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Tag: Wallenberg Day
Mary Kitagawa's civil courage
Mary Kitagawa was honoured with the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Award on Jan. 20. (photo by Pat Johnson)
At a convocation ceremony at the University of British Columbia in 2012, a group of graduates stood out from the rest. Twenty-one elderly Japanese-Canadians, ranging in age from 89 to 96, were awarded honorary degrees in recognition of an historic injustice that had taken place 70 years earlier.
In the winter of early 1942, right after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour, the Government of Canada ordered all Japanese-Canadians to be relocated from the coast. This included students at UBC. For the next seven decades, the injustice went unrectified and largely unrecognized by the university until Mary Kitagawa, a community leader whose own family history was ruptured by the events of the war years, took up the cause. It was her tenacity that led the university to acknowledge and make some amends for its complicity in the injustice. It awarded honorary degrees to 96 students – most of them posthumously.
For this achievement, and others, Kitagawa was honoured with the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Award on Sunday afternoon, Jan. 20. This was the 14th annual Vancouver commemoration of Raoul Wallenberg Day, which, since 2015, has coincided with the presentation of the Civil Courage Award.
In her remarks upon receiving the award, Kitagawa reflected on the social conditions that permitted the internment of Canadians of Japanese descent.
"This happened because those in power in Canada at that time forgot that this was a democratic country, sending her men and women to war to preserve our freedom," she told a packed auditorium at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre. "The excuse they used for incarcerating us was that we were a security risk. However, if you read all the newspaper headlines of the 1930s and '40s, you will find that the B.C. politicians' hatred of Japanese-Canadians was deep and abiding. They wanted to ethnically cleanse this one small group of people from the province."
Kitagawa said that, at a January 1942 meeting in Ottawa to address "the Japanese problem," a B.C. representative declared, "The bombing of Pearl Harbour was a heaven-sent gift to the people of British Columbia to rid B.C. of Japanese economic menace forevermore."
"My family was swept away from our home in this storm of hatred," Kitagawa said. From their home on Salt Spring Island, the family was transported to Hastings Park, in East Vancouver, which served as an assembly point for dispersal to the interior of the province.
"Our journey through incarceration was brutal and dehumanizing," she said. The family was separated from her father for six months and they feared the very worst. Eventually, the family was reunited, but they were moved from place to place around the interior of British Columbia and in Alberta a dozen times during seven years of incarceration.
When the War Measures Act, under which the internment was justified, ceased its effect at the end of the war, Parliament passed successive "emergency" laws to permit the continued incarceration through 1947, and it was April 1949 before Japanese-Canadians were granted freedom of movement and permitted to return to the coast. Her father and mother, aged 55 and 50 respectively, took the family back to Salt Spring and began all over again.
"It wasn't just the material things that they lost," Kitagawa reflected. "They lost the dream for the future they had planned, their community, their opportunities, education for their children, their friends, their youth, their culture, language and heirlooms. But never – they never lost their pride nor their dignity.… My parents believed in forgiveness. Like Nelson Mandela, they believed that forgiveness liberates the soul. They refused to look back in anger. Instead, they chose to continue to move forward with the same resolve that helped them to survive their terrible experience."
In 2006, Kitagawa read in the Vancouver Sun that a federal building on Burrard Street in Vancouver was being named to honour Howard Charles Green, a longtime Conservative member of Parliament from Vancouver and a leading advocate of Japanese-Canadian internment. "Immediately, I knew that I had to have that name erased from that building. To me, no person who helped destroy my parents' dream and made them suffer so grievously was going to be so honoured."
With help from a quickly mobilized group of activists and sympathetic media coverage, Kitagawa successfully had Green's name stripped from the building, which was renamed in honour of Douglas Jung, another Conservative MP, but the first MP of Chinese-Canadian heritage.
Kitagawa also led an initiative that saw Hastings Park declared an historic site related to the internment.
In her talk on Sunday, Kitagawa emotionally credited an "unsung hero," her husband Tosh, who, among other efforts he played in supporting Kitagawa's activism, spearheaded the reprinting of the 1942 UBC yearbook to include information about the internment and biographies of the students affected. It was also through his persistence that they were able to track down the 23 living students and the families of those who had passed away.
The Civil Courage Award is presented by the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society, which was formed by members of the Swedish and Jewish communities in Vancouver.
