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A fun weekend ahead with "Trouble at the Tropicabana"
By Editorial Staff • August 8, 2012 @ 6:00 pm
BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/file photo
The last run of "Trouble at the Tropicabana" played to packed houses.
Get ready for a two-day reprise of the interactive "Trouble at the Tropicabana" this upcoming weekend aimed at helping out members of the Bay Ridge community.
A special benefit put together by the Helping Hands for the four families displaced by the 81st Street fire which occurred June 21 will be held on August 11 and 12 at the St. Mary's Antiochian Church Hall, 192 81st Street, with tickets costing $25.00 per person, or two tickets for $40.00.
The production is presented by Jeff Samaha Theater productions and Ridge Chorale, the same groups that put it on in April, but the ending has been changed.
The show is based on the TV show, "I Love Lucy," and features characters such as Lucy, Ricky and Fred.
The audience will be able to participate, just like in the previous show. There will be music selections from two Broadway shows, "Smokey Joe's Café," and "SHOUT," as well as a special appearance by The Jeff Samaha Orchestra.
"We are looking forward to it," said Justin Brannan, spokesperson for the Helping Hands group and a cast member. It's a good way to raise money, he noted, and "help our neighbors rebuild their lives."
"We've been practicing every night," he added.
The show will begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday, August 11t; and at 6 p.m. on Sunday, August 12.
There will be light snacks, cheese and crackers, served. Also, wine, beer and soft drinks will be available for purchase.
If you would like to purchase tickets in advance, you can visit The Bookmark Shoppe, located at 8415 Third Avenue, or call 718-833-5115 for reservations.
81st fire
bookmark shoppe
jeff samaha theater productions
ridge chorale
special benefit
st. mary's antiochian church
trouble at the tropicabana
weekend event
Generally Speaking: Bay Ridge resident named Brooklyn surrogate, Memorial Day Parade-ers honored
Captain America celebrates 75th birthday with statue in Prospect Park
Brooklyn ReporterNewsletter


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THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL
By Iride Aparicio
Photos By: Matthew Murphy
SAN JOSE, CA – For those people who love music, this show has music. For those people who like singing, it allows them to hear over twenty songs. And for those people who like dancing, the dancers in the musical are tops. How about its plot? the CAROLE KING's musical "Beautiful," is the story of four musicians, who took their experiences in love, suffering, laughter, sickness, tragedies and triumphs in life, and converted them into the notes and lyrics of songs that touch our hearts. Presented as a Premiere in San Jose by BROADWAY SAN JOSE, a Nederlander Presentation, at the Center for the Performing Arts, "BEAUTIFUL" was a hit on its opening night.
Based on the life of CAROL KLEIN (who later on changed her last name to KING) "BEAUTIFUL" the musical, vicariously, walks the audience on the path of "memory line" to the beginning of KING's career ending at the point in her life where the singer/composer is at the top, and had acquired the maturity to walk the path of fame alone.
Represented by SARAH BOCKEL, the story begins in 1971 at Carnegie Hall in New York City, with Carole in concert singing "So Far Away" When Carole and the Grand piano she is playing are removed form the stage, quick chances in scenography take us back to the year 1978 inside an apartment located in Brooklyn, N.Y. Carole, l6 a Madison High School student. enters her apartment, rushes to the piano and start playing to her mother her new song. As her mother watches her she starts singing "It Might as Well Rain Until September in a warm timbre of voice.
When the song is finished, she asks her mother's permission to go to DIMENSION RECORDS in Manhattan, to try to peddle her song. Her mother, who plays classical music, complains about the rhythm of the song, but watching NEIL SEDAKA (JOHN MICHAEL DIAS) singing "Oh Carol" on television, convinces her to let her daughter go.
Carole's apartment transforms into the inside of the building of DIMENSION RECORDS where we could observe different groups of singers rehearsing. With an eighteen year old friend, Carole (BOCKEL) approaches Producer DON KIRSHNER (JAMES CLOW) sits at the piano, sings her song and she not only sells it to the studio, but gets asked for more songs.
The "girl meets boy" story, begins, on another day at the recording studio when Carole (the girl who composes music) meets Gerry Goffin (MATT FAUCHER) the boy yearning to be a playwright like his father, who composes lyrics and is a poet.
SARAH BOCKEL as Carole and MATT FAUCHER as Gerry
Working together, as Lyricist/Composer team and later as husband and wife, they start the marvelous CAROLE KING/GERRY COFFIN Discography.
The Musical presents their songs being performed by different groups starting with "The Shirelles "Will you Love Me Tomorrow?" continues with "Some Kind of Wonderful" sang by The Drifters, and "The Locomotion" sang by Little Eva, to name a few.
At the studio, Carole also meets the composer/lyricist team of of Cyntia Weil (AASHLEY MORGAN) and Barry Mann (JACOB HEIMER (pictured below) which in spite of competing constantly with Her and Gerry's team for a place in the BILLBOARD CHARTS, become her friend for life.
During the musical we listen to some of their compositions among them "Who Put the Bump" "He is sure The Boy I Love" Walking in the rain " and "On Broadway," Sang by "
JACOB HEIMER as Barry Mann & AASHLEY MORGAN as Cynthia Weil
DOUGLAS McGRATH who wrote the book in "BEAUTIFUL" made the dialogue in the musical so natural. that the action on the stage looks realistic at each moment. Here we need to add that adding to the effect, is the fact that every one of the actors/singers act in character and all sing well.
As Carole, BOCKEL represents the role with naturality and her songs are well enunciated and interpreted with lots of feeling. The dramatic part of FAUCHER and BOCKELas man and wife is also presented realistically, specially the part of FAUCHER as a sick man about to brake down, that was never exaggerated.
And because the over all acting in this Tour company is superb, and the songs, sang by the different actors/singers actually convey the feelings watching BEAUTIFUL is quite an experience for those of us who have sang Carole's songs or are familiar with them. The way they are presented, in the musical, help us understand their meaning much better.
The Drifters - JOSH A, DAWASON JAY McKENZIE, AVERY SMITH, KRISTOPHER S. WARD
Based on the real lives of the main characters, It took five years to develop the Jukebox musical with a book by DOUGLAS MCGRATH, and music/lyrics by GERRY GOFFIN and CAROLE KING and BARRY MANN and CINTHIA WEIL. This musical has a heart and because of it, is BEAUTIFUL.
BEAUTIFUL will be shown at THE SAN JOSE CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, 255 S Almaden Blvd. in S.J. until November 19. For tickets go to you can go online to www.broadwaysanjose.com or order by phone by calling: (800) 982-2787.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Vaccinations and boosters
Dec. 16: The University of California has released updated interim amendments to its systemwide vaccination policy; these changes went into effect Dec. 12 and are reflected in the content below. Get more information on these amendments, UCLA's new deadlines and the public comment period for these new changes.
UC vaccination and booster policy
Vaccination terms and definitions
How and where to get vaccines and boosters
Getting vaccinated outside the U.S.
