text:
Home University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses Page 76
Babies without borders: exploring perceptions of international adoption
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Immigration to the US, The children's aid society. (n.d.). Harvard University Library:
Open Collections Program. Retrieved March 27, 2011, from
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/cas.html
Intercountry adoption. (n.d.). Office of children's issues. Retrieved December 1, 2010,
from http://adoption.state.gov/news/total_chart.html
International adoptions in decline. (n.d.). TIME.com. Retrieved March 26, 2011, from
http://www.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,1893321,00.html
International forum. (n.d.). Holt International Adoption Agency. Retrieved October 27,
2011, from
http://www.holtinternational.org/conference/internationalForum/sponsors.shtml
International adoption: Lessons learned from Romania. (n.d.). Comeunity Parenting
Support. Retrieved March 27, 2011, from
http://www.comeunity.com/adoption/Groza-crow.html
Justin, R. G. (n.d.). World War II orphans. Jewish Magazine. Retrieved November 26,
2011, from http://www.jewishmag.com/82mag/bronxkids/bronxkids.htm
Levine, B. (2000, June 21). For orphans of the forgotten war, the past is shrouded in
questions. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 3, 2010, from
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jun/21/news/cl-43067
Lim, L. (2007, April 23). Cases of forced abortions surface in china. NPR: National
Public Radio. Retrieved December 1, 2010, from
Mary Ellen Wilson's story. (n.d.). Steps to HOPE, Polk County NC Domestic Violence
and Sexual Assault Prevention and Treatment Center. Retrieved March 26, 2011,
from http://www.stepstohope.org/womens%20history%20month.html
Mayne, J. D. (1899). Adoption in India. Journal of the Society of Comparative
Legislation, 237-239.
McCarthy, T. (2000, October 7). Stolen generation. Time Magazine. Retrieved December
12, 2010, from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998067-
2,00.html
McCreery-Bunkers, K., Groza, V., & Lauer, D. P. (2009). International adoption and
child protection in Guatemala. International Social Work, 52(5), 649-660.
Title Babies without borders: exploring perceptions of international adoption
Author Roberts, Nicole Marie
Author email n.roberts@ymail.com; simplynicolemarie@yahoo.com
Degree Master of Arts
Document type Thesis
Degree program Strategic Public Relations
School Annenberg School for Communication
Advisor (committee chair) Floto, Jennifer D.
Advisor (committee member) Lynch, Brenda
Thorson, Kjerstin
Abstract International adoption is an incredibly complex and hotly debated issue. In an effort to understand the roots of the system, the author delves deep into the history of adoption and the transition to international adoption in the United States while examining the perceptions of the system today.; Using public relations techniques, the author offers communication-based recommendations that will help mitigate any stigma so that international adoptions continue without the negative undertones that are often associated with the idea of adopting from another country.
Keyword adoption; international adoption
Geographic subject (country) USA; Greece; Korea; Vietnam; Guatemala; Romania; USSR; China
Rights Roberts, Nicole Marie
Filename etd-Roberts-4524
Archival file uscthesesreloadpub_Volume26/etd-Roberts-4524.pdf
Title Page 76
Full text 64 Immigration to the US, The children's aid society. (n.d.). Harvard University Library: Open Collections Program. Retrieved March 27, 2011, from http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/cas.html Intercountry adoption. (n.d.). Office of children's issues. Retrieved December 1, 2010, from http://adoption.state.gov/news/total_chart.html International adoptions in decline. (n.d.). TIME.com. Retrieved March 26, 2011, from http://www.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,1893321,00.html International forum. (n.d.). Holt International Adoption Agency. Retrieved October 27, 2011, from http://www.holtinternational.org/conference/internationalForum/sponsors.shtml International adoption: Lessons learned from Romania. (n.d.). Comeunity Parenting Support. Retrieved March 27, 2011, from http://www.comeunity.com/adoption/Groza-crow.html Justin, R. G. (n.d.). World War II orphans. Jewish Magazine. Retrieved November 26, 2011, from http://www.jewishmag.com/82mag/bronxkids/bronxkids.htm Levine, B. (2000, June 21). For orphans of the forgotten war, the past is shrouded in questions. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 3, 2010, from http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jun/21/news/cl-43067 Lim, L. (2007, April 23). Cases of forced abortions surface in china. NPR: National Public Radio. Retrieved December 1, 2010, from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9766870 Mary Ellen Wilson's story. (n.d.). Steps to HOPE, Polk County NC Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention and Treatment Center. Retrieved March 26, 2011, from http://www.stepstohope.org/womens%20history%20month.html Mayne, J. D. (1899). Adoption in India. Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation, 237-239. McCarthy, T. (2000, October 7). Stolen generation. Time Magazine. Retrieved December 12, 2010, from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998067- 2,00.html McCreery-Bunkers, K., Groza, V., & Lauer, D. P. (2009). International adoption and child protection in Guatemala. International Social Work, 52(5), 649-660.
Babies without borders: exploring perceptions of...


text:
Snapshot: Neighborhood Resilience in Kashmir
Photos by Avani Rai
Text by Parshati Dutta & Avani Rai
Nothing is ordinary for people who live in the most heavily militarized place on Earth. We have seen life in Kashmir for more than four years, and have seen how loss is embedded in everyday life: children denied education because their schools are open only four months of the year; farmers lamenting the loss of their livelihood because trade channels are routinely curtailed; youth losing hope as their friends are blinded by pellet bullets during street protests; and mothers in a constant state of mourning their missing and murdered sons.
Still nothing could have prepared one for what has happened in recent months in Kashmir, including 25–27 September 2019, when these images were shot. Since the Indian government revoked the autonomy of the region and imposed an unprecedented communication blackout, more than 13,000 teenagers have been detained by security forces. Girls and women wait outside police stations everyday hoping and praying that they will be reunited with their loved ones, knowing that as many as 10,000 Kashmiris were forcibly disappeared under unknown circumstances since 1989. Public services and institutions are of no help. In some cases they have become agents of the occupation. Fire stations and hospitals can't be contacted in the absence of active telephone networks, and fire trucks can't make their way through cordoned streets. When people do make it to hospitals, they do so warily knowing that they now serve as extended pick-up points for security forces. Conflict isn't even acknowledged as death certificates are written without specifying the cause of death.
Amidst this suffering, Kashmiris are taking their destiny into their own hands. The struggle for freedom in Kashmir is now synonymous with the struggle for survival. The latest trauma has washed away overnight any signs of weakening resistance and resignation in the Valley, replacing it instead with a desperate, blazing resilience. This is particularly evident in Anchar, which is located in Soura, a suburb of Srinagar city.
Pellet victims are treated within their neighborhoods by volunteers with basic first-aid knowhow. Taking cues from decades of occupation, boys and young men aged between twelve and twenty-nine dig trenches and fashion fortresses made of concertina, wire mesh, logs, pipes, and asbestos sheets to protect their villages and homes. They rotate in their guard duties between midnight and morning. The women help by plying them with tea throughout the night and by breaking stones and bricks into pelt size. If the resistance of the boys and young men gives way, an army of young girls emerge banging their fists against rolled down iron shutters of shops and go-downs, alerting the neighborhood and calling them to defend the street in a matter of seconds.
The international community may be silent or complicit, but Kashmiris are rising. As Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Imran Khan spoke before the United Nations General Assembly last week, the people of Kashmir took to the streets and spoke too.
A Kashmiri woman in Maisuma, Srinigar holds a photograph of her only son, who was detained under the Public Safety Act. She explained that the exact same report was used to detain her son previously for two years. The only change was to the date of the document.
An elderly man watches the protest while sitting by a wall. The graffiti celebrates Pakistan, a common trope used to defy Indian authority. Still, Azadi (freedom from oppression) remains the ultimate goal.
A woman sits amidst a pile of rubble that used to be her home. It was razed by two hours of raging fire during the middle of the night. Despite being approximately six-minutes away, the communication blockade meant the local fire station did not know about the fire.
Many neighborhoods residents fortify themselves against Indian security forces by building Nakas, barricades constructed with concertina, wire mesh, logs, pipes, and asbestos sheets.
The barricades are guarded all night, as most security raids take place then. Boys from every household volunteer to take these night shifts.
Male protestors wear masks and remain within their guarded neighborhoods as drones hover above to identify men for subsequent detention.
Women also take to the streets. In the absence of a comparable women's security personnel, women can still protest with some degree of safety. These women march even as reports emerge of a woman from Anchar having been detained for nearly six hours at a police station. She was released only after an angry crowd gathered and demanded her release.
Young boys form their own protest.
Residents rally peacefully on the night of 26 September. With India's Modi and Pakistan's Khan set to address the United Nations in the next twenty-four hours, there is an apparent lull in brutal enforcement of government-imposed curfew.
A former target of the "non-lethal" pellet guns that Indian security forces used to quell protests in Kashmir is undeterred. He joins other protesters on his wheelchair.
A crowd gathers on the lawn of the mosque in Anchar. Young girls watch from the window, as others begin to mobilize for another protest that will follow the Friday prayers.
On the eve of Indian Prime Minister Modi's United Nations address, women pray at the mosque in Anchar and make du'a for international deliverance.
Friday, October 04, 2019 - 4:29:23 AM

