text:
And they same romance is dead…
By celticschick - 31/08/2020 16:59
Today, I had an important staff meeting via Zoom. My boyfriend got home from work, walked through the door and shouted, "BABE! I'M READY TO GET MY D*** SUCKED!" I wasn't on mute. FML
Love is hell
By Halle - 01/11/2011 07:41 - United States
Today, my immature step-father rubbed my head destroying the $300 hairdo that took two and a half hours to finish. Three minutes before my wedding ceremony. FML
Today, I attempted to be nice and hold a door open for a person in a wheelchair. He hit the button to open another door. While I pointed out that I would hold the door for him, I realized that the door I was holding open for him led down some stairs. FML
By Tooth Fairy - 25/05/2018 16:00 - United States - Hays
Today, I broke a tooth. It's Friday. Not a single dentist office is open. The good news? I might lose those last few pounds as I can't drink or eat without excruciating pain. Needless to say, it's going to be a long weekend. FML
By TheNaturalOrderofThingsSucks - 11/09/2012 03:13 - United States - Seattle
Today, after pouring my heart out to a beautiful girl on Facebook, and having her return the favor, she typed a final message that read, "That was my friend. Please f*ck off now. Thanks." FML
Today, I went to a wedding with my family. While the maid of honor was giving her non-heartfelt, three sentence speech, my mom and I started talking about how lame her speech was. When I turned around to look at my mom, I saw the camera recording the speech behind her. FML
By Anonymous - 07/12/2014 04:48 - United States - Watertown
Today, I felt bad about rarely complimenting my mom about her cooking, so during dinner, I raved about her incredible, creamy, macaroni and cheese. It came from a box. FML
By Distracted - 13/08/2009 12:18 - United States
Today, it was my first day at a new school. I pulled into the parking lot and saw this really cute guy. I was checking him out in my rear view mirror. When I looked ahead, there was something in the road, so I swirved real hard and took down an entire wooden fence. That something was a plastic bag. FML
By Anonymous - 08/12/2012 09:28 - Australia - Weston
Today, I thought it would be nice to park my new car under a big, shady oak tree to prevent it from heating up in the sun. The big, shady oak tree thought it would be nice to shed a massive branch on top of my new car. FML
By forever alone - 30/08/2016 13:55 - Trinidad and Tobago - San Fernando
Today, I had a terrible dream where my aunt paid a stripper to have sex with me, since I'm 27 and haven't even kissed a guy yet. I ended up taking the dream-stripper to the mall for snacks instead. Even my dreams are mocking me. FML
By Sam - 03/12/2011 10:03 - United States
Today, my friend and his girlfriend got in a fight while drunk and he started walking home. While driving around looking for him, I accidentally hit him with my car. FML
By janesays - 24/02/2010 07:45 - United States
Today, my 2 year old had a large booger blocking his nose so I pulled it out. I was on the phone and absentmindedly rolling it around between my thumb and pointer finger. I put it in my mouth and crushed it between my teeth for a solid minute before I remembered what it was. FML
By smellyfeet - 01/06/2010 16:19 - United Kingdom
Today, my boyfriend and I decided it was finally time for both of us to have sex with each other. He kept his shoes on the whole time because he thought he had smelly feet. FML
By OopsKid - 30/05/2011 18:14 - France
Today, I accidentally said, "Yes, Sir." to my female teacher. I then apologized by saying, "Sorry, Sir." FML
By yeah why not - 06/04/2013 17:06 - Norway
Today, my dad had a little too much to drink. When he's that drunk, he likes to pepper me with a lot of random questions. He asked if I've ever tried hard drugs, and if I want to die. I answered no to both of the questions, and he demanded to know why not. FML
Today, my mom informed me that my entire family puts their dirty towels on the towel rack in the bathroom instead of the hamper. I've been using their dirty towels after showers for as long as I remember. FML
By HomelessGirl1 - 21/05/2012 05:28 - United States - Las Vegas
Today, while volunteering at a local homeless shelter, I asked the woman next to me how long she'd been homeless. She works there. FML
By beaverless - 02/05/2011 20:26 - United States
Today, my girlfriend kindly broke the news to me that she doesn't want to take part in sexual activity anymore because it is getting too boring. FML
By OUCH - 19/05/2009 05:17 - Canada
Today, while going for a run in my neighbourhood I was hit by a car not once, but twice. The second car, closely following the first, stopped and then drove forward to see if I was all right. FML
Today, while having sex with my boyfriend, my dad called my cell. He ended the phone call with, "and tell your boyfriend to shut up, I can hear him moaning." FML
By Morgan Bailey - 18/09/2018 14:00
Today, I tried to let out a small fart in a crowded restaurant. I had diarrhea. I walked past several families to get to the bathroom and clean myself up, only to still go home with a huge wet spot down my ass. My shirt wasn't long enough to hide it. FML
By tiffylueg - 21/06/2016 13:38
Today, my allergies are killing me. I took a Benadryl to help, but the allergies are still here. I'm now chugging Mountain Dew at 9:30 in the morning to keep from falling asleep at my desk. Thanks for nothing Benadryl. FML
Late warning
By TheGestalt97 - 20/12/2019 05:00
Today, an email appeared in my inbox saying that the final this week that was supposed to be on Saturday has been moved forward to Thursday. It's Friday. FML
By ashley_skillz06 - 24/01/2010 05:21 - France
Today, I went to a Japanese restaurant. While the chef is throwing food at us, I'm getting ready for my turn. He tosses the piece of broccoli at me, I lean back to catch it, completely falling off my chair. I knocked everything over and had the packed restaurant laughing at me. FML
By klsdhjla - 15/02/2010 01:23 - United States
Today, while losing my virginity to my boyfriend, I had my first orgasm. I don't remember much of what I said during, but after it was all over, he looks at me and says, "You have terrible grammar during climax." FML
By EB - 06/11/2012 01:01 - United States
Today, I'm so broke, I asked my parents if they'd pay for me to go to the eye doctor and consider it my Christmas present. FML
By rayraydayday - 21/03/2015 04:25 - United States - Englewood
Today, I was wearing a new tank top that was really cute. I later was talking to an attractive guy and thought he was giggling at me because he thought I was being cute and funny. I then realized he was giggling at the fact that I only shaved one armpit. FML
I'm not a kid
By Babyface - 02/09/2021 20:01
Today, I've come to accept that I'll likely never be intimidating or taken seriously, because despite being 6'3" and 205 lbs, I have the face of a 12 year-old. I'm 25. FML
By Stiffed - 07/04/2016 09:19 - Australia - Warrnambool
Today, my old boss stiffed me on a large sum of money he owes me. I tried to contact him and point out that he legally owes me the money, but he won't answer his texts or his phone, and the managers say he changes the subject whenever they bring it up. FML
By benjo - 06/08/2013 18:07 - United States
Today, I was lifeguarding a pool party for a bunch of eight year olds. One of them decided it'd be funny to have a contest to see who could make the most bubbles with their farts. It led to three kids shitting themselves in the pool, and me having the dubious honor of cleaning it up. FML
By porkfriedlife - 28/07/2009 20:38 - United States
Today, I went to a theater and saw "Bruno" with my mom. We saw "Borat" together, so I thought, 'Hey, how bad could it be?' I don't know what was more nauseating: Bruno's penis spinning around and talking or the fact that my mom thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing. FML
By Beesmakemerun - 10/04/2017 04:00
Today, I made a joke about my electric lawnmower sounding like a bunch of angry bees. It was verified when I ran over a beehive in my backyard. FML
By horribletimeeverywhere74747 - 11/04/2018 13:00 - United States - Navarre
Today, the girl who'd asked me to prom told me she assumed we weren't going together and is now going with her friends. After agreeing to go with her, I'd bought a $200 non-refundable suit along with the ticket. I have no one else to go with. FML
By Michelle - 01/09/2010 08:27 - Netherlands
Today, I went to pay my grandma a visit. She called the cops because she didn't recognize me and thought I was a robber. FML
By KilteDKilleR - 15/10/2011 14:02 - United States
Today, I went to visit my grandpa. He has an easily excited dog, who barreled into my freshly broken knee. I felt my knee move out of place again. The dog chipped a tooth. We went to the vet first. FML
Wow, thanks, I'm cured!
Today, I got the best advice for my depression and anxiety from my parents and relatives: "Get it out of your head, there's no such thing. And get married!" FML
By just outdone - 31/12/2015 04:45 - United States - Turtle Lake
Today, I've been staying with my parents while I have time off from school. They got drunk and started an entire family fight because my dad made pizza and my mom is lactose intolerant. She insists my dad did it on purpose because "he's an asshole and knows I can't eat cheese." FML
By Anonymous - 31/01/2013 05:40 - United States - Fairfield
Today, I was driving around with a few friends when one of them suggested we go in to an insurance company's office and sing their jingle. I'm an awful singer, so I was planning on lip syncing. Everyone else had the same idea. FML
By dessy - 09/05/2016 21:37 - United States - San Diego
Today, my boyfriend asked me to pick up a few things from the store for him while he was at work. After picking up everything he asked for, I wasn't left with much money so I used $50 from my account. When he got home he then grumbled about me spending all of "his" money. FML
By agnosticstudy - 28/01/2009 21:53 - United States
Today, all three of my meals consisted of 2 hot pockets. FML
Today, I found out that the same police officer who has arrested me twice has been sleeping with my wife. FML
Monday 31 August 2020 17:21
I think he takes the term "staff meeting" a little too literally.
alex_jaguara 31
Isn't he romantic?
brenniman 10
Friday 28 August 2020 4:01
But the REAL important issue here is: Did you such off his d**k?
bloopaloop 27
On zoom, I hope!
Nic1330 5
Tuesday 1 September 2020 21:07
Khal2 2
What happened tho
Slim87R 7
Tuesday 1 September 2020 1:40
Push-to-talk is a Godly feature that stops that kind of thing from happening.
tounces7 27
Kinda sounds like he did it on purpose because he's an asshole.
Dolly Danning 4
Thursday 3 September 2020 1:29
Taurus_ChicKa 36
I want to know how the other Zoom attendees reacted!