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat and humanitarian who became Sweden's special envoy to Hungary in the summer of 1944, several months after the Nazi deportation of Hungarian Jews had begun. He issued protective passports and sheltered people in buildings that were declared to be Swedish territory, saving tens of thousands of Jews. He was taken into Soviet captivity on Jan. 17, 1945, and was never seen again.
Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who served as the vice-consul in Lithuania during the Second World War. Acting in direct violation of his orders at great risk to himself and his family, he issued transit visas that allowed approximately 6,000 Jewish people from Poland and from Lithuania to escape probable death.
The award presentation was followed by a screening of the 1995 film The War Between Us, which dramatizes the events of the Japanese-Canadian experience through the lives of a single family.
Councilor Pete Fry, Vancouver's deputy mayor, read a proclamation from the city. Consular officials from Sweden and Japan were in attendance.
Format ImagePosted on January 25, 2019 January 24, 2019 Author Pat JohnsonCategories LocalTags human rights, Mary Kitagawa, racism, UBC, Wallenberg Day, Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Award
Praise for whistleblowers
Alan Le Fevre, president of the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society, and Acting Mayor Raymond Louie, right, with the City of Vancouver's proclamation of Raoul Wallenberg Day. (photo by Masumi Kikuchi)
"If we had a society that was free from embezzlement, free of theft, free of dishonesty, free of unethical conduct, we wouldn't need whistleblowers. But, unfortunately, we are not a perfect society," said Ujjal Dosanjh in his keynote address at the 13th annual Raoul Wallenberg Day event, which was held on Jan. 14 at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre.
Dosanjh, a former federal cabinet minister, B.C. attorney general and the province's 33rd premier, was, in 2015, the inaugural recipient of the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society's Civil Courage Award. He was recognized for "his great courage in the face of escalating violence by extremists in the Indo-Canadian community that arose from conflicts that had erupted in India," said WSCCS board member Ana Policzer in her remarks on Sunday.
The society hosts the annual Wallenberg Day event and, this year, they honoured Vancouver-based lawyer Alayne Fleischmann with the Civil Courage Award.
Fleischmann was born in Terrace, B.C. She got her bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of British Columbia, her master's in international and comparative law from the Institute of International and Comparative Law, Cornell Law School and Université Paris (Sorbonne), and her juris doctor degree from Cornell. In 2006, she was working in quality control at JPMorgan Chase in New York. There, she discovered and tried to stop what she described as "massive criminal securities fraud" – mortgage operations similar to those of many other financial institutions, which led to the 2008 economic collapse. Her efforts resulted in a $9 billion fine being levied on JPMorgan Chase, but no one from the bank was ever prosecuted. She moved back to British Columbia in 2008.
In a 2014 Rolling Stone article, writer Matt Taibbi goes into great detail about Fleischmann's experiences, the difficulties she faced in bringing the truth to light and the limited impact the truth played in whatever minor justice was carried out against all the banks guilty of mortgage-related wrongdoings. In effect, Taibbi argues, the U.S. department of justice "struck a series of historic settlement deals with Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America. The root bargain in these deals was cash for secrecy. The banks paid big fines, without trials or even judges – only secret negotiations that typically ended with the public shown nothing but vague, quasi-official papers called 'statements of facts,' which were conveniently devoid of anything like actual facts."
The full Rolling Stone article can be accessed via wsccs.ca/wallenberg-days/2018. At the Wallenberg Day event, organizers screened a 2014 interview with Taibbi and Fleischmann by Democracy Now! WSCCS president Alan Le Fevre also spoke briefly about Fleischmann's actions and why she was chosen to receive the Civil Courage Award. Unfortunately, Fleischmann could not accept the award in person because of the ongoing litigation.
In his remarks, Dosanjh saluted whistleblowers. "In Canada," he said, "we don't know too many of our own heroes…. But we have them. One that we have amongst us in Canada is the honouree tonight, Alayne Fleischmann."
There are monetary costs to illegitimate or immoral actions, Dosanjh said, but such actions also "jeopardize the health, safety and well-being of the employees, the customers and the society of the institutions."
Whistleblowers like Fleischmann set out to right a wrong, he said. They are morally compelled to the point where they take the "risk of losing their careers," "being ostracized" and having rumours spread about them to "delegitimize the truth that they're trying to tell."
