If you have sustained a serious injury in an auto accident you will most likely need a personal injury attorney. The car accident attorneys in our national network include many of the finest trial lawyers in the country whose goal is to pursue justice and maximize the recovery for your loss. Auto Accident cases (as are most personal injury claims in the United States) are handled on a contingent fee basis. The attorneys fee is deducted from the settlement at the conclusion of your case, so the client pays no fee unless the case is successful.
5. Or, where the "reasonable and necessary" medical bills equal or exceed $2,000.
Proof of any one of the elements above typically require that you obtain your medical records from the institutions or individuals by whom you were treated as a result of the accident. Your attorney may obtain your medical records for you upon receipt of your written consent typically in the form of a Release. You may then decide with the advice and counsel of your attorney whether you should pursue your action against another party for damages.
Generally, most civil actions that involve an automobile accident are based on the allegations of negligence.
Put simply, negligence is the failure of another to use due care in the operation of the motor vehicle with whom you had an accident. A claim against another, however, is based upon two facets that insurance companies will use in evaluating your claim: the issue of liability and the calculation of damages. The liability element of the claim is where an insurance carrier will assess who was at fault in the accident. While the allegations of negligence against the driver concern the liability element of the claim, there are a number of separate legal causes of action that concern the damages alleged.
Typically, in cases where serious injury has resulted, a plaintiff will have claims for pain and suffering, which is defined above; negligent and/or intentional infliction of emotional distress; and loss of consortium.
Whenever you believe you have a claim against someone in an car accident, you should seek legal advice as soon as possible in order to protect you right to sue. In general, you have a limited number of time from the date of the accident to file a complaint against the other party (is) involved. Nevertheless, you should always seek advice at the earliest stage possible. If you do not, it may seriously jeopardize your case: your attorney needs to act quickly and preserve the evidence: memories fade, witnesses disappear, vital records and reports are lost without quick action.


Myanmar's manufacturing sector reached a turning point in 2018 as liberalisation, tax reforms, infrastructure improvements and the development of special economic zones helped turn the country from a low-cost regional production base to a rising manufacturing destination with capacity on the rise. The sector has an advantage due to the country's relatively low operating costs, favourable demographics and liberalising government policies. Myanmar's retail segment has boomed in the years since the economy was liberalised, with foreign goods hitting the market and local sellers making their offer more sophisticated. Legacy retail conglomerates are investing in Western-style upgrades to supermarkets and malls, and foreign investors are entering into joint ventures to bring technical know-how. Foreign loans and investment in the retail sector are also bearing fruit. This chapter contains interviews with U Win Aung, Chairman, Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings; and Daw Win Win Tint, CEO and Founder, City Mart Holding.


The new and improved cujojs.com!
These same folks knock us for our lack of a real web presence as well as our scant educational materials. We're happy to announce we're beefing up!
We migrated cujojs.com from a vanilla github-pages site to a real web app. Notice I didn't say "web page". Yes, it is an actual application with unit tests and everything. Can that other framework claim the same? "Tests? How do I write tests for this?"
Kudos also to Craig Walls who contributed the Contacts sample app on the home page. This is Craig's first cujoJS app! He created it using cujoJS/seed.
Aside from the fresh new look of cujojs.com, our inner engineers are also quite proud of its underlying architecture. We'll do a follow-up post describing why cujojs.com -- the app -- is so awesome.
Read the cujoJS manifesto to see what motivates us. If you feel similarly, consider joining us!
If you're reading this on the web, you're already witnessing the new cujoJS developer center, know.cujojs.com. This is the place to go to know more about cujoJS and it's underlying concepts and technologies. There are links to downloads, documentation, and sample apps, and we're adding illuminating tutorials and timely blog posts all the time.
know cujoJS exists thanks to the diligent efforts of Scott Andrews who created the entire site using DocPad and even wrote many of the initial tutorials.
We would absolutely love your feedback on both cujojs.com and know.cujojs.com! Please open a github issue with problems or praise here (cujojs.com) or here (know.cujojs.com)!
cujoJS projects are licensed individually, see each project's license for terms.