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text:
Aimee Garcia
The year is 2028 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Overseas, their drones have been used by the military for ...
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller, Sci-Fi
Actor: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley, Michael Kenneth Williams, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Samuel L. Jackson, Aimee Garcia, Douglas Urbanski, John Paul Ruttan, Patrick Garrow, K.C. Collins
A Lot Like Love
On a flight from Los Angeles to New York, Oliver and Emily make a connection, only to decide that they are poorly suited to be ...
Actor: Amanda Peet, Ashton Kutcher, Taryn Manning, Aimee Garcia, Lee Garlington, Birdie M. Hale, Tyrone Giordano, Melissa van der Schyff, Theresa Spruill, James Read, Molly Cheek, Sarah Ann Morris, Gabriel Mann, Kathryn Hahn, Ali Larter
The crook Ray Elliot, whose former partner Jack is under a five-million-dollar contract, believes in statistics and runs a risk assessment and managing business; actually ...
Country: USA, Netherlands
Actor: Jerry O'Connell, Jon Polito, Deborah Kara Unger, Steve Coogan, Ken Kerman, Aimee Garcia, Yasmine Delawari, Mary Pat Gleason, Rebecca Romijn, Henry Rollins, Sergio Bruna, Selma Blair, Jim Cody Williams, Sam Elliott, James Brolin
Lucifer is distracted by his mother's escape from hell, as he and Chloe investigate the murder of a stand-in actress. Meanwhile, Chloe's faith in Lucifer ...
Genre: Crime, Drama, Fantasy
Actor: Tom Ellis, Lauren German, Kevin Alejandro, D.B. Woodside, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Tricia Helfer, Aimee Garcia, Scarlett Estevez, Rachael Harris, Rusty Schwimmer, Jessica Sula, Jeremiah Birkett, James R. Swalm, Charles Edward Bae, Raylene Harewood
Rush Hour Season 1
Detective Carter, a radical LAPD detective and Detective Lee, a by-the-book detective from Hong Kong, are forced to form an unlikely partnership.
Actor: Justin Hires, Jon Foo, Aimee Garcia, Page Kennedy, Jessika Van, Wendie Malick, Henry Ian Cusick, Maurice Compte, Leon Lee, George Cheung, Dan Donohue, Betsy Baker, Hal Devi, Kirk Fox, Steele Gagnon
Dexter Season 8
It's now 6 months since Captain LaGuerta's death. Dexter is still working as a blood spatter expert but Deb has quit the force and is ...
Genre: Mystery, Drama, Thriller, Crime
Actor: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Desmond Harrington, C.S. Lee, David Zayas, Aimee Garcia, Geoff Pierson, James Remar, Charlotte Rampling, Sean Patrick Flanery, Rhys Coiro, Jadon Wells, Dana L. Wilson, Nick Gomez, Nadège August
Having been caught in the act of eliminating Travis Marshall by his sister Deb, Dexter has to scramble to come up with an explanation. Deb ...
Actor: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Desmond Harrington, C.S. Lee, Lauren Luna Vélez, David Zayas, James Remar, Ray Stevenson, Aimee Garcia, Billy Brown, Josh Cooke, Jason Gedrick, Enver Gjokaj, Savannah Paige Rae, Evan George Kruntchev
Life for Dexter is returning to normal. He's taking care of his son with the help of Angel Batista's sister Jamie. He dispatches two EMTs ...
Actor: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Desmond Harrington, C.S. Lee, Lauren Luna Vélez, David Zayas, James Remar, Colin Hanks, Edward James Olmos, Geoff Pierson, Aimee Garcia, John Brotherton, Kristen Miller, Michael Hyatt, Brea Grant
Lies and Alibis
Four best friends, about to graduate from high school, must find a way to raise money to help a family member in need. When one ...
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Crime
Actor: Catherine L. Albers, Adam Arkin, Greg Benson, Alice Eisner, Jarid Faubel, Aimee Garcia, Robert Haley, Brandon Hanson, Tommy Lafitte, Huey Lewis, Chris Lowell, Shannon Lucio, Chris Marquette, Blake Baxendell, Jennifer Massey
After the Reality
The life of a contestant on a 'Bachelorette' style reality show is thrown into turmoil when the sudden death of his father forces him to ...
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Family
Actor: Matthew Morrison, Sarah Chalke, Jon Dore, Laura Bell Bundy, Juan Pablo Di Pace, Isaiah Mustafa, Tony Cavalero, Aimee Garcia, Jane Lynch, John Heard, Michael Fairman, Katy Jacoby, Max Gecowets, Nathaniel Fuller, Floyd Van Buskirk
Cadet Kelly
As the clumsiest, most clueless cadet to enter George Washington Military Academy, Kelly seems to be fighting an uphill battle to fit in. But it's ...
Actor: Hilary Duff, Christy Carlson Romano, Gary Cole, Shawn Ashmore, Aimee Garcia, Linda Kash, Nigel Hamer, Sarah Gadon, Andrea Lewis, Joe Matheson, Beverlee Buzon, Dalene Irvine, Avery Saltzman, Christopher Tai, Josh Wittig
Dragon Wars: D-War
Based on the Korean legend, unknown creatures will return and devastate the planet. Reporter Ethan Kendrick is called in to investigate the matter, and he ...
Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
Actor: Jason Behr, Amanda Brooks, Robert Forster, Craig Robinson, Aimee Garcia, Chris Mulkey, John Ales, Elizabeth Peña, Billy Gardell, Holmes Osborne, NiCole Robinson, Geoff Pierson, Cody Arens, Kevin Breznahan, Jody Carlson
Lucifer Morningstar has decided he's had enough of being the dutiful servant in Hell and decides to spend some time on Earth to better understand ...
Actor: Tom Ellis, Lauren German, Kevin Alejandro, D.B. Woodside, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Scarlett Estevez, Rachael Harris, Aimee Garcia, Tricia Helfer


text:
Home/Hot Topics/Situation in Syria and Iraq/Israeli tanks reportedly fire shells towards Quneitra province in Syria
Israeli tanks reportedly fire shells towards Quneitra province in Syria
by Tasnim News
Image: abc.net.au
A number of shells were reportedly fired by the Israeli regime's tanks towards the Quneitra Province in southwest Syria.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA)'s reported late Wednesday that the tank shells had fallen near Quneitra's al-Horriah Village.
"Explosions were heard in the area," the report said.
The attack was carried out as Israeli helicopters were seen loitering overhead, it added.
Syria and the Israeli regime are technically at war since the latter has been occupying the Arab country's Golan Heights since 1967, when the regime launched its second major war against regional Arab nations.
The regime uses the hugely strategic plateau to launch recurrent attacks against the Syrian soil.
Most recently, the regime attacked Latakia, the country's biggest port city, which lies in its northwest with missiles last Tuesday, prompting Syria's air defenses to confront the projectiles.
Tel Aviv claims that its attacks target alleged supplies that are headed for the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah. On countless occasions, though, the strikes have targeted the reinforcement belonging to Syria's military and its allies.
Tasnim News
israel syria
Gazprom and Turkey's BOTAŞ signed 4-years gas supply agreement
Five countries assume responsibilities as non-permanent members of the UN Security Council


Working with Outback Deck was a pleasure. The crew was courteous and always cleaned up at the end of each day. The deck they built for us was top notch and we look forward to enjoying it for years to come! Thank you Outback Deck - I will be happy to refer you out at my every opportunity. Federico, Chris, and entire crew were exceptional.


text:
Q: React Memo still rerenders on state update I am wondering why the console.log({ routes }) is outputting on a search useState update without the search having filtered the data. I have memoized and useCallbacked things.
import { memo, useCallback, useMemo, useState } from 'react'

import * as stations from './stations.json'
import './App.css';

const StyledContainer = {
  "cursor": "pointer",
  "display": "flex",
  "flex-direction": "row"
}

const StyledSegment = {
  "justify-content": "space-between",
  "text-align": "left",
  "width": "33.3%"
}

const baseUrl = 'https://api.wheresthefuckingtrain.com/by-id'

const StationComponent = (fetchSchedule, s) => {
  const { id, location, name, routes = false, stops } = s

  console.log({ routes }) // THIS RERENDERS

  return (

 { fetchSchedule(id) }}>

{name}

{location}

      {routes && routes.N.length > 0 &&
North
{routes.N.map(({ route, time }, idx) =>
Route: {route}

{new Date(time).toLocaleTimeString()}
)}

}
      {routes && routes.N.length > 0 &&
South
{routes.S.map(({ route, time }, idx) =>
Route: {route}

{new Date(time).toLocaleTimeString()}
)}

}

  )
}

const MemoizedStationComponent = memo(StationComponent)

function App() {
  const [filteredStationData, setFilteredStationData] = useState(stations)
  const [search, setSearch] = useState() // station name
  const [stationData, setStationData] = useState(stations)

  console.log({stations})

  const fetchSchedule = useCallback(async (id) => {
    const res = await fetch(`${baseUrl}/${id}`, { method: 'get' })
    const json = await res.json()

    console.log("apiCall")

    const copyStationData = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(stations))
    copyStationData[id].routes = json.data[0]

    setStationData(copyStationData)
  })

  const filterStations = useCallback(() => {
    const filteredStations = Object.values(stationData).filter((s) => s.name.includes(search))
    setFilteredStationData(filteredStations)
  })

  return (

        <input placeholder="Name" onChange={(e) => { setSearch(e.target.value) }} /><button onClick={() => { filterStations() }}>Search</button>

          {Object.values(filteredStationData).map(s => <MemoizedStationComponent fetchSchedule={fetchSchedule} s={s} />)}

  );
}

export default App;

A: Few points:

*

*You haven't provided dependencies to useCallback.

Pass an inline callback and an array of dependencies. useCallback will
return a memoized version of the callback that only changes if one of
the dependencies has changed. This is useful when passing callbacks to
optimized child components that rely on reference equality to prevent
unnecessary renders (e.g. shouldComponentUpdate).