After such individuals come forward, he said, "life is never the same. You lose friends, you lose relationships, obviously you lose a job possibly, or you're not promoted or you're demoted…. And, sometimes, it can be dangerous physically. People have been known to be killed, at least across the border, for trying to expose the truth. Karen Silkwood comes to mind."
Dosanjh warned that whistleblowers aren't always correct, however, giving the example of eight B.C. health ministry workers who were found to have been wrongly dismissed in 2012, amid allegations of wrongdoing. "It's a risky business," he said. "You're playing with your own life but you're also playing with the lives of others you're trying to expose." So, you have to not only have the courage to speak up, he said, but the wisdom to know when to not do so, or when to investigate further before doing so.
Several audience members gave their take on corporate and government corruption in the question-and-answer period. Dosanjh said people need to get more vocal about these issues. "There is no silver bullet to deal with any particular issue," he said. "It's just a matter of becoming more active politically and raising your voices."
To an audience member who decried greed as criminal, Dosanjh said, "If you say greed is the basic urge to make more money, that shouldn't be a crime…. You want to make money, you want to work more … that's what keeps the world going…. Illegal greed should be a crime – and it already is! The fact is we're not prosecuting criminals, we're not apprehending them, we're not investigating them as much as we should, and we're falling down in some respects."
The afternoon event also included the reading by Acting Mayor Raymond Louie of the City of Vancouver proclamation of Jan. 14 as Raoul Wallenberg Day. He thanked event organizers and attendees for taking the time "to remember and to also recommit … with this ongoing effort to have a better world overall."
The WSCCS is continually "seeking to identify people who, at significant personal risk, have helped to improve or save the lives of others by going against unjust laws or conventions." For more information, visit wsccs.ca.
Format ImagePosted on January 19, 2018 January 17, 2018 Author Cynthia RamsayCategories LocalTags Alayne Fleischmann, Civil Courage Award, corruption, economics, finance, law, Ujjal Dosanjh, Wallenberg Day
A day to honor civil courage
Left to right: Andrea Reimer, Judith Guichon, Henry Grayman, Thomas Gradin, Ujjal Dosanjh and Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver. (photo by Wendy Fouks)
Ujjal Dosanjh, former premier of British Columbia and one-time federal cabinet minister, was recognized for civil courage at a ceremony at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver on Jan. 18. The event marked the annual Wallenberg Day commemoration in the city, and the award was bestowed in the name of two extraordinary individuals whose actions during the Second World War resulted in the survival of tens of thousands of European Jews.
Dosanjh is the first recipient of the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Award. In particular, Dosanjh was recognized for speaking out about political and religious violence in Canada's Sikh community – notably, a warning in 1985 that Sikh extremism in India could target Canadians. A few months later, 280 Canadians were among 329 people killed when Air India Flight 182 was bombed. More generally, Dosanjh was recognized for a lifetime of contributions to British Columbia and Canada. (See story in the Jan. 9, 2015, issue of the Independent.)
The first annual award was presented at the 10th anniversary commemoration of Wallenberg Day, which honors Raoul Wallenberg who, as a Swedish diplomat in Budapest, issued visas that saved thousands of Jews. The Soviet military entered Hungary in January 1945, and Wallenberg was detained on suspicion of subversive activities. He was never seen again. The commemoration, which was initiated by Anders Neumuller, a former honorary Swedish consul to Vancouver, is now presented by the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society, which, along with Wallenberg, commemorates Chiune Sugihara, a consular representative of Imperial Japan in Lithuania who, similar to Wallenberg, issued visas that allowed thousands of Jews to escape Nazi-occupied Europe.
Henry Grayman, president of the society, explained that it was founded in 2013 by Swedes and Jews to honor and encourage acts of civil courage like those exemplified by Sugihara and Wallenberg.
The impact of acts of civil courage was made evident by Grayman's wife, Deborah Ross-Grayman, who emceed the afternoon event. She credits her life to the war-era acts of Sugihara.
"I am the breath and the face of civil courage," she said. "My own mother, Niuta Ramm, was the recipient of such a visa…. I live each day in gratitude for what has been given to me."
She invited others in the audience whose survival could be credited to the acts of individuals like Sugihara or Wallenberg to stand, and close to a dozen people rose from their seats.
"As you see, one person can make a difference," she said.
