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Q: Smallest value of $a^2 + b^2 + c^2+ d^2$, given values for $(a+b)(c+d)$, $(a+c)(b+d)$, and $(a+d)(b+c)$
If $a$, $b$, $c$, $d$ belong to $\mathbb{R}$, and
  $$(a+b)(c+d)=143 \qquad (a+c)(b+d)=150 \qquad (a+d)(b+c)=169$$
  Find the smallest possible value of
  $$a^2 + b^2 + c^2+ d^2$$

I thought of adding $7$ to the first equation and make it equal the second, solving, and finding a new equation.
Do it $3$ times, keep substituting, but this is a very very very long approach if it's even an approach.

A: Let $\lambda = a + b + c + d$. When you sum over the 3 equations.
$$(a+b)(c+d)=143,\quad (a+c)(b+d)=150,\quad (a+d)(b+c)=169\tag{*1}$$
LHS sums to
$$2(ab+ac+ad+bc+bd+cd) = (a+b+c+d)^2 - (a^2+b^2+c^2+d^2)$$
while RHS sums to $462$. This leads to
$$a^2 + b^2 + c^2 + d^2 = \lambda^2 - 462$$
To minimize $a^2+b^2+c^2+d^2$, one just need to minimize $\lambda^2$. If you look at LHS
of the 3 equations, all of them is a product of $2$ factors which sum to $\lambda$.
In general, if we have $p + q = \lambda$, then
$$4pq = (p+q)^2 - (p-q)^2 \le (p+q)^2 = \lambda^2$$
The set of 3 equations tell us
$$\begin{align}\lambda^2 &\ge 4\max\{ (a+b)(c+d), (a+c)(b+d), (a+d)(b+c) \}\\
&= 4\max\{ 143, 150, 169 \}\\&= 676\end{align}$$
As a result,
$$a^2 + b^2 + c^2 + d^2 = \lambda^2 - 462 \ge 214$$
To see $214$ is the actual minimum, we need to find $(a,b,c,d)$ which satisfies $(*1)$ and $\lambda^2 = 676 = 26^2$.
Flipping all the signs of $a,b,c,d$ if necessary, we can assume $\lambda = 26$.
The third equation $(a+d)(b+c) = 169 = 13^2 = \frac14 (26)^2$ tell us
$a + d = b + c$.
Introduce $u,v$ such that
$$(a,b,c,d) = \left( \frac{13+u}{2}, \frac{13+v}{2}, \frac{13-v}{2}, \frac{13-u}{2}\right)$$
and substitute into the first and second equation and simplify, we obtain
$$\left(\frac{u+v}{2}\right)^2 = 26\quad\text{ and }\quad \left(\frac{u-v}{2}\right)^2 = 19$$
Using this, we find following 4-tuple
$$(a,b,c,d) = {\small \left(
\frac{13+\sqrt{26}+\sqrt{19}}{2},
\frac{13+\sqrt{26}-\sqrt{19}}{2},
\frac{13-\sqrt{26}+\sqrt{19}}{2},
\frac{13-\sqrt{26}-\sqrt{19}}{2}
\right)}$$
is a solution of the 3 equations in $(*1)$ with $a + b + c + d = 26$.
One can verify $a^2 + b^2 + c^2 + d^2 = 214$ for this particular solution. As a result, the lower bound $214$ is achievable and $214$ is the smallest possible value we seek.

A: Using A.M.-G.M. we get: $$169+143+150=(a+b)(c+d)+(a+c)(b+d)+(a+d)(b+c)=$$
$$2ac+2ad+2bc+2bd+2ab+2cd \leq 3a^2+3b^2+3c^2+3d^2$$
So $$a^2+b^2+c^2+d^2\geq 154$$
But, unfortenuly this is not the minumum, since variables can not be all the same.


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Leading Innovation is the Art of Creating 'Collective Genius'
by Kim Girard
As Linda Hill sees it, innovation requires its own brand of leadership. The coauthor of the new book Collective Genius discusses what's been learned from 16 of the best business innovators.
As Harvard Business School Professor Linda A. Hill began to dig into the scholarship around leadership and innovation, she soon realized there was a lot of research on both.
What she didn't find, however, was work linking the two. Specifically, what is the role of the leader in creating and sustaining an innovative organization? A new book written with three coauthors attempts to answer the question of why some companies, such as Pixar, are able to invent continuously, while others aren't.
"Conventional leadership won't get you to innovation"
The book, Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation, was written by Hill, the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration, with Greg Brandeau, former CTO of The Walt Disney Studios and current COO/president of Media Maker; Emily Truelove, a PhD candidate at MIT's Sloan School of Management; and Kent Lineback, Hill's cowriter on Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Good Leader.
What most distinguishes innovation leadership, the book argues, is recognition that innovation is a "team sport," not the act of a sole inventor. "Truly innovative groups are consistently able to elicit and then combine members' separate slices of genius into a single work of collective genius," the authors write.
Or, as Hill puts it, "Conventional leadership won't get you to innovation."
Collective Genius: The Art of Practice of Leading Innovation
The authors identified organizations with reputations for being highly innovative, then found 16 leaders within those organizations and studied how they worked.
Determined to feature a global perspective, the authors include narratives of executives within India-based IT company HCL Technologies, the German division of online auctioneer eBay, and the marketing division of automaker Volkswagen in Europe.
Willing To Take Chances
In a chapter devoted to how executives can create the ability to innovate in their group, the authors explore how Pixar's Brandeau, eBay's Philipp Justus, and Google's Bill Coughran use discussion, conflict, and trial and error to advantage.
At Pixar, for example, the company was caught up short in 2008 in a clash over production schedules for the movie Up and the short film Cars Toons. Blindsided by news that Cars Toons was behind schedule, coauthor Brandeau had to figure out how to finish both projects on time with limited computing resources while also limiting friction among the forces.
The crazy solution: Brandeau asked Disney Animation (Disney bought Pixar in 2006) if the studio could borrow 250 computers, an idea someone initially called "insane." The team trucked the computers 360 miles from Burbank, California, to Emeryville, near San Francisco, setting the systems up over a weekend. The move worked and the studio hit both deadlines. The book cites short-term innovation, in the decision to borrow the computers, and the team's ability to creatively resolve conflict, as marks of innovative leadership.
At eBay Germany, the authors found examples of how a maturing company like eBay can retain its innovative spirit. For a holiday promotion, a young project manager and his marketing colleagues launched a "treasure hunt," working nonstop to launch registration pages, clues, and an hourly countdown clock. Trouble was, the launch violated eBay's well-established corporate project-development processes. When the treasure hunt began, 10 million contestants logged on, crashing the local servers.
Justus, eBay's senior VP in charge of Europe, could have stopped this and other similar "micro-projects," but instead he decided to pursue them and fly under the radar of corporate headquarters. Successful innovations emerged, such as an Easy Lister feature, and separate registration processes for private and business sellers. Later, Justus shared the successes with then CEO Meg Whitman, which led to a global micro-projects strategy.
With eBay, Hill says, the authors wanted to show how Whitman's willingness to experiment with rapid prototyping "broke rules to get something done," and modeled such behavior for the entire organization.
Collective Genius shows how Bill Coughran, Google's then senior vice president of engineering, created an environment where engineers could figure out on their own how to best address the company's massive storage challenges in 2006. The problem: Storage issues were created by the huge amount of data processed by the Google File System, (GFS), designed for Google web searches.
One team, called Big Table, argued for adding systems on top of GFS; the other team, called Build from Scratch, wanted to replace GFS entirely. Coughran decided to give the two teams space to defend their ideas, letting them collect data and test rigorously. The Build from Scratch team eventually realized its system wouldn't meet the company's requirements, but members were assigned to work on a next-generation system and many of those ideas were eventually used.
Coughran gave the teams the room they needed to create a resolution, the mark of a leader who lets innovation happen, Hill says. He also never tried to be the visionary, the expert, or the decisive "I'm in charge," leader, she says. Instead he asked difficult and probing questions during regular review meetings that helped frame issues and sharpen discussions.
"He wasn't passive," Hill says. "He was weighing two things and letting them play out."
Companies often make the mistake of compromising too early or letting one or two groups dominate. "He allowed both ideas to be developed and tested enough, to learn and not combine them right away," Hill says. "He let them play it out. His job as leader was to figure out when to step in."
The "young Sparks"
Of the 16 leaders studied, Hill says Delhi-based HCL, under former CEO Vineer Nayar, might be the boldest. Nayar, who pulled the company out of a five-year slump, challenged the common belief that Indian companies provide low-cost products and services but don't innovate. "That (assumption) made him crazy," Hill says. "He said 'We can and will compete that way.' "
Nayar focused on changing the organization from within, starting by empowering employees. In 2005, he told a team of 30-something young employees called the "Young Sparks" to develop the brand and a plan to change how employees experienced HCL. The group started with an icon, Thambi, which means "brother" in Tamil, symbolizing "the importance of the individual and the value of the collective" at HCL.
Nayar recast his role as leader. He pushed for more transparency, adding 360-degree reviews for all employees and 360-degree feedback of his own work—he promised to resign if his own review dropped to a certain level. He set up a portal that asked employees to solve "my problems" and reported getting incredible answers from workers.
From 2005 to 2013, when Nayar led HCL as president and then CEO, the company's sales, market cap, and profits increased six fold, according to the book. Fortune magazine wrote that the HCL had "the world's most modern management" and the company was named one of Businessweek's most influential companies.
Nayar tells people, "I don't know the answers," which goes against the common belief in Indian business that the CEO should be a visionary. For Hill, Nayar shows the possibilities of what can be accomplished by an innovative leader who embraces a new style of leadership.
Since finishing the book, Hill has been traveling, meeting with business and organizational leaders about how to implement the team's leadership ideas at different management levels.
"We're meeting with a lot of interesting people to try to figure this out," she says.
J Chatterjee
Before everything CEO's job is to remove fear psychosis in contributing employees! Then only individual employee genius surfaces to work collectively for outstanding innovation.
Kapil Kumar Sopory
Company Secretary, SMEC(India) Private Limited
An innovator is a visionary who is able to look beyond the status quo - in fact he is a reactionary in the sense that he does not take anything for granted on the face of it. Two simple examples to illustrate :
1. We learnt from childhood that ' cow gives milk'. This was accepted till an innovator expressed that this statement is not true because we need to extract the milk which obviously cow won't give of its own.
2. We were questioned about a partly filled glass, " Is it half full or half empty?" For long, these were the only two expected options. There came a thought to a genius who said that the glass is always full for the portion appearing to be empty has air in that space.
Innovators, by way of their creative ingenuity, can help organizations facing crises turn around by going to the root cause of the problems and developing workable solutions which at times may look strange and unworkable to others. The innovative leader examplifies and proves that he has a sound approach in which he instills faith in others by and by. Of course,there could arise some problems at ground level but this leader is quick to gauge ane tweak systems and procedures as warranted. Thus innovative spirit is not lost sight of and improvements continue to take place for achieving the set goals.
Jack Savidge
Chairman, The Proof of Concept Institute, Inc.
Please, let's redefine what innovation is apart from clever uses of practical horse sense.
For 60 years, I have worked the innovating process from its start point "novel idea" surfaced by a passionate innovator. Their excitement collected early followers to determine if the novel solution is "feasible in the real world." The small team next constructed "reasonable assumptions" the feasible idea could add significant new value for some intended user purposes. This event caused creation a working prototype followed by users validating such assumptions by testing the device, material, process or software app. Next, to the market to see how many potential users actually purchase the significant new, perhap unconcentional value producing offering. If the answer is YES, then the nascent "novel idea" can be called an "INNOVATION" but not before actual a commercial transaction takes place.
It is very difficult to catalyze novel ideas from teams so keep listening for a passionately presented, out of the box idea.
Anishya O. Madan
ILO, T&P, IIT, Delhi
In today's world, this seems to be the way to get the crowd to work on problems for getting to more workeable solutions.
Linda A. Hill
Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration
Innovation and Management
Management Teams
Innovation Leadership