text:
NoirWHALE
Tag Archives: Misogyny
Sam Spade: Masculinity Under Threat
*I wrote this essay over the last few weeks for a 300-level English course– It's an example of the scholarly work in the noir genre I hope to do when I begin post-graduate studies. Enjoy.
Cover designed by Megan Wilson
"You won't need much of anybody's help. You're good. You're very good. It's chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like 'Be generous, Mr. Spade.'"
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett is a definitive piece of the hardboiled noir fiction genre. As such its protagonist, Sam Spade, is the subject of frequent discussion and review, particularly those studies pertaining to modern masculinity. Current scholarship topics tend toward definition, although "noir is notoriously difficult to define," and speak of the genre and The Maltese Falcon as a "symbolic stage upon which crisis is negotiated via changes in gender paradigms" (Entin 86; Dietze 645). As a result, the book's sexual dynamics and threatening femme fatale are the central topics of most Spade-centric discourse. Brigid O'Shaughnessy, the veiled villainess, wages a manipulative battle with Sam, each hungry to serve their own ends at the expense of the other. Ultimately, Sam Spade is the victor, but the cost outweighs the benefit of such an outcome. The 'hero' is reduced to despicable ends in his quest to define and defend his masculinity throughout the novel, demeaning each female character with oppressive, sexist behaviors. He relies on 'illusions of order' and 'intellectual control' to defend his masculinity from the onset of ambitious women, and becomes an archetypal example of the fearful white male chauvinist in modern society.
Hammett's 1930 magnum opus is burgeoning with gender friction and social commentary. By connecting Sam Spade's fear of emasculation with his detective fueled 'will-to-know', we find a man plagued with insecurity. As Sam's masculinity comes under threat, he lashes out with his greatest tool, his insight and detection, to menace what he perceives to be encroaching and dangerous females. Thus he exerts his intellectual control over these women to restore his illusions of order, or preserve his masculinity. Regardless of its fame, The Maltese Falcon appears to be free of detailed scholarly analyses that speak to these themes. The authority of Hammett's words and my inquiry will hopefully solidify these proposed ideas as the essay develops. Additionally, sources are provided severally which prod the margins of this previously untreated issue: The first, that of Sam Spade's fear of emasculation and his resulting misogynistic backlash, and the second, that of his need to preserve his illusions of order in an increasingly disordered social realm. At the convergence of these two complications, wonderful analytically uncharted territory is apparent.
Dashiell Hammett, Author of The Maltese Falcon
Mr. Spade is a hard-edged force of masculinity, an unbending bastion of iron-wrought will, and an estranged loner from society. Sara Paretsky explained his over-the-top persona, saying "because crime fiction focuses so strongly on issues of justice and society, characters have to be exaggerated to make social points" (12). Simply stated, Sam Spade is a social statement. He is "the world weary non-hero, betrayed from within the institution that once nurtured and protected him, who discovers that no prospect pleases, and that all men (and women) are vile" (Winks 8). In addition to his already volatile psyche, Sam's chauvinism and sexual anxieties create a plethora of gender conflicts within the text. Priscilla Walton tells us that "the originary hardboiled narrative arose in an era fraught with sexual tensions, since the advent of the Great Depression generated a backlash against shifting gender roles" and "in the matter of misogyny, hardboiled detective fiction undergirds the whole system of Western patriarchy" (127). She speaks to the complex social issues of the era in which the book was written, issues that may not appear as widespread contemporarily as they may yet be. Sam Spade is an ideal contender for gender conflict as a misogynistic hallmark of female repression and abuse. Yet he's believed to be "the genre's ideological model of male self-containment," which begs fearful questions about independent men and their role models (Cooper 24). If men since the 1930s have viewed Mr. Spade as a role model, what implications does this portend for society? Especially a society founded on a patriarchal order? If hardboiled detective fiction undergirds the whole system of Western patriarchy, then how vital a foundational strut is Sam Spade?
Accepted gender role paradigms were shifting as this novel was being distributed, and men were fighting insecurity and estrangement in a society that no longer defined their masculinity for them. Modern Masculinity, at its core, had always been defined by strength, self-control, success (especially in the workplace), and individualism. As women's roles in society began to evolve and change, many men felt displaced. Paretsky pointed to the 19th Amendment as a possible cause for the gender inequality present in The Maltese Falcon when she said, "After widespread agitation for the vote, the image of active women changed. Now they were seen as a species of monster who wanted to strip men of all their rights" (12). She concluded that "[men] believe that when a woman moves into a masculine domain their very masculinity is under attack" (13). Fear of this threat is a defining theme in The Maltese Falcon. Sam Spade is consumed by his fear of emasculation, and it causes him to react in oppressive ways towards perceived female threats.
Yet at his core Sam Spade is a detective, personally and professionally, and defines his masculinity by his success in this arena. As an independent working man, he is completely reliant upon his ability to accurately re-construct means of injustice and crime perpetration through deductive reasoning, logic, and investigation. When his masculinity comes under threat, he uses these same finely tuned methods to preserve and restore his manly dominance. Mr. Spade is constantly striving to obtain and maintain order, or at least the illusion of such; for his masculinity to remain intact, he must successfully 'solve' each potential affront to it. In his article, "Lead Birds and Falling Beams," Dean DeFino explains:
The detective enters the scene of the crime after the fact and, through a feat of analyses, constructs a chain of effects and causes back to the source of the crime – mode and motive – which, while not annulling the deed (the body is still dead), gives the reader a sense of intellectual control over it. The story redeems that sense of order and control by (fictionally) exposing its logic, its cause–and-effect chain, how one thing leads to another (74).
Sam re-orders a crime scene to achieve the same equilibrium that the readers of detective fiction enjoy, the illusion of order or intellectual control. His sense of order is not only dependent upon his success as a detective, but his dominance as a man. When his masculinity or his accepted gender role paradigms are threatened, he reacts by an attempted return to his perceived order. Both forms of order hinge on Sam's ability to control the object of threat; for crime, as he exposes its means of execution he gains intellectual control over it. With women, as he imposes his will upon them and hedges their advances into his social sphere he restores his emasculated authority. Sam's already intense reactions are further enhanced when his illusion of order is challenged by secrets or dishonesty. His 'will-to-know' entirely consumes him, for his fear of emasculation is inexorably tied to the possibility of a woman besting him intellectually.
Three female characters star opposite Sam in the novel, and each seemed no better than a prop for his advances. All of his interactions with these woman teeter anxiously on the edge of flirtation and raw sexual lust, a balance as dangerous as it is unlikely. He touches their bodies, plays with their hair, coddles them, scolds them, kisses them (yes each of them), and in the case of Miss O'Shaughnessy sleeps with them. Sam keeps these women emotionally distant from his true desires and feelings, even when they express interest. For him, they are simply 'girls'; too silly or inexperienced to offer him anything worthwhile. When his impenetrable nature is challenged by Brigid, he reacts harshly—perhaps in denial of real feelings too awkward or uncomfortable to confront. Ironically, he dismisses these women as naïve, immature, or flighty when such adjectives more accurately describe himself. Mr. Spade's relationships with the opposite sex are tainted by his need to defend his perceived masculinity—were he to surrender any level of control, his illusion of order would be compromised.
Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, Mary Astor as Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Gladys George as Iva Archer, and Lee Patrick as Effie Perine
Although examples abound, three particular scenes from The Maltese Falcon will be presented and unpacked as indicative of the illusion of order in defense of masculinity argument. Throughout the novel Sam Spade seems to grapple with his misogynistic impulses, which are a common symptom of backlash due to shifting gender paradigms. I would not go so far as to say that he hates women (as misogyny is typically defined), but that he fears and distrusts them so much that it corrupts his interactions with them. His manly impulses drive his lusty sexual attraction for them, while his misogyny simultaneously attempts to protect him from them. Here is the first scene that illustrates my argument, when Brigid O'Shaughnessy pleads with Mr. Spade for help:
"I've given you all the money I have." Tears glistened in her white-ringed eyes. Her voice was hoarse, vibrant. "I've thrown myself on your mercy, told you that without your help I'm utterly lost. What else is there?" She suddenly moved close to him on the settee and cried angrily: "Can I buy you with my body?"
Their faces were a few inches apart. Spade took her face between his hands and he kissed her mouth roughly and contemptuously. Then he sat back and said: "I'll think it over." His face was hard and furious (Hammett 57).
Aside from being one of the most memorable exchanges in all noir fiction, this scene is grossly sexist. Sam's face is "hard and furious" because he wants her to buy him with her body, and he hates her for it. His response is perfectly calculated to preserve his illusion of order (which is based on control) and retain his power over her. By telling Brigid that he would "think it over" he keeps her offer available and places himself in the position of deciding when or if it will be accepted. Sam believes that if he were to succumb to her offer initially, he would be fully in her thrall; a failure that would surrender his masculine power to her feminine usurpation. But Sam succeeds in retaining intellectual control over Brigid, and thus preserves his illusion of order (and his masculinity). We can only guess what Sam Spade is thinking as he denies Brigid's advances, but it clearly seems linked to the fear of losing something other than virtue; my money's on masculinity and his illusion of order.
The second interaction that illustrates this thematic formula occurs between Sam and his personal secretary Effie Perine (the second of three females in the novel). For contextual purposes, they are discussing Iva Archer (the third), the widow of Sam's dead partner Miles (whom Sam had been sleeping with up until Miles' murder). Sam is sitting at his desk resting his head against Effie's hip, who stands at his side:
"Are you going to marry Iva?" she asked, looking down at his pale brown hair.
"Don't be silly," he muttered. The unlit cigarette bobbed up and down with the movement of his lips.
"She doesn't think it's silly. Why should she–the way you've played around with her?"
He sighed and said: "I wish to Christ I'd never seen her."
"Maybe you do now." A trace of spitefulness came into the girl's voice. "But there was a time."
"I never know what to do or say to women except that way," he grumbled, "and then I didn't like Miles."
"That's a lie, Sam," the girl said. "You know I think she's a louse, but I'd be a louse too if it would give me a body like hers."
Spade rubbed his face impatiently against her hip, but said nothing (Hammett 27).
Effie begins by trying to ascertain Sam's intentions with Iva. She has obviously seen some signs of a serious relationship between them, yet Sam dismisses all of it as "silly." The reader gets the subtext that Effie herself is interested in Sam (why else would she be asking?), and then it becomes more apparent when she calls Iva a "louse" and says she's jealous of her figure. Perhaps she believes that if she looked like Iva she could demand Sam's affection, instead of being firmly caught in the role of confidant. You will note that Sam admits that he doesn't know how to deal with women except in "that way," which is the way that plays with their feelings and teeters between flirting and disgust. The more you examine this passage the sadder it becomes, because you can feel the pain that Sam is inflicting on Ms. Perine when he nuzzles his face against her hip. Basically, he is confirming his desire to "play" with her when he wants while remaining un-entangled romantically. She means nothing to him. Once again, Sam has felt his masculinity come under threat; the threat of the widow Iva's expectations (now that she is untangled from her marriage), and the threat of Effie's jealousy, and on both counts he has rebuffed them by straddling his barren stretch of intellectually controlling ground. By remaining aloof to the desires of these women, he not only spurns their advances but also denies responsibility for his actions. In this way, his masculine independence is unmolested and his accepted gender paradigms are unaltered. He successfully avoids the emasculation sure to accompany marriage to his partner's widow or a relationship with his young secretary.
The final (and most important) scene that illustrates the relationship between Sam's fear of emasculation and his reliance upon intellectual control and illusions of order occurs near the end of the novel. At this point, Sam is led to believe that Brigid has stolen a one hundred dollar bill. He takes her into a bathroom at gunpoint and they share this interaction:
In the bathroom Brigid O'Shaughnessy found words. She put her hands up flat on Spade's chest and her face up close to his and whispered: "I did not take that bill, Sam."
"I don't think you did," he said, "but I've got to know. Take your clothes off."
"You won't take my word for it?"
"No. Take your clothes off."
"I won't."
"All right. We'll go back to the other room and I'll have them taken off."
She stepped back with a hand to her mouth. Her eyes were round and horrified. "You would?" she asked through her fingers.
"I will," he said. "I've got to know what happened to that bill and I'm not going to be held up by anybody's maidenly modesty."
"Oh, it isn't that." She came close to him and put her hands on his chest again. "I'm not ashamed to be naked before you, but–can't you see?–not like this. Can't you see that if you make me you'll–you'll be killing something?"
He did not raise his voice. "I don't know anything about that. I've got to know what happened to the bill. Take them off" (Hammett 196). (Italics added)
A pulp cover that illustrates the shower search scene
The bathroom search scene is the most degrading and misogynistic in the novel. Hammett does not go into perverse detail, as if Brigid were performing some kind of strip tease, but the cold manner in which Spade deals with her is shocking. Remember that this exchange takes place after they have slept together. Once again we can see that the woman in the scene has misinterpreted Sam's behavior. She thought that her relationship meant something to him, and he assures her that it does not. Just like the scene with Effie, the more we dwell on what is happening here, the more painful it becomes; for Sam really is "killing something," he is killing the part of Brigid that loves him, and killing the part of himself that she loved. This 'murder scene' hinges upon Sam being unable to sacrifice his illusion of order. He is tortured by the prospect of not knowing and having to place his trust in a female. In order for him to retain his illusion of order and defend his perceived masculinity, he must force her to strip so that he can know with a certainty that she does not have the bill.
In the end, Sam Spade is a formulaic male chauvinist; a victim of self-inflicted, brutal individuality that hinges upon successfully defending his illusions of order. His inability to cope with supposed threats upon his masculinity estrange him further from society, instead of fortifying his desired place within it. The result is a man bereft of human kindness, and so distracted by the fear of emasculation that he cannot escape his own poisonous illusions. The real damage is done to society and modern masculinity when Sam Spade is viewed as a pinnacle of male achievement. As an icon, Mr. Spade is a powerfully negative image for men to idolize and imitate. His insecurity fueled behavior, if imitated, will create a venomous social climate based on rigid gender roles and perceived masculinity. Although some aspects of his individualism and self-reliance may be applauded, his objectification and emotional abuse of women is horrendous, and such behavior has no claim upon a man's masculinity.
A central problem with this novel (and possibly the entire noir fiction genre) is that all of the female characters are viewed through a patriarchal, misogynistic lens. Thus they act out the roles that a male author and audience require of them, not necessarily the roles they would actually play. Johanna M. Smith defined it this way: "texts by [Dashiell Hammett] subscribe to a gender-based, individualist ideology in which women are male-defined" (Smith 80). This ideology is dangerous because it reinforces incorrect stereotypes about gender roles and relationships with women. Men can develop unhealthy attitudes and beliefs about women based upon the fictional characters and scenarios portrayed in these revered novels. Much of the social strife and gender paradigm backlash since the 1930s seem to orbit the central issues presented in The Maltese Falcon—it's because of these themes that the femme fatale archetype is possibly the most recognizable element in the film noir and noir fiction genres (and is continually found in many others). Each story presents another woman to vilify and then defeat, propelling countless misogynistic heroes onto victory. Sadly, The Maltese Falcon is a beloved classic novel that has perpetuated gender conflict for most of the last century.