Welcome back to Local Listens, where we profile some of our favorite Washington musicians. Today, we shine the spotlight on Vienna's Luke Mitchem.
Photo courtesy of Luke Mitchem.
Mitchem's path to music was an unlikely one. He studied history at Ottawa University in Kansas with hopes of pursuing a teaching career but instead decided to enlist in the Army after graduation. He came to Washington in 2007 to work for the Department of Homeland Security and now has a full-time job with the Department of Justice. Already well acquainted with the life of a nine-to-fiver, Mitchem picked up a guitar only three years ago. Since then, he has recorded three albums with his backup musicians, the Endless Spirits, has zigzagged cross-country on tour, and has concrete plans to turn his music into a full-time gig. We caught up with Mitchem in preparation for his upcoming six-city tour, which kicks off May 25 at Jammin Java in Vienna.
Your music fuses folk, country, and blues. How did that sound come about?
The sound comes partly from what I'm listening to at the time. We brought in a fiddle player for the most recent record, but I would never consider those songs country. I'd say it's closer to indie folk music. Also, I'm very much a storyteller. I always want to try to tell a story for somebody to listen to that could close their eyes and see exactly what I'm describing in the lyrics.
Tell us about the story behind your latest album. Who is Laura?
Laura is a singer/songwriter from this area that I met a couple years ago. I think there was a mutual admiration between the two of us and a connection that obviously lasted. [Later] we did a concert together, and then afterwards there was a very long conversation about that connection and an almost sad realization that timing wasn't working for us in our personal lives. Those three songs, "Love," "Laura," and "Bomb," were initially one very long song called "I Confess." It was my initial reaction after leaving that conversation I had with her.
In some senses it's sad that I don't have that connection and have not spoken to her in a while. It was difficult for me but also inspiring. You know, a lot of good things can come from a little bit of sadness. I—in a roundabout way—devoted an entire album to her, so my hope is that at some point it reached her and she's had time to listen to it. I don't know . . . maybe it'll work out one of these days.
You moved to Vienna because it reminded you more of home, but does Northern Virginia really count as country living?
It does and it doesn't. When I say country living, it's more a pace of life. That's what I like about Vienna, but at the same time it still has that faster pace than what I grew up with. I like DC, but I couldn't see myself living in the city just as I truthfully couldn't see myself living in New York City or Los Angeles. But if the opportunity came about to go there and stay for an extended period of time but not necessarily live there, I would definitely do something like that.
What do you miss most about Missouri?
I miss being around my family. I have four nephews; I miss being around them. I also miss Sonic.
What do you miss about DC when on the road?
I'm a big fan of the monuments. I always try to go twice a year, if not more, and just hang out. One of my favorite places is the Lincoln Memorial. Some people, it's their first experience seeing it and you can pick those people out by the way their eyes light up. If it's been six or seven months, I always tell myself I need to go back and just walk around for a little bit.
So would you count that as one of your spots to go for inspiration?
Not necessarily. Over the last six months, I've allowed myself to be inspired by everything. Whether it's a story on TV or simply overhearing a conversation walking through the Tysons Corner mall or reading something in a book. I think if you allow yourself to be open to it, you'll be surprised about what inspires you to write a song.
What's your favorite venue that you've ever played?
Eddie's Attic in Decatur, Georgia. They pride themselves on being a listening room. I performed there last August, and I've never had 100 people just sitting there in complete silence listening to everything I said.
Is that a little unnerving, though?
At first it was, but I knew they were listening to every single word I sang that night, and it was an amazing feeling. I wish every artist could experience that every time they perform. Not that I lose faith, but there's days when it's a lot harder than other days to be a musician. So having nights like that where you play and people are listening to everything is great.
You've been on quite the whirlwind since starting your career in 2008. Any plans to slow down?
I've taken the last few months off to really try to become a better musician. I don't foresee putting out a record this year, but I think I'm going to make up for it next year by putting out a double album. I'm hoping to get into South by Southwest down in Austin next year. I have a goal in mind: Roughly by March or April next year, I'd like to be doing music full-time—or at least to the point where I'm taking a few months where I'm just touring and also analyzing the next record or double record. There will always time for songs to grow, and that's why I'm waiting a little bit longer this time around [to put out a new record] . . . to let the songs breathe a little bit.


Each of the attorneys works closely with legal secretaries and investigators to handle an entire case from intake through sentencing.
Each case forwarded to the District Attorney's Office is reviewed by trained prosecutors to determine if the evidence presented is sufficient to answer a single, specific question: Can we prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the individual acted unlawfully?
The suspect's potential defenses must also be considered in that analysis.
This protects all of our rights against being unfairly accused of a crime and is our ethical obligation as prosecutors. The hallmark of the American criminal justice system is that the burden of proving a crime beyond a reasonable doubt always rests with the prosecutor. Therefore, it is incumbent upon The District Attorney to ensure that every case filed by the office meets those very important ethical and legal standards. The office applies the law and files criminal charges based solely on the facts and the law.