*

*Also I notice you haven't passed keys here: <MemoizedStationComponent fetchSchedule={fetchSchedule} s={s} />
; this can become problematic (you should have received warning), and you can end up in corrupt state etc., if the elements of the array which you are mapping can reorder for example.

*And general note, if you pass an object as prop to memoized component, make sure it is not recreated on each render, or it will break memoization.

A: Just add dependencies for useCallback to prevent unnecessary re-renders of your station component.
const fetchSchedule = useCallback(async (id) => {
  const res = await fetch(`${baseUrl}/${id}`, { method: 'get' })
  const json = await res.json()

  console.log("apiCall")

  const copyStationData = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(stations))
  copyStationData[id].routes = json.data[0]

  setStationData(copyStationData)
}, [stations])

const filterStations = useCallback(() => {
  const filteredStations = Object.values(stationData).filter((s) => s.name.includes(search))
  setFilteredStationData(filteredStations)
}, [search])

Now each time your stations or search value is changed. Your component will re-render.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Борборема ()  —  муниципалитет в Бразилии, входит в штат Параиба.

Составная часть мезорегиона Сельскохозяйственный район штата Параиба. Входит в экономико-статистический  микрорегион Брежу-Параибану. Население составляет 5134 человека на 2006 год. Занимает площадь 25,984 км². Плотность населения — 197,6 чел./км².

Статистика
 Валовой внутренний продукт на 2003 составляет 20.366.321,00 реалов (данные: Бразильский институт географии и статистики).
 Валовой внутренний продукт на душу населения на 2003 составляет 4.116,07 реалов (данные: Бразильский институт географии и статистики).
 Индекс развития человеческого потенциала на 2000 составляет 0,600 (данные: Программа развития ООН).

Муниципалитеты штата Параиба

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text:
What Happened to Salvador Dali's Grave?
You will never believe it.
There is very strange news that involves legendary 20th century artist Salvador Dali. Maria Pilar Abel Martinez, a tarot card reader, claims to be his daughter. Therefore, Dali's grave located in north-eastern Spain, was dug up in order to settle paternity suit, and samples were taken from his corpse to see if they match the woman's DNA.
The fortune teller says her mother, Antonia, had had an affair with the surrealist painter back in the 50s, when he had been already married to his wife Elena Diakonova, aka Gala, for 20 years. It was Martinez's mother and paternal grandmother who told her that Dali was her real father. According to Martinez, her grandmother told her: "I love you a lot but I know that you're not the daughter of my son. What's more, I know who your father is - he is Salvador Dalí".
However, experts are questioning the paternity claim, and here's why: Ian Gibson, a biographer of Dali, said in his writings that the Spanish artist claimed to be sterile, and that therefore, there was no way that Martinez could be his biological daughter. "Dalí always boasted: 'I'm impotent, you've got to be impotent to be a great painter'," said the biographer. The case is still ongoing.
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All You Need To Know About Miss World 2017
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Daniella Rahme has a new position in politics


text:
By: Rosie Fletcher
Adrift Movie Review
Written by Rosie Fletcher
Film released by Pathé
Directed by Hans Horn
Written by Dave Mitchell and Adam Kreutner
Susan May Pratt as Amy
Richard Speight Jr. as James
Niklaus Lange as Zach
Ali Hillis as Lauren
Cameron Richardson as Michelle
Eric Dane as Dan
Amy is afraid of the water, but when three of her old school friends plan a reunion on a yacht, she's willing to try to overcome her fear. Accompanied by her husband and baby daughter, and her good friend Dan's vapid girlfriend Michelle, the group begin to "party down", until an act of carelessness leaves the six adults stuck in the middle of the ocean, miles from anywhere, and unable to get back on the boat. With no means of getting help, they're faced with a mental and physical endurance test - one that has no guarantee of a happy ending.
What we have here is a horror/thriller with no antagonist. This is a survival horror about "people against the environment" where the environment is neutral. The Blair Witch Project, Wolf Creek and Open Water have given us situations where the environment is as significant as any monster. But all these films had tangible opponents of one sort or another as well: Blair Witch had the Witch herself; Wolf Creek the deeply unpleasant Mick Taylor and Open Water had its sharks. But, with the possible exception of Mick, had the protagonists not first been lost in the woods/outback/ocean these opponents would have been utterly impotent.
A film with no antagonist, other than the neutral vastness of the world, is an interesting progression. It seems like the natural next step in a new order of ultra-realistic horror, exploring fears of being out of our depth both physically and metaphorically. All these films involve young, confident, successful, white, middle class people. They are big fish in small ponds, searching for adventure in the world and finding themselves in situations beyond their control. Six people bobbing up and down in the ocean without a shark in sight could be something brave and terrifying.
What a pity, then, that Adrift takes this fresh idea and resorts to the worst kind of clichés in its dialogue, characters and plot. You'd be forgiven for not noticing this was a fresh idea at all.
Without any external antagonist, the director seems to have decided the real bad guy is the characters' stupidity. If you can get over the original belief-stretching set up, you're faced with a range of excruciating moments throughout the film. At one point, through freak good fortune, the six manage to get hold of a mobile phone from the deck of the boat, with working battery and reception. Having failed to realise that hanging up and calling the police would be more useful than trying to shout over someone on the line singing Happy Birthday, they pitch the phone into the sea in frustration. My ability to care what happened to these people plunged into the ocean with it. The idea of spending time with six such intensely unlikeable characters is certainly a scary one.
I'm reluctant to blame the actors for creating such a flat, two dimensional set of characters, but the script writer must stand up and be counted when the dialogue they have to work with include lines like:
"How're you feeling?"
"I'm cold."
"Well, we are at sea."
This is the kind of script that could have been written by a computer programme: six irritating stereotypes fall off a boat and discuss God.
There isn't a scrap of originality or bravery here; no point at which Adrift had the confidence to let the audience imagine themselves in that situation or to truly grasp the hugeness of the surroundings (which Open Water managed admirably). There's nothing to be afraid of here, and not a single character you wouldn't happily throw overboard yourself.
In fairness, I will say the sound and camera work is quite nice at some points: Amy going overboard is the most effective - and affecting - scene in the film. It's enhanced by the distorted sound, the slow motion and Amy's point of view shots.
Similarly, some of the scenes shot upwards from underwater work well - they encourage you to expect some sort of attack, while also giving you added perspective of how much expanse there is below. It's not enough, though. The hints of talent guiltily peeping through the mire, like an elegant toe poking through an old sock, only serve to remind you how disappointing the film is.
On IMDB you'll find Adrift listed with the alternative title of Open Water 2, and there's no doubt the earlier film laid tracks for this movie. As German director Hans Horn said: "When a film about two people bobbing up and down in the ocean and getting nibbled by some sharks turned into a success, my story's chances were better than ever...". While there are certainly similarities, it's the differences that are more significant - different characters, different location, different writer and director and released by two different distributors (Open Water was released by Lionsgate). The biggest difference, though, is that Open Water was good.
Video, Audio and Special Features:
This was a cinema screening so picture, sound and extras will not be rated.
Video: n/a
Audio: n/a
Features: n/a
Want to comment on this review? Head over to the Horror DNA Review Forum.