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Program Source International has created this website to promote our series of 26 Michigan History Videos produced over the past 20 years. All of our documentaries are available in DVD and we still have some VHS inventory. Look around, view some of our online previews and take a step back into the history of early Michigan towns and events, which makes our heritage so interesting. You can download an order form here.
If you have a question regarding our videos, or just want to speak to us about Michigan History, send us an email or call us at 248-333-2010. You might want to check our Michigan lecture series of programs here.
Michigan History Videos | Powered by Mantra & WordPress.


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Combining the know-how of analog reproduction and elaborate modeling technology.
The ARP ODYSSEY synthesizer, perfectly reproduced in software.
Since the birth of the ARP Odyssey in 1972, it has been a renowned analog synthesizer used on many artists' records. However, for a number of years it was quite difficult to come by. In 2015, KORG welcomed ARP Instruments' co-founder David Friend as an advisor and began production of the hardware once again.
The KORG Collection ARP ODYSSEY is the software version of the 2015 ARP ODYSSEY reproduction. We used KORG's proprietary CMT (Component Modeling Technology) to emulate the analog feeling and sound of the original as closely as possible. We've also given it numerous enhancements that are possible only with software, like high polyphony and built-in effects. It's the most vintage and most modern ARP ODYSSEY that only KORG, with analog know-how and digital technology, could create. Be sure to get it.
KORG · KORG Collection - ARP ODYSSEY Preview 2017
Faithfully modeled ARP ODYSSEY circuit
In 2015, KORG reproduced the ARP ODYSSEY. This unit was designed with ARP Instruments' co-founder David Friend as the advisor. It has received accolades for accurately recreating the much sought-after sound of the original ARP Odyssey. Based on this reproduction model, we completely recreated the ARP ODYSSEY in software.
The circuitry has been reproduced using KORG's proprietary CMT (Component Modeling Technology), developed over the years for the KORG Legacy Collection. Instead of merely simulating the output sound as conventional modeling does, KORG's CMT is a method for using digital equivalents of the transistors, capacitors, resistors, and other components used in the hardware realm to reconstruct the same signal path digitally. This perfectly reproduces the complex range of sounds and parameters that can only be created with the ARP ODYSSEY.
New functions to create ARP sounds that have never been heard before
Not content with merely reproducing the hardware, the KORG Collection ARP ODYSSEY adds numerous improvements that are possible only in software. In addition to the three filter revisions and the DRIVE function that were added in KORG's hardware ARP ODYSSEY reproduction, we have added a new polyphonic voice mode that allows you to play up to 16 notes at once, an arpeggiator that can be programmed like a step sequencer, and effects that can transform the sound in diverse ways.
200 presets that make all kinds of things possible
The KORG Collection ARP ODYSSEY comes with 200 presets installed. It's a practical and inspirational treasure box of sounds that includes ARP ODYSSEY's biggest selling points: sharp leads, fat basses, freely roaming sequences, and patches from famous songs. Sounds you like can be saved in Favorite for quick access later.
All three of generation designs available as skins
The software allowed sound variation expansions, but visual as well. The KORG Collection ARP ODYSSEY can instantly switch between three ARP Odyssey designs that were different depending on the production period. In addition to the standard Rev3 design with orange writing on a black panel, there is also the Rev1 with a white panel and the Rev2 with golden writing on a black panel as well. They are lined up with preset sounds that make use of the different characteristics of each generation's filter. It's the dream ARP ODYSSEY that you could never exist as a hardware synthesizer.
Polysix V2 is included in the KORG Collection 2 Special Bundle. The Special Bundle is a special package of eight software instruments. At once, you will be able to get the famous analog machines that laid the groundwork for the synthesizer as an instrument in the 1970s and early 80s, and the well-known digital machines that changed the history of music in the late 1980s and 90s.


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Oct 3, 2019 | Posted by	Forest & Bird | 0 comments |
New Zealand's longest-running conservation magazine has just been added to the National Library's Papers Past website.
The first two decades of Forest & Bird's nearly 100-year-old magazine are now available online, spanning the period before the Great Depression to the end of World War II (1924-1945).
These magazines document the fledgling society's earliest conservation campaigns as its members tried to make the public aware of Aotearoa's rapidly disappearing natural world.
It's the first time a conservation magazine has featured on Papers Past and it's fully searchable making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in early 20th Century environmental history.
"Forest & Bird's magazine has been a strong voice for nature for nearly a century," says Chief Executive Kevin Hague.
"The stories published from the 1920s onwards were written by some of the leading lights in conservation in New Zealand and around the world. They bear witness to tipping points in our country's rich environmental history and we hope that by making them publicly available it will help shed light on their passion and achievements."
Forest & Bird magazine has been the flagship publication of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand for nearly 100 years
Founded by Captain "Val" Sanderson in 1923, the society started publishing a magazine in 1924 and continued without a break through wars, recessions, and the arrival of digital age.
The first issue of Birds started with this thundering command from entomologist JG Myers: "It is the duty of every New Zealander to do his best towards the permanent preservation of those natural beauties with which this country is so lavishly endowed." (September 1924: 1)
The society's foundation members included a colourful cast of characters, including former Prime Minister Sir Thomas Mackenzie, newspaper baron Sir George Fenwick, the country's foremost female conservationist Perrine Moncrieff, and influential naturalist farmer Herbert Guthrie-Smith.
They were worried about the ongoing decline in native birds caused by forest destruction, the introduction of predators, and the impact of collectors and hunters. In its first decades, Forest & Bird's members also campaigned for the establishment of national parks, the development of island sanctuaries and for an end the government's kea bounty.
The Society's magazine started as a newsletter from Sanderson to members in 1923. It was one to two pages in length and sent out as a circular letter. These evolved into a magazine called Birds, published from September 1924.
Birds was published twice a year until 1928, when it changed to three times a year. In October 1933 the name of the magazine was changed to Forest and Bird, to better reflect the importance of retaining the bush in order to save the birds. In 1935 the decision was made to publish quarterly, in February, May, August and November, a pattern that is still followed today.
From the earliest issues, the magazine included articles from prominent overseas writers on environmental matters, linking the New Zealand Society to conservation movements in Britain and the United States in particular. Many New Zealand scientists were members of the Society, such as ornithologist Robert A Falla, and botanists Bernard C Aston and Leonard Cockayne, and they contributed many articles to the magazine.
From August 1933 onwards the cover of Forest and Bird featured the colourful bird paintings of Lily Daff (1885-1945). Daff had been commissioned by the Society to produce a series of paintings showing New Zealand birds in 1932. These were used on the cover of the magazine, as well as in two Society publications that were distributed to schools, New Zealand Forest-Inhabiting Birds (1933) and New Zealand Sea and Shore Birds (1940). Her original works are now held in the Alexander Turnbull Library.
The Papers Past project has been made possible by a generous partnership with the National Library of New Zealand/Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. Forest & Bird is currently working to make its entire back catalogue of magazines available to the public in time for its Centennial in 2023.
About Forest & Bird
Forest & Bird has contributed 20 entries to our website, so far.	View entries by Forest & Bird.
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Bloggers: Communications Officer, Dave Brooks & Conservation Advocates, Quentin Duthie, Debs[...]
Bird of the Year: the noble rock wren
The rock wren - it wakes up to "100% Pure"[...]
Parliamentary Commissioner for Environment Moved by 'Old Blue' Environmental Award
Forest & Bird awarded the outgoing Parliamentary Commissioner for the[...]


