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Showing Exhibitions Refine by type
In Absence | Yhonnie Scarce and Edition Office
2019 Architecture Commission
Contemporary artist Yhonnie Scarce and Melbourne architecture studio Edition Office have been announced as the winners of the 2019 National…
Upcoming Exhibition	Architecture Design
John Wardle Architects
Somewhere Other
John Wardle Architects' Somewhere Other is the product of years of practice by the Melbourne-based firm, manifested within a compact…
Exhibition	Architecture Design
SO – IL
Viewing China
Continuing the National Gallery of Victoria's engagement with contemporary art and design from China, SO – IL: Viewing China presents…
Exhibition	Architecture Decorative Arts Design Teens
Archaeology of Light
Architectural Photography by Erieta Attali
Through her poetic images, Israeli architectural photographer Erieta Attali explores the relationship between architecture and landscape, interrogating how the context…
Past Exhibition	Architecture Contemporary Design Photography
2018 NGV Architecture Commission
Doubleground by MUIR + OPENWORK
Melbourne firm MUIR architecture and landscape architecture studio OPENWORK present a collage of dramatic structural landscapes for the 2018 NGV…
Retallack Thompson and Other Architects
The NGV garden is transformed into a maze-like series of open-air passageways, corridors and rooms as part of the 2017…
Past Exhibition	Architecture Contemporary Sculpture & Installation
NGV Triennial
Featuring the work of over 100 artists and designers from 32 countries, the NGV Triennial surveys the world of art…
Past Exhibition	Architecture Contemporary Decorative Arts Design
[email protected] Architects
A playful reinvention of the suburban car wash is the concept behind the 2016 NGV Architecture Commission built in the NGV's…
Past Exhibition	Architecture Design Sculpture & Installation
Architecture of Faith
Architecture of Faith is a unique exhibition providing an in-depth exploration of the new Australian Islamic Centre at Hobsons Bay, Melbourne,…
Past Exhibition	Architecture Contemporary Design
2015 Summer Architecture Commission
The Summer Architecture Commissions are a new initiative of the Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture offering the opportunity for…
Past Exhibition	Architecture Contemporary
Reflection Model (Itsukushima)
Takahiro Iwasaki is recognized as one of Japan's new generation of emerging young artists, who creates intricately detailed models that reinterpret contemporary cityscapes and iconic historic buildings. The Reflection Model series focuses on seven of Japan's most sacred buildings that all have an intimate visual relationship with the reflections they cast in the water that surrounds them.
Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria, the third and largest work in the Reflection Model series takes as its subject the Shinto shrine of Itsukushima, located on the tidal flats of Japan's Inland Sea.
Felton Bequest, 2014
Past Exhibition	Architecture Asia Conservation International
Ian Strange: SUBURBAN
Ian Strange: Suburban is a multifaceted photography, film and installation exhibition created by New York-based Australian artist Ian Strange. Since 2011 Strange has worked with filmmakers and volunteers in Ohio, Detroit, Alabama, New Jersey, New York and New Hampshire to create, photograph and film seven site specific interventions incorporating suburban homes. The recording of these interventions through film and photographic documentation forms the basis of this new and groundbreaking exhibition.
Past Exhibition	Architecture Australia Contemporary Moving Image
Melbourne Now
Melbourne Now celebrates the latest art, architecture, design, performance and cultural practice to reflect the complex creative landscape of Melbourne.
This ambitious and far-reaching exhibition across The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia and NGV International presents the various ways in which visual artists and creative practitioners profoundly contribute to the society in which we live, and to Melbourne as a city with a unique and dynamic cultural identity.
Melbourne Now is a collaborative, cross-disciplinary project that has involved staff from all areas of the NGV, as well as a team of guest curators and artistic collaborators whose expertise and networks represent the excellence and diversity of Melbourne's cultural community. The exhibition includes a series of 'exhibitions within the exhibition': commissions for children and families, installations by artists engaging with the NGV collection, off-site and special projects and a Community Hall and garden inviting a wide range of community expression.
Past Exhibition	Architecture Australia Contemporary Design
Callum Morton
Callum Morton's Habitat is an architectural model of a mass housing project built in Montreal for Expo 1967. Through his work, Morton presents a wry and humorous look at the intersection of public and private space, referencing both the extraordinary and the mundane qualities of our lives.
Mythform
The Making of Nearamnew
Federation Square architects Lab architecture studio and Bates Smart, and artist Paul Carter have collaborated to create a public artwork in the main plaza of Federation Square. This work, entitled Nearamnew, acknowledges the cultural histories of the site through literal and metaphorical layers of meaning.
Past Exhibition	Architecture Australia Sculpture & Installation
Architect & Designer
Celebrating the opening of NGV International, this exhibition showcases the work of leading Italian architect and designer Mario Bellini, the principal architect for the major NGV redevelopment.
Past Exhibition	Architecture Design International Moving Image
Metropolis is an exhibition of international projection works created by artists who have used the idea of the city as a source of inspiration. These works explore the city as both a physical and psychological space, play with real and imagined spaces, and range from the poetic to the representational.
Past Exhibition	Architecture Contemporary International Moving Image
An Antipodean in Spain
This exhibition presents an extensive selection of Lindsay's images of Spain which focus on its architecture, landscape and people. Images of Australian rural subjects are exhibited alongside them, enabling a comparison of Lindsay's treatment of two countries which he thought shared many physical similarities.
Past Exhibition	Architecture Australia Landscape Painting
Art Deco 1910–1939
Art Deco 1910–1939 is the fifth exhibition in the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series at the NGV and captures the spirit of the Art Deco period by combining important masterworks from the Victoria and Albert Museum's acclaimed collection with public and private works from around the world.
Past Exhibition	Architecture Design Fashion & Textiles International
Great Exhibitions
The World Fairs 1851-1937
Great Exhibitions begins with the famous London Great Exhibition of 1851 and ends with the sophisticated Art Deco and modernist fairs of Paris 1925 and 1937. This exhibition is held in celebration of a magnificent gift of works to the NGV, many of which are featured in the exhibition.
Past Exhibition	Architecture Design International Modernism
Draw the Line
The Architecture of LAB
This exhibition presents the process of architectural design through the material of the Federation Square NGV archive together with LAB's subsequent projects. It explains how architects think about their designs and how concepts and processes become realised as architecture. The exhibition consists of conceptual material, working drawings and models.
Past Exhibition	Architecture Australia Design Prints & Drawings


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Tag: jingoism
There wasn't much left of Russian army Sgt. Andrei Akhromov's body when it arrived in a zinc coffin at his hometown, a four-hour drive south of Moscow, relatives said. The 21-year-old died in April near the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv when his tank was hit by enemy fire.
Sgt. Akhromov's cousin, Sergei Akhromov, said a representative of the regional governor's office told the family it took the armed forces three weeks to identify what remained of him using DNA analysis. Loved ones didn't look into the casket before burying him last week, he said.
"I only blame America—not Ukraine, not Russia," Mr. Akhromov, a 32-year-old parks-and-recreation worker, said. "Biden, or however he is called, allowed for Nazism to flourish in Ukraine, and so Russia had to fight not only to protect its people and borders, but also the Ukrainian people, women, children, elderly."
Source: Evan Gershkovich, "As Coffins Come Home, Russians Confront Toll of Ukraine Invasion," Wall Street Journal, 4 May 2022
I see that there is a struggle underway over the numbers [of Russians] supporting the war. We are all asked whether Russians want war, how different segments of society relate to the war, etc. There is a temptation (a natural desire) to find grounds — everyone has their own — for our "sense of society's reaction to the war." The old liberal circles in Moscow, of course, do not want to reconcile themselves to the fact that society in a patriotic frenzy sincerely supports all the monstrous violence, destruction, and sowing of death and grief produced by Russia's political leadership and army. Hence the struggle arises. VTsIOM says 75% [of Russians support the war], but independent sociologists says it's 58-59%. And look at Levada's figures: by the end of the second month [of the war], support had fallen from 74% to 68%. And so on.
However, if you think about it, what is the political significance of this struggle over the sociological grounds for "non-support"? There is none, since there is no way to mold "non-support" into a political factor. It's like when the Polish uprising of 1863 was put down. Russian society, including the educated classes, experienced a patriotic upsurge. This is a historical fact. Some people, of course, did not support it, but politically that didn't mean anything. Therefore, no "figures" or "focus groups" change anything now. They do not enable one to shift Russian society's attitudes to the war from where they are now. This society is currently under martial law – undeclared, but de facto — because the norms of military censorship have been been instituted, economic data has been partly made off-limits, and civil rights have been completely restricted. Under martial law, "non-support" is tantamount to desertion, "alarmism," sabotage, and treason. Under martial law, there are no civil institutions within which you can politically voice your "non-support." Therefore, what are we talking about when we raise the question of who supports the war and why they support it?
Source: Alexander Morozov, Facebook, 4 May 2022. Translation and photo by the Russian Reader
hecksinductionhour society, war and peace Leave a comment May 6, 2022 2 Minutes
Andrei Kolesnikov: Hooked on Militarism?
"New Hope. All drug addicts quit using. Some manage to do it while alive." Photo by the Russian Reader
Where Militaristic Infantilism Leads
Society's Losing Its Fear of War Is More Dangerous Than What Happens in the Absence of an Anti-War Movement
Andrei Kolesnikov
Vedomosti
The "polite people" in the Russian military have taken to ramming ships, shedding their politesse. A military coming out has happened. Either so-called hybrid war has become more hybridized in terms of the variety of its methods or it has become more like good old-fashioned war, involving actual armed clashes. Politically, Russia has become not merely toxic but hypertoxic. A premonition of war prevails among more timid folks, although the footage of the ramming at sea, as painless and triumphal as a military parade on Red Square or a football match ("Crush him!"), still make military operations appear unscary and toylike. We will carry the day in any case, sans victims and blood (ours, that is), as in a cartoon by Putin.
This militaristic infantilism—the loss of the fear of war, the loss of the idea that war is terrible—is the worst outcome of our country's daily intoxication with the thought of its own greatness for several years running. The army is greatly respected nowadays. People need to trust someone, and the armed forces have bypassed another institution, the presidency, in trustworthiness ratings.
Does this mean Russians are ready for a real war? To put it more plainly, are Russian parents willing to let their eighteen-year-old boys be called up to fight Ukrainian boys just like them? Does anyone understand what they would be fighting for? Is it really all about cementing the nation, "Crimea is ours!" and the personal ambitions of several high-ranking figures in the Russian establishment?
Since 2012, Russia's collective identity has been built on negative foundations, on awakened resentment, which had been dozing, but had no thought of waking up. The plan has worked quite well. This resentment, however, is verbal and fictitous. Public opinion supported "coal miners" and "tractor drivers" verbally. In Syria, the official army and private military companies fought, or so Russians imagined, at their own risk. The proxy war with the US has gone very far at times, but in the summer of 2018 it did not stop the majority of Russians from abruptly improving their attitude [sic] to the States and the west in general.
But suddenly there is the threat of a real war. On the other side of the border, in the country [i.e., Ukraine] that the Russian imperialist mind never really considered sovereign, a mobilization is underway and martial law has been declared. Is this reality capable of changing popular opinion and rousing Russian civil society, which has a lot going for it except an anti-war movement? No, because so far the war has not been regarded as real.
Identification with the military is the last bullet in the Russian regime's gun, but it is a blank or, rather, a prop. Exploiting what Russians regard as sacred—i.e., privatization of the memory of the Great Patriotic War [WWII] by a particular group—is a tool that is still in play, but militarism as such has lost its power to mobilize and consolidate Russians. If "German POWs" are marched around Novgorod on January 20, 2019, in an absurd attempt to reenact the NKVD's Operation Grand Waltz, and on January 29, a military parade is held in St. Petersburg to mark the latest anniversary of the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad, it will not raise Putin's approval rating from 66% to 80%. Those days are gone. So, the props have been dropped in favor of direct action in the Kerch Strait, but its power to mobilize people is not at all obvious.
You can cynically throw the ashes of those who perished in the Siege of Leningrad to stoke the furnace of fading ratings as much as you want. You can march people dressed up as German POWs round Novgorod as much as you like. When, however, pollsters ask Russians between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four what countries they regard as role models, they list Germany, China, and the US. This is not because young Russians are unpatriotic, but because not everything comes to down to the top brass feeding on the poisonous corpse of the Stalinist past. The present day, progress, and visions for the future matter, too.
Can we do it again? We cannot. Nor is there any reason to do it. Infantilized by the regime, Russian society's maturation will be measured by the numbers of people who are convinced that we cannot and should not do it again.
Andrei Kolesnikov is program director at the Moscow Carnegie Center. Translated by the Russian Reader
hecksinductionhour international, nationalism, politics, putinism, society, soviet, supah powah, war and peace, youth, zeitgeist Leave a comment November 28, 2018 3 Minutes
Russians do not swallow the regime's propaganda hook, line and sinker, argues Ivan Mikirtumov, but use it to guide their public behavior. Photo by the Russian Reader
Why the Russian President Made Fun of Russian Propaganda
Ivan Mikirtumov
Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club on October 18, Vladimir Putin told his audience the punchline of what would later emerge as a "funny" joke about nuclear war.
"As martyrs, we will go to heaven, and they will simply croak, because they won't even have time to repent," said Putin.
Judging by the overall reaction, the joke has been a success.
The genre of the humorous anecdote, including the political anecdote, was typical of the Soviet period, that is, of a communist dictatorship in the midst of the Cold War. Unlike texts and drawings, anecdotes were an oral genre and, therefore, were relatively harmless to disseminate. The technical difficulties of proving someone had told a joke made it a less than reliable tool for snitching on other people. This sometimes had to do with the content. If you wanted to inform on someone who had told you a joke about Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, the KGB, the Politburo, etc., then likely as not you would have had to quote in writing what you had heard or, at any rate, admit you knew the joke. Under certain circumstances, however, this knowledge could be used against you.
In post-Stalinist times, people were rarely punished for telling jokes. Jokes were widespread in Soviet culture, achieving exceptional heights of wit and observation. Jokes could be used to track public opinion, since they reflected society's critical self-consciousness. Jokes were a form of feedback, but by virtue of its unique incompetence the Soviet regime ignored them, too.
Everything dangerous, hostile, evil, harmful, stupid, and meaningless is made into a figure of fun when it fails and falls through. People do not laugh at things that are huge and horrible until they are rendered pitiful, proven weak, and shown to be a sham. Stalin gave people little occasion to laugh, because he rarely failed, but the leaders of the late-Soviet period and the entire Soviet system were perfect targets for jokes and other species of ridicule. It is said Brezhnev was smart enough to laugh at jokes about himself, but it was not something he did publicly.
Putin told his audience the punchline of a joke whose opening line we can imagine as an oral exam question at the General Staff Academy, a question asked by the examiner in a room adorned with framed photographs of the commander-in-chief and the Russian Orthodox patriarch.
"Tell me, how will the outcome of a nuclear war differ for Russians and people in western countries?
Why is it that Putin's answer to this imaginary question might seem funny? What was he ridiculing?
Mentioning heaven, martyrdom, and repentance in a military context in Russia, a country in which cynicism has reigned supreme, is tantamount to a direct attack on official religiosity, as instilled by the regime, a religiosity that has become dreadfully tiresome to everyone. The notion Russians will go to heaven wholesale, whether they believe in God or not, whether they are religious believers of any denomination at all, and whether they are vicious or virtuous, is tantamount to a scathing parody of religious beliefs.
Nuclear war is the business of the military. It thus transpires souls are saved and people canonized as martyrs at the behest of the Russian army's top brass. With Putin in charge of it, heaven promises to be something like an army barracks, so the entire satire on martyrdom and salvation was performed as a "humorous shtick" of the sort favored by Russia's siloviki.
What do generals have to say about the soul's salvation? They say what they are supposed to say, as they gaze at the patriarch's framed photograph on the wall.
Recently, General Zolotov and the two heroic Russian tourists who took a trip to Salisbury this past March found themselves in the limelight nearly at the same time. We can easily imagine these men holding forth on heaven, martyrdom, and repentance. Putin's joke was clearly a sendup of the symbiosis between state-imposed religiosity and militarism, a crucial concept in current Russian agitprop.
It is short step from a joke like this to jokes about Orthodox secret policemen, monarchist communists, sovereign democracy, the Kiev "junta," the US State Department's vials and cookies, and ritual murders, performed by Jews, of course, on Orthodox babies (and the tsar's entire family in the bargain), and so on. During the years of Putin's rule, a whole Mont Blanc of drivel has sprung up, and whole hosts of freaks have come out of the woodwork. It is simply amazing there are still so few jokes about Putin and Putinism in circulation, but now, I imagine, things will kick off, since the main character in these jokes has taken the bull by the horns.
This does not mean, of course, that, by artfully telling his joke, Putin meant to take the piss out of himself and his regime. We are dealing here with the long-familiar militarist bravado summed up by the saying "Broads will give birth to new soldiers," with the teenage frivolity typical of the siloviki, a frivolity they enjoy acting out.
"We'll wipe the floor with them," as they would say.
If, however, Putin was publicly ridiculing the concept behind current state propaganda, we are confronted with a bad joke, a bad joke told to the selfsame ordinary Russians who are targets of the propaganda so ridiculed, while the guy who made the cute joke is the same guy who presides over production of this propaganda and benefits from it.
The rules of the genre have been violated, for now it is the audience, the public that has been ridiculed. Clearly, Russia's ruling elite despises the people it attempts to manipulate, and the propagandists sometimes laugh themselves silly backstage after they have concocted a particularly nimble con.
I don't think Russians are gulled by the Kremlin's propaganda. Rather, they register the messages transmitted to them by the regime as signals telling them what to say and do in certain circumstances. This lovely consensus is destroyed when the concept underpinning the propaganda has been publicly turned into a laughingstock, because people who have been pretending in recent years that they take it seriously find themselves in an awkward situation. They have lost face, having themselves been made ludicrous.
How, then, do they answer the question as to why they played along with the regime in its efforts to gull them? The only plausible explanation for this behavior is shameful thoughtlessness, fear, and impotence, things to which no one wants to admit.
Ivan Mikirtumov is a visiting lecturer at the European University in St. Petersburg. Translated by the Russian Reader
hecksinductionhour nationalism, politics, post-soviet, putinism, regime, religion, society, soviet, zeitgeist Leave a comment October 22, 2018 5 Minutes
Marat Street, Central District, Petersburg, 21 October 2017
Photo by the Russian Reader
hecksinductionhour art, petrograd, photographs, putinism, supah powah, youth, zeitgeist Leave a comment October 23, 2017 October 23, 2017 1 Minute
One Solution: Demolition
Sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov putting the final touches on his monument to weapons designer Mikhail Kalashnikov. Photo courtesy of Valery Sharifulin/TASS
Everything about the new monument in Moscow is disgusting. Once again, it is huge, and it shows us a non-military man holding a rifle. As an obvious symbol of militarism, it looks savage in the downtown of a major city. And then there is the very man the monument commemorates, who besides giving his surname to a lucrative arms brands apparently did nothing else for his country, let alone for a city in which he never lived.
Debates are underway about what to do with monuments when the context in which we view them has changed. Should we demolish them? We are not obliged to destroy them: we could move them to places where their symbolic baggage vanishes. Or would it be better to recode monuments where they stand by building something around them and thus imparting a new meaning to them? In my opinion, we have no choice in this case. There is no way to remedy this abomination. It can only be demolished.
Sergey Abashin is British Petroleum Professor of Migration Studies at the European University in St. Petersburg. His most recent book is Sovetskii kishlak: Mezhdu kolonializmom i modernizatsiei [The Soviet Central Asian village: between colonialism and modernization], Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2015. Translated by the Russian Reader
Moscow To Unveil Statue Of AK-47 Inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov
Tom Balmforth
The 7.5-meter tall statue to Mikhail Kalashnikov, which stands on a northern intersection of the Garden Ring around central Moscow.
MOSCOW — After several false starts and some grumbling from locals, a prominent statue of a gun-toting Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of one of the world's most ubiquitous weapons of war, is set to be unveiled in an official ceremony in the Russian capital on September 19.
The 7.5-meter metal likeness — still covered in plastic — features Kalashnikov cradling his eponymous AK-47 assault rifle and looking west down the Garden Ring that loops around central Moscow.
The statue was hoisted onto its plinth over the weekend beside a new business center.
A second metalwork sculpture, of St. George slaying a dragon with a spear tipped with a rifle sight with AK-47 written on it, stands nearby.
The Kalashnikov statues' sculptor, Salavat Shcherbakov, is also the artist behind a towering 17-meter statue of Prince Vladimir the Great that was erected — amid controversy — outside the Kremlin in November at a ceremony attended by President Vladimir Putin.
Russian sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov presents a model for a monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov, Russian designer of the AK-47 assault rifle, at his workshop in Moscow on November 10, 2016.
Shcherbakov told TASS news agency that the rifle was added to his original plan for the Kalashnikov statue because people might not recognize him without his signature contribution to the Soviet Army.
"So we dared to include the rifle after all," Shcherbakov said.
Other prominent statues in the vicinity include statues to poets Alexander Pushkin and Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky presented plans to Putin for the Kalashnikov statue in September 2016 during a tour of the Kalashnikov arms manufacturer, headquartered in Izhevsk, the capital of the republic of Udmurtia.
The project was backed by the Russian Military-Historic Society, which is chaired by Medinsky and Rostec, the state weapons and technology conglomerate run by powerful Putin ally Sergei Chemezov.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Medinsky, Chemezov, and Kalashnikov's daughter, Yelena Kalashnikova, were expected to attend the unveiling ceremony on September 19.
The statue was originally meant to be unveiled on January 21, marking the day in 1948 when Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov signed a decree ordering the construction of an experimental batch of Kalashnikov rifles.
But the ceremony was moved because of inclement weather to May 8, ahead of Victory Day, and then to September 19, Gunmaker Day.
Not everyone is on board with the project.
Mikhail Kalashnikov with one of his fabled assault rifles in 2006.
Veronika Dolina, a local resident, posted a photograph of an apparent protester at the still-shrouded Kalashnikov statue holding a sign that said, "No to weapons, no to war." She wrote: "Man at Kalashnikov pedestal. Humble hero, no posing."
"No to weapons, no to war." Photo courtesy of Veronika Dolina/Facebook
Resident Natalya Seina told 360, a local media outlet, "This is not artistic, to put it mildly. This is trash. It's loathsome." She also noted how Kalashnikov had lived his life in Izhevsk, not Moscow, unlike playwright Anton Chekhov and poet Aleksandr Pleshchev. "These are probably more worthy people than the creator of a rifle."
There are estimated to be as many as 200 million Kalashnikov rifles around the world —prompting one expert to label it "the Coca-Cola of small arms" — and they are manufactured in dozens of countries.
Mikhail Kalashnikov died in 2013 at the age of 94.
hecksinductionhour art, history, nationalism, putinism, society, supah powah, war and peace, zeitgeist Leave a comment September 19, 2017 3 Minutes
Defenders of the Fatherland: Yunarmiya and the Personality Cult
Russia Has Surpassed the Soviet Union: I Would Only Learn German Because Putin Spoke It
Liana Turpakova
Vechorka
Russian TV channels were dominated by the February 23 holiday yesterday. The topic of war and patriotism was off the scale at a concert held to mark the holiday, as broacast on Channel One.
Yunarmiya performing during Defender of the Fatherland Day concert, 23 February 2017, Moscow. Still from youtube.com
I watched Flight Crew, but switched to NTV during the advertising breaks. NTV was showing a film about a cop. The ad breaks on RTR and NTV would coinicide sometimes, and I would switch to Channel One. I switched one too many times and ended up watching a performance by the Katyusha Children's Center for Aesthetics and Beauty and the patriotic organization Yunarmiya ("Youth Army"). I never did figure which was which. They are like the Young Pioneers, apparently. The kids were reciting poems with feeling and a sense of meaning, and pausing at all the right spots, adoration beaming from their faces.
One girl recited a poem in the style of Mayakovsky, which ended as follows: "And though I were an old man getting on in years, really, in fact, basically, I would learn to speak German only because Putin had spoken it."
The audience applauded, of course, and the camera switched to a shot of VVP and Defense Minister Shoigu, seated in the first row. They didn't smile, but looked on seriously. Shoigu said something to Putin.
I was a Young Pioneer during the Brezhnev era. We recited lots of poems with a patriotic filling, and if they mentioned the names of Soviet leaders, those leaders were dead. I am talking about Lenin. At the time, there were no panegyric verses about the then-General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. Words of gratitude were spoken, and there were slogans, but children, at least at my school, did not memorize anything of the sort. Odes to the living leader of the country were composed and declaimed only under Stalin. The parallels are obvious. And they say that insanity flourished in the Soviet Union.
I'll take another potshot at this ecstatic orgy. How do you like the idea of building a mock-up of the Reichstag, in Patriot Park in Kubinka, for the Yunarmiya kids to storm? As Shoigu noted, they would thus have "a specific location to storm, not just any old place." We're talking about the same Yunarmiya kids who performed the doggerel about Putin. I am sure they fought it amongst themselves over how who would get to recite the punchline about the country's biggest VIP. It was the girl who gets straight A's at school and whose comportment is impeccable.
The Reichstag in Berlin. Photo courtesy of dw.com
I'm not against promoting love for one's country. But this business about German and Putin is clearly overkill. By the way, it used to be a joke. Now it's a patriotic poem. The times have changed.
Holiday Concert in Celebration of Defender of the Fatherland Day, 23 February 2017, in its entirety. Originally broadcast on Channel One in Russia
hecksinductionhour nationalism, putinism, soviet, zeitgeist 1 Comment February 27, 2017 2 Minutes
The Call of War
Smash the fascists in World War II and become a Soviet hero!
A New Online Strategy [Game] about the Second World War
Tank battles, naval and air war fought on historical maps! Command your troops and destroy the enemy with nuclear missiles! Are you ready to rewrite history?
ru.callofwar.com
NB. Call of War is an online game available in different languages. It was created by Bytro Labs GmbH in Hamburg Germany.
hecksinductionhour capitalism, history, international, nationalism, war and peace, zeitgeist 1 Comment February 18, 2017 1 Minute
Despair as a Sign of the Times
The general mood of discouragement has been growing because Russia has shifted into idle, and it is unclear when and how it will end
Nikolay Mironov
Pain and despair have seized the country. Russians are losing their jobs. They cannot pay back their debts and feed their children. Due to constant problems and the lack of apparent prospects, families are falling apart. Some make desperate decisions, finally putting an end to their lives. Russia is losing people.
In July, an employee at a sports school in Trans-Baikal Territory committed suicide after he was not paid. In early August, a married couple in Blagoveshchensk, who were up to their eyeballs in debt,. jumped from a fourteenth-floor window, leaving their young child orphaned. This spring, a father of five in Kiselyovsk in Kemerovo Region hung himself because of debts. Large numbers of similar reports have been coming from different parts of the country.
Can you live on a wage of 10,000 to 15,000 rubles a month when prices are rising continuously? [15,000 rubles is currently equivalent to approximately 200 euros. — TRR.] Or on a pension of 8,000 rubles a month? How do you raise children on this kind of money? And what if, God forbid, you have emergency expenses, for example, for expensive medical treatment, whose cost exceeds the family budget many times over? Well yes, Russia has free medical care, so to speak, but we all knew what it is really like.
It has terrible consequences. The wave of cancer patients voluntarily departing from life continues. After a series of well-publicized cases in 2014–2015, the situation has not improved this year. In mid August, a man suffering from the cancer in the Moscow Region committed suicide with explosives. In June, another cancer patient committed suicide in Yaroslavl. Despite numerous similar suicides, the Russian Health Ministry continues to claim there is no link between the suicides of cancer patients and a deficit of pain medication. Just as there is no link, of course, between the despair felt by cancer patients in our country and the state of Russian medical care, which generally gives little chance to defeat the disease to those who have no money.
According to Rosstat, 24,000 to 26,000 people take their lives each year in Russia. But the causes of this and the means of remedying the situation are not discussed seriously. Instead, Rospotrebnadzor (Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare) have drafted recommendations for reporters on how to cover suicides.
Fewer and fewer people in our country know what they are going to live on tomorrow, how they will pay for rent and medical care. Russia is plunging into poverty. People have lost their sense of stability and security. The government, on the other hand, ignores these problems. It clearly has no strategy or even tactics for solving them.
There are a gazillion "public servants" in Russia, more than in the Soviet Union, but they serve only themselves and their bosses. High-ranking officials and the business clans that have fused with them live in a secure and comfortable world, whereas the common people are forced to survive alone. The civil service has lost its effectiveness. It has turned into a caste of masters and lords from whom we cannot defend ourselves, because they are the power, while we are "cattle."
Can fear of policemen really be a norm of a civilized life, of a civilized country? Yet lawlessness on the part of the police has remained. All the talk about combating it has been just that—talk. Here is a recent case. Igor Gubanov, a resident of Magnitogorsk, protested against police lawlessness by cutting off two of his fingers. He could find no other way of making himself heard. In January, Gubanov and his wife, who live in a communal flat, were taken to a police precinct where, according to Gubanov, policemen raped his wife. A criminal investigation was launched, but soon the police investigators closed it, accusing the victimized woman of making false charges.
Despair is felt not only by people who have decided to commit shocking acts. The overall mood of discouragement has been increasing due to the fact Russia has shifted into idle and got stuck in the doldrums, and it is unclear when and how it will end.
The national anthem and memories are all that remain of the once-great country: outer space, victories, and prestige. The country's most recent major achievements happened fifty years ago. The "unbreakable union" has been replaced by "our great power Russia," but what is next? Great and poor, great and impoverished. Do these notions go together? How long can we live like this?
The Russian welfare state exists only on paper. Such declarations, by the way, have also been inscribed in the constitutions of Latin American, African, and Asian countries. A Brazilian in his favela reads that he lives in an wonderful welfare state, and he is amazed. The same is true of our fellow Russians, with their miserable wages and pensions. True, unlike their brothers from the country "where many wild monkeys live," they do not live in huts yet. But, as they say, the night is young.
The main problem nowadays is that the country lacks a locomotive capable of pulling it out of crisis. The regime is concerned only with self-preservation. Officialdom is corrupt, inefficient, and lacking any strategic benchmarks. The "elite" (which I put in quotations, because they really are not the best people in the country) have been thoroughly denationalized: they have no stake in developing Russia. Until a normal and non-corrupt state makes the "elite" serve the country, it will never move it forward. In this case, what is wanted is the bloody-mindedness of a Peter the Great, who once put an end to mestnichestvo and forced the boyars and gentry to serve the country, or the statesmanship of Alexander II, who abolished serfdom over the lamentations of the landlords.
Instead, pro-government spin doctors have been increasingly ratcheing up the propaganda machine, searching for enemies, and heavily sugarcoating reality. Jingoism has already bored everyone to death. The people directing the show do not believe in it themselves, and the audience has stopped believing in it as well, despite the sunny ideology foisted on them, because Russia is running in place, and no one is solving its problems. The propaganda spiel that enemies are to blame for everything is still functioning, but even it cannot serve as a perennial explanation for each new outburst of social turmoil and, especially, the government's extremely poor performance. So fine, Obama is a bad guy, but what does that have to do with indexing pensions?
The only thing the regime can really boast about is reinforcing itself. But it is a regime presiding over a country losing its vitality. As a priority, the self-preservation of the "elite" deprives Russia of the chance to put itself back in motion. Yet the purged political arena, in which there is almost no opposition to speak of, much less plain old independent people who think about their country, has stopped generating leaders. There is only one leader left in the country, and he presides over a multilayered horde of bosses and oligarchs, embezzlers and dolts perched on their estates and thinking only of themselves.
Except for United Russia, a product of the same regime, Russia's political parties have no weight nationwide. The same goes for grassroots organizations. The media have been muzzled. Those who try and shout louder than the rest face either a harsh crackdown or a trivial payoff. Many people have taken to making oppositional noises in the hope they will be paid to shut up. Imitating protest has become a business, just like imitating patriotism. Amid the mob of clowns and crooks, the reasonable speeches made by the few real patriots who are rooting not for themselves but for their country are drowned out by the overall senseless din.
By eliminating potential enemies, the regime has also destroyed the very possibility of an alternative emerging, of a reboot. The current policies are clearly ineffective, but what and who should replace them? Reasonable prescriptions, for example, for supporting the national non-oil economy and import substitution, restoring consumer demand through social assistance to an impoverished population, ending capital flight, going after offshore companies, and clamping down hard on corruption have been voiced. These ideas, however, have come from second- and third-rank players who can advise the authorities but cannot demand anything from them. So the regime has ignored them year after year, thus exacerbating the crisis.
I am not trying to whip up a frenzy. I would like to say something positive, but the situation is firmly deadlocked. It is clear what reforms are needed. It also clear how to implement them and where to begin: with the "elite," the civil service, the budget, and the tax system. The only open question is who would be capable of doing all this. We have already talked about the government. Russia's active middle class is small, and it is extremely demoralized. We are left with the rank-and-file population, who have suffered most from the crisis and seemingly have a stake in launching reforms. But for the time being only a few ordinary people have been willing to take responsibility, allowing the regime quickly to localize protests, as happened with the farmers.
Nikolay Mironov. Photo courtesy of the Center for Economic and Political Reform (Moscow)
In the current environment, self-organization, society teaming up with honest people in the civil service and law enforcement, could be effective. Those honest people are undoubtedly there, but not in leadership roles. The country needs a grassroots organization, a movement, a party that could unite people and impose its own rules on the authorities. Society has to make the first move itself, which will serve as a signal to the honest people inside the system. We have to get the ball rolling.
Responsibility for what will become of the Motherland and us tomorrow lies with each of us today. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
All we have to do is not be silent, not relinquish our right to speak and act to someone else, not to count on an unknown savior of the Fatherland showing up. If he has not saved the country already, why would he do it now? And, needless to say, do not be afraid. We have to overcome our isolation to put an end to the senseless suicides, severed fingers, and broken lives, to put an end finally to the shameless plunder of the people and the export of the loot abroad. Even the smallest action, as long as it is collective, carries more weight than the most desperate individual deed.
We can, of course, wait for the moment when the country finally goes to hell in a hand basket, as in Tsarist Russia or the late Soviet Union. But do we really have to go through turmoil and destruction every time we need a new impulse to development? Are victims so necessary to the process of recovery?
The country is at a standstill, and the dump truck of history is rushing toward it. There are two options. Either we start the engine and drive, or we wait to get run over and tossed onto the roadside.
Nikolay Mironov is head of the Center for Economic and Political Reform, in Moscow, and a frequent columnist for Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. I published a translation of his column "Whipping Bear: Why the President Needs a 'Bad' Prime Minister" in June 2016. Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Sean Guillory for the heads-up. Photo by the Russian Reader
hecksinductionhour economy, politics, putinism, regime, society, zeitgeist Leave a comment September 11, 2016 September 12, 2016 8 Minutes
Vlad Kolesnikov: A Real Russian Hero for Russia Day
"At the military enlistment office, I turned on the Ukrainian national anthem": 17-year-old Vlad Kolesnikov talks about his decision to combat Putin's propaganda
Dmitry Volchek
Vlad Kolesnikov
Hundreds of people have been writing to Vlad Kolesnikov, a 17-year-old technical college student from Podolsk. They have been writing with offers of assistance and shelter, and to thank him and advise him to be more careful.
"I cannot express in words the emotions I feel reading Facebook," says Vlad, his voice trembling with emotion. "There has been so much support from strangers, it is simply incredible."
Vlad has acquired a lot of friends on the Internet, but his own grandfather, a former KGB officer, has condemned him. At the technical college where he studied he was assaulted. (Vlad asked not to write that he had been beaten up: "It was only a split lip, a couple of bruises, a couple of blows to the head, and three drops of blood.") And now the police have taken an interest in him.
And all because Vlad Kolesnikov not only does not hide his political views but has also decided to declare them openly.
Vlad Kolesnikov: Putin sits with his pack of criminals and runs the country with the aid of powerful propaganda. This is my subjective opinion. Maybe I am wrong, but I believe it is true. You know the Russian media have been vigorously promoting the image of khokhly [a Russian term of abuse for Ukrainians] and pindosy [a Russian term of abuse for Americans] as enemies. I also supported this until I watched a video on YouTube. It was 2014, and I will probably never forget it, because the video changed my life. The content of the video was completely banal. It was just an American family. The wife is Russian, the husband, American. He gives her a gift, they go to a shooting range. And instead of the propaganda we get—that it is a fascist regime where everyone is obsessed with sex and money, and everyone betrays each other—I saw people like myself. The only difference was that they smiled more. Since then I have been digging more, looking for different kinds of information, and reading the western press. I have realized the Russian media makes lots of mistakes, exaggerates, and in most cases just blatantly lies.
Radio Svoboda: And your relations with your relatives have been complicated because of the fact they do not share your views?
Vlad Kolesnikov: Yes. And not only my relations with relatives, but with everyone, you could say. I know only two people who more or less share my views: my friend Nikolai Podgornov and one other person whom I won't name. But all the people I know—my whole college, all my relatives—they are all against me. It is just Nikolai and me,
Radio Svoboda: You and Nikolai decided to hang up a banner in Podolsk that read, "Fuck the war"?
Vlad Kolesnikov: Yes, it all started when I was at the military enlistment commission and told them I did not want to serve in the army and did not want to fight against my brethren. Maybe that sounds sentimental, but that is the way it is. We decided we could not tolerate it anymore and would voice it openly. First, we wanted to hang a banner in Moscow, but then we thought it would be torn down quickly, and so we looked for a good place in Podolsk. We walked around for a long time and found a building with an accessible rooftop in the middle of town and decided to hang the banner there. We went to a fabrics shop. We bought a five-meter-long piece of cloth. We spent a long time picking out cloth that would be sturdier. We bought paint. This is expensive for a college student, but it was worth it. We spent all night making the banner and sitting on the rooftop. We fastened the banner to iron cables so that it would hang longer, and we locked the door [to the rooftop] so that it would take the police longer to get in. They had to summon the Emergency Situations Ministry guys. I think we gained two or three hours more time on them that way.
Radio Svoboda: You told the military enlistment commission straight out that you did not want to fight?
Vlad Kolesnikov: I don't have very good eyesight, so I am not fit for military service. I went through the medical examination, and there was I before the draft board. There were tables shaped like the letter П set up there, and the people who did the assessments were seated at these tables. I had the Ukrainian national anthem recorded on my telephone. I don't like the Russian national anthem, because I consider it mendacious. Everything it says about freedom and so on is just pure rubbish. Before entering the room I decided to turn on the Ukrainian anthem, because I do not support the Russian army at all and consider serving in it disgraceful. So I turned on the Ukrainian anthem and said, "Guys, I'm not going to fight in the Russian army."
Radio Svoboda: Vlad, you would agree that you are a very unusual young man. You are immune to propaganda, and are fearless to boot.
Vlad Kolesnikov: In fact, I was just lucky. I just did not have a TV for a certain time, and I did not watch the news. And when I got a TV, I turned it on and saw the nonsense that was going on there. I turned right to that program where [TV journalist Dmitry] Kiselyov fiercely argued that the hearts of gays should be burned. I was sitting there and thinking, Is this a comedy show? Then I realized that a new kind of news had emerged in Russia. It is hardcore, and produced in keeping with all of Goebbels's principles of propaganda: enemies surround us, the country has been occupied. Total drivel.
Radio Svoboda: So, you turned on the Ukrainian national anthem at the military enlistment commission. The members of the draft board were probably stunned when they heard it, no?
Vlad Kolesnikov: It was something incredible. Some people were dumfounded. Others jumped up and shouted, "What are you doing? Do you know where you are?" After a while, a man came running in. He took me to a separate room and laid two certificates in front of me. One said that I had problems with my eyesight, which is true. The other said that I had a personality disorder and something else. In short, the military enlistment commission had assigned me to the loonies, because I had gone in there playing the Ukrainian anthem and expressed my opinion. That was a turning point. When that certificate was put in front of me, I realized I would not put up with this anymore. I had simply gone in there, and I was immediately classified as a loony.
Radio Svoboda: And there is your latest feat. You came to school in a t-shirt with the Ukrainian flag on it.
Kolesnikov arrived at school with an Ukrainian flag on his chest
Vlad Kolesnikov: Yes. I had voiced my political views earlier at the college, and had often argued with the teachers on this score. As you can imagine, nothing good had come of this, but neither did anything super bad, except lowered marks and other trifles. But then it got fun. Near the college, I immediately met the class teacher. At our college, they are called professional masters. I will never forget that look. At first, he looked at me like a normal, decent person. Then he saw what I had on my t-shirt. He looked up at me, and I saw this hatred! Then I went upstairs and walked into the classroom. Within five minutes, the people sitting in front of me turned around (I was sitting in the back row) and said, "Kolesnikov, should we smash your face in now or later?" Well, just you try, I said. As you know, they kept their promises, not that day, however, but a few days later, after I had published my posts, when they had heard a lot of interesting things about themselves. I can argue my position, why I think Crimea was annexed, why Donbas was occupied. I have arguments, I have facts, and I know people who served there. On TV, they say there are no Russian troops there. In reality, of course, it is the other way round. They could not come up with convincing arguments. It all came down to my being a disgrace to the country, and I should tear the flag from my shirt. It is an interesting policy, actually. It turns out if you express your opinion you are disgrace to the country.
The inscription on the flag reads, "Give Crimea Back!"
Vlad Kolesnikov was forced to leave college (he was immediately expelled) and leave Podolsk. His grandfather, with whom he lived, also did not share his political views and sent his grandson to his father in Zhigulyovsk. It was just in time. Kolesnikov called his grandfather to say he had arrived safely and heard the disturbing news that two police officers had come and asked where he had got the Ukrainian flag and where his t-shirt was now.
"All democrats in Russia were sent into exile, and that is how I feel now, as if I am in exile. Many people are now advising me to go to Kiev. But that is the most extreme option. If someone thinks I will sit this out, get a foreign travel passport, leave for Ukraine, and that will be the end of it, they are mistaken. For now, I am planning after Zhigulyovsk to return to Moscow and do a couple of protest pickets," promises fearless Vlad Kolesnikov.
UPDATE. Vlad Kolesnikov was found dead on December 25, apparently from an overdose of prescription drugs.
Russia Day (Russian: День России, Den' Rossii) is the national holiday of the Russian Federation, celebrated on June 12. It has been celebrated every year since 1992. The First Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on June 12, 1990.
hecksinductionhour nationalism, protest, putinism, soviet, zeitgeist Leave a comment June 12, 2015 December 28, 2015 7 Minutes
Ilya Matveev: The New Putinist Stability?
Events are unfolding in plain sight, and strange as it might seem, the flood of disinformation cannot prevent us from seeing a quite simple picture.
The subway workers' union had long warned of the danger, and there had generally been a lot of reports in the press on the growing number of accidents in the Moscow Metro, and now there has been a new fatal accident.
The last couple of weeks, Russian media had reported constantly about how deftly the separatists had learned to use the Buk surface-to-air missile system and how many Ukrainian airplanes had been shot down. Just before news of the Malaysian airliner broke, reports had managed to surface—in "Strelkov's dispatches," in the media, everywhere—that the militants had shot down another Ukrainian transport plane. The plane turned out to be the civilian jetliner.
Recent articles in Vedomosti newspaper and especially leaks at b0ltai.wordpress.com make it easy to piece together the fiscal and economic situation in Russia. The country is in an "autonomous" recession, meaning one caused by internal factors. The resources for growth have been exhausted, and there is no money for Crimea or for executing Putin's May 2012 presidential decrees. The government is preparing to respond with austerity measures: the abolition of free medical care for nonworking citizens, tax increases, and another raid on retirement savings. For now the situation is rough but not catastrophic. At the same time the overall trajectory is clear: there will be less and less money, and it will be ordinary people who pay the bills.
However, there is no one to protest: all the country's internal contradictions, which were somehow politically articulated in 2011-2013, have been crushed by the Crimean steamroller, and the opposition is divided and marginalized. The population has closed ranks around the new Putin "geopolitics," becoming an aggressively frightened mass. Any possibility of electoral protest has been completely blocked off: with stunning cynicism, the field has been purged in the run-up to municipal elections in Moscow and Petersburg.
We can see that the new system is closed upon itself: the geopolitical adventures are needed, ultimately, only to strengthen Putin's personal power, to maintain his sky-high rating. The exact same role is performed by mega-events like the Olympics and the 2018 World Cup. Yet the economic cost of the geopolitics and mega-events will be huge, and people themselves will foot the bill (for sanctions, for Crimea, for kickbacks). However, the imperialist ideology surrounding the events for which they are paying out of their pockets will prevent them from articulating their protest politically. It is a paradox, but a paradox that has already been observed in history. Recall, for one, Marx's remark that Louis Bonaparte ruled in the name of the peasant masses (who supported him at elections) but against the interests of these masses.
This new period of stability might last as long as the previous one. No, it is no longer the apolitical period of stability of the noughties, but it might prove no less stable.
Ilya Matveev is an editor of OpenLeft.Ru, a member of the PS Lab research group, a lecturer in political theory at the North-West Institute of Management (Petersburg), a PhD student at the European University (Petersburg), and a member of the central council of the University Solidarity trade union.
hecksinductionhour politics, putinism, regime, society Leave a comment July 18, 2014 December 16, 2017 2 Minutes

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


If there were one Rowing WOD that could show you how far you've come in the forging of Elite Fitness, this would be it. The Peak Power Test will give you a sense of the raw power you can put into one stroke. The 2k test has been referred to as the "Fran" of rowing due to the burning lungs and legs it leaves you with. The 2k row is like nothing else in sport. It requires both power and endurance. Do you have what it takes to push through the pain?
For the Peak Power Test set the monitor for 20 seconds of work and 2 minutes of rest. Start by paddling a couple of strokes to get the fan moving and then go for max watts. It may help to video the test or have a partner watch to tell you the highest watts you pulled in just one stroke. During the 2 minutes of rest paddle lightly or roll out. Take 3 or 4 tries to find your max wattage starting with the damper set low and increasing the drag each successive try. At some point you'll find a drag that you like and gives you the most power. Your score for the Peak Power Test is the Max Watts pulled in just one stroke.
For the 2k Test, set the monitor for 2,000 meters and execute a race plan. The most successful race plans are the simplest.
@250m to go, Sprint for the Finish Line!
Post your Peak Power (Watts produced in 1 stroke) and 2k time to comments!
This entry was posted in Fitness, Rowing, Strength and tagged endurance sports, exercise, functional movements, inspiration, mental toughness, personal experiences, recruitment patterns, row 2k, rowing, sports, Strength, training by Renegade Rowing. Bookmark the permalink.


Nearly a third of long-term sickness absence could be due to mental health issues, new data suggests.
NHS figures show a total of 72,401 "fit notes" were written by doctors in Coventry and Rugby between January and September last year.
Despite the name, those are doctors' notes which are required if someone needs to take more than seven days off sick.
In more than 90 per cent of cases, they confirm someone is unfit for work.
Some 29,717 of those "fit notes" included a code specifying what the disorder was that had caused the note to be written.
In 9,168 cases - 31 per cent of the total - the cause was "mental and behavioural disorders".
That compares to just 5,895 cases where the causes was "musculoskeletal" - in other words, pain or other problems relating to muscles or bones.
The percentage of "fit notes" known to be due to a mental health disorder rose as high as 34 per cent in South Warwickshire.
It stood at 31 per cent in North Warwickshire.


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The unrespectability of our religion
I was transcribing some of my old journals this morning, and came across what I had written when I was 19 in response to reading about Leon Bloy.
When I got home I finished reading Leon Bloy and marvelled at his faith and devotion. He had been prepared to live nearly all his life in poverty — nay, in destitution — for the sake of Jesus.
Like Clement of Alexandria, like St Francis of Assisi, he gave up all for love. "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God." The beatniks are looking for what St Francis was looking for; they are after the absolute values of God rather than the relative values of this world. "A saintly clergy means a virtuous people; a virtuous clergy means a respectable people; a respectable clergy means a godless people."
Christians must never become respectable. Respectability is the curse of true religion. The slavish following of convention and the mediocrity it leads to, or springs from, are the enemy of all true Christianity. People become indistinguishable, they merge into the mass of the respectable, conventional mass of unthinking semi-morons that people this globe; they have no variety, and variety is the spice of life. They are tasteless, "and if the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?" Most Christians do not take their faith at all seriously — in one sense — they are prepared to live with it, but only just. They will not live for their faith, and certainly will not die for it. Saints were too unconventional, too unrespectable, to be imitated. People pay lip service to the examples of the saints, But if anyone should try to follow their example he is denounced, and they say, "Religion is a good thing, but that is taking it too far." The person against whom such an accusation is levelled has probably just begun to take religion at all seriously. Christians are a lot of hypocrites people say, but if they try not to be hypocrites, then they are fanatics. The unrespectability of our religion! (Journal entry: 17 August 1960)
That was over 40 years ago. I had been introduced to Leon Bloy by Brother Roger, of the Anglican Community of the Resurrection. Bloy's ideas were more than 60 years old then, and yet they seemed equally relevant to the 1960s. And now I keep reading about similar ideas in emerging church circles, including such things as urban monasticism. I look back at and cringe a little at the teenage arrogance, and wonder if our generation turned out any better than those we so self-righteously denounced.
Things have not changed much since then, it seems. A recent survey shows that most Christians in many countries see themselves first of all as citizens of this world rather than as citizens of the kingdom of God. Our citizenship is in heaven, says St Paul, but most have other gods. This is perhaps not so surprising in Russia, where atheism was the official state-sponsored religion for two generations, but it is a little more disturbing in other countries.
There also seems to be an anomaly in the case of the USA, where a higher proportion said that they saw themselves as Christians first, and citizens of their country second. But I wonder — I suspect that many of those who said that would respond to their country's recent wars of aggression in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq by saying "My country, right or wrong".
Posted in books, Christianity, culture, literature, society and tagged beat generation, books, Christianity, Christianity and culture, Christianity and society, emerging church, gospel and our culture, hippies, holy fools, sociology, urban monasticism
3 thoughts on "The unrespectability of our religion"
John on 2007/03/14 at 4:04 am said:
Christians became "respectable" when the "church" was coopted by the Roman state.Ever since then Christianity has been an integral part of the western imperial project with its drive to total power and control.
The recent circus involving the funeral of the late Pope and the installation of the current one was a brazen "celebration" of IMPERIAL power.All the "respectable" benighted ghouls that think they run this world were there.
Please check out these related references on the origins & consequences of the "respectable" Christian.
1. http://www.dabase.net/proofch6.htm
2. http://www.dabase.net/2armP1.htm#ch2
3. http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/jesusandme.html
Anonymous on 2007/05/26 at 8:41 am said:
As a skeptical Christian, going to church is a drag: everyone in suit and tie, and the conversations about who got married, who got what kind of car, who is buying a new house. Reality: all religious congregations are places to produce conformity and social obedience, in a word, "respectability."
Not much about encouraging love, compassion for others. Instead, gossip festers about those who fit in and those who don't.
As an Orthodox Christian, this has ALWAYS been one of my major beefs with our congregational life. I profoundly wish that everyone acknowledged that everyone is in a different position on the path of discovery, and that we guide one another, not judge how rigidly we fit on the path. It is more attitudinal, not having to do with doctrine.
Steve Hayes on 2007/05/26 at 1:05 pm said:
I once went with some friends, casually dressed, to one of the top society churches in Johannesburg. The churchwardens debated whether to toss us out. The Sunday morning service was like a fashion parade, and we obviously didn't fit in.
But I sometimes wonder if it isn't worse today. People often wear "casual" clothes to church nowadays, but they are not really casual at all. Others look at the brand, and if you aren't wearing the "in" brand of jeans, or tackies or whatever, you are out, but out.
Back then it was cool to be casual, but now I think it is uncool to be cool.


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Bluewater Productions Shines a Spotlight on RuPaul
Dear Fanboy Comics Readers:
The FBC Staff sends its congratulations to artist/writer Michael Fitzgerald Troy for the release of his new bio comic, Female Force: RuPaul, from Bluewater Productions! A man of many talents, Mr. Troy lends his writing skills to Bluewater's biography comic series, highlighting the full career of entertainer RuPaul from struggling musician and dancer to world-famous drag performer.
Don't miss your chance to purchase a copy of Female Force: RuPaul, as these issues tend to go fast! Pre-order your copy today by clicking here.
For further details regarding the bio comic, its release, and Michael Fitzgerald Troy's involvement, please see Bluewater's full press release, below.
Contact: Darren Davis, Bluewater Productions
RUPAUL PUTS THE MALE IN BLUEWATER'S FEMALE FORCE BIOGRAPHY COMIC
RuPaul Andre Charles is better known when he dresses in drag and entertains millions everyday as his over-the-top and fabulous alter ego RuPaul. Now the world's most famous drag queen and reality show host will be featured in the latest issue of Bluewater Productions' Female Force biography comic series.
Female Force: RuPaul, in stores in July, follows the self-described "Supermodel of the World" from his time as a time as a struggling musician and dancer through his first big break as a gender-bending drag queen in the B52s "Love Shack" music video. The issue will also cover his journey to fame as well as the outreach he does.
"RuPaul is bigger-than-life and can hardly be contained in the pages of a traditional comic," said Bluewater president Darren G. Davis, "That's why we expanded this issue to 40 pages."
According to Davis, the decision to feature a male figure in the female-centric comic book stems from RuPaul's refusal to be addressed as either. "He is comfortable in his own skin and is happy to let anyone within earshot know that. The fact he chooses his public persona to be female, emphasizes that he stays true to his own concept of self. And that solidifies RuPaul as a female force."
The issue, written by Michael Troy and penciled Nathan Girten, also delves into RuPaul's personal life as an openly gay performer and his many public trials and tribulations including the 1993 furor in upstaging and insulting legendary comic Milton Berle on live TV and his cult-like following for his reality show "RuPaul's Drag Race.".
"I have been a huge RuPaul fan for years and I sashayed at the chance to be part of bringing him to comics!" Troy added.
Female Force offers a broad examination of strong and influential women who are shaping modern history and culture. In past issues, the monthly series has featuredMichelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Madonna, Cher, Oprah Winfrey, Stephenie Meyer, JK Rowling, Barbara Walters and others.
The comic book series, launched earlier this year, has drawn considerable media attention, including features on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, "The View" and "Live with Regis and Kelly." It has also been featured in such periodicals as People Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today and thousands of blogs and other media outlets.
The suggested retail price (SRP) for the upcoming trade paperback is $7.99.
Female Force individual issues are also available on Amazon.com, where they have been ranked among the site's top 300 books.
Usually the Female Force comic books have sold out the day of release, such as the "Female Force: Cher" book. To make sure you get a copy please pre-order the Female Force: RuPaul comic book by clicking here: http://amzn.to/I2dwsG or contact your local bookstore.
About Bluewater Productions
Bluewater Productions Inc. is one of the top independent production studios of comic books, young adult books and graphic novels. Its extensive catalog of titles includes the bestsellers "10th Muse" and "The Legend of Isis" "Bluewater publishes comic books in partnership with entertainment icon William Shatner ("TekWarChronicles"), legendary filmmaker Ray Harryhausen ("Wrath of the Titans," "Sinbad: Rogue of Mars," TV's original and greatest 'Batman" Adam West ("The Misadventures of Adam West") and celebrated actor Vincent Price ("Vincent Price Presents"), Additionally, Bluewater publishes a highly successful line of biographical comics under the titles "Female Force" and "Political Power."
Bluewater aims to unite cutting-edge art and engaging stories produced by its stable of the publishing industry's top artists and writers.
For more information, visit www.bluewaterprod.com.
Last modified on Friday, 21 June 2013 01:34
Published in: Lethally Blonde Productions
Fifty Shades of Crap
The Blonde Squad Goes Digital


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Cuba Culture News
Is Cuba The Future Of Professional Boxing?
Posted May 30, 2006 by publisher in Cuban Sports
By W. Gregory Guedel | EastSideBoxing.com
In the first half of the 20th Century, when mobsters, gamblers, and celebrities mingled in the tropical playground that was Havana, fighters from Cuba were a formidable presence in the world of professional boxing. The casinos run by American owners in Cuba regularly featured professional bouts, and in many respects the Havana of the 1930s-1950s was a blueprint for the future gambling/boxing Mecca that is today's Las Vegas. Kid Chocolate and Kid Gavilan were among the Cuban-born champions who enjoyed great popularity in both countries, and stood at the forefront of a steady flow of boxers who regularly made the short trip to the US to compete in pro bouts.
That flow was abruptly stopped in 1962, when Fidel Castro outlawed professional sports as being contrary to the ideals of his socialist revolution. Although Cuban fighters were banned from participating in professional matches, the development of amateur boxing within Cuba became a priority for the Cuban state.
As with their Soviet-bloc counterparts, the Cuban government viewed sport as a means of exhibiting the success of the state's social system, and winning medals in international competitions was a high-profile means of promoting the party line. To assist its Caribbean socialist brethren in their aims, the USSR sent experienced boxing coach Andrei Chervorenko to help develop Cuban fighters. Working with Cuba's own Alcides Sagarra, a comprehensive national recruiting and training program based on the Soviet model was established.
The results were astonishing. Cuba, a country the size of Pennsylvania with a total population of only 11 million people, proceeded to dominate international amateur boxing. Since the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, Cuba has won 55 Olympic medals in boxing – more than any other nation and 4 more than the United States. This figure is even more impressive considering Cuba boycotted both the 1984 games in Los Angeles and the 1988 games in Seoul. Combining its Olympic medals with amateur World Championship medals and those from various other international competitions, Cuba stands far above the rest of the world in amateur boxing accomplishments. After four decades of unmitigated success on the international stage, there is no sign of an imminent slowdown. Many today believe that if Cuban fighters were allowed to compete professionally, they would repeat this success and soon own numerous world titles.
While the international success the Cubans have achieved in the amateur ranks is undeniable, most would acknowledge that professional boxing is a much more challenging arena. The basic differences are clear and significant: professional bouts feature longer rounds and more of them, no headgear, and lighter gloves. The idea of an Olympic champion jumping directly to fight against a professional for a world championship is an unlikely proposition, as even the most talented amateur would be at a vast disadvantage under the more arduous professional match conditions. When the idea was tested on one occasion, with 1956 Heavyweight gold medalist Pete Rademacher challenging reigning champion Floyd Patterson in Rademacher's first professional fight, the result was Patterson winning by 6th round KO. Nevertheless, promoters also made efforts in the 1970s to arrange a "Super Fight" between Muhammad Ali and Cuba's two-time Olympic gold medalist Teofilo Stevenson. The idea was rejected by the Cuban government, and Stevenson's "official" justification for declining the fight was "What is one million dollars compared to the love of 11 million Cubans?" For his part, Ali dismissed Stevenson as "a three-round fighter", intimating that the Cuban amateur would not be able to endure the rigors of a 15-round professional match.
It can therefore be accepted that current Cuban amateur champions would likely not be able to immediately compete with world-class pro fighters under professional match conditions. The operative question thus becomes: How would the Cubans do with the benefit of professional-style training and experience? As it happens, there are some examples that can be used for analysis. A number of Cuban fighters have managed to obtain political asylum in other countries and have immediately turned professional. Some have attained tremendous success. Juan Carlos Gomez was undefeated in 34 fights as a Cruiserweight and held the WBC title from 1998-2002 before moving up to Heavyweight. Joel Casamayor reeled off 20 straight victories on the way to winning the WBA Super Featherweight title, which he successfully defended eight times. Both fighters demonstrated that the hallmarks of Cuban amateur boxing – superior boxing skills and outstanding conditioning – were no less potent in the professional realm.
The Cuban Heavyweights that have slipped through Castro's grasp have produced less impressive results. The first prime contender to land on the pro scene was Jorge Luis Gonzalez. His amateur credentials were stellar – he held victories over future Heavyweight champions Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe, and had become Cuba's top heavyweight by dispatching the legendary Teofilo Stevenson in national competitions. After conquering his first 23 professional (albeit lower-tier) opponents, Gonzalez was KO'd in the 6th round by his former-amateur foe Riddick Bowe. Gonzalez appeared shell-shocked by the defeat, and was subsequently beaten regularly by fighters with lesser credentials. Brothers Elicier and Eliseo Castillo have operated on the fringes of heavyweight contention for a number of years, but each has been beaten decisively whenever he stepped up to face a legitimate contender. The current Cuban Heavyweight in the professional mix is a slightly-heavier Juan Carlos Gomez, whose Cruiserweight success is noted above. Although Gomez started strong in his campaign for a Heavyweight title, he suffered a shock defeat at the hands of unheralded fellow countryman Yanqui Diaz, and his subsequent progress has been hampered by alleged drug and discipline problems.
In all likelihood, these fighters do not represent the cream of Cuba's Heavyweight crop. The best Cuban Heavyweights are probably still in Cuba – and likely under close supervision – but the examples above indicate that being a product of the Cuban system does not by itself guarantee professional success. Ironically, in many cases the fighters who arrive from Cuba appear to get derailed by the very freedom they risked so much to attain. With no authoritarian coaches to force them to train, and with the abundance of distractions available to world-class athletes in the West, the primary freedom of choice is often the freedom to avoid the gym altogether. It seems that for many expatriate fighters, the rigid and regimented Cuban system they despised was the key element of their personal success, and without it there is a loss of psychological focus required for top-level performance.
As Fidel Castro passes his 80th birthday and appears increasingly frail, there is much anticipation regarding the future of Cuban boxing after his eventual departure from power. Will the new regime give its blessing for Cuban fighters to compete professionally? Or at least make it easier for fighters to leave the island to compete elsewhere? There are numerous scenarios that may allow for more Cuban exposure to the professional ranks. Given the country's need for hard currency, the lure of lucrative sporting events in the country may be enough to revive Havana's days as a prime locale for professional boxing. If nothing else, allowing top Cuban fighters to leave the country to win professional purses will increase the flow of remittance dollars that helps keep the state system afloat. Whether or not the success of Cuban amateurs can be duplicated in the professional ring will depend on numerous factors, but it would appear that these fighters possess the superior fundamentals and competitive mindset that true contenders require. Given the inexorable spread of globalization in every facet of life, it is likely that we shall soon have the opportunity to see for ourselves.
For excellent insights into the world of Cuban boxing, see S. L. Price's book "Pitching Around Fidel", and John Duncan's "In The Red Corner", which provides in-depth observations of the Cuban boxing scene while recounting the author's quest to arrange a fight between Felix Savon and Mike Tyson.
Find Cuban boxing items on eBay
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Follow up post #1 added on April 04, 2011 by CoastPacific
Professional boxing should be banned worldwide.
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Catalogue description Assizes: Oxford Circuit: Criminal Depositions and Case Papers
Assizes: Oxford Circuit: Criminal Depositions and Case Papers
Very few of these Oxford Circuit documents pre-date the 19th century. They relate mainly to murder and more serious cases although after 1956 a wider selection is included. The series includes depositions relating to the Reform Bill riots at Bristol in 1831 and to the Chartist riots at Hanley in 1842, the trial of Major Herbert Rowse for the murder of his wife in 1921 and the trial of Harold Jones for the murder of Florence Little, also in 1921.
The naming of a defendant within this catalogue does not imply guilt.
Minute books (not all of which will be open until 2002) giving the outcome of these cases can be found in: ASSI 2
Papers relating to Harold Jones's acquittal on an earlier charge of murder do not survive here but see papers in HO 45/25417
Separated material:
The depositions for the period from summer 1936 to summer 1941 were destroyed by enemy action during the Second World War.
Medical and probation reports for some depositions have been transferred to ASSI 89
643 bundles, files and papers


Bank Teller salaries at American Savings Bank can range from $9-$17. This estimate is based upon 2 American Savings Bank Bank Teller salary report(s) provided by employees or estimated based upon statistical methods. See all Bank Teller salaries to learn how this stacks up in the market.


Hey Zack, great one! Would you mind posting the schematics you used as well?
Great find! The rotary just adds between 1.5 and 60k between pin 6 and ground, right? Then it could be replaced with e.g. a 100k pot wired as variable resitor (maybe with 160k in parallel to make it approx. 60k) as a simple mod - am I thinking correctly? Cheers!
took care of it for you.
Schematics do not get posted on this site but as it says in the description FSB will have it so head over there mate.
here only 3 not electrolitic cap on board. it's 330pf, 100nf and... it has mark "1.0J63" on it so i think that its 1uf. So it must be 330pf (monolithic ceramic) and 100nf (marked as 104) red film cap.
Awesome thanks man. I'll make the change to the board.
Call this verified! I used a 47p instead of the 330p as i have only just noticed the change as i was building. Still sounds pretty awesome with a 47p. Will remove and socket to see what it changes. Thanks for the layout Zach!
awesome. can't wait to hear the sound comparison when the caps are switched. always had a soft spot for this one when it came out.
The pot version is in error. The 100n cap connects to ground, but the other lead is floating. Plus the gain pot's lug 1 cannot be connected to ground. Refer to OD250/Dist+ to see hot to wire the gain pot. Only two terminals are used.
Looks better. However, there should be 1K5 resistor between gain pot and 100n cap to get the pot settings per original. Also, the C-taper is a must with this gain control method.
I was thinking antilog would be best too, but wasn't sure. With changing the switch to a pot I think with it as is you'll get more distortion with the pot due to being able to get lower resistance then 1.5k. Really to make the pot have similar range to the switch, not only would there need to be the 1.5k resistor, but a 160k resistor across the pot lugs to bring it down to 61.5k. I could be wrong though.
Miro is right, you would need a 1k5 resistor between the 100nF cap and the Gain1&2 connection to work as the original. That sets the minimum gain to about 310. As per the current layout there is no minimum resistance, so I think the maximum gain would be theoretically infinite causing oscillation at the maximum setting of the gain pot.
Putting a 160k resistor across the lugs would not only change the value of the pot but also would alter the taper, making it behave more like a linear pot. In this case that wouldn't be good as the big changes in the gain would shift towards the end of the turn of the pot. I'd rather suggest either a C100k or a C50k. With the former one would get less gain at the minimum setting and to have the whole range shifted a bit to the clockwise direction of the turn of the pot, and with the latter the distribution of the gain settings would be more even across the whole turn, but the minimum gain would be more than in the one with the gain switch. I personally would probably go with the C50k pot.
As Csaba said, without the 1K5, we'll run into oscillation issues unless the feedback loops small cap is upped considerably - this'll result in unwanted loss of high frequencies. The C100K will only add more of the lower gain settings and due to C taper, the sweep would still work very well, without notable unusable area. Dist+/OD250 has a C500K pot in similar setup and that works quite well for the whole turn. A trimmer of 5K value to set the maximum gain (in place of 1K5) would also be a quite nice thing to try.
The C50K will work just as well. With only minor loss in lower settings.
Nice circuit anyway. Basically a buffered Dist+/OD250 gain stage without clipping diodes. Lots to tweak in there.
This, also means that there is a reason for 833. Those'll clip more gracefully than some others. Any dual should be tried to see which performs the best..
Ah. Did not even think that oscilatoin could be an issue. Simple change and I'll fix it when I get back from class.
I wait the verify the second version with pot, Im going to buld that with a 4558, think it could work, also, I have 20 4558 an non 833, do that in a Crunch Box and work very well.
Can't wait to try this one out! More Way Huge layouts please!
don't worry. i've got a few waiting in the wings.
Can we have the Way Huge Ring Worm PLEASE!
Version with the anger pot works great. Thanks Zach.
Also would increasing the input cap add in a little more low end? I find it a little too trebly with more anger dialed in Sorry, deleted my previous comment to subscribe.
Nope. The 1u is not cutting your lows. Up the 100n for 220n. That'll take the high pass filter rolloff frequency created by gain amp way lower.
Thanks Miro. I put a 100nf and 330nf caps on the outside lugs of a three position DPDT switch with a 100nf in the center and it worked great. I'm using it to push an Orange OR15 and it became very trebly with more anger. It was very harsh with my Vox AC10 too. I haven't tried it through the Vox yet but I built it more with the OR15 in mind.


When I was a poor college student, I worked at a bakery that, among other things, was famous for their pumpkin bread. One day, I brought a loaf home and proceeded to basically eat almost all of it and then said that I gave it to the neighbors. That was a lie. But when it comes to pumpkin bread, I have basically zero self control and I don't feel like I should be held accountable for that.
We have an amazing recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip bread here on the blog, and we have lots and lots of other pumpkin chocolate chip-y goodies on the blog, but this recipe is near and dear to my heart. It's one of those recipes I've carried with me forever now, simple and easy and delicious and perfect for weekends and after school baking fun. It's one of those recipes that feels way too delicious for how easy it is. It's one of those recipes that will help make friends and that you'll get emails about years later, like, "Hey, Kate!! Long time, no see! Remember that time you brought those pumpkin chocolate chip muffins to your final Harry Potter presentation in college? Could I get the recipe?" Yeah. All these things have happened. You need this recipe.
You'll need eggs, a can of pumpkin, flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, cooking oil, applesauce, chocolate chips, and sugar.
Preheat oven to 400 F. Line 2 12- cup muffin tins with paper liners. Set aside.
Add chocolate chips and use a 1/4 cup measuring cup or cookie scoop to add batter to muffin tins. Bak 15-20 minutes (18 was perfect for me) or until a knife or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly then, if desired, transfer to a wire cooking rack.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line 2 12 cup muffin tins with cupcake liners and set aside.
In a large bowl, beat eggs with an electric mixer. Mix in sugar, pumpkin, oil, and applesauce. In another bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Blend into pumpkin mixture until just combined. Add chocolate chips and mix. Transfer to muffin tins (a 1/4 cup cookie scoop or measuring cup works great). Bake 15-20 minutes (18 is perfect for me) or until a knife comes out clean. Cool slightly in pans then transfer to wire racks.
Ha! Yeah it's a little glitch with our new recipe card—I've been trying to fix it all day…??
Hahaha, I know, right?! I'm trying to fix it, but it won't let me…?
YUM! These muffins look AWESOME! And we have pumpkin puree to use up!
Well I missed the hours vs minutes thing but on my phone and computer both, I can't print without the meal plan banner blocking the name of the recipe. Real bummer. I LOVE pumpkin chocolate chip breads!
Would this recipe make 1 loaf if you didn't want the muffins and wanted a pumpkin bread in a loaf pan instead?
Sure!! I don't know for how long, though.
These look wonderful. Any tips on how to keep the baked muffins from becoming soft/damp on the top after a day in the pantry? That always happens when I bake with pumpkin.
I made these and we loved them!! It actually made 24 muffins and 24 mini muffins for me. Maybe my muffin pans are small? Delicious! Thanks!
Yum. Semi sweet or milk chocolate chips?
Delicious! My kids loved these. I got 36 muffins.
Do you know the calories count of one of these?
We loved these! I did half of the recipe and got 15 muffins out of it. My family loved them even more the next day.
These look divine! If I don't have applesauce, could I add more pumpkin to make up for it?
Made these with the leftover pumpkin from your turkey and black bean chili and it was a perfect end to our meal. Thank you for the recipe!
Looove these! It made 30 regular sized muffins for me, which was perfect because I had plenty to share with neighbors and friends and still have some for my family, too. I even subbed a cup of white whole wheat flour and they were the most fluffy and light pumpkin muffins ever to come from my oven. So delish!
Thank you for posting a pumpkin muffin recipe that uses a whole can of pumpkin instead of only a cup!!


The STEAM Summit encourages over 2,000 middle and high school students from throughout the southeast Minnesota region to experience a variety of hands-on activities at more than 100 booths demonstrating careers, skills, and higher education opportunities in science, technology, engineering, art, and math. The future success of greater Rochester's economy depends on a well-prepared pipeline of students with the education and skills needed to keep Rochester area's business and industry competitive. These summits bring together business, higher education, local government and communities to motivate and prepare our students for an increasingly competitive global marketplace.
As a direct result of last year's STEAM Summit, our student surveys found of those who attended: 80% of the students would now consider a STEAM career, 60% want to further explore a STEAM career, 45% want to worker harder in their STEAM courses, and 25% plan to take harder STEAM classes!
The need for technical work continues to grow. Workers in STEAM occupations use science and math to solve problems. Educational requirements for STEAM occupations range from a high school diploma and on-the-job training to a PhD. Fourteen percent of all STEAM occupations will require an associate degree. 53% will require a baccalaureate degree. But all require the ability to think logically. Growing demand for technological advances means more jobs for STEAM workers. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects job growth of 22 percent for STEAM occupations as a whole between 2004 and 2014.
Nearly all the major STEAM groups are expected to have about the same rate of growth as the national average of 13 percent. The exception is computer specialist occupations, which are expected to grow much faster than the average.
This information is from the Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections. Find out more in "STEAM occupations: High-tech jobs for a high-tech economy," by Nicholas Terrell, Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Spring 2007.
For more information about getting involved and engaged with the STEAM Summit as a volunteer, business, organization, or school, please contact Workforce Development and Education Coordinator, Kaylie McGregor or call (507) 424-5678.


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Empirically wealthy with hugely certain case reviews at the North American loose alternate contract (NAFTA), this finished quantity reports the connection among regionalism and country habit. the normal trend of earlier experiences of regionalism and nearby integration has been to appreciate how kingdom ideas molded the dynamics of an integration approach.
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Modern American society has the glance of a split-level constitution. Its political and social associations distribute rights and privileges universally and proclaim the equality of all electorate. but fiscal associations, with potency as their tenet, create disparities between voters in dwelling criteria and fabric welfare.
The general danger of this approach is that it divides a complex system into manageable parts and thus treats it like a set of simple systems. A basic question for risk management is how to deal with things that could happen. Prerequisites for the management of risk are thus the evaluation and comprehension of the internal and external context of the organization that aspires to manage risk (International Organization for Standardization 2009, p. 10). The ISO recommends including risk management procedures specifically in an organization's political processes, such as "policy development, business and strategic planning and review, and change management" (International Organization for Standardization 2009, p.
She aims to understand why sometimes norms originating elsewhere are adopted in domestic practices32 based on the observation that elites do not always seem to follow the same rules and norms as the rest of society (Flockhart 2006, p. 91). g. Eisenstadt 1995, p. 132) she assumes that "individuals attach high value to their social group, and that membership of a social group is important to human beings, and that groups and their individual members use the acquired norms and values to compare and evaluate themselves and those around them within a system of differently valued 'social groups'" (Flockhart 2006, p.
Norms and rules can be deinstitutionalized. For norms and values to be significant and to retain their character as institutions, they have to be perceived as legitimate (and morally sound). Ostrom differentiates rules according to their depth and relevance for a given structure (see Figure 1). Figure 1: "Linkages among rules and levels of analysis" Rules: Constitutional Collective Operational Levels of analysis: Constitutional choice Collective choice Operational choice Processes: Formulation Governance Adjudication Modification Policy-making Management Adjudication Appropriation Provision Monitoring Enforcement (Ostrom 1990, p.


• 1982 – Unity Food Bank, the original name of today's Second Harvest of South Georgia, was founded to provide local non-profits with easy access to food and services, a B2B of sorts.
• 1990 – Unity Food Bank becomes a branch of Savannah-based Food Bank of Coastal Georgia.
• 1993 – Organizational changes at FBCG put UFB in a tenuous financial/operational situation jeopardizing the facility's survival. UFB board hires Franklin J. Richards, II, to redevelop and revitalize the Valdosta facility.
• 1996 – Operational and financial success make it possible for UFB to separate from FBCG. Out from under FBCG, UFB becomes the Valdosta Food Bank, an independent subsidiary distribution organization in the America's Second Harvest network (now Feeding America).
• 2000 – Valdosta Food Bank earns accreditation as a member of the America's Second Harvest food bank network and becomes Second Harvest of South Georgia, operating in a 10 county area.
• 2010 – Feeding America rewards SHSG's success by expanding our service area to cover 30 counties with branch locations in Albany, Douglas, and Thomasville.


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Jack Nicklaus 'puzzled' by Tiger Woods's situation
By Josh Berhow
When Tiger Woods decides to return to the PGA Tour is a mystery these days, and the greatest major champion to ever play doesn't know what to think of Woods's situation either.
Eighteen-time major-winner Jack Nicklaus, who is also the architect of PGA National's champion course, the site of this week's Honda Classic, joined NBC's Johnny Miller and Dan Hicks in the booth on Sunday and weighed in on Woods.
While Nicklaus at first said he doesn't "have a take" on Woods, he said he was "a bit puzzled" by the situation.
"I've seen Tiger a little bit in the last several months, not in the last month or two," he said. "He looked great. Physically he looks fantastic … but he goes and plays and then he either physically can't make it, or mentally and physically maybe they work together — I don't really know, and I'm not sure he knows. It's sad to me cause he's such a great talent, he's a good kid. He's got so much ability and I'm sad to see it happen to him. I hope he gets it corrected."
Woods was supposed to play last week's Genesis Open as well as this week's Honda but pulled out of both due to back spasms, which also caused him to WD from Dubai earlier this month. The spasms were so severe that he canceled his press conference at the Genesis, which is an event his foundation hosts. His agent, Mark Steinberg, said last week that Woods's doctors told the 14-time major champ to "just stay horizontal."
Tiger Woods undergoes another back surgery, hopeful to return later this year
'Feherty' leaves behind a fitting legacy as an original in golf TV
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Looking for a new job? Augusta National (!) is now hiring
New York Yankees' Aaron Hicks makes hole-in-one on a par-4… with a 3-wood