text:
Utopia Achieved: Call Me by Your Name
By Christopher Sharrett.
I've kept in mind Luca Guadagnino since his 2009 film I Am Love, which made such good use of both Visconti and Renoir while creating a work wholly Guadagnino's own. I was less impressed with A Bigger Splash (2015), which seemed to me a work poorly thought-through (Tilda Swinton as a stadium-style rock star?) at various levels, with obnoxious set-pieces, like Ralph Fiennes hopping through a palatial house to a Rolling Stones song (not one of their best), used, bizarrely, in the film's trailers. Call Me by Your Name affirms the director's importance – if it does leave a few questions.
Elio Perlman (Timothee Chalamet) is a Jewish-American boy on summer vacation with his family in a beautiful chateau in Lombardy. His father (Michael Stuhlbarg) is an art historian, pursuing research into Praxiteles, whose nude sculptures (or copies of them created at various points of antiquity) seem to come to him, washing up obligingly on the shore. The point is key. The film's credits are seen against images of the sculptures, and the archetypal Grecian urn. The collage ultimately contains modern objects, including a typewriter. The glory of the distant past, with its spontaneous attitude (if we aren't romanticizing) toward sex, is melded to the present. Praxiteles is regarded as the greatest sculptor of antiquity, whose focus was the idealized nude human form; he is reportedly the first to sculpt the female nude. So the balm of culture (including Bach and other composers – we hear Elio playing the piano) is significant to the narrative, reminding us what heals civilization. Culture is a discussion topic, making it alive and relevant – with some of the better elements of pop culture incorporated.
Prof. Perlman has hired another American, a graduate student named Oliver (Armie Hammer, whose charisma is revealed after disasters like The Lone Ranger, 2013, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., 2015) to assist him with his archeological finds. Like the father, Oliver is an accomplished scholar, able to offer quick lessons in etymology that make the professor smile.
Oliver and Elio, slowly, tentatively, begin an erotic relationship. Oliver might be seen an enabling (in the early sense of the word) "stranger" within the group, like Terence Stamp in Teorema (1968), although his presence is wholly benevolent. He wears a little Star of David on a thin chain; unlike the Perlmans, whose Jewishness is revealed when they think it appropriate, Oliver is proud of his heritage (he is an Adonis, tall, blonde, and handsome, who could easily "pass" in the gentile world, making his choice all the more courageous). The Perlman parents quickly become aware of the gay relationship between their son and Oliver, and are wholly accepting. This, like much else in the film, seems improbable; we are offered a vision of what might exist rather than what exists today. The point seems clear if we contrast the film's images to the source novel by Andre Aciman, conceived as a memoir.
Oliver and Elio casually stroll about the enthralling Lombardy countryside in shorts, stopping in empty, sun-baked towns for knick-knacks, Elio giving Oliver lessons on local history as Oliver awakens Elio sexually. There is a sense of the antique towns, there for centuries, embracing the two. At some moments, images recall De Chirico, minus any metaphysical dread. The two swim in ancient stone pools, almost turning into the images being retrieved by the professor. Oliver is completely open to the human body; when Elio ejaculates into a peach, Oliver tastes his semen, making Elio cringe. The moment recalls a scene in The Doom Generation (1995), when Xavier shows his two partners that nothing about the body is "gross." Indeed, Araki's film is relevant to Guadagnino's. Araki's film is part of his "teenage apocalypse" cycle, while Guadagnino's is the last installment of his Desire Trilogy (including the two films mentioned earlier – I can accept I Am Love, not the other). Araki can see no future for young people in current American civilization, while Guadagnino can posit one (if on another continent). There is another element connecting these films. Both films posit, Araki far more assertively than Guadagnino, that sexual revolt must be understood with a political-economic context. The violence that ends The Doom Generation takes place within the wittily articulated hellscape of post-industrial America, with evidence of decay in everything from convenience stores to ugly highways trimmed with big-box monopolies. Guadagnino locates his story in 1983, in the center of the terrible reaction of Reagan-Thatcher-Kohl, but as they play out their romance, the protagonists of Call Me by Your Name seem unaware of the problems in front of them. But then, Guadagnino creates a sealed world outside of time. There are allusions in the film (World War I) suggesting the narrative's awareness of the struggles that are always present, but it turns away from them. There is one element of the time period that is palpable: it is still the age before cybernetics took over: no cell phones, no laptops, and the like. In other words, the world still allows peace of mind, and people get on quite well. The quiet of the moment is the first necessity of Guadagnino's idea of utopia.
The total acceptance by the parents seems a bit much even given that they are intellectuals; they even encourage the two to take a weekend vacation together (isn't everything in their world a vacation?). Michael Stuhlbarg's professor is rather mealy-mouthed, making his consolations only moderately convincing, especially when he tells his son of his own gay liasons. Obviously the director wants to avoid a patriarchal figure, but a bit more assertiveness from the father would have made his moments more persuasive.
There is a female character named Marzia (Esther Garrel) who has a crush on Elio. They too have sex, but Oliver is uppermost in Elio's mind. It is to the film's credit that this utopia is bisexual, with Marzia brought back near the denouement rather that abandoned. Oliver returns to America, leaving Elio pining. Oliver is engaged to a woman, and Elio will perhaps marry Marzia, creating another problem within the narrative. The film ends in black-and-white winter, suggesting doomsday. But does it endorse the idea that the bisexual person must necessarily opt for bourgeois marriage and the family, making the gay relationship a distant memory?
The film assumes that money is unnecessary, or that we all have it. The Perlmans might rent rather than own their chateau; either way, costs are no object. The love affair takes place against the mise-en-scene of the voluptuous if disheveled house, recalling the director's interest in the decadence of Visconti, although that director's focus (in his late films) was on the decay of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. We also have the stereotypical servants who seem very content to be in the fringes. An old groundskeeper, complete with wheelbarrow and shovel, acts a little like a chorus in a few scenes, chuckling at the intellectual conversations of Oliver and the Perlmans, finally nodding at them approvingly.
Still, this film is a relief during the "holiday season" flood of cinematic effluvia. It merits close reading. It takes one's mind off of Trump (for a moment), the Golden Globe Awards, Oprah for President, missiles flying across the pacific, wars raging everywhere, and everything else threatening to our minds and persons.
Christopher Sharrett is a Contributing Editor for Film International. He has taught film for many years at Seton Hall University.
Unlovely Spectacle: D.A. Miller on Call Me By Your Name
6 thoughts on "Utopia Achieved: Call Me by Your Name"
Robert Lang says:
Excellent critique of the film, Christopher, with which I agree completely in every detail. I'm interested in the movie's overwhelming current of nostalgia. When you write: "But does it endorse the idea that the bisexual person must necessarily opt for bourgeois marriage and the family, making the gay relationship a distant memory?" I am reminded of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and your very fine piece about that movie. Desire in these films, it seems to me — homosexual desire — is utopian and always nostalgic. (The visit of the gay couple in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME is very interesting here. I think the father calls them "ridiculous," and his description of them as "gay " almost sounds like a put-down — as if homosexual desire can only be made "beautiful" if it is fleeting or doomed.)
The film clearly — if unconsciously — is responding to the awfulness of our Trump-era present. The Perlman family is pretty much the opposite of everything represented by Donald Trump and his supporters. If one of the problems of the movie is its soft-centeredness — its lack of a proper villain — it is because the villain is outside the movie, in our historical, present moment. I think the film does try for some gravitas, by making the family (and Oliver) Jewish — after all, the destruction of Western culture — the best of its music and art and refinement of aesthetic sensibility — is no small thing. And they're not just any Jews — they're like (as I remember them) the Finzi-Continis in De Sica's film. "Nous sommes tous des Juifs!," the film seems to be saying, as we face the horror of what is happening to/in American culture. They're not a decadent family, like Visconti's Essenbecks in The Damned (or rotting before our very eyes, like Aschenbach in Death in Venice) — but they are cosmopolitan and intellectual: the opposite of Trump and his "America First" philosophy.
Christopher Sharrett says:
Thanks, Robert. I think the film is an assertion of life against death, in Norman O. Brown's formula–which is the first and most important thing we need in these awful times. Still, I wonder if the family is too self-satisfied and comfortable, outside the horrors of the present ….
Robert K Lightning says:
Very illuminating ruminations on this film. (I found particularly intriguing your reference to Araki).
I don't, however, agree that Elio might one day marry Marzia, a possibility that contradicts the evidence of mutual maturation (in what is, after all, a bildungsroman) contained in their mutual agreement to remain friends "for life": both have accepted the impossibility of a relationship .
Further evidence of Elio's personal growth (in his case, his acceptance of his gayness) is provided at the conclusion, which (I think) is best read as an inversion of all that has preceded. In contrast to the self-serious youth who (initially) refused to dance (in the wonderful dance scene) and was immersed in serious music, Elio now breaks into a spontaneous dance when he returns home, his dance moves implying that he is probably listening to pop music on his walkman. He is also more neatly dressed and coiffed, suggesting a greater desire to arouse sexual interest in others. (His encounter with his mother in the kitchen further suggests that the family more fully embraces its Jewishness).
All of which (dance, pop music, style) are culturally recognizable (if, granted, oversimplified) signs of gayness. If Elio is now more like the free-spirited Oliver, the structuring device of inversion applies equally to Oliver, his decision to marry implying his inability to follow the path Elio has (by implication) chosen. Coincidentally, Call Me by Your Name (inversion again) takes place at nearly the same historical moment where Brokeback Mountain concludes, suggesting that the early 1980s is becoming recognized as a transitional period for gay culture. If there are parallels between the two films, Elio has at the conclusion become Jack Twist and Oliver is a potential Ennis Del Mar.
Intelligent remarks, but the penultimate snowbound final shots, and the last image of a lonely, forlorn Elio, don't bode too well for his sexual awakening (the family setting the table in the background). The bildungsroman is constrained, with hero worship of Oliver informing his trajectory. You give me thoughts.
David Greven says:
I love this piece and its valuable observations, Christopher. I am with Robert K. Lightning's reading, though, of the ending. The long lingering credits sequence close up of Elio at the end is cathartic, a working through of his agonized feelings of longing and a glimpsing of new and as yet unrealized possibilities, ones foreclosed by Oliver, still fixated by nostalgia ("I remember everything.") but having chosen conformity and convention. I derive this reading both from the amazing final shot and Chalamet's seismically articulate performance.
I can't argue, David. Very supple, perceptive observations.
Autumn Sonata (1978)
Things I Don't Understand (2012)
Trick and Treat: Penny Lane's Hail Satan?
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Q: Scroll effect || Scroll div with browser window scroll I have a question, how to make effect with scroll, where you scroll, but you scrolling only one part of page, for example look here : https://www.apple.com/lae/apple-music/
-- Scrolling in iPhone

A: The easiest way is to use a library like http://scrollmagic.io/
Here's the documentation: http://scrollmagic.io/docs/index.html


Instagram has just begun rolling out a significant change to its mobile advertising platform.
The popular photo- and video-sharing company has announced that it has extended the maximum duration of video ads on its platform to 60 seconds.
Instagram originally launched video ads in 2013 with a maximum length of only 15 seconds, the same duration allowed for videos posted by regular users. But the Facebook-owned company doubled that to 30 seconds when it expanded its advertising business to more countries worldwide in September.
And now, Instagram has once again doubled the maximum video ad duration, this time to a full minute.
As noted by TechCrunch, one of the first advertisers to take advantage of the longer duration is T-Mobile, which is now running a special 60-second Instagram version of its 30-second Super Bowl commercial starring the popular rapper Drake. Another is Warner Bros., which is set to run a 60-second ad for its new film "How to Be Single," starring Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson, on Instagram.
The move to extend video ads to a full minute is expected to make Instagram's platform more appealing to advertisers by giving them more flexibility. Of course, it's part of the continuing monetization efforts of Facebook, which acquired Instagram in 2012 for about $1 billion.
With more than 400 million active users, Instagram is easily one of the world's largest mobile ad platforms. And Facebook of late has been tapping it in earnest, with a recent report noting that the number of ads showing up on Instagram has increased significantly in recent months.
Small wonder, then, that some users (including our own Bryan Wolfe) have been longing for a paid ad-free version of Instagram or perhaps an in-app purchase for opting out of ads in the app. But then again, either is very unlikely given that Instagram's ad platform could eventually be a $5 billion per year business.


