie Whittaker.
Whilst in Sydney, we made two visits to the cinema (tow more than average) to enjoy the big-screen experience of the prequel to Ridley Scott's Alien and the long-awaited sequel to our all-time favourite film Blade Runner. Sadly, the former, Alien: Covenant, was a disappointment, incoherent and poorly written. The latter, whilst not as original, eye-catching and exhilarating as its parent, was nevertheless a cinematic masterpiece. It bombed at the box office, just like the original, but Blade Runner 2049 will doubtless become like it a cult classic.
This then was the backdrop to In That Howling Infinite's 2017 – an electic collection covering politics, history, music, poetry, books, and dispatches from the Shire.
An abiding interest in the Middle East was reflected in several posts about Israel and Palestine, including republishing Rocky Road to Heavens Gate, a tale of Jerusalem's famous Damascus Gate, and Castles Made of Sand, looking at the property boom taking place in the West Bank. Seeing Through the Eyes of the Other publishes a column by indomitable ninety-four year old Israeli writer and activist Uri Avnery, a reminder that the world looks different from the other side of the wire. The Hand That Signed the Paper examines the divisive legacy of the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The View From a Balcony in Jerusalem reviews journalist John Lyons' memoir of his posting in divided Jerusalem. There is a Oh, Jerusalem, song about the Jerusalem syndrome, a pathology that inflects many of the faithful who flock to the Holy City, and also a lighter note, New Israeli Matt Adler's affectionate tribute to Yiddish – the language that won't go away.
Sailing to Byzantium reviews Aussie Richard Fidler's Ghost Empire, a father and son road trip through Istanbul's Byzantine past. Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion juxtaposes Khalil Gibran's iconic poem against a politically dysfunctional, potentially dystopian present, whilst Red lines and red herrings and Syria's enduring torment features a cogent article by commentator and counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen.
On politics generally, we couldn't get through the year without featuring Donald Trump. In The Ricochet of Trump's Counterrevolution, Australian commentator Paul Kelly argues that to a certain degree, Donald Trump's rise and rise was attributable to what he and other commentators and academics describe as a backlash in the wider electorate against identity and grievance politics. Then there is the reblog of New York author Joseph Suglia's original comparison between Donald Trump's White House and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. But our particular favourite is Deep in the Heart of Texas, a review of an article in The New Yorker by Lawrence Wright. His piece is a cracker – a must-read for political junkies and all who are fascinated and frightened by the absurdities of recent US politics.
Our history posts reprised our old favourite, A Brief History of the Rise and Fall of the West, whilst we examined the nature of civil wars in A House Divided. Ottoman Redux poses a hypothetical; what if The Ottoman Empire has sided with Britain, France and Russia in World War I? In the wake of Christopher Nolan's blockbuster movie, Deconstructing Dunkirk looked at the myths surrounding the famous evacuation. On the seventieth anniversary of the birth of India and Pakistan, we looked at this momentous first retreat from Empire with three posts: Freedom at Midnight (1) – the birth of India and Pakistan, Freedom at Midnight (2) – the legacy of partition, and Weighing the White Man's Burden. Rewatching the excellent sci-fi drama Westworld – one of the televisual gems of 2017 – we were excited to discover how the plays of William Shakespeare were treasured in the Wild West. This inspired our last post for the year: The Bard in the Badlands – Hell is empty and the devils are here, the title referencing a line from The Tempest.
Happy Birthday, Indiaekkent
Our continuing forest fight saw us return to Tolkien's Tarkeeth, focusing this time around on fires that recalled Robert Plant's lyrics in Ramble On: In the darkest depths of Mordor. The trial in Coffs Harbour of the Tarkeeth Three and the acquittal of two of our activists were chronicled on a series of interviews recorded by Bellingen's Radio 2bbb, whilst other interviews were presented in The Tarkeeth Tapes. On a lighter note, we revisited our tribute to the wildlife on our rural retreat in the bucolic The Country Life.
And finally to lighter fare. There was Laugh Out Loud – The Funniest Books Ever. Poetry offerings included the reblog of Liverpudlian Gerry Cordon's selection of poetry on the theme of "undefeated despair": In the dark times, will there also be singing?; a fiftieth anniversary tribute to Liverpool poets Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, Recalling the Mersey Poets; and musical settings to two of our poems, the aforementioned Oh, Jerusalem, and E Lucevan Le Stelle.
And there was music. Why we've never stopped loving the Beatles; the mystery behind The Strange Death of Sam Cooke; Otis Redding – an unfinished life, and The Shock of the Old – the Glory Days of Prog Rock. Legends, Bibles, Plagues presented Bob Dylan's laureate lecture. We reprised Tales of Yankee Power – how the songs of Jackson Brown and Bruce Cockburn portrayed the consequences of US intervention in Latin America during the 'eighties. And we took an enjoyable journey into the "Celtic Twilight" with the rousing old Jacobite song Mo Ghille Mear – a piece that was an absolute pleasure to write (and, with its accompanying videos, to watch and listen to). As a Christmas treat, we reblogged English music chronicler Thom Hickey's lovely look at the old English carol The Holly and the Ivy, And finally, for the last post of this eventful year, we selected five christmas Songs to keep the cold winter away.
Enjoy the Choral Scholars of Dublin's University College below. and here are Those were the years that were : read our past reviews here: 2016 2015
In That Howling Infinite is now on FaceBook, as it its associate page HuldreFolk. Check them out.
And if you have ever wondered how this blog got its title, here is Why :In That Howling Infinite"?
Why we've never stopped loving the Beatles
November 27, 2017 January 28, 2018 Paul Hemphill 3 Comments
I have always wanted to write a tribute to the Beatles, but I can't better Australian journalist and author David Leser's piece in the Sydney Morning Herald on Nov 25-26 2017.
So here it is in full, pictures included:
I was 6½ years old when I saw the Beatles perform Love Me Do on Britain's Granada Television. Like anyone old enough to remember that moment in 1962, I was thunderstruck – by the harmonies, the haircuts and the wavering harmonica that John Lennon was playing.
Our generation had never heard anything like it – not until we heard Please Please Me, and then I Saw Her Standing There, and then From Me to You, and then She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Can't Buy Me Love, I Feel Fine, Ticket to Ride, Help …
They just kept coming didn't they? One glorious foot-stomping pop classic after another. Songs that took us to places of head-shaking ecstasy in less than 2½ minutes, blending influences of rock 'n' roll, rhythm 'n' blues, rockabilly, skiffle and – later – reggae, folk, country and western, Indian, psychedelia and string quartets.
Songs that started with choruses. Songs that went from minor falls to major lifts. Songs with beautiful bridges and mysterious openings, like that indescribable shimmering announcement of A Hard Day's Night, or the 16-minute medley that concluded Abbey Road, their final recorded album. (And, yes, Abbey Road was always my favourite, even though Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper and The White Albumcould always ambush me with their brilliant innovations.)
Police officers hold back the tide of fans screaming for the Beatles outside the Sheraton Hotel, where they stayed in Sydney during their 1964 Australian tour. Photo: George Lipman
Songs that were arrows aimed at the collective heart of nations. Songs that captured the tempo and temper of a generation. Songs that saw two geniuses – John Lennon and Paul McCartney – hunting as one pair to become the greatest songwriting duo in history – and this before George Harrison finally emerged from their oversized shadow.
Songs that came to represent arguably the greatest outpouring of melody from one source since Mozart. Not scores of good songs. Hundreds of great songs that are still being analysed, deconstructed and, of course, played today.
I was eight when the Beatles came to Australia in 1964 and 300,000 people poured onto the streets of Adelaide to welcome them. I had photos of the Beatles all over my bedroom wall (actually I still have photos all over my wall, although not my bedroom) and I remember crying when my mother went to see them at the Sydney Stadium and told me I couldn't go.
I was 14 when the Beatles disbanded in 1970 and my world was shattered for that central part of my history – our history – that had just died. And then again 10 years later when John Lennon was murdered in New York. I remember the moment as though it were yesterday – standing in a hospital corridor waiting to see my sick grandmother – as a woman in the room next door yelled to her deaf mother: "Did you hear mum? A madman just shot John Lennon."
Fans await the arrival of Ringo Starr of the Beatles at Kingsford Smith Airport,Sydney, in June 1964. Photo: Trevor Dallen
It was as if I'd lost a member of my own family, which in a way I had; only to be repeated 21 years later when George Harrison died from cancer.
The Beatles were the stuff that dreams and screams were made of and like millions of boys my age, I learnt to play guitar and sing because of them. I fell in love to the Beatles. And with the Beatles – George first, then Paul, then John, then George all over again.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon begin writing songs together in 1962. Photo: AP
And, truth is, this love has never deserted me – nor many in my generation – no matter how far we've travelled from their phenomenon, in time and space. Of course there were other loves too: the Beatles' great rivals – the Rolling Stones, the Who, Cream; the Beatles' successors – Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads and Fleetwood Mac; the Jewish songwriters – Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon; the androgynous ground breakers Bowie, Michael Jackson and Prince; not to mention Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Van Morrison, Cat Stephens and Bruce Springsteen. And all this well before we'd even entered the '90s.
Such a long list of musical loves, but never like that first great love. And now that Paul McCartney is about to arrive on our shores after a near 25 year absence it feels appropriate to reflect on why this should be so, notwithstanding the millions of words already penned about the Greatest Band the World has Ever Known.
I remember the moment as though it were yesterday – standing in a hospital corridor waiting to see my sick grandmother – as a woman in the room next door yelled to her deaf mother: 'Did you hear mum? A madman just shot John Lennon.'
It was always about the music, but the multiple stories that attached themselves to the Beatles were no less compelling. Two motherless Liverpool teenagers, one caustic and witty (Lennon), the other conciliatory and hugely ambitious (McCartney), crossing their city one day to find the only person who could teach them the B7 chord.
And then, in the space of a few short years, forging a songwriting partnership that would see them, by early 1964, capturing 60 per cent of the American singles market, all top five positions on the Billboard's singles and then, the following week, 14 of the top 100 US singles.
The Beatles give a press conference during their 1964 Australian tour
They'd honed their stage craft during their Hamburg years (1960-62) when – among the bouncers, gangsters and sex workers of the notorious Reeperbahn – they'd performed 800 hours on stage, mostly on Preludin to stay awake, with show-stopping songs like Ray Charles' What'd I Say.
They were the Rolling Stones before the Rolling Stones ever declared themselves a white Chicago blues band from London. For one thing, McCartney was a virtuoso musician who already knew his way around his left-handed guitar by the age of 15.
Paul McCartney on his One On One tour in 2016
Son of a big band leader, he was steeped in famous music hall songs, while also imbued with the rock 'n' roll of Fats Domino, Little Richard, Elvis and Chuck Berry, not to mention the revival of British jazz, known as skiffle. Plus he could sing harmonies like an angel and he taught Lennon how to tune his guitar.
By the time he'd reached his prime, he was playing bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, harmonica, trumpet, recorder, oboe, flugelhorn, cello, violin, harpsichord, even the drums.
I had photos of the Beatles all over my bedroom wall and I remember crying when my mother went to see them at the Sydney Stadium and told me I couldn't go, writes David Leser. Photo: Supplied
"Mr Lennon, is Ringo Starr the best drummer in the world?" a breathless interviewer once asked John Lennon. "Ringo isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles," Lennon replied.
It was an apocryphal story and it belied Ringo's mastery – his rock-steady backbeat, his tom tom grooves, his syncopated propulsion, his languid rolls. As McCartney noted after Ringo first sat in for original drummer Pete Best: "I remember the moment standing there and looking at John and then looking at George, and the look on our faces was like …what is this? And that was the moment, that was the beginning, really, of the Beatles."
And then the so-called "Quiet Beatle" George Harrison, the lead guitarist, whose magnificent songwriting talent only began to fully reveal itself in 1968, four years after Beatlemania had swept the world, with songs like While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Here Comes the Sun and Something, the latter Frank Sinatra describing as "the greatest love song ever written."
All great stories naturally have their tension and for the Beatles it was, firstly, the global hysteria that saw them turn their backs on live performances in favour of the studio. There they would end up penning their most brilliant songs – Day Tripper, We Can Work it Out, Norwegian Wood, Nowhere Man, In My Life, Paperback Writer, Eleanor Rigby. And all this before they got around to Sgt Pepper, The White Album, Let it Be and Abbey Road.
It was the tension also of the Lennon-McCartney rivalry that, at its best, would see them trading song for song – Lennon's Strawberry Fields Forever for McCartney's Penny Lane; or lyric for lyric, as in Day in the Life, arguably their greatest collaboration.
At its worst, though, was the feud that finally erupted in the wake of manager Brian Epstein's death from a drug overdose in 1967. That's when, according to Lennon, McCartney began bossing the others around, trying to assert his will over the band.
Lennon was withering about McCartney in his final Rolling Stoneinterview, claiming McCartney was an "egomaniac" who'd tried to destroy – subconsciously – his [Lennon's] songs. He also damned Yesterday, the most covered song in history, with faint praise.
"Well, we all know about Yesterday," he said. "I have had so much accolade for Yesterday. That is Paul's song, of course, and Paul's baby. Well done. Beautiful … and I never wished I had written it."
That final interview came three days before Lennon was gunned down and whatever chance there might have been of a true reconciliation between these old Liverpool friends ended with those five shots from Mark Chapman's .38 Special revolver.
In the 47 years since the Beatles disbanded the question has often been asked: "Who was the better songwriter, Lennon or McCartney?" In 2014, an American documentary crew attempted to provide an answer after spending 10 years asking 550 musicians, directors and actors for their verdict.
One respondent said it was like choosing between your mum and dad. Another said it was like deciding between "food, shelter and clothing". Lennon got the highest number of votes, although when US President Barack Obama awarded Paul McCartney the annual Gershwin prize for popular song in 2010 he described the now 75 year-old McCartney as "the most successful songwriter in history.
"He has composed hundreds of songs over the years – with John Lennon, with others, or on his own. Nearly 200 of those songs made the charts. Think about that. And stayed on the charts for a cumulative total of 32 years. His gifts have touched billions of lives."
My friends and I are among those billions, although I might be the most hopelessly devoted of all. Once a month a few of us gather for a night of Beatles songs and I'll be damned if I'm still not trying to work out the complex chord progressions and the high notes to their two and three-part harmonies.
My daughters, too, are fans, even though they were born two decades after it all ended. When each girl turned five I gave them the complete works of the Beatles with the instruction: "If you want to learn about songwriting and melody then listen to this."
My elder daughter is now a singer-songwriter, my younger daughter a photographer. No prizes for guessing where we'll be the night McCartney rolls back the years.Liverpool
See also: Recalling the Mersey Poets
Tales of Yankee Power
October 21, 2017 February 4, 2018 Paul Hemphill 3 Comments
When Jackson Browne released Lives in the Balance in 1986, critics reckoned that its contemporary content, the USA's bloody meddling in Central America, limited its appeal and long-term significance. And yet, here in the early twentieth first century, with the wars of the Arab Dissolution dragging the world into its vortex, the Great Power politics and proxy wars that taxed intellectual and actual imaginations in that seemingly distant decade jump back into the frame like some dystopian jack in the box. As Mark Twain noted, "history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme".
Lives in the Balance was certainly a record for and of its times. Months before the Iran-contra scandal broke, Browne sang "I want to know who the men in the shadows are, I want to hear somebody asking them why. They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are but they're never the ones to fight or to die". After the "arms for hostages" deals hit the news, increased public awareness of the US' secret and dirty war in Nicaragua inspired him to produce a video for the title track well after the album had passed its sales peak.
The album's other songs sustained the assault. Soldier of Plenty condemns America's paternalism towards its poor Latin neighbours. Lawless Avenues, with poignant Spanish lyrics by Browne and Warren Zevon's old friend and collaborator, Jorge Calderón, takes us down the mean streets of Latino Los Angeles before sending its young anti-hero off to die in America's wars. In the driving and ironic For America, Browne regrets his prior indifference and qualifies his conflicted patriotism: "I have prayed for America; I was made for America; it's in my blood and in my bones. By the dawn's early light! by all I know is right, we're going to reap what we have sown". in Til I Go Down, he sings "I'm not gonna shut my eyes, I've already seen the lies on the faces of the men of war leading people to the killing floor". This song aptly plays out the end credits of the harrowing academy award winning The Panama Deception which documents the US' invasion of that unfortunate country.
Browne was not the first mainstream singer and songwriter to address America's long and troublesome relationship with its Latin American neighbours. In his 1983 Stealing Fire and 1984 World of Wonders, Canadian Bruce Cockburn gave us the tragically beautiful Nicaragua and Santiago Dawn and the visceral If I Had a Rocket Launcher. On The Trouble With Normal (1983), there is Tropic Moon, with its cinematic imagery, and the lyrically deceptive Waiting For The Moon. The theme is the same as Browne's – the North's intervention in the politics of the South – particularly when comes to financing and arming rogue militias and warlords, and pliable, vicious and corrupt dictators: "Yanqui wake up, don't you see what you're doing, trying to be the Pharoah of the West bringing nothing but ruin…You're my friend but I say Yanqui go home!"
In this sad world, whenever Uncle Sam (or Uncle Ivan for that matter) plays his hand, something wicked this ways comes: "Little spots on the horizon into gunboats grow – waiting for the moon to show. Might be a party, might be a war when those faceless sailors come ashore. Whatever's coming, there's no place else to go, waiting for the moon to show".
Cockburn's poetic muse trumps Browne's agit-prop. These lines from Tropic Moon are nonpareil: "Away from the river, away from the smoke of the burning, fearful survivors, subject of government directives. One sad guitar note echoes off the wall of the jungle. Seen from the air they're just targets with nowhere to run to". And: "the light through the wire mesh plays on the president's pistol like the gleam of bead of sweat in the flow of a candle".
Very little has changed since Browne and Cockburn sang their Tales of Yankee Power. "But who are the ones that we call our friends? These governments killing their own? Or the people who finally can't take anymore, and they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone. And there are lives in the balance; there are people under fire; there are children at the cannons; and there is blood on the wire". And if you were one of those people, why wouldn't you say "If I had a rocket launcher, I would retaliate!" As Cockburn sings in Santiago Dawn, "military thugs with their dogs and clubs spreading through the poblacion, hunting whoever has a voice, sure that everyone will run. They come in strong but its not that long before they know its not that easy to leave. To keep a million homeless down takes more than a strong arm up your sleeve".
From Petrograd to Palestine, the story-line endures. The eighties were also the years of Russia's Afghan quagmire, which led, ideologically if not geographically to the Chechen pogroms; and of a decade of bloodletting in Lebanon and in what in reality was the First Gulf War, that between Iran and Iraq. The Berlin Wall fell a few years before the events that drove these records, inspiring an outpouring of optimism as the countries of Eastern Europe broke free of the Soviet thrall. But this was not the Kumbaya moment that dreamers yearn for. Ensuing decades have seen a cartography of carnage: Bali and Beslan, Gaza and Grozny, Kabul and Kigali, Manhattan and Mogadishu, Sarajevo and Srebrenica.
We witness the anatomy of the new world economy in which millions of souls are on the move and everything can be traded for value. Bombs and babies, girls and guns, dollars, drugs and more besides. False prophets and bad dreams, broken promises and forlorn hopes, obscured visions and false horizons. "Many have perished, and more most surely will" – a line taken from WH Auden's often overlooked masterpiece The Age of Anxiety, a meditation on a world in transition between the wreckage of The Second World War and foreboding for the impending armed peace that was itself to endure for another forty five years.
It is sadly ironic that our present world is passing through another time of uneasy transition, between the fixed certainties of great power rivalry and the intractable and bloody asymmetrical conflicts of today.
Paul Hemphill, November 2015
The other day, I was listening to Dire Straits' excellent 1985 album Brothers in Arms, and was reminded that several of the songs thereon refer, albeit obliquely, to the "bush wars" of Central America, and possibly also, to the US and Soviet Union's proxy wars in Southern Africa and Afghanistan. There is Ride Across the River, with its Latino mood, and the beautiful and haunting title track. And there is The Man's Too Strong, a powerful indictment of the cult of "the big man" that plagues countries all over the world. How often have these tyrants "re-written history with my armies and my crooks. Invented memories. I did burn all the books". And how often too have they been tolerated, supported and bankrolled by Uncle Sam and Comrade Ivan.
This post is very much a companion piece to my recent post, Allende's Desk and Osama's Pyjamas, another tale of Yankee power, and its subject matter echoes that of A Brief History of the Rise and the Fall of the West, and my poem E Lucevan le Stelle.
Its story does not relate to Bob Dylan's cryptic and nihilistic Señor (Tales of Yankee Power), from Street Legal (1978), played here by bluegrass wiz Tim O'Brien. As for the meaning of the Bobster's song, well, that's pretty hard to fathom. A cowboy fever dream, perhaps; one of those strange illusions you channel in the early morning between sleeping and waking, more about mood than meaning. Perhaps it deserves a post of its own one find day.
Listen to Lives in the Balance in full be clicking on the blue text. Amid the its hard-hitting political commentary sits In the Shape of a Heart, considered to be one of Browne's finest love songs. Yet this too might be regarded as controversial with regard to what it may or may not imply about the doomed relationship it describes. But like "the ruby she wore on the chain around her neck", it is a finely cut gem.
The Strange Death of Sam Cooke
August 12, 2017 September 11, 2017 Paul Hemphill 10 Comments
Listening to my good friend Demitri and his King Street Blues combo inspired me to revisit the early soul standards of the late fifties and early sixties. Inevitably the journey took me to Sam Cooke.
Sam Cooke (January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964), born Samuel Cook, was an African-American recording artist, singer-songwriter and entrepreneur. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and influence on the modern world of music. His pioneering contributions to soul music led to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Billy Preston and popularized the likes of Otis Redding and James Brown.
Cooke had 30 U.S. top 40 hits between 1957 and 1964, and a further three after his death. Major hits included "You Send Me", "A Change Is Gonna Come", "Cupid", "Chain Gang", and "Twistin' the Night Away". And few remember that Herman's Hermits "Wonderful World" was written and first recorded by Cooke.
He was also among the first modern black performers and composers to attend to the business side of his musical career. He founded both a record label and a publishing company as an extension of his careers as a singer and composer. He also took an active part in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
On December 11, 1964, Cooke was fatally shot by the manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 33. At the time, the courts ruled that Cooke was drunk and distressed, and that the manager had killed Cooke in what was later ruled a justifiable homicide. Since that time, the circumstances of his death have been widely questioned. Wiki tells the story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Cooke
Here are some of Sam Cooke's timeless hits:
And check out King Street Blues at: https://www.facebook.com/KingStreetBlues
Rhiannon the Revelator – In the dark times will there also be singing?
July 8, 2017 April 30, 2021 Paul Hemphill 2 Comments
In the dark times will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.
Berthold Brecht
Rhiannon Giddens, a multifaceted singer, musician, folklorist and storyteller brings American history alive in her her drive to unearth the stories of forgotten people so that her audiences and listeners may remember them.
On Moon Meets The Sun, a defiantly joyous song, Giddens and her comrades of Our Native Daughters sing in the round over a polyrhythmic lacework of banjo and guitar, vowing not to let radical suffering diminish humanity. "You put the shackles on our feet, but we're dancing", she sings, "You steal our very tongue, but we're dancing" "Ah, you sell our work for your profit, but we're dancing," she scoffs. "Ah, you think our home we have forgotten, but we're dancing." Then she recedes into the jubilant tangle of voices: "You can't stop us now (We'll be dancing). You can't keep us down (We'll be dancing)".
Rhiannon Giddens: "There is surely racism in this country — it's baked into our oldest institutions – just as there is sexism, millennia old. At the intersection of the two stands the African American woman. Used, abused, ignored and scorned, she has in the face of these things been unbelievably brave, groundbreaking and insistent. Black women have historically had the most to lose, and have therefore been the fiercest fighters for justice — in large, public ways that are only beginning to be highlighted, and in countless domestic ways that will most likely never be acknowledged."
NPR – First Listen to Our Native Daughters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0FfAagEkH8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZa1AMr7Kk0
Quasheba, Quasheba
You're free now, you're free now
How does your spirit fly?
Blood of your blood
Bone of your bone
By the grace of your strength we have life
From the Golden Coast of Ghana
To the bondage of Grenada
You kept the dream of hope alive
They burned your body
They cursed your blackness
But they could not take your lights
Raped and beaten, your babies taken
Starved and sold and sold again
Ain't you a woman, of love deserving
Ain't it somethin' you survived?
You dreamt of home, you dreamt of freedom
You died a slave, you died alone
You came from warriors who once built empires
Ashanti's kingdom carries on
You were forgotten, almost forsaken
Your children founded generations
Your strength sustained them
They won their freedom
Traced their roots to find you [waiting?]
How far your spirit's flown
By the grace of your strength we are home
We are home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zse7aJodkKg
Kingston, Jamaica 1983
I am reminded of Pete Seeger's adaptation of the old Baptist hymn:
" My life flows on in endless song
Above earth's lamentation.
I hear the real, thought far off hymn
That hails the new creation
Above the tumult and the strife,
I hear the music ringing;
It sounds an echo in my soul
How can I keep from singing?"
Here is the wondrous Éabha McMahon of Celtic Woman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9hth14hokI
That's How The Light Gets In
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times.
– Bertolt Brecht, motto to Svendborg Poems, 1939
In an essay called 'Undefeated Despair', John Berger wrote of 'Despair without fear, without resignation, without a sense of defeat.' 'However you look at it', the Guardian editorialised a few days ago, '2017 offers a fearful prospect for America and the world.' In the words of Paul Simon's 'American Tune', I don't have a friend who feels at ease when weighing the prospects for the year ahead. In the spirit that some solace may be found in poetry in these dark times, I offer a selection of poems or brief extracts – some have which have appeared in posts here before – which seem to offer meaning and hope; they may reflect Berger's stance of undefeated despair, offering not 'a promise, or a consolation, or an oath…