Ujjal Dosanjh (photo by Wendy Fouks)
On stage with British Columbia's Lt.-Gov. Judith Guichon and Sweden's honorary consul to Vancouver, Thomas Gradin, Dosanjh received the award but deflected the accolades.
"I am absolutely humbled," Dosanjh said. "It's a great honor to be recognized in the names of Raoul Wallenberg and Chiune Sugihara."
In turn, he said, he accepted the recognition in the name of victims of violence in recent days at Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish supermarket in Paris. He also gave thanks to his heroes – including his grandfather, and Mahatma Gandhi, "the father of the nation I deserted to become Canadian" – and also those who have stood by him during difficult times.
"Terrorism in the name of religion is at war with us," Dosanjh said. "The venom that moves them leads them to not understand our common humanity. These infidels are not true to our common humanity."
The lieutenant-governor said Dosanjh has "devoted his life to standing firm against injustice and against violence … he's served and served."
The viceroy added that it is more important than ever to celebrate and sing the praises of heroes with at least the vigor "as that with which the deeds of villains are reported."
Deputy Mayor and Vancouver City Councilor Andrea Reimer brought greetings from the city and read a proclamation from the mayor. She urged people to take the opportunity in 2015 to prove that actions make a difference.
"We have a choice to act, or we have a choice to regret that we didn't act," she said.
In addition to Sweden's Gradin, consular representatives were also in attendance representing Japan, Switzerland and Mongolia.
After the presentation, a feature-length film was screened. The Rescuers features diplomats and government officials from diverse places whose actions saved the lives of thousands of Europe's imperiled Jews.
Pat Johnson is a Vancouver writer and principal in PRsuasiveMedia.com.
Format ImagePosted on January 30, 2015 January 29, 2015 Author Pat JohnsonCategories LocalTags Andrea Reimer, Chiune Sugihara, Deborah Ross-Grayman, Henry Grayman, Judith Guichon, Raoul Wallenberg, Ujjal Dosanjh, Wallenberg Day, Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Award
Wallenberg Day honors heroes
Left to right, Henry Ross-Grayman, Thomas Gradin and Mayor Gregor Robertson. (photo by Wendy Fouks)
There was a full house at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre for the community's marking of Wallenberg Day on Jan 19. Sponsored for the first time by the newly formed Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society, the annual event was the natural outgrowth of the placement of a plaque in Queen Elizabeth Park in 1986. It was revived at the 20th anniversary in 2006 as a cooperative effort between the then honorary Swedish consul, Anders Neumuller, and the Vancouver Second Generation Group.
Each year, the event pays tribute to courageous and heroic actions inspired by the Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, and the Japanese diplomat, Chiune Sugihara. Both men, at grave risk to themselves, their families and their future, chose to follow their own personal moral code and save the lives of large numbers of Jews during the Second World War.
Mayor of Vancouver Gregor Robertson read a proclamation naming the day "Raoul Wallenberg Day in the City of Vancouver." He said, "There are always heroes in our midst and elevating their place in society and celebrating and having discussion … is absolutely critical in a civil society."
This year, the heroism of Englishman Sir Nicholas Winton was highlighted in the movie Nicky's Family. This emotionally powerful film told the story of how Winton saved the lives of more than 600 Czech children just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The film documents how his actions have inspired young people to engage in direct acts of tikkun olam.
British Consul Rupert Potter honored Winton, saying, "I have never introduced a film to quite so full a house as this, which, I think, is testament to the content and the importance of the subject and what the film represents…."
There was an especially moving moment when members of the audience who owed their lives to the heroic actions of people such as Wallenberg, Sugihara and Winton were asked to stand. This action made the impact of these men clearly visible, showing that one person can make a profound difference in the world.
Naomi Taussig, the cantor of Temple Sholom Synagogue, spoke about the miracle of how her father and uncle were saved by Winton. She said, "Where would I be but for the actions of a single man who chose to do something when he could have done nothing at all? I feel a responsibility to live proudly as a Jew, honoring my grandparents, Emil and Irma. I try to live kindly, with compassion and intention. Nicholas himself says we must live ethically, and do whatever we can – no matter how small. We must take action rather than believe we are too insignificant to make a difference."
Deborah Ross-Grayman is a Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society committee member.