text:
Second Nurture
Susan SilvermanFilmed at Limmud Conference 2016
When Susan travelled to Ethiopia to adopt her son, she didn't expect to encounter Martin Buber there. But she did. Jewish philosophy, theology and Torah study are ways to describe the indescribable, the unknowable: God's will. But sometimes, in some moments, all these ideas take on immediate, gritty, real-life meaning. And that's when they demand something from us – and when they matter most.
Susan Silverman is an author, teacher, activist and founder of Second Nurture: Every Child Deserves a Family – And a Community, a program to find permanent, loving families for all children – with the added bonus of supportive communal contexts for their families, which can be found at communityadoption.org. She is an advocate for asylum seekers and of liberal Judaism in Israel, the author of Jewish Family & Life: Traditions, Holiday and Values for Today's Parents and Children and, recently, of Casting Lots: Creating a Family in a Beautiful Broken World. She has appeared in Tablet Magazine, Moment Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Forward, The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, YNet, The New York Times, NPR, and ABC's The View, among others. She and her spouse, Yosef Abramowitz, have five children and live in Jerusalem. She can be found at rabbisusansilverman.com and @rabbasusan.
I first held my oldest child moments after I gave birth to her. "I love you so much, but I have no idea what that means."
She was this skinny little thing with this big mop of black hair and this wide face and we had named her Aliza: joy.
I peered into her face the way the Israelites stared at the thunder and lightning of Sinai. I was entering a sacred covenant. I didn't understand it, but it filled me completely. From the first moments, I lost myself to the force of Aliza's demand on me. I was overpowered by love and awe. I had given life, but it gave me life right back. I was someone new.
When I first held my son, Zamir, he was four-years-old and living in an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
I had travelled there with Aliza, who was now twelve, and her sister, Hallel, who was ten years old. We had come together to bring home their new brother.
He expected us, and he knew our faces from the little red book we had sent with pictures of his sisters and his brother. And by now I knew – with every fiber of my being – that the love was inherent in adoption as it had been in birth. That it was an all-consuming, covenantal love.
Our three daughters had been born to us, and Zamir's new brother was adopted from Ethiopia like he was.
The girls and I got to the small compound in the early afternoon, during the children's naptime. The orphanage's policy was not to tell the child that their new family would be coming to get them on a certain the date. The child knew they were coming, knew what they looked like, but didn't know what date, in case something got messed up and there was a delay, and the family couldn't make it on that particular date.
So we sat on these wooden steps in the courtyard. And Gail, the orphanage director, went into the building where the little boys slept. Through a series of windows on the side of the building, I could see Gail moving forward, to each bunk bed one after the other, wondering, where would she stop? It was like a twisted, high stakes musical chairs.
About two-thirds of the way in, she stopped, she reached to a top bunk and emerged to the courtyard with a little boy slumped on her body. She walked over to me, leaned down, and his weight shifted onto me, his head on my shoulder, his body along mine, his arms hanging over mine.
After a few beats he roused, looked into my face and stared blankly. Then, all of a sudden, this whole face smile just came across his giant eyes, his big lips, his cheeks, just everything expanded in this huge smile. And with that, his sisters were able to say their first hello.
Like millions of children worldwide, Zamir lived in an institution. And his was better than most. He had food, he had shelter, he had a nursery school, a pre-school and only limited physical punishment.
But no institution can provide what children are innately wired for: children are wired for love. Love that says "I see you"; "I got you."
Just as babies in orphanages can lose their eyesight because they're lying on their backs, and staring at white ceilings all the time and their optic nerve is never stimulated, little souls cannot flourish without the stimulation of full-hearted human commitment and engagement.
The Torah emphasizes care for the orphan and the stranger. What is it that these two biblical categories have in common? Neither has agency of their own in the world, nor do they have someone with agency who says, "I got you."
Orphanages cannot provide what Martin Buber called an I-Thou relationship. This kind of relationship, "I-Thou", means that we relate with the entirety of our being to another whole person.
The opposite relationship, which Buber calls "I-It", we see others as members of categories, or as instruments of achievement.
Orphanage workers – like others responding to urgent needs of many people at one time – have by definition I-It relationships with the children. How else can you get dozens, or even hundreds, of children fed, clothed, sheltered?
But the ultimate goal for every single child, especially if we believe that everybody is made b'tzelem elohim, in the image of God, has to be an I-Thou relationship with an adult – and not just any adult – a parent: a permanent, loving, devoted adult.
We can't be rooted in the world – in our souls and our bodies – when we lack I-Thou. Perhaps, we can't even be rooted or connected to God without an I-Thou relationship to mirror the Divine.
Now, brace yourselves because these numbers are not pretty. Using the US as an example, there are 400,000 children in the Foster Care system. 117,000 of them are available for adoption right now.
Kids who have lived in the Foster Care system have twice the rate of PTSD – of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – as war veterans.
Well under 1% of the general population, some 000% of the general population becomes homeless. 30% of kids, who grow up in the Foster Care system, as adults become homeless.
Internationally, there are between 8 and 12 million children in institutions. That's not even I-It. If we're estimating the number of kids by the millions, with the technology available today to do it, it's below an I-It relationship, they're nothing to us. And there are tens of millions of kids on the streets.
I'll bet that there are a good number of people here tonight who have considered adoption. You've thought, "Hey, we've got a great family, or I'd be a really good parent, or you know my kids are getting older, I could adopt an older kid." And there are lots of kids that need families. In fact, there are over 80 million people in the United States alone who have considered adoption, but haven't done it.
The question is why? What are the barriers? Research – and the experience I've had as well interacting with people around this issue – have shown three basic reasons, three basic barriers:
One is bureaucracy: Oh my god, there's this huge bureaucracy out there, I don't even know where to start, who to call, what to do, who's going to guide me through this?
Another is finances: Oh I heard adoption's expensive, is that true? Am I going to be in debt? Are there hidden costs?
And the third is fear: What will that child need? Will it be more than I can give? Will I love her? Will he love me? Will there be attachment issues? Will there be developmental issues? Will I get the kind of support that I would need to properly raise this child.
These anxieties are reasonable – whether we're adopting or giving birth. I often say that our biological child, Hallel, when she was a teenager – she happened to be a nightmare of a teenager – that if she had been adopted, people would have said, "You see what happens when you adopt". But she was biological and no one ever says, "You see what happens when you replicate your DNA!" – even to us.
They're worth taking in these anxieties, they're real, and they're based on a reality. But they're also worth, for many of us, overcoming.
So when I ask myself, how do we overcome these barriers, and get more children into permanent, loving families? I think, here's a solution: I believe that more people would adopt children if they knew that their community had their back.
Imagine. Imagine your synagogue, your school, or community center, got together, encouraged one another to adopt, and created concentric circles of support for those adoptive families. We would see more adoptions, more successful families, a richer family life and more engaged communities.
Not everyone will adopt, but there will be room for everybody in those concentric circles of support. And those circles will help lead to more adoptions.
So together we would facilitate the adoption – the bureaucracy part – but not only facilitate adoptions, but facilitate adoptions of children who come from the same country maybe even the same orphanage, or who all have experienced life in the Foster Care System, so that the children have a network of shared experience and perhaps even can continue pre-existing relationships.
Imagine if, when the girls and I went to get Zamir, multiple families from our community came with us and every child from that orphanage or his section of the orphanage went home with their new family.
And once home, each community would cultivate networks, with professional guidance, with the support where our organization brings in the best support available to these communities to address issues of physical and mental health, identity development, attachment, belonging.
And we'll develop materials that will integrate adoption into Jewish life so that our children are not grafted onto the Tree of Life, but come from its roots.
I-Thou relationships would characterize our families, our communities. And I believe our connection to God.
For Buber, I-Thou is more than a way of relating to others; it is also how we can, a bit at a time, come closer to God.
Now, back to Addis Ababa and Zamir:
After our first day together, the girls and I brought Zamir back to the boarding house where we were staying – the small apartment that the orphanage made available to adopting families. We were wiped out. I gave them kisses, I sang Shema, I said goodnight and I went to sleep.
The next day, we had to go to court, we had a lot of errands to do, it was in Amharic, and it was very stressful to sort of make our way through all of these legal proceedings and kind of exhausting and its also just like a lot to take in in that country.
We get back to the boarding house that night. I got the kids into their beds on the floor, I said goodnight, and I got up to go into the next room to go to sleep. Zamir grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. It's like OK, goodnight sweetie, kiss, kiss, kiss. Off. He pulls me down again. OK honey, goodnight kiss kiss kiss.
And then finally one of the girls said, "Mama, maybe he wants you to sing Shema," He'd heard it the night before. And I thought, hmm, pretty much no way, but I had forgotten, so I sang:
Shema Yisrael adonai eloheinu adonai echad….
As I sang, he smiled that smile again, he closed his eyes and he lay down, and went to sleep.
Now, I have probably sung Shema 10,000 times over my 23 years of being a mother, it's all a big mush in my mind, but that one time I remember distinctly, uniquely. That time that my new son, on a foam mattress on the floor of a paint-chipped rooming house in one of the poorest cities in the world, taught me the glory of I-Thou, and elicited God's presence.
Big IdeasCommunitySocial Change
Stop Bitching and Start a Revolution
Skin In The Game
Embrace Your Role

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Numbers in namespace I have a bunch of classes under these four different namespaces:

*

*a.b.c.x

*a.b.c.y

*a.b.c.z

Neither of the classes that contain a definition for "myEnum" are directly under namespace "a.b". I have "myEnum" defined in "a.b.c.x" and "a.b.c.z" but i get the following error:
The namespace 'a.b' already contains a definition for myEnum.
Why is this? And how can i fix it?
EDIT:
Well i fixed it. Apparently i cannot have numbers like this "a.b.202.x" in a namespace. that's what it was complaining about. anyone know why?

A:
Apparently i cannot have numbers like
  this "a.b.202.x" in a namespace.
  that's what it was complaining about.
  anyone know why?

The same reason that you can't declare int 202; - identifiers cannot begin with digits in C#.
EDIT:
Here's an attempt to explain your specific (strange) compiler error, by reproducing it.
The following code:
namespace a.b
{
   enum myEnum {}
}

namespace a.b.202.x
{
   enum myEnum {}
}

fails with the curious (to me anyway) errors:
{ expected
The namespace 'a.b' already contains a definition for 'myEnum'

I speculate that the reason for this is that the bad identifier makes the compiler treat the second namespace declaration as "malformed", ignoring the .202.x. If this is so, it follows that it should indeed appear to the compiler that the second myEnum type is in the namespace a.b, which of course would be a duplicate.
This is further supported by the fact that if you get rid of the first namespace (and the enum in it) completely and recompile, you will see that the fully qualified name of the second enum-type is inferred as a.b.myEnum (despite the failure to compile).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Albert Pellew Salter (1816–1874) was a provincial land surveyor in Upper Canada then Ontario in the mid-19th century. He is historically most notable for having discovered magnetic abnormalities at what is now Creighton Mine in Greater Sudbury, while surveying a baseline westward from Lake Nipissing in 1856.

Born at Teignmouth, Devon, England in 1816, Salter emigrated to Canada in 1834 and initially settled at Plympton; he was later a combatant in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. He subsequently married in 1839 and taught school while obtaining his degree in land surveying and civil engineering.

In 1847, he was hired by the Commissioner of Crown Lands to survey mining locations in the Sault Ste. Marie region. In 1855, he was assigned to survey the North Shore of Lake Huron, in light of the recent Robinson-Huron Treaty. The following year, he returned to the region to survey the first baseline, and detected the magnetic anomalies as he passed between Round Lake and Whitefish Lake on what is now the Whitefish Lake First Nations reserve.

The area was then examined by Alexander Murray of the Geological Survey of Canada, who confirmed "the presence of an immense mass of magnetic trap". Due to the then-remoteness of the Sudbury area, however, Salter's discovery did not have much immediate impact. The later construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway through the area, however, made mineral exploration more feasible and finally resulted in the development of a mining settlement in 1883.

Salter died in 1874.

Salter's Meridian is commemorated by a historical plaque in the Naughton neighbourhood of Sudbury.

References

Further reading
John Ladell, They Left Their Mark: Surveyors and Their Role in the Settlement of Ontario. Dundurn Press, 1993. .

1816 births
1874 deaths
Canadian surveyors
People from Teignmouth
English emigrants to Canada
Upper Canada Rebellion people

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This week we voyage to Ukraine, which is the second-largest nation in Eastern Europe in terms of land mass (next to Russia), has the second largest military in Europe (next to that of Russia) and whose people have historically survived hardships that one could only compare to, well, those endured by the people of Russia. Yes, there's a love/hate Ukrainian/Russian relationship, and not a small amount of competition, but we're impartial here. We can easily choose to love both.
— OVERVIEW: Ukraine is a powerful nation that has lived for centuries in constant struggle, surviving wars, famine, and the Soviet Union.
— MUSIC: We meet the Kobzars, Ukraine's traditional musical masters.
— HUTSULKA: A playful "wild dance" that originated with Ukraine's mountain-dwelling Hutsul people.