Providing proof of your vaccination
Requesting a vaccination exception or booster opt-out
Returning to campus after being remote
Vaccination and booster policy
Getting vaccinated is one of the most effective ways to protect yourself from severe COVID-19 illness and hospitalization. In alignment with the University of California's COVID-19 vaccination policy (PDF), UCLA students, faculty, staff and others who work, live or study on campus or at other UCLA facilities need to be fully vaccinated (and up to date on boosters) — with limited medical exceptions and accommodations based on disabilities or religious beliefs, as well as temporary deferrals for those who are pregnant or have recently had COVID-19.
The current UC interim policy — introduced Dec. 12, 2022 — also allows individuals who have received their primary vaccinations to opt out of receiving COVID-19 boosters by signing a declination statement, receiving education on vaccines and agreeing to certain non-pharmaceutical interventions, which may include mask-wearing and/or other mitigations. (UCLA health care workers, however, may not opt out of their first booster; only those who have received an official exception or deferral will be exempt.)
New students and employees: Entering students and new faculty and staff hires who will be learning, living or working on campus will need to have completed their primary COVID-19 vaccinations and must submit proof of their vaccination before arriving.
Full-time and hybrid schedules: The UC policy applies to all those working or learning on campus or UCLA facilities either full time or on a hybrid schedule, regardless of the amount of days worked each month.
Fully remote: While vaccinations and boosters are strongly urged for those working or learning fully remotely, they are not required. If, however, you return to work or class on campus, you will need to be up to date on your vaccinations and boosters and to submit proof to UCLA.
You are considered fully vaccinated when:
14 days have passed since you received the second dose of a two-dose primary vaccine or a single-dose primary vaccine.
You are considered up to date on vaccinations when:
You have received your primary vaccine series and the most recent booster dose recommended for you by by the CDC or the California Department of Public Health. For most people, that means receiving a bivalent booster dose.
You are currently eligible for a bivalent booster when:
At least two months have passed since you received the second dose of a Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax or other WHO-approved two-dose vaccine (or monovalent booster), or at least two months have passed since you received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine (or monovalent booster). Recommendations may differ for those with compromised immunity.
Note: If you have been diagnosed with or treated for COVID-19, you may consider deferring your booster dose by 90 days since the date of your diagnosis or the last day of your treatment. If you defer, you will need to submit a declination form.
Available vaccines and boosters
The following COVID-19 vaccines and boosters have been approved or authorized for use in the United States:
Pfizer–BioNTech (two-dose vaccine and bivalent booster)
Moderna (two-dose vaccine and bivalent booster)
Novavax (two-dose vaccine and monovalent booster)
Johnson & Johnson (single-dose vaccine and monovalent booster; however, the CDC advises that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and booster only be considered in limited situations, due to safety concerns)
The CDC currently recommends that those who are eligible receive a bivalent booster — either from Pfizer–BioNTech or Moderna — which targets the original virus and more recent omicron variants. The bivalent booster is recommended even for those who may have already received one or more monovalent boosters. Most people are eligible for the bivalent booster when:
At least two months have passed since they received the second dose of the primary vaccination series of Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax or other two-dose vaccine approved by the FDA and/or WHO — or two months have passed since they received a monovalent booster.
At least two months have passed since they received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Note: Those who are unable or unwilling to receive a bivalent booster may get a Novavax monovalent booster if they are at least 18, they completed their primary vaccine series at least six months ago and they have not received any other booster dose.
People who are moderately or severely immunocompromised have different recommendations for vaccines and boosters. For more information on vaccines and boosters, visit the CDC's Vaccines for COVID-19 and COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters.
Where to get your vaccine and booster
Vaccines and boosters are available to members of the Bruin community through certain campus health facilities, state and local health agencies, and pharmacies.
Outside UCLA: The quickest option for most students and employees is to schedule a free off-campus vaccination or booster appointment through:
California's MyTurn portal
Pharmacies and clinics throughout the U.S.
At UCLA: Vaccines and boosters may also available through UCLA, though wait times vary based on supply.
UCLA employees
UCLA faculty and staff can schedule a vaccination through UCLA Occupational Health Services by calling 310-825-6771. Employees who are UCLA Health patients also have the option of booking an appointment through myUCLAhealth. (If you don't have an account, view instructions on how to sign up. If you are unable to login or need help creating an account, contact the myUCLAhealth support line at 855-364-7052.)
UCLA students
The Ashe Student Health & Wellness Center offers mRNA vaccines and boosters to students; information on how to schedule an appointment is available through the Ashe Center's COVID-19 vaccine hub for UCLA students.
International students and faculty are encouraged to get vaccinated as early as possible, including in their home countries. However, only vaccines that have been granted emergency use authorization by the World Health Organization meet the university's vaccine requirement. (The CDC keeps a list of WHO-authorized vaccines, and you can follow the status of vaccines through the WHO EUL/PQ evaluation process.)
Those who have been vaccinated outside the U.S. with a WHO-authorized vaccine can also receive an FDA-approved booster in the U.S.
If you can't get an authorized vaccine
International students and faculty who cannot obtain a vaccine that has been approved or granted emergency use authorization by the WHO are encouraged to plan ahead and schedule an appointment for a COVID vaccine upon arrival in the United States.
Some people may have already received a COVID-19 vaccine that is not currently authorized in the U.S. While data on the safety and efficacy of receiving an authorized vaccine after getting a non-authorized one are not available, in some circumstances people who have partially completed a vaccination series with a non-authorized vaccine may be offered revaccination with an FDA/WHO–authorized one in the U.S.
Coming to campus
Students and faculty who have been unable to obtain an authorized vaccine in their home countries will still be allowed to come to campus, but they will be referred to a vaccine site to get vaccinated immediately.
Until they are fully vaccinated, they will be subject to the non-pharmaceutical interventions described in UC's Appendix A: COVID-19 Prevention Strategies for unvaccinated individuals. Additional safety measures may be required, depending on the circumstances, by local health authorities.
If you have further questions about UCLA's acceptance of international vaccines, please email covid19@ucla.edu.
Confirm your vaccination and booster with UCLA
All students, faculty and staff who will be living, learning or working on campus or at other UCLA facilities are required to submit proof of their vaccination and boosters to UCLA. Individuals can do so online or use the UCLA Mobile app, which is available on the App Store and the Google Play Store.
Proof of vaccination and/or booster should be submitted between Dec. 31, 2022 and Feb. 1, 2023.
Students can submit proof by logging into the Arthur Ashe Student Health & Wellness Center's electronic patient portal and clicking on the Medical Clearance section.
Staff and faculty can most easily confirm their status through UCLA's UCLA COVID-19 Action Center by giving the university consent to check UCLA Health records and the California vaccination database. (Alternatively, you can upload an image of your CDC vaccination card or non-U.S. equivalent, or upload an official medical record from your health care provider.)
If you gave consent to check records for your initial vaccination, the survey should automatically update your booster status. If you didn't, you can give consent for your booster. If your records are not found, the system will provide instructions on how to proceed.
UCLA Health employees and those in clinical settings
UCLA Health personnel and those who work in clinical settings have been given information through COVID-19 protocols for health care settings on how to upload their proof.
UCLA Extension students, visiting students and those in executive education programs will receive guidance on how to verify their vaccination status through their program department.
Pre-K–12 students
Students age who are eligible for vaccinations and boosters will receive information from the UCLA Lab School or the Geffen Academy at UCLA about notifying their program of their vaccination status.