A parting thought: Stephen Cooper, in his article "Sex/Knowledge/Power in the Detective Genre," said that "Spade is the genre's ideological model of male self-containment. [Female figures] function primarily as sexual foils to the detective, [and] also as initial obstacles to and ultimate resources for the detective's inquisitive/acquisitive will-to-know. Notwithstanding the high profile given to "romantic interests" by the genre, such service suggests the exploitable continuum between, on the one hand, sex and knowledge, and, on the other, knowledge and power" (Cooper 23-24). The point is that all the power in both sex and knowledge rests in Sam Spade. The female characters are expendable victims of his occupation, both detective and male. For in the noir world Mr. Hammett created, Sam must either victimize them or he himself will become the disillusioned victim of robbed masculinity.
By: Chad de Lisle
Abbott, Megan. ""I Can Feel Her" The White Male as Hysteric." The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity and Urban Space in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. N. pag. Print.
Chandler, Raymond. "The Simple Art of Murder An Essay." The Simple Art of Murder. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950. N. pag. Print.
Cooper, Stephen. "Sex/Knowledge/Power in the Detective Genre." Film Quarterly 42.3 (1989): 23-31. Print.
DeFino, Dean. "Killing Owen Taylor: Cinema, Detective Stories, and the Past." Journal of Narrative Theory 30.3 (2000): 313-31. Print.
DeFino, Dean. "Lead Birds and Falling Beams." Journal of Modern Literature 27.4 (2004): 73-81. Print.
Entin, Joseph. ""A Terribly Incomplete Thing": No-No Boy and the Ugly Feelings of Noir." MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. 35.3 (2010): 85-104. Print.
Evans, Verda. "The Mystery as Mind-Stretcher." The English Journal 61.4 (1972): 495-503. Print.
Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. New York: Vintage, 1992. Print.
Horsley, Lee. Twentieth-century Crime Fiction. Oxford, England: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.
Malmgren, Carl D. "The Crime of the Sign: Dashiell Hammett's Detective Fiction." Twentieth Century Literature 45.3 (1999): 371-84. Print.
Paretsky, Sara. "Private Eyes, Public Spheres." The Women's Review of Books 6.2 (1988): 12-13. Print.
Porter, Joseph C. "The End of the Trail: The American West of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler." Western Historical Quarterly 6.4 (1975): 411-24. Print.
Smith, Johanna M. "Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction: Gendering the Ganon." Pacific Coast Philology 26.1/2 (1991): 78-84. Print.
Walton, Priscilla L. "The Agency of Detectives and the Venue of the Short Story." Narrative 6.2 (1998): 123-39. Print.
Winks, Robin W. "American Detective Fiction." American Studies International 19.1 (1980): 3-16. Print.
Filed under Noir Crime Fiction
Tagged as Dashiell Hammett, Masculinity, Misogyny, Noir Crime Fiction, Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon
Noir Art | Niagara Detroit
Lips by Niagara Detroit
Each week I spend a few hours cruising tumblr blogs and the various gritty reaches of the internet in search of images for the noirWHALE.tumblr.com site. This exercise has taught me quite a bit about film noir and the other noir genres, but ultimately it has taught me that I need to expand noirWHALE by adding a new category: "Noir Art". For example: A week ago, I published a post about Noir T-Shirt Designs, and I put it in the Noir Comics category because I didn't really have any idea where it should go; That post was the spiritual predecessor to this category, and now I expand upon it by adding the second "Noir Art" post titled: Niagara Detroit
Niagara was born August 23rd, 1956. I have no idea if that's her real name (and neither does wikipedia). She was a lead singer of the punk rock bands Destroy All Monsters and Dark Carnival. Her bio says that she attended the University of Michigan in the 70's, and that she has some art school experience which led her to design album covers for the various rock groups she was singing with. Eventually she started to do small galleries and displays in coffee shops in Detroit, and overnight she became a pop art sensation. Her local fame garnered her the title, "Queen of Detroit" and thus it has become her surname. Her noir art style seems to revolve entirely around the femme fatale archetype, with an especially brutal take on gender issues. Sharply contrasting colors and sarcastic/elegiac captions array these dames with venom aimed at misogyny. They simultaneously seduce and kill, with each image hanging on a potent moment in time. I'm no art critic, but it seems that the unseen narratives behind these paintings grant them life. Ultimately, I feel that Niagara Detroit's work is some of the very best noir art I've ever seen. You be the judge:
Baby Doll (Double Trouble)
Double In A Black Dress
Got Guts?
I'm Pretty When I'm Angry
I'm Waiting For My Man (Rita Hayworth Reference)
Kill Him
Lipstick Traces
Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?
Run (Blonde)
Silencer (A Long Shot)
There are literally DOZENS of prints that I didn't list here, visit niagaradetroit.com for the full gallery.
Niagara has a clothing line for sale at pinkpump.com and prints for sale at niagaradetroit.com
Here is a picture of Niagara: (looks a bit like Lady Gaga no?)
Niagara Detroit
by Chad de Lisle
Filed under Noir Art
Tagged as Femme Fatale, Misogyny, Niagara Detroit, Noir Art, Noir Comics, Pulps
Film Noir | Anime: Rin – Daughters of Mnemosyne
(via animepassion.tv)
The film noir anime Rin- Daughters of Mnenosyne is a six episode animated Japanese series that was produced to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the AT-X network (which it originally aired on). I viewed this series some time ago, near the beginning of the summer I think, but am just now getting around to reviewing it. The six episodes had the unusual effect of producing a duality of feelings/opinions within me; applause and abhorrence. As ever, the Japanese creative team (with lead writer Hiroshi Onogi) effectively push the boundaries of the genre and toy with social ideas and gender roles in such a way as to create controversy. Here is how Rin- Daughters of Mnenosyne measured up to my noir definition:
1) Seedy Underworld
More digital than seedy, the six episodes of film noir anime play out in Tokyo's Shinjuku district in the modern/near-future. The setting is forgettable.
2) The Anti-Hero
Rin Asogi is an immortal female private investigator. She runs a private investigation agency, and her cases range from everyday mundane to insanely bizarre. By placing the traditional male lead in the hands of a very feminine character, the classic complications created by gender roles in the noir genre are torqued in intriguing ways. And then further heaped on top of the pile is the fact that Rin can never die. The ripples caused by this casting choice alone shake the foundation of accepted noir thought.
3) The Femme Fatale
Many different females fit the femme fatale archetype in Rin- Daughters of Mnenosyne. You would think that because the lead is being played by a female private eye, that a male would logically played the role of homme fatale. Wrong. Rin Asogi is a lesbian, and from what I saw in the series an extremely active one. (The homme fatale role IS represented, but in a more blatant and monstrous way than a traditional femme fatale is. See "angels" below).
possibly the perfect mix between anti-hero and femme fatale? (via theanimenetwork.com)
4) Misogyny
Further complications are raised because of Rin's sexual orientation (or I should say the portrayal of her sexual orientation), because it seems that the story is pandering to a male audience. Instead of empowering women, it debases them for the gratification of drooling male viewers. Another facet of the storyline that reeks of misogyny is the unequal duality of males and females in the story. It's explained that Rin has been granted her immortality because she is in possession of a "time spore." This spore is what grants her the ability to regenerate any wounds (even when they have resulted in her death) and it yields her youth and beauty for eternity. Contrarily, when a male obtains a "time spore," he becomes what is known as an "angel"; a savage who surrenders almost instantly to his uncontrollable primal desires. Central to these desires is an irresistible need to feed on and copulate with females who possess time spores. The horrible caveat is that these females find the "angels" completely and utterly sexually desirable; such that they are often eaten in the process of surrendering themselves sexually to their attackers.Yikes. Thus the script is filled with a surprising amount of violence perpetrated against the female characters; more to come in the eroticism section of the noir definition.
one of many violent endings (via blogs.emory.edu)
5) Redemption
The fact that Rin Asogi is immortal, and that her dark past seems to be constantly haunting her, very pleasingly utilizes the noir theme of redemption. After only a few episodes it becomes clear that redemption will never be attained by Rin, and we as an audience will never understand the nature of her desired redemption. My only peeve is this: Why is it that every anime is so fraught with flashbacks and confusing plot twists? It's like a story teller having Attention Deficit Disorder.
6) Eroticism
I was appalled by the overly stylized and overt attempts to sexualize the series. Bondage, sexual torture, sexual extortion, molestation, and lesbian encounters anchor this film noir anime script in a realm of unreality and disgust. Many scenes were simply designed to raise the hackles or titillate the viewer (or some awkward combination of both). I felt these efforts cheapened the story and thwarted many of the beautiful differences that would have made Rin- Daughters of Mnenosyne a stand-out in the film noir anime genre.
7) Loss of Innocence
The Loss of Innocence portion of this film noir anime includes several perverse scenes of sexual extortion, torture, and molestation I don't wish to dwell upon. So I won't.
(via avaxhom.ws)
8 ) Blaxploitation/Racism
Not any that I can remember (not that it wasn't there).
9) Smoke
I'm certain there was smoking in the show, but I don't actually remember if it was Rin or not. Either way, it was there.
Ultimately, I can see some of the things that Hiroshi Onogi was driving at, but I felt that his story suffered from poor execution. The author seems to desire an awakening in his audience to the mismatch/inequality of gender roles in modern society. I also believe that he was trying to highlight the horrendous power and consequence of human (especially male) desires. Unfortunately, in this film noir anime, his message is lost in juvenile "fanservice" and pointless sexuality. Close but no cigar.
Filed under Film Noir
Tagged as Anime, Film Noir, Misogyny
Noir Quote of the Week #7
(via impawards.com)
"I treated her like a pair of gloves. When I was cold, I called her up."
Noir Quote from The Big Combo (1955), spoken by Cornel Wilde. This quote is a classic example of the misogyny that pervades the noir genre. A woman is an object that only has utility when needed. Also, there are heavy sexual connotations here that lend to the idea that a woman is only worth her ability to physically gratifying the male that desires her. Two short sentences, volumes of meaning. (Special thanks to fuzionbits.com)
(via wikipedia.com)
Filed under Noir Quotes
Tagged as Film Noir, Misogyny, Noir Quotes
Noir Comics | Sally the Sleuth
The following noir comics strip is a classic example of the misogyny that permeates the genre. This page is from Spicy Detective November 1936 by Adolphe Barreaux.
Filed under Noir Comics
Tagged as Misogyny, Noir Comics, Sally the Sleuth
Video Game Noir | L.A. Noire Misogyny
wow. L.A. Noire is a video game noir masterpiece… it's also very misogynistic. Lets start at the beginning, I will be writing four different reviews for this game, one for each "desk" that you serve in the Las Angeles Police Department. First stop, Traffic. You play this video game noir as Cole Phelps, a World War II hero and aspiring straight-laced police detective. Cole shocks his peers and his employers with his uncanny ability to suss out the truth of any seedy situation or suspicious character. At this point of the game he falls short of our stated noir definition, for he is not truly an "anti-hero" ….yet. I haven't beat the game yet (or solved the final cases) but if my gut tells me anything about noir, it tells me that Cole has some sort of flaw that has been hidden in his past (or some flaw yet to be expressed). No one can remain a boy scout for that long.
everyone squints in this game, I should add that to my noir definition
Lets talk about misogyny in L.A. Noire. Almost every victim of any crime thus far has been a woman. The female characters in the game are treated as little more than children or objects for the violent lust of criminal predators. Rape, molestation, and pedophilia all rear their ugly heads in one form or another, and the game refuses to pull any punches. Personally, I think this is perfectly in line with what I have studied so far in the noir genre. Women are often hated, either through their exploitation or through exerting one form of dominance or another over them. Misogyny is the sad reality of noir. L.A. Noire is simply portraying its genre effectively… or are they?
hit and run? or something else...
One thing I will commend Team Bondi and Rockstar Games on is that through all the objectification of women that occurs in L.A. Noire, Cole Phelps (the main character) never participates. This lack of misogyny from the main character seems to be a trend in modern noir. It's almost as if the authors are rejecting this aspect of the noir genre by writing heroes for us that break the cycle of abuse. Instead of mistreating women, they become their defenders and protectors, and they strive to right (write) the wrongs perpetrated against them by the old guard. I speak more of this in my review of Criminal #1 by Ed Brubaker.
amazing art direction for this video game noir
I was greatly pleased and surprised more than once by this first of four chapters in the game. The cases range from blood smattered abandoned vehicles to heart-pounding foot chases and bare-fist brawls. L.A. Noire nails the historical era with a class an ease unmatched by any video game noir I have played to date. Play this game, and step into a simpler time in America's history when men were men and you wouldn't think of leaving the house without a suit and a hat. Oddly enough, no femme fatale has manifested herself yet… 3 more installments to come.
I purchased my copy from Newegg.com
The hit and run image was from photobucket.com
the L.A. Noire Logo image was from platformnation.com
Filed under Video Game Noir
Tagged as L.A. Noire, Misogyny, Video Game Noir
Noir, Misogyny, and The Maltese Falcon
"You won't need much of anybody's help. You're good. You're very good. It's chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like 'Be generous, Mr. Spade.'"
Me with possibly the greatest noir crime fiction book in existence...
Look at any list of "top noir novels" or "best crime fiction books" and The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett is invariably near the top. The novel was first published in 1930 and stands as a bastion of the 'hard-boiled' vintage crime stories. Although the plot is quite remarkable, I am not interested in providing you with a rote summary of the events that take place in the novel. If you really want one, you can get one here.
Instead I feel my thoughts drawn to the substance between the plot devices and double-crossings, where one decides if The Maltese Falcon truly stands the test of time. If we hold the novel up to the criteria previously discussed concerning noir, it passes with flying colors. The rough side of pre-WWII San Fransisco is our setting, and our anti-hero is the private-eye Sam Spade. Enter "Miss Wonderly" aka. Brigid O'Shaunessy the femme fatale, and the stage is set perfectly for our noir-ish romp with mystery. I admit I was unprepared when our fourth character made an appearance, misogyny.
Mr. Hammett characterizes Sam Spade as a typical 'man's man.' He is cool, confident, and level headed. Sometimes the reader is privy to his thoughts, but more often than not his mind is an impenetrable fortress. As a result, he is not only mysterious to the supporting actors in the plot, but to the reader as well. He is a shark among men, and a lion among women, and he always takes what's his. I was prepared for a character who exerts masculine dominance, but not nearly to the extent that Mr. Spade does.
Tagged as Dashiell Hammett, Maltese Falcon, Misogyny, Noir Crime Fiction
"To be, or Noir to be…" A Noir Definition
I believe that there is great value to a list of qualifications I expect in any noir piece. Anything that I review on this site will have to match at least one of the requirements below. Please remember noir can be found in any media, be it art, literature, film, video-games, or comics, it's there.
1. The Seedy Underworld
"sheesh this fog is so crimey..."
The setting of any great noir piece is the filthy underbelly of the polished public. This place is filthy, grimy, bleak, and often deranged. Expect steaming sewer grates, torrential downpours, second-hand-smoke, and nefarious characters. Crime thrives here, and its perveyors are brutally corrupt and extremely adept. Sadly, these roads are lined with condemned buildings labeled 'hope,' 'faith,' and 'charity.'
2. The Anti-Hero
yeah....smoke that
The main character of the noir genre is at best despicable. We are fascinated with his/her moral ambiguity and glaring flaws while hiding our disgust with the same. Dangling from this character's lips is the tell-tale cigarette and the greasy tendril of smoke tickles the street lamp above. Usually this character's life is at stake, and this is almost always due to their own poor choices. We quietly root for him/her and cringe when the baseball bat or crowbar beats their brow bloody.
3. The Femme Fatale
"man, this blows."
A secret ingredient that adds spice and variety to any noir is the femme fatale. She is sultry, sexy, and manipulative. Her power over the main character is unmistakable and she gently leads him along to meet her own ends. Elegance of speech and brutal double crossings as common as lipstick stains on wine glasses and discarded lingerie. She is deadly, untrustworthy, and 9 times out of 10 the villain.
Each of these three items are hallmarks of the noir genre. I will use these criteria as pegs to hang my reviews on, and as indicators of proximity to the noirWHALE (the 'big-one' so to speak). As the media I encounter exhibits these traits, I will detail their strengths and weaknesses on this site. I am sure that there are other hallmarks of noir out there, and as I discover them I will add to the list.
UPDATE: April 7, 2011
4. Misogyny
"turn your breasts to the light dear."
Throughout the genre of noir, there seems to be a fairly steady stream of misogyny. I'm not suggesting that this "dame-hating" is always aware of itself or that it's a conscious decision by the noir creators, but it rears itself very consistently in each piece. Women are the villains, the burdens, and the childish fools that merely tolerated by the hero. Also the women are always "male-defined." Their behaviors, attitudes, and appearance are constantly pandering to a male audience. I assume that this must be incredibly frustrating for female audiences (it frustrates me and I'm a male). As a result of these male definitions, noir seems to always focus on beautiful women with low sexual standards and no depth of character (other than where it serves plot). Recently I've read that there are some female authors who have reversed the roles in modern noir novels. I hope to read some of them soon so I can report back my findings.