The No. 5 Longhorns entered this weekend's series against Oklahoma State with some serious momentum, winners of 10 of their last 12 games and looking to win their second conference series in as many tries.
Texas (17-7, 4-2 Big 12) was unable to maintain its three-run lead in the third and decisive game of the series, losing 10-3 at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium, a loss that gives the Cowboys (18-6, 3-3) the 2-1 final series advantage.
The Longhorns got the first run on the board in the top of the first inning as Lucas Kephart's fielder's choice groundout brought in Mark Payton, who had hit a double two pitches into the game.
At the top of the fifth, Payton and Brandon Loy hit consecutive singles, and then both advanced a base each with an Erich Weiss sacrifice bunt. With runners in scoring position, Kephart again brought in Payton with a hit to right field, and Loy scored thanks to a sacrifice squeeze by Tant Shepherd.
They would be the only runs Texas scored all day, and it wasn't nearly enough. The Cowboys answered in the bottom of the fifth inning with a two-run homer off of Cole Green, score once more in the sixth, then piled on seven runs in the seventh as Texas' bullpen melted down, allowing six hits and four walks in the inning.
"Today's game showed the importance of every inning and not allowing one inning to cost you the ball game like the seventh inning did," said Texas head coach Augie Garrido.
It's a loss made even harder for the Longhorns not only because of the lopsided score or the fact that it gives them their first series defeat of the season, but because it was a game Texas was in control of at the onset.
Green (1-2) got the no-decision, pitching five innings and giving up three earned runs with eight strikeouts, and the loss goes to freshman Kirby Bellow (0-1).


By far one of the most important objects of worship in the Buddhist traditions, the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara is regarded as the embodiment of compassion. He has been widely revered throughout the Buddhist countries of Asia since the early centuries of the Common Era. While he was closely identified with the royalty in South and Southeast Asia, and the Tibetans continue to this day to view the Dalai Lamas as his incarnations, in China he became a she - Kuan-yin, the "Goddess of Mercy"- and has a very different history. The causes and processes of this metamorphosis have perplexed Buddhist scholars for centuries.
In this groundbreaking, comprehensive study, Chün-fang Yü discusses this dramatic transformation of the (male) Indian bodhisattva Avalokitesvara into the (female) Chinese Kuan-yin - from a relatively minor figure in the Buddha´s retinue to a universal savior and one of the most popular deities in Chinese religion.
Focusing on the various media through which the feminine Kuan-yin became constructed and domesticated in China, Yü thoroughly examines Buddhist scriptures, miracle stories, pilgrimages, popular literature, and monastic and local gazetteers - as well as the changing iconography reflected in Kuan-yin's images and artistic representations - to determine the role this material played in this amazing transformation. The book eloquently depicts the domestication of Kuan-yin as a case study of the indigenization of Buddhism in China and illuminates the ways this beloved deity has affected the lives of all Chinese people down the ages.
"A Major contribution to our understanding of Kuan-yin (Kannon) in East Asian Buddhism, giving a most lucid account of the concept of the compassionate bodhisattva and of the religious practices devoted to this ´Goddess of Mercy´ as she has become popularly known in the West." - Wm. Theodore de Bary, John Mitchell Mason, Professor Emeritus and Provost Emeritus, Columbia University.
Chün-Fang Yü is professor and chair of the Department of Religion at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She is the author of The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis (Columbia) and coeditor of Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China.


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British Hong Kong was a major destination for refugees fleeing China in the 20th century.

History

Before Communist China
China suffered a chronic refugee crisis in the first half of the 20th century, which worsened in the 1940s due to the Second World War and the Chinese Civil War. Hong Kong was an attractive destination for those leaving China; the China-Hong Kong border imposed few restrictions on freedom of movement. The colony implemented formal immigration controls in 1940 after Japan captured Guangzhou during the Second Sino-Japanese War; the controls had limited success.

Controls tightened at the end of the civil war. Hong Kong imposed new immigration regulations in April 1949, partly as a security measure against the Communists, and established the Frontier Closed Area border zone in 1951. On the Chinese side, the PRC - motivated by distrust of the Western Bloc - restricted cross-border movement in February 1952 by requiring entry and exit permits.

Refugees continued to arrive after the Second World War. Another wave occurred as the newly founded PRC consolidated its control in southern China. By 1957, a third of Hong Kong's population of 2.5 million were refugees. Nonetheless, PRC measures did make natural growth the main source of population growth in Hong Kong.

Later waves
The flood-famine in Northern Guangdong in Spring 1957 led to a wave of refugees in July 1957. Thousands of hungry civilians gathered at the border since February claiming to "seek relatives". Hongkongers, upon seeing the scenes in newspapers, felt pity and brought food across the border and the political impact worried the Guangdong officials. On 29 June 1957, the Guangdong committee of Chinese Communist Party authorized the Bao'an County to let the hungry get across the border.

The Great Chinese Famine caused another wave in 1962. The New York Times reported that 140,000 Chinese entered Hong Kong in 1962, with 80,000 illegally entering in a single month. The large number, increased by temporarily relaxed PRC border controls, caused a diplomatic crisis.

Policy toward refugees

Hong Kong
Dr. Edvard Hambro wrote, "Some may not be refugees in the legal sense but are in the broader sociological and humanitarian sense."

A report in 1958 by the Hong Kong government wrote, "he refugees [in 1957], however, have shown no desire to return to the mainland, even though Hong Kong is unable to offer to all the prospect of earning a reasonable living."

References

Sources

Immigration to Hong Kong
Riots and civil disorder in China
Borders of Hong Kong
Demographics of China
Migrant crises

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Q: get a label text based on key that is dynamically obtained I am making an app with multi-language. So, I have 2 different files containing typical key-pair label texts.
Now for one situation, depending on an ID obtained from server, I need to hold the id and display a label text.
If I am not very clear, please excuse the pseudo that I intend to achieve :-
    {{language.{{button.btnId}}}}

Is there any way I can achieve this?
Note I am doing this because some buttons in the application are restricted.

A: If language is an object then use like this.
{{ language[button.btnId] }}

A: NOTE: not a direct answer to the question, one has already been given but this you might find useful and it does not fit into a comment:
With AngularJS I would use angular-translate to handle i18n in my applications. Tested it several times in very different applications, it's stable and powerful.
https://github.com/angular-translate/angular-translate
You can obtain it via npm also.
They took a lot of consideration when making it, it's nearly a standard, rarely I saw (this is OFC personal experience) serious multilanguage AngularJS app after it came out it without it so I would definitely go with a battle-ready solution instead reinventing the weel.
In this example, angular-translate you would simply use {{ LABELNAME | translate}} to obtain translation in any template based on the language set in the application. Not only the syntax is better but their recommended way of storing translations in JSON files with labels is miles better than holding it in controllers.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The German Big Three are moving lots of high-priced iron these days. And you know who's buying? China, of course—and those in the U.S. no longer embarrassed to be seen driving a Deutsch land-yacht during a time of economic dislocation.
Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen/Audi all reported new sales records for the first quarter of 2011. Selling 165,842 cars, BMW had its best-ever three-month period with growth of 21.3 percent.
Audi had the best quarter in its history, with sales of 312,600 cars, an 18.4 percent jump. Daimler reported 280,500 Mercedes-Benz cars sold (a 12.7 percent gain). And, lo and behold, Smart cars are selling, too: 25,000 in the first quarter, a 9.8 percent gain.
So Audi is beating out Daimler but, said one analyst, "the large lead it historically enjoyed over its German competition is waning," while BMW predicts sales of over 1.5 million units this year.
The reason for this German luxo boom is simple: They make better cars.
Consider BMW's 535d, for example (which may finally come to the U.S.). According to The Diesel Driver, the 5 Series sedans account for 50 percent of the company's profit! The 535d has a "silky smooth" 3-liter twin turbo making 300 hp and getting you to 60 mph in 5.7 seconds in super comfort and convenience. Add to that its fuel efficiency and the fact that "it's a blast to drive," and there are very few sporty diesel sedans that can compare.
I am not crazy about Audi styling, but that opinion seems to have made no impact on sales.
Finally, Daimler claims it's going to sell 1.3 million cars this year and is fleshing out its smaller-car lineup with a revamped M-Class SUV and a new B-Class compact. The company also makes big money from its truck business around the world.
Who's going to win the luxo war in the U.S.—Audi, BMW or Mercedes?


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Company Mercedes-Benz has offered the platform of his SUV GL-Class model for the future of Aston Martin crossover. Chief of Aston Martin Dieter Zetsche considering the proposal and did not exclude such version, as the British company is in collaboration with the AMG division of the German manufacturer, and also the latest version of Mercedes-Benz GL63 AMG has demonstrated that it is capable SUV platform.
New Aston Martin AWD model can get and AMG engine with minor modifications from its own engineers, but what kind of generation platform will be used is hard to say. Currently produced Mercedes-Benz GL x166 2014-2015, but in 2017 may go out the next generation of x168. Precise plans on completing work on a new all-wheel drive model Aston Martin does not have yet.
Realizing that almost all companies are trying to introduce SUVs or crossovers in its models range, the British manufacturer also forced to expand their lineup. Back in 2009 they was presented the concept of the future SUV'a called Lagonda. Next, more close to the production model, the exterior versions of SUV Aston Martin can be showed on Motor-shows in 2014-2015 years.