Food everywhere, six-story book stores, multi-level shops, ramen and host clubs for days, After wandering around Shinjuku Gyoen Gardens at full Hanami in a state of bewildered dazzlement, I found myself wandering around Shinjuku the city.
Shinjuku looks a lot like you might imagine, like a concept-art vision of Blade Runner where the artist busted out the Good Watercolors. It's more adult than Harajuku but still pretty Hello Kitty, with surprises like DVD stores and Mexican Food Casa Tequila as well as old standbys like an H&M where you could buy shirts with Garfield on them. Shinjuku only has everything.
While most of Shinjuku sparkled with a kind of jammed hypercompetitive bravado (Visit our ramen shop, see the Robot Restaurant! Godzilla! Movies!) graffiti and trash floated around in a couple alleys or places you weren't supposed to notice. I liked this a lot about Shinjuku - the little punkass things in the city felt like hanging out with the goth girl who knits a sweater during the high school musical. When there's so much panache and light and brigades of masterfully-produced Host Club trucks rolling by you, observing the graffiti feels so sweet. Getting a seat at a 6-person ramen shop feels like winning the lottery.
In buildings like the Taito Game tower above, you could play Pachinko or beefy arcade games the likes of which have never crossed the Pacific and never need to, it would all be just too much. Arcades were also packed full of claw machines, more than you could ever imagine, each claw machine containing just about anything - Sword Art Online figurines, Cup Noodles, Every Pokemon.
I've only been in Vegas once, during a layover on the way back to Texas after Thanksgiving. In what seemed like a more-hungover-than-usual terminal of the Vegas Airport, I tried some slot machines out with my husband Marc, mostly because they were themed after Dolly Parton. For a while I seemed to be winning, I actually was not sure what Dolly Parton was trying to communicate to me. Whatever she did, it all seemed good!
I lost, but, did I?
The Dolly Parton slots in Vegas - ahem the Vegas airport - are a bit like arcades in Shinjuku: I had no idea what I was doing but it was pretty fun! What's ten dollars down the drain for some cool animations?
For every claw machine I tried and where I spent 10,000 yen at ineffective, frustrated grasping, I ended up spying the same stuffed animal in a shop for around 15,000 yen (about 15 or 20 bucks, not bad). All I could think was that when people go into these claw machine joints, they are remarkably okay with the thrill of the chase. Hopefully they aren't addictive, gambling spirits, but surely, when the prizes are this cute, addiction happens. Otherwise how could there be so many damn claw machines when the logical, 15000 yen Neon Genesis Evangelion figurine can just be obtained online?
I gave it a shot. My arrhythmic heart chugged faster as I maneuvered the claw well enough to grab a Vaporeon, only to feel a brick of disappointment hit my ego when the machine inevitably flubbed the smiling stuffed creature at the last moment. Shinjuku arcade claw machines are a lot like working with computers. The machine just sort of tries its best given input, but you also know there's a human somewhere in there who made the machine the right mix of perfect-yet-imperfect.
After the arcades I went to a bookstore in the Shinjuku Toho Building (of Godzilla-looming fame), where the bookstore became like a strange dream and the bookstore just kept going. It had not one, not two, but six floors of books, and there were so many people in the bookstore - people of all ages.
In a half-real state of jetlag back in the States after my trip to Japan, I flipped through my photos while taking the Yellow Line over the Potomac to my office in Virginia. I'd taken so many shots on my poor withering iPhone 6 that I couldn't download any new apps or conduct Evil Tests, my favorite career task when I am not on vacation. Clip Studio Paint was also crying out like a wounded antelope, wailing for More Space on my iPad, and since losing my artwork would make me jump in the Potomac, I shuffled, migrated, and sluiced all of my Japan photos off my iCloud account like my life depended on it. Shortly after this I ran out of storage space in my Gmail account, which was never intended to be Dropbox, but hey, free things have their limits.
So I had a lot of photos. While organizing the photos at Starbucks later that day, I realized that while in Shinjuku I had apparently been wandering around in circles for an entire day and deep into the night, the photo at the top of this blog being nearly the same place as this photo below, with the bright pink sign on the left standing out like a bookmark in transcontinental time.
Animate in Akihabara - Comics are alive in Tokyo!