5. Redemption
This may be an actual crime scene...
Another theme that has presented itself in my studies is that of redemption. In noir, the detective always arrives after the tragedy has taken place. He is plunged into a world of chaos, where something whole was just shattered (murder, rape, violence, etc.). His job is completely consumed with trying to redeem the unredeemable. Think Batman. Bruce Wayne is haunted by the murder of his parents. He decides to seek vengeance for the rest of his life by "righting" all the wrongs in Gotham. The only catch is that his task is impossible. He cannot change the fact that his parents are dead, nor can he completely succeed in purifying Gotham. He can' t win. The only measure of success he achieves is through putting as many pieces back together as he can. In this way we (the audience) are lead to believe that something has actually been redeemed. We feel better about the injustice when we know how or why it happened, even though it still occurred. Dean DeFino calls this "illusions of order" and "intellectual control." He says that "the story redeems that sense of order and control by (fictionally) exposing its logic, its cause-and-effect chain, how one thing leads to another."
UPDATE: June 21st, 2011
I have always wanted to create a very robust noir definition for noir in all of its forms. Thus far I have previously set forth 5 unique elements that are found in any noir media. They are: The seedy underworld, the ant-hero, the femme fatale, misogyny, and redemption. Recently I have thought of two more that must be added: Loss of Innocence, and Eroticism.
6. Loss of Innocence
giving us the reasons why
This aspect of noir is the one that hits us in the gut. It wrenches our emotions and makes us uncomfortable. Torture, rape, sin, and abuse all fall under this thematic umbrella. Usually, the loss of innocence within any noir piece holds the responsibility of answering the question "why?", as in: "why is this character this way?" or "why do they do what they do?" This is closely related with the Redemption aspect of noir because usually the loss of innocence is what causes the need for redeeming.
7.Eroticism
eroticism in the 80's
One thematic element of noir that has caused the most controversy in the genre is that of eroticism or sexuality. These tend to not be the main stream accepted types of sexual behavior, instead they are the outré and bizarre fetishes that make us cringe. Prostitution, adultery, sadomasochism, and other unmentionables are the mainstay of noir. Most often, lust plays a huge roll in any noir crime fiction as well as lack of self control. Those characters that can control their sexual desires are those that are the most successful, while those who succumb are the victims of their own self destruction. This is closely related with the theme of Misogyny in our noir definition, especially as it pertains to the portayal of the femme fatale.
Well, I hope that we can continue to add to our noir definition in the future! Please email me if you think of any aspect that needs to be addressed! Chad.deLisle[at]gmail.com
Noir Definition UPDATE: August 26th, 2011
8. Racism
Black Caesar
One aspect of the noir genre that has recently leapt out at me is the heavy-handed theme of racism. Condescending language, disparaging remarks, and sexual abuse are all hallmarks of Racism. This racism may be a byproduct of the era in which the noir genre was birthed, but it certainly thrives in the contemporary time period as well. Understand that the racism in film noir, noir crime fiction, and noir comics is not only directed at Blacks; others feel the sting as well. I believe this theme rests entirely upon power, control, and illusions of power. The white male desires to remain in control, so he inflicts emasculating and denigrating roles upon white females, blacks, and any other race or people he considers inferior. In this way power threatening groups are robbed of their ability to affront the acceptable order established by he and his cohorts. What do the white females, blacks, and other races do in response? They mimic the abuse inflicted upon them by white males and perpetrate heinous crimes against one another. And thus the only way they can obtain power is by accepting roles and behaviors that are white male defined.
UPDATE: February 16 2012
This last week it was brought to my attention that there was a problem with my noir definition. A frequent visitor to NoirWhale.com pointed out that I had misappropriated the term "blaxploitation." After some research and review I concurred with his analysis. Blaxploitation actually refers to a process of stereotypical media that was meant to appeal to black, not offend them. I had been using it as a term synonomous with racism, and while it has a racist element, they aren't the same thing.
Thus I append the noir definition; instead of removing the element altogether, I'm renaming it "racism" because that is what I truly meant in the first place. It should be noted that blaxploitation can be found touching several areas of the noir genre, it's just not as frequent a theme as racism. So moving forward, I'll still be pointing out the generally racist nature of much of the genre, I'll just be using the proper term for it. Thanks Justin!
9. Smoke
Dorian Leigh
Anyone who has seen an episode of Mad Men will understand why "smoke" must be added to my noir definition. Curling tendrils of cigarette smoke portend sexual encounters in seedy hotels, cruel seduction, and infidelities. Profanity and profundity crosshatch the hanging smoky-mirk in scene after scene of film noir, noir crime fiction, and noir comics. Smoke caresses the lips of the femme fatale, stings the eyes of the innocent, and tickles the throat of the stooge. It stains the teeth, fingernails, and wallpaper of the anti-hero, yet entombs him like a viking king on a floating pyre. Disgusting in real life? Yes. Amazingly enticing in noir? Yes. I know this seems obvious, but in hindsight "smoke" should have been the first quality that defines the noir genre.
As with my other noir definition updates, I'm sure there are more to come…
Noir Definition UPDATE: January 28th 2012
10. Emasculation
Roger Sterling, Peggy Olson, Don Draper, Joan Holloway, Pete Campbell (via celebrations.com)
Only recently apparent to me is the frequent theme of emasculation in the noir genre. Emasculation in noir refers to robbing a male of his "manliness" in some degree; either through humiliation or through some means of impotence. Examples: A man can't provide for his family, he's beaten or humiliated by some thugs, he loses his livelihood, he can't land the femme fatale, his health fails, or he literally has his "manhood" taken away (read Sin City: That Yellow Bastard). Often the driving theme of a noir piece is the fear of emasculation, even if it hasn't occurred yet. In Night and The City, Harry Fabian becomes more and more desperate as he becomes more and more emasculated by his failures to succeed.
If you're still failing to grasp what I'm referring to, look at Mad Men for example; Don Draper, Pete Campbell, Roger Sterling, and others each have a certain masculine ideal which they subscribe to. For Pete it's success in the workplace without the aid of others, for Don it's strength and privacy, for Roger it's health and sexual conquest, for others it's something else. Although each man may have a slightly different definition of masculinity, ALL of them fear its loss and panic when it's endangered. Pete's marriage suffers when he fails at work, when Don's secret past rears itself he attempts to flee, and as Roger's health plummets he weeps like a child; each of them are emasculated by their greatest fears. Thus our noir definition is expanded.
Got any ideas for the noir definition? email me: chad.delisle [at] gmail.com
Filed under Noir Definition
Tagged as Femme Fatale, Film Noir, Misogyny, Noir Definition, Redemption, Smoke
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I Can't Find My Grocery Store As Well As Frank Worsley Guided Shackleton
by admin March 17, 2022 March 17, 2022 0322
When Shackleton's lost ship, The Endurance, was found earlier this month, it was astonishing. Not just because it was lost for more than a century and is an enduring icon of heroism in expeditionary history, but because it was just a few miles from where the ship's captain and navigator, Frank Worsley, said it would be. 10,000 feet below shifting sea ice, in a position calculated by a man trapped on an ice floe fearing a brutal death, that Worsley pinpointed the ship's presumed final resting place so closely is as astonishing as anything else about that voyage. This piece, from The Conversation, explores how Worsley managed the feat, long before people would even dream up fanciful things like satellite positioning devices. Enjoy. – Ed.
When the wreck of Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance was found nearly 10,000 feet below the surface of Antarctica's Weddell Sea in March 2022, it was located just 4 miles from its last known position, as recorded by the Endurance's captain and navigator, Frank Worsley, in November 1915.
That's an astonishing degree of accuracy for a position determined with mechanical tools, book-length tables of reference numbers, and pen and paper.
The expedition looking for the ship had been searching an undersea area of 150 square miles – a circle 14 miles across. Nobody knew how precise Worsley's position calculation had been, or how far the ship might have traveled while sinking.
But as a historian of Antarctic exploration, I was not surprised to find out how accurate Worsley was, and I imagine those searching for the wreck weren't either.
Worsley. Photo via Facebook.
Navigation was key
The Endurance had left England in August 1914, with the Irishman Shackleton hoping to become the first to cross the Antarctic continent from one side to the other.
But they never even landed on Antarctica. The ship got stuck in sea ice in the Weddell Sea in January 1915, forcing the men off the ship into tents pitched on the frozen ocean nearby. The force of the ice slowly crushed the Endurance, sinking it 10 months later, and kicking off what would become an incredible – and almost unbelievable – saga of survival and navigation by Shackleton and his crew.
Shackleton's own leadership has become the stuff of legend, as has his commitment to ensuring that not a man was lost from the group under his command – though three members of the expedition's 10-man group in the Ross Sea did perish.
Lesser known is the importance of the navigational skills of the 42-year-old Worsley, a New Zealander who had spent decades in the British Merchant Navy and the Royal Navy Reserve. Without him, the story of Shackleton's survival would likely have been very different.
Navigation requires determining a ship's location in latitude and longitude. Latitude is easy to find from the angle of the Sun above the horizon at noon.
Longitude required comparing the local noon – the moment when the Sun was at its highest point – with the actual time at another location where the longitude was already known. The key was making sure the time measurement for that other location was accurate.
Making these astronomical observations and doing the resulting calculations was difficult enough on land. On the ocean, with few fixed land points visible, amid foul weather, it was nearly impossible.
So navigation largely depended on "dead reckoning." This was the process of calculating a vessel's position using a previously determined position and incorporating estimates of how fast and which way the ship was moving. Worsley called it "the seaman's calculation of courses and distance."
The icebound Endurance. Photo: Picryl
Aiming for land
When the Endurance was crushed, the crew had to get themselves to safety, or die on an ice floe adrift somewhere in the Southern Ocean. In April 1916, six months after the Endurance sank, the sea ice on which they had camped began to break up. The 28 men and their remaining gear and supplies loaded into three lifeboats – the James Caird, Dudley Docker and Stancomb Wills – each named for major donors to the expedition.
Worsley was in charge of getting them to land. As the journey began, Shackleton "saw Worsley, as navigating officer, balancing himself on the gunwale of the Dudley Docker with his arm around the mast, ready to snap the sun. He got his observation and we waited eagerly while he worked out the sight."
To do that, he compared his measurement with the time on his chronometer and written tables of calculations.
Conditions on Elephant Island were harsh, the men were exhausted. Shackleton knew that they needed to seek help, and decided to head for a whaling station on South Georgia. Much relied on the navigational skills of Frank Worsley (seen here earlier in the expedition) pic.twitter.com/Jxmtexj8Mp
— Dr Claire Warrior (@ClaireWarrior1) March 9, 2022
A last hope of survival
Once they managed to arrive on a little rocky strip called Elephant Island, off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, they still faced starvation. Shackleton believed that the only hope of survival lay in fetching help from elsewhere.
Worsley was ready. Before the Endurance was crushed, he had "worked out the courses and distances from the South Orkneys to South Georgia, the Falklands and Cape Horn, respectively, and from Elephant Island to the same places," he recalled in his memoir.
The men used parts of the other lifeboats to reinforce the James Caird for a long sea journey. Every day, Worsley "watched closely for the sun or stars to appear, to correct my chronometer, on the accuracy of which our lives and the success of the journey would depend."
On April 24, 1916, Worsley got "The first sunny day with a clear enough horizon to get a sight for rating my chronometer." That same day, he, Shackleton and four other men set off under sail in the 22.5-foot James Caird, carrying Worsley's chronometer, navigational books and two sextants, used for fixing the position of the Sun and stars.
The boat journey
These men, in this tiny boat, were going from one pinpoint of rock in the Southern Ocean to another, facing high winds, massive currents and choppy waters that could push them wildly astray or even sink them. The success of this voyage depended on Worsley's absolute accuracy, based on observations and estimations he made in the worst possible environmental conditions, while sleep-deprived and frostbitten.
They spent 16 days of "supreme strife amid heaving waters," as the boat sailed through some of the most dangerous sea conditions in the world, experiencing "mountainous" swells, rain, snow, sleet and hail. During that time, Worsley was able to get just four solid fixes on the boat's position. The rest was "a merry jest of guesswork" to determine where the wind and waves had taken them, and adjusting the steering accordingly.
The stakes were enormous – if he missed South Georgia, the next land was South Africa, 3,000 miles farther across more open ocean.
As Worsley wrote later:
"Navigation is an art, but words fail to give my efforts a correct name. … Once, perhaps twice, a week the sun smiled a sudden wintry flicker, through storm-torn cloud. If ready for it, and smart, I caught it. The procedure was: I peered out from our burrow – precious sextant cuddled under my chest to prevent seas from falling on it. Sir Ernest stood by under the canvas with chronometer, pencil, and book. I shouted 'Stand by,' and knelt on the thwart – two men holding me up on either side. I brought the sun down to where the horizon ought to be and as the boat leaped frantically upward on the crest of a wave, snapped a good guess at the altitude and yelled 'Stop.' Sir Ernest took the time and I worked out the result. Then the fun started! Our fingers were so cold that he had to interpret his wobbly figures – my own so illegible that I had to recognize them by feats of memory."
On May 8, they saw floating seaweed and birds, and then spotted land. But they had arrived at South Georgia amid a hurricane, and for two days had to fight being driven by wind onto an island they had spent weeks desperately trying to reach.
Finally, they came ashore. Three of the six men, including Worsley, hiked across unmapped mountains and glaciers to reach a small settlement. Worsley joined a rescue boat back to get the other three. Shackleton later arranged a ship to collect the rest of the men from Elephant Island, all of whom had survived their own unimaginable hardships.
But the key to all of it, and indeed the recent discovery of the Endurance's wreck, was how Worsley had fought desperate conditions and still repeatedly managed to figure out where they were, where they were going and how to get there.
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"You're insane, Estella," my sister said, peering out the window to catch a glimpse of my new pet.
"Well, then, she must have been careless. She probably didn't take the time to bond with hers. Trust me, they're harmless. Come and see for yourself ‒ if you're brave enough," I added with a smirk.
Outside, in my compound, Maia cowered behind me as we watched my pet pacing in its enclosure.
"Isn't she beautiful?" I said, admiring her golden blonde mane and the lines of her slender body.
My pet had come to a stand and was staring at us through the bars. Looking into her deep brown eyes ‒ so hard, so much raw animal simmering under the surface ‒ made my stomach fizz with an addictive blend of fear and excitement.
She hissed something at us in a language we didn't understand, then, faster than I'd imaged her capable of, she lunged at the bars. Stretching her limbs through the gaps, she clawed wildly for us. She screeched and growled and spat, slamming her body against the titanium.
Maia staggered back, and I couldn't help laughing.
My pet grew tired and dropped to the floor. She scratched at the dirt, and a strange sound started to emanate from her throat ‒ an awful wailing. Water was trickling from her eyes. I'd never seen anything like it.
"What's wrong with her?" Maia asked.
I mixed a bowl of oats and water (a good staple for my pet, apparently), walked around to the wall at the side of the enclosure, and placed it in the serving hatch before shoving it through to the other side. I made my way back to the front. My pet used the bars to pull herself to her feet and shuffled over to the bowl. I grinned as she picked it up.
With frightening force, she hurled the bowl at the bars, lumps of oats flying across the compound.
"Not hungry, then," I said, wiping the sludge from my face.
My pet retreated to the back of her enclosure and crouched down in the corner, fixing her gaze on me.
Maia came to stand beside me again.
"I'm keeping her," I said, smiling warmly at my new possession.
This story was first published 08/12/2016 on 365tomorrows.com To view this story and other fantastic scifi tales please follow the link below.