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Tanks very much but I will like to meet you ma or sir.


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Overcast. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Low 7F. Winds WNW at 15 to 25 mph..
Overcast. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Low 7F. Winds WNW at 15 to 25 mph.
Wisconsin Fastpitch Softball Coaches Association, Wisconsin Soccer Hall of Fame reveal Hall of Fame classes
JON MASSON jmasson@madison.com
The Wisconsin Fastpitch Softball Coaches Association has announced its 2020 Hall of Fame class.
The class includes Dan Bayreuther (Fort Atkinson and Janesville Craig), Joel Claassen (Milwaukee Pius XI), Gary Haus (Rice Lake), Jim "Louie" Lawinger (Sussex Hamilton and Platteville) and John Peterson (WIAA master umpire, Madison), according to a release from WFSCA Hall of Fame director Jeff Agnew.
The Hall of Fame festivities will take place at the WFSCA coach's clinic Feb. 8 at Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells.
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The social begins at 4 p.m. and the banquet will be at 5 p.m. There will be reserved seating for the 2020 inductees, members and special guests.
Bayreuther coached varsity softball for 28 years at Fort Atkinson and Janesville Craig. He had a record of 394-229 in 623 games and had 24 winning seasons.
According to the release, his teams won six conference titles, nine regional championships and one sectional title. He coached 55 first-team all-conference players and eight all-state players. Twelve of his players played in the WFSCA All-Star game and he coaches in the 2012 and 2017 All-Star games.
Peterson began his officiating career in 1976, working baseball. The next year he started officiating softball with the Madison Recreation Department and with high schools. He worked his first WIAA state tournament in 1987 and flowed that with appearances in 1988, 1990, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2002 and 2005.
He also worked Amateur Softball Association national tournaments in 1988, 1995, 1998, 2002 and 2008 and worked ASA state tournaments. He also worked International Softball Congress world tournaments in 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2003.
He worked Big Ten, Missouri Valley, Horizon, WIAC, NAC, CCIW and Midwest conference games. Peterson also has officiated volleyball, baseball, basketball and soccer.
He served on the NFHS rules committee from 2012 to 2016 and presented rules changes to umpires and coaches since 1995. He is an umpire liaison at the WIAA state softball tournament in Madison.
Wisconsin Soccer Hall of Fame announces class
The Wisconsin Soccer Hall of Fame will announce its Hall of Fame Class of 2020 during a ceremony March 14 at the Harley Davidson Museum.
Eight individuals are scheduled to be inducted.
According to a release from the Wisconsin Soccer Hall of Fame, the inductees are Louis Bennett (Shorewood, Wisconsin), Jesse Marsch (Salzburg, Austria), Susan Moynihan-Manning (Salt Lake City, Utah), Craig Posselt (Hales Corners), Roland Sikinger (Houston, Texas), Alex Toth (Milwaukee), Patrick White (Charlotte, North Carolina) and Nancy Ziaja (Hartland).
The Gene Edwards special recognition award will be presented to the Bavarian Soccer Club.
The event will begin at 4:30 p.m., with dinner and the ceremony at 6:00 p.m.
To order tickets or for more information, visit https://wiyouthsoccer.demosphere-secure.com/_registration or call (414) 328-9972.
Dan Bayreuther
Wisconsin Soccer Hall Of Fame
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Rainier Beach Branch Closure - Saturday, Jan. 16 - Due to a security incident, we are unable to provide Curbside Service or accept book returns Saturday, Jan. 16. We look forward to serving you on Tuesday, Jan. 19. We appreciate your understanding.
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Publisher: New York : A.A. Levine Books, 1998
Edition: First American edition
Branch Call Number: J ROWLING
Characteristics: vi, 309 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
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List - Required Reading, Redux
Seattle_Quick_Picks May 22, 2013
"Totally snubbed it in high school because I thought it was 'too mainstream.' Ugh, how annoying of me! Love them now.
Read more reviews of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone at iDreamBooks.com
AtkinsonMH Dec 27, 2020
The Harry Potter series is many things to many people; most notably, to many children. In a sense, books, or rather, stories which enthral and engage young minds and hearts to read must be supported and promoted – at least in my humble opinion. Interestingly, reading this series as an adult is also sincerely rewarding. That, in itself, makes a strongly powerful statement about the writing and the writer. Numerous characters are innately compelling and interesting for their placement within the magical landscape which is the fabric of the stories background narration and creative envelope.
For me, I have seen and enjoyed, multiple times, the movies well before reading the books. Thereby, one does, at least in my case, tend to overlay the persona and attributions of the movie characters with those portrayed by the writer in the books. Notwithstanding such prior introduction to the Harry Potter magic-scape through the movies; the books, in themselves, do much more than fill in the gaps and complexities the movie-related narration fails to explain and address. Specifically, several things are apparent.
Most particularly, the storyline of the books is not that of the movies; rather, the books narrate a more nuanced and structured sequence of events which situate a more grounded and coherent understanding of character motivations, inter-character relationships and events. Each medium, the books and the movies, have their own charm and appeal. However, for me, one of the most endearing and appealing things about Harry Potter, regardless of how he is experienced, is his grounded and humble attitude towards coping with the burdens and the inherent risks of his situation.
Like many children who are victimised as adoptees, he is deeply impacted by the psychological and social burdens of an absence of loving parents or caregivers. Remarkably, Harry demonstrates a willingness to not surrender to hopelessness or despair. Rather, his demeanour and attitude seek to emphasise the inner value of people not the outer trappings of social acceptability or status. Arguably, this lays the foundation for a lesson most adults could well learn from. Specifically, how to be grateful and reconciled with what one has rather than has not, and the pointlessness and unfulfilling void which results from a focus upon lack rather than need.
Beyond humility, Harry demonstrates a level of courage and willingness towards self-sacrifice which is, at times, breathlessly inspiring. Of course, he is only a child; although, arguably so are we all in one form or another. Thereby, the writer moderates Harry's character with the understandable failings of youthful ignorance, naivety and foolishness which we have all experienced. Again, this adds a realism, approachability and accessibility to Harry's character and personality which adds to his appeal. Harry tends to characteristically attend to supporting the weak and otherwise unremarked upon individuals he encounters. He sees beauty and value, where others seem entirely uninclined to look, recognise or acknowledge.
He, [Harry], is situated paradoxically within the storyline, as both famous and successful but modest and non-conformist. However, also, Harry Potter is much maligned and criticised for his non-partisan approach to politics, social non-conformity and inclination to eschew discriminatory magical dogma. Who one trusts, and what one holds to be valuable and value-worthy seem to define who Harry is and who he is not. It is this aspect of J.K. Rowling's writing and representation of characters, at least for me, throughout the storyline in relation to Harry which I find most engaging and compelling.
natalie830 Dec 26, 2020
If you are intimidated by the thickness of the Harry Potter Series, do not be scared and try to read the first novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Even though it is obvious that you start with the first book of the series, the first book does not scare you off with the thickness of it compared to the other books that are part of the series. It is only about 300 pages, and if you don't like the series, again, it's only about 300 pages! The novel is about a boy named Harry Potter who is an orphan and figured out that he is a wizard on his eleventh birthday. He ventures off into the wizarding world by enrolling in a Wizarding School called Hogwarts with two of his friends that he meets on his way to this world and encounters many events along the way. As like many other Harry Potter readers, I was obsessed with the story and wanted anything that was Harry Potter related. This could be the start of your new obsession! There are many translations of the book, so everyone could enjoy the magicalness of the story! This Harry Potter series was a huge part in many people's childhoods, so perhaps, this could be a start to having a book that greatly influences your life in a wonderful way.
AddisMan Dec 14, 2020
This is definitely one of the best books I've ever read. I read it twice in less than two weeks. And, I am proud to say, I read the book before watching the movie.
duniyaalkaheli Nov 28, 2020
I JUST STARTED READING THIS BOOK A 2 WEEKS AGO AND I LOVED IT!!!!😘😘😘😄😄
hbmidgley Nov 14, 2020
HARRY POTTER is the best thing that ever happened to the world😁😁😁😁
EmReadsTheBigBooks Nov 10, 2020
Oh my gosh this series is amazing! If you haven't read it or don't like it then like wuuuuuu?? I knew nothing about the Harry Potter series a few years ago but finally my parents let me read it and I fell in love with them all!!! 10/5 stars!
violet_cat_13987 Nov 09, 2020
BEST BOOK I HAVE READ EVER! Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's stone is amazing classic book. I have always heard of this series but never bothered about until I had nothing to read. I came across this book and it is awesome! Tons of surprises. I am exited to read the second book in this series.
GinnyBeautifulPeace10 Nov 07, 2020
Just so you know Jessicading0 I do not like you🤨
blue_dolphin_14996 Nov 03, 2020
Harry potter is the best! I waved it off when I first heard of it but know I'm obsessed! it's definitely my favorite book ever. Love JK Rowling her books are so good you have to read them all then watch all the movie's! I'm telling you if harry potter wasn't the best book ever would it have been made a movie?!
GinnyBeautifulPeace10 Oct 27, 2020
have u ever read the Harry Potter book series? if you haven't I definitely recommend it, if you seriously haven't read it you've better go visit your library card and put every single one on hold from 1-7 its the beeeeeeestttt!!!
natalie830 thinks this title is suitable for 9 years and over
SkokieBiblioAdult2 Oct 21, 2020
SkokieBiblioAdult2 thinks this title is suitable for between the ages of 2 and 5
kyang_91 Oct 17, 2020
kyang_91 thinks this title is suitable for 9 years and over
red_ant_12053 Sep 12, 2020
red_ant_12053 thinks this title is suitable for 9 years and over
sophiaSHkim Jun 23, 2020
sophiaSHkim thinks this title is suitable for 9 years and over
ttbooknerd10 Mar 23, 2020
ttbooknerd10 thinks this title is suitable for 7 years and over
yellow_bird_1235 Mar 15, 2020
yellow_bird_1235 thinks this title is suitable for 7 years and over
vaasu Feb 28, 2020
vaasu thinks this title is suitable for 10 years and over
violet_cheetah_4279 Feb 13, 2020
violet_cheetah_4279 thinks this title is suitable for between the ages of 10 and 45
annabellayu Oct 09, 2019
annabellayu thinks this title is suitable for 5 years and over
TheBibliomaniac Apr 02, 2020
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."
indigo_cheetah_423 Mar 16, 2020
Twin: "I'm not Fred, I'm George. Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George"
Mrs Weasley: "Sorry, George, dear."
Twin: "Only joking, I am Fred."
(Twins Fred and George have letters on the front of their knitted Christmas sweaters. Ron doesn't)
George: You haven't got a letter on yours, Ron. I suppose Mum thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid. We know our names are Gred and Forge.
"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."
mauve_bird_127 May 17, 2019
" 'Don't play,' said Hermione at once.
'Say you're ill,' said Ron.
'Pretend to break your leg,' Hermione suggested.
'REALLY break your leg,' said Ron."
"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."
Chrisjeong Oct 03, 2018
Harry: What's this?
Petunia: Your new school uniform.
Harry: Oh. I didn't realize it had to be so wet.
NikNikT Aug 25, 2018
"I'm going to bed, before either of you think up another clever idea to get us killed. Or worse, EXPELLED."
-Hermione Granger
Mbussey Aug 25, 2018
NO POST ON SUNDAYS!
HermioneGrainger Jul 29, 2018
"You should start standing up to people, Neville"
-Ron Weasley
"How? I can barely stand at all! "-Neville Longbottom
Gwen904 Jul 16, 2018
"It's Levi-O-sa, not Levios-A." - Hermione Granger
Harry Potter is an orphan. He is also a child whose fame and public recognition remains entirely unknown to him during his early childhood. This, as it turns out, is a very good thing. Also, Harry is a wizard, but he only learns of this upon turning eleven. Harry's destiny and identity are deeply entwined, situating him as a child who must face unhealthy adult burdens and dangers.
Even so, this is what Harry must face, and face it he does. Courageous, humble and prone to the processes of childhood learning; like anyone else, he is required to overcome extraordinary challenges. Luckily, he has friends and people who care for him outside of his immediate family who do not.
Harry is a compelling and interesting character who quickly embeds himself in the reader's heart and mind. His adventures and the events surrounding him make exciting and entertaining reading. While this is a children's book, there are many lessons for adults within this author's prose. Well recommended to all readers ten years and older.
navy_turtle_237 Jul 11, 2020
Harry Potter lives with his aunt, uncle, and cousin in the closet under the stairs at the Dursleys' family home. He hasn't had a birthday party in 11 years, and his family is generally terrible to him, but all of this is about to change when Harry receives a mysterious letter that arrives by owl messenger.
The letter holds the key to Harry's happiness, a place he never even thought existed, a magical school called Hogwarts. There he finds friends, sports, and a great destiny. Read the first book to find out more! I love this book! It shows us a window into another exciting and new world. I would highly recommend this story!
a boy who learns on his eleventh birthday that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own. He is summoned from his life as an unwanted child to become a student at Hogwarts, an English boarding school for wizards. There, he meets several friends who become his closest allies and help him discover the truth about his parents' mysterious deaths.
Luscka Mar 21, 2019
Harry Potter never seemed to fit in anywhere. As an orphan who lived with his cousin, aunt, and uncle, he didn't even really have a family. He had nothing, that is, until someone showed him a world of magic, literally. On a dark and stormy night, on the floor of a hut in the middle of the ocean, Harry Potter heard a strange creaking at the door. It was early in the morning on his eleventh birthday and his aunt and uncle had taken him off the map, made him untrackable by those trying to contact him. Still, Hagrid, the headmaster of Hogwarts' trusted friend, arrived and took Harry away to where he belonged as a wizard, the wizarding world.