(photo by Wendy Fouks)
I, too, owe my life to the actions of a diplomat. Against the orders of his government, Sugihara gave out visas to Jews, allowing them to escape certain death and travel to Japan. My mother was a recipient of such a visa. Had she not received it, I would not be here today. Last year, I traveled to Japan and had the honor of meeting with Sugihara's granddaughter to express my deepest gratitude for the actions of her grandfather. It was a heartfelt meeting that I will remember for the rest of my days.
We need these stories to remind us of the inherent good that lives within people. We need to educate, to pay tribute, to remember and, finally, to inspire people today, as well as future generations, to act with courage and live their values in a way that contributes to the healing of the world.
The Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society is passionate about wanting to leave a legacy encouraging others to engage in behaviors inspired by Wallenberg, Sugihara and people like Winton. We are looking for people who, at significant personal risk, have helped improve or save the lives of others by going against unjust norms or conventions. Over the coming year, the names of suggested individuals who meet the criteria (including being associated with British Columbia, even if their actions may have taken place outside of the province) will be reviewed. Next year, at the annual Wallenberg Day event, we hope to present an award for civil courage to acknowledge heroic acts in today's world. For more information, contact the society at [email protected].
Deborah Ross-Grayman is an artist, writer and Sugihara survivor descendant committee member of the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society.
Format ImagePosted on January 31, 2014 April 9, 2014 Author Deborah Ross-GraymanCategories LocalTags Deborah Ross-Grayman, Gregor Robertson, Henry Ross-Grayman, Thomas Gradin, Wallenberg Day, Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society, WSCCS


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Sounding Brass and Clanking Symbols
October 31, 2014 October 31, 2014 ~ drdoyleeditorial
To a lot of readers, literary symbolism is that thing in high school English class that the teacher went on and on about instead of talking about the story. Then some of them turn into writers, and come to the understanding that literary symbolism isn't some sort of academic game of "Gotcha!" – it's just another tool in the toolbox, a way of deepening and enriching the theme of the story without having to take the reader's attention away from the plot and the setting and the characters.
Sometimes the gun over the mantelpiece literally goes off in the third act. And sometimes the gun over the mantelpiece is there to keep the reader aware of something else in the story that goes off in the third act instead. That second gun is a symbol.
There are two sorts of symbols. One sort consists of symbols drawn from several thousand years of human culture – mostly Western culture, for reasons having to do with imperialism, colonialism, the established literary and artistic canon as set forth in freshman-year survey classes, and the fact that if you're reading this blog, then English is at least one of your secondary languages. The other sort are drawn from the writer's own mind and are hand-made on purpose for a particular project: the billboard with the picture of the eyeglasses in The Great Gatsby, the scent of honeysuckle in The Sound and the Fury.
The primary risk involved in deploying the first sort of symbol is that of misunderstanding. The audience for our work grows more global every day, and there is no guarantee that the reader's load of cultural baggage is the same as the one the writer brought to the story. There's no telling what references are going to leave a non-native-English-speaker in a position similar to that of a college freshman somewhere in Iowa struggling with Crime and Punishment in translation, and having to rely on the introduction and the footnotes to make sense of the social implications of all those first names, last names, patronymics, and multiple layers of nicknames, and who calls who what when.
A secondary risk associated with the use of established cultural symbols is that they can change meaning over time, or across distance, and the world is not always kind enough to post warnings when you're going over one of those borders. A fairly dramatic case in point, of course, is the swastika, which prior to the 1930s was known in a number of world traditions as a good-luck symbol – Kipling employed it in his bookplates and on the bindings of his books until 1935, as an homage to his roots in British India, for example; it also appears in prehistoric petroglyphs (drawings and symbols on rock) in the North American Southwest. By the end of the second World War, however, the former good-luck symbol had acquired such a burden of negative association that it has been effectively desecrated for good in the minds of Western audiences. A writer coming from one of the world traditions where the swastika has retained a good portion of its former meaning is going to have a hard time making a case for its use, no matter how benign their intent may be.
For the second sort of symbol – the handmade-for-the-occasion kind – the primary risk is that of obscurity. Even a reader from the same time and place as the writer is not going to have access to the inside of the writer's head, or to the writer's private stock of significant images. The writer has to work the meaning of the symbol into the very story whose meaning the symbol is intended to explicate or reinforce, which is a task not much different from crossing a deep ravine by means of a bridge which you're building beneath you as you go across. The fact that writers do it all the time, and that readers get the intended meaning more often than not (even if they don't have the critical vocabulary to explicate it later), is in fact a tribute to the collective intelligence of all of us, writers and readers alike.