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Candy IndustryCandy ManufacturersCandy Industry News
Mount Franklin Foods names CFO Enrique Grajeda as president, ceo
Grajeda succeeds Gary Ricco, who is retiring after eight years with the company.
Enrique Grajeda, incoming president and ceo of Mount Franklin Foods.
Mount Franklin Foods has named Chief Financial Officer Enrique Grajeda as president and ceo, effective July 1.
Grajeda succeeds Gary Ricco, who announced in May he'd retire this summer after eight years with the company. Ricco will serve on the board of directors and as an advisor to Grajeda and the management team.
Grajeda has served as cfo since October 2014, overseeing Mount Franklin's accounting, finance, treasury, legal, internal audit, IT/MIS, customs and tax departments.
"Grajeda has done an excellent job leading the company's merger and acquisitions initiatives where he has greatly influenced the success of the business," said Eloy S. Vallina L., chairman of Mount Franklin's board. "Furthermore, he has significantly increased the credit facilities which has allowed Mount Franklin Foods to secure the capital needed for on-going rapid growth."
Prior to joining Mount Franklin Foods, Grajeda held major roles in companies such as Helen of Troy, AVX Corporation, Philips/Magnavox and Rockwell International.
"As I look forward to becoming the new president and ceo of Mount Franklin Foods I couldn't have done it without the amazing team we've put together," Grajeda said. "The company is built on incredibly loyal team members and a very dedicated group of individuals in every facet of the business. As we look to continue our momentum from the last few years, I know one thing is for certain, the best is yet to come for Mount Franklin Foods."
In May, Vallina thanked Ricco for his service to Mount Franklin Foods.
"During his tenure Gary built a strong team and spearheaded unprecedented growth in all facets of our business," Vallina said. "The strategies he has put in place will provide a roadmap for increased revenue and continued profit growth at Mount Franklin in the years to come. The solid platform secured under his careful guidance offers an amazing opportunity for the next generation of senior leadership to continue our growth trajectory."
The company announced in February its plans to open a 22,000-sq.-ft., state-of-the art manufacturing facility in San Jeronimo, Mexico. Slated to open in May 2020, the facility will house additional mogul production for soft candy items, such as gummies and jellies.
KEYWORDS: Leadership changes Mount Franklin Foods Personnel changes
Mount Franklin Foods appoints president and CEO
Mount Franklin Foods promotes Mayela Soto to CFO
Mount Franklin Foods appoints new ceo
Natural Food Flavors and Colorants, 2nd Edition
Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner, 2E
Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage
Mount Franklin Foods LLC
Mount Franklin Foods / AZAR Nut Co. is a leading manufacturer and distributor of confections and nut items. Our expertise is diverse. We are a recognized ingredient supplier for the foodservice industry. Our portfolio consists of a variety of nut, snack, candy and brands. We are an award-winning contract manufacturer and supplier of packaged goods.
Redstone Foods
As the largest wholesaler in the Southwest, Redstone Foods has been delivering a sweet experience to its customers since 1966. With an inventory of over 6,000 selections, we feature an extensive range of bulk candy, novelty candy, old fashioned candy and fine chocolates that are perfect for any occasion, along with a holiday offering that is second to none.