A month later, Harry was on the train to Hogwarts, then he was at Hogwarts, and before he knew it, Christmas had arrived. By then, Harry and his best friends, Hermione and Ron, were searching for the identity of the mysterious Nicolas Flamel, for this would answer their bigger question: what was under the trapdoor on the forbidden third floor? Eventually they found their answer. Believing their evil professor, Severus Snape, was after the precious object to help a truly dangerous entity, they set off for the adventure of a lifetime. What they found under the trapdoor was more than they had bargained for.
As a lifelong Harry Potter fan, or Potterhead, I greatly enjoyed reading the first book in J.k. Rowling's famous series again. Knowing the entire story by heart, I loved finding little easter eggs, pieces of foreshadowing, or underlying metaphors. This book would rank high on my ten 25 favorite books, without hesitation. I recognize now how quickly the story moves along compared to the other books. The stories became more developed as the each book came out. Having read the other six books, I want to know more about Harry's first year at Hogwarts. That is the only fault I can find in this wonderful novel.
I have and always will recommend this entire series to anyone. Harry and his friends are so relatable, so human, that the reader feels as though they are part of the fantastic trios. The incredible story is so transporting, one might actually believe they have entered the wizarding world, and long for it as much as Harry when they are away from it. Every part of the story are compelling in different ways. It is a great birthday present to start someone on this awesome series. It has something for everyone.
3je82rs9 Oct 10, 2017
What did Harry Potter know about magic? He was stuck living with the decidedly un-magical Dursleys, who hated him. He slept in a closet and ate their leftovers. But an owl messenger changes all that, with an invitation to attend the Hogwarts School for Wizards and Witches, where it turns out Harry is already famous...
blue_eagle_1347 May 31, 2016
THIS BOOK is very like baby talk:bdyfgveaiygrteiveyrgtroaevrytgowaeyvqgowevtiy3qgotvlyergtovqegtqoeyrtgoqyeroqegvtyqeogrtyqegvortuvygtoqverygtovq3eruqgteoyqergtovqerytgvoqeyqgoer
Bethany_S Jul 19, 2015
The Sorcerer's Stone is the first book in the Harry Potter series where you read about his first year at Hogwarts. Harry's parents died when he was young so he was sent to live with his aunt, uncle and cousin. Many strange things happened in Harry's life that he couldn't explain, until his 11th birthday when he found out he was a wizard. Against his aunt's and uncle's wishes he was sent to Hogwarts and had many daring adventures through out the year. Including something about Nicholas Flamel and the Sorcerer's Stone...
Faithm6 Jul 13, 2015
The novel opens with a description of the Dursley family, a middle-class family that lives in Little Whinging, Surrey. Vernon and Petunia Dursley are constantly worried that someone will find out about Petunia's decidedly "unDursleyish" witch sister, Lily, and their worries are justified when Lily's infant son, Harry, is left on their doorstep. Lily and her husband, James Potter, had been murdered by the dark wizard, Voldemort, but when Voldemort attempted to kill Harry, his power somehow broke. Harry becomes the only living person ever to survive the killing curse, and the only sign of his encounter with Voldemort is a unique lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. Because Harry does not have any other living relatives, Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, decides to leave him with the Dursleys until he is old enough to attend Hogwarts.
Ummamina2011 Jul 06, 2015
This is my fave book so far, it's so exciting. I wish I could go to a wizard school! I can't wait to see what's going to happen next...
Julia_Kh Jun 22, 2015
A 12 year old boy's life changes when he gets a message from an owl and goes to a magical school.
View All Summaries
madmax011 Jun 02, 2018
Other: nothing is bad about this book. This book is suitable for all ages
juwel3 Aug 06, 2014
Other: Jennabella1721 is right, you don't deserve your life, if you don't read the series at least twice.
elised26 Jul 01, 2014
Other: Magical...
Scamander, Newt
Galbraith, Robert
Potter, Harry — Juvenile Fiction
Witches — Fiction
Wizards — Juvenile Fiction
Schools — Fiction
England — Juvenile Fiction
Find it at SPL
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Should You Count on Social Security?
Retirement Planning > Social Security > Social Security Funding
by Andrew G. Biggs
Commentary December 27, 2021 at 12:39 PM Share & Print
A tax increase could have solved the funding gap decades ago, but Congress never likes to raise taxes.
Social Security trust fund bonds are, in effect, IOUs the government has written to itself. This is not confidence-inspiring.
Creative policymaking could lead to a more targeted, more effective Social Security plan.
It's no secret that Americans worry about the future of Social Security. Only 35% of Americans said that they were "very" or "somewhat" confident that Social Security would pay them at least as much as today's retirees receive when surveyed by the Employee Benefit Research Institute in 2016.
Thirty percent of Americans said they were "not very confident" in Social Security, and 33% said they were "not at all confident" in the program that provides the largest source of income for most Americans in old age.
By contrast, 81% of Americans said they were "somewhat" or "very" confident in their retirement accounts as a way to attain retirement security in a 2015 survey conducted by the Investment Company Institute.
The Social Security story is familiar: An aging population driven by lower birthrates and increased life spans means fewer workers and more retirees, a recipe for insolvency in a "pay-as-you-go" program that transfers taxes from workers into benefits to retirees.
One could look at a news article from the early 1990s, and it would read very similarly to today's media coverage: As the baby boomers retire at the rate of 10,000 per day, Social Security will draw down the assets in its trust fund and, come the early 2030s, be unable to pay the full benefits it has promised.
Without increased revenue flowing to Social Security, benefits could be cut by 22% when the trust fund is exhausted. Americans are understandably skeptical they will receive the full benefits they are owed.
The Current Status
But is all this gloom and doom regarding Social Security's future justified? It's worth catching up on where Social Security benefits stand today.
Progressive activists claim that Social Security benefits have not been increased in nearly half a century, while forgetting 1977 congressional legislation enacting automatic benefit increases, not merely for the cost of living after retirement, but for increases in real wages before retirement.
Social Security Administration data shows that, in the past two decades alone, the average benefit collected by a new retiree has increased by 32% above inflation. While Social Security is an imperfect safety program, Census Bureau research has found that the share of retirees with sub-poverty-level incomes dropped from 9.3% in 1990 to only 6.3% in 2015.
So, whatever financial troubles Social Security faces and however Congress chooses to address them, older Americans are starting from a stronger base than in the past.
Moreover, while a strict reading of the law states that Social Security must cut benefits when the trust fund is exhausted, that doomsday scenario assumes that Congress would stand idly by. Recent history shows how unlikely that is to happen.
In 2016, the trust fund for Social Security's Disability Insurance (or DI) program was projected to run dry. In the years leading up to 2016, we read of the problems facing the DI plan, in particular the steadily rising numbers of disability beneficiaries even as the share of Americans reporting a work-limiting disability remained steady.
The DI fund's projected insolvency was seen as a tipping point for Congress to finally enact reforms, given research concluding that many DI beneficiaries could continue to work.
What actually happened? Congress, including both Republicans and Democrats, voted to shift some of the 12.4% Social Security payroll tax from the retirement program to the disability program, a move that delayed the DI fund's insolvency as well as pushing substantive reforms to the back burner.
If Congress were to not allow a single penny of cuts to disability benefits, not to mention failing to enact a single meaningful reform, what are the chances that the far more numerous and politically powerful retirees will be subjected to a 22% across-the-board cut?
I will reach retirement age just as the trust fund is projected to run out, and benefit cuts aren't high on my list of worries.
Astute readers may note that while politicians certainly don't like cutting Social Security benefits, they also don't like raising taxes. If they did, Social Security's funding gap would have been solved via a tax increase decades ago.
And yet Social Security's looming insolvency means Congress seemingly must do one or the other. The resolution to this conundrum lies, strangely enough, with the Social Security Trust Funds — or, more accurately, the lack of their stability.
Trust Fund Update
As fiscal watchdogs pointed out as early as the 1980s, the Social Security Trust Funds don't actually make it easier for the government to pay benefits. The trust funds consist of special-issue non-tradable U.S. Treasury securities that are held in three-ring binders in a locked file cabinet in West Virginia. By itself, that is not confidence-inspiring.
These trust fund bonds are, in effect, IOUs the government has written to itself. When Social Security was running payroll tax surpluses, from the mid-1980s through 2009, the federal government took those surpluses and spent them on other things, giving Social Security bonds in exchange.
Today, when Social Security trades in those trust fund bonds to help pay full benefits, the federal government must come up with the money to pay them, which entails either higher taxes, lower spending on other programs, or higher federal debt.
These are precisely the same choices the federal budget would face if there were no trust fund in the first place. While the trust fund has legal and political significance, financially it doesn't make it easier to pay benefits.
There is an upside, however: If having a trust fund doesn't make it easier to pay Social Security benefits, not having a trust fund doesn't make it harder.
Think of it this way: In 2033, the year prior to the trust fund becoming insolvent, the federal government will transfer $338 billion (in today's dollars) to Social Security to pay off bonds held in the trust fund. In 2034, the trust fund will run dry and no longer has a legal claim on those transfers of cash.
But that doesn't mean Congress can't keep on paying. If Congress allowed Social Security benefits to be cut by 22% in 2034, it would also have an additional $338 billion in general revenue sitting around that previously were transferred to Social Security, but would no longer be needed.
Congress could increase spending in other areas, or it could give everyone a big tax cut, or it could reduce the budget deficit. Or, it could keep transferring that money to Social Security.
Congress & the Key Issue
The point is that what matters for the big picture isn't the balance of the trust fund, but the amount of benefits the government is willing and able to pay out at the time the trust fund runs dry. If the federal government can afford to pay the nearly $1.7 trillion in benefits owed in 2034, it can almost certainly come up with a similar amount of money to pay benefits in 2035.
Now, it's unlikely Congress will be quite so transparent about things. From its very founding in the Franklin Roosevelt administration, both Democrats and Republicans have opposed using general tax revenue — in other words, income taxes — to fund Social Security, believing that general revenue funding undercuts Social Security as an "earned benefit" and makes it look like a "welfare program."
But even that can be worked around. For instance, Congress might increase the maximum salary that is subject to Social Security payroll taxes, which is $142,800 in 2021, but then offset this tax increase by reducing income tax rates for people in that salary range.
It's revenue neutral for the government and tax neutral for taxpayers, but avoids the optics of simply shoveling income tax money into Social Security.
Congress might take some other steps as well, to make what is effectively a bailout of Social Security look more like a true reform. For instance, both Democrats and Republicans favor increasing benefits for Americans who work long careers at low wages.
Both parties have also worked together to increase opportunities for retirement saving outside of Social Security, most recently in the Secure Act.
Other Possible Reforms
It's easy to imagine further enhancements of private retirement savings being tacked on to a Social Security bill. Or perhaps some long-term, phased-in limitation on benefits for high earners might enter the picture.
Alternatively, a reform plan might increase the taxes that retirees pay on their Social Security benefits, a step that would recoup some of the costs of bailing out the program.
However, the most prominent reform proposal from congressional Democrats, the Social Security 2100 Act, actually reduces benefit taxation. There just isn't a strong political constituency for reducing payments to older adults, despite their growing affluence relative to working-age households.
None of this is to say that I think this is the best policy, or even particularly good policy. A Social Security program designed for the world of the 1930s would be more expensive and less efficient than one designed for the 2030s and beyond.
Looking Back, Forward
When Social Security was created there were barely even mutual funds, much less auto-enrollment 401(k) plans holding low-cost target date funds. It's a different world today, and those differences could make for a more targeted but also more effective Social Security plan, if policymakers would be more creative.
For instance, Australia has one of the top-rated retirement systems in the world, while spending less than half as much on retirement benefits as the U.S. The reason: Australia enrolls every worker in a retirement account funded by employers with 10% of employee wages.
The government funds a means-tested benefit to keep retirees out of poverty, but retirement accounts provide most income on top of that base amount. And as the Australian saving system matures, the government's costs are projected to go down, while in the U.S., Social Security costs will continue to increase.
Social Security's rising costs are a significant problem, just not a significant problem for most retirees, who are unlikely to experience meaningful benefit cuts. The problem posed by rising Social Security outlays is fewer resources available for everything else the federal government does, or higher taxes that leave less money available to households to support themselves.
There isn't any reason other than political inertia that the federal government must provide tens of thousands of dollars in annual benefits to middle- and high-income retirees who could have easily saved more on their own. But for the time being, that's the most likely outcome.
Andrew G. Biggs is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.