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In baseball, hitting has been undergoing a revolution in recent years. People are finally starting to realize that hitting the ball on the ground is not the best approach if one wants to have success at the plate.
Hitters are starting to learn that trying to drive the ball in the air can lead to much more success and help them earn chances at the next level. However as more coaches advocate for hitters to drive the ball in the air and avoid hitting ground balls, getting the ball too high in the air – at too high of a launch angle – also results in very little success and can make for a very frustrated hitter. It's hard to know how to balance all of the information that is how out there on hitting.
In this article, we will discuss how to avoid hitting weak pop-ups that result in outs. With improved swing mechanics, we can turn these pop-ups into line drives and driven fly balls.
By definition, a ball hit at a launch angle below 10 degrees is a ground ball, 10-25 degrees is a line drive and anything 25+ is considered a flyball. However, there is a big difference between a ball hit at a 30-degree launch angle and one hit at 60 degrees.
The driven fly balls that hitters are looking for are – depending on the hitter – usually between 25-35 degrees. Anything over 35 degrees, for most hitters, will result in an out. These weakly hit balls that sit in the air long enough to have a fielder camp under and record an out are considered pop-ups.
Anytime the ball goes in the air, the hitter makes contact with the bottom half of the ball. When we drive the baseball in the air (25-35 degrees) we hit just below the centerline of the ball. When the ball gets skied to the infield or shallow outfield, the hitter hits well below the center of the ball. Basically, the lower on the baseball the bats make contact, the higher the launch angle.
Often when you see a hitter pop the ball up, it will be accompanied by a coach yelling, "Don't uppercut." In fact, the overwhelming number of players that I work with come in believing that pop-ups are caused by the bat moving up too much through the zone. This causes players to avoid dropping their back shoulder, try and stay on top of the ball and keep the ball out of the air. However, this often times causes the problem to get worse. Let me explain.
Every pitch in baseball moves on a downward angle or plane as it travels toward home plate. Successful hitters keep the bat on the plane of the pitch for a long period of time. The longer they stay on plane with the ball, the greater window they have for making hard contact.
Don't believe me? Watch the video below of a high-level hitter swinging the bat. The bat drops below the baseball and works on an upward plane back up to the ball.
This would be, by most coach's standards, upper-cutting. Yet, this is what successful hitters do to square up the ball – hitting the center of it – and create line drives and driven flyballs. Most young hitters try and avoid this because they are so ingrained with the idea of staying on top of the ball or trying to create a level swing.
Taking a downward or level path to the ball actually decreases the time that the bat and ball are on the same plane. This increases the chance that a hitter will either hit the top of the ball and create grounders or clip the bottom of the ball and create weak pop-ups.
In the video below you'll that the hitter's swing plane does not match that of the baseball, and as a result pops it up. His swing plane is too flat.
The term uppercut has a very negative connotation in the world of baseball. However, just about every high-level hitter swings with a slight uppercut, and doing so is a vital component of having success at the plate.
As stated earlier, successful hitters will have the bat will drop below the ball to get on plane with the pitch early. From here, they will work the bat on an upward path to meet the ball. Most young hitters are so ingrained to avoid working the bat up or "upper-cutting" that they are actually putting themselves more at risk of hitting weak pop-ups by allowing the bat to work level or down, thus increasing the chance of clipping the bottom of the ball.
This drill is great for reinforcing a slightly upward swing path. If you swing down on the ball, you'll hit the second tee in your follow through. If a proper upward swing path is used, the barrel will just clear the top of the second tee. Anytime you hit the second tee, you know you didn't have proper swing plane.
This drill will help you understand what a slight uppercut looks like. Place two tees in front of you, with the center of the second baseball (farther from you) aligned with the top of the first ball.
When done right, you should hit both squarely. If you have insufficient upward plane, the second ball will be popped up and mishit as you swing beneath it on too flat of a swing plane.
With any type of bat path, it is possible for a hitter to hit any part of the baseball. However, most of the time that balls get popped up, it is because the bat is not moving up enough through the hitting zone. Even though most coaches advise against upper-cutting, moving the bat on a more upward path through the hitting zone usually leads to more line drives and far fewer weak pop-ups.


Most diagnoses of neck and back pain are nothing to be afraid of and often times imaging studies are not necessary. Learn more about what you need to know the next time you visit your doctor for back or neck pain.
During pregnancy, 50 to 70 percent of women will develop back pain and/or sciatica, which is pain from the lower back down the leg. Luckily, there is a lot that can be done to manage this pain.
Read about the top four things you can do to maintain a healthy spine.
If you're feeling back pain or a shooting, burning sensation that runs down the back of your leg, you may have sciatica. The challenge is figuring out the cause of this pain.
Surgical spine care at Kent is an integrated program and involves the collaboration between orthopedic and neurological surgery. A patient-centered, team approach provides high-quality patient care.
Back pain is one of the most common reasons people seek medical attention. In fact, nearly 8 out of 10 people experience back pain at some point in their lives.


text:
Learn the Fundamentals of Angular in Our Comprehensive New Course
by Andrew Blackman 3 May 2018
Length:QuickLanguages: Englishالعربية/عربيBahasa Indonesia
AngularJavaScriptWeb AppsFront-End
If you want to learn Angular, we've got something special for you: a huge, ultra-comprehensive, nine-hour guide to Angular Fundamentals.
Across 67 detailed video lessons, Dan Wellman will teach you all of the fundamental building blocks that make a modern Angular app, up to date with the latest build.
You'll learn how to create all of the main parts of an Angular application, including modules, components, services, directives, and pipes. You'll also see how to work with the CLI, write unit tests, and build for production.
Along the way, you'll build an entire app from scratch to practice what you've learned!
Here are some free lessons from this course, as a preview of what you can expect:
Component Trees
In this video, you'll learn about the architecture of a typical Angular application, and you'll add some components to the example application from earlier in the course.
In this video, you'll take a detailed look at the concept of decorators. You'll learn about some of the most commonly used decorators and see examples of their use.
Most of the course focuses on the view and controller parts of Angular's MVC (model-view-controller) architecture, but it's also important to know how models work. In this video, you'll learn just that.
You can take our new course straight away with a subscription to Envato Elements. For a single low monthly fee, you get access not only to this course, but also to our growing library of over 1,000 video courses and industry-leading eBooks on Envato Tuts+.
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text:
It is an honour to have been asked to write an introduction to this selection of the writings of W. Oliver Brown, who was undoubtedly one of the main leaders of Scottish nationalist thought in the period from the 1930's to the 1970's. Professionally a school teacher of modern languages, fluent in French and German and honoured by l'Academie Francaise, he was also brilliant in his command of English. To introduce him is a task which should properly be redundant, for the man and his work and its influence should be as well known throughout Scotland as are his overlapping contemporaries, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Neil Gunn and Hugh MacDiarmid. Like those three he was a writer, but in the totally different genre of the polemicist, committed to overt argument for his beliefs, which others might share with equal strength but express less directly.
And overt his arguments certainly were, for not only was he a writer but he was also a speaker, regularly at street corners, whatever the weather. For several years his pitch at the corner of Sauchiehall St. and Wellington St., gathered a hearing overflowing from the queue of the nearby Scala Cinema. Overt again, because he was also a publisher, frequently producing his pamphlets at his own cost and taking full responsibility for what he stated in them. Never were any of his quotations challenged as being inaccurate, and the swift piercing comments with which he would follow such quotations are masterpieces of scathing humour.
Several examples of such quotations and comments will be found in this selection, and from them Scotswomen and men of today can realise how strong and clear the ideas of freedom and of a caring society in an independent Scotland were expressed and promulgated in the burgeoning nationalist movement. Those days included Cunninghame-Graham, R.E. Muirhead, the Scottish Secretariat, and the I.L.P., (Independent Labour Party'), notably James Maxton therein. But Oliver Brown was the most articulate in analysing the details of both the particular English usurpation of Scottish rights and the general opposition of imperialism to national liberty everywhere. Sadly Oliver was forced to conclude, in his pamphlet Scotlandshire, that "Scotland's economic decline was due not to natural disadvantages but to a deliberate policy by alien and hostile rulers", hut also "that the Labour Party' is no less unjust to Scotland than its opponents".
I hope that this selection of his work will show the continuing truth and relevance of the wit and wisdom of W. Oliver Brown to Scotland today.
R. S. Silver