text:
#ifndef OBFUSCATIONCONFIG_H
#define OBFUSCATIONCONFIG_H

#include <QDialog>

namespace Ui
{
class ObfuscationConfig;
}
class WalletModel;

/** Multifunctional dialog to ask for passphrases. Used for encryption, unlocking, and changing the passphrase.
 */
class ObfuscationConfig : public QDialog
{
    Q_OBJECT

public:
    ObfuscationConfig(QWidget* parent = 0);
    ~ObfuscationConfig();

    void setModel(WalletModel* model);

private:
    Ui::ObfuscationConfig* ui;
    WalletModel* model;
    void configure(bool enabled, int coins, int rounds);

private slots:

    void clickBasic();
    void clickHigh();
    void clickMax();
};

#endif // OBFUSCATIONCONFIG_H

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The other week I went through the notes on my phone. I like doing this every once in a while, it's like a deep dive into my memory – the section where I keep the very random stuff. I hardly ever delete any of said notes. Not even the ones that mean absolutely nothing to me. Like shopping lists from 2012, cookie recipes or the measurements of pieces of furniture that I had to remember for a reason unknown to me.
Here are some of those who do mean something to me. They're from the last five years and completely random for sure, but that's life.


text:
NOLS Wilderness Medicine Courses to Reopen in July 2020
By Ben Lester
Photo by Kate Sirianni.
On July 1, NOLS Wilderness Medicine will start running courses for the first time since suspending courses in March due to the global pandemic. The decision is the end result of more than four months of work by a task force dedicated to answering the questions: can we run courses responsibly and effectively, and will doing so during this pandemic serve our mission and students?
NOLS decided the answer to both was yes. "In this day and age, our curriculum is more valuable than ever," said Melissa Gray, director of NOLS Wilderness Medicine. "We teach people to care for each other. We want to get back to training our students, and our students want to get back to learning those skills."
Practical Steps for Mitigating Risk
One of the early considerations was how to adapt curriculum to reduce risk to students and instructors. "Our curriculum is based around hands-on skills and scenarios—splinting, patient movement, bleeding control, basic life support—and we can't effectively train competent first responders without them," said Curriculum Director Tod Schimelpfenig. "Close physical contact is an inherent part of our courses, so we put a lot of thought into how to minimize the risk of disease transmission.
"I wrote a new introductory curriculum piece on infection control, and that will be the first thing taught on every course. In addition, now when you're doing scenarios, you're going to be masked, gloved, and wearing glasses. Responders do that in the real world, of course, but this is new for us in the classroom setting."
The course volume will be limited. "Ordinarily, over 130 Wilderness Medicine courses would be run around the world in July and August," said Gray. "Now, we're looking at about 50, almost all in the US."
Course venues required consideration as well. According to Schimelpfenig, "We set a group of parameters: can you travel to the course area? Are gatherings the size of our courses permitted? Also, what is the classroom setting like? Is there adequate space to physically separate, and adequate ventilation? As sponsors asked us about running their courses this summer, we worked with each to assess these factors and determine which courses were supportable."
Schimelpfenig leaned heavily on scientific resources, as well as guidance from the CDC and other agencies. He also found expertise in the NOLS community. "Our medical advisors and Board have been tremendously helpful," he said. "So has our faculty. We have a bi-weekly Zoom call with faculty, and they punch holes in our plans, come up with observations. In addition, I talk regularly with the people who run the other big wilderness medicine schools. This goes beyond NOLS—we want to share best practices across the industry."
The added curriculum and increased emphasis on hygiene will take time during the course, a major consideration especially for the already packed 2-day Wilderness First Aid (WFA) course. To ensure the WFA curriculum still fits in the two-day block, certain topics have moved online for students to review at home. Longer courses, such as Wilderness First Responder and Wilderness EMT, have more flexibility to absorb the extra tasks.
These changes are having interesting ripple effects that require attention. For instance, the new personal protective equipment (PPE) protocols will massively increase students' use of gloves. "We might use as many as 2 million additional gloves this year," said NOLS staffer Travis Welch, who is helping to coordinate the evolving needs of courses. "We care about how much waste our courses create, both from an environmental ethic standpoint, and also because we're training our students to operate in resource-limited environments, and they need to be learning in a realistic manner."
The school is trying to reduce the impact. For instance, glove recycling is already in place at the NOLS Wyss Wilderness Medicine Campus, and NOLS is examining how to expand the program to other areas.
NOLS Wilderness Medicine courses train students to operate confidently in times of stress with incomplete information, and the pandemic is adding new dimensions to that education. "We think about risk and uncertainty a lot in our curriculum," said Schimelpfenig. "What's the risk of going down that snow covered slope to help that patient, and am I comfortable with that risk? Managing the risks within a pandemic is an entirely new thing, but if we can approach it thoughtfully and learn to make good decisions, we can continue to help those in need."
Visit our course finder to locate a course near you.
Ben Lester
As the Assistant Director of NOLS Custom Education, Ben leads a team that specializes in blending NOLS' curriculum and unique approach to leadership education with the goals and culture of our clients. Ben became an instructor in 2009, joining the school as a sailor after a first career as a science journalist. In the intervening years he's expanded into hiking, rock climbing, and mountaineering courses. In addition to his work in Custom Education, over the years he's also managed curriculum publications for NOLS, edited A Worthy Expedition: the History of NOLS, and managed vehicles and maintenance at NOLS PNW. He lives in Lander with his wife and daughter. Even in land-locked Wyoming, they still manage to get out sailing occasionally on the mountain lakes in their homebuilt 20-foot sailboat.
Our Favorite Winter Photos
New Courses for Fall 2018
How NOLS Is Reopening Courses Responsibly in the Field
Planning a trip always represents new possibilities: Where will we go that's new? And where will we return to in a way that's radically different?
With the new courses starting this fall and into December of 2018, we're offering more experiences designed for adults to spend time outside between work and family commitments, and more opportunities for students to combine their passions.