I don't have any words of wisdom about secret techniques for making this part of the writing job any easier . . . just an acknowledgement that it really is hard work, and full of pitfalls and unexploded land mines, but that it's one of the things that, if you carry it off, will give your story that sense of extra layers beneath the surface which can lift it above the other submissions in an editor's stack.
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Reblogged this on Madhouse Manor and commented:
Myself, I like to use numerological symbolism….

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Fine weather conditions this morning and it's going to be warming up further before getting cold again around Wednesday - there's even some snow on the forecast (though might be rain lower down).
Below are the planned closing dates for the still-operating ski lifts at Zao Onsen. Subject to change of course.
I will try to keep this report updated a few times a week right through until the end of the season on 6th May.


Our Mother of Confidence is honored to be hosting the 2019 Diocesan Celtic Mass and Dinner with the Irish Community of San Diego on Friday March 8th. Mass Presided by Auxiliary Bishop John Dolan at 6pm.
Reception after Mass will feature dancers from the Malone Academy of Irish Dance, live traditional music and an authentic Irish meal of Shepherd's pie, soda bread and more.
The director of Irish Outreach, Stephen Aherne, will again be inviting the Irish community from the diocese to join the fun. We are inviting Irish Priests and Sisters from around the diocese as well as those who wish they were Irish to join us.
You are invited to enjoy a taste of Ireland in what will be a fun-filled night.
Tickets: $20.00 per person can be purchased at the parish office or online below. Complimentary family-friendly beverages are included. Cash bar for wine, beer and Irish coffee.


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Print, Print ArchivesGeorgetown Journal of International Affairs October 31, 2008 AKP, allies, Burma/Myanmar, Chechnya, china, COIN, Counterinsurgency, dissidence, elections, Ethnic Minorities, European Union, gender, gender equality, globalization, human rights, Immigration, internet, Iran, iraq, Kurds, Mary robinson, media, mexico, muslim, Pakistan, political activism, Russia, Sri Lanka, taiwan, Tamil, Turkey, United States
9.2 - Dynamics of Dissent
Print, Print ArchivesGeorgetown Journal of International Affairs June 01, 2008 africa, Agricultural Development, agriculture, Algeria, alternative energy, botnets, Catholic Church, Chad, china, Christianity, Climate Change, cuba, Darfur, energy security, Estonia, former Soviet states, France, indigenous peoples, internet, iraq, islam, mental health, Middle East, monarchy, natural gas, Nicolas Sarkozy, oil, online mobs, organic, Russia, secularism, Turkey, UN, United States, universal declaration of human rights, USSR, War on Terror, welfare state
9.1 - Charting the Future of Food
Print, Print ArchivesGeorgetown Journal of International Affairs November 01, 2007 9/11, alternative energy, Arab, Asia Pacific, Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, china, cold war, crime, deterrence, former Soviet states, Gulf States, Hollywood, human rights, IMF, international migration, internet, Iran nuclear program, iraq, Khmer Rouge, Kurds, Latin America, Mao, Microfinance, Middle East, nafta, Nigeria, Nixon, nuclear diplomacy, nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear weapons, poverty, Russia, rwanda, Southeast Asia, Sustainability, Turkey, UN, United States, urbanization, USSR, water
8.2 - Megacities
Print, Print ArchivesGeorgetown Journal of International Affairs May 01, 2006 africa, African Union, AIDS, blogging, china, Costa Rica, currency, Darfur, democracy, democratization, Education, Egypt, Guinea, Hugo Chávez, ICC, india, Insurgency, iraq, islam, Kosovo, media, nanotechnology, Nepal, paramilitarism, pharmaceuticals, Richard Armitage, security, South Africa, South Korea, Southeast Asia, UN, United States, USAID, Venezuela, Violence
7.1 - Mobilizing Media
Print, Print ArchivesGeorgetown Journal of International Affairs May 01, 2005 afghanistan, arms control, china, cold war, Counterterrorism, crime, diodiplomacy, espionage, extradition, former Soviet states, heroin, Human Trafficking, iraq, nuclear proliferation, Pakistan, terrorism, UN, United States, USSR, water
6.1 - Crime Goes Global
Print, Print ArchivesGeorgetown Journal of International Affairs May 01, 2004 Cameroon, Cancun, carbon emissions, Caspian Sea, Chad, Climate Change, climate policy, constitution-making, democratization, Euro-Mediterranean, European Union, George F- Kennan, india, iraq, islam, Kuwait, McGeorge Bundy, militant, oil, Pakistan, Russia, security, sharia law, soft power, Spain, terrorism, transparency, World Bank, Zimbabwe
5.1 - Pipe Dreams? Peace, Politics, Prosperity


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NorthRiver Midstream completes buy of Enbridge's Montney midstream business
By Alaska Highway News |
Image: NorthRiver Midstream
NorthRiver Midstream announced Tuesday that it has closed its acquisition of Enbridge's midstream business in Canada.
The company now operates 19 natural gas processing plants and 3,550 kilometres of natural gas gathering pipelines across the Montney region of British Columbia and Alberta.
"With the strategic location of our operations across the Montney basin in British Columbia and Alberta, and the backing of a committed Canadian owner in Brookfield Infrastructure, NorthRiver Midstream is built on an asset base that creates a robust platform for growth," CEO Brandon Anderson said in a news release.
"NorthRiver is driven by our values and committed to building a different type of energy company. We are focused on operating responsibly, being present in communities and ensuring that we are looking at creative ways to deliver value to partners, customers and communities that are touched by our operations."
The company employs more than 700 people.
— Alaska Highway News
Enbridge declines to estimate Line 3 startup despite positive state ruling
Enbridge T-South expansion to create 300 construction jobs in B.C.
More On Pipelines & Transportation
Oil and gas industry applauds Supreme Court's dismissal of B.C. TMX case


Handmade, handpainted porcelain boxes from France continue the tradition so popular among 19th-century French society. Sleeping bear in porcelain with brass fittings and decorative brass teddy bear fasteners. Exclusively at Scully & Scully. 2 5/8"w x 1 7/8"d x 1 3/8"h.


Laborers, and Field Advisors Nationwide!
All employments opportunities are full-time with benefits (paid time off, holiday pay, medical, dental, and vision insurance and 401(k) plan with employer matching).
Foremen, Journeymen, and Laborer may be required to travel 2-3 weeks at a time.
We're Hiring Field Advisors Nationwide!
Field Advisors serve as the cornerstone to our brand as they are responsible for managing client relationships and performing service work in their respective territory.
Flexible Schedule - Enjoy managing a territory and your schedule - enabling you to best manage other personal responsibilities and commitments.
Benefits Included - Take advantage of the most competitive pay, benefits, and perks to its employees (e.g. paid time off, holiday pay, medical, dental, and vision insurance, and 401(k) plan with employer matching).
Growth Potential - Excel with a fast-growing, national company - majority of management and leadership at RoofingSource began their career as a Field Advisor.
"I am encouraged to think, act, and innovate. The office maintains an open and transparent environment that welcomes challenge as opportunity.


The snowflake is made using transparent clear glass with small pieces of clear and sparkly frit (small bits of glass) on top. The photo's don't show the truly stunning sparkle when it catches the light!
I use the best glass available from Spectrum 96. Each sheet of glass is handcut by me, so there may be a slight variation in each item, due to the nature of the glass.
Each item is designed and crafted by me in my home studio. The whole piece is fused and properly annealed in my kiln for over 12 hours, aiding strength and durability.


John Holland was a native of Kilkenny, Ireland. He was an artist who is known for his abstract painting. He emigrated to America in 1905 and lived there for the rest of his life.
John Holland was born in Kilkenny, Ireland in 1882. He moved to Cork City at the age of 19 to study at what is now the CIT Crawford College Art and Design. Holland emigrated to the United States at the age of twenty four where he joined the army. He served in the United States Marines until his discharge in 1909.
Following discharge Holland travelled widely and worked at various jobs. During his time travelling he undertook further training in art at the San Francisco Art Institute, California from 1911 to 1913. He also did art training in Portland, Oregon and Chicago. He settled in San Francisco in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression.