text:
CHARTing Health Information
International Data Sources
CHARTing Health Information: International Data Sources
This Web site has been designed to provide a comprehensive collection of links to publicly available health and health determinants data. While the emphasis is on the state of Texas, there are links to sites that cover all of the U.S.
Data Problems
Rates & Formulas
TX County Overviews
Cause of Illness Toggle Dropdown
Accidents & Suicides
Chronic Disease Data
Cardiovascular Disease & Stroke Data
Diabetes Data
Hospital-related Injury/Mortality Data
Occupational Injuries & Exposures
Other causes of illness
Mortality Data
Determinants of Health Toggle Dropdown
Crime & Criminal Justice Data
Health Insurance, CHIP, Medicaid, Medicare
Risk Behaviors
Sociodemographic Data
Traffic & Travel Data
Hospital Utilization Data
Environmental Data Toggle Dropdown
County Environmental Overviews
Air Quality Data
Health Effects
Releases & Spills Data
Superfund Sites
Water Quality & Pollution Data
Resources en Espanol
Health Data for Other States
Government Statistical Agencies
Also check out the List of International and National Statistical Services compiled by the United States Census Bureau.
Brasil:Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics
Canada:Statistics Canada.
China: National Bureau of Statistics.
Germany:Federal Statistical Bureau
India:Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation
Mexico:National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Informatics
Russia:Russian State Committee for Statistics (in Russian)
South Africa:Statistics South Africa
AidData: Tracks $40 trillion in international aid and development projects
EuroStat:Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union situated in Luxembourg.
FAOstat (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations): Statistics and data on agricultural production around the world.
International Human Development Indicators
International Monetary Fund – World Economic Outlook Database
The World Economic Outlook (WEO) database contains selected macroeconomic data series from the statistical appendix of the World Economic Outlook report, which presents the IMF staff's analysis and projections of economic developments at the global level, in major country groups and in many individual countries. It includes data on national accounts, inflation, unemployment rates, balance of payments, fiscal indicators, trade for countries and country groups (aggregates), and commodity prices whose data are reported by the IMF. IMF Data Mapper allows users to create charts and tables of the data.
Nation Master: NationMaster is a central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. It contains a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD. With it you can generate maps and graphs on all kinds of statistics with ease.
OECD: Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Pew Global Attitudes Project
The Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project conducts public opinion surveys around the world on a broad array of subjects ranging from people's assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world and important issues of the day. Survey data are released after all reporting is completed, typically two years following completion of the fielding of the survey.
PovcalNet: An interactive computational tool that allows you to replicate the calculations made by the World Bank's researchers in estimating the extent of absolute poverty in the world.
Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center
SEDAC's mission is to develop and operate applications that support the integration of socioeconomic and earth science data and to serve as an "information gateway" between the earth sciences and social sciences. Its primary areas of focus are:
Environment and Health (EH)
Environmental Sustainability (ES)
Environmental Treaties and Resource Indicators (ENTRI)
Hazard Vulnerability Assessment (HVA)
Model Visualization and Analysis (MVA)
Population Land-Use and Emissions (PLUE)
Poverty and Food Security (PFS)
UNESCO Data Centre
The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) collects the data for more than 200 countries from Member States and international organizations. The UIS Data Centre contains over 1,000 types of indicators and raw data on education, literacy, science and technology, culture and communication and allows users to download predefined tables or build their own. Summary data (profiles and global rankings) are also available.
UNdata: A World of Information
The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) provides this internet based data service for the global user community. It brings UN statistical databases within easy reach of users through a single entry point. Users can now search and download a variety of statistical resources of the UN system.
World Bank:The World Bank's Data Catalog provides download access to over 2000 indicators arranged by country, indicator and topic. The World Bank is a premier source for data on economic and social issues throughout the world.
The Global Health Observatory (GHO) is WHO's portal providing access to data and analyses for monitoring the global health situation. It provides critical data and analyses for key health themes, as well as direct access to the full database. The GHO presents data from all WHO programs and provides links to supporting information.
<< Previous: Health Data for Other States
URL: https://libguides.sph.uth.tmc.edu/charting_health
Subjects: Alcoholism, Cancer, Community Health, Disease, Drugs, Epidemiology, Health Data, Statistics
Tags: cardiovascular disease data, health data; maternal data; adolescents data; environmental data; mortality data; cancer data; heart disease data; chronic diseases data, occupational injuries


text:
HomeHungary Vandals Damage Holocaust Exhibit
World News: Breaking News From Around The World
Hungary Vandals Damage Holocaust Exhibit
JTAApril 8, 2015
Vandals in Budapest defaced an exhibition about Holocaust survivors and, in a separate incident, painted a swastika opposite a synagogue.
The incident involving the exhibition was reported on Sunday by the Hungarian Jewish community's watchdog on anti-Semitism, the Action and Protection Foundation, or TEV.
According to the report on TEV's Facebook page, unknown individuals on Saturday splashed red paint on 14 portraits showing Holocaust survivors with the youngest members of their families.
The Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation, or EMIH, set up the exhibition, comprising 24 portraits, near the Madach Theater in central Budapest to celebrate Hungarian Jewry's continuity after the genocide that nearly wiped out the community.
Separately, TEV also reported that shortly before April 3, unknown individuals painted a swastika in front of a synagogue on Wesselenyi Street, located 5 miles northeast of Madach Theater. The Nazi symbol was removed shortly after its discovery, TEV wrote.
Both reports followed the April 1 release of TEV's second annual monitor of anti-Semitic attitudes in Hungary, which showed a decrease in the prevalence of such beliefs.
In the survey, conducted late last year by the Median polling company, 31 percent of 1,200 respondents displayed what TEV defined as anti-Semitic views, compared to 38 percent in a similar survey conducted last year. The survey has a 3-percent standard error.
This story "Hungary Vandals Damage Holocaust Exhibit" was written by JTA.
The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. All readers can browse the comments, and all Forward subscribers can add to the conversation. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, The Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not and will be deleted. Egregious commenters or repeat offenders will be banned from commenting. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, our spam filter prevents most links and certain key words from being posted and the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.


text:
Bony may refer to:

 Adjective relating to bone

People
 Bony Pierre (born 1991), Haitian footballer
 Jean-François Bony (1754-1825), French silk manufacturer
 Jean-Yves Bony (born 1955), French politician
 Oscar Bony (1941–2002), artist
 Wilfried Bony (born 1988), Ivorian footballer
 Jean-Michel Bony (born 1942), French mathematician

Organizations
 Bank of New York

Places
 Bony, Aisne, France, a commune of the Aisne département
 Bőny, a village in Hungary

Entertainment
 Bony (character), the main character in Arthur Upfield's novels
 Bony (TV series), a 1992 Australian television series starring Cameron Daddo
 Bony (film), a 2021 Indian Bengali film

See also
 Boney (disambiguation)


text:
Riesz ist der Familienname der Brüder und ungarischen Mathematiker:
 Frigyes Riesz (1880–1956) und
 Marcel Riesz (1886–1969)
sowie von:
 Helene Scheu-Riesz (1880–1970), österreichische Lyrikerin, Erzählerin, Übersetzerin und Herausgeberin
 János Riesz (* 1941), ungarisch-deutscher Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaftler
 Miklós Riesz (1919–1984), ungarischer Wirtschaftswissenschaftler

Nach Frigyes Riesz sind benannt:
 Riesz-Raum
 Lemma von Riesz
 Darstellungssatz von Fréchet-Riesz
 Darstellungssatz von Riesz-Markow
 Vollständigkeitssatz von Riesz
 Satz von Fischer-Riesz
 Satz von Radon-Riesz
 Radon-Riesz-Eigenschaft
 Riesz-Mittel, bestimmte Mittelwert-Bildung für Werte in eine Reihe in der Mathematik
 Satz von Riesz (Kompakte Operatoren)

Siehe auch:
 Rieß, Riess, Ries, Rihs, Riis


text:
In the news … March 20, 2019
Glitch in new Presto app can shut down systems, Toronto man warns
Less than two months after the launch of the new Presto mobile app, a Toronto man is urging Metrolinx to correct an apparent glitch that he claims can shut down fare gates and card loading machines at subway stations.
Budget 2019 must build the digital future for health
Last fall a report from Canada's Health and Biosciences Economic Strategy Table (HBEST) touted the tremendous role digital and data transformation will soon play in diagnosing and treating previously incurable or difficult-to-cure diseases. A strong digital ecosystem will allow Canada's health providers to capitalize on these advances by targeting specific treatments to individual patients, developing more personalized approaches to health care through customized treatment plans and truly integrating our siloed health system.
IPOLITICS
'Disruption' most over used buzzword, says LinkedIn
Microsoft-owned job seeking platform LinkedIn has announced that the word "disruption" was the most over used industry buzzword.
Besides "disruption", other buzzwords like "Cloud-based", "value-add", "scalable", "authentic" and "bandwidth" also emerged as the most over-used industry buzzwords, according to LinkedIn's list.
CANINDIA
Encryption pioneer aims to end our data dilemma with cryptography's holy grail
In 1984, Shafi Goldwasser, then a young professor at MIT, proposed a radical new idea in cryptography: that you could prove something was true without disclosing anything about it. The idea that would lay the framework for much of the cryptography we use today and eventually earn her the prestigious Nobel Prize of encryption, the Turing Award. More than 30 years later, she's now a startup founder, with the aim of bringing a long-awaited approach to encryption out of the closet. "At some point it became clear that this theory, the mathematics, was efficient enough," she says of the technique.
Previous Post One Degree News Briefs March 19, 2019
Next Post Worth a read … March 21, 2019


The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) says it's now reviewing how it funds public transport nationally in the light of growing patronage and demand.
A spokesperson for the agency says times have changed and it needs to reconsider its farebox recovery system.
Auckland Transport's (AT) public transport services are paid for through passenger fares and subsidies from Auckland Council and the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA). But under the farebox recovery model at least 50% of its costs have to be recovered through fares.
A spokesperson for the NZTA admits things need to change.
"The NZTA is reviewing farebox recovery. The policy implemented in 2010 set a national target for farebox recovery, but demands on public transport have changed considerably since then and the 50% target across the country is no longer appropriate within a regional public transport planning environment.
In January AT announced its fares for buses, trains and ferries would rise by 2% to cover the cost of more Aucklanders using public transport.
AT chief executive Shane Ellison says it has been operating in a fiscal straightjacket imposed by the NZTA.
"Our preference is not to increase fares and we have absorbed as much of the costs as we can," he says.
But Ellison says AT is already pushing the boundaries and is currently only recovering "about 44-45%" of its overheads through fares.
Generation Zero spokesman Leroy Beckett has previously called for an end of the farebox recovery model used by the NZTA and last month launched its Freeze the Fares campaign.
He says the latest announcement from NZTA signals a change in its thinking.
He says the farebox recovery policy punishes Aucklanders for doing the right thing and directly contradicts AT's goal of getting more people to use public transport. Beckett says the system means as more and more people use public transport the amount AT has to pay also increases to cover new services.
Auckland councillor Chris Darby has also been an outspoken critics of this year's fare increases.
Darby says reviewing the farebox recovery system is a step in the right direction and is a left-over of the previous government's transport policies.
He says he's meeting with officials from the NZTA, AT and Auckland Council, as well as Mayor Phil Goff and Transport Minister Phil Twyford in the next work for the first meeting of a new body looking at getting Aucklanders out of their cars and into public transport.
Darby says they will be working on a mode shift plan that is designed to get people using other options, such as public transport, scooters, cycling and walking.
Figures released by AT last month showed an 10.8% increase in public transport trips in February. This equated to almost 98 million trips for the year to February, an increase of 6.3%.
It goes against the grain to agree with anything Generation Zero says but they are right about increasing subsidies for public transport. Every person out of a car and into a bus rewards all the drivers who have no choice, it reduces greenhouse emissions, makes the city more productive and it slows down the endless building of new infrastructure. For example the Northern busway has given the harbour bridge another decade of life.
Change the recovery from its arbitrary target 50% to 33% and introduce AT Hop weekly and monthly passes to encourage use. Give a free pass to every tourist. Give free travel to accompanied children.
The one thing they have right is the Goldcard - it keeps doddery drivers off the road.
Add an intelligent congestion charge and it might knock Auckland back into economic effectivenes and deliver that endlessly promised but never delivered productivity.
Agree. In public transport the 'user' is actually all those who benefit from the transport - direct or indirect benefit. Allows us to make more efficient use of existing infrastructure, which is doubly important given the future will likely entail autonomous automobiles that also serve to reduce congestion.
"which is doubly important given the future will likely entail autonomous automobiles that also serve to reduce congestion."
Incorrect. Increase congestion if not heavily disincentivised by some financial charge. How many delivery services are going to start when you remove the drivers wages from the cost of running a vehicle? At the moment if you have driver stuck in traffic its ~$20/hour minimum, with an electric autonomous vehicle without a congestion charge its going to be maybe $1/hour?
You need to check out the research into what actually causes congestion and projections for how this will be addressed through self-driving cars. Much congestion is caused by sheer stupidity, rather than just number of cars on the road.
Nope, its going to take 30+ years to get rid of all those cars driven by meatbag humans doing those stupid things. Unless you think every household in NZ is going to upgrade to a self driving car or three in the first decade they become available.
No one really knows the exact timeframes once things start to change. However, that again highlights that making better use of existing infrastructure makes sense.
The constraint is the lowest common denominator, or the physical choke point. Autonomous vehicles can't do diddly squat about crap road design with traffic light phasing that results in intersections that spend 60% of their time with no-one going thru because they are phased with the next intersection down the road, or the queue has built back to fill up the lane on the other side of the intersection. Or right turning lanes that have queues that build up to the narrow point that chokes off the flow to the straight ahead lane.
And then you have to factor in the marginal cost/effort factor. How many more trips are going to happen when instead of mum or dad having to get up and drive little Johnny over to his mates place, come home, then repeat the trip later to pick him up they can just pick up their phone and authorise the car to take him there?
People deserting public transport into the CBD because lets face it, given the choice between a chauffeur driven car or a public bus/train, who wouldn't take the car if it costs less or the same? And it will if there isn't a charging system to balance it out, the car drives you door-to-door (no standing round at a bus-stop waiting for a bus that might or might not be on time, or 10min walk to the train station in the rain), then trundles back home to park itself (creating two vehicle trips instead of one with drive and park model or a fractional trip with public transport).
Congestion will remain the same or get worse, as the efficiency of the network goes up, so will the number of trips as the marginal cost drops through the floor, if nothing is done to prevent it.
Yes human drivers are pretty inefficient - but maybe not as bad as you assume. Water is pretty efficient but there is still only so much that can flow through a pipe. The real efficiencies will only come once everyone has/uses a self driving car - that is a long way away I imagine.
Can you imagine New York or London or Tokyo turning off their public transport systems any time soon with all those millions of people jumping into a car? Why do we keep thinking we are different?
Public transport is a flawed approach in cities with a low population density and there is no appetite for large, high density developments currently. Hopefully self-driving services can save those cities but in the interim the only viable solution is investing in more roads and parking.
There's plenty of appetite for more intensity. Just not from NIMBYs.
People do vary. My nephew is over 50 and says he never wants to live in a house with a garden. But that is unusual - the common preference is for a city apartment when single and then a stand alone house when you start a family and end up in a retirement village. Auckland needs both more intensity and some well designed cheap traditional suburbia.
Interesting idea. So are we choosing a society like Hong Kong, where only the wealthy can afford cars? Everyone else has to live in tower blocks clustered around a metro station. The joys of urban living, supposedly. Is that really what we want?
Sounds good to me. Although you could have made a comparison with Europe instead, there are much less tower blocks there.
Think of Rocks and Hard places ................ so they want fares to go up ( or not ) and transporters want to make more money , but if you make Public Transport more expensive there is every likelihood users will get back in their cars .
And then let the free market decide what the fares should be .
Hell we have done this before with everything from Milk to Bread to airfares.......... and did the bakers , airlines and milk producers go out of business ?
Would be interesting to see some examples where that had been successful for public transport.
It should not surprise you that your challenge has not been taken up by Boatman. he has a long record of banging the 'free market' drum,making lots of noise but little sense.
Fair enough if all road infrastructure was paid for only by car owners and all parking on a public road was free. It is not a free market if the infrastructure is free to use.
"It is not a free market if the infrastructure is free to use."
True, and this applies to mass transit providers too, if you actually want a free market.
Last time I checked buses used the road infrastructure, and the fact they weigh about 5 times what a car does, and road damage increases exponentially with axle weight, particularly on lower strength suburban roads.. well, yeah, they are going to need to pay a fair bit if they want to run a bus through the back streets of surburbia to reach customers. And those bus lanes.. are they going to pay for exclusive use of those, or do you expect everybody else to pay for that infrastructure?
I wonder how much it will cost to drive without subsidies? Surely drivers should pay rent on all that land under the roads - that would have to be a few billion a year in Auckland alone. And 50% of local roads are paid for by rates - remove that subsidy too. How about all that pollution they are causing - noise, air, C02, storm water - better pay for that too. I wonder why the politicians don't have the balls to even consider doing what needs doing?
Of course we could stop importing circ 40,000 people into Auckland each year.
Think how much infrastructure we wouldn't have to build if we did that.
The current funding model doesn't work.
The government has a social responsibility to provide transport options for the poor.
This doesn't currently happen as councils fail to provide PT based comprehensive coverage networks that will allow users to get from all origins to all destinations within an urban area, or the headways are too high, e.g. a service every 2 hours. This happens as there is insufficient funding, i.e. 50% farebox recovery.
Central government should directly fund PT comprehensive coverage networks with maximum 30min headways between services. Where fixed routes are not economic on-demand services can be used. There are socioeconomic benefits to the country in doing so. The poor in society then have access to jobs, services and friends.
Local government should then almost fully fund service level increases above this. E.g. core routes at 10 min headways.
This is a result of poor urban planning (not the only factor, but a huge one)... building new housing at Huapai, when there is SFA public transport or industry out there? Reserving land for public transit corridors, and rezoning land near the corridors for high density housing, and steamrollering the objections of whinging NIMBYs would achieve quite a lot over a decade or so. Funding 15min interval public transport everywhere from the CBD to Huapai.. is just never going to happen, political suicide for anybody that tries to levy the populace with the level of taxes and charges required to acheive good public transport over a huge area full of low density housing, particularly with the interconnection possibilities limited by the various harbours.
Okay - so who pays for all the people who find getting from home to Work and back a 100km round trip? Can't bike, can't walk and for many, work is nowhere near where the trains go. Plans for 80,000 more people will be affected by this so no - you use it, you pay for it just as the Truckies, Plumbers, Electricians etc and many private drivers who have no choice.
I don't agree with the subsidies we have for a simple reason - you use it, you pay for it. The whole structure is so inequitable given the distances that many people have to travel daily. For so many, walking, biking or using a train is not an option i.e. a 100 km round trip daily from home to work and back with bus links to get where trains don't go. How about Auckland Council, AT and the Government put more onus on jobs out of the city and not just stuffing 80,000 new houses into these areas.


Like the name suggests, the Bost #80 Bullet gets its name from the shape of the head. This medium sized wahoo lure is also great for tuna and mahi. It comes in 3 sizes so it's perfect for all species of offshore fish. All Bost Offshore Trolling Lures are Handmade in the USA from the finest materials.


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Q: Apple Development certificate based app on another machine wanna deliver my app to our QA .
have signed with Apple Development Certificate . works on my machine but on QA machine it says certificate not valid. MACOS is Catalina .
should Apple development certificate work ?


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If you are interested in visiting some of the wonderful attractions County Meath has to offer simply go to meathtourism.ie or www.meath.ie. Some of Meath's most popular Heritage sites are within a short distance from Navan.
Just 10 minutes drive south of Navan off the N3 you will find the Hill of Tara where Irish myth, legend and history meet.
Bective Abbey
Located 10 minutes drive west of Navan off the R161 is the remains of the second Cistercian Monastery founded in Ireland.
The largest remaining Anglo-Norman castle in Europe built by Hugh de Lacy in 1173. Located in the designated Heritage town of Trim, 15 minutes drive west of Navan on the R161
Kells Town
Kells or Ceanannas Mór located 15 minutes drive north of Navan on the N3 is also an officially designated Irish Heritage Town.
Loughcrew Cairns
Located 40 minutes drive from Navan, east of Oldcastle off the R163 is possibly the oldest cemetery in the world. Loughcrew Cairns form the largest complex of Passage Graves in Ireland.
Slane Castle
Located 15 minutes north east of Navan on the N51 is the ancient village of Slane and Slane Castle, one of Ireland's most important stately homes.
Brú na Bóinne - Newgrange
Located 15 minutes drive from Navan is the world's best known collection of Neolithic tombs which have been designated a world heritage site by UNESCO.
Battle of the Boyne Site
Located 20 minutes drive from Navan off the N51 is the site of the Battle of the Boyne. This was a battle of European significance fought on Irish soil.
The Francis Ledwidge Museum, Slane
Just 15 minutes drive on the N51 from Navan, lies the birthplace of WWI poet Francis E Ledwidge. The 19th century farm labourer's cottage has been fully restored to the period and houses the poet's works and artefacts from World War I, alongside memorabilia of the period.


"It was epic. I just anxiously waited and hoped to win the case," said Worapoj, recalling last week's court session, which saw the National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation Department (DNP) that he represented to win a counter civil lawsuit filed against it by major Krabi business tycoon Chuan Phukaoluan.
The land conflict over Poda has been full of twists and turns in the legal fight between the two parties, having battled through almost all possible courts, 10 out of 12 so far, over 33 years. It all began in 1985 when park officials first learned that the island under its supervision had an owner. The case demonstrated once again the painstaking task of seizing state land once a land title deed is issued through the troublesome land occupation claim form, Sor Khor 1.
There are an estimated 4.5 million forms that are improperly registered now.
"You can see that the process [to take the land back] is not easy at all," DNP chief Thanya Netithammakul conceded during the press conference.
Situated in the Andaman, Poda was among some splendid tropical islands, beaches, and bays, including the famous Phi Phi, which in 1983 were designated as part of the Had Nopparat Tara-Mu Koh Phi Phi National Park. The chief at that time started to survey the territories under his supervision and decided two years later (in 1985) that a forest protection unit be constructed on Poda, which had around 71 rai of the eastern beachfront.
However, he learned later that some construction workers were working on a site on the island, assigned by business tycoon Chuan. According to the DNP's summary report of the case and the 2011 Supreme Court's verdict on a civil lawsuit filed by the DNP against Chuan, the chief then checked land ownership on Poda with the Krabi province office. The district office replied that the land use rights deed, or Nor Sor 3 Kor, No 750 was issued for around 50 rai of the contested land plot based on the document Sor Khor 1, No 2. This was around two months or so after the designation of the park. The land owner at that time, Ma Rhob, then divided up the plot into four deeds. They were eventually sold to Chuan in 1985. The Sor Khor 1, No 2 stated that the land it covered was located in Moo 3 (village 3), a point that would be critically contested by the concerned parties.
The chief then conducted ground checks via the oldest satellite photographs taken in February 1967 (16 years before the park designation) and learned that plot of land at the time did not have any signs of land use or farm practices, suggesting that it was a forest. So, he informed Krabi province to revoke the separate Nor Sor 3 Kor deeds, but the province refused to do so.He then informed his department – the Royal Forestry Department at that time – which later set up a sub-panel to investigate the case.
It later concluded that the issuance of those deeds would likely be unlawful and informed the chief to contact the Krabi governor to revoke the deeds. The governor, however, refused to do so. So, the department took the case to court, filing a civil lawsuit against the business tycoon in 2000 (17 years after the park designation), asking the court to revoke the deeds and ordering the defendant to move out from the island.The First Court in 2003 ruled in favour of the department, ordering the deeds to be revoked and the defendant to leave the land.
The Appeals Court Region 8 in 2006 then upheld the first court's verdict. The case then went to the Supreme Court. It was revealed later that the address stated as Moo 3 on the Sor Khor 1, No 2 was not Poda. Poda was Moo 2, and that the state of the village was never changed in the state's administrative registration, the court pointed out. In addition, the court investigated the condition of the contested land. Based on the satellite photographs provided, the court opined that there were no signs of land use or farm practices as claimed by the defendant.
Coconut trees, the key contesting evidence, if grown in the years before 1955 (one year after the 1954 Land Codes requiring land owners to register their land occupation) by the first owners of the land and Ma Rhob himself, should have been 12 years old and tall enough by the time to be captured in the oldest satellite photographs.
"Convincingly, the plot of land under the Sor Khor 1, No 2 was not on Poda. The Nor Sor 3 Kor deeds issued out of it were therefore not legitimate, and the plot of land on Poda upon which the buildings were built and coconut trees grown was therefore a plot with unlawful Nor Sor 3 Kor," the Supreme Court ruled, upholding the first two courts' verdict and ending a 11-year stand-off since the case was first filed in 2000.
Thanya instructed Phaya Suea during the inspection on the island last year.
After the Supreme Court's ruling in 2011, the DNP, which replaced the Royal Forestry Department during the course of the court's deliberations, planned to remove all the properties out of the land plot, but faced fierce opposition from the business tycoon. In 2013, the Krabi Land Office revoked all the deeds, but still Chuan refused to leave the land. In February that year, the court issued a legal execution against him. He then appealed against it when the department sent its rangers to put a sign on the land plot, but the court enforced the legal execution.
At least 35 buildings were earmarked for removal, along with one large restaurant, and a 100-metre fence. The DNP, however, learned later that the business tycoon had laid another claim over the rest of the beachfront, around 21 rai, this time with the document Sor Khor 1, No 1 that he claimed to have bought from some other land owners in 1986 (a year after the purchase of the Nor Sor 3 Kor deeds out of the Sor Khor 1, No 2).
He claimed that the land under the Sor Khor 1, No 1 was actually 70 rai and further north next to that under the Sor Khor 1, No 2, creating confusion about where the new additional area he claimed was from. A fence was put up around the newly claimed 21-rai land plot and a new building was built. The DNP in May 2014 decided to raid the property and file a criminal charge for trespass against the tycoon.
The business tycoon, meanwhile, retaliated with a similar criminal lawsuit against the DNP. He also filed a new civil lawsuit against the DNP in 2015, further dragging the issue into the legal quagmire.
The First Court deliberated on the DNP's criminal lawsuit against the tycoon and decided to dismiss the case against the tycoon. It also dismissed the criminal case filed by tycoon against the DNP. However, the Appeals Court, following an appeal by the DNP, heard the criminal case and issued the verdict in February this year (four years after the case filing). It overturned the first court's verdict, ruling that the tycoon was guilty.
Chuan was sentenced to three and a half years in jail, and he and his workers ordered to leave the land. According to the verdict of the Appeals Court in February, the court referred to the Supreme Court's verdict in the first civil lawsuit, citing Poda was Moo 2, not Moo 3 as also stated in the Sor Khor 1, No 1. It also learned from the evidence submitted that Chuan had attempted to seek a land title deed for around 51 rai of the land using Sor Khor 1, No 1, in 2010, when the Supreme Court was still deliberating on the DNP's civil lawsuit against him. He conceded that most of the land for which he had sought a title deed overlapped the area under the Supreme Court's deliberation.
The park officials, meanwhile, learned that some other part of the land encroached further inland on the park's forest, and opposed Chuan's proposal.
Still, in 2013, two years after the Supreme Court's verdict, the business tycoon facilitated a survey by Krabi Land officials for issuance of the land deed, a point the court suggested revealed his intention to claim the state land. It therefore ruled that he was guilty. Having lost in the criminal Appeals Court, Chuan, however, did not give up. Although he did not pursue the criminal case he had filed against the DNP, the tycoon, however, continues to pursue the civil lawsuit it.
The First Court in July last year ruled in favour of Chuan, ordering the DNP to leave the new controversial land. The Appeals Court, however, ruled in favour of the DNP last week, citing the Supreme Court's first civil lawsuit verdict that Poda was Moo 2, not Moo 3 as stated on both Sor Khor 1, No 1 and No 2. The court also viewed that it was impossible that there was land further north to that under the Sor Khor 1, No 2, as the document stated that its northern and southern sides were seas.
During the court deliberations, the DNP's working group, including its Phaya Suea taskforce, and representatives from the Department of Special Investigation and the Agriculture Department, also gathered and submitted additional evidence, including the newly assessed ages of coconut trees, which were found to be much younger than the claim by the tycoon that they dated back to 1955.
Considering related land laws as well as satellite photographs, the court ruled that the contested land was indeed state land. "…The found facts reveal both controversial plots of land are state land," stated the court, dismissing the case and ordering the plaintiff to pay around 900,000 baht for legal expenses. Wirat Kalyasiri, a prominent lawyer for Chuan, told the Nation Weekend that the legal team is studying issues in the court verdicts, and would take its civil lawsuit to the Supreme Court, and counter the DNP's criminal lawsuit to the end.
The legal team has sought more time to file an appeal in the criminal charge, he added. As for the criminal lawsuit that his client has filed against the DNP, it was likely that his client would not pursue it further in the Appeals Court. Thanya, meanwhile, is just hoping they would not carry on the legal battle, and Poda would eventually return to the public, as it should, in the next 30 days.
"It's a historic victory that we have won with the integrated work of various agencies, which actively cooperated with one another to bring back natural resources that belong to the state, not an individual," said Thanya, adding the work would be applied to other court cases that the department is fighting now.
The Koh Poda court cases have demonstrated once again the painstaking task in seizing state land once a land title deed is issued through the troublesome land occupation claim form, Sor Khor 1. Realising the problem with the Sor Khor 1, the now-defunct National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) even tried to solve it by proposing legal and policy amendments when it was in the office two years ago. In consultation with the Lands Department, the NRSA learned that around 4.25 million land occupation forms, or Sor Khor 1, which are used as proof for the issuance of land-deed documents, have not yet been stamped and approved by the Lands Department's clearance system.
The enormous backlog shocked some members of the committee expediting forest reforms under the NRSA, including Assistant Professor Khwanchai Duangsathaporn, as they realised just one such document could enable the "grabbing" of an enormous area of forest if abused.
To issue land deeds, a Sor Khor 1 is a form to start with. It can be transferred from one place to another or become a tool for ill-intentioned people to grab land. The committee flagged the issue as part of its six immediate recommendations to forest reform. A Sor Khor 1 has long been pinpointed as a major cause of deforestation in false claims on land ownership, often in forestland. This is because boundaries shown in a Sor Khor 1 are usually rough, with descriptions referring only to adjacent areas, which can also apply to other places, such as streams, seas, rivers, and others. Since Thailand issued land ownership documents to private entities following the land law in 1954, land owners were required to report their land occupation to land officials and they would receive a Sor Khor 1 form in return, which would be used to issue permanent land deeds later.
In 2008, the government tried to put them in order and end the mess by requiring people possessing Sor Khor 1 forms to turn them into land deeds within two years, or they must request a court order to do so afterwards. But, there are still 4.25 million stuck in the process, causing a huge official headache. According to Khwanchai, the committee has proposed some legal and policy changes in regard to a Sor Khor 1.
Firstly, the land law must be amended to pave the way for other agencies to get involved at the request of a court, rather than the Lands Department alone. And to make such a request, the Sor Khor 1 owners must prove that they not only possess the land, but also use it.
Secondly, there should be a new Cabinet resolution instructing the department to make copies of the 4.25 million Sor Khor 1 documents for verification. And, new provincial land committees should be set up to check and verify Sor Khor 1 deeds already converted into land deeds and kept at provincial land offices nationwide.
As cited by Khwanchai, the committee focused particularly on the plots close to state land, especially forest areas, because they are prone to encroachment via the process. It had requested for those already converted to land deeds be verified, but that number was not yet known. Legal enactment for concerned forest laws to seize assets gained by such fraudulent acts was proposed.
A new sub-panel directly investigating natural resources cases under the National Anti-Corruption Commission was also suggested. Khwanchai said the plan has now been incorporated in the new natural resources reform plan, which would be subject to the first review in September. Some legal amendments are now with the Interior Ministry, which supervises the Lands Department, Khwanchai said, citing Poda as the case that had cast the spotlight on the need for amendments as it has once again demonstrated a critical problem resulting from a Sor Khor 1 form.