We'll continue with the ads we are used to seeing outside. Some said that ads on the bus or in the handle have really refreshed them, and they have never thought that ads can be so funny and interesting. And now we are presenting the most innovative billboard ads from the world, which will amuse you, as always.


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Black Rain label is een in 1998/1999 opgericht Duits platenlabel dat zich voornamelijk richt op het gothic scene. Bands die getekend hebben zitten voornamelijk in de EBM, darkelectro, industrial en het avant-garde genre.

Vanwege haar tienjarig bestaan deed zij in 2009 een toer door Europa. Op 27 februari 2009 deden ze Utrecht aan.

Naam
De naam Black Rain (Zwarte regen) moet meer als metafoor worden gezien dan als gewoon een samenstelling van zwart en regen. Het is een ongewoon zware ondoordringbare regen die alles beïnvloedt en waaraan men zich niet onttrekken kan.

Sublabel
Het platenlabel heeft diverse sublabels zoals Noitekk, Ars Musica Diffundére en Firezone Records.

Bands

Externe link
http://www.blackrain.de

Duits platenlabel
Duits mediabedrijf
Electronic body music


The 6.3 Acre Tract is located within the growth corridor of light industrial properties in Corpus Christi. The property is ideal for small light industrial park or any light industrial usage. All utilities are at or near the site.
Cultivated acreage in the Tuloso/ Corpus Christi area. Could be used for multiple purposes from Commercial/Industrial to multi family development with over 400 feet of frontage on Leopard for maximum exposure. Great location for storage units or keep as leased farmland.
+/- 4.7 acres of commercially zoned land located in the heart of Flour Bluff...at Waldron & Lakeside. Approximately 480 feet of frontage on Waldron Road, a high traffic area.
Prime Commercial location - 29.6 acres at Greenwood and Gollihar - owner may be willing to divide. Corner location, high traffic, with a mix of both residential and commercial surrounding the property. Large open property in a busy area centrally located.
Two commercial lots on the island, prime location! Combined lots are over an acre, heavy traffic area, near the beach, Schlitterbahn, and shopping.
Large tract of land offering frontage on two major thoroughfares - Crosstown Expressway and Ayers Street. Excellent exposure and accessibility. Utilities are available, but site must be platted before building at minimal cost. City may require water line to be looped but otherwise, platting costs should be inexpensive and easily done. Land lends itself to retail development or apartment complex or industrial office/whse service center or mixed use subdividing the land. Seller will not subdivide.
Currently under ag cultivation. Wastewater, Stormwater, water, electric at front of land. Platting cost should be minimal since all utilities on site. ? 333 FF along Hwy 44; ? 1,050 Ft. depth. Several new industrial companies building along Hwy 44 which leads to Robstown - Baker Hughes, Superior Petroleum Services, CC Crane, Weatherford, US Customs, L&H Distributors, etc.
A - 22,755 SF site zoned as Professional Office District with all utilities available at platted site. Triangular in shape with 120' width at the base.
Large tract of land in the path of growth, offering frontage on two major thoroughfares, Crosstown Expressway (TX 286) and Holly Road, both with high car counts. This property also has frontage on Greenwood Drive, Silverberry Drive and Ayers Street. Excellent exposure and accessibility. CG-2 Zoning of the land, lends itself to retail development, apartment complex, medical facilities and/or possible warehouse use. Numerous opportunities. Owners will subdivide.