Depressive suicidal black metallers GHOST BATH have released a Jesse Lynch-directed video for the song "Happyhouse". The track is taken from the re-release of "Moonlover", which is now available digitally worldwide via Nuclear Blast Entertainment. A physical release in North America followed in both CD and vinyl formats on June 10.
"This video encompasses true despair and melancholy in a variety of ways" comments GHOST BATH vocalist Nameless. "'Happyhouse' is the track most resembling classic DSBM on the album. It is stripped down and minimalist and so we created something fitting and dreary for the music video."
"'Moonlover' is the first part of a trilogy of albums we plan to release," commented Nameless. "It encompasses the human experience and dwells within the minds of those who walk the earth. It deals with a longing for death and an eventual journey to realize the death instinct, Thanatos. A sort of numb sadness drenches this album's tracks; melancholy, tragedy, and despair all take hold of Moonlover at any given moment."
GHOST BATH will embark on its first-ever North American tour in support of "Moonlover" this July. The band will also headline the Shadow Woods Metal Fest in White Hall, Maryland on September 15.
GHOST BATH began in October of 2013 with the release of their self-titled EP on Solitude Productions (China). This was followed by their debut LP titled, "Funeral", which was released on Pest Productions (China) in June of 2014. "Moonlover", their latest LP was released originally on Northern Silence Productions (Germany) and was re-released through Nuclear Blast Entertainment. The album was produced by Josh Schroeder and Nameless and mixed by Josh Schroeder.