During the Depression era Holland lived and worked in a building called the Montgomery Block. The Montgomery Block was the first fireproof and earthquake resistant building in San Francisco. The building, which was referred to locally as the 'Monkey Block', was home to many artists and writers. (It is now the location of the Transamerica Pyramid). Holland lived there whilst working for the Federal Art Project. The Federal Art Project was the visual arts arm of the Great Depression-era New Deal Works Progress Administration.
Holland was an abstract painter known for such paintings as 'Bird Fanciers' which he painted in 1945. A watercolour painting called 'Trees, Golden Gate Park' was recently discovered. It is described as having significant historical value and was given a monetary value of $1,200. Holland died of a heart attack in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco at the age of 65 on June 3rd 1947.
John Holland was born in the year 1882 On This Day.
John Steinbeck was an award winning author who was a native of the United States of America. His novels, which are described as social novels are generally set in the state of California. Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.
John Ernst Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in February 1902. He was of German, English, and Irish descent. He enrolled in Stanford University in 1919 but dropped out to write. While writing he also worked as a manual labourer.
Steinbeck's most notable works include Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. In 1940 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath. It is the story of a dispossessed family's migration from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression. Steinbeck died in New York City on December 20th 1968.
John Steinbeck was born in the year 1902 On This Day.


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How NC Cities WorkCurrently selected
City, Town or Village?
In North Carolina, cities, towns and villages are incorporated municipalities, which means that the North Carolina General Assembly (or, in a few cases, a former state agency known as the Municipal Board of Control) has granted a charter authorizing the establishment of a municipal corporation (government) and outlining the powers, authority and responsibilities of the municipal government. Some of these are specified in the charter and some are authorized by state statutes.
The charter designates whether a municipality will be known as a city, a town or a village. There is no legal difference in the designations. It is a matter of the preferences of the residents. There are cities of 1,000 residents, and towns with populations greater than 100,000.
There are 552 municipalities in North Carolina and 100 counties - these are the general purpose local governments. In addition, there are some special districts providing particular services such as water and sewer services.
Throughout the state, there are many unincorporated areas or communities, but these are not towns, cities or villages.
How North Carolina Municipalities Work
North Carolina municipalities - cities, towns and villages - operate under charters granted by the General Assembly and have powers and authorities granted to them by state statutes and the state constitution. In this state, municipalities do not have home rule, which means that the state legislature must grant the powers and authority to municipalities and authorize them to perform certain functions.
Municipalities are established to protect the citizens and provide residents of a particular area with urban type services. Examples are water, sewer, police, streets, transportation, recreation, garbage collection and recycling, land use planning and fire protection. These are all typical but not required municipal services. The individual city or town determines which services it will provide, based on local circumstances. Only a few services are mandated by state or federal law. If a city or town chooses to provide a service however, it must meet whatever state and federal requirements exist for that service. For example, if a city chooses to provide water service, it must meet all the applicable state and federal water quality standards.
An elected board – called the city or town council, the board of commissioners or the board of aldermen – is the governing body in each N.C. municipality. The number of members on the board, method of election and whether they represent districts or hold at-large seats are determined by the municipal charter.
The form of government also is set forth in the municipal charter; there are two major forms and one variation. The first form is mayor-council, where there is not a manager. The mayor and the council, acting together, make decisions about services, revenues and expenditures. All personnel come under the board with this form of government.
A variation on this form is the mayor-council with an administrator. A board usually hires an administrator when the daily operations become too much for the elected officials to oversee.
With the other major form of government, the council-manager form, the mayor and council set policy and hire a manager to implement their policies. A manager has specified statutory authority, including hiring and firing of employees. Typically, the council also hires the attorney directly and sometimes the clerk.
North Carolina mayors do not have veto power over council actions (with the exception of one city where the mayor has limited veto power). The mayor may or may not vote on matters before the council, again depending on the charter.
Governing boards may organize themselves in various ways; most have committees that make recommendations to the full board.
Municipal budgets. One of the major responsibilities of every municipal governing board is to adopt the annual municipal budget, which determines what services will be provided and at what level. The board must set the municipal property tax rate when it adopts is annual budget. By law, all North Carolina budgets must be balanced, and there is a state agency that provides oversight over municipal finances.
Municipal revenues and expenditures. The major sources of municipal revenues are the ad valorem property tax and local option sales taxes. User fees for services, such as water and sewer, support the infrastructure, operational and maintenance costs of the systems themselves.