For the latest edition of this study (released April 2, 2014), please click here.
Since 2000, state and local burdens have increased from 9.3 percent to 9.9 percent. During the 2010 fiscal year, however, burdens remained fairly stable, only decreasing slightly from their 2009 levels.
In 2010, the residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut paid the highest state-local tax burdens in the nation. These are the only three states where resident taxpayers forego over 12 percent of income in state and local taxes.
Residents of Alaska, who have consistently been the least taxed state for nearly three decades, again paid the lowest percentage of income in 2010 at just 7.0 percent. The next lowest-taxed states were South Dakota, Tennessee, and Louisiana.
State-local tax burdens are very close to one another and slight changes in taxes or income can translate to seemingly dramatic shifts in rank. For example, the 20 mid-ranked states, ranging from Oregon (16th) to North Dakota (35th) only differ in burden by just over one percent.
While some studies aim to tally the total revenues collected from state and local governments, this study moves the focus from the tax collector to the taxpayer by focusing on tax burdens.
Elizabeth Malm is an Economist at the Tax Foundation and Gerald Prante is a Tax Foundation Adjunct Scholar.
For nearly two decades the Tax Foundation has published an estimate of the combined state and local tax burden shouldered by the residents of each of the fifty states. For each state, we compute this measure of tax burden by totaling the amount of state and local taxes paid by state residents to both their own and other governments and then divide these totals by each state's total income. We not only make this calculation for the most recent year, but also for earlier years due to the fact that income and tax revenue data are periodically revised by government agencies.
Our goal here is to move the focus from the tax collector to the taxpayer. We aim to find what percentage of state income residents are paying in state and local taxes and whether those taxes are paid to their own state or to others. We are not attempting to find the amount of money state and local governments have collected; the Census Bureau publishes the definitive comparative data answering that question.
When Connecticut residents work in New York City and pay income tax to both the state and the city, the Census Bureau will tally those amounts as New York tax collections, but we will count them as part of the tax burden of Connecticut's residents.
When Illinois and Massachusetts residents own second homes in nearby Wisconsin or Maine, local governments in Wisconsin and Maine will tally those property tax collections, but we will shift those payments back to the states of the taxpayers.
When people all over the country vacation in Disney World or Las Vegas, tax collectors will tally the receipts from lodging, rental car, restaurant, and general sales taxes in Florida and Nevada, but we will count those payments in the states where the vacationers live.
Every state's economic activity is different, as is every state's tax code. As a result, each varies in their ability to "export their tax burden"—that is, to collect revenue from nonresidents. Economists have been studying this phenomenon since at least the 1960s when Charles McLure (1967) estimated that states were extracting between 15 and 35 percent of their tax revenue from nonresidents.
Much of this interstate tax collecting occurs through no special effort by state and local legislators or tax collectors. Tourists spend as they travel and all those transactions are taxed. People who own property out of state pay property tax out of state. And the burden of business taxes is borne by the employees, shareholders, and customers of those businesses wherever they may live.
Many states, however, make a conscious effort to levy taxes specifically on nonresidents, and that effort seems to be accelerating. In fact, many campaigns for tax-raising legislation in the last several years have explicitly advertised the ability to push the burden of a certain tax onto non-voting, nonresident payers as a reason for resident voters to accept the tax.
This beggar-thy-neighbor effort has been mostly legislative, exemplified by a wave of tax hikes on tourism: hotel rooms, rental cars, restaurant meals, and local sales taxes in resort areas. States and localities have also targeted nonresidents with higher property taxes and, in rare cases, higher income taxes. The effort to utilize nonresidents has also been administrative, as departments of revenue have pursued nonresident income tax revenues from individuals and corporations with far more zeal than in years past.
In some cases, the tax exporting is a wash from the tax collector's perspective. That is, a state collects the same amount from nonresidents as its own residents pay to out-of-state governments. But in many cases there is a significant difference—some states are able to collect a significant portion of revenues from out-of-state taxpayers.
By tallying tax payments in the taxpayers' home states, this report allows policymakers, researchers, the media, and citizens to go beyond a mere measure of collections to the question of which states' residents are most burdened by all state and local taxes.
The state-local tax burdens of each of the fifty states' residents are quite close to one another. This is logical considering state and local governments fund similar activities such as public education, transportation, prison systems, and health programs, often under the same federal mandates. Furthermore, tax competition between states can often make dramatic differences in the level of taxation between similar, nearby states unsustainable in the long run.
Therefore, it is not surprising that slight changes in taxes or income can translate to seemingly dramatic shifts in rank. For example, the twenty mid-ranked states, ranging from Oregon (16th) to North Dakota (35th), only differ in burden by just over one percentage point. However, while burdens are tightly clustered in the center of the distribution, states at the top or bottom can have substantially higher or lower burdens.
Notes: As a unique state-local entity, D.C. is not included in rankings, but the figure in parentheses shows where it would rank. The local portions of tax collection figures for fiscal year 2010 rely on projections of local government tax revenue.
Sources: Tax Foundation calculations using data from multiple sources, primarily Census Bureau, Rockefeller Institute, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Council on State Taxation, and Travel Industry Association.
In fiscal year 2010, the residents of three states stand above the rest, paying the highest state-local tax burdens in the country: New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. These are the only states where taxpayers forego over 12 percent of their income in state-local taxes, over a full percentage point above the next highest state, California.
New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have occupied the top three spots on the list since 2005. This may be partially attributed to high levels of state expenditure which must be sustained by high levels of revenue. Further, in the case of Connecticut and New Jersey, relatively high tax payments to out-of-state governments add to already high in-state payments. This is likely related to the fact that these are high income states that pay high levels of capital gains. High levels of capital gains will result in residents paying an increased share of other states' business taxes.
New York residents paid the most at 12.8 percent of income. Next on the list are New Jersey and Connecticut, where residents paid 12.4 and 12.3 percent respectively. Rounding out the top ten in highest state-local burdens are California, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maine, and Pennsylvania.
Alaska consistently has the lowest tax burden in the nation, where state residents paid just 7.0 percent in 2010. The next lowest state, South Dakota, saw residents paying over half a percentage point higher at 7.6 percent of state income. The rest of the bottom ten states are Tennessee, Louisiana, Wyoming, Texas, New Hampshire, Alabama, Nevada, and South Carolina, with residents of these states paying between 7.7 and 8.4 percent of income. See Table 1 and Figure 1 for percentages and rankings for all fifty states.
The last decade saw a steady growth in average tax burdens, from 9.3 percent in 2000 to 9.9 percent in 2009. Average tax burdens fell a very small amount in 2010 (0.006 percentage points). A majority of state residents' tax burdens decreased. The most pronounced drops in burdens between 2009 and 2010 occurred in Delaware (decrease of 0.7 percentage points), North Dakota (decrease of 0.5 percentage points), and Louisiana (decrease of 0.5 percentage points). Delaware's relatively large decrease moved it significantly down the rankings list, from the 17th highest to the 31st highest burden. North Dakotans also saw a drop in tax burden, from 30th to 35th.
Residents of some states, however, saw increases in their state-local burden. The largest increases were in Alaska, Colorado, and Hawaii. Resident tax burdens in these states rose by 0.5, 0.4, and 0.3 percent, respectively. For Alaska, this did not result in any change in ranking. Colorado's ranking worsened, rising from 39th to 32nd. Hawaii's rank worsened from 18th to 14th.
Some states are able to shift significant portions of their tax burdens to nonresidents. Alaska provides the best example. It is able to export over 75 percent of its tax collections to residents of other states. According to the Census Bureau, Alaska's state and local tax collections are among the nation's highest. If those tax collections are compared directly to Alaskans' income, the burden appears much higher than in many other states. We argue that this is not an accurate measure of the true tax burden faced by Alaskan taxpayers.
Alaskans pay no state-level tax on income and face no state-level sales tax (though there is a local option sales tax with rates that can range from 1 to 7 percent). But Alaska does have a special, prodigious source of revenue: severance taxes on oil extraction. In fact, Alaska is able to raise over 70 percent of its revenue from taxes on oil extraction, and the state's residents actually receive checks at tax time from a reserve fund of billions in oil tax revenue.
The burden of Alaska's oil taxes does not fall predominantly on Alaska residents. This study assumes that much of the economic burden of these taxes falls not on Alaskans but rather on consumers of oil and oil-based products across the country in the form of higher prices. Therefore, to correctly portray how low the Alaskan residents' tax burden is, we allocate Alaska's oil severance tax to other U.S. states based on oil and gas consumption. Once this allocation is made, Alaskans' tax burden falls from among the nation's highest to the lowest. Taxes levied on mineral extraction in other states have similar but less dramatic effects.
Resource-rich states, such as Alaska and Wyoming, are only the most dramatic examples of tax exporting. Major tourist destinations like Nevada and Florida are able to lower the residents' burden by taxing tourists, who are often nonresidents. Nationwide, over a quarter of all state and local taxes are collected from nonresidents. As a result, the residents of all states pay surprisingly high shares of their total tax burdens out of state. Table 2 includes the per capita dollar amounts of income and tax that are divided to compute each state's burden as well as the breakdown of in-state and out-of-state payments.
An interesting observation is that there is no tax on wage income in six of the eight lowest-taxed states. Similarly, Nevada (42nd), South Dakota (49th), and Wyoming (46th) do without a corporate income tax. Further, Alaska (50th) has no state-level sales taxes, though it does allow local governments to levy a sales tax. While this is an interesting correlation, it does not answer the question of whether levying fewer types of taxes leads to lower tax burdens, or whether a political demand for lower taxes leads to fewer types of taxes being levied. Also worth considering is the possibility that opting to not levy a personal income tax causes a state to rely more on other forms of taxation that might be more exportable.
Not every state with a significant amount of nonresident income uses it to lighten the tax load of its own residents. Maine and Vermont have the largest shares of vacation homes in the country, and they collect a large fraction of their property tax revenue on those properties, mostly from residents of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and other New England states. Despite this, Maine and Vermont still rank ninth and thirteenth highest in this study. Sales tax in the District of Columbia is another example—a significant portion is paid by residents of Virginia and Maryland who work within Washington, D.C. and pay the city's sales and meals taxes.
Another important factor that affects a state's ability to impose its tax burden onto nonresidents is the question of who ultimately bears the economic burden of taxes on businesses. Businesses bear the legal burden of business taxes, but the ultimate economic burden of the tax is passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices, to employees in the form of lower wages, and to shareholders in the form of smaller returns. In this study, we assume that the majority of business taxes are borne by consumers, though some are borne by shareholders and workers. In many cases, a substantial fraction of those who bear the burden are nonresidents.
Finally, some states have large numbers of residents employed out of state who pay individual income taxes to the states where they work. When a metropolitan area attracts workers from nearby states, a large portion of wage income in a state can be earned by border-crossing commuters. On the other hand, some states have reciprocity agreements in which they tax their own residents regardless of where they work. In cases of lopsided commuting, however, states rarely pass up the chance to collect from nonresidents.
In addition to allocating severance taxes to other states, this study also allocates taxes on corporate income, commercial and residential property, tourism, and nonresident personal income away from the state of collection to the state of the taxpayers' residences.
Despite the importance of nonresident collections and the increasing efforts to boost them, the driving force behind a state's long-term rise or fall in the tax burden rankings is usually internal and most often a result of deliberate policy choices regarding tax and spending levels.
Nationally, average state-local tax burdens have fallen from 10.3 percent to 9.9 percent since 1977. Burdens, on average, have risen from 2000 to 2009, followed by a very slight decrease in 2010.
Some states' taxpayers are paying the same share of their income now as they were three decades ago, but some have paid steadily more and others less. The tax burden in every state changes as years pass for a variety of reasons, including changes in tax law, state economies, and population. Further, changes both within and outside of the state can impact tax burdens. See Tables 3 and 4 for historical trends in burdens and rankings.
Note: The local portions of tax collection figures for fiscal year 2010 rely on projections of local government tax revenue.
Once again, Alaska is the extreme example. Before the Trans-Alaska Pipeline system was finished in 1977, taxpayers in Alaska paid 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes. By 1980, with oil tax revenue pouring in, Alaska repealed its personal income tax and started sending out checks to residents instead. The tax burden plummeted, and now Alaskans are the least taxed, with a burden of only 7.0 percent. Other states that have seen significant decreases in burdens are described below.
North Dakotans' burden has fallen from 11.5 percent to 8.9 percent. Its burden was even lower in 2005, at 8.3 percent, but it has risen in the last few years and now ranks 35th.
The District of Columbia has experienced a burden decrease of 2.3 percentage points since 1977, when its ranking was 7th. In 2010, its burden has dropped to 9.3 percent from its 1977 level of 11.5 percent.
Arizona taxpayers have seen a decrease of 1.9 percentage points from 1977 to 2010, moving the state from 18th to 40th in ranking over this period of time.
Connecticut taxpayers' burden has risen 2.3 percentage points, from 11.0 percent in 1977 (13th highest at that time) to 12.3 percent in 2010, putting the state in third place.
Indiana taxpayers have seen their burden rise from 8.5 percent to 9.6 percent since 1977, and their state now ranks 23th.
Ohio taxpayers' burden has risen from 8.8 in 1977 to 9.7 in 2010, which has increased its ranking from 40th to 20th.
Total tax revenues have remained fairly stable from 2009 to 2010, recovering from a sharp decrease in the previous year due to the peak of the nationwide economic recession. As a result of the shrinking economy, state and local tax collections took a significant hit in 2009. Corporate income tax collections are often the most volatile revenue source, and 2010 was no exception: corporate income tax revenues fell by 6.8 percent between 2009 and 2010.
Revenue from almost all sources fell in 2010 with the exception of property tax revenue, which grew by 4.2 percent. Individual income tax revenue and sales tax revenue also decreased, falling by 3.8 and 0.5 percent, respectively. The only other time since 1977 that total tax collections have fallen is 2002. Following that contraction in revenue, state and local officials enjoyed annual revenue growth between 7 percent and 9 percent for four years until 2008 when revenue growth slowed significantly to 3.6 percent. The 2009 revenue crash was a shock to those state and local officials who had come to expect 8 percent annual growth in revenues. See Table 5 for recent trends in revenue growth.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Tax Foundation calculations.
When measuring the burden imposed on a given state's residents by all state and local taxes, one cannot merely look to collections figures for the governments located within state borders. There is a significant amount of tax shifting across states, and this shifting is not uniform. Further, this shifting should not be ignored when attempting to understand the burden faced by taxpayers within a state.
This study is not an endorsement of policies that attempt to export tax burdens. From the perspectives of the economy and political efficiency, states can create myriad problems when they purposefully shift tax burdens to residents of other jurisdictions. This study attempts to quantify the amount of shifting that occurs and understand how it affects the distribution of state and local tax burdens across states.
The state and local tax burden estimates for the 2010 fiscal year presented in this paper use the most recent data available as of September 2012 from the Census Bureau and August 2012 from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. For all major tax and income categories, data was available on a state-by-state basis through the end of fiscal year 2010.
Each year, state and local governments and federal agencies publish more complete data on public finances, and each year, the Tax Foundation improves its estimates of the state-local burden in each state by quantifying more precisely the portion of the tax burden that goes into the coffers of other state and local governments. For this reason, the entire historical series of state-local burden estimates is revised each year.
Our geographic determination of who bears the tax burden is similar to the work done by such organizations as the Congressional Budget Office and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, which measures tax burdens by income group. In both cases, researchers start with official data on who wrote checks for how much but then attempt to account for how those legal payers shift the burden to others—possibly to others in other income groups or geographic areas.
Why shouldn't tax collections reported by state and local governments and published by the Census Bureau's Government Finances Division be compared to income to determine the tax burden? We argue that it is important to note that a taxpayer's true tax burden must include the substantial taxes they pay directly or indirectly to out-of-state governments.
Notes: As a unique state-local entity, D.C. is not included in rankings, but the figure in parentheses shows where it would rank. The local portions of tax collection figures for fiscal year 2010 rely on projections of local government tax revenue. The figures presented here as the "FTA Method" are calculations by the Tax Foundation using 2010 data or projections thereof, replicating the methodology that the Federation of Tax Administrators uses each year to calculate each state's tax burden.
The tax burden estimates include those items defined as a state and local tax by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which is essentially equivalent to the Census Bureau's definition of a tax (codes T01, T09, etc.) plus special assessments. Note that this includes licenses such as occupational and business licenses and motor vehicle licenses. The time frame for the estimates is the standard state fiscal year of July 1 through June 30. Data from the few states that use a different fiscal calendar have been adjusted to the standard fiscal year.
No measure of the tax burden is perfect. Our tax exporting estimates do not account for the federal deductibility of state and local taxes paid within the federal individual and corporate tax codes. Essentially, payers of high state and local taxes get a large deduction on their federal tax returns, and that money is then made up with payments from people who have a small state-local tax deduction. This disproportionately favors high-income individuals because of the progressivity of the federal individual income tax.
Another component of an ideal tax burden study would be compliance costs and economic efficiency losses. Neither is included here. Further, the tax burden estimates presented here do not weigh the value of the government services provided with tax revenue. This is the norm in such studies. No organization that regularly estimates tax burdens at either the federal or state-local level attempts to account for the compliance and economic costs (i.e. deadweight loss or excess burden) of taxation or the value of government services provided that are financed by those tax dollars.
The definition of income used in this study is a hybrid between the Bureau of Economic Analysis's calculation of "personal income" and the income concept used by the Congressional Budget Office in its annual "Effective Federal Tax Rates" study.
The income measure used here adds to personal income the following: capital gains realizations, pension and life insurance distributions, corporate income taxes paid, and taxes on production and imports less subsidies. It subtracts from personal income the nonfungible portion of Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the estimated Medicare benefits that are provided via supplementary contributions (the same for veterans' life insurance). This measure also subtracts the initial contributions to pension income and life insurance from employers, as well as the annual investment income of life insurance carriers and pensions (much of which is imputed by BEA) that is included in personal income.
Note that some small fraction of income is still double-counted over a lifetime, most notably the contributions of individual employees to pension and life insurance funds. There is also a timing problem with respect to the corporate income taxes paid and the fact that capital gains realizations are used as opposed to retained earnings (accrued capital gains). In this study, due to systematic movements across geographies over life cycles (e.g., Arizona, Florida, etc.) and the fact that we are only looking at state and local taxes where the corporate income tax is relatively minor, we use capital gains realizations.
For more methodological discussion, see Tax Foundation Working Paper No. 4, at www.taxfoundation.org/files/wp4.pdf.
 Unless otherwise noted, all years refer to the time period corresponding to the standard state fiscal year (July 1 through June 30), even in those states that follow a nonstandard fiscal year.
 The average local sales tax rate in Alaska is 1.79 percent. See Scott Drenkard, State and Local Sales Taxes at Midyear 2012, Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 323 (July 31, 2012), https://taxfoundation.org/article/state-and-local-sales-taxes-midyear-2012.
 The District of Columbia is prohibited by Congress from taxing the wages of nonresident commuters.
 Gerald Prante, Tax Foundation State and Local Tax Burden Estimates for 2008: An In-Depth Analysis and Methodological Overview, Tax Foundation Working Paper No. 4 (Aug. 2008), http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/wp4.pdf.