I need a break from the bathroom!!!!
I have been on meds since 1997 and with few changes in what i take they all have given me chronic diahrea...is there something i can do to stop this? If I go on vacation I tend to not take my meds so I can do things and not have to be next to a bathroom all day.


Ontario's universities are actively working with their partners on the issues that matter most to Ontarians.
We are partnering to grow the economy, to equip graduates with skills and experience for the jobs of the future, to improve health care so that Ontarians can lead longer and healthier lives, and to support life-changing ideas and discoveries through research and innovation. And so much more.
Universities asked Ontarians about their hopes for the future, and what they told us is reflected in what we do. Find out more about how universities are partnering for a better future for students, communities and the province in the areas Ontarians care most about.
Ontario's Universities hosted a timely panel discussion at Queen's Park on Oct. 30th, bringing together government, policymakers and stakeholders for solutions-driven discussions to discuss innovative solutions to hallway health care.
A Future Maker pushes beyond the walls of the university to make a difference in their communities and province. Future Makers are students, researchers, or university projects, working with partners both inside and outside the university to create a better future for Ontario.
Thousands of Ontarians shared their hopes, concerns, ideas, and aspirations for the future? through our survey, roundtables, and at several conferences. Here what they have to say about the future of our province.
We spent a year listening to what Ontarians had to say about their hopes and concerns, ideas and aspirations for the future. Through partnering with others, Ontario's universities are working together to attain hopes, alleviate concerns, and make ideas a reality. Learn about our commitments to creating a better Ontario.
Learn about what we heard over the past year and how Ontario's universities are committed to partnering for a better future for Ontario. Read our report and share your thoughts on social media and sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on what Ontarians are saying about the future of our province!


text:
What We're Told Not to Talk About
It's rude. It's improper. It's disgusting. All justifications that leave women's questions about their bodies unanswered. And activist Nimko Ali has had enough of it.
Following her own experience of FGM and rebuilding her relationship with her body, this important book contains the true stories of women sharing what they've always been told is secret and shameful - from east London to Ethiopia, from pregnancy to menopause.