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Home » Reviews » IFFAM 2019 Review: Kiwi Film Bellbird Is A Heartbreaking And Hopeful Portrait Of Masculine Grief
IFFAM 2019 Review: Kiwi Film Bellbird Is A Heartbreaking And Hopeful Portrait Of Masculine Grief
Bellbird is a moving and quietly observational portrait of the filmmaker's rustic roots
Director: Hamish Bennett
Cast: Marshall Napier, Cohen Holloway, Rachel House
Ross can afford to be grouchy because Beth is chirpy. The 60-something dairy farmer can afford to grunt at breakfast and growl at dinner because his long-time wife balances him out. He likes it when she calls him a grumpy shit; he responds by blurting out a missing number of her incomplete Sudoku puzzle. She likes it that he has more in common with the cows he milks than the humans he (reluctantly) meets. Not a sweet word is said, but there's an undercurrent of loyalty and love – the silent kind that's accumulated, not the loud kind that's expressed. You can sense that they've probably never been to mainland New Zealand. They've never had to – their forested town in the Northernmost region of the island nation is small enough to be nowhere and big enough to be anywhere.
Their adult son, Bruce, lives in the adjoining garage. He is back after a failed big-city stint; he isn't a very good farmer, but proudly works at the local dump. He scavenges quite a bit: Maybe he feels an emotional connect with discarded trash that can still be used. There's some hurt in his eyes – the silent kind that's suppressed, not the loud kind that's romanticized.
What's remarkable about Bellbird is how, through passages of solemnity and sadness and dull dramedy, it hints at the bygone chemistry and history of the family before the film's images
Primary school teacher Hamish Bennett's Bellbird opens with Ross and Beth. They are a film of their own – comfortable, old, tender, a twilight couple unafraid of crippling co-dependence. Bruce is a separate film – young, shy, slow-witted but painfully sincere with the local community. Each might have made for a worthy ode to the pragmatic proximity of rural New Zealand. As it turns out, their stories do exist. Two of the director's short films are called Ross and Beth (2015) and The Dump (2011), inspired by unassuming people from his own childhood in the region. The storyteller in him merges these worlds. Everything I've written so far is derived from only the first ten minutes of Bellbird – Beth dies in the fourth scene. This is an event that exposes the two lost men of the house to each other; the medium between them is gone, and all that remains is a lifetime of unlettered words.
Bellbird is a moving and quietly observational portrait of the filmmaker's rustic roots. It plays out like a film that shows patience with protagonists who are not used to being the film – a background abruptly pulled to the fore. Ross turns to his farm with a vengeance to block out old memories, while Bruce derives all his hobbies – riding a ladies bike, playing the ukelele – from the rubbish he scavenges through. They are aided, unsolicitedly, by people who become characters for them: An eager 11-year-old neighbour (a cute Kahukura Retimana), Bruce's wryly perceptive boss ("You two must have some scintillating conversations at home," Connie remarks to a monosyllabic Bruce) and a socially challenged vet who is truly passionate about sticking his hands up pregnant cows ("vagina issues can be addressed through the anus," he intellectualizes). They might seem like the crowd-pleasers of the narrative, but they replicate the effect of a quirky background score instead. In their heads, they aren't supporting the two grieving men as much as filling their void with vacant voices.
Bellbird trusts us to locate the integrity of honest labour – both physical and emotional – in the grunts and growls of its weathered occupants
What's remarkable about Bellbird is how, through passages of solemnity and sadness and dull dramedy, it hints at the bygone chemistry and history of the family before the film's images. It paints a picture of Beth and her influence without resorting to flashbacks, and highlights the magnitude of loss through the numbness of their routine.
Marshall Napier is devastating as old Ross – a man who must express everything by being inexpressive. He is sentimentally stunted, but you can sense he wants to reach out to his son instead of playing the gruff and tough dad. You sense that a breakdown is round the corner, and you hope it's in the wild, in a space where his sobs can double up as one of many distinct primal groans that define the jungle soundscape. Cohen Holloway has a Joel Edgerton-ish slowness about him as Bruce. He wants nothing to do with the family acres, but also seems to understand that farming is a physical metaphor for familyhood. It requires hard work, nurturing, tending and even tough love. It was Beth who humanized their farming – she was the soul, the missing link in a chain that had otherwise monetized and desensitized the concept of raising animals. But without Beth, it feels like a business – a trade that Ross is now struggling to stay afloat, and one that he hopes an inadequate Bruce "inherits" for the sake of succession. Selling becomes a keyword, money suddenly becomes a priority.
In another film, one of the characters might have harnessed the essence of the above paragraph through a searing monologue. A cry for help, a dramatic call to arms. But Bellbird trusts us to locate the integrity of honest labour – both physical and emotional – in the grunts and growls of its weathered occupants. Or, on better days, in the ringing-bell-like call of its homegrown songbirds.
Jai Mummy Di Movie Review: Forced And Desperately Unfunny


Johnson Publishing Company, which inspired Black America with its Ebony and Jet magazines, on Tuesday, April 9, filed for bankruptcy in Chicago.
The move came one month after the Crusader learned that the company's Fashion Fair cosmetic division will close its operation in the United Kingdom after a creditor petitioned a judge to force the company to sell its assets.
In its court filing Tuesday, Johnson Publishing filed for Chapter 7 liquidation and plans to sell its remaining assets after the company failed to restructure or find alternative financing or a buyer. The petition, filed in the Northern District of Illinois, says Johnson Publishing has between 200 and 999 creditors, as well as between $10 million and $50 million in both assets and liabilities.
The move will bring an end to a family dynasty started by John H. Johnson, who in 1942 borrowed $500 off his mother's furniture to start his media empire.
For decades, Johnson Publishing Company produced millions of copies of Ebony and Jet, which graced the coffee tables in homes of Black families across the country. While millions of Black readers were inspired with stories on Black culture, John H. Johnson became one of the country's richest Black businessmen, who at one point was worth $600 million. In 1971, he built Johnson Publishing Company's headquarters on Michigan Avenue. It was the first Black-owned building on one of the city's most prominent streets.
Johnson died in 2005. His wife, Eunice, who started the Fashion Fair cosmetics line, died in 2010. Their daughter, Linda Johnson Rice, took the helm of the company after her father died. But under her leadership, Johnson Publishing Company's fortunes dramatically declined.
She sold the headquarters building to Columbia College in 2010. In 2018 Columbia College sold the building to a developer who will convert the Chicago landmark into upscale apartments.
In 2014, Jet magazine ceased its print publication after 72 years in business. With advertising revenues down, Johnson Publishing began publishing Ebony every two months, and readers complained about receiving issues several months late.
Johnson Rice sold Ebony and Jet magazines to Clear View Group, a Texas private equity firm that had no experience in publishing, in 2016. The firm created Ebony Media and eventually hired Linda Johnson Rice as CEO. In 2017 freelance writers sued Ebony, claiming they were owed thousands of dollars for published stories. The two reached a settlement agreement, which removed Johnson Rice from the company. But in 2018, Ebony broke the agreement after it skipped a payment.
Desiree Rogers, who served as CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, left in 2017 to work at Choose Chicago, which promotes tourism to the city.
Fashion Fair was the last product under Johnson Publishing Company. The company tried to revive the brand by expanding the product in Europe, but last month a creditor in the U.K. asked a judge to force Fashion Fair to close its operations in that market. Court documents showed that Fashion Fair in the U.K. alone had debts totaling $9 million.
In February, Johnson Rice put the family's longtime 5,300-sqaure foot mansion in Palm Springs up for sale for $5.3 million.
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