The Azanian Sea: In Defense of True Religion: A Response to "Universal Validity of All Religions"
In Defense of True Religion: A Response to "Universal Validity of All Religions"
This is meant to be a response to Shaykh Nuh Hah Mim Keller's "On the validity of all religions in the thought of ibn Al-'Arabi and Emir 'Abd al-Qadir: a letter to `Abd al-Matin". It is not a point-by-point rebuttal, but a recasting of the debate itself. I decided to write such a response after reading and discussing with a number of Muslims about other spiritual paths to truth, and finding out that in many cases Muslims made ignorant claims about other religions without fully understanding them; this despite the fact that these same people would constantly bring attention to how Muslim thought and theology was distorted and misunderstood.
I also feel there has been a lot of abusive language, hostility and fitna directed towards those who claim to be "perennialists" within the Muslim tradition. Those who are inclined can easily find a lot of good web resources on perennialism. The basic belief of perennialists is that all religions have within them a path to the truth that is valid and acceptable. Notice that the perennialists do not believe that all roads lead to the truth. Muslim perennialists remain within the Islamic spiritual tradition and use its resources to work towards higher spiritual truths and common ground with other religions.
Let me begin by speaking of the respect I hold for the teaching of Shaykh Nuh. His commitment and dedication to the path of tasawwuf is evident, as is his erudition in the Islamic sciences. However, I believe that on the issue of the validity of other religions, his evidence is insufficient to support his conclusion. In what follows I will try to show how, using several different avenues of proof. I will be appealing to 1) Human intellect 2) Human humility—i.e. The limited knowledge we possess of the world and 3) The highest values in Islam itself.
Let us first examine what Shaykh Nuh's refutation of the universal validity of other religions rests on. Shaykh Nuh writes, "As for the abrogation of all religions by Islam, many of us know Muslims who believe the opposite of orthodox Islam, perhaps due to a literary and intellectual environment in which any and every notion about this world and the next can be expressed, in which novelty is highly valued, and in which tradition has little authority." This is essentially an argument from tradition; Shaykh Nuh claims that many of todays Muslims are unfit to judge this issue because they have been too corrupted by an 'anything goes' argument in the West. It is important to note that this is not an argument at all, but a subtle suggestion that those Muslims who hold this belief (perennialism) are really not Muslims at all, or somehow weak in their faith. It is important to note this because the article is filled with such reliance on the unreliability of personal experience.
Notwithstanding Shaykh Nuh's dismissal, the perennialists understanding of Islam and other religions is quite sophisticated—recognizing that in order obtain the truths of a particular religious path, one had to follow the dicates of its religious law. Their view is hardly anti-orthodox! Yet Shaykh Nuh, arguing from tradition, claims that perennialists are not advancing insights into Islamic spirituality based on spiritual realization, but rather using their personal ideas of Islam as an element to fit into their own private worldview. This argument like the others in the essay, rests on tradition. It asks: "who are these guys to question centuries of scholarship?" Shaykh Nuh, without analyzing their ideas at all, or bothering to quote from them, dismisses them as self-indulgent crackpots. This is hardly a compelling rebuttal! Shaykh Nuh's burning question—who are you to question tradition?—can and should be vigorously answered: "They, like me, were residents of their contemporary reality, with an unprecedented access to knowledge of other religions and the freedom to search and ask questions that was denied to many previous generations. They like me, and like the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) valued spiritual searching free from persecution, exile, imprisonment or execution or dogmatic statements of spiritual reality.
There can be no doubt that orthodoxy exists, and that there is good reason to pay attention to it and to engage with its arguments. But orthodoxy is not the same as Islam, and the guardians of orthodoxy are not necessarily the guardians of Islam. To Shaykh Nuh's question of "why should the universal validity of religions be accepted?" I would argue that in addition to being the most epistemologically compelling position for rational thinkers, it is urgently needed to prevent 1) inflated self conceptions of nationalistic righteousness and 2) The persecution and abuse of minority religious communities in contemporary Muslim countries (Bahai in Pakistan, Shia in Saudia Arabia, Christians in Egypt). In what follows I assume a compelling link between acceptance of different beliefs within a tradition and accepting the validity of other religions. I also assume that tolerance is an inadequate social value for intellectual engagement with the other. By acceptance I mean a basic validation that other religions are the embodied historical practices of other human beings with their own 'truths', and that believers from those religions deserve our respect, love and attention to as great a degree as we would show to a Muslim brother or sister.
The first point needs little introduction. One need only witness the acrimonious infighting of the Companions in the hundred years after the Prophet's death to understand the danger of refusing to coexist in the presence of massive doctrinal disagreements. The second point has also been well-documented, though it is typically either morally dodged as having "nothing to do with Islam" (it has everything to do with a nationalistic view of Islam) or justified because these communities are unbelievers, disloyal or subversive. (the role of modern Western nationalism in contributing to these ideas cannot be underestimated either, a point missed by many "capture the state for Islam" arguments).
Finally, in what follows I want to argue against the idea, perpetuated by Shaykh Nuh, that religions can be divided into hermetically sealed units whereby Islam and Muslims can be easily identitied by correct belief or a laundry list of traits. I want to argue against a prevailing form of religious nationalism all too prevalent in contemporary Islamic discourse. Such nationalism is ultimately self defeating in the struggle for truth and justice. Islam is not a nation oversweeping the globe, but a series of embodied interpretations of the legacy of a prophetic reformer, who saw himself as bringing the monotheistic message to a community previously deprived of revelation.
Islam, if it is truly a universal religion (and not merely some kind of glorified nationalism), cannot elevate to universality every value from its tribal origins (the cultural context which the law and rulings of Prophet Muhammad were largely rooted in). Islam, if it is to be universal, cannot be a tribe or nation. Yet far too many Muslims treat Islam as some form of nationalism. Examples of this are too numerous to cite here, and need not concern us. I am concerned that if the ultimate intention of the Prophet's message was to transcend the religious nationalism of the Christians and Jews, then the solution for our contemporary times cannot be for Muslims to reproduce their rank nationalistic pseudo-religious exclusivity. Those who are familiar enough with the doctrinal disputes and logic whereby the exclusivity of Christianity is constructed will recognize the Muslim version.
Shaykh Nuh brings forth evidence from Quran that every community had a messenger sent to them, and that one should not differentiate between those messengers because they all brought the same message. He writes, "Though the Sacred Law of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) superseded all previously valid religious laws, it was identical with them in beliefs, such as tawhid or "oneness of God." Such a belief can only be true ( the Prophet confirming all previous messages) if two other conditions are met: 1) We restrict our study of religion to the Abrahamic tradition and 2) The sacred law Shaykh Nuh is referring to as identical to previous revelation is restricted to an overall ethical impulse, rather than any outward manifestation.
What are the consequences of these two conditions? One, if Shaykh Nuh restricts the scope of religion to the Abrahamic tradition (as do the majority of Muslim scholars), then what he is arguing is that God sent messengers to only a tiny section of humanity, in a tiny geographical area of the world, in just two or three languages, quite late in its history! But this makes a mockery of God's omnipotence, mercy and justice! Furthermore, history itself, properly understood, contradicts the assertion that God will punish any people who are not "Muslims". If, as the Quran repeatedly says, God will punish those people who don't believe in him by destroying them, then what do we say of some of the most successful civilizations to have ever existed? After all, the Egyptian and Chinese civilizations seem to have prospered for thousands of years longer than any Jewish, Muslim or Christian government or empire without an exclusive concept of ONE GOD (although they did have some concept of an Organic Oneness or Unity similar to the Islamic concept of La Ilaha Illa Allah).
We must also ask ourselves: what is meant by "Islam" in each of the passages Shaykh Nuh quotes? If by Islam all these passages mean a unified ideology, complete with a developed law code, theology, and 5 pillars, then our position is certainly weaker. But if by Islam, at least some of these passages mean a deeper spiritual impulse that motivated all the prophets (and not the formalized religion as we have come to know it) then such a statement cannot be used to refute other religious paths, since according to this vision of Islam, many people may actually be Muslims according to a very broad understanding of what that means. For more on this idea, one should consult Farid Esack's work in Quran, Liberation and Pluralism. Too often Muslims assume that when we speak of Islam we are speaking of one unitary idea stretching back through eons. Other times we assume it is something that the Prophet Muhammad brought to his community. In apologetics and theology, Muslims "switch" between these two different, both orthodox conceptions, often without realizing the important differences between the two ideas. It is the difference between the two ideas that contains the key to a radical reappraisal of tradition that is absolutely necessary to avoid the kind of nationalistic hubris I am writing against.
This is a circular argument, not to mention an anti-intellectual one that echoes a similar conundrum in Christianity. It makes the authority of the revelation do too much work, as if because you accept the Quran to be a miracle you must accept the whole package of orthodoxy. This is not merely a fiqh question (reinterpreting the law), as those defenders of traditional Islam argue, but a question of false equivalency that leads to outmoded nationalistic thinking. The sharia is no longer (if it ever was) equivalent to the practices of the early Muslim community under the Prophet Muhammad's leadership. In constantly emphasizing that it should be, Muslims have to "fit" it, often awkwardly into a worldview largely defined by Western style modernity. They are thus faced with a series of logical and moral absurdities, which they largely navigate through "double-think". This double think can easily be seen in the realm of contemporary Muslim theological apologetics. It is also observable in the zealotry of new converts who become highly self-righteous, the nitpicking over details (i.e. wearing a beard) or the debates over the lawfulness of slavery (witness what just occurred in Mauritania). All these things are consequences of this false equivalency, of equating a finite historical community with God's infinite favor.
I believe a critical stance towards orthodoxy is much more compelling intellectual position to be in—and perennialism provides a way to meet the new knowledge we have about other religions without sacrificing too much of the essentials of the Islamic tradition. To give an example, we might refer to Quranic ayats about the Jews and Christians, not to mention other religious people, attaining salvation. We would present heaven and hell in Islam as important ideas in creating ethical orientation in the believer—similar to the Buddhist metaphor of the Burning House. In fact, the very idea of a heaven and a hell ought to be understood by the spiritually mature as metaphors designed to point humans in the right direction, not spatially bounded places where we condemn those incovenient to our 'truth'.
For anyone in these times to speak as if ONLY "orthodox" Islamic belief points the way to paradise is a dangerously hubristic viewpoint, as it implicity invalidates the spiritual attainments of hundreds of thousands of contemporary seekers of all stripes: Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, and Jews, not to mention other Muslims (even to the extent of forcing some to twist history to somehow paint successful ancient civilizations as having been "Muslim", which merely perpetuates a hubristic fantasy of manifest destiny). It short-circuits the intellectual possibilities of inter-religious dialogue and the expansion of our knowledge of the world. Finally, there is not enough experiental evidence to boldly make such a claim. Better to say, like in many matters of so-called orthodoxy in modern times, "Allah 3lim"--God knows—and try to live the best we can according to our chosen path.