Swallows Property Lettings Agency has been established for over 33 years and in this time we have grown into one of the Leading Residential letting agents in the area.
With offices in central Bath and the market town of Frome we offer a comprehensive range of properties to rent across North and East Somerset and West Wiltshire.
Swallows strive to combine integrity with experience and expertise so we are able to offer a professional and personal service to both our Landlords and Tenants.
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Im ray 23 years old. i want to learn more. Im graduated BSED major in socialscience.
Last edited by cendol on Wed Aug 22, 2018 11:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Last edited by willieaames on Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Eight people are known to have died in the Florida Keys during or because of Hurricane Irma, authorities said Wednesday.
Two people died in Key West, the other six in other parts of Monroe County.
"The deaths are both storm-related and due to natural causes," said Cammy Clark, the county's public information officer.
Also, more 40 people were injured during the storm, about 30 of them in Key West.
Aerial images show widespread destruction in the Keys three days after the storm, which ripped through Cudjoe and Big Pine Key with end-of-the-world fury on Sunday, destroying homes big and small, and raking the island chain for hours with winds of up to 130 mph.
Trailers were shredded, ocean waters rushed through the ground floor of beach-side houses and RVs were overturned, leaving much of the area ravaged almost beyond recognition.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates Irma destroyed 25 percent of the homes in the Keys — where about 70,000 people live by the sea in trailers, small houses and multimillion-dollar mansions — and heavily damaged 65 percent. It's unclear exactly how many businesses were ruined, but the total could be high.
On remote No Name Key, connected to Big Pine Key by a bridge, Jeremy McQuarter and his housemates began the clean-up work in a landscape of shattered trees and muddy residue from a 5-foot storm surge.
But their house survived, as did their cars and trucks, which they parked on a small ridge through the dense woods.
Neither he nor the five others who rode out the storm in the house, which is elevated one story above the ground, was injured.
Throughout the Keys, pushing piles of debris off the roadway and prayers for the restoration of electrical power was a popular topic of conversation. Gas was available at a handful of stations in rhe Upper Keys, and the wait time was a hour or less.
In Key Largo, the Caribbean Club open in the afternoon for drinks — a 7 p.m. curfew remains in effect — and at 6 p.m. there were at least 20 cars in the parking lot.
Residents of the Lower Keys, below Mile Marker 73 in Islamorada, were still being prevented from returning home. Only first responders and preapproved workers who are helping with the response are allowed past this point.
The northbound lane of U.S. 1 at Bahia Honda State Park was still closed, covered in sand and seaweed.
At Robbie's Restaurant and Marina, in Islamorada, two employees, Dan Strickland and Paul Wojtecki, got in a small boat and rowed out to a still-vertical pole at the end of a ravaged dock to hoist the American flag.
The Broward Sheriff's Office deployed a unit of specialists and communications equipment for Monroe County. The communications center they set up there will allow first responders to coordinate their relief efforts and assist the storm-weary residents of Monroe County.
Florida Keys residents were allowed to return to their homes Tuesday to weigh their losses after Hurricane Irma. Particularly hard hit was Cudjoe Key in the Lower Keys, where the devastation was extensive.
Before and after Hurricane Irma: What happened to our favorite Florida Keys landmarks?


A spacious and well presented, split-level, Period apartment that has been the subject of an extensive programme of refurbishment and improvement to include redecoration and new flooring throughout. The property is located in the highly regarded residential enclave of The Suffolks. With boutiques, bars, cafes and restaurants close by the property is also within walking distance of fashionable Montpellier, the town centre and the mainline Cheltenham Spa station. The smart accommodation consists of; Private entrance with door entry system, entrance hallway, kitchen/dining room, living room, three bedrooms, bathroom with shower and private courtyard. The property benefits from gas central heating and all appliances to include oven & hob, fridge/freezer, washing machine and dishwasher. The property further benefits from useful loft storage. Available immediately.
Property reference NEWC_000178. The information displayed about this property comprises a property advertisement. OnTheMarket.com makes no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the advertisement or any linked or associated information, and OnTheMarket.com has no control over the content. This property advertisement does not constitute property particulars. The information is provided and maintained by Newcombe Residential - Cheltenham. Please contact the selling agent directly to obtain any information which may be available under the terms of The Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 or the Home Report if in relation to a residential property in Scotland.
HALF PRICE TENANT FEES FOR APRIL MOVE IN. A well presented, Three bedroom, terraced house, in the Leckhampton area of Cheltenham. Great for professionals. Unfurnished. Available now.


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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (Scott Olson, Getty Images file)
Getting into Jeff Sessions' head: Imagining what AG pick's drug education looked like in 1960s Alabama
Published: Jan 10, 2017, 10:11 am • Updated: Aug 14, 2017, 11:20 am
By The Cannabist Staff
An insider in the cannabis industry has a unique take on what might be going on in the mind of Sen. Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general.
Sessions, a four-term Alabama Republican, has come out strongly against marijuana legalization, but Jim Walsh, a cannabis media relations consultant, says that's not surprising, given what Sessions' drug education might have been like, having been born in 1946 in Selma, Ala.
"Imagine growing up in Southern Alabama in the '60s, being 20 years old in 1966," says Walsh. "His world view was shaped in such a way, that he is probably still rooted in that experience. … Like everyone else, he has been hit over the head with the propaganda that weed is horrible and dangerous and all these things."
More pre-Trump policy speculation
Getting active: Marijuana advocates mobilizing in advance of Sessions confirmation hearing
Background: He doesn't like legal weed. But who really is AG pick Jeff Sessions?
Don't tread on weed: A plea to Trump administration to let marijuana legalization proceed
Not just the AG: What Trump's pick for Department of Homeland Security could mean for legal weed
Weed news and interviews: Get podcasts of The Cannabist Show.
Watch The Cannabist Show.
Peruse our Cannabist-themed merchandise (T's, hats, hoodies) at Cannabist Shop.
Walsh says a particular approach might help open a dialogue with Sessions regarding the legalization of marijuana: "Different organizations have gone to his office in Capitol Hill," he says. "A better approach I think … is to have people reach out and explain to him — maybe I'm being naive — but I think there's probably a constructive way to show him how it's helping children with extreme epilepsy and various other issues. …
"He's got to be educated like everybody else. The propaganda has been rough on everyone."
Despite the challenges, Walsh remains hopeful. "I'm hopeful that Trump will be true to the fact that he said that he's going to allow the states to let it play out," he says. "I'm hopeful that level heads will prevail and the right approach will happen that will be beneficial for our economy and those of us that enjoy cannabis."
Walsh and Cannabis Now senior editor Ellen Holland sat down with Cannabist editor-in-chief Ricardo Baca on the Cannabist Show in December to talk politics, hash oils and the connoisseur-grade cannabis market.
Watch the full episode of The Cannabist Show
Subscribe to The Cannabist Show podcast:
Topics: cannabist show clip, education, Jeff Sessions, Jim Walsh, medical marijuana, public relations, stigma


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  <library name="Gradle: org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa:1.5.4.RELEASE">
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      <root url="jar://$USER_HOME$/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework.boot/spring-boot-starter-data-jpa/1.5.4.RELEASE/61bafdbd6d31e67b024c432de34a19b35e46c062/spring-boot-starter-data-jpa-1.5.4.RELEASE.jar!/" />
    </CLASSES>
    <JAVADOC />
    <SOURCES>
      <root url="jar://$USER_HOME$/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework.boot/spring-boot-starter-data-jpa/1.5.4.RELEASE/4f26c7799c7c1a39cfe305700b2dc1fdb27e22c6/spring-boot-starter-data-jpa-1.5.4.RELEASE-sources.jar!/" />
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cueme.me 9 out of 10 based on 1000 ratings. 100 user reviews.
I've googled it and looked around this May be a stupid question but I need a detailed installation guide to install my led light bar with a relay and switch.
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What a great ministry tool. I get tracts and various tools quite often to review. They are very hit and miss. In short, "Let the Little Children Come" is a hit.
* Makes evangelizing fun. Kids are great evangelists. They're honest about their faith and very genuine. Often times when we encourage kids to evangelize we hardly resource them and we make it boring. Let the Little Children Come just made it fun for them to talk about Jesus. It's colorful, there are so many different ways they can share their faith. So, maybe not all the resources they have will work, but I will almost guarantee that at least one of them they'll find engaging.
* It's super easy to understand. Unsaved children got it. Because of the visuals and words/phrases they could understand, they seemed to have a basic understanding of what our kids were trying to tell them. Obviously, there are still unknowns, but this made it easy to understand and START the conversation with unsaved kids.
* It's easy to explain. Our kids were able to easily share their faith because the tools are not difficult and actually make sense. Our kids were able to not just talk about their faith, but also show people about their faith. Kids are visual and want to touch tangible thighs. When these tools were given to kids, they asked questions of which most of the answers were within the resources used.
* Instructions are great. I love all the instructions that come with the resources. We found that kids, especially some of the older ones, were able to take it without much instruction from their leaders/parents and do what it said. I'm just impressed with people and companies who make it easy. Let the Little Children Come took at the unnecessary and difficult and made easy to understand instructions.
I gave this resource to kids to use because I want to know it works before I endorse. Five out of the seven kids I gave it to said it was fun and made it easier to talk to their friends about Jesus. I don't know about you, but that's all I needed to be a believer. In the end, whenever you can use a tangible resource to teach or explain a Biblical principle–that's a winner in itself! Let the Little Children Come has several great ones.
I recommend that you check out Let the Little Children Come and see for yourself how this resource will help your kids be more prepared to talk about Jesus with their friends.


