text:
In Run Up To Political Dialogue, No Respite For Kashmir's Besieged Media
IRFAN AMIN MALIK
25 Jun 2021 10 min read Share
In the first six months of 2021, at least 10 journalists in Kashmir have faced police interrogation or criminal cases—from rioting to terrorism—for doing their jobs. Even as the government laid the groundwork for a dialogue with Kashmir's political parties, police intimidation of the media only grew.
On 28 October 2020, the National Investigation Agency had raided the Greater Kashmir office in Srinagar/ABID BHAT
Srinagar: On 30 May, Sajid Raina, a 23-year-old reporter, changed his WhatsApp status to a photo of 22 children who died in a boat accident 15 years ago. He captioned it "Wular Martyred". That evening, after a call from an intelligence official who appeared to object to the term "martyr", Raina deleted the photo.
Raina, a reporter with Kashmir News Observer, a local news agency, thought that was the end of the matter.
Two days later, on 1 June, the police in Raina's home town of Bandipora, 45 km northwest of here, filed an FIR against Raina. On 4 June, the Bandipora police tweeted: "FIR No 84/2021 lodged in police station Bandipora against one person namely Sajid Raina for his WhatsApp status on 30-05-2021 which attracts investigation into the contents and intention behind it."
An additional tweet said: "It was not against anyone's profession particularly journalists, as is being circulated on social media. Investigations are underway."
Within six days, in unrelated events, two freelance journalists received police summons—one of them a woman from south Kashmir. Requesting anonymity, she told Article 14 police questioned her tweets on their intimidation of local shopkeepers.
"I had tweeted how Kashmir was handling Covid-19 pandemic as a law-and-order problem," she said. "Next day I received a police summons and I was questioned in the police station."
The summons caused "severe anxiety" to her family, who, she said, wanted her to be more cautious about her reporting.
Political Dialogue Restarts, But Pressure On Media Remains
The intimidation of journalists in June continues the unstated policy of cowing Kashmiri media, even as New Delhi attempts to restart the political process. The groundwork for the talks with Kashmiri political parties comes after backchannel talks between India and Pakistan, brokered by the United Arab Emirates.
There has, however, been no apparent move to ease up on the subduing of the media. If anything, the pressure on journalists to conform to the government's point of view is increasing, said many we spoke to for this story.
A WhatsApp status, coverage of a demolition drive, a Twitter comment on the state's handling of Covid-19—anything in a day at work or a personal opinion can attract police attention to journalists in Kashmir. That includes criminal cases, being summoned to police stations and physical attack.
Article 14 has previously reported the rise in intimidation and arrests of journalists by the government and police since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in 2019, a draconian new media policy in 2020 that invited widespread condemnation, and how journalists are being forced to self-censor themselves.
The first warning that 2021 would not bring relief came in January, when the government of India's newest union territory "de-empanelled" 34 newspapers in Kashmir in January 2021, removing them from a list of newspapers approved to receive government advertisements, a major source of revenue.
In May 2021, as the second wave of Covid-19 raged, a government order banned doctors and health officials from talking to reporters, a move enforced nowhere else in India.
"All chief medical officers/ medical superintendents/ block medical officers of Kashmir division are enjoined upon to issue instructions to all staff... to desist from media interactions," read the circular issued by the director of health. The notice claimed talking to the media resulted in "contradictory and confusing messages... which misinforms the public and creates unnecessary and avoidable panic".
Calling it a "state tool" to keep news of its flailing health sector under wraps, Rising Kashmir health correspondent 30-year-old Mansoor Peer told Article 14 the order was to "hide faults and failures of the government". Now, no doctor dares speak to any reporter, said Peer, hindering coverage of the pandemic and the government's handling of it.
Warnings, Restrictions And A Pushback
The gag on health coverage came weeks after restrictions on journalists over covering firefights with militants.
In March 2021, two photojournalists alleged attacks by police while they filmed stones being hurled at police outside the Jamia Masjid, a 619-year-old mosque in the old quarter of Srinagar.
Freelancer Saqib Majeed and BBC Urdu multimedia journalist Shafat Farooq were hospitalised and later said that police apologised.
In April, security forces attacked journalists covering clashes near a firefight site in south Kashmir's Pulwama. A constable was filmed kicking photojournalist Qisar Mir.
Syed Shahriyar, the photojournalist who recorded the video, tweeted: "One pointed a pellet gun and another kicked a local photographer @QisarMir after chasing us away while covering clashes near the gunfight site in Pulwama today. Everyday story of a journalist in #Kashmir."
The police reaction was to ban live coverage of firefights and, as Kashmir inspector general of police (IGP) Vijay Kumar put it, "law-and-order situations".
Kumar told journalists to not "interfere" in "encounter sites". He said: "Freedom of speech and expression is subject to reasonable restrictions that should not violate other people's right to life... or putting national security in jeopardy."
The IGP warned the media against showing content that could "incite violence or contain anything against maintenance of law and order or which promotes anti-national sentiment".
In response, 12 media bodies in Kashmir protested, calling the order part of police policy to coerce journalists into not reporting facts on the ground. The Editors Guild of India too issued a statement demanding the police withdraw its advisory.
"Journalists cover encounters for facts, information (vital in a democracy)," tweeted senior journalist and editor of Kashmir Times Anuradha Bhasin. "It is a call to duty."
Young Reporters Get Special Attention
In February, Sajad Gul, 25, a freelance journalist reported a government demolition drive in Bandipora district. Three days later, he faced charges of rioting, trespassing and assault. "I could not get my FIR quashed in court," he said but was granted anticipatory bail. On 23 June, Gul tweeted on his frequent visits to police stations and Bandipora district court over the last four months, tagging a report on parents dissuading young Kashmiris' from pursuing journalism. He recently lost his maternal uncle to Covid-19, who was fighting his case.
[[https://article-14.com/uploads/2021/06-June/25-Fri/J%26KJournoSajadGul.jpeg]]
A masters student in convergent journalism at the Central University Kashmir, the FIR against Gul lists sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 447 (punishment for criminal trespassing), and 353 (assaulting public servant) of Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, the allegations punishable with prison of upto years and fines.
Gul said he was dragged into a "false case" for simply carrying out his professional duties. "The demolition drive triggered stone pelting and protests in the area," he said. "I was targeted merely for reporting this."
"I have lost faith in justice," he said. "Is journalism a crime? I keep thinking, how could I be booked for merely reporting on a demolition drive?"
Gul's report was published in The Kashmir Walla on 9 February. Headlined, "Residents aghast with demolition drives in Hajin," the report quoted officials saying the government would retrieve allegedly encroached land "at any cost".
No sooner was the report released that a first-class magistrate threatened legal action, said Gul. The next day, the magistrate and a team of officials went to Gul's home village, Shahgund Bandipora and demolished the fence of his maternal uncle's house and Gul's property.
The FIR against Gul, who was in Srinagar, he said, when this happened, also names other locals and four of his maternal uncles, one of whom recently died of Covid-19.
From Threats To Terror Charges
"Before July 2019, journalists would be swamped with summons and verbal intimidation," a young media researcher who did not want to be named, told Article 14. "Now they are straight booked under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and IPC sections."
The first signs of heightened surveillance after the abrogation of Article 370 were evident when reporters and editors had to work only from a media centre set up by the government, after the Valley was plunged into an internet blackout from August 2019 till early March 2020.
In April 2020, two Kashmiri journalists—Masrat Zahra and Gowhar Geelani— faced charges under the UAPA, which allows jail without bail merely on allegations made by the police.
[[https://article-14.com/uploads/2021/06-June/25-Fri/J%26KJournoMasrat.jpg]]
"The vague, almost boundless, scope of the offences of "Terrorist Act" and "Unlawful Activity" created under the UAPA allows for punishing thought crimes, where the act itself might matter far less compared to the intentions allegedly imputed to a person," Supreme Court lawyer Abhinav Sekhri wrote in Article 14 on 16 July 2020.
"These allegations can only be refuted at trial, in all probability being fought by the accused from behind bars, as the chances for securing bail are exceedingly small," wrote Sekhri.
Despite the clampdown, 2020 brought global recognition. Three Kashmiri journalists—Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand— won the Pulitzer Prize, US journalism's highest honour, for their coverage of the 2019 crackdown.
"It was always cat-and-mouse," Dar told Associated Press. "These things made us more determined than ever to never be silenced."
Starving Newspapers Of Government Ads
Complaints from journalists of "harassment" increased manifold after the government introduced the vague and intimidatory New Media Policy in June 2020, authorising officers to decide what was "fake news" and act against journalists.
"Any individual or group indulging in fake news, unethical or anti-national activities or in plagiarism shall be de-empanelled besides being proceeded against under law," said the new policy.
Global press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders criticised the "media policy" and urged India to immediately withdraw it.
Under the cover of the policy, the government increased surveillance of the media.
After a four-month-long exercise to "verify and examine" workings of dozens of newspapers in the new union territory, the government "de-empanelled" 34 newspapers and suspended advertisements to 13 publications for "violating norms of circulation and other publication guidelines". Notices were issued to 17 other news publications for "alleged plagiarism" and "poor content".
On 15 January 2021, government advertisements were pulled from Greater Kashmir, among the Valley's largest circulated English language dailies, and its Urdu publication, Kashmir Uzma. On 28 October 2020, the National Investigation Agency had raided the newspaper's office in Srinagar. Advertisements were also pulled from Kashmir Reader, an English daily that faced a three-month ban during a 2016 uprising triggered by the killing of Hizbul militant commander, Burhan Wani.
The advertisement ban has led to a cutback in staff salaries and job losses may follow, said journalists.
This was the second time that major newspapers were denied government advertisements. In February 2019, the J&K government, under presidential rule, stopped advertisements to Greater Kashmir.The newspaper was already blacklisted from getting ads from the Centre's directorate of advertising and visual publicity since 2008. State government ads were also stopped to Kashmir Reader.
Army Complains, Journalists Charged
In January 2021, J&K police registered FIRs against two news portals of Kashmir on a complaint by the Army.
The Kashmir Walla and The Kashmiriyat had reported that a religious school in south Kashmir's Shopian district had been "forced" by the Army to hold a Republic Day function on 26 January, which the Army complained was baseless and "fake".
On 30 January 2021, police filed cases against both The Kashmir Walla and The Kashmiriyat. The FIRs named sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) IPC.
The Kashmir Walla editor Fahad Shah stood by the report, but the district court of Srinagar denied anticipatory bail to Fahad Shah and reporter Yashraj Sharma, who have now moved the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.
[[https://article-14.com/uploads/2021/06-June/25-Fri/J%26KJournoFahad%20Shah.JPG]]
"The district court did not quash the FIR and dismissed the petition," said Sharma, 22. "For days I could not focus on work. I was scared and apprehensive that I may be arrested. I have now learned to live with this intimidation."
New York-based press freedom watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in its report on 22 February called upon the Indian government to drop investigations into the work of three Kashmir-based journalists and allow them to report without "harassment, intimidation, and criminal investigations".
"Journalists Yashraj Sharma, Mir Junaid, and Sajad Gul should be allowed to do their jobs without harassment, intimidation, and criminal investigations from Kashmiri authorities," Aliya Iftikhar, CPJ Asia researcher was quoted as saying in the FreePressKashmir. "Jammu and Kashmir Police must drop their investigations into all three journalists and stop targeting journalists because of their reporting."
Making An Example Of Aasif Sultan
The most egregious example of a journalist facing State power has been Aasif Sultan, who has completed 1,000 days of incarceration in Srinagar's central jail under UAPA since his arrest in August 2018.
The police allege that the 34-year-old assistant editor for Kashmir Narrator, "harboured known militants". Police interest in Sultan piqued since his report on Burhan Wani. He has also been charged with murder, attempt to murder and other crimes.
In a statement on 23 May 2021 on 1,000 days of his imprisonment, CPJ demanded Sultan's immediate release. Sultan won the US National Press Club's annual John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award. His imprisonment has also been featured in Time magazine's "10 Most Urgent" cases around the world of threats to press freedom.
(Irfan Amin Malik is a journalist based in Jammu and Kashmir.)


Bengali new year Polia Boisakh is always special in every Bengali household. On the first day of 1426 Bengali year, people have wished their dear ones throughout the day. Our celebs are no exception. Bengali celebrities took to their Twitter handle to send good wishes to their fans and followers. Actors like Prosenjit Chatterjee, Dev, Koel Mallick and many others have posted nice pictures or videos giving a lovely message. Check out the Tweets here.


Pipe is a simple & secure communication tool for busy professionals. Pipe lets you communicate in real-time with anyone, your co-workers, clients, or prospects without ever sharing your personal phone number. Aside from communicating with your peers, pipe allows you to link your favorite services, businesses, schools, websites, blogs to get notified instantly of the stuff that you care about.


Garden Art Press published David Austin's 'The Rose', covering roses of all types and ages from the earliest known forms to modern roses of today. This handy pocket-sized title includes the material in that publication dealing with Old Roses, among them the lovely Gallica, Damask, Alba, Centifolia, Moss, China, Portland, Bourbon and Hybrid Perpetual Roses. Illustrated throughout with a riot of magnificent colour photographs, this indispensable guide contains important information on rose cultivation with valuable advice on soil preparation, planting, pruning, feeding, diseases and pests. Many of the photographs included here are new to this book, and include breeds not illustrated in 'The Rose'. Coming from one of the UK's foremost experts on roses, this advice can only add to the undoubted value and importance of this most useful and attractive book.
David Austin is uniquely equipped to write books on roses. As a commercial rose grower, he is in continual contact with gardeners and as a hybridiser he is in touch with agents who sell and propagate his English Roses worldwide - from Japan, Australia and New Zealand to the USA and Canada. His garden at Albrighton, near Wolverhampton, contains one of the finest collections of roses in the world, containing more than 800 varieties. He was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour by the Royal Horticultural Society in 2003 and the Dean Hole Medal by the Royal National Rose Society.


Two Class A office buildings with ground floor retail in San Jose, CA next to Silicon Valley's primary transportation hub.
MidPoint@237 in North San Jose, CA is a state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing project.
A 72.6-acre industrial project consisting of three, Class A buildings in Livermore, CA.
High Street Residential's 9-story, 325-unit luxury transit-oriented residential tower designed to achieve LEED Silver Certification.
Foster City Medical Pavilion is a Class A medical office building, highlighted by an open 3-story lobby structure with gurney-accessible elevator.


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Jean Paul Gaultier Says Goodbye to the Runway
The designer's Spring/Summer 2020 couture show will be his last.
Jean-Paul Gaultier walks the runway during the Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2019 2020 show | Source: Getty Images
M.C. Nanda
PARIS, France — Jean Paul Gaultier says he's leaving the runway for good. Today, the designer announced that his upcoming couture show, set to take place on January 22 during the Paris shows, would be his last, hinting that he is working on a new project to be announced soon.
The 67-year-old designer added that Gaultier Paris, his haute-couture label, "will go on," and that he will continue to lead the brand.
This show celebrating 50 years of my career will also be my last. But rest assured Haute Couture will continue with a new concept. pic.twitter.com/PJCC53K4tm
— Jean Paul Gaultier (@JPGaultier) January 17, 2020
In 2014, Gaultier dissolved his ready-to-wear label in order to focus on couture and collaborations, citing the hamster-wheel pace and aesthetic constraints of mass-produced collections.
Three years earlier, Spanish beauty and fashion conglomerate Puig acquired a majority stake in the company. Puig also owns and operates Gaultier's fragrance business. Hermès previously had a 45 percent stake in the company, where Gaultier also worked as creative director for seven years before exiting in 2010.
Known as the "enfant terrible" of French fashion, Gaultier launched his business in 1982 and introduced his couture collection in 1997.
[ Jean Paul Gaultier, Fashion Incarnate ]
[ Puig Is Getting Serious About Fashion… to Sell More Fragrance ]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The 36th World Cup began in October 2001 and ended in March 2002 at the World Cup finals held in Altenmarkt, Austria.  The overall winners were Stephan Eberharter and Michaela Dorfmeister, both from Austria.

The schedule for the 36th World Cup season included a nearly four-week-long break in February for the Winter Olympics in the United States at Salt Lake City, Utah.

This was the first season that colored dye was used on the snow to mark the courses.

Calendar

Men

Ladies

Men

Overall

Downhill

Super G

Giant slalom

Slalom

Combined

Ladies

Overall

Downhill

Super G

Giant slalom

Slalom

Combined

Footnotes

References

External links
FIS-ski.com – World Cup standings – 2002

FIS Alpine Ski World Cup
World Cup
World Cup

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Hello everyone! I'm up on the Twine It Up! with Trendy Twine Blog today. This month, we are showcasing Watermelon Taffy Trendy Twine along with the Small Candy Sacks.
I went a little crazy in the Easter candy isle--there was so much that I liked in that isle and it somehow ended up in my cart :) The mini malted eggs are one of my favorites so I had to used them in one of the bags.
I used a cut from the Cricut New Arrival cartridge for my tag. The green paper is just a small piece I added to bring in some green to go along with the twine. I stamped the sentiment in some green ink above the bunny cut out.
The cut was actually just a flat card that I scored and folded over the back. Then I punched small holes for my Watermelon Trendy Twine to go through to hold the bag closed with a bow in the front. To finish off the tag, I added two small self stick pearls.
Here is a shot of the side of the bag. I love the flat bottom which helps hold a lot of candy in there.
We have lots of fun projects for this month using the Watermelon Trendy Twine and the Small Candy Sacks--both on special this month at Annie's Paper Boutique.
I hope you visit the Twine It Up! blog today and all month long!!
Super ADORABLE!!!! what a fun Easter treat!!!!
So cute Helen! I love seeing projects using older cricut cartridges. I never knew this was even on the the cartridge! Awesome!!
Super fun project, love the bunny cut out with those pearls! Those little pearls are adorable as well! Have a great day!
This are so sweet and I like that they would be so easy to put several together.
Your treat toppers are adorable right down to the scallop edge!


Water leaks under your slab not only damage your property, but they also increase your water bill. Cracks in the walls, excessive moisture under your carpet, and the sound of constant running water are all telltale signs that there is a leaking pipe under your slab that is in immediate need of repairing.
At Mike Tilton Plumbing and Heating, we have the tools and knowledge to locate and repair your under-slab leaks, without causing damage to your property.
When copper water pipes start to leak under your foundation, they can cause severe damage to your property. These leaks can be repaired by our plumbers by re-routing the route of the water line above the slab to eliminate the leaking pipe. After the water line has been re-routed, the leak can never recur, and no costly concrete removal and replacement is necessary.
We do not believe this method of leak detection is necessary. Our technicians can begin repairs on a slab leak in a short amount of time, often costing less than the detection services. With detection services a large fee is charged and when the leak is located, the work to reroute has to begin as that point, instead of already having been started.
In most cases with municipal codes, it is required to have a backflow prevention device installed at every cross-connection point in the plumbing system of apartments, commercial buildings, condominiums, and public spaces. Backflow devices are also required on lawn sprinkler systems in a home. The kind of backflow device needed will be determined by the level of hazard at that location. At Mike Tilton Plumbing, our water supply protection specialist (WSPS) on staff is certified to install, test, and/or repair back flow devices.
Backflow prevention devices normally consist of mechanical check valves that help to prevent dirty water from flowing back into the clean water supply. This is extremely important to have installed during any unexpected event or a big change in water pressure. When properly installed and maintained, the backflow device will keep your drinking water safe and free of any harmful contaminants.
It is required by law to have these devices tested annually and our team can install, maintain, and test these systems with ease.
Protect your home from leaks and other hazardous situations. Call us today to remedy your water leak problems!


Kenya couldn't stop laughing when I asked him, "you wanna make banana dogs?" He just kept saying, "what's a banana dog? That's so silly!" But he loved spreading the nut butter on the tortilla, peeling the banana, laying it in it's "tortilla bed" (that got another big laugh) and rolling it up for the banana to "sleep tight" (still more giggles). Then I simply cut the Banana Dogs into half-inch sushi-style pieces (which looked adorable), and sent him off to school with them. But it wasn't until his lunch box came home totally empty that I realized just how yummy they were!
1. Place one tortilla on a flat surface and spread 2 tbsp of peanut butter on the tortilla to evenly coat.
2. Place one banana near the edge of the tortilla and roll it up.
3. Slice into 1/2 inch rounds and serve.
*If your tortilla bread is stiff, you can put it in the microwave in between two pieces of moist paper towel and heat for 15-20 seconds or until softened.


text:
package wrench.orm.model;

import wrench.orm.utils.PluralUtils;
import wrench.orm.utils.StringUtils;

/**
 * @author mhauck
 */
public abstract class BaseTable implements Table {

    @Override
    public String getTableName() {
        return PluralUtils.pluralize(StringUtils.toLowerUnderscore(getClass()));
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isNew() {
        return getId() <= 0;
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Rob and Julia Campbell
Tweets About "Youthquake" Being Oxford Dictionaries' Word Of The Year Prove Everyone's Confused AF
By Collette Reitz
As 2017 draws to a close, you're probably seeing data revealing your most-played songs on Spotify (and how much you really love Ed Sheeran) or the most-watched Netflix show of the year. When it comes to the way people speak, though, Oxford Dictionaries is here to shed light on the vernacular of this past year (I guess some people communicate with more than just emojis). This year, the word that stood out to them was "youthquake," and these tweets about "youthquake" being Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year show that people are confused about it.
According to the Oxford Dictionaries' website, they choose a Word of the Year to help understand mindset of the last year and to mark where the world is heading in the future. The 2017 Word of the Year was announced on Dec. 14, and youthquake is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as "a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people." In the UK, the usage of youthquake was registered most fervently around the June 8, 2017 election that was called by the Conservative leader Prime Minister Theresa May.
Following May's call for a "snap election," young voters were energized and went to the polls voting for the opposing Labour Party. Sixty-six percent of first-time 18-to-19-year-old voters cast their ballot for the Labour Party. Even though the Conservatives won more seats in the House of Commons, many political analysts were taken aback by the sheer numbers of the youth vote.
Despite the massive turnout and political effects, people were still a bit confused by the 2017 Word of the Year choice, so they took to Twitter to let it out. I'll add my name to the confused list, especially since every time I type "youthquake," it remains underlined in red as if it is "misspelled."
Apparently, youthquake's definition is not common knowledge.
Uncommon and "a bizarre choice."
The discovery that youthquake is a word had people shook.
"Spins me right round, baby"
Youthquake is so not "fetch," Oxford Dictionaries.
"Stop trying to make #youthquake happen."
Some went back to simply being confused AF.
"Never heard of it."
How can it be Word of the Year if you've never heard of it?
Ah, because it was just invented. Got it.
Some appreciated the meaning but couldn't get past the "rubbish word."
It was a "good concept."
If it helps, it appears that people of all ages have never heard of youthquake.
"Sad face emoji."
See, there's proof in a chart.
It appears that "Googling youthquake" was the most-popular activity on the evening of Dec. 14.
Alas, it turns out that youthquake is a legitimate word.
According to Oxford Dictionaries, the word youthquake was first used in 1965 when the U.S. Vogue editor-in-chief, Diana Vreeland, penned an editorial in the Jan. 1965 issue of Vogue. She wrote about youthquake referring largely to the youth-led fashion and music movement of the '60s where baby boomers rejected the traditional values that their parents espoused.
Witnessing the rebellion, she wrote:
The year's in its youth, the youth in its year. Under 24 and over 90 million strong in the U.S. alone. More dreamers. More doers. Here. Now. Youthquake 1965.
The President of Oxford Dictionaries, Casper Grathwohl, believes that youthquake is an empowering word that "we can all rally behind," and he refers to it as a word "imbued with hope" for the future.
If the usage of the word youthquake in events like the UK's June 2017 election and the recent New Zealand general election — which was the largest spike in youthquake's usage throughout all of 2017 — are good indicators, then a youthquake is definitely in full force, and young people are molding their own future.
It's not only abroad, though. In the Dec. 12, 2017 special election for the Alabama Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, voters ages 18-44 supported Democratic candidate Doug Jones over Republican Roy Moore by more than 20 points. According to The Washington Post, that marked a clear shift from when Mitt Romney won voters under 45 by a small margin in 2012.
The numbers support the movement led by young people even if the word may sound a little unorthodox at first. So, youthquake is Oxford Dictonaries' 2017 Word of the Year, and hopefully 2018 will see more young people embodying in the spirit of the word — now that they know what it means, anyway.
Check out the entire Gen Why series and other videos on Facebook and the Bustle app across Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.


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Explore Panorama
Editors' Welcome
In the Round
Bully Pulpit
Exhibition Reviews
Art for an Undivided Earth: The American Indian Movement Generation
Reviewed By: Louise Siddons
Jessica L. Horton
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017; 312 pp.: 59 color illus., 62 b/w illus. Cloth $99.95; Paperback $26.95 (ISBN: 9780822369813)
Art for an Undivided Earth: The American Indian Movement Generation is an outstanding example of how the discipline-specific skills of art history—specifically, close looking as a guide for contextual analysis—can shed new light on fairly well-known works of art. Featuring the work of Jimmie Durham, James Luna, Kay WalkingStick, Fred Kabotie, and Robert Houle, Jessica Horton brings a wealth of contextual material and a compelling theoretical frame to her discussion of the influence of Native American history, culture, and politics on late twentieth-century American art.
Horton's title concept, "undivided earth," underscores Indigenous1 viewpoints regarding land as well as specific histories of mobility and movement. It also more subtly introduces her resistance to temporal boundaries: "This book," she begins, "compiles and explores connections between past and present indigenous travelers who have shared and shaped an ongoing modernity" (4)—a modernity that, she stresses, has been "fully shared with Europeans in the wake of 1492" (3). Horton's subtitle, "The American Indian Movement Generation," is in some ways a misleading periodization, implying a closer connection between most of the artists she discusses and the American Indian Movement (AIM) than existed in fact. To the extent that Horton takes the legacy of AIM as her ostensible starting point, it is more geared toward the organization's development of pan-Indian identity as a constructed political position than as a gesture toward its visual politics. Coll Thrush, Emily Burns, and others in Indigenous studies have been attending to the global movement of Native North American people and objects for some time, and Horton's study is a welcome addition to that literature from the perspective of visual art and culture.2
From the outset, Horton suggests that she has "sought to write in dialogue with artists and through the 'eyes' of artworks," and a key strength of this book is the way that it performs the very argument about material history she seeks to make (2). Horton ties this question of materiality to that of identity, opening her first chapter with a compelling statement of her intent to "dislodge identity from its stable position within recent art history in order to invigorate, rather than remove, the grounds for alliances" (17). For readers coming from Indigenous studies, such assertions hint at recent historiographical trends ranging from tribal nationalism to decolonization without confronting them directly—although a close reading of Horton's bibliography indicates she is well aware of the terrain.
The first chapter frames ideas about place, temporality, material, and identity that will preoccupy her throughout the text. The chapter also introduces Jimmie Durham (whose work with and for AIM is the strongest historical link between any of the artists discussed and the movement) in the context of the broader field of Indigenous institutional critique. This chapter productively asks what limits were confronted by artists who hoped to address Native American history and experience using materials and aesthetic strategies derived from "European cultural precepts," such as feathers, bones, and human displays (188).
In chapter two, Horton's concept of an "undivided earth" comes into its own as a critical tool for visual and material analysis. James Luna's 2005 Venice Biennale exhibition, Emendatio, is the focal point of her increasingly complex analysis of the relationships between archives and history, space and performance, and objects and experience. Emendatio took up the question of religious colonization and conversion, and in this chapter Horton elucidates the slippage revealed between religious and artistic performance in the work and the concomitant functions of performative objects in both. Horton engagingly discovers the temporal implications of Luna's work in coiled baskets by Juana Basilia Sitmelelene and others, whose loops are bound together by the persistence of material objects—an interplay from which she deduces the "reintegration of archive and repertoire" (93). Citing the German philosopher Walter Benjamin in support of this basket-derived material-historical model, Horton further performs the "undivided art history" for which she argues.
The third chapter takes a slightly jarring step back in time, exploring the organization and reception of the American Pavilion at the 1932 Venice Biennale as a frame for a close reading of paintings by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie. In itself, this chapter offers a compelling reading of Pueblo painting, its institutional history, and Kabotie's resistance to settler-colonial narratives of Hopi life. It is a chapter that could (and no doubt will) be used productively in the classroom, and yet it stands uncomfortably in relation to the surrounding chapters. Although it rehearses themes that appear throughout the book, it does so from a vantage point—both historically and subjectively speaking—that is at odds with the rest of the study, and which flirts uncomfortably with disciplinary tropes of the ethnographic present and the "timeless Indian." Perhaps for this reason, when Horton suggests that Kabotie's images, unlike the Ashcan circle and Taos Society paintings around them, transcend their historical moment in order to "join [her]" in 2011 Venice, her prose loses some of the fluid elegance that characterizes her writing as a whole (95).
Chapter four, organized around a discussion of Kay WalkingStick and her myriad influences and interests, revisits the question of identity politics and its legislation, allowing Horton to expand her earlier critique of essentialist notions of Indigeneity. The discussion is engaging but unsurprising; we should worry about the state of our field if we still need to be told that, "Europeans were not the only ones to envelop that which was new and strange inside familiar, even familial frameworks" (131). In the context of her stance against identity politics, Horton takes a strongly negative view of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act (IACA), a piece of legislation that she locates in a history of racially essentialist United States policymaking intended to contribute to the economic exploitation of Native American people as well as, arguably, their genocide. Passed in 1990, the IACA sought to protect Native American artists from mass-produced "crafts" that appropriated and undercut local tourist markets that were (and are) a core source of income in many Native communities; as such, it is still a vital tool of economic sovereignty for federally-recognized tribes, despite its ideological flaws.3 The intent of the IACA was to protect Native American artists and, through its provision that tribes could affiliate artists who were not enrolled, to recognize (a limited form of) tribal sovereignty. And its economic impact, particularly in Native communities economically dependent upon tourism (as is the case, for instance, throughout the Southwest), has been significant. According to Horton, far from protecting Indigenous people and their economic interests, the IACA undermined the authority of tribes, communities, and individuals to define themselves based on cultural practices and knowledge. It is an argument that she links, albeit again only implicitly, to the broader question of tribal nationalism in contemporary scholarly practice. Her perspective on this legislation perhaps reflects the geographical specificity of her project, which focuses on urban artists who work and exhibit internationally, and entirely avoids the question of tourist markets in and around Indian Country.4
Horton's fifth and final chapter upturns Eurocentric theoretical models of materiality, suggesting that Indigenous understanding of lively and agentic materials predated European theories along the same lines and accordingly informed Native American engagements with European audiences. Saulteaux artist Robert Houle's installation, Paris/Ojibwa (2010), is the centerpiece of a chapter that, like the others, ranges productively across centuries of history—in this case, to make an argument that objects and audiences work together to generate genealogies of meaning. It is a familiarly postmodern argument, nuanced by Horton's insistence that such ideas are longstanding features of Ojibwe philosophy that informed the development of an undivided modernism among undivided people. The chapter culminates in a confident model of scholarly alliance. In Houle's work, Horton suggests, we find "a generous space for a transcultural materialism that . . . broadens the 'we'" (183). It is the story of that broader "we"—one that encompasses materials, archives, and imaginaries alongside artists and audiences—that best explains Horton's selection of and implicit advocacy for the artists included in Undivided Earth: they have created work that, if we reach out for it, rewards us with the generous, generative space of an undivided art history.
Horton returns to the question of alliances in the epilogue, this time through the lens of material agency and undivided history. She persuasively argues that Durham, in multiple works, presented stones as objects that solicit our allegiance only to reveal themselves as "unpredictable actors on their own, material terms" (192). According to Horton, this gambit is a metaphor for our responsibility, as international art audiences, to "interven[e] on behalf of nameless human lives in a scenario of neocolonial injustice" (193). Regardless of their potential for unpredictable actions in response to our interventions, I remain troubled by the suggestion that we "itinerant art audiences" should present ourselves as allies to inanimate objects that stand in for nameless colonial subjects (190). It is a model of contemporary scholarship that coils dangerously around to the salvage anthropology of an earlier generation, as well as the paternalism of colonialism. For this reviewer, and I suspect many readers, it also uncomfortably echoes Horton's specific refusal to engage with the persistent derogation of Durham's claims (which have been varied and often factually inaccurate) about his own identity among Native American artists and scholars.
Horton introduces Durham as "related to Wolf Clan Cherokee," erroneously reiterating that he was born in Arkansas, and represents without any interpretive frame the artist's first-person narratives of cultural experience and subjectivity (21). As Cherokee scholar and artist America Meredith has exhaustively documented, the repetition of these lies about Durham's heritage reinscribes the colonial erasure of Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty, as non-Native academics persist in citing one another's errors rather than archival documents or the Cherokee people who refute Durham's statements directly.5 Extensive recent discussion of Durham's claims postdated the publication of Horton's book (indeed, she notes that she was working on the retrospective exhibition that reignited the debate while this book was in production)—but as curator Anne Ellegood noted, it is a longstanding controversy that first gained mainstream attention in the wake of the IACA almost thirty years ago. Moreover, those with whom she consulted regarding the exhibition—including Horton—concurred that "it was time to move past it."6 Such an assertion would make sense if Horton, Ellegood, and others were not seemingly invested in defining Durham as a Native American artist, almost always including his outright lies about his biography in the process. Claims to Indigeneity generally, and Cherokee identity specifically, have their own history and play their own role in the modernist histories that Horton traces. Her uncritical acceptance of Durham's intentionally misleading statements about his identity threatens to derail attention to her fascinating and valuable text. Perhaps most regrettably, by failing to take up this opportunity to address the problems of those histories—particularly as they intersect with the politics of the AIM generation—Horton misses a key opportunity to demonstrate the value of her overarching claim about undivided history to those for whom it matters most. Moreover, Durham's work would—and could—stand on its own material and iconographic merits, and still lead Horton down the same productive paths.
The debate over Durham's heritage and legitimacy has a paradoxical tendency to obscure the broader critique it performs of the fields of American art history and contemporary art criticism: that Americanist scholars have disproportionately attended to Native American artists whose work addresses itself to Euro-American modes, media, and aesthetics. This has historically resulted in some stunningly insightful work—indeed, much of the foundational work in the field was in this vein, and it was done by pioneering art historians working against their training in a Euro-American art-historical tradition that relegated Native American art history to anthropology.7 Recognizing that the institutional canon of Native American art is a reflection of the history and demographics of the discipline should, however, make us even more skeptical of its validity. In other words, we should be wary of the tendency to recenter Euro-American experience and contexts at the expense of Indigenous sovereignty in the work—or, more accurately, we should be attuned to the fact that our discipline still tends to aggregate and privilege such stories, reinscribing colonialism as the primary frame for Indigenous lives.
The volume does interesting and necessary work, even though it does not clearly meet its own mandate to "trace the profound impact of AIM on subsequent aesthetic practices" (11). Moving back and forth between historical moments, continents, media, and meanings, Horton convincingly locates the contemporary artists at the heart of her book within a centuries-long global history of interaction and cultural exchange. In fact, Horton's refusal to adjudicate Durham's heritage is perhaps another gesture toward precisely this move. In such a reading, her reliance on his words, rather than her own claims, shifts any reading of art from a "divided" history, where Native American and non-Native perspectives occupy an uneasy, oppositional binary, to an "undivided art history" in which actors within modernity are participants in a shifting stream of relations with nation-states, cultures, and each other (128).
Cite this article: Louise Siddons, review of Art for an Undivided Earth: The American Indian Movement Generation, by Jessica L. Horton, Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art 5, no. 1 (Spring 2019), https://doi.org/10.24926/24716839.1691.
PDF: Siddons, review of Art for an Undivided Earth
Horton, along with many art historians, does not capitalize Indigenous. Preferred practice among Indigenous, Native, and First Nations people is to do so, and so I do throughout this review. ↵
See, for example, Emily C. Burns, Transnational Frontiers: The American West in France (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018); Coll Thrush, Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016); and Stephanie Pratt, American Indians in British Art, 1700–1840 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013). ↵
See, for example, Kealey Boyd, "World's Largest Native American Art Forgery Ring Distributed $12M of Fakes," Hyperallergic.com, February 8, 2019: https://hyperallergic.com/483700/worlds-largest-native-american-art-forgery-ring-distributed-12m-of-fakes. ↵
The value of the IACA for Native artists and their tribal governments is illustrated by the lawsuits they continue to file pursuing its enforcement. Among many other cases, the Navajo Nation reached an agreement with retailer Urban Outfitters in 2012 as a result of IACA prosecution, and in August 2018, Nael Ali became the first person jailed for violating the Act (rather than fined). ↵
America Meredith, "Why It Matters That Jimmie Durham Is Not a Cherokee," July 7, 2017, https://news.artnet.com/opinion/jimmie-durham-america-meredith-1014164. ↵
"Curator Anne Ellegood on Understanding the Complexities of Jimmie Durham's Native Identity," August 2, 2017, https://hammer.ucla.edu/blog/2017/07/curator-anne-ellegood-on-understanding-the-complexities-of-jimmie-durhams-native-identity. ↵
Janet Berlo has done much of the best of this work—and has also cogently critiqued it. See, for example, Janet Berlo, "Anthropologies and Histories of Art: A View from the Terrain of Native North American Art History" in Mariet Westermann, ed., Anthropologies of Art (Williamstown, MA: The Clark Institute, 2005), 179–92. Berlo was Horton's dissertation advisor, and Art for an Undivided Earth is closely based on her dissertation; see Jessica Horton, "Places to Stand: Histories of Native Art Beyond the Nation," (PhD diss., University of Rochester, 2013). ↵
About the Author(s): Louise Siddons is Associate Professor of Art History at Oklahoma State University
Keywords: 5.1, Jessica L. Horton, Louise Siddons, Native American Art
Category: Book Reviews
Spring 2019 (5.1)
The Girl Behind the Counter: Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones and the Modern Shop Girl
Amateurism and American Visual Culture: An Introduction
The Critical Deployment of Amateurism in 1910s New York
Walk with Me: William Anastasi's Stenography of the Street
The Love in Labor: Reconsidering Amateurism in Sister Gertrude Morgan's Performances and Paintings
"It's Making a Little Noise": Video Art, A Radical Mess
Amateur Status? George W. Bush as Contemporary Artist
Asher Durand's Progress Reconsidered
A Material World: Culture, Society and the Life of Things in Early Anglo-America
The Americas Revealed: Collecting Colonial and Modern Latin American Art in the United States
Power and Posterity: American Art at Philadelphia's 1876 Centennial Exhibition
Transnational Frontiers: The American West in France
Charles Ellis Johnson and the Erotic Mormon Image
Flintstone Modernism: or, The Crisis in Postwar American Culture
Warhol's Working Class: Pop Art and Egalitarianism
Radical Eroticism: Women, Art, and Sex in the 1960s
Nature's Nation: American Art and Environment
Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection
The San Quentin Project: Nigel Poor and the Men of San Quentin State Prison
Ruth Asawa: Life's Work
Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern
Ida O'Keeffe: Escaping Georgia's Shadow
Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965–1975


Over the years D.S. Wilson has played and released music in various genres including rock, pop and blues, but today is laser-focused on combining his past with his present and bringing forth a wonderful evolution to the smooth jazz realm. He started playing in rock bands in the '80s and didn't stop until well into the new millennium. In between then and now he won the North Carolina Battle of the Bands and worked with Grammy-nominated producer John Custer on his band, Dolo's, self-titled album in the late '90s. It wasn't until after Dolo dissolved that D.S. Wilson decided to try his hand at being a solo artist.
Armed with years of the piano and saxophone under his belt, leaning towards smooth jazz with his 2018 release, Stella Rose, was a natural progression. It comes a decade after his first solo soft rock record, Save Me. For his 2018 release, D.S. Wilson went above and beyond what he even expected of himself. Stella Rose presents an array of arrangements and compositions that capture not only the spirit of jazz in all its glory but also what D.S. Wilson is capable of as an artist and producer with some three decades of experience to his name.


Hello!! Just got my first lesson last week and my gear isn't even here yet but it's slowly arriving. Cabrinha Vector 12m, Xenon Rayo 137 and Cab Spectrum 144 and a majestic. That's right, I went all out and haven't even gotten up on the board yet!! I live in San Antonio and I'll be doing most of my riding in Corpus. So, hook a brotha up if you see me struggling please!!
Any questions, just get onto www.kiteforum.com and ask !!!


Social ontologists aim to define and describe the structures and the dynamics of the social world, or rather the part of reality that is not reducible to the physical world and was "built" by human beings to live-out desirably fruitful relationships of co-operation and exchange. Aristotle in his Politics noted how human beings are essentially social animals, or beings whose collaborative and public dimension is a constitutive part of their identity. It is precisely for this reason that ontology cannot free itself from the social world.
The components and actors within the realm of social ontology are essentially: (a) individuals as social agents, (b) groups (that maintain relations to other groups and with the State), (c) the beliefs and actions that have nonindividualistic characteristics, and finally (d) social objects, namely, those objects that are distinguished from natural objects, artifacts and ideal objects.
Within a structure of this kind, social ontology sets out to answer questions such as: "what is social reality?", "is it possible to conceive of a definition of social facts and objects?", "what distinguishes brute facts from social facts?", "what type of objects are groups?" "what types of objects are future generations?", or, to say it differently, "what are the conditions that allow us to consider a collection of individuals a group?", and, to explore the question, "is it possible to develop a constitutive rule of social reality?".


Your new favorite! I have one in a few colors myself! Perfect for those early fall days when the air is a bit chilly but not quite chilly enough for a big bulky hoodie! Perfect to tie around your waste when you get a little warm!


Quotes like this have a tendency to piss me off: "Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace." Joan Borysenko said it, she is a smart woman, I trust her judgement but how can she make it sound so easy?
If you have a perfect life, nice house, extra money, a housekeeper, a partner who adores you and lots of mutual support in every dimension it would be so easy to choose peace.
The thing is when there is little of the sustenance stuff and just a smidge of your patience left, staying in a space of peace and love and no stress feels next to impossible.
Immediately I think of the Lovingkindess prayer and how much peace I have had in using it.
I think of the "Fall in love with Selling Challenge" I did recently with my friend Vie and how focusing on my purpose and beliefs literally brought me a fearless form of high.
Wasn't that a sort of choosing peace?
I think of my conversation last night with Chuck when I shared about my plans to let go of my old self, shed that old self skin and devote myself publicly to my renewed way of thinking and being and no longer buying into my old, worn out my goodness I am so sick of it narrative that drags me down each and every time.
I could be simple as simple can be: a tiny book of LovingKindness throughout the day whenever I feel myself sliding into stress and/or whenever a bell rings.
Today, on retreat, I will devote myself to choosing peace.
When I choose peace, I become more….
In the moments today when you stop feeling peaceful, take your list of times when you felt peace and use them to inspire a quick one, three or five minute writing session.
May I be the first to say congratulations. Today, you are actively choosing peace. Stay the course and inspire yourself!


The Legislation enabling Protected SCVs to apply for citizenship was due to expire on 1 October 2017.
In September New Zealand surprisingly ended up with a Labour-led coalition government.
In August Oz Kiwi appeared before the Senate Citizenship Inquiry in Melbourne.
In July 2017 Oz Kiwi made a submission to the Senate Committee Citizenship Inquiry.
From 1 July 2017 some New Zealanders residing in Australia became eligible for 189 (NZ) Visa.
In June Oz Kiwi made a submission to the Department of Immigration in response to the proposed citizenship changes.
In June a delegation from Oz Kiwi were in Canberra to meet with politicians from across the political spectrum.
In June Oz Kiwi's Chair and Deputy Chair met with Gerry Brownlee, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The May 2017 Budget included a proposal to strip the CGT main residence exemption from foreign and temporary tax residents.
May 2017 – The Budget included proposed changes to Higher Education funding.


text:
Publication By Author : Chia, E.L.
Climate change commitments and agriculture sectoral strategies in Cameroon: Interplay and perspectives
Cameroon like other developing countries is developing approaches to respond to national and global climate change adaptation and mitigation commitments.…
Authors: Chia, E.L.; Sufo-Kankeu, R.; Hubert, D.
Mapping/assessing carbon stocks in the perspective of Payment for Environmental Services (PES) for rural communities in East Cameroon
Rural Africa plays an important role in the stabilization of the world's climate. Given that greenhouse gases are emitted from…
Authors: Ongsabien Efombo, A.L.; Sonwa, D.J.; Tiani, A.M.; Serge, B.K.; Sufo-Kankeu, R.; Chia, E.L.
Forest Carbon Initiatives: Better Planning Needed for Maximizing Mitigation and Adaptation Synergies
The objective of this policy brief is to present an analysis of forest carbon initiatives (FCI) against four guiding principles…
Authors: Chia, E.L.; Fobissie, K.; Kanninen, M.
Initiatives Carbon Forestier: Planification et Optimisation pour une Synergie Atténuation-Adaptation
L'objectif de ce document est d'analyser les initiatives de carbone forestier (ICF) sur quatre principes qui servent de base pour…
Gender and Forest Decentralization in Cameroon: What Challenges for Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change?
Authors: Tiani, A.M.; Bele, M.Y.; Sufo-Kankeu, R.; Chia, E.L.; Perez-Terán, A.S.
Securing well-being with the advent of climate hazards: Case of forest-dependent communities in a landscape in the Congo Basin
This paper aims to examine the contribution of forests resource systems to the different aspects of community well-being, the implications…
Authors: Chia, E.L.; Tiani, A.M.; Sonwa, D.J.; Perez-Terán, A.S.
Exploring Opportunities for Promoting Synergies between Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Forest Carbon Initiatives
There is growing interest in designing and implementing climate change mitigation and adaptation (M + A) in synergy in the…
Forest and climate change in Central Africa: Synergy between mitigation and adaptation
The notion of designing and implementing climate change response policies and projects that produce simultaneous positive outcomes for mitigation and…
Authors: Eba'a Atyi, R.; Chia, E.L.; Kengoum Djiegni, F.; Perez-Terán, A.S.; Sufo-Kankeu, R.
Vulnerability and adaptation of forests and communities in Central Africa
There is growing evidence that the global climate is changing. The impacts and response to climate change will vary from…
Authors: Eba'a Atyi, R.; Chia, E.L.; Perez-Terán, A.S.
A situational analysis of Cameroon's Technical Operation Units (TOUs) in the context of the landscape approach: critical issues and perspectives
The integrated landscape approach is re-emerging in the global agenda as an approach which can give a fair deal to…
Authors: Chia, E.L.; Sufo-Kankeu, R.
Why do payments for watershed services emerge? A cross-country analysis of adoption contexts
Brazil nut forest concessions in the Peruvian Amazon: success or failure?


text:
Stolen Van Goghs due back on display after 16 years
THE HAGUE - AFP
Two Vincent van Gogh masterpieces stolen 16 years ago from the Amsterdam museum dedicated to his works will go back on display this week after extensive restoration, curators said April 16.
The 1882 "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" and the 1884/5 "Congregation leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen will from Wednesday "be back where they belong", Van Gogh Museum director Axel Rueger said.
"The restorers did fantastic work," Rueger said in a statement.
The paintings were recovered by Italian investigators in late September 2016 when they raided a home belonging to infamous drug baron Raffaele Imperiale, at Castellammare di Stabia, some 34 kilometres (21 miles) southeast of Naples.
The area is a notorious hotspot for the activities of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra.
Both paintings, which have since been confirmed as authentic and are worth millions, were stolen in a daring raid in 2002 by thieves using a simple ladder and a length of rope.
The criminals broke into the museum in downtown Amsterdam on December 7 that year using the ladder to climb onto the roof, where they broke through a window and used a rope to get in and out of the heavily fortified building.
Despite an international search for the paintings, their whereabouts were unknown until being recovered in the Naples area.
"View of the Sea at Scheveningen" was damaged during the heist, with a "substantial bit of paint missing in the left-hand corner," the Van Gogh museum said.
"Congregation leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen" was barely damaged, but restorers had to remove an ageing and yellowing layer of varnish, probably applied by Van Gogh himself.
The two paintings also received new frames, the old ones having been lost during the robbery.
painting, Van Gogh, Axel Rueger


text:
Sam's flying in for the final
The dedication of one player shows how much winning the Worsley Cup would mean to Church Cricket Club. The Blackburn Road side last won a major trophy in 1974 – something which has gone on for too long for most Church fans liking.
Lancs Live
Sam Tucker
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The dedication of one player shows how much winning the Worsley Cup would mean to Church Cricket Club.
The Blackburn Road side last won a major trophy in 1974 – something which has gone on for too long for most Church fans liking.
And wicketkeeper Sam Tucker, who has been at Church all his life, knows they need to get rid of this tag.
That's why the 26-year-old is flying all the way back from from his job in a design agency in Dubai to play for the first team in their home clash against Ramsbottom on Sunday (12.30pm start).
"I told my work colleagues and they didn't understand the significance," said Church's record wicketkeeper Tucker.
"I can be in Dubai this time next week but I can't play in the Worsley Cup again like this. It's huge for the club."
Tucker, who made his Church first team debut in 1998, is working abroad for a few weeks before he goes over to Dubai for a year's contract in September.
But there was never any doubt he wasn't going to fly back for what is perhaps the biggest game in Church's recent history.
It's believed more than 1500 people could descend on West End with the Church officials going all out with sponsorship deals and entertainment besides the cricket to make it a special day.
And Tucker can't wait for the showdown and is only too pleased to take his gloves behind the wicket – despite a thumb injury. "I am playing through the pain barrier on pain killers but there was never any doubt I wouldn't play. Nothing would have stopped me coming back.
"I have been a big part of the first team for 10 years and we haven't had many occasions like this in the past so it's one I want to enjoy and savour.
"We have had limited success in my time at the club and this is the league's showcase event and to win something at home would be superb.
"Everyone keeps talking about our last trophy being in 1974 and we need to put that to bed.
"It has been too long and people around the club, who help out week in week out, deserve the silverware as much as the players for all the hard work they do. We want to put a smile back on everyone's faces connected with the club.
"The second XI won the double last year but we want to deliver a major trophy at first team level then we can go forward and forget looking back to 1974."
Personally for Tucker, winning would be the perfect ending to his Church career - at least for the next year or so.
"I have played cricket every weekend during the season since I was young so it is a big change for me to be not playing at Church week in week out, next season.
"I am not saying my Church career is over but it looks like it is it after this season for a year.
"So for me to sign off with a trophy and celebrate in what could be my last game for the club for a while would be perfect."
Tucker and co are certainly looking forward to playing in front of a bumper crowd.
"It will be probably the biggest attendance in the club's recent history," continued the wicketkeeper.
"Everyone around Church seems to be talking about it and, even though I have been away, I know the excitement has been mounting.
"Everyone at the club is looking forward to the game. There will be some nervous energy of course but I think it's important we don't freeze on the day and that we savour every moment as it could be another 37 years before we win another title, although I hope not!"
Tucker thinks that defending champions Ramsbottom – who lost the Worsley Cup final last year to Colne but won it the year before – will be favourites going into the showdown.
"Ramsbottom are a professional club and a professional team and they have experience and match-winners in their team.
"For us being in a final, although we were in the Twenty20 last year, it is a novel experience.
"Ramsbottom know what to expect and how to win and kill games off and they will be favourites because of that.
"But it's a one-off game, recent form goes out of the window and it could be one inspirational performance, hopefully for us, that wins the trophy.
"We have got to be at our best to win it but we go into the final full of confidence with no fear and hopefully it will be our day."
Blackburn Road
Market Hall
Ribble ValleyThe 'magical' 280 bus route that starts in the coolest place in LancashireIt's a two-hour jaunt with breath taking scenery - and you can now enjoy it for as little as £2