text:
Q: When to use PATCH and PUT in AngularJS PATCH is used to update partial information of an already existing resource and PUT is used to replace the old information of that resource with the new one. Now, how should this concept be implemented in AngularJS?
One probable way may be:-

At the controller, calculate the number of fields changed by the user via a form and set a threshold like 50%, i.e. if more than 50% of the form fields are updated by the user, then call $http.put or otherwise call $http.patch.

Is there any standard way to apply this concept or the above mentioned way is also in the right direction?

A: It is really up to how the API establishes the request type that should be used on each of its resources.
In an ideal world, you would:

*

*Use POST to create resources on resource collections. e.g. two requests of POST /v1/cars would result in /v1/cars/1 and /v1/cars/2 being created.

*Use PUT to update the resource attributes, ideally when all the attributes are being changed even if they are keeping the same value. The request body (payload) should include all the attributes. PUT is idempotent, meaning that if you make two requests PUT /v1/cars/1, with the same request body (payload), it will result in the car with identifier 1, updated with the attributes. N number of identical requests ends up in the same updated/modified entity representation.

*Use PATCH to perform partial modifications on the resource. SO if you were updating just a make and model on car 1, but not the price, then PATCH is ideal here as long as the API supports it.

Ultimately, in reality, to answer your question, whoever creates the API you are using (your back end), will decide what verbs should be used for what. So In reality, you will see it all wrong in many API's, things like POST used for upserts and updates, PUT for create, POST to perform GET's, it's up to them really.
If you have control over that backend your angular.js app relies on, try to stick as close as you can to those guidelines. But those are just guidelines, they don't need to be enforced and many times your business needs requires you to divert from them. So use PATCH for partial entity updates, PUT for full entity updates, or just PATCH for everything (partial/full). You'll find what works for you. And forget about that rule of percentages you wrote in your question, that just complicate things.
I personally use PATCH as updates, either partial of full. So I don't have to support on my API's two ways of updating a resource, so I don't support PUTs. But some of my colleagues use with their teams PUT as a PATCH. So they don't support PATCH. They do Partial updates with PUT which works for them and their customers as well.
Read more on PATCH, POST, PUT

A: PUT is used to create, POST to update see PUT vs POST in REST
You could use PATCH for very specific update for instance, if some information about a resource is cached and the other is not, you could used PATCH and PUT separately as a clear way to distinct which one will cause a cache refresh.
Another way to think this would be for a update of a complex resource that has relations with others resources.
PATCH could be used to add relations to existing ones while POST would overwrite the whole list.
To be honest I usually use PUT to create but I don't allow overwriting of existing entites with PUT, only POST to update.
I am basically following only partially HTTP because :

*

*Even if it is only partial, someone seeing the usage of PUT/POST/GET will expect it to do the corresponding operation. It make my code more readable.

*Implement it fully may take quite some time for no benefit for what I am doing.

*Usually in UI of what I do, creating and modifying are part of 2 separates screen with different rights, having two separates method+URL makes possible to apply rights restriction to each of them separately by configuration only and not by code. Note that if you use POST xxx to create and POST xxx/[id] to update you have two differents URL.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
→Bloody Bay Wall and Pirate's Point Resort – Little Cayman, Cayman Islands (British West Indies)
Bloody Bay Wall and Pirate's Point Resort – Little Cayman, Cayman Islands (British West Indies)
The Ultimate Dive, and Divine Dining After
The Caymans, a three-island British Crown Colony, sit atop an ancient undersea mountain chain. On the surface, the translucent turquoise waters are serene, but below you'll find dramatic walls and sheer drop-offs only feet from shore, like an underwater Grand Canyon.
It's one of the best dive sites in the world, with an astounding diversity of underwater life residing among coral-encrusted reefs and walls. Bob Soto's is the time-honored name for scuba diving in the Caymans. When he started in 1957 he had to convince the hotels he wasn't going to drown their guests; today he is one of fifty qualified dive operators.
Off Grand Cayman is the famous Stingray City, considered one of the best shallow dive/snorkeling sites in the world, where the winged marine creatures are hand-fed by divers like so many park pigeons. The numero uno dive site in the area, though, is the 1,200-foot plunging coral garden known since pirate days as Bloody Bay Wall, located off Little Cayman's north shore.
Little Cayman is the Caribbean's largest bird sanctuary and has one of its smallest human populations, numbering around 100. It's the last bastion of wilderness in the Cayman Islands, famous for its 20,000 red-footed boobies and for Texas-born Gladys Howard —a student of famed cookbook writer and chef extraordinaire Julia Child—who caters to guests' every diving and dining need at her small beachside inn, Pirate's Point Resort.
Aside from working miracles with fish caught in her front yard and produce flown in daily, Gladys also offers a custom- built dive boat with a staff of qualified diving instructors.


text:
basal form of invertebrate
The Placozoa are an animal phylum, a primitive form of invertebrate.[1] They are the simplest in structure of all metazoa.
Subkingdom:
Parazoa
Phylum:
The Placozoa is usually considered to have only one species, Trichoplax adhaerens, but there is enough genetic diversity that it is possible that there are multiple, morphologically similar species.[2]
Although they were first discovered in 1883, a common name does not exist for the taxon. The scientific name literally means "flat animals".[3]
Trichoplax is a small, flattened, animal around a millimetre across. Like an Amoeba, it has no regular outline, although the upper surface is always flattened. The body consists of an outer layer of simple epithelium enclosing a loose sheet of cells. The epithelial cells bear flagella, which the animal uses to help it creep along the seafloor.[4] Between these layers is the fiber syncytium, a liquid-filled cavity strutted open by star-like fibers.
Trichoplax feed by absorbing food particles—mainly microbes—with their underside. They generally reproduce asexually, by dividing or budding, but can also reproduce sexually. Though Trichoplax has a small genome in comparison to other animals, nearly 87% of its 11,514 protein-coding genes are similar to known genes in other animals.
In the 1960s and 1970s renewed interest among researchers led to the discovery that the animals people had been studying are adults, not larvae. This newfound interest also included study of the organism in nature (as opposed to aquariums).[5]
↑ Barnes, Robert D. 1982. Invertebrate zoology. Holt-Saunders, Philadelphia, PA. p84 ISBN 0-03-056747-5.
↑ Voigt O; et al. (2004). "Placozoa: no longer a phylum of one". Current Biology. 14 (22): R944–5. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2004.10.036. PMID 15556848. S2CID 11539852.
↑ Rüdiger Wehner & Walter Gehring (2007). Zoologie (in German) (24th ed.). Stuttgart: Thieme. p. 696.
↑ UC Berkeley: Introduction to Placozoa
↑ Syed T. and Schierwater B. 2002. Trichoplax adhaerens: discovered as a missing link, forgotten as a hydrozoan, re-discovered as a key to metazoan evolution. Vie Milieu vol 52, p177–187.
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Placozoa&oldid=8530263"
This page was last changed on 6 November 2022, at 12:26.


text:
This is what the US military's first 'DD-214' looked like
The most important sheet of paper you'll ever get from the Continental Army.
By Max Hauptman | Published Nov 11, 2022 7:15 AM
The more things change, the more they stay the same. (Aaron Provost/Task & Purpose).
John Hall was a private in the 2nd New York Regiment of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. At some point during the summer of 1783, he received this sheet of paper:
A ye olde DD-214. (The American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati)
This was his discharge paperwork, furloughing him from the rapidly disbanding Continental Army. It was a DD-214 form for a simpler time. Issued on behalf of Gen. George Washington, it notes that Hall was "honored with the Badge of Merit for two years faithful service."
The DD-214, the certificate of release from active duty, is something that every active duty service member receives when they retire or are discharged. In 1783, it was not much different.
That year, Hall along with other soldiers like fellow 2nd New York Regiment private Jeremiah McGowan — who had been serving since 1777 and who's discharge paper can be seen here — were in camp around Newburgh, New York. The war had effectively ended in 1781 with the Siege of Yorktown, but it would take more than a year to negotiate a peace.
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Throughout the war, the Continental Army had been plagued by a problem — paying the soldiers. In 1775 pay for a private in the Continental Army had been set at $6.67 per month. That rarely arrived on time, though, if it did at all. Soldiers were also paid in paper money. In December 1776, Washington had even been forced to offer his own personal fortune as payment to entice soldiers with expiring enlistments to stay on, as their paper scrip money was essentially useless. By 1781, $225 of this paper money was equivalent to $1 of hard currency. 1781 also saw two separate mutinies by units of the Continental Army, including one in which 1,500 Pennsylvania soldiers killed three officers and abandoned their camp in New Jersey. Initially planning to march to Philadelphia, they were eventually talked into reenlisting for a bonus.
By 1783, Congress wanted no part in a standing army that had plenty of muskets and wanted to be paid on time. In June, Washington ordered the Army to begin furloughing soldiers. Of course, Congress still didn't have the money for all that back pay.
Instead, soldiers were discharged with one month's pay, along with being allowed to keep their weapons, uniforms, and other issued equipment. The remainder was paid off with speculatory notes that could be redeemed at a later date, but were worth almost nothing at the time. Many soldiers ended up simply selling these notes.
While Washington's Farewell Orders to the Army, before it was officially dissolved by Congress in Nov. 1783, said "the Officers and Soldiers may expect considerable assistance in recommencing their civil occupations from the sums due to them from the public, which must and will most inevitably be paid," that was not always the case.
As for Pvt. Hall, when he passed away in 1817 or 1818, he had still never received a land grant that was promised at the beginning of his enlistment. Had he lived any longer, though, he would have needed his discharge papers to qualify for a Continental Army pension. Much like the DD-214s of today, this is one piece of government-issued paperwork you didn't want to lose.
The latest on Task & Purpose
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Navy jet considered 'beyond repair' returns to flight 5 years after mid-air collision
We salute the Marine who got promoted at a fried chicken restaurant on base
Want to write for Task & Purpose? Click here. Or check out the latest stories on our homepage.
Max Hauptman
Max Hauptman has been covering breaking news at Task & Purpose since December 2021. He previously worked at The Washington Post as a Military Veterans in Journalism Fellow, as well as covering local news in New England. Contact the author here.


text:
Need funding?
Santa Teresa goes to NT Supreme Court
Santa Teresa heads to the Supreme Court
MEDIA RELEASE: HOUSING TEST CASE IN NT SUPREME COURT TODAY COULD SET UNPRECEDENTED LEGAL STANDARDS FOR REMOTE COMMUNITIES
Aboriginal people living in remote communities living in appalling conditions in the NT are closely observing the developments of the Santa Teresa landmark test case that will be heard in the NT Supreme Court today. The case could set higher standards of housing, with the potential to break the stalemate and force improvement for remote communities across the NT.
Two members of the Santa Teresa community, Enid Young and Robert Conway will argue that the legal requirement to provide housing that is habitable, extends to a requirement that housing is good enough to live in, reasonably comfortable and humane. Previously the NTCAT ruled that the standard is only that housing be safe, establishing an important, but basic level of protection. A ruling in favour of Ms Young and Mr Conway at the Supreme Court would significantly increase the standard of housing required in remote communities . Ms. Young and Mr. Conway will also argue that their rental agreements are 'unconscionable' (unfair) and invalid on that basis because no-one explained what they were signing up to. If successful, the case could open the NT Government up to further financial liability in relation to rents unfairly collected from residents in other remote communities.
In a historic decision released in February, NTCAT found that the NT Government is legally obliged to provide housing to tenants that meets the minimum statutory safeguards in the Residential Tenancies Act, for the first time. It ordered that compensation be paid to Santa Teresa renters for the poor state of housing. That decision potentially impacts over 70 other remote communities across the NT.
The Santa Teresa lawsuit was brought against the NT Government by 70 households after the Government failed to action over 600 urgent repairs, with some families waiting for over five years. Many houses posed serious health and safety risks to residents. Some homes were structurally unsound or without running water, sewerage and ventilation. This was despite the desert temperatures in the area regularly hovering above 40 degrees in summer and below zero in winter.
Annie Young, a community leader from Santa Teresa said, "We need better housing in Santa Teresa community, proper housing that's reliable and good for years to come. Not just people relying on fixing up old houses, even if they fix up these old houses now they'll come down later. Fixing them is just a band-aid job.
"We need houses that don't make people sick. There are still married people with kids living with their mothers and fathers in two-bedroom houses, and that's not right, that's very wrong. The overcrowding can make people stressed and stress makes people sick.
"The overcrowding is the worst thing not just in our community but in all communities. Indigenous people in my community and others need better housing.
Dan Kelly, a solicitor with Australian Lawyers for Remote Aboriginal Rights (ALRAR) who represented the residents at no cost says, "This litigation is looking like the circuit breaker that could force wholesale change of remote housing in the NT that has been in dire straights for decades.
"Enid and Robert's challenge at the Supreme Court is part of a long story of Aboriginal communities fighting to protect their rights while the Government has continued to fail to meet its basic responsibilities as a landlord in the community.
Walter Shaw, spokesperson for Aboriginal Housing NT (AHNT), said "First Nations people living in remote communities across the Territory who have also been ignored by the NT Government and forced to live in appalling conditions are keenly watching the development of this case.
"The NT Government must return responsibility for housing decisions back to Aboriginal control, and take a housing for health approach if it is serious about closing the gap on Aboriginal disadvantage.
"Climate change will have severe impacts on communities living remotely, it is critical that housing is appropriately designed and renovated to provide protection, particularly the young and elderly, who are already facing unsafe levels of extreme heat and extreme weather events.
Belinda Lowe, Head of Strategic Communication at Grata Fund, the organisation that provided the financial backing for disbursements in the case, said "Residents of Santa Teresa have shown extraordinary courage standing up for their basic rights to the NT Government, who has at times deployed aggressive legal tactics.
"We expect the NT Government to apply the legal standard set by the courts to all remote communities, and we are open to supporting the legal challenges of other communities seeking its application."
The NT Government has not appealed the original NTCAT decision.
This is a joint Grata Fund ALRAR media release.
Spokes available
Annie Young, Santa Teresa community leader available on 0474 166 879
Dan Kelly, Solicitor, Australian Lawyers for Remote Aboriginal Rights (ALRAR)
Belinda Lowe, Head of Strategic Communication, Grata Fund
Walter Shaw spokesperson for Aboriginal Housing NT (AHNT) is quoted above, but not available for interviews.
Media contact, Belinda Lowe: 0428 805 696
NT Supreme Court, 14 Parsons St, Alice Springs
Wednesday 11 December, starting at 10am. The hearing is expected to run most of the day.
The 70 Santa Teresa residents bringing the case are being represented by Australian Lawyers for Remote Aboriginal Rights at no cost to them and the litigation disbursements are financed by Grata Fund. The NT Department of Housing initially counter-claimed against the plaintiffs for approximately $2million in alleged unpaid rental debts but was forced to withdraw this claim during hearings at NTCAT when it could not produce any evidence of these debts.
In February 2019 NTCAT decided that the Residential Tenancies Act applied to the residents of Santa Teresa, a point which the NT Government had disputed, and that residents are entitled to housing that is at least safe. It ordered the NT Government to provide compensation to families for periods where the housing did not meet that standard.
NTCAT also found that the new tenancy agreements introduced in Santa Teresa by the NT Department of Housing from about 2017 were invalid because they contained terms that were inconsistent with provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act. This meant that the rent increases introduced under the new agreements were invalid.
These findings are significant because it is likely that the same or similar processes were followed by the Department in executing rental agreements in other remote communities. This would entitle people in other communities to the protections provided by the Residential Tenancies Act, including the ability to claim for compensation. Similarly, where tenants in other communities have been signed up to new rental agreements with rent increases, those increases may also be invalid. This has implications for the potential financial liability of the NT Government for any overpaid amounts.
It is possible that every rent increase claimed by the NT Department of Housing for remote tenants is unlawful. The NT should immediately cease collection of these amounts, and conduct an audit to ensure it is not collecting monies it is not entitled to.
NTCAT decision, 28 February 2019
JOIN THE GRATA FUND COMMUNITY
We are a community of people working to enable the public to use the courts as a tool for justice and change.
We believe that the courts should be accessible to all people, not just big businesses and governments.
We are proud to support audacious cases that protect and advance the rights and freedoms of all Australians.
Check out our current positions here.
To submit a case, please click here or 'Need Funding?' above. To talk to us about anything else, please click here.
Grata enables people take cases to court that serve their interests and the interests of the broader community.
We do this by bringing members of the public together with legal experts, public advocates and financial support, free from concerns of financial return or political risk.
UNSW Law
We are a proud partner of UNSW Law School.
Eora Nation
We acknowledge the Bedegal people who are traditional owners of the land on which we work. We pay our respect to the tens of thousands of years of stories and community life that has thrived in the Eora Nation and to the Elders past, present and emerging. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
For media enquiries please contact Belinda Lowe on 02 9385 1201.
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Taking blood pressure medications and other treatments for diabetes can actually slow down the damage to your kidneys. Each medication is given for a particular reason and should be taken as directed.
injections, including erythropoeitin and iron, to control your anaemia.
Many people with kidney disease also take regular medications for their diabetes, thyroid disorders, pain and arthritis.
Medications past their use-by date are less effective or even harmful. You can take these medications to a chemist or local hospital pharmacy for safe disposal. Never throw them in a rubbish bin.
If you have taken a particular medication for a long time, or take a number of tablets, or have attended different doctors, consider asking your current doctor or a chemist to review your medications. Some may no longer be suitable, there may be new medications available or a dose may need changing.
If you are seeing a new doctor or health professional, tell them about your kidney condition, as this may influence their choice of medications and other treatments.
For example, some drugs are filtered through the kidney and can build up if you have end stage kidney disease. Some drugs need to be avoided while others need to be at a lower or safer dosage.
vitamins or food supplements, as they may contain potassium and magnesium.
Herbal or complimentary medications may also have side effects and can interact with other medications, so they may be unsuitable.
To avoid paying extra for your medication, ask your doctor to prescribe the cheapest brand or check with your chemist if there is a less expensive brand. Try a few different chemists; sometimes the prices can vary.
If you have any concerns or questions about your medications, talk to your pharmacist, visit the National Prescribing Service or call their Medicines Line on 1300 MEDICINE (1300 633 424) during business hours.
Fact sheets and other helpful information can be found in our Resource Library.
Are you looking for a kidney health supplement?


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