"Anywhere or Not At All" is a major philosophical intervention in art theory that challenges the terms of established positions through a new approach at once philosophical, historical, social and art-critical. Setting out the claim that 'contemporary art is postconceptual art', the book elaborates a series of conceptual constructions and interpretations of works by Navjot Altaf, the Atlas Group, Amar Kanwar, Sol LeWitt, Gordon Matta-Clark, Gerhard Richter and Robert Smithson, among others. It concludes with new accounts of the institutional and existential complexities of 'art space' and 'art time'.
"Anywhere or Not At All" maps out the conceptual coordinates for an art that is both critical and contemporary in the era of global capitalism.


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GALLERY: 7 people escape house fire in Coventry Hills
By Melissa Gilligan Global News
Posted July 23, 2015 7:46 am
Updated July 23, 2015 4:16 pm
WATCH ABOVE: A fire in the community of Coventry Hills has caused significant damage to a two-storey home. Jenna Freeman reports.
CALGARY – Seven people were able to safely escape a house fire in the community of Coventry Hills on Thursday.
The fire broke out in a two-storey home in the 100 block of Covehaven Gardens N.E. just after 3:30 a.m.
When firefighters arrived on scene, they found flames venting from the second floor windows.
Crews worked quickly to extinguish the blaze, and were able to keep it from spreading to adjacent homes.
Neighbour Perry Sipos says he and his family awoke to see bright orange flames out their window.
"Woke up, heard the screaming, saw all the flames through our bonus room window," says Sipos. "Just a mad panic to get the kids, get them dressed, get them out, get to a neighbour's, then find the dog, try to get the cat."
"It was bizarre. I don't ever want to relive that again."
Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It was bizarre. I don't ever want to relive that again."
The fire caused significant damage to the home's second floor.
The homeowner tells Global News she and her six children were able to get out of the home safely, along with their two dogs – thanks to working smoke detectors which alerted them to the blaze.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
A donation page has been set up on behalf of the family on GoFundMe. You can access the page here for more information.
GALLERY: Fire in Coventry Hills on Thursday, July 23, 2015.
View image in gallery mode
The Calgary Fire Department responds to a fire in the 100 block of Covehaven Gardens N.E. on Thursday, July 23, 2015. Global News
– With files from Jenna Freeman
Calgary fire departmentCalgary Coventry Hills


And remember turn off the lights when you leaving a room.
Dimmable lighting fixtures is a potential way to save energy. You just need the lights to be suitable but not too bright.
Bright ceilings and walls can reflect more lights, so painting the ceilings and walls on bright colors is able to make the lighting fixtures more efficient.
Clean the bulbs and lighting fixtures regularly to maintain the light output.
Install lighting fixtures with motion detectors in the place where not used often. Like storage house,corridor etc.
motion detectors conveniently and automatically light the light up and off .
Select bulbs with a high energy-efficiency class. The EU label is displayed on every bulb packaging.
The energy efficiency is determined based on the power consumption (luminous flux, units: lumen) per watt consumed.
'A++' designates extremely high energy efficiency, whereas 'E' is extremely low.
The LED technology is now the most efficient way for lighting. The best choice of Energy saving and environmental protection!


text:
Karin Sellberg, Lena Wånggren, and Kamillea Aghtan (eds), Corporeality and Culture: Bodies in Movement
Karin Sellberg, Lena Wånggren, and Kamillea Aghtan (eds), Corporeality and Culture: Bodies in Movement (Oxford: Routledge 2015) 210 pp. £60 Hb. ISBN: 9781472421272
Occasioned by the 2011 Bodies in Movement: Intersecting Discourses of Materiality in the Sciences and the Arts conference in Edinburgh, Corporeality and Culture is a collection of eleven eclectic - yet wonderfully harmonized - essays. It offers a 'directional map of various nascent trajectories' (xv) in the study of bodies, affect, and culture. Despite the diversity of themes and approaches covered, the three editors carefully 'trace' multiple prominent patterns in the 'filaments of critique' (xiv). The collection is divided into three larger sections, each featuring an introduction by one of the editors. The book's theoretical movement begins with affect theory, spectacular politics, and phenomenological approaches, moving on through erotic embodiment and Deleuzian theories of 'becoming,' to arrive eventually at a Foucauldian framework of corporeality interacting with wider political power structures.
The first section, 'Movements of Violence and Corollaries of Sight,' is introduced by Kamillea Aghtan and features a collaborative talk/essay by Fiona Hanley, Tami Gadir, and Irene Noy. Recording and reflecting on their talk delivered at the Bodies in Movement conference, they critique the conference's 'routinised patterns of speaking and presenting research,' and highlight instead the voice's 'intersensory manner' (9) of communication. This allows them to think about possible expansions of their gestural repertoire within the technologically mediated and institutionally policed setting of the conference performance. The section's second chapter continues Hanley, Gadir, and Noy's focus on the relationship between performer and spectator within affectively charged performances. Charlotte Farrell explores her own role as weeping 'participatory spectator' (21) of several pieces of performance art. She argues that her body, having become fluid through affective engagement, becomes coextensive with the performative field surrounding it. Xavier Aldana Reyes's chapter picks up this thread and traces the spectator's affective response to scenes of corporeal mutilation in horror movies, particularly the 'somatic empathy between the body of a filmic character and our own' (41) which is based on the transmission of affect via the body's movements.
The second section, 'Monsters, Margins and Corporealising Choreographies,' concerns the monstrous bodies of posthumanist inquiry and their ability to produce 'powerful new affinities and entanglements' (47), as Karin Sellberg notes in her introduction. The section's first two chapters, by Elizabeth Stephens and Rosemary Deller, query the ethical and artistic implications of bio-art performances. Both authors review the artificially grown tissue exhibits of Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr's Tissue Culture and Art Project, among others, and ponder the taxonomic challenges presented by technologies that create nominally living specimen meant for aesthetic or culinary consumption. Stephens draws attention to the aesthetic codes of scientific equipment which bolster science's own epistemological hegemony vis-à-vis the often uncomprehending spectator. In turn, Deller points to the 'disturbing asymmetries' of Kira O'Reilly's dance with a sow carcass - intended to performatively blur species boundaries - which disrupt bio-tech's 'seductive fantasy of necromancy' (79). The following chapter by Sebastian Schmidt-Tomczak invokes Donna Haraway's figure of the cyborg to think through the dematerialization and absorption into flows of information of the main character in Oshii Mamoru's anime feature Ghost in the Shell. As suggested by Haraway, Mamoru's cyborg has never inhabited the world of stable identity, hierarchically organized information, and binary opposition. Rather, its identity dissolves when its body blends with the surrounding city, equally contributing to vast flows of information. The cyborg, a 'figure of enrichment and celebration' (82), thus gestures towards a utopian existence free from social inequity. Sellberg's chapter, finally, discusses the trope of the Platonic hermaphrodite in works by Angela Carter and John Cameron Mitchell, arguing that scenes of erotic union and dissolution of the self produce 'a transcendent and continually transformative notion of '"love"' (96).
The third section, 'Political Technologies of Embodiment,' introduced by Lena Wånggren, features four essays operating within the Foucauldian framework of biopolitics. It considers marginalized bodies as not only governed and regimented by political power, but also as constantly resisting such oppressive relations. Jasie Stokes's chapter on Mary Borden's The Forbidden Zone theorizes Borden's recollection of the blown-apart bodies she stitched back together when serving as a field nurse just behind the trenches of the First Word War. Stokes shows that Borden's war-bodies inhabit a liminal space of ideological and corporeal rupture, threatening the survival of subjectivity itself, as illustrated by Borden's own fragmented narrator. Ally Crockford picks up the theme of fragmentation and monstrosity in her essay on the prurient medical gaze of nineteenth-century science writing. She suggests that diagnosticians, when confronted with 'monstrous' bodily growths such as supernumerary genitals or large tumors, failed to adhere to the usual protocols of the doctor-patient relationship. Instead, their gaze, challenged by the fluidity of the monstrous body, turned the moment of diagnosis into an anxiety-laden, voyeuristic, and invasive spectacle. Similarly, monstrous bodies appear as sites of resistance in Peter Arnds's piece on Oskar's 'grotesque' body (145) in Günter Grass's The Tin Drum. Arnds reads Oskar's refusal to grow into an adult body as an embodied practice of protest against Nazism, perpetuating the seductions of the fascist military regime with his drumming, while also undermining it with his satiric imitation of the Hitler salute. Finally, the collection's last essay, by Douglas Clark, investigates the tendency of Emily Dickinson scholarship to conflate the poet's body with that of her texts. He warns that Dickinson's poetry in fact resists expression of her individual, historical body and instead experiments with metaphors of movement to imagine states of absence or nonexistence. Literary scholars should avoid the easy conflation of 'corpse and corpus' (157), as Clark provocatively puts it, usefully moderating the book's overall 'exhilarating[ly]' (xv) exploratory ethos.
Readers will appreciate the editors' meta-narration of each section's movement and their careful attention to the collection's overall argumentative vector. Each essay contains multiple callbacks to previous chapters and signals forward to later pieces. This integration work, undoubtedly necessary in the face of the sheer diversity of methodologies, disciplinary emphases, and themes, certainly pays off. Corporeality and Culture serves as a useful primer for readers wishing to take in the impressive breadth and depth of contemporary approaches to corporeality, while it also updates experts on fresh lines of inquiry developed by an eclectic and international group of scholars.
Doreen Thierauf, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill