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Dispatch April 09, 2007 01:54 pm
Some clarity about the Alexander Hamilton Center
[Posted 1:54 PM by Roger Kimball]
Readers of The New Criterion and Armavirumque know that we have commented several times on the fate of the proposed Alexander Hamilton Center at Hamilton College (see here, for example, and here.)
The four faculty founders of the ill-fated center have now released a detailed response to misinformation about the Center that has been circulated by the Hamilton College administration. Since it is likely that the tactics of intimidation employed by the left-wing faculty at Hamilton will be copied by faculties elsewhere in an effort to enforce intellectual and ideological conformity, the response will be of interest far beyond the Hamilton community. I am delighted to be able to share it with our readers:
From: Douglas Ambrose, Sidney Wertimer Associate Professor of History; James Bradfield, Elias W. Leavenworth Professor of Economics; and Robert Paquette, Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History
To: Friends and Members of the Hamilton Community
Subject: Alexander Hamilton Center for the Study of Western Civilization
We, the founders of the Alexander Hamilton Center for the Study of Western Civilization (AHC), have written this document because we disagree strongly with the recent statement issued by the College's Office of Communications and Development (C&D) regarding the demise of the AHC. Most troubling to us is the assertion by C&D that under either the original or the revised charter the AHC would, or could, have operated separate from the College in a manner inconsistent with the fiduciary responsibilities of the Board of Trustees. In this communication, dated 29 March, to alumni, parents, and other members of the broader Hamilton community, Dick Tantillo, Vice-President of Communications & Development, attempts to identify and explain "the circumstances surrounding the decision not to establish" the AHC on campus.
The founders of the AHC have read this document and regard it as a serious misrepresentation of the facts. It does, however, provide us with an opportunity not only to try to set the record straight, but to put the recent unpleasantness behind us. All of us have a full plate of scholarly endeavors to keep us busy. All of us have families. We have no desire to engage in an endless cycle of debate and recrimination or in a game of "gotcha" with the administration and Board of Trustees. They have far greater resources than we do; their bullhorn drowns out ours, and, we fear, the college will continue to suffer from the cacophony. It is time for us to move on. In short, we hope that this public statement on the collapse of the AHC will be our last.
In the souring of any agreement, the principals will undoubtedly see things differently. Although each party is entitled to its own opinion as to what went wrong, each party is not entitled to the possession of its own facts.
On 24 August 2006, Douglas Ambrose, James Bradfield, and Robert Paquette met Dean Joseph Urgo and President Joan Stewart in the dean's office to toast the creation of the Alexander Hamilton Center. A few days before Dean Urgo had announced to the founders, "We have three major initiatives underway: the AHC, the Molecular Design Center (in Chemistry, under George Shields) and the Richard Couper Press, a library initiative headed by Randy Ericson. We're approving and backing all three (and I'll announce them at the first faculty meeting)." About two weeks later, on 6 September, the College issued a press release that described the AHC as "an exciting faculty initiative" that dovetailed with increasing popular interest in one of this country's most influential founding fathers. The three founders of the AHC described their "lofty aspirations" for the center and their "ambitious agenda." "We fully intend," said Paquette," "to build an edifice that will stand the test of time and serve as a beacon light for scholarship and high standards among this country's elite liberal arts colleges." Simply put, we intended to broaden and deepen the conversation on campus.
We presented to the full board of trustees on 14 October 2006 a sampling of what we had in mind for the first three years of the center's operation, annual thematic programming, for example, on antislavery, property rights, and the evolving relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Subsequent events, however, conspired to make a mockery of our aspirations. The original agreement unraveled within two months. As a result, an AHC will not be moving forward on the Hamilton College campus.
1. Mr. Tantillo states: "A governing document for the center was drafted and announced in September, but funding had to be secured for the center's operation. The College helped the proposers [sic] make contact with prospective donors about supporting the new initiative and, as you are aware, the College received and announced a multimillion dollar pledge for the proposed center from a life trustee, as well as several smaller contributions."
The founders reply:
a) The charter of the Alexander Hamilton center went through multiple drafts before September. Dean Urgo and President Stewart reached an agreement with the founders on the charter in August.
b) In the meetings that led up to that agreement, the founders had several meetings with Mr. Tantillo and representatives of C&D. Early on Mr. Tantillo proved most enthusiastic about the endeavor and asked the founders what C&D could do to help. We answered at the end of the first meeting, "We don't think that we will need your help [in raising money]." We told the college from the beginning that the success of the AHC would rise and fall on the ability of the founders to raise fresh money. Unlike most faculty initiatives in Hamilton's history, we sought to establish the AHC without the college's largesse-asking for neither a dime nor a paper clip. As Ambrose told President Stewart on 5 November, "I have always believed that, from the College's standpoint, the AHC is a "win-win" proposition. We bring in fresh money, we reaffirm in the minds of countless alumni and friends of the College that one narrow political faction does not control intellectual life on the campus, and we provide our students with exposure to serious scholarship on topics of fundamental importance."
c) We knew from preliminary conversations with philanthropists, philanthropic foundations, and alumni (including Carl Menges) that support would be forthcoming in unknown amounts. In short, the founders knew that substantial funding was on its way without the help of C&D. Mr. Tantillo clearly understood the potential of the center to heal wounds among the alumni in the aftermath of a number of divisive events. When he persisted in offering the support of his office, we gladly accepted. He would not have offended us by saying that C&D was preoccupied with other fundraising priorities. Robert George at Princeton raises money on his own to fund the James Madison Program. We intended to do the same and had been busily at work before our first meeting with Mr. Tantillo in sounding out potential benefactors. Unlike Professor George, whose program runs on annual gifts of operating capital, the founders of the AHC intended to help build the College's endowment. We did indeed have several meetings with Mr. Tantillo and other representatives of C&D during which prospective donors were discussed. Before the collapse of the AHC, C&D and the founders were working together on a one million dollar grant application to the National Endowment for the Humanities under the "We the People Initiative."
d) Carl Menges announced his $3.6 million commitment to the Alexander Hamilton Center in his Manhattan apartment on the morning of 27 September 2006. A representative of C&D, Paquette, and President Stewart attended his announcement. Mr. Menges made clear to those in attendance that his commitment derived from both his admiration for the charter and his faith in Paquette's ability to realize the charter's clearly stated scholarly goals. At the meeting, President Stewart expressed her opinion that the AHC might become "the greatest legacy" of her presidency.
e) Mr. Menges, "the trustee who had made a significant financial pledge to the center," as Mr. Tantillo's letter correctly states, eventually resigned from the board. He did so in frustration at the inability of the administration to explain effectively its changing position on the AHC.
f) We do not know how much money C&D raised or could have raised for the AHC. The founders on their own initiative had secured tens of thousands of dollars with several foundations in support of future programming. We had secured commitments to support the AHC long before C&D ever got involved. Alumni had contacted each of us personally-not through C&D-to promise thousands of dollars of support. The Watson-Brown Foundation had promised Paquette financial support for the first year colloquium on slavery and antislavery. We obtained from and then had to return to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute a $10,000 grant that was to have supported a kick-off celebration of the center at the New-York Historical Society on 11 May.
2. Mr. Tantillo states: "As the proposed charter for the center began to circulate, it generated concern in several quarters. . . . [T]he board of trustees, which has ultimate fiduciary responsibility for the College and its programs, conveyed a clear desire that Hamilton College should have more control than the charter allowed."
a) We presented information to the full Board of Trustees on 14 October 2006. Before that date, five of the nine seats on the AHC's Board of Overseers had been filled with the explicit approval of Dean Urgo and President Stewart. Carl Menges, Elizabeth McCormack, and Henry Bedford, all trustees at the time, had consented to serve. James Bradfield and a college president had agreed to serve on the Board of Overseers as well. President Stewart and the founders had discussed other possibilities, including faculty, trustees, and alumni. None of the remaining seats would have been filled without the approval of the dean and the president.
b) When the founders presented information to the board on 14 October, the response by those in attendance clearly indicated that the overwhelming majority had not seen the charter beforehand and were therefore unprepared to discuss it on site in any depth or detail. Dean Urgo informed us subsequently that a few members of the board had driven the discussion about the need to rewrite the governance structures.
c) Chairman of the Board Stuart Scott called Paquette back to Buttrick Hall to discuss the need to revise the governance structures of the charter. Mr. Scott expressed open enthusiasm for the center, but insisted that the charter needed to recognize the authority and fiduciary responsibilities of the Board of Trustees. Indeed, the principal reason that the charter did not contain such an explicit statement was that a model donor agreement in the process of being worked out between Carl Menges and C&D would have, we believed, sufficed to address that concern. As Bradfield pointed out in a letter to President Stewart on 4 November 2006, "[T]he proposed gift agreements . . . gives specific, and powerful, authority to the Dean of the Faculty that is more than adequate to enable that dean to prevent misbehavior by the executive director of the Center or by its overseers." Dozens of Hamilton alumni had expressed their interest in donating. We had told them to await the construction of the Menges document, which would be the model for all other donations through the college to the center. A phone call to Paquette from another trustee soon thereafter repeated the need for what was described as a minor insertion to recognize the authority and fiduciary responsibilities of the board. The founders of the AHC had no problem with such an insertion. We did, however, draw the line in having the protective insulation built into the charter stripped away, leaving the center vulnerable to takeover by politicized elements of the faculty.
d) On 14 October, Dean Urgo informed the founders that a lawyer on the board had a copy of the charter and would be rewriting it. We did not receive a copy of the first round of proposed revisions from the administration until the afternoon of 3 November 2006, twenty days after the board meeting. At no time from 14 October to 3 November did this legal representative of the board make any effort to contact the founders of the AHC to find out why they had constructed the particulars of the governance structures the way they did. Indeed, through Dean Urgo, we were apprised that this trustee was unaware until some days after 14 October of such prior developments as the choices to fill five of the nine seats on the Board of Overseers. In retrospect, given the concerns of the board, the creation of a subcommittee of the board to meet and converse directly and intensively with the founders about the specifics of the charter might well have proven to be a wiser course of action in attempting to reach a resolution of the differences.
e) The founders met with President Stewart and Dean Urgo on two occasions (6 November and 22 November 2006) to discuss revisions to the charter. To call these conversations negotiations would be to grace the proceedings with a word they do not deserve. The more than dozen changes we proposed on 22 November were never discussed. The administration made it clear, especially at that meeting, that the AHC would not move forward even though we had directly and substantively addressed the concerns of the trustees. The administration pulled the plug on the AHC AFTER we had made changes to a document that the Dean and President had signed. We again urge those interested to consult the revised 22 November charter. Serious negotiations benefit from a full exposition, face to face, of each side's views. An imposition is not a negotiation.
3. Mr. Tantillo states: "The overwhelming sentiment expressed by trustees was that any center that was housed at Hamilton, for Hamilton students and bearing Hamilton's name should be subject to Hamilton oversight. Similar concerns were reflected in a resolution approved at an earlier date by a majority of the faculty."
a) At every meeting with representatives of the administration, including Mr. Tantillo, before the agreement of 24 August, the founders underscored the importance of the AHC's governance structures in preventing the center from being captured by politicized elements of the faculty or from being transformed by the arbitrariness of weak and politicized deans. Our concern in this regard is deeply rooted in Hamilton's recent history. We knew from our conversations with prospective donors that money would be forthcoming if they had reasonable assurances that the mission integrity of the center could be maintained. Given the discrete political history of Hamilton College-and the founders represent collectively more than seventy years of service to the college-we considered such precautions imperative. Specialists in center-building at other institutions had underscored to us the importance of strong governance structures to protect the center's scholarly mission. One only has to look at the transformation of the Ford Foundation over the years to understand the founders' apprehensions. Furthermore, the center was constructed to be a programmatic initiative, not a curricular initiative, following procedures clearly laid out in the faculty handbook. A programmatic initiative does not require faculty approval and-by extension-faculty primacy. We did not seek to alter the curriculum of the college in any way, to create new courses arbitrarily or new faculty positions. We were designing educational extras-awards, internships, colloquia, conferences-that would benefit both students and faculty as well as elevate, we thought, the scholarly reputation of the college. We openly compared our initiative to that of a scientist in Hamilton's chemistry department who creates a new laboratory by securing outside money from a science foundation.
b) The founders responded to what we thought were the chief concerns of the trustees by creating this insertion: "The Alexander Hamilton Center is entitled to the same academic freedom as that of a college professor in teaching and research. The Board of Overseers of the AHC ensures that its policies and operation comply with the resolutions of the Trustees of Hamilton College and their fiduciary responsibilities. The founders of the AHC recognize that violation of those resolutions, disregard of those responsibilities, or deviation from the center's scholarly mission as clearly defined in the charter may result in the removal of the AHC's executive director from his office by the president of Hamilton College and the Board of Trustees or the discontinuance of the center's funding by the College or both. This provision of the charter is irrevocable." We challenge anyone on the inside or outside of this debate to find in the charter of any institute or center on any college campus in the country a more explicit recognition of the trustees' oversight of a faculty programmatic initiative. Nor can this insertion be read to deny "presidential interventions." The insertion clearly permits them, and thus allows the president and trustees to wield more than "an extreme form of authority in time of crisis." Indeed, it makes the removal of the director, leaving the center in place, relatively easy. The idea that the founders did not want the AHC "subject to Hamilton oversight" or that our revised charter "left intact language asserting the center's independence from Hamilton College" is absurd. Any careful reading of the original charter or the revised charter repudiates such claims. "Insulation" means protection not "separateness."
c) Please note: The founders of the AHC incorporated this four-sentence insertion along with more than a dozen other changes into a revised charter dated 22 November 2006. It is not true therefore, as the trustees were told on 1 December, that the founders "proposed the insertion of a single two-sentence paragraph" into the original charter that "would suffice to address all governance issues." May we repeat: The four-sentence insertion accompanied more than a dozen other changes to the revised charter of 22 November. We urge all interested parties to consult that document to see those changes for themselves.
d) At a meeting of the faculty on 10 October 2006, the first since the college announced the AHC's creation, faculty members debated a resolution signed by two dozen of our colleagues, the majority of whom can be identified as leaders or supporters of the left-of-center Kirkland Project or its successor organization the Diversity and Social Justice Project. According to the faculty minutes, "Proponents of the resolution expressed concern that the AHC charter threatened faculty autonomy, created a governance structure that did not guarantee appropriate institutional involvement and undermined the authority of the Dean of Faculty, established a Board of Overseers that could include Hamilton College Trustees, and instituted a governance structure unlike those of other Hamilton groups." Please note-and this is no minor point-- that criticism of the AHC included faculty concern about the inclusion of trustees by the founders on the board of overseers of the AHC. The faculty resolution insisted that "representatives of the Hamilton College community have input into the operation and governance of the AHC." But who counts as members of the Hamilton community? Apparently not the trustees and alumni, if the signatories of the resolution had their way. By inference from the resolution, they have all suffered a kind of social death. From the beginning, the founders of AHC had a more inclusive definition of the Hamilton community and actively recruited trustees and distinguished alumni to serve on the board of overseers. Similarly, Robert George at Princeton runs his Madison Program-hardly " a "conventional departmental center" as maintained by the administration--with the help of an Advisory Council that consists of more than twenty members, none of whom are members of the Princeton faculty.
e) The signatories complained of the "unprecedented and unacceptable autonomy" of the AHC. They demanded that the charter be amended to ensure far greater faculty input and oversight. A "general rationale" for the resolution appeared above the names of the signatories. Contrary to the published assertions of some opponents of the AHC that the only objections concerned governing structure, the resolution clearly indicates faculty anxieties about the Center's "programming and research" and how both would "influence the reputation of Hamilton College." As far as we can tell, this resolution stands as unprecedented in the history of Hamilton College in its attack on a programmatic initiative of the faculty.
f) Although the faculty voted 77 to 17 for the resolution, the vote cannot be considered "a majority of the faculty" since the meeting had about 100 faculty no-shows. In responding to this vote, Dean Urgo initially stood tall: "The AHC charter does grant its overseers the right to transform itself. . . . If the AHC executive board appointed a director who was out of favor with the Dean, do we not know how the Dean may make things difficult? Of all the powers I have, the right to meddle is perhaps the most ominous. Limits to freedom are the results of abuse, and limits have grown like choke vines around our freedoms throughout the history of Hamilton College and Hamilton Nation. As Dean, I will accept limits to our freedom only under compulsion and not without resistance; and when defeated, will continue my defense of our freedom's circumscribed survival. I feel I must resist, however, even when we vote 77-17 to curtail that freedom. I do so not to counter our own freedom at this moment, but to protect the freedom of the faculty who will follow us, in less heated times, in their own unhampered pursuit of knowledge." Yet, in a recent article in the Utica Observer-Dispatch, Dean Urgo now claims that the AHC was "destructive to the faculty community here-so destructive that we were willing to walk away from a major gift." When, we ask, did the AHC "abuse" its "freedom" since it never had a chance to exercise any? If the administration insists on publicly claiming that the AHC was "destructive to the faculty community here" we would urge it to specify how, precisely, the AHC exercised such destructive force. We invested considerable time and effort in planning programs; we assembled an Academic Advisory Board that included some of the most distinguished scholars in the country; we constructed a charter that would ensure mission integrity; we significantly revised that charter to accommodate trustee concerns-and we did all of this with the hope that doing so would enhance the intellectual environment on campus and bring recognition and respect to Hamilton College. Now the administration labels our efforts "destructive to the faculty community." One may well wonder how such words--and the actions they represent--may affect "the freedom of the faculty who will follow us . . . in their own unhampered pursuit of knowledge."
4. Mr. Tantillo states: "While the proposers [sic] later offered a counterproposal [the revised charter of 22 November 2006], it left intact language asserting the center's independence from Hamilton College."
a) We can provide copies of the revised charter of 22 November 2006 on request. That document displays our revisions to the original document in boldface italics. The revised charter clearly refutes Mr. Tantillo's assertion. Furthermore, during a conference call of 6 November 2006 with President Stewart, Dean Urgo, and the founders of the AHC present, a lawyer on the board of trustees declared that our proposed insertion ("The Board of Overseers of the AHC ensures that its policies and operation comply with the resolutions of the Trustees of Hamilton College and their fiduciary responsibilities. The founders of the AHC recognize that violation of those resolutions, disregard of those responsibilities, or deviation from the center's scholarly mission as clearly defined in the charter may result in either the removal of the AHC's executive director from his office by the President of Hamilton College and the Board of Trustees or the discontinuance of the center's funding by the College, or both. This provision of the charter is irrevocable.") "went a long way to satisfying the concerns of the board."
5. Mr. Tantillo states: "It is important to understand that both the faculty and trustees expressed support for the programming that was to be part of the new initiative; the sticking point was the governance structure."
a) We regard such a claim as, at best, naïve. As many of the critics of the AHC know full well, the key to the mission integrity of any enterprise lies in the control and quality of its governance structures. Did the principles of federalism and separation of powers in the Constitution, we would ask, have anything to do with the maintenance of a democratic-republic? The Hoover Institution at Stanford stands as a shining example of a center that has maintained mission integrity precisely because it is insulated from Stanford's faculty. We might also point to the current, widely-publicized controversy surrounding the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs at Princeton University as one of many examples of the importance of government structures to mission integrity. Now it may be that the trustees see no danger to the AHC from political faction. If so, then they and the founders of the AHC have fundamentally irreconcilable views of the matter.
b) On 5 September, according to the faculty minutes, Dean Urgo insisted "[I]t is not appropriate to draw a parallel to the Kirkland Project when it was in crisis. He does not believe we [the Hamilton community] should treat any new entity as another crisis waiting to happen; rather, his first instinct is to trust the good will of the faculty involved." We heartily agree. During our presentation to the full board on 14 October, we noted that we were nearing completion of the construction of our Academic Advisory Council, whose responsibility was to help the founders "chart an intellectual course consonant with its [the center's] mission." A "constellation of superstars," we told the board, had already consented to serve, more than fifteen scholars at the time with more on the way. They consisted of nationally and internationally renowned scholars from multiple fields whose politics spanned right to left: among them, Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University; Harvey Mansfield, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government, Harvard University; Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University; and John Stauffer, Professor of English, American Literature, and Language, Harvard University. To us, the unraveling of the AHC looks like a colossal failure of discriminating judgment. If the powers that be cannot distinguish between the AHC and the Kirkland Project, between, say, Harvey Mansfield and Ward Churchill or between Mary Ann Glendon and Susan Rosenberg, then it is probably fortuitous that the AHC failed as a minority endeavor on this campus. Perhaps more to the point, Hamilton College squandered a chance to benefit from some of the great minds of the academy, from programming that would have brought serious scholars to the campus, from notoriety of the best kind-that a small liberal arts college was developing a center that was in the same league as those at Princeton, Brown, and the University of Texas at Austin. Hamilton College aborted an initiative that would have brought millions to the college from alumni, friends, and some of the most prestigious grant-giving organizations in the country. Let us end the discussion then not with anger, but melancholy, not with acrimony, but regret. If the powers that be cannot see the need for the AHC to be insulated from the threat of politicized factions of the faculty, then it is wise that the AHC did not get off the ground at Hamilton College.
E-mail Some clarity about the Alexander Hamilton Center by Roger Kimball


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Rudbeckia and Coneflower, informal cottage garden style
I own and have read all the books on this list. This are my "keepers". The books that provide excellent information in an easy-to-understand format. If you are new to ecological gardening start with Doug Tallamy's book, Bringing Nature Home.
Native Plants of the Northeast: A Guide for Gardening and Conservation by Donald J. Leopold. Timber Press, 2005 ISBN – 978-0-88192-673-6
Growing and Propagating Wildflowers of the United States and Canada by William Cullina. Houghton Mifflin, 2000. ISBN 0-395-96609-4
Native Ferns, Moss, and Grasses: From Emerald Carpet to Amber Wave: Serene and Sensuous Plants for the Garden by William Cullina. Houghton Mifflin, 2008. ISBN 978-0-618-53118-9
Native Trees, Shrubs and Vines: A Guide to Using, Growing and Propagating North American Woody Plants by William Cullina. Houghton Mifflin, 2002. ISBN 0-618-09858-5
Plants of Pennsylvania, 2nd ed. by Ann Fowler Rhoads and Timothy A. Block. University of Pennsylvania, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8122-4003-0.
Trees of Pennsylvania: A Complete Reference Guide by Ann Fowler Rhoads and Timothy A. Block. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8122-3785-4.
Native American Ethnobotany by Daniel E. Moerman. Timber Press, 1998. ISBN 0-88192-453-9.
Native American Medicinal Plants: An Ethnobotanical Dictionary: The Uses of More than 3000 plants by Native American Tribes by Daniel E. Moerman. Timber Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-88192-987-4. Information is taken from the massive tome, Native American Ethnobotany by Daniel E. Moerman.
Native American Food Plants, An Ethnobotanical Dictionary: The Food Uses of More than 1500 plants by 221 Native American Groups by Daniel E. Moerman. Timber Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-60469-189-4. Information is taken from the massive tome, Native American Ethnobotany by Daniel E. Moerman
Designing Gardens with Flora of the American Eastby Carolyn Summers. Rutgers University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8135-4706-0
Urban an Suburban Meadows: Bringing Meadowscaping to Big and Small Spaces by Catherine Zimmerman. Matrix Media Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-9844560-0-0
Native Alternatives to Invasive Species edited by C. Colston Burrell, Janet Marinelli, and Bonnie Harper-Love. Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, 2006. ISBN 978-1-889538-74-7
The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques by Tracy DiSabato-Aust. Timber Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-88192-803-7
Landscaping with Native Trees: The Northeast. Midwest, MidSouth and Southeast Edition by Guy Sternberg and Jim Wilson. Chapters Publishing, 1995. ISBN 1-881527-65-4.
Invasive Plants: A Guide to Identification and the Impacts and Control of Common North American Species by Sylvan Ramsey Kaufman and Wallace Kaufman. Stackpole Books, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8117-3365-6
Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants by Douglas W. Tallamy, 2nd. Timber Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-88192-854-9. This book has changed the way many people think and garden, including me.
Habitat Gardening
Gardening for LIfe in Southeastern Pennsylvania by Audubon at Home and Bucks County Audubon Society. available at www.audubon.org
Attracting Native Pollinators: Protecting North America's Bees and Butterflies edited by Deborah Burns. Xerces Society, 2011. ISBN 978-1-60342-695-4. Plant lists, profiles, and garden plans make this book extremely useful for gardeners, landscapes and habitat restoration.
Pollinator Conservator Handbook: A Guide to Understanding, Protecting and Providing Habitat for Native Pollinator Insects by The Xerces Society, 2003. ISBN 0-97444475-0-1
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Bloomsbury Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-59691-610-4
Special Report Global Warming (cover story) Time Magazine, April 3. 2006. p. 34- 42.
The Truth About Denial (cover story) by Sharon Begley, Newsweek, August 13, 2007. p. 20-29.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


CINCINNATI, Oct. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Meridian Bioscience, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIVO) today announced that it has appointed John (Jack) P. Kenny as Chief Executive Officer, effective October 9, 2017. This addition to Meridian's management team is consistent with the succession planning described in our May 10, 2017 press release. Mr. Kenny joins Meridian after a search of several months by a Special Committee of the Board of Directors, working closely with management. Mr. Kenny has also been appointed to Meridian's Board of Directors effective October 9, 2017.
Concurrent with the hiring of Mr. Kenny, John (Jack) A. Kraeutler, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, steps down as CEO and takes the title of Executive Chairman.
Mr. Kenny most recently served as Senior Vice President/General Manager, North America, at Siemens Healthcare. Mr. Kenny led a turnaround of the business to restore sales growth while driving increased profits and revamped the culture to build a sustainable, high-performing commercial organization. He has held executive level roles at Becton Dickinson, Leica Biosystems, and Quest Diagnostics. Mr. Kenny holds a BS, Management Systems, from Kettering University in Flint, Michigan.


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Q: R-markdown figures captions in greek text I am trying to write a report in R markdown and use the Greek language instead of English although in most parts of the report (plain text, figure text etc.) the language is implemented correctly in the figure captions the text returns the format: <U+0391><U+03BD>a<U+03BB><U+03BF><U+03B3><U+03AF>a...... instead of actual greek text.
```{r, echo= FALSE, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE, fig.cap="Αναλογία φύλων του \\textit{Juniperus drupacea} στο όρος Πάρνωνας, αριθμός ατόμων που ελέγχθηκαν: 488, αριθμός περιοχών δειγματοληψίας: 11, Θ: Θυληκά, Ν: νεαρά, Α: αρσενικά."}

i have set my local system into Greek, using Xelatex as an Enginge, PDF-Cairo but the problem keeps coming up.
Any ideas??
Thank you in advance!

A: There is a related question here. Using this approach, this worked for me, although I am not sure if this is what you're looking for:
---
title: "Greek"
author: "bttomio"
output:
  pdf_document:
    latex_engine: xelatex
mainfont: Arial
monofont: "Courier New"
monofontoptions: "Scale=0.7"
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = FALSE)
```

## R Markdown

```{r pressure, fig.cap="Αναλογία φύλων του \\textit{Juniperus drupacea} στο όρος Πάρνωνας, αριθμός ατόμων που ελέγχθηκαν: 488, αριθμός περιοχών δειγματοληψίας: 11, Θ: Θυληκά, Ν: νεαρά, Α: αρσενικά."}
plot(pressure)
```

-output

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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a model of political activity to main page
Landlords looking for a place in the progressive spectrum
by Bill McGaughey
The term, "progressive", is often used to describe agendas on the left end of the political spectrum. It used to be called "liberal". In the old days, liberals and conservatives squared off. For some reason, the word "liberal" has acquired a bad odor. "Progressive" is the preferred label for political partisans of that persuasion.
I suppose "progressive" implies progress toward a better society. I would be for that, of course; and so would most people with an optimistic temperament. However, I started thinking about this subject when a posting I submitted to an email list known as "Progressive Calendar" was rejected. The same list had posted "calendar" items of mine on two previous occasions.
I supposed that the difference was that the list master, not knowing me, had previously given me the benefit of the doubt. In this case, however, the date of the event came after several days of very open and heated discussion on St. Paul's e-democracy forum. I had been the original poster for that discussion. The list master of the "Progressive Calendar" must have monitored the discussion and thought to himself: This guy's not a progressive but quite the opposite. I won't post his event on my list.
Protest Demonstration at 14 E. Jessamine Street
The event in question was a protest demonstration in front of a condemned building on St. Paul's east side. The City of St. Paul intended to demolish this house belonging to a single mother, Nancy Osterman, on Wednesday, February 15, 2006. She had sold it to an investor, Julian Jayasuriya, when she ran out of funds to complete the city-imposed work orders. Our protest would take place the day before the planned demolition, on Valentine's Day, starting at 1 p.m. We were hoping to arouse public opinion to save Nancy Osterman's house.
Why did the city want to tear down this house? The official version was that Mr. Jayasuriya had agreed to complete the work orders by a certain date, January 13, and had missed the deadline. Moreover, he had failed to pull permits and have the building properly inspected; the work might have been done improperly and was therefore potentially unsafe. The city went so far as to tell a reporter at the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the Osterman house was in danger of imminent collapse because a single hydraulic jack which was holding up the first-floor beam was tilting under the stain. (In fact, two non-tilting screw jacks were placed in a crawl space beneath an addition to the house. They had been there for thirty years. The main part of the house was supported by sturdy wood pillars in the basement.)
Nancy Osterman, who grew up in that house, told a different story. She said she had once been a drug user. The St. Paul police wanted her to infiltrate a group of her former associates as an informer. She refused because she thought it would endanger her own and her children's lives. The police then did a drug raid on her house (finding nothing) and city inspectors accompanying the police condemned the house.
Osterman also told a story about the city inspector, Steve Magner, who had condemned the house. In a sworn affidavit, she said that in the spring or summer of 2003 Magner and police officer Joel Johnson told her that "they were determined not to let me complete rehabilitation of my house ... Mr. Magner sent someone to look at my house and I was instructed by Magner to sell my home to that person or 'I would be looking at a hole in the ground' instead of my house." The proposed sales price was $40,000.
The issue from our standpoint was one of corruption by city officials. They were pretending that Osterman's house was in poor shape where, in fact, St. Paul police were pressuring Osterman to become a drug informant and a city inspector was trying to shake her down to sell the house to an associate for a low price.
Is this type of political issue "progressive"? It would seem not. A dominant view on the e-democracy forum was that city government sometimes had to play hardball to keep neighborhoods safe from irresponsible property owners who let maintenance on their buildings slide. Those who were supporting Osterman, said one man, were "an industry group that is chronically good at playing the victim ... in order to do nothing more than further their own self-interest." Through rumors and innuendoes, we were slandering conscientious city officials. We were stirring up a cloud of confusion to allow a property owner who broke the rules to avoid the consequences.
Who is on the side of the angels?
To put things in a broader context, I, the organizer of the protest demonstration, must identify myself as a member of Minneapolis Property Right Action Committee, a now-defunct group which used to do the same kinds of protests in Minneapolis. We were that "industry group". Our political agenda included such issues as city government's using inspections to do police work, using the power to condemn by eminent domain where no clearly defined "public purpose" was served, cooperation between big developers and city officials to subsidize private development at great cost to the taxpayer, police tolerance of crime in certain neighborhoods, the large subsidies to housing non-profits which compete with us for tenants, and such things.
In many of those areas, we ran into stiff resistance from types of persons who considered themselves politically progressive. The cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, both dominated by the DFL party, are organized into neighborhoods which each have their own organization. There are police-organized block clubs which exert pressure against the owners of "problem properties". There are affordable-housing coalitions with a strong religious component. There are all kinds of non-profits and social-service agencies each doing good in their own way with ample funds supplied by government and private foundations.
Two daily newspapers watch over the scene, interpreting it all as a sign of vigorous civic engagement in the context of a caring community. We who see ourselves as fighters against government corruption are instead seen by others as a group of selfish business people narrowly focused on profit. Presumably it is the mission of progressives to oppose an agenda such as ours.
So I need to do some more thinking about the nature of progressive politics. What "progressive" really means is that "we are on the side of the angels". We are the good people in this political fight. The bad people are selfish conservatives.
But I think that the fight against city corruption ought to be considered "the good fight". We who engage in this fight are on the side of our own kind of angel. It's "good" to be fair to the people who spend their own money on their own business and "bad" to give some developers and some organizations "other people's money" - the taxpayers' money - to compete against private businesses on cost and to swell the supply of housing where an oversupply already exists. Yes, and the city police are the ones who ought to be doing police work, not landlords or city inspectors.
It all depends on what you mean by "progress toward a better society". It depends on your definition of "fairness" or "good and humane government". When it comes to progressive politics, I think there's an additional element: being on the side of the underdog. The archetypical conservative is someone who holds power, economic or political, and is fighting to retain it. The progressive is someone fighting against entrenched power to overcome some type of injustice. That would be the self-image of progressives.
What happens, though, if it is liberals who are in power politically? Or perhaps liberals dominate the media, or university faculty, or the courts? The political "conservatives" might then be the ones fighting the uphill battle against entrenched power. Where does the "progressive" label fit in that case?
Arguably, that was the case when Ronald Reagan began his political career in 1966. He was a lonely, reviled, much ridiculed political figure; but, of course, he had his supporters. Finding liberal control of Congress and big media - the three big television networks, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. - slanted towards a liberal political philosophy, political conservatives fought and clawed their way back into power with the help of direct-mail fundraising campaigns, talk radio, Fox News, and other new media. Televangelists and church leaders contributed to that effort.
Political liberals used to have an appealing model of society in socialism. Stalinist Russia wrecked that ideal. Democrats can look back with pride to Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. But that legacy, too, has faded. They are no longer a party concerned with the poor. Instead, some Democrats realize that they can milk the party's legacy for good high-paying jobs in government. They can be successful lobbyists having served a stint in Congress. Of course, Republicans play that game as well.
Big-city politicians have learned that they can employ the powers of city government to take property away from politically isolated owners. They can condemn buildings, revoke rental licenses, put properties on nuisance lists, and invoke the power of eminent domain. They and their friends can acquire devalued properties for a song and then attract government subsidies. "Development" is the golden pot at the end of this rainbow.
Now it is liberals who are on the defensive, trying to engineer their own revival. Both conservatives and liberals ("progressives") have well-developed political organizations. Big business supports the conservatives, and a coalition of interest groups the liberals. Small property owners and many others, of course, are left out in the cold politically.
I would argue that our recent fight to save Nancy Osterman's home from demolition by the city is an example of "progressive politics". However, the Democrats elected to office in St. Paul city government are our enemies; and the Republicans won't do much to help us. We're not their kind of conservative.
We landlords are mostly small-time business people who are stingy contributors to political campaigns. Some of us have close dealings with persons at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder who cannot afford to own their own home and often cannot afford to pay the rent. And we have these relationships for the purpose of profit rather than to provide a humanitarian service. That's how we make a living.
Of course, there's an element of selfishness in what we do. Can such people also be fighters against civic corruption? Can we be considered the "good guys"? Can we be "progressive"?
Some Progressive Causes from the Past
You have to look at the history of liberal or progressive politics to understand the current situation. Let us review some of the groups that have appeared under the progressive label.
First, consider Christian groups - not those looking for the imminent return of Jesus but political activists who fight for social justice and otherwise do good in their communities. Forget the peace movement and the anti-abortion campaign but consider an issue like housing. Christian activists want to provide more affordable housing so that low-income people, too, can live in comfortable homes. It's a worthy goal.
The problem I see is that such groups are hooked on the donation model of economic activity. You have well-heeled suburban Christians wanting to do something to help the inner-city poor. They may give money, or give of their time to Habitat for Humanity, or urge legislators to appropriate taxpayer dollars to build more units of housing or provide subsidies to builders of low-income housing or provide rent vouchers for the poor.
This model fails to recognize that housing is a business. Businesses need to be structured to pay their own way. In this case, it would be good if private developers could foot the bill for new housing if more new housing is required. It would be good if wage earners earned enough to afford to buy or rent the housing units already available. Government should encourage general good health in the housing market and in the economy. Christian social activists could play a constructive role in the housing discussion if they made a comprehensive study of the housing market and offered intelligent suggestions for government policymakers to consider.
Because Christian activists are hooked on the idea of doing good for persons less fortunate than themselves, they're not really interested in that approach. In being financially disinterested, they see themselves as being good people. The landlords, developers, and others who profit from providing housing are seen as selfish. So, they're not interested in those people's perspective. As an inner-city landlord, I think, however, that it is the suburban Christians who are pursuing a selfish agenda - fulfilling the mandate of Jesus, making their faith relevant to contemporary problems, or whatever. The poor people who need housing are a means to that end.
I believe that the private sector is more than willing to supply all the housing that society needs, provided that it can make a profit. Unfortunately, local governments regard housing as a "cash cow" to be burdened with property taxes. As taxes rise, housing becomes less affordable to low- and middle-income people.
Christians could approach the affordability issue from that standpoint but they will not. Perhaps they're fearful of offending local government officials whose support they might need for their political projects. Instead, they want government to give housing at reduced rates to certain people using taxpayer dollars. The question is: Do poor people need Christians agitating for more housing or does the church need the housing issue to stir its membership and remain relevant? Which needs the other more?
Another model of political activism is that exemplified by labor unions. Their members are people "who have nothing to sell but our labor". They can be unskilled factory or farm labor or the labor of educated professional people. In either case, the labor-union member works for an enterprise which owns property and uses their paid work to produce certain products. So the possession of property is antithetical to labor's identity. All property owners are potential enemies.
Labor activism is based on confrontation with employers. In the early days of industrial history, the labor movement engaged in heroic actions as unions fought for shorter work days, pay increases, and other benefits. Workers risked their immediate livelihood for the chance of a better future. Today it is recognized that those gains achieved by labor unions with some difficulty are the foundation of a sound, middle-class life. It's doubtful that the captains of industry would have granted the concessions without pressure from below.
But now, the unions have been entrenched in certain businesses and certain industries for decades. Generally their membership enjoys higher wages and better benefits and working conditions than non-union workers and, indeed, most Americans. Therefore, a strike for higher wages no longer seems the just cause that it once did. Under competitive pressures, some business firms and, indeed, some industries are teetering on the edge of extinction. Under those circumstances, militant demands for wages exceeding the norm seem selfish and unwarranted. Is it fair for the union worker to maintain his or her advantage in the economy so that others in less privileged positions must pay more as consumers?
The 1930s and 1940s were the heyday of the U.S. labor movement. Grimy, underpaid workers in the mines and mills were fighting for humane treatment. Today's union employees are heirs to that successful struggle. However, union membership now accounts for a shrinking part of the work force. Many who want good union jobs find their path blocked by incumbent job holders. Instead of agitating for shorter work hours that would benefit everyone, many well-paid employees seek to increase their earnings further through overtime work.
Unless organized labor works for the betterment of the entire society, it cannot continue to serve as a model of a progressive cause. No longer the underdog, it has an entrenched place in successful businesses which can be exploited for personal gain. To the extent that others are denied the same benefits, this is seen as selfish.
The next movement to come along was the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The institution of black slavery and the failure of post-Civil War Reconstruction had left African Americans in a racially defined subclass, especially in the South. The Civil Rights movement removed the legal barriers to full citizenship. American society adopted the goal of desegregation and embraced remedies for present and past discrimination along the lines of race.
Far from obliterating racial distinctions, however, it also put blacks in a official victimized class. It created a mythology of white oppression known as institutional racism. Prejudicial attitudes against whites as a class were imposed, oddly enough, by the white power structure. The Civil Rights movement did not move toward a "colorblind society" but toward a society of heightened racial differences serving particular political interests.
Soon other groups of people claimed special victimhood. Feminist women claimed that U.S. society was a "patriarchal society" embodying male supremacy. Like enslaved blacks, women had been forced into oppressive relationships with men. The institution of marriage was structured to give men power. Women needed special police protections to bolster their power in families dominated by men.
Then, after the Stonewall riot in New York City, gays and lesbians joined the Civil Rights bandwagon. They agitated to add sexual preference to the list of groups against whom it was illegal to discriminate. They also worked to remove the social stigma associated with homosexuality. In the name of gay pride, many gay persons were prodded to "come out of the closet." The entertainment industry was encouraged to show gays and lesbians in a positive light. The schools were asked to teach that homosexual unions were a normal type of relationship. Church and state were pressured to accept gay marriage.
With the flood of immigration into this country came another group of victimized persons. These immigrants tended to be impoverished persons less able to protect themselves in society because of cultural ignorance, the inability to speak English, and, in some cases, illegal status. They were willing to work for less money than American natives in most jobs. Here it was a matter of reviving the Civil Rights struggle that blacks had waged a half century earlier to overcome prejudice and discrimination inflicted upon a vulnerable group by the majority population.
The Civil Rights movement in its different variations shapes liberalism today. It is at the core of the liberal political identity. At the same time, it is a real, if unspoken, reason that the American electorate has tended to vote for conservatives in recent elections. This type of politics bitterly divides the community into groups determined by birth, assigning one-sided moral characterizations to each. Born of a desire to overcome racial prejudice, it has itself become prejudiced to an extreme.
Because its values are sternly enforced by government, corporate employers, the media, education, and other elements of the power structure, this movement can no longer claim to be representing the underdog. Instead, it is used to demoralize and marginalize those Americans thought to be on the wrong side of history. It advances more through court rulings than through a legitimate electoral process. Based on birth-determined characteristics, it pits one group of people against another and employs the politics of shame. It has created crimes out of thinking in politically disfavored ways. If this be progressive, much can be said for turning back the clock.
Each of these political movements was born of a sense of justice. They were progressive causes in their day. But the day has passed. The movements have fulfilled many of their aims and injustices have been corrected. Beyond that point, they become instruments of power which may serve other ends. In a Hegelian way, these fulfilled movements swing to an opposite position. They become socially unjust causes, damaging to the community.
But the political pundits and sages (including newspaper editors) are stuck in the past. They idolize these glorious causes which have gained victory and continue to call them "progressive". They do not trouble themselves to see what is going on in society today. When they do see, they put on ideological blinders to shut out unwelcome truths.
The Educated Proletariat
To understand the current situation, one needs to recognize a politically pregnant group whose role in politics is not yet understood. That would be the growing number of people who were shaped by education but failed to connect with promising careers. These are Americans who spent some of their best years in schools and in the process accumulated student loans. They were thought to be "above average" by virtue of having earned an academic degree. Instead, some graduated only to find jobs as dishwashers, taxicab drivers, or positions on the fringes of the arts or cultural scene. I would characterize them as a new kind of lumpen proletariat.
These educated proletarians do not possess much property unless they inherited it from a relative. Some continue to live with their parents. They may have small and unstable families. But they do have aspirations. Unable to distinguish themselves in a career, they distinguish themselves by unusual lifestyle choices, by an interest in music, by special intellectual interests, or by involvement in a political cause. Some are active in local neighborhood associations or bloack clubs. Some may be frequent visitors to computer chat rooms or discussion groups. They are not unintelligent, though a bit disconnected from life. Their educational experience has dropped them in a wasteland where they are free to do as they please.
I would contrast this group of with two others: first, the college graduates and others who are fulfilling their career expectations in a managerial or professional position which is financially rewarding but extremely time consuming and demanding of conformity to the organization which feeds them; and, second, the owners and managers of small businesses who also have constant demands on their time. While both have property, it is the latter group that uses this property to earn a living. The first group functions in a bureaucratic setting; the second, in particular places where the businesses are located.
Both draw the ire of the educated proletariat for having integrated into economic life and acquired property. The proletarians form the core of the "progressive movement". They are the small-time writers, artists, and communicators at the center of political life. They are the committed activists in the environmental movement, the animal-rights movement, transit enthusiasts, and many others. The unpaid policy wonks of nearly every stripe come from this group. They do not see themselves as proletarians but as society's leaders, just a lucky break away from success and recognition. They are, after all, college graduates.
My Perspective as a Landlord
Let me say that, as a person employed in a mid-level accounting job but having interests elsewhere, I was a member of this group until about ten years ago. Then I was laid off from that job and became a full-time landlord. Suddenly, I had responsibilities arising from my property. At the same time I became a target for political activists from my neighborhood. For the first time, my activities were dictated by necessity rather than choice. I had been thrust in the conservative camp, a "slum landlord" under attack.
Yet, even bearing this stigma, I felt more grounded as a landlord than I had previously been. Having never lived on a farm, I've never had the experience of producing my own food or other commodities upon which life depends. Coming from a family of college graduates, I was raised to take a job in a corporate, professional, or government bureaucracy. I couldn't imagine what life as a shopkeeper of self-employed business owner might be. I'd never run my own business, at least not one that made money. Bureaucratically employed, I had the luxury of chasing dreams in my spare time.
As a prematurely retired person who became a landlord, I had at last acquired intimate contact with some type of business, as an owner rather than low-level employee. Then I was attacked by the neighborhood group. I jumped back into politics after the city condemned my apartment building. I became an active member of a small group of landlords who, like me, had bad experiences with the city.
In the next several years, we created something new. We were a landlord group which dished out punishment to city government instead of taking punishment from the bureaucrats individually. I began to see new political possibilities. A group of people our size could affect the political life of a city the size of Minneapolis. As small businessmen, we had some money to play around with to influence city politics. We were no longer marginalized. A group of people like us could actually do something to fight corruption in city government.
I claim, therefore, a place on the progressive spectrum for persons with property who are abused by city government. I say this to the proletarians who control political discussion in cities like mine. We need to disabuse ourselves of the idea that only propertyless persons can be progressives and business owners have no right to call themselves such a thing. For we are small-scale landlords and property owners, not the type that is politically connected. There are many small shopkeepers and owners of businesses who would be in much the same situation.
See what is happening today. On one side of the political divide stand we; on the other side are the big-scale business people and their friends in government who want to take our property away from us through various legal and political shenanigans. That is a divide which may define the politics of the 21st century. It is an authentic struggle of our time which most journalists are too blind to see.
The Old Style politics saw dirt-poor people taking on the economic and political power structure and gaining some victories. The welfare state would be at the end of that line. But today's politicians are not interested in dirt-poor people with no property to take. We live in an era of "deep-pockets justice" where government officials are interested in situations where revenue can be extracted. (For instance, low-level street crime is ignored while expired parking violations are aggressively enforced.)
What immense power do they, the elected officials, have when the U.S. Supreme Court has said that city governments can condemn anyone's home by the power of eminent domain if the property is needed for a development project that conceivably would bring in more tax revenue than what the homeowner pays. In effect, all real property in a city belongs to the city.
Legality hardly matters when city governments have huge legal staffs to litigate and appeal unjust takings of property and grind small property owners down financially in court. City officials can manipulate their way to wealth with the help of a few favored developers. We small property owners are ripe for the picking as the big players enlist government's help to rob us.
This is actually a human rights issue since the right to own property is enshrined in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is an issue important in China where thousands of peasants have come to Beijing to protest collusion between big developers and local government officials who took their land without due compensation. Corruption of this type is rampant. The Chinese government itself is said to be at risk if it does not address the corruption issue. And so it is in many places around the world, and also in the United States, where government power is used to enrich politically well-connected types.
The trouble is that garden-variety corruption such as what Nancy Osterman had to face isn't politically interesting. Most people simply blot it out of their mind. They may be oriented toward the life of a neighborhood activist and see corruption charges as a weakening of the power that government officials suggest they have in the community.
Property owners who fight such corruption are seen as privileged persons who complain. Only a persistent barrage of facts can hope of penetrate the prevailing political stereotypes. Government corruption just doesn't concern people that much.
I say that we property owners can sometimes be on the side of the angels if we fight together to improve the community and its government. And so my friends and I came to Nancy Osterman's rescue. We wrap the banner of progressive causes around ourselves and walk out into the sunshine of public scrutiny.
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Yes, definitely. With all the customisation it won't be easy to bump it up to a newer version of QT anyway, so may as well put the extra work in to make it properly shared.
indeed, in the meanwhile we can try to understand what to put in .library file.. i think QT has a lot of functions..
Sorry, a qt.library is not going to be possible because of c++ and also a .library doesn't give any interface to variables only functions.
GTK->another GUI toolkit doesn't make much sense. It works for some simple apps, but as soon as they go to render their own stuff (which e.g. the GIMP does, or Abiword, or just about any app that matters) they will need the GDK which cannot be easily mapped to either of the existing AmigaOS GUI toolkits. A direct port of GTK would be preferable, more so since GTK is quite portable.
Bitmap-to-Bitmap blits are generally very fast. Of course directly rendering is faster, but that tends to flicker since you can actually see the redraw. A possibility is to render into the backup bitmap of the window is the screen has compositing enabled, but that practice is discouraged since it requires both knowledge of the compositing state on the screen as well as messing with internal structures.
BTW, congrats on getting this far, I bet that hasn't been trivial :) Good work.
A stupid question maybe, but on the editor window you have a p96PIP_OpenTags, are you using an overlay window as an application window?
Speaking of Shared Library vs. Shared Object, I am currently faced with the same "issue" with Gallium/Mesa. Luckily, these only export code symbols, and that is easier to achieve than with both code and data export, or (even worse) imports into a library.
If I ever get the time I might also look at adding proper shared code support to the shared objects. Right now, they cause a lot of code duplication, especially for something like Qt this might be an issue.
here's a nice page that lists a lot of qt based software..
think os4depot for qt stuff..
Wouldn't it be possible to implement a C++ wrapper around a shared library?
and also a .library doesn't give any interface to variables only functions.
That might be solvable with getter/setter functions, right?
Does Qt export symbols to the application other than code? If it only exports code, then you could use the same method as I use for Mesa.
A bit offtopic, but it's only you for now works on gallium/mesa ? I think before, that Hans de Ruiter want to worring about all of this. Anyway, hope you have in mind all that speed issues :) Will be cool if gallium/mesa will faster than w3d/minigl in end. Did you make any actual speed-tests for now, or its too early to ask about speed-tests ?
More or less trying to nail the native API. I guess we'll go with egl, it's designed for this purpose and compatible with OpenGL, OpenGL ES and OpenVG. For that purpose I have compiled a software driver for Mesa, because there are some concrete issues that need to be solved from the high-level if you want to be multithread and multicore compatible.
Hans is still busy with the RadeonHD driver, so right now it's only me. As I said above, we're experimenting with the native mode interface, the code sharing (not wanting to use .so's since they don't share code) and multithreading/multicore issues (thinking about what it would take to implement tls support for gcc, but that's a different story).
So unless you want to benchmark a software driver, it's way too early for benchmarks.
Do you think would be possible in a (also far) future that shared objects will share functions like the standard .library?
Does that mean you have a working Mesa already (running on AmigaOS, I mean) ?
Just to avoid all that offtopic talks in that thread, maybe you can just post some info related to mesa/gallium/current state on hyperion blog ? (and we can discuss all of this on it).
I hope Hans-Joerg writes a quick blog entry to let everybody know how things are progressing on the Gallium3D project. Maybe we can get Hans to write an update on the blog regarding the Radeon drivers as well.
I know I'm excited about proper 3D support in AmigaOS as well.
this is magnificent work. thank you! sometime ago a band of plucky coders ported QT over to haiku and since then ports of koffice, arora, and other very useful, modern applications from the GNU/linux world were brought over, filling in some significant gaps in the available haiku software library.
would love to see this happen as well on OS4.
any comments on the progress of your MESA implementation on OS4 would be much appreciated. and now with the official developer blog, it would be all the better to talk about it.
between REBOL, QT, timberwolf, a modern graphics stack, and the X1000, this community is on fire!
Speaking of REBOL, things are on hold a bit while the team works towards a beta release of the core language itself. This is an extremely important step for REBOL Technologies so we need to step aside and just let the work happen. Carl is still keen on progressing with the Amiga version of R3 of course and I will continue to work on it.


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We are the first and only paint company in the country to confidently provide guarantee on our paints to ensure quality service delivery to you. Each of our paints come with a guarantee letter that covers different durations as per the selected paint category. For instance, Mr Perfect exterior paint comes with Lifetime Guarantee, a never before seen offering in the paint industry, Mr Durable comes with 10 years of guarantee, while Mr Care and Mr Anna come with 7 and 5 years of guarantee respectively.
How many layers of paint needs to be applied?
Our Smart Quartz Paint has been developed using our very own Quad Coat Technology. As the name suggests, this involves the application of 4 crucial layers of coating that consist of 1 coat of primer, 2 coats of paint and 1 final coat of finish. All of these coats work together to create the best possible waterproofing solution for your walls.


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Cohabitation Changes People: Contemporary European Evidence
by Laurie DeRose Rebecca Oldroyd
A new study resurrects a strand of cohabitation research that had been dormant since the 1990s. Tweet This
Across 9 European countries in the mid 2000s, Kreidl and Zilincíková found that people who cohabited tended to move towards a more permissive view of divorce, and people who married tended to move toward a less permissive view of divorce. Tweet This
The researchers had expected that cohabitation would have stronger effects in Central and Eastern Europe, where cohabitation is less marriage-like than Western Europe, but instead, they found that their results were similar everywhere. Tweet This
Category: Cohabitation, Marriage and Relationship Education
Martin Kreidl and Zuzana Zilincíková's 2021 contribution to European Sociological Review has resurrected a strand of cohabitation research that had been dormant since the 1990s. They show that across nine European countries, cohabitants (those living in unmarried romantic relationships) became more approving of divorce while living together.
Why is this new work so remarkable? Because much cohabitation research in the past quarter century has focused on the characteristics of those who choose to cohabit versus marry—not on how people's characteristics (i.e., their attitudes towards family dissolution) change during cohabitation. Such changes in attitudes have measurable consequences: favorable attitudes toward divorce are linked to patterns of marital interaction that decrease marital quality and increase the likelihood of divorce.
The most optimal research design for finding out whether cohabitation fosters attitudes supporting divorce is to measure attitudes before entering unions and then again after experiencing those unions (i.e., to look at change within the same individuals as their experiences unfold). Researchers have done this before: attitudinal data were gathered from individuals living in the Detroit, Michigan metro area, first at age 18 in 1980, and again at age 23 in 1985. Of the 789 young adults interviewed at both time points, 176 had married without first cohabiting and 207 had cohabited between the two surveys.1 Using this data, a 1992 study found that people who cohabited became more accepting of divorce, while people who married became less accepting. A 1997 study added that permissiveness toward divorce grew with the length of the cohabitation.
There you have it: before Kreidl and Zilincíková, the best research establishing that cohabitation itself contributed to a greater acceptance of divorce was based on what happened to 383 people between the ages of 18 and 23 in three Michigan counties.2
There has not been counterevidence amassed against this claim; there are no studies showing that cohabiting has no effect on attitudes about marriage and divorce.3 But family researchers referring to work on how cohabitation liberalizes divorce attitudes have had to cite studies that—while done by respected researchers and published in top journals—had not been replicated, not for a broader age range, nor more recent time periods, nor larger geographic areas. It was frustrating, to say the least.
So we were thankful for Kreidl and Zilincíková's new study, "How Does Cohabitation Change People's Attitudes toward Family Dissolution?" before we even knew the answer to the question they posed. We were relieved that there would finally be some contemporary evidence. Arguably, even if the findings from the 1980s were generalizable beyond metro Detroit, cohabitation might have diminished effects as it has become more commonplace. Contributing knowledge about cohabitation from across Europe is also important because union dynamics are quite distinct in the United States.
Kreidl and Zilincíková used 18–45-year-old individuals who had never been in a union (cohabiting or married) in the first wave of the Generations and Gender survey (circa 2004), and who were successfully interviewed in the second wave (three-to-four years later). This gave them the divorce attitudes of 6,164 individuals living in nine European countries before they ever entered unions. The vast majority were still never partnered at wave two: 308 married, and 684 entered into their first cohabitating union. Compared to the 1980's research in metro Detroit, this sample was larger and more diverse in age-range and location. The analytic strategy was the same: by focusing on how the same people's attuditudes changed over time (i.e., within-person change), the researchers were able to control for the fact that people who entered cohabitation were more liberal to start with, and instead measure how the experience of cohabitation changed attitudes.
Across their nine European countries in the mid 2000s, Kreidl and Zilincíková find that people who cohabited tended to move towards a more permissive view of divorce, and people who married tended to move toward a less permissive view of divorce—just like individuals in the Detroit area in the 1980s. One nuance they uncovered was that entering a union of any kind made people less tolerant of divorce. Then, over time, cohabitants, on average, returned to their initial attitudes and eventually became more permissive the longer they remained in their cohabiting union. In contrast, marrieds, on average, continued to become less accepting of divorce.
The researchers had expected that cohabitation would have stronger effects in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe where cohabitation is less marriage-like than in Western Europe, but instead, they found that their results were similar everywhere. However, the cohabitation effect on divorce attitudes was statistically indistinguishable from zero in some countries. Both of these findings might be attributed to the 684 cohabitants being unevenly distributed across the nine countries. It is easier to find statistical distinctiveness in bigger samples.
The authors stopped short of fully endorsing a causal interpretation of their data. Even though following the same individuals over time could show how experience changes people, they also note that their finding that longer cohabitations produce more change in people's attitudes might also be explained by people with less malleable attitudes either breaking up or marrying.
Nonetheless, Kreidl and Zilincíková conclude that the current multiplicity of family trajectories is the product of more liberal attitudes regarding family life and that experiencing cohabitation
also serves as a catalyst for a value change and further contributes, at the individual level, to a shift toward a less traditional normative standpoint. Thus, the strength of liberal values and unmarried cohabitations reinforce each other.
We are not sure why it took decades for researchers to reinvestigate the role of cohabitation in promoting liberal values, but we suspect the topic is uncomfortable. Cohabitation has emerged partly because of the rise of individualism, and individualism in its extreme treats values as personal characteristics. The conclusion that relationships change people—and, in particular, that cohabitation, which is associated with less interdependence than marriage, also changes people's attitudes—may be disquieting. That conclusion had a sound empirical base in the 1980s, and it has an even stronger foundation today. Cohabitation is both a consequence of and a catalyst for liberal values.
Laurie DeRose is a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Catholic University of America, and Director of Research for the World Family Map Project. Rebecca Oldroyd is a final year PhD student at Queen Mary University of London whose research focuses on the effects of family instability on child development.
1. Some of the cohabiting unions had been converted to marriages, some had dissolved, and others were still cohabiting in 1985.
2. This was not the only evidence showing that cohabitation can contribute to divorce risk; it was just the only evidence using attitudes toward divorce. Other mechanisms through which cohabitation can increase the risk of divorce include how cohabitation fosters constraint commitments and how cohabitation is linked to more marital conflict, less marital happiness, and less marital communication (this finding is net of the selection effect which the researchers controlled using longitudinal data as in the Detroit studies described above).
3. A follow-up of the Detroit area panel at age 31 found that marriage decreased divorce tolerance, but those who married a cohabiting partner were "inoculated" against the traditionalizing effect of marriage. In other words, the subset of cohabitors that later married did not experience increasing divorce tolerance, but neither did they experience the decreasing divorce tolerance otherwise associated with marital duration.
A New Book Outlines a Game Plan for a Church-led 'Marriage Renaissance'
by Alysse ElHage
Marriage and Relationship Education, Religion
Thinking Outside the 'Porn Box'
by Matthew Saxey and Brian J. Willoughby
Media and Technology, Marriage and Relationship Education
Most Churches Lack a 'Marriage 911.' Here's Why That Needs to Change.
by John Van Epp and J.P. De Gance


Drawing a frog is harder than you would think. They're all folded legs and arms and googly eyes.
But drawing millions of frogs turned out to be fun.
Sketches of all the characters are drawn until they seem just right.
Each illustration is drawn over and over. Whoever invented erasers was on to something.
Nana Quimby and I spent a lot of time in her kitchen. She baked a cake. I painted frogs.
Have you ever been told that pickles are made from frogs? They are not.
If I had known we could have been on a hunt for Frogs on our yard sale adventures. Thoroughly enjoyed the frog journey…thanks!


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Dr Mark Perrin
Dr Mark Perrin holds joint appointments at Royal Melbourne Hospital and The University Hospital, Geelong.
He completed his medical degree at University of New South Wales and went on to Cardiology training at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney.
He has an extensive clinical and research background in the management of cardiac rhythm disorders. Mark completed a PhD in drug-induced arrhythmia at the Victor Chang Research Institute before pursuing postdoctoral studies and a clinical arrhythmia fellowship in Ottawa, Canada.
He has a special interest in genetic arrhythmia syndromes including long and short QT syndrome, early repolarisation syndrome, Brugada syndrome, catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia, and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. He attends the Cardiac Genetic Clinic at Royal Melbourne Hospital.
Mark performs complex catheter ablation for atrial and ventricular arrhythmia and implants a wide range of cardiac devices. Procedural work is performed at Royal Melbourne Hospital, University Hospital Geelong, and at the St John of God and Epworth Hospitals in Geelong. He has private consulting rooms in Geelong.
Pulse Cardiology
5/88 Myers Street
Geelong, Victoria
Fax 52929300


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Average gas price in US drops 10 cents
Biden taps oil reserve for 6 months to control surging gas prices
President Joe Biden is ordering the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation's strategic petroleum reserve for six months, the White House said Thursday, in a bid to control energy prices that have spiked as the U.S. and allies imposed steep sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Biden was to formally announce the release in remarks on his administration's plans to combat rising gas prices.
The average U.S. price of a gallon of regular-grade gasoline dropped 10 cents over the past two weeks to $4.27 per gallon as oil prices continue to "yo-yo," industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday.
The price at the pump was $1.32 above what it was one year ago, according to the Lundberg Survey taken Friday.
Nationwide, the highest average price for regular-grade gas was in Los Angeles, at $5.85 per gallon. The lowest average was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at $3.52 per gallon.
According to the survey, the average price of diesel was $5.13 per gallon, down 2 cents over two weeks.
RELATED: Corn could be the answer to high gas prices
Lundberg said prices dropped dramatically in the past two weeks, in part because higher prices reduced demand during the second half of March.
However, the drop isn't predictive of further declines because among other things, the global oil supply is tight due to a dip in output last month by OPEC, Lundberg said.
The war in Ukraine also has sparked global uncertainty. The U.S. has banned all Russian energy supplies but Lundberg said sanctioned Russian oil is still finding "big buyers like India and China happy to pay discount prices."
In a bid to reduce spiking energy prices, President Joe Biden last month ordered the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation's strategic petroleum reserve for six months.
On Thursday, the International Energy Agency said that its member countries are releasing 60 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves on top of previous United States pledges.
The Paris-based organization says the new commitments made by its 31 member nations, which include the U.S. and much of Europe, amount to a total of 120 million barrels over six months, the largest release in the group's history.
RELATED: Biden tapping oil reserve for 6 months to control surging gas prices
12-foot, 1,200-pound great white shark pings off coast of Florida


Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions Global Monitor and Workers Empowerment had issued a joint letter to the Hong Kong-based international apparel giant, Global Brands Group (GBG), regarding the shameless act of sudden closure of one of its main supplier factories in El Salvador, resulting in the arrears of wages, severance and benefits of 824 garment workers.
A group of workers from the Shenzhen Jasic Technology Co., Ltd. has been harassed, beaten, and arrested by management, police officers, and security guards for wanting to form a trade union. Since July 27th, the Shenzhen Government has deployed mass quantities of police officers, arrested over thirty people, including Jasic workers, students, and other factory workers.
On November 15 2017, an ongoing reading group organised by a group of university students and recent graduates in a classroom of the Guangdong University of Technology was cracked down by local police. 6 participants were seized, among which Ye Jianke and Zhang Yunfan were later locked up as criminal suspects. Zhang Yunfan was first accused of involving in "illegal business operations", but later taken under police custody in the Panyu Detention Centre for "gathering crowds to disrupt social order".
Freedom of Speech is not a crime! Release labour rights activist Liu Shaoming now!
Labour rights activist Liu Shaoming, in detention since 2015, has been indicted of "inciting subversion of state power" for publishing online memoirs of his recollections of the 1989 pro-democracy movement. His trial will be held on July 7, 2017, according to his lawyer, Wu Kuiming. Liu Shaoming faces a 5-year sentence if found guilty. The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and a number of Hong Kong based labour NGOs strongly protest the Chinese government's repression of freedom of speech and call for Liu Shaoming's immediate and unconditional release.
The past month has seen a series of protests by exploited Chinese migrant laborers in Saipan for their wages and work injury compensation. They labored on the $500 million casino project by Hong Kong-based Imperial Pacific International Holdings Limited, whose contractors included some of the biggest mainland contractors—the state-run China Metallurgical Group (MCC), Nanjing Beilida New Material System Engineering, and Suzhou Gold Mantis Construction Decoration. But they received treatment that was inhumane and illegal.


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How cybecrime came of age
Brits in rush to pull down 60,000 Google web links
100 kingpins responsible for world cybercrime
Europol head of cybercrime says borders pose challenge to police.
Only "around 100" kingpins are behind the all the world's cybercrime, according to the head of Europol's cybercrime centre, Troels Oerting.
"We roughly know who they are. If we can take them out of the equation then the rest will fall down," he said in an interview with the BBC.
"Criminals no longer come to our countries, they commit their crimes from a distance and because of this I cannot use the normal tools to catch them," he added. "I have to work with countries I am not used to working with and that scares me a bit."
Oerting believes that the majority of the cybercrime kingpins are located in the Russian-speaking world, where several large hacking incidents are thought to have originated, including the GameOver Zeus botnet that was taken down by international police over this year.
The police chief said that relations with Russian police were improving, and that he had recently travelled to Moscow to discuss four cybercrime cases that will hopefully lead to arrests and jail sentences.
In later remarks he also discussed the public debate over privacy, in criticisms similar to those made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director James Comey against Silicon Valley's improving privacy measures.
"There is confusion among the good guys on the internet between anonymity and privacy. I don't think they are the same," Oerting said. "I think that you have right to privacy but that doesn't mean that you have the right to anonymity.
"Imagine in the physical world if you were not able to open the trunk of a car if you had a suspicion that there were weapons or drugs inside… we would never accept this."
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Tony Maylam (1943-), réalisateur britannique ;
 Joëlle Garriaud-Maylam (1955-), femme politique française.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Line, one of the carpets from Ashiesh Shah's capsule collection for West Elm. The three-dimensional effect is achieved through hand-tufting and hand-cutting
Ashiesh Shah's capsule collection for West Elm is an ode to wabi-sabi
The architect and designer's first international collaboration takes him back to the roots of his creative practice
By Nivedita Jayaram Pawar
Photography by Courtesy West Elm
Architect and visual artist Ashiesh Shah has had numerous creative collaborations but the latest one with American furniture and home decor brand West Elm, to mark their entry into India, is the most significant. Apart from being his first international collab, it's also special for Shah as it took him back to 20-year-old practice of meditative drawing. The capsule collection of rugs and cushion covers is modelled on Shah's series of water-colour paintings. "I draw a lot of inspiration from art and philosophies such as wabi-sabi—finding perfection in imperfection. When West Elm approached us with the idea of a capsule collection, my first reaction was to think out of the box. But while ideating on the design and the collection, I thought, why not email the team my wabi sabi sketches that I have been working on for almost 20 years. These are meditative paintings that start as geometric explorations and end up in something completely beautiful. The team loved the idea and the synergy was quite beautiful and effortless! There's nothing like going back to your own realm rather than reinventing yourself," says Shah.
A Tale of Lines and Curves
If there were one word to define this collaboration, it would most certainly be "simplicity". The rugs have been crafted from a blend of fine cotton and wool. The minimalist design of this collection has been conceived keeping in mind the utilitarian nature of the products, something that's very important to both brands. A special piece in the collection is Curve, named for the fluidity of the curved pattern chosen for this unique creation. The refined hand-tufted workmanship gives the carpet a three-dimensional appearance. Another one titled Line is a unique patterned rug that draws its beauty from linear symmetry "The two basic forms of lines and curves is where we wanted to go with. We wanted to keep it soft, and simple, so it makes you feel at home," says Shah.
The earthy, neutral colour palette lends a touch of refined elegance and enables the range to engage a large audience. Shah wanted the carpets to be able to blend in all design schemes not as statement pieces but as great backgrounds. The stylish and versatile collection has been designed to work across different cultures since it's also available at stores across UAE, United States and Singapore. The capsule collection for West Elm also includes a line of monochromatic pillow covers which feature metallic undertones and are overlayed with velvet patterns.
Artistry at its Core
According to Shah the most special aspect of this collection is the exquisite craftsmanship and sumptuous detailing. The carpets are painstakingly handmade in Jaipur by master craftsmen. "While [the carpets] seem extremely simple it's actually very complicated. The three-dimensional effect on the rugs is achieved through the techniques of hand-tufting and hand-cutting. I wanted one to feel like they're walking on the drawing, almost like henna. You will see a little bit of imperfection in the carpet but that's the beauty of it—finding the hand of the craftsman," says Shah. The innovative dip-dyed edges create a delicate and poetic movement making each carpet a true work of art. The collection is available online as well as at West Elm's two stores in India, at Mumbai's Jio World Drive, BKC, and Ambience Mall, Gurgaon.
TopicscraftsmanshipdecorrugsWest Elm
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Meet the homegrown decor brand that is elevating everyday objects
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Cocoon Fine Rugs
This luxury carpet brand will be showcasing classical Persian and contemporary designs at Mumbai's premier art and design showcase