Exception requests and opt-outs
In certain limited circumstances, students and employees may be granted a medical exception, an accommodation based on religious beliefs or disabilities, or a temporary deferral based on pregnancy or recent COVID-19 infection. In addition, if you received your initial vaccination series but wish to opt out of the booster requirement, you may do so.
Requests should be submitted between Dec. 31, 2022 and Feb. 1, 2023.
To request an exception, deferral or opt-out:
Students, including student employees, may submit requests through the UCLA COVID-19 Action Center.
Non-UCLA Health employees should use the UCLA COVID-19 Action Center to submit a request. Please visit the UCLA Insurance and Risk Management's How to Request a COVID-19 Vaccine Exception page for details and guidance before initiating the process. Additional information on exemptions, accommodations and deferrals is available on IRM's COVID-19 Related Accommodation or Workplace Adjustment Information page.
UCLA Health employees
Information has been shared directly with UCLA Health personnel on how to submit exception requests.
Remote students and employees returning to campus
Returning students and employees
If you have been working completely remotely but are now returning to campus on a full-time or hybrid basis, you will need to update your work status through the UCLA COVID-19 Action Center (formerly the Symptom Monitoring Survey). If you have not yet done so, you will also need to upload proof of your vaccination and booster status or request an exception through the Action Center.
Fully remote students and employees
If you are newly remote and will not be coming to campus at any point during the term, you will need to update the UCLA COVID-19 Action Center (formerly the Symptom Monitoring Survey); indicate that you will be fully remote so that you're not flagged for noncompliance with the vaccination policy. If you are fully remote but have already been vaccinated, you should upload proof of your vaccination through the Action Center.


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The Lamp of Zion
By Elizabeth Shanks Alexander
The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel
by Steven Fine
Harvard University Press, 304 pp., $29.95
Watch Professor Steven Fine on the Arch of Titus.
According to Steven Fine, the menorah's 3000-year history makes it "the longest continuously used religious symbol in Western culture." Unlike the cross, the crescent, or the Star of David, which are each composed of a few clean lines, it's a busy image. Images of the menorah, even minimalist ones, seem more like representations of an object out there in the real world than the abstract symbol of a people, its religion and its aspirations. How did the visually complex menorah come to be such a symbol?
For Fine, the answer is deeply entwined with the image of the menorah carved into the Arch of Titus two thousand years ago. Following Rome's military victory over Judea in 70 C.E., the city honored its returning heroes with a triumphal procession, the highlights of which are depicted in bas-relief inside the arch. On one side, a panel running the length of the arch's interior depicts the victorious general (and future emperor) Titus in his chariot, being crowned with a wreath by a winged god of victory, Nike. On the other side, Jewish humiliation is represented by the plundered vessels of the Jerusalem Temple carried into Rome on the shoulders of strapping Roman soldiers, who are likewise crowned with wreaths. The golden seven-branched candelabrum, jostling above the heads of the Roman soldiers, stands out among the Temple vessels.
The Spoila Panel, bas-relief, Arch of Titus, ca. 81 C.E. (Photo by Unocad, courtesy of the Arch of Titus Digital Restoration Project.)
No matter how lifelike or faithful to its model the arch menorah may have been, it is not a neutral or objective rendering of this celebrated Temple artifact. Etched into a monument memorializing the recently deceased Roman emperor, the arch celebrates Roman majesty by telling the story of a triumphal parade. Fine helpfully explains that the Romans would have understood the Temple vessels being carried in the triumphal processional as "cult images" of the God of Israel, brought to Rome to join other subjugated deities in the Roman pantheon. The arch menorah stands at the intersection of conqueror and conquered, exalting the triumphant Romans and laying low the vanquished Jews and their humiliated God.
Built to lift up one nation while laying low another, the arch requires its visitors to take a side. Will they exult with the triumphant Romans (as the Roman builders and artists intended) or will they sympathize with the Jews captured for all eternity at the moment of their defeat? As a 21st-century American Jew, Fine faces little to none of the humiliation endured by the Jewish slaves marched into captivity, but he is drawn—almost compulsively—to identify with their subjugation. He writes the following of his face-to-face encounter with the menorah while leading an international team of researchers there in 2012:
I stood, imagining the parade before me, with triumphal Romans, Jewish slaves—their mangled bodies and festering wounds hidden beneath fine Roman garments, and "our" holy vessels passing by.
A few pages later, Fine writes "I found myself fidgeting and thinking about the humiliations that my ancestors had felt here." He contrasts this "flesh-and-blood" response to the cooler irony of the 19th-century Jewish visitor imagined by Percy Bysshe Shelley in a famous prose fragment. Shelley's Jew sees the Arch of Titus "mouldering to its fall." This "monument of the power of our destroyer's family," he wrote, is "now a mountain of ruins."
Jewish gold glass, Rome. (From the collection of Dr. David and Jemima Jeselsohn, Zurich. On loan to the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.)
For many years the arch menorah was inaccessible to the majority of the world's Jews. It was in Rome, and they were elsewhere. But images of the menorah proliferated in the centuries following the arch's construction. Visual representations of the menorah are found in synagogues, "on mosaic floors, wall paintings, lintels, 'chancel' screens, oil lamps, and fixtures for hanging glass lamps . . . Jewish tombs, Jewish jewelry and even household goods," such as gold-decorated glass. The rise of the menorah in late antiquity, however, was not inevitable. During the late Second Temple period, several cult objects had been associated with the Temple. The menorah appears with the golden table that held the showbread on reverse sides of a Hasmonean coin, Josephus mentions the showbread table, the menorah, and the incense altar, and, of course, the showbread table, silver trumpets, and a Torah scroll are featured on the arch along with the menorah. Interestingly, coins minted during the Bar Kokhba revolt (60 years after the Temple's destruction) depict the showbread table, but not the menorah.
But in late antiquity, the showbread table fades from view and the seven-branched menorah emerges as the premier symbol of the lost Temple. It's hard to know exactly why. One wonders if it's related to the familiar nine-branched candelabra of post-destruction Hanukkah celebrations. Fine doesn't address this, but he supplements the visual record with literary depictions of the Temple menorah. The 6th-century poet and liturgist Yannai mourns the extinguished flames of the menorah, all the more so because the lights of Rome burn ever brighter:
The lamps of Edom [Rome] strengthened and increased.
The lamps of Zion were swallowed up and destroyed.
The lamps of Edom prevailed and glittered.
The lamps of Zion were crushed and extinguished.
The lamps of Edom prance over every pitfall.
The lamps of Zion receded.
The lamps of Edom their brightness shines.
The lamps of Zion were darker than soot.
The lamps of Edom were filled and they dripped [oil].
The lamps of Zion were lowered and broken.
Fine astutely notes that "the extinguished menorah represented far more than just the extinguished lamp of the Temple. It symbolized the Jews themselves." Yannai's liturgical menorah may have been conjured from the imagination, but it expresses many themes conveyed by the arch menorah, albeit from the perspective of the conquered rather than conqueror. Drawing on Yannai's poem, we might speculate that the menorah draws interest in late antiquity because it recalls a glorious past that is no more.
One danger of a book like this is the temptation to include every menorah one has found in the course of one's research. While interesting insights can be found throughout, at times the book takes on an encyclopedic quality as it catalogues one menorah after another. What is missing at those points is an absorbing narrative thread to pull the reader along. The book is at its strongest when Fine tells a story about his visual data. Especially helpful are the numerous illustrations and vivid color photographs, many taken by Fine himself or his research team. Positioned alongside the relevant prose, the images help the reader grasp Fine's insightful interpretations of the evolving iconography.
Mosaic pavement, Hammath Tiberias Synagogue, 5th century C.E. (Courtesy of the Photography Department, Government Press Office, Israel National Photo Collection.)
The 19th century brought a wave of European tourists to the sites of classical civilization, among them the Arch of Titus. In this context, the menorah morphs from a nostalgia-evoking relic of the past to a nation-inspiring symbol pointing forward:
[V]isits to the arch are well documented from the late nineteenth century onward, and it seems that it was a standard stop on the Jewish pilgrimage route. . . . Jews ranging from Boris Schatz, founder of the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem, to noted rabbis, politicians, and simple Jews—Zionists, culturalists, Hassidim, and reformers—often made (and make) their way to the arch in a kind of ritual, reciting to themselves, one way or another, "Titus you are gone, but we are still here, the people of Israel lives."
Foremost among modern Jewish reactions to this site was a resolve to transcend the degrading circumstances depicted there. The new Jewish take on the arch emphasized that, as Shelley had already noted in 1819, Rome stands in ruins, while the Jewish people endure. It was during this period that the "now well-known Jewish 'tradition' of not walking under the arch took hold—a kind of ritualized negation of the arch 'so as not to give honor to Titus.'" The arch invites Jews to act out resistance to Rome's overwhelming might (as well as that of Rome's contemporary successors!).
The modern period witnessed an interesting reversal in interpretation of the arch's marching figures. Modern Jewish viewers superimposed their own aspirations onto the figures carved into the panel. Where earlier viewers (like Yannai, if he had had an occasion to visit the arch) would have seen despair on history's captive Jews, these viewers saw Jewish resilience. And lo and behold, the panel's triumphant Roman soldiers, the ones bearing plundered Jewish gold, were transformed into unbroken Jewish captives carrying their national treasure into exile with pride. In a fascinating reversal of iconography, figures who were carved as Roman victors become symbols of Jewish resistance.
Illustration for the letter mem by Ze'ev Raban and Levin Kipnis in Alef Bet/Alphabet, Berlin, ca. 1923. (Bezalel Collection of Yeshiva University Museum, Gift of the Jesselson Family.)
In the 20th century the arch became a locus of Jewish self-determination. A striking example involves using the arch as the site of two major demonstrations in the immediate aftermath of World War II. In one, in 1947, Roman Jews and Holocaust survivors from across Europe gathered at the arch to celebrate the United Nations vote in favor of the partition plan allowing for a Jewish state in Palestine. In a clever use of the arch's iconography, the crowd marched through the arch from west to east, reversing the direction that the "Jewish captives" pictured on its wall had marched some 2,000 years ago. Another 20th-century expression of Jewish aspirations for autonomy involves depicting the long dormant flames of the arch menorah rekindled. The image of the relit arch menorah appears, for instance, as the hat insignia of the British Jewish Legion during World War I and in a 1923 children's alphabet book illustrating the letter mem.
Fine's book is filled with many more of history's menorahs, those of Maimonides, Chabad, and Israel's state seal, to name only the most well-known. And while I have focused here on the menorah as symbol, the book tells an equally fascinating story about the menorah as object. What was it made of? (Different materials at different times, bronze, silver, and gold depending on economic conditions.) What did it look like? (The curved branches of Second Temple depictions are more authentic than the straight branches that Maimonides posited.)
What can we learn from the biblical instructions for its construction? (Not much. Contemporary artisans would have understood the detailed technical specifications, but we don't.) Why are there conflicting images of the menorah from the Second Temple period, especially the base, when it was accessible for all to see? (Exodus doesn't provide instructions for the base, so successive generations constructed it in the image of contemporary Greek and Roman lamp bases.) Was there more than one menorah? (Yes! The idea that there was a single authentic menorah is a myth.) If so, how many? (At any given time, at least two, sometimes three, were in circulation; Josephus actually says that two (!) were exiled to Rome.)
What happened to the Jerusalem Temple's menorahs after they were brought to Rome? One was on display at Vespasian's Temple of Peace. The record runs dry after a major fire there in 192 C.E. If the menorah survived the fire, then it was likely melted down for its gold value during the Sack of Rome. In any event, it is long gone. It is not submerged in the sands of the Tiber River, nor is it sequestered in the Vatican basement. These myths are promulgated because of the very human fascination with relics. We want to be able to touch the past, to assure ourselves that it really happened. In the meantime, the menorah etched on the Arch of Titus will have to suffice. As Fine eloquently reminds us:
It is a tangible object—an ancient relic that has outlived the "real" menorahs of antiquity. Unlike the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail—the most significant "lost" artifacts of Western culture—it can be touched and measured, and has been for centuries. In the end, however, the arch menorah is just an approximation—so close to the original, but not it.
And we'll have to be okay with that.
Elizabeth Shanks Alexander
Elizabeth Shanks Alexander is a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. Her Gender and Timebound Commandments in Judaism (Cambridge University Press) was shortlisted for a National Jewish Book Award in 2013.
More by Elizabeth Shanks Alexander
Steven Fine
Thanks, Liz, for this elegant and thoughtful review of my book! I really appreciate the time this takes.
As to nine-branched Hanukkah lamps-- they dont show up until the early modern period (pp. 88-89). The first text to discuss utensils with eight lamps and a shamash is Tractate Sofrim (8-9th c). For the classical treatment (and finest book on Jewish ritual art of the century) see Mordecai Narkiss' classic -Menorah ha-Hanukkah- (1939), posted at:
https://www.academia.edu/11917045/Mordecai_Narkiss_The_Hanukkah_Lamp_1939_%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%93%D7%9B%D7%99_%D7%A0%D7%A8%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A1_%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%AA_%D7%94%D7%97%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%94
David Zarmi
Interesting about Hanukkah lamps, but puzzling. What did Jews use earlier for the Hanukkah lights?
gwhepner
BEIT SHAMMAI SAYS: BE REALISTIC
Beit Shammai says: "Be realistic.
Decrease the candles. This statistic
demands that though eight candles burn
the first night, on the next night spurn
one candle, until on the last
just one remains." They say the past
has got less power than the present,
and cannot claim to be as pleasant,
since life is downhill from the start.
The horse comes first, and then the cart,
an anticlimax to the horse,
because it lacks its primal force."
Beit Hillel says: "Keep always trying:
that way you won't see fire dying.
Increased by candlepower, light
defeats the dying of the night.
One caveat only, you must wait
until the last night to have eight.
That way each night you will remember
springtime can come in mid-December."
Quite unrealistic, we all follow
Beit Hillel. We believe one swallow
can make a summer, for we know
that other others will put on a show
to prove . When we trust the first.
we make sure darkness has been cursed,
like zeh haqatan gadol's aura
the minor validates menorah,
which isn't called majorah,
based on the pesaq of Beit Hillel
that puts before the tail.
BEIT SHAMMAI SAYS: BE REALISTIC, BUT WE FOLLOW BET HILLEL
that builds up while it tells the tale.
Really quite nice.
daized79
Just as to the base--I wish I could provide a source, but sometimes I read too much for my own good. I believe what happened was Herod who put in the Roman-style base we see in the m'nora that is carried in the Arch. I seem to recall that it was something about the new giant gold m'nora he made being too top heavy for the previous tripod. Or maybe he just thought it looked better. But Jewish tradition is that the Hasmonean m'nora (and apparently the previous iterations) had a tripod base.
Our Rabbis J, E, P, and D
Ethan Schwartz
At the heart of Benjamin D. Sommer's project is a contrast between the stenographic theory of revelation and what he calls the "participatory" theory, which "puts a premium on human agency and gives witness to the grandeur of a God who accomplishes a providential task through the free will of human subjects under God's authority."
Why I Defy the Israeli Chief Rabbinate
Elli Fischer
Everyone knows that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate is often capricious, needlessly adversarial, and hopelessly bureaucratic. Actually, it's worse than that. It can't be abolished any time soon, but its power should be radically diminished.
Pour Out Your Fury
Philip Getz
When the Bavarian government confiscated thousands of books from monasteries in 1803, among them was an utterly unique haggadah.
Zionisms, Old and New
Allan Arkush
Arthur Hertzberg's classic anthology The Zionist Idea has received a 21st century makeover. But is the new version really an improvement over the old one? And what does Yossi Klein Halevi have to say in 2018 that hasn't been said before?


text:
meerkat-ajax
============

Модуль AJAX для MeerkatCMF (on Kohana 3.3)

##### рекомендуется делать отдельный контроллер на каждый AJAX запрос
поместите это в init.php своего модуля
~~~
\Meerkat\Route\Route::factory(Kohana::$config->load('meerkat/ajax.url') . 'users/info')
	->controller('User')
	->directory('Ajax')
	->put();
~~~
а затем создайте контроллер
~~~
class Controller_Ajax_User extends \Meerkat\Base\Controller{
	function action_index(){
		//получение html представления пользователя, например "@aberdnikov"
		$ret= get_user();
		\Meerkat\Ajax\Ajax::response_html($ret);
	}
}
~~~

Затем можно будет обращаться к контроллеру по ссылке: http://site.com/!/ajax/users/info

### Все возможности AJAX-менеджера

###### HTML
**Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8**
~~~
\Meerkat\Ajax\Ajax::response_html('@aberdnikov');
~~~
- - -
###### TEXT
**Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8**
~~~
\Meerkat\Ajax\Ajax::response_text("text");
~~~
- - -
###### JSON
**Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8**

{"name":"@username"}
~~~
\Meerkat\Ajax\Ajax::response_json(array("name"=>"@username"));
~~~
- - -
####### XML
**Content-Type: application/xml**
~~~
$xml='<?xml version="1.0"?>
<recipe name="хлеб" preptime="5" cooktime="180">
  <title>Простой хлеб</title>
  <ingredient amount="3" unit="стакан">Мука</ingredient>
  <ingredient amount="0.25" unit="грамм">Дрожжи</ingredient>
  <ingredient amount="1.5" unit="стакан">Тёплая вода</ingredient>
  <ingredient amount="1" unit="чайная ложка">Соль</ingredient>
  <instructions>
   <step>Смешать все ингредиенты и тщательно замесить.</step>
   <step>Закрыть тканью и оставить на один час в тёплом помещении.</step>
   <step>Замесить ещё раз, положить на противень и поставить в духовку.</step>
   <step>Посетить сайт webi.ru</step>
  </instructions>
</recipe>';
\Meerkat\Ajax\Ajax::response_xml($xml);
~~~
- - -
####### JAVASCRIPT
**Content-Type: application/x-javascript; charset=UTF-8**
~~~
\Meerkat\Ajax\Ajax::response_javascript("alert('123');");
~~~

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Freedom gains two-year extension to Northern Powergrid deal
Open-access content Monday 3rd August 2020
NG Bailey
Freedom, an NG Bailey Group company, has secured a two-year extension on an essential Northern Powergrid framework to deliver cable engineering services across the North East, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire.
The project, worth £16 million, comes as a result of Freedom's delivery on the contract over the past four years and includes scope for another two-year extension.
As part of the contract Freedom will carry out regular essential works, such as underground cable installation, overhead lines services, fault repairs and street works to support Northern Powergrid as it powers the homes of eight million customers across its operating area.
The contract also includes supporting Northern Powergrid's work to move overhead services underground in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, so that customers benefit from modernisation of the region's power network, the increased reliability of electricity supplies and the enhanced appearance of protected landscapes.
About 50 Freedom colleagues are working on the contract, including graduates and apprentices, providing vital training opportunities and helping to ensure there is a strong pipeline of talent in the sector.
Peter Jones, managing director of NG Bailey's Services division, said: "The extension of Freedom's contract with Northern Powergrid demonstrates the strength of our working relationship and the expertise of our team delivering on the ground. Our work helps ensure that the network across Yorkshire and the North East and northern Lincolnshire remains safe and effective, so we look forward to continuing our work with Northern Powergrid."
Andy Bilclough, Northern Powergrid's director of field operations, added: "With 60,000 miles of underground cables and overhead power lines it is vital that our teams work with contractors that understand the responsibility we have to power peoples' lives and are committed to delivering services to the high standards our customers expect and deserve. Through our robust procurement process and this contract extension, we can continue to ensure we have the support services we need to deliver for our customers now and in the future."
Image credit | NG Bailey


It has 3 ponds for fishing activities and shaded wooded picnic areas.
Working in a healthcare-related firm provides me lots of insights, but raises many more questions.
You have to ensure that you don't let your opposition score, which is called playing defense.


text:
Kit Harington's Reaction To His Final 'Game Of Thrones' Scene Will Break Your Heart
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
By Emily Dixon
For Game of Thrones fans, season eight still seems an eternity away (it's actually airing in four months, but please just allow me to be dramatic). But for its cast and crew, the show's all but wrapped up — and the farewells were as difficult as you'd expect. Game of Thrones' Kit Harington "burst into tears" after filming his final scene for the show, as Digital Spy reports. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, the actor explained that while he was glad to let the show go, saying goodbye remained an acutely emotional experience.
"It's a weird thing, I'm not sad about it ending. I feel very joyous about it ending and having completed it," Harington said. "It doesn't make it any less emotional." It's not hard to understand why emotions were running quite so high: while the series made its TV debut in 2011, filming started way back in 2009, meaning the Game of Thrones team were bidding farewell to an almost decade-long commitment.
Earlier this month, Harington told Entertainment Weekly that he also got choked up during the two-day table read for season eight, after choosing not to read the scripts in advance. "I walked in saying, 'Don't tell me, I don't want to know,'" he told the magazine. "What's the point of reading it to myself in my own head when I can listen to people do it and find out with my friends?"
The result? Two instances of tears, the first of which Harington didn't detail for fear of disclosing spoilers. "The second time was the very end," he said. "Every season, you read at the end of the last script 'End of Season 1,' or 'End of Season 2,' the actor explained. 'This read 'End of Game of Thrones.' And you realise, OK, it's really happening."
During his BBC Breakfast interview, Harington also revealed that the Game of Thrones pilot was a "disaster" — though he hasn't yet seen it himself. "I had no idea that it was going to be big or a success or anything," he said. "They blackmail me every now and again threatening that they'll release bits on YouTube because apparently it was terrible, and I had this awful wig." Still, the actor had some sage words about the whole affair: "Sometimes with things that end up being huge successes, they start with huge failures." Would someone like to put that on an motivational poster?
And then the interview took an unexpected turn. You might already be aware that Kit Harington is related to Robert Catesby, leader of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, who he played in 2017 miniseries Gunpowder. But did you know he's also related to John Harington, prominent member of Queen Elizabeth I's court and inventor of the flushing toilet? When the topic of his ancestry came up, Harington offered another lovely sentiment worthy of a framed poster, or perhaps an elegant cross-stitch to hang above your bed: "I have no personal feelings about John Harington and the flushing toilet." Beautiful.


Bloomsbury Content Services helps external partners inspire, inform and engage their audiences by providing them with innovative content, marketing and publishing services. We are looking for an experienced digital editor to lead and manage the successful development, configuration, launch and product lifecycle of BCS digital products. The first product to launch will be a partnership project, working with a private library to digitise and publish their collection of rare books and manuscripts for sale to university libraries.
This is an exciting opportunity for an Editor with relevant publishing experience to join the Education team, working across a range of primary and early years materials that include illustrated home learning books, teacher resources and professional development titles.
The successful candidate will have experience in the education market, will be up to date with the latest education initiatives and be passionate about creating books for practising teachers that are fit for purpose, innovative and commercial. They will be enthusiastic and creative, with a firm commitment to creating high quality educational books and digital products for the UK and International markets.
Reporting to the Head of Digital Programmes, and working alongside another Digital Collections Content Co-ordinator (job share) fulfilling a different role within content development, the Digital Collections Content Co-ordinator is based in the National Portrait Gallery's Digital Programmes Department. It offers an excellent opportunity for someone with experience working with delivering collections content online with a particular interest in the transfer and repurposing of paper-based textual content into digital database systems.
The post will focus on ensuring collections content about portraits and the sitters portrayed within them that currently only exist in paper format is repurposed effectively to Gallery database systems.
The successful candidate will have relevant experience working with Optical Character Recognition software and the transfer of collection information into systems that are made available to the public online. They will have proven ability to work with collections data meticulously, rapidly and consistently, along with experience of analysing, cleaning and inputting data on to databases.
The Bookseller is looking for a part-time news reporter to join its editorial team.
The Bookseller runs a busy news desk covering all aspects of the publishing business, and requires a news hound to help break fresh news each morning via the website theBookseller.com, and research longer news stories for the weekly magazine.
The role is for a fixed-term six month period indirectly as maternity cover, though it may be extended.
The job would suit a freelance news reporter looking to work flexible hours, or a full-time news reporter looking to go freelance.
The candidate must be available to work a minimum 2.5 days a week, ideally in the morning. Salary on application.
Applications should be sent to The Bookseller's news editor Lisa Campbell.
We are looking for a dynamic Online Key Account Assistant/Administrator who is interested in a fast-paced role in our UK Sales team. You will be working on all online and digital accounts and assist in the day-to-day administration on accounts such as Amazon/Kindle, Apple, Kobo and Google. This is a great opportunity for a strong communicator who works well under pressure to learn more about digital publishing in an exciting environment.
The Oxford Education Division provides online and print resources across Primary, Secondary, Trade and Children's markets, both for the UK and for customers around the world.
We are looking for a self-motivated, enthusiastic individual who has a passion for digital marketing to join our Marketing team. The role will form a key part of our growing and innovative Digital Marketing team and will involve planning and executing digital marketing campaigns. The role will be focused particularly on improving the customer journey for evaluation and retention around digital products.
The successful candidate will be responsible for the briefing, scheduling and monitoring of digital marketing campaigns, web and social activity, to achieve sales revenues, increased customer awareness and market share.
The Digital Publishing Coordinator is primarily responsible for the project management, performance, and completion of digital publishing projects, including overseeing the publication of journal issues, books, and digital projects. They will be responsible for preparing and producing scholarly content for publication online and in print. The Coordinator will need to be a team player with good time and project management skills, be able to solve many common problems independently, and is committed to improving efficiency and responsiveness both within and outside the department. This position reports to the Director of Publishing Services.
The Reading Agency is looking for a creative and enthusiastic assistant to provide administrative and programme support to a new flagship programme – Reading Friends.
Reading Friends is a four year reading focused befriending programme for lonely and isolated older people including people with dementia and same generation carers. Reading Friends is funded by The Big Lottery, co-produced with older people and delivered by The Reading Agency in partnership with key stakeholders.
You will require excellent communication, interpersonal and organisational skills. You will also require a thorough understanding of digital formats and social media, and have digital editorial experience.
– Develop and plan an area of scholarship and expertise in the field of Digital/immersive/interactive media and contribute to the education portfolio of the School.
– Contribute to and publish scholarship in appropriate refereed journals and conferences.
– Direct, coach and develop students within specialist area.
– Collaborate on original scholarship with colleagues in other institutions including those of strategic importance to Queen's. -Support colleagues and students on developing digital media for on-going research projects.
– Develop and plan an area of research/scholarship and expertise in the field of Digital/Immersive/Interactive media and contribute to the research output of the School of Arts, English and Languages.
– Contribute to and publish research/scholarship in appropriate refereed journals and conferences.
– Seek external funding, in collaboration with peers, from relevant funding bodies to ensure continued growth of the School's research profile locally and internationally.
– Collaborate on original scholarship with colleagues in other institutions including those of strategic importance to the various research areas in the School of Arts, English and Languages.
– Support colleagues and students in developing and designing and on-going research projects and applications.


text:
Howard Michael Gould for WGAw Board
Well, it worked. Along with incumbent Aaron Mendelsohn, I've been elected to the WGAw Board as one of the first two candidates to run successfully without Patric Verrone's endorsement since 2004.
A closer look at the election results reveals some other positives:
- Along with Katherine Fugate and John Bowman, I was one of only three candidates to be listed on over half the returned ballots. (No other candidate was listed on as many as 45%.)
- While all five incumbents were re-elected, non-incumbents finished 1st, 3rd and 5th, a sign that the call for new voices was heard. Katherine Fugate and Karen Harris (who was 5th), while supported by Writers United, are both independent thinkers whom I expect will be strong Board members.
- Kat Smith, another excellent, fully independent candidate whom I got to know better during the campaign, finished an excruciatingly close 9th, just five votes behind Kathy Kiernan. This makes Kat next in line to take a Board seat in case a vacancy arises, as does happen.
I would have loved to see Kat make it into the top eight, but otherwise, from my point of view, this election couldn't have gone much better. I look forward to a reunion of sorts with Bowman, Mendelsohn, Mark Gunn, and David Goodman, with whom I worked on the Negotiating Committee, and all of whom have served the membership tremendously well both there and on the Board. Karen Harris's election puts a daytime writer on the Board, a very positive development.
Above all, given this year's list of candidates, I can't imagine a set of results which would have given a stronger endorsement to the notions of greater independent thought and of moving beyond single-party Guild politics.
Now on to the thank you's.
First off, I want to thank all of you who've been reading this blog for your support, and for your e-mails, and for sharpening my own thinking with your comments these last couple of months.
I want to thank everyone who voted for me, everyone who asked other people to vote for me, and especially the couple dozen people who supported me most actively and tangibly. It was shocking and humbling to see writers throw themselves behind a sole independent candidate, and I can barely express my gratitude. Special mention here goes to the remarkable Cheryl Heuton, who figured out how to pull it all together, inspiring a much more active campaign than I'd ever anticipated running.
My final and most emotional thank you goes to my extraordinary brothers and sisters in arms from the 2007-08 Negotiating Committee who endorsed me and supported me in all sorts of ways. Not only couldn't I have done this without them, but I simply wouldn't have. They inspired me then and still do, and here's hoping a few more of them run for the Board themselves next year.
I'm going to end this post with a question for anyone who may still be reading:
Would you like me to continue this blog? Should I post once or twice a month on what's going on, with my new view from the inside (which would be somewhat fettered, of course, by obligations of confidentiality)?
Blogspot doesn't let me know how many people are visiting to check out my rambles -- the only feedback has been your stream of e-mails or the random approaches at a Guild event or a coffee shop. So if you think there's a value to my keeping this up, please drop me a line to let me know you're reading: HMGforWGA@aol.com.
If you're still out there, I'll still be here.
Posted by HMG at 10:19 AM
Candidates Night
This Wenesday, September 3rd, is Candidates Night at the Guild. There's a dinner from 6:00 to 7:30, and then from 7:30 to 9:30 it's two hours of brief candidate statements and a Q+A session. I don't know if the Guild is still accepting RSVP's, but if you haven't made plans to go and are interested, I suggest calling 323/782-4602 on Tuesday.
If you're on this site, you've been reading what I have to say, but I highly encourage you to come hear everyone else. I've never met most of my fellow candidates and I've myself only decided what to do with about half my ballot, so I'm looking forward to this.
My own attentiveness to the Guild began at one of these off-year Candidates Nights, the one in 2000. There may have been more candidates at the front of the room than members in the seats. But listening to 16 members concerned enough about our Guild to make the commitment to run and to serve was the beginning of my education.
Posted by HMG at 9:42 AM
Failure of Democracy, Continued
Last month I wrote a post called "Failure of Democracy" which began:
"In the WGAw today, every single officer, every single member of the Board of Directors -- that's 19 elected leaders in all -- either ran on a slate under the current president or under his endorsement."
I went on to talk about how the Board had thus become a political tool rather than the philosophically heterogeneous deliberative body most of us naturally assume it to be.
Not surprisingly, this made current Board members unhappy. I know, because I've heard from a number of them. Some are friends, too, which doesn't make this easy. I suppose I owe it to them, and to the rest of you reading, to back up my assertions a bit and to show that that first post wasn't just political demagoguery.
See, it all actually started with a little cold analysis.
When I heard that most of the Writers United members were going to join together in a collective endorsement of eight candidates in this year's election (a bit of an escalation from the off-year election of 2006), I got to wondering: how has Writers United's heightened politicization of the Guild affected the way our Guild actually works?
Before diving in here, I want to point to the Guild Constitution, which says that the Board "shall have the exclusive power and authority to direct the affairs of the Guild," and that the president "shall act as a spokesperson for the Guild." Now, I don't regard the WGA Constitution with the quasi-religious awe I save for the United States Constitution, but this seems like a good idea to me: a representative democracy selects sixteen of our best and brightest, and issue by issue they'll deliberate until they find what they believe to be the best course.
You're probably ahead of me right now, aren't you? Well, here goes anyway. (Bear with me; it gets a little geeky.)
The minutes of all Board meetings are available on the WGA website. So I sat down for an hour one night with a legal pad, and buzzed through, counting votes at each meeting: how many were unanimous, how many were near-unanimous (one or two "no" votes on a resolution), and how many were contested (defined very liberally as three or more "no" votes). I did this for the first 25 meetings after which it was true that every single member had been elected with the current president's endorsement (9/25/06-5/19/08).
Then, for comparison's sake, I went back and did the same thing for the last 25 meetings of the pre-Writers United Board (1/26/04- 8/29/05).
Remember, these 20 months of the Writers United Board encompassed the lead-up to a strike, the strike itself, and its aftermath –- a time in which wrenching policy questions arose continually. Will we accept early negotiations if the studios offer them? Do we tack closer to SAG or to the DGA? What will our strike rules look like? How will we discipline writers who break them? Will we ask showrunners not to complete non-writing services on shows already produced, and risk lawsuits for breach? What legal services will we provide those who do? Will we support location pickets, trying to shut down productions? Will we first consult the member-writers whose work we'd be shutting down? What about interim deals –- should we offer them? And to whom -- to Letterman, but not Leno? And on and on: once the fit hits the shan, there are scores and scores and scores of tough ones like these.
So you'd think that the wartime Board, the Writers United Board, would be voting twice as often, three times as often as the peacetime Board, maybe even more. Wouldn't you?
Guess what.
The current Board voted a total of 97 times in that period.
The pre-Writers United Board, in peacetime, voted 189 times.
The Writers United Board voted half as often -- on anything -- even as it took us through a strike.
That's astonishing. So astonishing, in fact, that I'll say it again:
(By the way, I excluded "approval of the minutes of the last meeting" votes, which literally are a rubber stamp. Also, if anyone does repeat this experiment and finds I'm off by a hair, I'll happily publish a correction.)
Now let's look at the breakdown of votes:
Pre-Writers United (189 votes): 125 unanimous, 34 near-unanimous, 30 contested.
Writers United (97 votes): 74 unanimous, 19 near-unanimous, 4 contested.
That's right: defining "disagreement" so loosely as to require only three "no" votes on a motion, this Board took us all the way through a strike and disagreed a total of four times in almost two years.
The pre-Writers United Board disagreed thirty times, in peacetime.
The current monochromatic Board simply doesn't disagree. 96% of the votes they did take were unanimous or near-unanimous. 96%.
And because the Board already knows it won't disagree, it doesn't even insist on its deliberative role. It's apparently content to let the president set policy (consulting, presumably, with paid staff more than with the Board itself).
Completing the turn of the Constitution onto its head, the Board instead has taken on much of the president's role as spokesman, tirelessly and enthusiastically, outreach after outreach.
So in that sense, it was perhaps unfair of me to describe the Board as "nothing more than a rubber stamp."
But in the pure sense of the Board's neglect in exercising its constitutional responsibility "to direct the affairs of the Guild," well, I'm going to stand by that characterization, strong though it is.
Of course, a non-insider reading this may be asking, "Does this really matter? Who cares who sets policy?"
Well, I guess the heart of my campaign is the idea that it does matter, and that you ought to care.
Look at any of the issues I've talked about on this blog over the last two months, and, whether you agree with me or not, ask yourself whether you want these questions decided for the Guild by one leader with a strong and specific ideological bent, or by a heterogeneous, philosophically diverse sixteen member committee, deliberating its way toward the best course for us all.
Think about questions like:
- ought we reverse course and try to mend fences with the DGA?
- do we actively try to get better at enforcement, and if so, where do we find the resources?
- should we offer to put reality writers under a separate MBA?
- how should we be talking in the press about the SIT DOWN, SHUT UP writers?
- looking to 2011, do we repeat the brinksmanship of 2005-08 even if that might well mean steering us toward another strike, or do we try to get better at talking to people even when what they have to say isn't what we want to hear?
Think about those questions, and think about who you want answering them for you.
The ballots are going out this week.
What kind of Board do you want?
You can find the original post to which I refer here:
http://gouldforwga.blogspot.com/2008/07/failure-of-democracy.html
I'm very pleased to be able to tell you that thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Dan Petrie, Jr., Carol Mendelsohn, and a number of other members, mailers will be going out today announcing a couple of campaign events, evenings at which I'll get to meet more of you and talk face to face about our Guild.
Here's the info:
at the home of
Dan Petrie, Jr.
18141 Medley Drive
Carol Mendelsohn
827 Devon Ave.
Posted by HMG at 3:42 PM
Shall Ever the Twain Meet?
One of the valuable but relatively unheralded things which the Writers United leadership has done in the last few years is ease tensions between the WGA West and the WGA East.
This was not without controversy; some of the people I most respect regarding Guild matters felt we took the wrong course, that we were too "soft" on the East. This involved, among other things, forgiving large sums which apparently the East owed us but hadn't been paying. It seemed to me, though, that in the bigger picture, forging a healthy relationship between the two Writers Guilds was of greater importance than what I hope, in time, will be looked back upon as bookkeeping.
Like most members, I've wondered why in this age of easy telecommuniations we still need two separate Writers Guilds anyway, with separate officers and Boards (they call theirs a Council) and, most wastefully, separate executive directors, paid staffs, and headquarters. The resistance to merger has historically come from the East, where heavy concentrations of news and daytime writers, for instance, worry that their unique concerns will go underattended.
I'm thinking about all of this more and more lately as we watch the unfortunate, ongoing contretemps between SAG and AFTRA, similarly redundant and overlapping Guilds. I'd hope that their troubles will provide an impetus for us to look at ourselves and eliminate our own split once and for all.
We showed good faith to the East and then some; now I'd love to see them do the same, and take the lead in setting forth some kind of plan for a merger which would leave them confident that their interests will be protected.
Scott Frank
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to turn over this space on occasion to other writers with important Guild experience, to share their thoughts about where we stand.
First up is Scott Frank. You probably know him as one of the top screenwriters working today, and may also recall that he served on the WGA Board of Directors from 2005-07, elected as part of the original Writers United slate.
Scott has some strong opinions about our approach the last few years, and what we need to do to be more effective at the negotiating table going forward.
Here's Scott:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The economics of our business are changing rapidly. But make no mistake: it is a BUSINESS. Going forward, we need to approach future negotiations as, well... negotiations. We are grown ups, fighting for a piece of an economic pie that is evolving as we go. We can only guess at trends. Every month, some new hotspot appears in the world of New Media. If we are to truly secure our place in that world, we have to start thinking creatively. Agitating will not win writers respect. Negotiating will.
Our leadership for years has claimed that the guild had gotten too "cozy" with the CEO's. That we needed to fight them from the outside. Yet, in the end, the only way we were able to make a deal was to sit down in the same room with these same CEOs.
Unity is a great thing, but the fight is not an emotional one, it's an economic one. We need to approach our future with a pragmatic eye. The world is changing. The economy is changing.
Are the corporations "greedy?" Sure. That's what corporations are. They are not people. They are money-making entities responsible for making as much money as possible for their shareholders. Does this make them evil? I don't think so. We just need to show them that it's in their best FINANCIAL interest to make us their partners going forward. They are as scared as we are about the future. That only makes them tougher to deal with.
Standing outside their offices and making fun of them won't get us a better contract. Working with them and ALL of the other guilds to better understand the future will. Working with them and ALL of the other guilds to set a better table for the next negotiation certainly will.
Howard Michael Gould understands all that. He cares about our future, knows that we'll have to fight for it, but understands that our fight, like our business, is collaborative.
The DGA: Where to Start
I think most of our members have no idea how bad the relationship is right now between the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild. Resentment and mistrust run high in both directions, and I'm sure that leaders on each side could be compelling in articulating the reasons.
But the truth is, we need them, and they need us. Come 2011, we don't want to look on helplessly, again, as they negotiate the contract which becomes the pattern for our own. And they don't want to look on helplessly, again, as we wage a strike which puts their members out of work.
To be sure, there was a meaningful difference of opinion in 2007 which perhaps made the breach inevitable. They looked at New Media and saw an area which wasn't generating much revenue yet, and was thus unnecessary to address in this year's negotiation. We looked at New Media and saw the same thing, but considered that exactly the reason to address it now: better to fight today for theoretical dollars than to wait until the dollars are real and abundant and that much harder to wrest from management. We forced the issue; they closed the deal.
In a perfect world, we'll work together some day, and even at times quietly collaborate to pose as good cop and bad cop.
Things are so broken now that it's hard to imagine getting to that point from here. But it's not hard to imagine how we might begin.
Opportunity lies in the fact that New Media is no longer just a big theoretical. They have a deal in place, as do we, and the deals are virtually identical. The questions now are not about policy, but about tracking and enforcement. How are the studios using New Media to generate revenues? How are consumers using it to view our product? How well are our contracts covering these trends as New Media moves from theoretical to practical? Are there gaps which leave us treated unfairly? What unforseen aspects will need to be addressed next?
We have all these issues precisely in common with the DGA, and will with SAG too. So let's put together a tri-Guild committee, comprised of, say, two staffers and three members from each Guild, to meet on a regular basis to pool information and resources toward tracking facts and trends of mutual concern.
If we do this, will we still be faced with differences of substance once again down the line, in 2011 or 2014 or beyond? Won't the day come when we still want more than the DGA is inclined to demand? Undoubtedly. Residuals play a more crucial role in the incomes of a greater percentage of our members. Plus labor-management confrontation is simply more part of our DNA. But hopefully by then we'll again have a relationship to build upon, and we'll be able to compromise and fuse into a joint negotiating posture which is a winner for both Guilds, and for SAG, too.
From where we stand right now, that dream may seem as unlikely as a thousand-to-one buzzer-beating shot from halfcourt. Maybe it is.
But we can certainly start with a lay-up, and see where we'll be able to take it from there.
Hi. My name is Howard Michael Gould, and I'm running for the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America, west.
I've been in the Guild since 1988. I've spent about half my career in television, half in features.
I started this blog to let you know who I am and how I see the post-strike Guild, with more depth and specificity than the booklet campaign statements will allow. I'll try to add something every day or two.
I was on the 2007-08 Negotiating Committee. If you don't know me by name, you might know me from the speech I gave at the Convention Center on the eve of the strike. You can see it by clicking the box below with the picture of me sitting behind David Young.
(The rest are some other guy named Howard Gould who has more hair and apparently talks about oil drilling on cable news a lot. Blogspot and YouTube won't let you link with a picture to just a single video, so the best I can do is hope that he's stuck with my face on his blog, too.)
Please e-mail me at HMGforWGA@aol.com.
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