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Dynamic Policy Hooks in Ranger - Configure and Use - Ranger - Apache Software Foundation for your Wiki!
Ranger's Standard plugins are focused on authorizing based on static resources and users/ groups , e.g. Hive plugin allows for configuring authorization by database/table/column/udf. However, customer scenarios warrant access control decisions supplemented by other criteria like IP address, Time of the Day or Geo location from where a user is connecting.
Use cases like the access decision based on time of the day are often called Dynamic Policies. Such policies are called dynamic because answer to the same question changes depending on some dynamic aspect of the access context, e.g. time.
Provision for Extensibility hooks added to Ranger 0.5 was precisely to allow for such extensions of "standard" plugins by (more savvy users or) service providers. Though these extensibility hook point are generic in that they should be useful for any type of extension to authorization - be it static or dynamic.
How does Apache Ranger enforce policies?
To understand the design of the extensibility hooks framework it is essential to have an understanding of Ranger's processing pipeline and related terms. This section provides a quick review of most important points that are relevant to subject discussion.
Ranger plugins are loaded in the process of the server that they are authorizing.
For example, when ranger is authorizing HBase, ranger plugin code runs in the hbase master and region server processes.
For that to happen, Ranger plugin code must be packaged as a jar and made available in the classpath of the hbase master and region server processes.
The Policy evaluation and policy enforcement happens within the service process.
The heart of this processing is the "Policy Engine".
It uses a memory resident cached sets of policies.
This phase builds the Authorization request by gathering the context of the access which is to be authorized.
For example, for HDFS it may be the path of the file being accessed, access type (read, write, execute etc) requested along with other contextual information like user, group, time and ip addresses information.
This is where the authorization request is evaluated by the policy engine to decide if access should be allowed or not. It results in an authorization Result.
The Policy engine compares the information in the authorization request against the set of active policies to make its decision.
It makes decision about authorization and auditability of an access.
This is the phase where things that are to be done post evaluation are tackled, e.g. generating and logging the audit message to the right audit store, if required.
Customers are looking to add dynamic rules within the policy evaluation. Ranger team has built an Extensibility Framework for evaluating dynamic rules - using Context Enricher and Condition Evaluator hooks. Any user looking to add dynamic rules would need to implement/use appropriate condition evaluators, and if necessary context enrichers.
To help understand these steps better let's assume that we want to implement following two use cases.
Time-of-day: Allow access to a resource during certain time of the day. For example, if the policy specifies "8am-5pm", the policy should allow access only during this time period (let's defer the issue of timezone for now to keep the use case simple).
Project-assignment-restriction: Allow access to a resource on a need-to-know basis as defined by assignment to a project. Let's say users move in and out of projects. For compliance reasons, access to data needs to be restricted to a user based on the project the user is currently assigned to. If a policy specifies "risk-modeling" or "debt-recovery" then only users who are currently assigned to one of these projects should be able to access the data.
Now, let us now look at the steps needed to add these sorts of abilities to HDFS service.
Identify the additional information to be added to the request context for your use case. Write a context enricher, if necessary, to add the necessary information to the request context. Refer to the Context Enricher section below for details.
Time-of-day use case: Information required to enforce this dynamic rule is the the time when the resource is accessed. Since this information is already present in the access request, there is no need to write a context enricher.
During initialization, the context enricher reads in the disk file into an in-memory map of users or user-groups to projects.
During enrichment phase, the context enricher extracts the requesting user's name and group membership from the request and uses them to retrieve currently assigned projects from in-memory map.
The context enricher pushes the currently assigned projects information into the request context.
Implement/use appropriate condition evaluators to enforce conditions specified on the policy. Refer to the Condition Evaluators section below for details.
Time-of-day use case: Ranger ships with a standard condition evaluator which does that (RangerTimeOfDayMatcher). Please review its code.
It extracts the access time from the access request and compares against the valid times specified on the policy.
If access time lies within any of the time windows then it returns true.
Project-assignment-restriction use case: implement a condition evaluator that compares the user's project membership (added to the request context by the context enricher) against the project names specified in the policy and return true if user is in one of the projects specified in the policy.
Update the service type definition with the context richer and condition evaluator details so that Policy engine knows to wire them in the authorization pipeline and to let the policy authors enter the condition values in policies. Refer to the Appendix section below for an example for steps and commands that achieve that.
Shutdown the HDFS service and Ranger Admin.
Deploy the Context enricher and condition evaluators' code to the HDFS namenode and Ranger Admin.
For a service like HDFS this would typically be /usr/hdp/<version-#>/hadoop/lib.
Note that for the service the jars need to be copied only to the nodes that take part in the authorization. This differs from service to service. For example, in case of HDFS only namenode participates in authorization. Where as for HBase both Master and Region server participate in authorization.
Restart the both the Ranger Admin and then the HDFS namenode.
Verify that Ranger UI shows the new policy condition.
Create a policy with values for the custom condition and validate that authorization is as expected.
curl --user admin:admin --get "http://node-1:6080/service/public/v2/api/servicedef/name/hdfs"
This returns json response. Note down the id of the service type.
Look at sample output #1 below.
Now add context enricher to HDFS service definition using the following command.
Include the edited json in the body of the post. This should echo back the request body.
Look at Sample output # 2 below.
Look at Sample output #3 below.
Copy the condition evaluator jar to ranger server's classpath. Copy both condition evaluator and context enricher to the classpath of the service where the ranger plugin runs.
What is a context enricher?
A Context Enricher is any Java class that extends abstract class RangerAbstractContextEnricher.
A series of context enrichers can be configured in a service type definition.
Before the access request is evaluated by the policy engine, context enrichers are invoked to update the request context with additional information.
Context Enricher is not expected to maintain any state and in general should be written to be reentrant.
Context enricher object would be garbage collected and new one created whenever a new set of policies is available to the plugin. Since the policies change infrequently, this is expected to be of minimal performance impact.
Ranger source code has a ranger-examples sub-project which maintains demo examples of these. The project also is meant to serve as a template maven project that can be cloned and used to build your customer components. Examples project has two context enrichers RangerSampleProjectProvider and RangerSampleCountryProvider. Both of these provide a way to read a key/value map from a disk file (in the form of standard java properties list) that can be used to enrich the context.
These context enrichers are provided just to illustrate the semantics of context enrichers and what all they have access to during enrichment phase. They are not meant to be deployed in production as is. For example, a production class enricher would keep its key-value data in database or some other durable data store.
What is a condition evaluator?
A Condition Evaluator is a java class that extends the abstract class RangerAbstractConditionEvaluator.
It is invoked in by the policy engine during the Policy Evaluation phase.
A series of condition evaluators can be configured for a service type which would be evaluated in series. To be allow access, all evaluators should succeed.
During evaluation the condition evaluator has access to the entire access request.
Ranger Admin uses the information in policy condition definition to prompt the policy author to provide values.
Condition Evaluator should be reentrant.
Condition Evaluator object would be garbage collected and new one created whenever a new set of policies is available to the plugin. Since the policies change infrequently this is expected to be of minimal performance impact.
Ranger source code has a ranger-examples sub-project which maintains demo examples of these. The project also is meant to serve as a template maven project that can be cloned and used to build your customer components. Examples project has a sample condition evaluator RangerSampleSimpleMatcher. In addition Ranger production code uses the following two condition evaluators: RangerIpMatcher. The former is used by the standard Knox plugin.
id of the service-def is 1.
Update the contextEnrichers collection on the HDFS service-definition via PUT.
curl --user admin:admin --put "http://node-1:6080/service/public/v2/api/servicedef/name/hdfs"
Edit the response received from the previous step and modify the policy conditions section as indicated below.
per the semantics of PUT the response should be semantically similar to the JSON payload. The update times might differ.
Context enricher attribute is an array so that multiple context enrichers can be specified, if needed, which would be invoked in order.
Update the policyConditions collection on the HDFS service-definition via PUT.
the policyConditions attribute of service def is an array. So multiple policy conditions could be specified which would be evaluated in order.
Both of these PUT calls could be combined into a single call. They are listed here separately only for clarity.


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text:
Pitt School Of Public Health, PA Dept. Of Health Abruptly Pull Out Of Oct. 5 Public Meeting They Helped Convene On Studies Looking At Links Between Natural Gas Development And Childhood Cancer Rates
On September 30, the Center for Coalfield Justice, Environmental Health Project, Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania, and FracTracker Alliance announced the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and the state Department of Health said they would not participate in an October 5 public meeting they helped convene on studies looking at links between natural gas development and childhood cancer.
The meeting will still be held-- Click Here to register for both in-person and virtual options.
Three years ago, a group of parents whose children have been affected by rare cancers, including Ewing sarcoma, asked the state Department of Health to investigate childhood cancers being diagnosed at disproportionately high rates in Southwestern Pennsylvania, where shale gas drilling, fracking, and infrastructure buildout have occurred.
In 2019, Gov. Wolf 's administration allocated $3 million on a pair of studies to explore the potential health effects of the natural gas industry, taking action after months of impassioned pleas by the families of childhood cancer patients who live in the most heavily drilled region of the state.
Those studies, called the PA Health and Environment Studies, have been underway for two years.
Though study results are not yet available, the Center for Coalfield Justice, Environmental Health Project, Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania, and FracTracker Alliance collaborated for months with representatives from the state Department of Health and researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health to organize a public meeting on October 5 in Canonsburg.
Researchers were set to explain the study process to the public and take questions from community members.
This meeting was to be the first time since the launch of the studies that parents and community members would have the opportunity to learn from the institutions conducting the studies.
Then suddenly this week, both the University of Pittsburgh and the Department of Health backed out of attending the public meeting.
"It is reasonable for community residents and pediatricians like me to be concerned that fracking may be to blame for the spike in rare childhood cancers and other health impacts in Southwestern Pennsylvania," said Dr. Ned Ketyer, former member of the External Advisory Board for the studies, and president of Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania. "Dozens of scientific and medical studies support those concerns. Community members are demanding answers. Unfortunately, the decision by the PA DOH and University of Pittsburgh to withdraw their commitment and not attend the public meeting on October 5 effectively silences those important voices and keeps the community in the dark."
Today, four members of the studies' External Advisory Board resigned their positions, citing resistance to accountability and transparency to community members.
As described in the invitation from The University of Pittsburgh to join the advisory board, these health and community leaders were asked to participate because of their "role as a trusted member of the potentially impacted community represented within [the] study region" and to "ensure necessary scientific integrity, transparency, and credibility for the studies[.]"
"Parents deserve to hear from these institutions," said Heaven Sensky, former External Advisory Board Co-Chair and Organizing Director at the Center for Coalfield Justice. "More than 100 community members are already planning to attend the meeting. Participating in this public forum was the bare minimum these agencies and research institutions could do to provide information to grieving parents and concerned community members. But now, they won't even do that. Yet again, powerful institutions show they are more interested in pleasing their industry donors and political backers than ensuring our children grow up free from preventable disease, and as a result it falls upon our community organizations to fill the gap and answer people's questions."
Lois Bower-Bjornson, a resident of Washington County, said, "As a mother living surrounded by fracking with children who have health impacts, this issue is scary and results in an emotional response.
The purpose of this meeting was to ensure community members understand the process of the study.
Even though trusted institutions are failing to show up for us, I encourage you to still join and hear from your neighbors and community groups to submit your questions.
This meeting is about protecting the health of my children and community."
Oct. 5 Meeting Will Go On
Even though the University of Pittsburgh and the Department of Health are no longer attending, the meeting will still take place on October 5 at 5:30 p.m. at the Yoney Pavilion at Canonsburg Town Park.
Click Here to register for both in-person and virtual options.
The meeting will give attendees the opportunity to learn more about the PA Health and Environment Study and other environmental studies that have been conducted in the community. Families can have a discussion about what is known from previous research and how they can use that information to protect their children's health.
Any questions that cannot be answered by participating organizations will be directed to the University of Pittsburgh research team and the state Department of Health.
Visit the University Of Pittsburgh's PA Health and Environment Studies webpage for more background.
NewsClips:
-- Pittsburgh Business Times: Organizers Say University Of Pittsburgh, State Dept. Of Health Pulled Out Of Public Meeting On Natural Gas Health Studies
-- StateImpactPA - Reid Frazier: University Of Pittsburgh, PA Health Dept. No Longer Part Of Oct. 5 Public Forum On Fracking Health Studies, Organizers Say
Related Article On Oct. 5 Meeting:
-- Center For Coalfield Justice Hosts Oct. 5 In-Person, Virtual Public Meeting On PA Health Studies Of Natural Gas Development In Southwest PA
University Of Pittsburgh - 3 Health Studies:
-- Center For Coalfield Justice Hosts Oct. 5 Public Meeting On PA Health Studies Of Natural Gas Development In Southwest PA [PaEN]
-- University Of Pittsburgh School Of Public Health Recruiting Families In Southwest PA For Study Of Childhood Cancer, One Of 3 Studies Of Potential Health Impacts Linked To Shale Natural Gas Development [PaEN]
-- Dept. Of Health Awards $2.5 Million Contract To University of Pittsburgh To Research Health Effects Of Hydraulic Fracturing In PA [PaEN]
-- Health Advocacy Groups Meet With State Dept. Of Health, DEP To Discuss Residents Impacted By Shale Gas Emissions [PaEN]
-- Dept. Of Health Visits Communities And Families Impacted By Shale Gas Development, Hears Firsthand Accounts Of Health Harms [PaEN]
-- Environmental Health Project: PA's Natural Gas Boom - What Went Wrong? Why Does It Matter? What Can We Do Better To Protect Public Health? [PaEN]
-- Senate Hearing: Body Of Evidence Is 'Large, Growing,' 'Consistent' And 'Compelling' That Shale Gas Development Is Having A Negative Impact On Public Health; PA Must Act [PaEN]
Related Articles This Week:
-- DEP Issues 2 NOVs Against PA General Energy For Water Pollution Discharges Into The Loyalsock Creek From Gas Pipeline/Water Withdraw Construction In Lycoming County [PaEN]
-- Final Reg. Reducing Methane From Conventional Oil & Gas Facilities NOT On Environmental Quality Board Agenda For Oct. 12; Will Consider Final PFOS/PFOA MCL Rule [PaEN]
-- DEP Posts First Invitation For Bids For Plugging 79 Conventional Natural Gas Wells In Allegheny, Butler, McKean, Potter Counties Under Federally-Funded Program [PaEN]
-- DEP/Susquehanna River Basin Commission Public Notices -- Oil & Gas Industrial Facilities [PaEN]
-- Forbes: U.S. Natural Gas Production Set New Record, But Don't Expect Relief On Your Heating Bills [LNG Exports Link U.S./PA To High Prices] [PaEN]
-- DEP Now Accepting Applications For Cooking In Healthy Electrified Commercial Kitchens Rebate Program; 3 Cooking In Energy Efficient Kitchens Webinars [PaEN]
-- FracTracker Alliance Accepting Nominations For 2022 Community Sentinel Awards [PaEN]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
dorothyday
% On Pilgrimage - July/August 1950 % Dorothy Day
The Catholic Worker, July-August 1950, 1, 3.
Summary: Describes the work, inconvenience, and grateful anticipation of their move to a new house on Christie Street. Includes an account of an all-night pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of Mt. Carmel. (DDLW #612).
The last issue of the Catholic Worker came out a long time ago–June 1. Since then the story of the new headquarters of the Catholic Worker pales into insignificance, in view of the world situation. It is heartbreaking once again to see casualty lists in the New York Times and feel the lack of peace in all hearts as fear grows of more widespread conflict. Once again we must reiterate our absolute pacifist position. We believe that not only atomic weapons must be outlawed, but all war, and that the social order must be restored in Christ, so that we may have true peace, "tranquillity in order." Robert Ludlow is writing our position in this same issue, so I will write no further on the subject, but fulfill my delightful obligation to report on the new house for our 63,000 readers.
Still at 115
First of all, we are still at 115 Mott street, and all mail, calls, visitors should come here and not to the new house at 221-223 Chrystie street. There are only 200 Koreans in New York City, and, strangely enough, we bought our house from a Korean family who were living with their married children and grandchildren. They are still living there, and it is oppressive enough that we are forcing them to move, and we do not wish them to be bothered with our visitors. The contract to sell the house was signed and money paid over only a few days before the war broke out in Korea and changed the plans of the head of the family, who had intended to return. Now they are hunting for a new home, and, having finished praying for a new home for ourselves and making our thanksgiving, we now must start praying for them. We ask our readers, too, to pray in this particular instance for a new home or homes for these three families whom we are displacing. Of course, they are well-off people and cannot be considered in the light of dispossessed people, but still the trials and anguish they are going through must touch our hearts and make us anxious to put up with the inconveniences we are also suffering at not having immediate occupancy such as we had agreed on. It seems wars are always touching us very closely. We had Japanese and Chinese in the house in the last war, Russian and German, Irish and English. Always there are the seeds of conflict right with us, and we are forced over and over again to consider immediate people, immediate issues, our own passions and contentions, suspicions, anger and lack of brotherly love.
Christianity is never easy. The problem of love is to believe in love, to believe in the possibility of loving others in spite of the sin and disease which are so present all around us that it is hard to find Christ in others.
Again Trees
Years ago I wrote a short story, entitled "She could sit under a tree," the story of a tenement mother and what it meant to her to sit with her baby carriage under a tree in a city park. Right across the street from us on Chrystie street is the beginning of Sara Delano Roosevelt Park, which stretches from Houston street to Manhattan Bridge. There are long groves of plane trees, and under them are benches where we can sit and watch the children in the playground on the swings. The plane tree has been compared to the Blessed Mother in Scripture, and Irene and I have delighted on a number of evenings this month in sitting on one of these benches and saying our rosary while we contemplated our home-to-be. It was no distraction from our prayers to sit there and look at it ecstatically. It was a help to thanksgiving.
We are going to have things "nice," we decided. A sitting room for the women and the two dormitory rooms not too crowded, so that there would be peace and quiet. (And how one woman alone can shatter the peace and how we can begin to torment ourselves with the problem of charity and the common good, of forgiving seventy times seven, and contributing to delinquency!) Nothing is easy in the Christian life, and it doesn't get any easier with this wound of Christianity inflicted on one, as Kirkegaard calls it. "Pierce, I beseech thee, O Lord Jesus, the inmost marrow of my soul with the tender and life-living [sic] wound of they love." We ask for it in these terms, little knowing what we ask!
We both groan, Irene and I, but still we are exulting in our new home, with its space and light and sun, the laundry in the sub-basement, the big back yard, four times as big as the one we have now, where we can have meetings in the evening, where all the high and glorious and lofty things of this life and the next can be discussed, regardless of ash cans and cats and the blare of juke boxes and the shoutings of neighbors.
We have had good meetings this summer, with Alan Crite, the Negro artist; Ed Willock and Carol Jackson, editors of Integrity; Bill Martin, of the Sun-Herald; Gary Davis, the world citizen, and others. Now we have stopped the meetings, due to the moving that is going on, and will continue to go on all summer.
We paid $30,000 for the house, and that money came in small donations for the most part from our readers all over the country and from the most unlikely sources. Four thousand dollars was loaned to us by readers, without interest. A soldier in Tokyo, who may be in Korea now, sent a donation and thanked God for the work for peace we were doing. A merchant marine dropped into the office between trips and left $40. A hundred dollars came from a sick woman in a hospital. Another reader gave a station wagon, a 1939 Ford, which has been doing valiant work making numberless trips back and forth with loads to the new house.
Joe Cuellar, our Mexican fellow worker who gave us the last six months of good hard work, finished packing all the back issues in the cellar and cleaning it out before he took off for a retreat at Gethsemane. On his way to the Trappists of Kentucky he and his companion went to sleep in a parked car and were arrested and given ten days for disturbing the peace,–what a charge!–and so missed out on their retreat.
A heroic job has been done by Roger O'Neil of Boston who has managed the work of evacuating the entire rear house and packing in the men in two apartments in the front house. We women are also tucked tightly into the top floor with scarcely space to turn or breathe. The kitchen goes on functioning, serving some six hundred meals a day, and though they may be only bowls of soup and cups of coffee and bread, those gallons of soup for hundreds heat the kitchen and tempers to the boiling point. Nevertheless, Fred and Wynn set out good meals for the family, even adding fringes with their whole wheat biscuits and bread for the breakfast. Roger, though he is the youngest member of the group, has shown an ability which has amazed everyone. He has collected sandwiches from summer schools in Brooklyn, sometimes late, much to the distress of the good Sisters, and he has kept at the evacuation day and night. He painted Marjorie Hughes' new apartment; moved her and Cecilia Curran. Tonight he is going up to the farm with a load of furniture for a woman whose husband is hospitalized with t.b. and who has a family of children and little furniture. We have some dressers and tables to spare. The driving has been done by Charles McCormick and Tony Aratari and Joe Monroe have assisted the moving, and they all keep going in the heat in unfailing good humor and readiness. Thank God for this steady help. Hans Suter arrived for a visit from Pendle Hill before his return to Switzerland and is painting the dining room and kitchen at Chrystie street. Peter Carey is doing electrical work, Jane Pate from Louisville has been staying a month with us doing everything that came up, an invaluable assistant.
Such help has come, in money and in labor that we have a renewed sense of the need to work hard as good servants of the poor, with no grumblings and complainings about heat and crowdings, loss of sleep and lack of time for what we consider necessary in the way of study and writing. People are more important than anything else. We can only show our love of God by our love of our fellows. Besides in this life, in this time of war and fear, we might as well get used to the idea of doing our thinking and praying, our study and writing on park benches and in snatches. Not that I think Harper Brothers are going to be satisfied with the book I am finishing up for them and since they have already invested a thousand dollars in it, I have an obligation to get the job done to the best of my ability. What I would like, of course, would be to go off to the seashore someplace and with the smell of seaweed and salt air, enjoy the writing that I still have to do. But that's heaven I'm thinking about, not this life. It is wanting too much. Harper and Brothers will just have to be content with the journalistic and epistolary style, which is the only one I am capable of.
Jane Pate, in between washing windows and dusting on this hot Saturday afternoon, asks me not to forget to tell of our pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of Mt. Carmel which took place on a Saturday night two weeks ago. We set out at eleven thirty and walked from our place, which is ten blocks below First Street, to One Hundred and Sixteenth street and First Avenue. Many Italians in this neighborhood have made that pilgrimage every year for fifteen years in their bare feet. There were eight of us walking and the night was not too hot, and we prayed the rosary as we walked and did some singing. Joe Monroe had the best voice among us. There was Hans, Bob Considine, Tony, Joe, Roger, Cyril and Jane and I and when I saw the festa lights at one-thirty we were exulting prematurely. We still had to wait until four a.m. to get in to Mass. The police have a long night of it, roping off the thousands who come on the pilgrimage, a line which extends all around the block, ten deep. The wait was complicated by the fact that showers began to come down, soaking all the devout who held their ground and continued the wait under newspapers and cardboard and hastily contrived rain capes. The rain was intermittent, and we kept moving ahead, so that one time we found shelter in doorways, another under the leaking awnings of venders of candles and holy images. We met others from our own neighborhood, from Mulberry and Baxter streets who had also walked. Thousands received communion. It was a pilgrimage of the poor, and it was garish and tawdry, perhaps, to the unseeing eye, a mortification of the exterior and interior senses in many ways. Next year, we decided, we would gather together a choir such as we have on Christmas eve when we go carolling around Mott street and with the help of some strong voices we will sing to pass the time and to engage in praise while we wait. It would be far easier waiting while we lighten this heavy flesh with song. There is always a natural and a supernatural reason for doing everything, it seems.
To all of us who live here in the slums, such a pilgrimage is a joy indeed. There were no solemn or dour faces there, in this exercise of doing honor to God and our Lady. People were gay and chatty and there was no putting off natural joy to put on a fake piety.
Our God is indeed a personal God to whom it is fit and proper that we bring our praise and petitions. He has first called us and He has first loved us, and we have a duty and a joy to repay love with love. We have asked bread of Him these last months in the way of a place to live and He has given us our hearts desire and our body's need. We are grateful indeed.


text:
Hella Cocktail Citrus Bitters (5 oz)
Fernet-Branca
STATE: US IL WA FL
US IL WA FL
Fernet-Branca is a unique Amaro beloved by bartenders and nicknamed, "The Bartender's Handshake." Fernet-Branca is produced in Italy following an unchanged 175-year-old secret family recipe, known by only one person in the world. Proudly still independent and family-owned, made by the 6th generation of the Branca family in Milan, Fernet-Branca is an herbal digestive originally designed to settle the stomach after a meal and sold as a medicine in the US during Prohibition.
A bitter, herbal amaro, with almost no sugar, Fernet-Branca is a complex mix of 27 herbs and botanicals from the four corners of the world including mint, ginger, rhubarb, and saffron. Matured for 1 year in oak barrels before it is released, Fernet-Branca created the fernet own sub-category of Amaro. Traditionally served neat, or as a shot after a meal as a digestif, Fernet-Branca is also the perfect addition to take any cocktail to the next level!
© 2020 Fernet-Branca is a registered trademark of Fratelli Branca Distillerie S.R.L., Milan, Italy. Amaro 39% Alc./Vol. Imported by Branca USA, Miami, FL
FernetFernet-Branca
Please keep your engraving to characters per line.
Herbal with electric notes of anise, bitter orange, citrus, saffron, spice and mint.
Citrus marmalade flavor complemented by a blend of butterscotch, graham cracker and cocoa.
Sweet and powerful accented by espresso and campfire notes.


Have you ever considered a foursome? Well this is the experience you were looking for. Four stand alone Novellas that give you a full novel experience in a short story.
The soldiers at Walter Reed know that war can be brutal and cruel. The biggest battle is often fought after they leave the battlefield.
Ava Sawyer knows the cost of war too well. As a volunteer at Walter Reed she sees the men and woman rotate through the halls as the nation tries to heal it's heroes. Using music and movement, she encourages the wounded vets to find a new rhythm in their lives.
Mark Taylor thought his dreams had ended, until a beautiful woman dances into his life and his heart.
Will the scars of war be too much to handle, or can love conquer all?
Sophie has to move on, but how do you move on when your heart is paralyzed?
A man, martini's and a magical night are all it takes to set her on a new path.
Love isn't something she seeks; she's been hiding for two hundred and twenty-six days.
Attraction isn't a choice, it just happens. Troy isn't a choice; he's a force of nature.
Joss Meyer has never known stability. She has a failed relationship, a dead-end job, and nowhere to live. Time is running short and with few options, and through the insistence from her online friend, Lucky, she glances through Craigslist and finds the perfect apartment, in the best neighborhood, for a price she can afford. Is it too good to be true?
Lucas Byrne believes in love at first sight and when he sees Joss, he knows she's the one. He's willing to do just about anything to get close to her, even if it means helping her attempt to get her cheating ex-boyfriend back. Giving her a place to stay, and skills to claim her man, he patiently hopes she finds herself in the process. But what if his risk doesn't pay off?
Joss is uncertain of her desirability and is not sure what her future holds. Will she ever find love or is she destined to be alone? Could Lucas be her only friend in the world or will he prove to be another in a string of unreliable, untrustworthy men?
As a military wife, Kelly has traveled the world like a rock star on tour. Living in places such as England and Hawaii have been a highlight in her life.
Over the years, she has been a jack-of-all-trades, jumping between dental assisting, teaching, and running her home staging business until finally, one day, she decided to do something she was meant to do. She wrote.
Armed with a glass of wine and her laptop, Kelly loves nothing more than to create a world that any woman would want to explore.