text:
Coronavirus: 150 Tunisians self-isolate in factory to make masks
Posted by Wisconsin Muslim Journal | Mar 31, 2020 | Syndicated
By Rana Jawad for BBC News
Employees at a Tunisian factory are churning out 50,000 face masks a day and other protective medical gear after opting to go into lockdown at work.
The 150 workers, mainly women, have isolated themselves at the Consomed factory for a month.
They were spurred on by patriotism as the country battles coronavirus, their manager Hamza Alouini told the BBC.
Employee Khawla Rebhi said she greatly missed her family, but her colleagues' good cheer provided some compensation.
"My husband and 16-year-old daughter supported and encouraged me to do this," Ms Rebhi, who is in charge of the production line, told the BBC.
The factory usually exports its protective gear, but its focus now is to produce enough for the health sector at home.
The North African nation, which went into lockdown on Sunday, has 227 confirmed cases of coronavirus and six patients have died in the last week.
Among those who moved into the factory, which is in a rural area south of the capital, Tunis, a week ago are cooks, a doctor and pharmacist.
There are separate dormitories for 110 women and 40 men – and enough stocks to last a month.
"We have a designated area for all kinds of exercise and dancing for the women, and the men have a football and basketball area," Ms Rebhi told me.
"And we all have internet and video chat with our families when we are not working."
She says the factory runs from 06:30 to 22:30 local time every day on two eight-hour shifts, with the men mainly on the later one.
'We need to protect doctors'
On their eighth day of confinement, Mr Alouini said there were still "positive vibes" from everyone.
He said the staff felt the need to isolate at the factory because if the virus spread within the workforce, they would not be able to keep up with the needs of doctors in the country.
"If we don't work our doctors will not be protected against the virus," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa radio programme.
"I'm trying to do my best for all my country – for the hospitals, for the army, for the police, for everybody."
Ms Rebhi says the workforce's sense of mission is giving them all hope, but she cannot deny that they are worried about efforts to contain Covid-19.
"I am looking at how other governments are struggling with it in Europe and elsewhere and I can't help but wonder how a country like Tunisia will handle it."
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Ha! Rock-landing is an entirely graceful sport!
Huh….How did she get that much clothing on? Did someone else dress her up warm or is the clothing wearing part of the transformation voluntary?
Great outfit on Michelle. Now all she needs is some aviator goggles.
Yay! Now She has pants!
Is that the scarf Greg was wearing in Fiddler's Cave?
Likely belongs to her roommate. Does appear to be the same article.
Just saw this Q, re-reading the story after seeing the character sheet on Patreon.
It isn't Greg's scarf. Greg's scarf seen in Fiddler's Cave is tassel ended.
On page 3 of Ridiculous Creatures, you see the ends of Michelle's scarf, and it has no tassels at all.
Merial's scarf seen in Fiddler's Cave has no clearly visible patterning on it.
Her face has lost the humanity almost completely. And yet Sphinxes have human faces, don't they?
Did wonder about that myself.
Y'know Jim and Amethyst (from Steven Universe) would probably get along rather well. Till one of them breaks something, I mean.


Grey-Tailed Tattler (Tringa brevipes) adult.
Doing a little bit of surfing while in Australia.
Wandering Tattlers being wiped out by a wave. They weren't watching.
Wandering Tattler (Tringa incana) having a wing stretch.
Ah yes it's good to be back in Australia for the summer holidays.
"Hmm I wonder if she can see me?"
Sometimes they just don't like getting their feet wet.
Hmm, I wonder if she can see me?
One is coughing up a pellet and the other is starting to develop its breeding plumage.
Grey-Tailed Tattler (Tringa brevipes) non-breeding plumage.
In partial breeding plumage enjoying the morning sun.
I love it when shorebirds have a little leg and wing stretch as it displays their beautiful feathers.


A 38-year-old man who allegedly barricaded himself in a Newcastle unit with a gun and ammunition is expected to face court.
NSW police surrounded the home near Morpeth and Christo Roads in the suburb of Waratah West on Friday morning. An armoured vehicle known as a BearCat was also on the scene.
The operation began about 10.30 am and ended with the arrest of Soloman Siulai, 38, at around 4pm.
He was wanted on a prior warrant.
Police said they negotiated with Siulai, who gave himself up without incident.
Police found a firearm and ammunition after searching the unit.
Siulai was taken to Waratah Police Station where he was charged with firearms and assault charges which were related to a previous domestic violence incident.
He is expected to appear before Newcastle Local Court on Saturday.