Having the ability to communicate clearly and easily isn't just important for pilots in the air—it is critically important for FBOs, flight schools, flight instructors, firefighters, law enforcement, and in the parachute drop zone as well. FBO's need an economical way to talk to in-range aircraft on the UNICOM frequency, flight instructors benefit from being able to talk to their soloing students, emergency services must be able to talk to aerial assets, and drop zone supervisors have to be able to communicate local conditions to jump planes aloft. The right aviation transceiver can add robust communication capabilities to a nearly endless variety of mission critical applications.
Pilot Mall carries a wide selection of aviation transceivers from Yaesu Transceivers, Icom Transceivers, Gleim Receivers, and others. We also provide a wide selection of transceiver accessories such as power adapters, battery cases, and extra batteries. Make sure that you are never out of touch—check out Pilot Mall's aviation transceiver selection.


A fitting reminder for her special day! One of the finest dolls on the market. This detailed porcelain keepsake doll stands 12" tall and comes nicely gift boxed. Porcelain/Fabric.
Available with your choice of blonde hair or brunette hair.


This week we continued with our theme for Fasching, 'The Gruffalo'. We have made characters from the Gruffalo using different shapes and started some decorations.
The weather didn't stop us, and we enjoyed our visit to the KKT, looking at their exhibition of 'The Best 100 Children's Stories'. We had the chance to look at and read lots of their super stories.


This past year we have definitely seen some positive changes in the industry, but it is safe to say that these past few years have been challenging for everyone in one way or another. However, with those challenges come a time of reflection and one thing we can honestly say is, how grateful and fortunate we are as a company for the support of our loyal friends and customers such as yourself who make our business possible. It is with that support that we will mark 30 wonderful years in business this year, 2013!!
I still remember my first home sale over by Ballard High! When I started my real estate career in 1983, we were dealing with double digit interest rates, a customer database on 3×5 index cards, mobile phones were still new and you had to have a box mounted in the trunk of your car, and there were no computers so the MLS was a book that was printed on newsprint and published bi-weekly in black and white – this was how you found out about other companies inventory. For photos we used Polaroid cameras and "rushed" to get them turned in to the MLS with our new listing to make the next publication.
By 1985 I decided it was time to hire an assistant to help with all of the "busy" work and a coworker of mine recommended a local 19 year old college student, Ann Bronson. That Spring, she came to work with me 14 hours a week and by September we had her licensed, making us the first real estate team in the area. Now 28 years and a name change later, Ann Babb-Nordling and I are still working together as a team!
Yes, the real estate industry has made great strides in business and technology since 1983 but while many things have changed, success in the real estate industry is based on relationships and experience. It's a people business and I am proud of the team we have put together and the friends we've made along the way! Thank you for your continued support and referrals and we look forward to a productive 30th year in real estate and have some exciting new endeavors on the horizon so be sure to stay tuned!


text:
Sex Workers' Opera
I was one of the two musicians playing the score for Sex Workers' Opera, a community theatre project giving voice to the diverse experiences of Sex Workers around the globe.
The show directed by XX Experimental Experience Theatre, came from a desire to look at sex work, and to attempt to represent another side than what is already documented, to give a voice to those whose jobs are at stake but who have no stake in the decision processes occurring presently within the government. Laws are being made, raids are being carried out and the people it affects most are never heard.
This series of the show was performed at Courtyard Theatre, London.
Sound Life (2015)


text:
All the Light We Cannot See 3. Occupier Summary & Analysis
Marie-Laure wakes up after a night of resting in Saint-Malo. Madame Manec greets her. Marie-Laure asks her if the entire house belongs to her great-uncle, and Manec says yes. She explains that Etienne lives in the house, but rarely comes out of his room, which is on the fifth floor of his massive house.
The novel now has some elements of the Gothic mystery novel to add to its blend of genres. For example, one Gothic novel trope is that a guest—usually a young girl—comes to stay at a big, intimidating house, and slowly gets to know the owner of the house, often a mysterious older man.
In the following days, Marie-Laure asks Marie-Laure's father about the German invasion of Paris. He explains that the soldiers have occupied the city, and will try to make French people speak German and behave like Germans. Marie-Laure tells her father that everything will be okay—they'll live with Etienne for a while, and then eventually go back to Paris and get her copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Marie-Laure's father continues to tell his daughter things that can't possibly be true—that they're going to return to Paris to retrieve her book, for example. (In all probability, the house would be ransacked by the time they return to Paris). Marie-Laure's father isn't exactly lying—he's just dealing with tragedy through fantasy. Like his daughter, he wants to believe that they'll be back soon, so he repeats this to himself and to Marie-Laure.
Arn, Jackson. "All the Light We Cannot See Three (June 1940): Occupier." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 12 Mar 2016. Web. 16 Jul 2019.
Arn, Jackson. "All the Light We Cannot See Three (June 1940): Occupier." LitCharts LLC, March 12, 2016. Retrieved July 16, 2019. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/all-the-light-we-cannot-see/three-june-1940-occupier.


Evolution has given the human body some odd parting gifts, like the appendix. People just don't eat as much tree bark as they used to.
Scroll to the end to watch the video.
The human body has been a work in progress for about the last six million years, so it's understandable if over that time we've outgrown some of our components.
Our tonsils, once intended to be the all-natural wall nasty pathogens need to penetrate in order to call our bodies home, are now usually infection culprits themselves. When was the last time you heard tonsils being name-dropped if it wasn't in reference to having them removed? Much like the appendix, which humans did at one point rely on to help digest a diet much heavier on the greenery, tonsils are now something that have become a cottage industry for surgeons.


text:
cask 'texturepacker' do
  version '4.8.0'
  sha256 'cfdddec6f31e32a0520bef89a412b8c479cf1c807752f3b18d22eeada8011f54'

  url "https://www.codeandweb.com/download/texturepacker/#{version}/TexturePacker-#{version}-uni.dmg"
  appcast 'https://www.codeandweb.com/releases/TexturePacker/appcast-mac-release.xml'
  name 'TexturePacker'
  homepage 'https://www.codeandweb.com/texturepacker'

  app 'TexturePacker.app'
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


A standing legislative committee comprised of a cross section of Missouri Peace Officers Association members from throughout the state encourages and supports the passage of stronger criminal laws. Members of the Legislative Committee are: Chief Mike Wiegand Eureka PD, Chair; Major Dale Schmidt MSHP (ret.); Chief Larry Joiner, KCPD (ret.).
During the legislative session the executive director will provide weekly updates on bills that will directly affect how Missouri law enforcement operates. All Missouri peace officers are encouraged to become involved in legislation that affects them and their communities. Stay informed on proposed bills and contact your elected representatives to let them know of your support or opposition regarding these issues.


text:
#nullable disable

using System.Text.Json.Serialization;

namespace Amazon.Ses;

public sealed class SesComplaint
{
    [JsonPropertyName("userAgent")]
    public string UserAgent { get; init; }

    [JsonPropertyName("complainedRecipients")]
    public SesRecipient[] ComplainedRecipients { get; init; }

    [JsonPropertyName("complaintFeedbackType")]
    public string ComplaintFeedbackType { get; init; }

    // 2012-05-25T14:59:38.613-07:00

    [JsonPropertyName("timestamp")]
    public DateTimeOffset Timestamp { get; init; }

    [JsonPropertyName("feedbackId")]
    public string FeedbackId { get; init; }
}