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Merkel Double Rifles
Double Rifles, Main, Rifles Permalink
Sporting rifles need to have a degree of specialization for the type of shooting that the hunter will be engaging in. For example, for long range hunting where shots may need to be taken out beyond 300meters, a properly set up bolt-action rifle with telescopic sights tends to be the most sensible choice, and with good reason. A well set up bolt action rifle offers both the optimum shot to shot accuracy, generally shooting sub Minute of Angle groups, and doing it with a high level of shot to shot consistency. Whilst the bolt-action rifle excels for accuracy however it does not excel at providing a swift sure second shot. In a situation where a repeat shot is needed a hunter will tend to choose a faster handling action such as a lever action or straight pull bolt action. The action type that is at the top of the preference list for a swift sure second shot however is neither the lever action, nor the straight pull bolt action, nor even the semi-automatic. The rifle that offers the fastest and most certain second shot is the double rifle.
This should come as no surprise to any of us. If in doubt visit a shotgun shooting range and watch what the top competitors use. It will almost invariably be a double barrel gun, I don't know of any serious skeet or trap shooter who uses a lever action shotgun, or even a pump. For fast, instinctive shooting with the ability to fire two aimed shots the double barrel reigns supreme. For a rifle, the double-rifle does not reign supreme out at 400 yards or so, but it does beat all the competition when a quick second shot is required at shorter distances (i.e. less than 200 yards). A sporting semi-automatic, such the Browning BAR, may also deliver a quick second or third shot even at ranges out past 300 yards: but the semi-automatic Browning BAR is limited to a maximum caliber of .338 Winchester Magnum, and semi-automatics are often banned in places where big game is hunted. So if you are looking for reliable dangerous game stopping power the double rifle stands out as your best choice.
The downside of the double rifle however is the cost. Double rifles require significant hand work to get them working properly, and especially to get the two barrels shooting closely parallel to each other. British "best" double rifles typically cost as much as a modest house or an exotic car, but there are excellent double rifles available that cost about a tenth as much as a British "best" rifle. Amongst these more affordable double rifles, those from German gunmaker Merkel are some of the best money can buy. A Merkel double rifle will cost about as much as a modest new car, but it will outlast the car by a big margin, and will be near certain to provide a great deal more enjoyment than a commuter car.
Merkel began as a family business back on September 1st, 1898: the same year Paul Mauser created his legendary bolt action. Three Merkel brothers; Albert Oskar, and Gebhard (who were master gunsmiths) and stock-maker Karl Paul Merkel set up their business in the German town of Suhl. This gunmaking business was from the very start aimed at building sporting arms of the highest quality and the fact that the company managed to work through the two biggest wars in world history without being dragged into the making of war weapons is of itself a testimony to the determination of the Merkel family. The company survived the two wars by becoming a parts supplier for such things as carburettors, range-finders and small arms.
With the passing of Gebhard Merkel in 1933 the family business was passed down to the next generation, which was Ernst Merkel and the son in law of Karl Paul Merkel, Adolf Schade.
The quality of the guns and rifles made by Merkel was of such a high standard that in the between wars period, in 1937, Merkel was awarded "Grand Prix" at the Paris World Exhibition. The theme of the exhibition was "Art and technology applied in modern life", a theme that fits perfectly with Merkel's passion for making sporting arms that are at once both works of art, and works of craftsmanship incorporating technological excellence. The Grand Prix brought the name of Merkel into the world spotlight and many prominent people became Merkel customers. This fame was to serve Merkel in good stead because at the end of the Second World War the company was not forced to close but instead became the only gunmaker in Suhl to be allowed to remain in production.
Suhl was located in what became East Germany (the German Democratic Republic) and the socialist government took control of the company and all that had been built up by the family members over decades of dedicated hard work. Despite that the quality of the products from Merkel remained high and the government chose Merkel guns to present as gifts to prominent people such as American President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (who would be a key figure in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962), and cosmonaut Juri Gagarin, the first man in space. Even Chinese Chairman Mao Tse Tung was presented with a Merkel.
After the Berlin Wall came down heralding the end of the socialist German Democratic Republic and the re-unification of Germany, a group of investors took an interest in the company and Merkel has risen out of the ashes of a season of tumultuous world history like the Phoenix of Greek mythology rose from the fire. The company is making its great guns and rifles once again.
Gebruder Merkel make a range of side by side and over/under double rifles. Some are made for heavy calibers suited to African use, and many are made in smaller standard calibers for North American and European use. So whilst the most common reason for purchasing a double rifle is as "life insurance" for hunting dangerous game in Africa, or for buffalo and Banteng in Australia's north, there are a number of other good reasons to choose one, such as for driven wild boar: a 500lb boar running at full speed is a quarry for which you need a rifle that is as much like a fast handling double barrel shotgun as you can get, especially if the aforementioned grunter is coming in your direction.
Model 140 Boxlock
Standard Model 140 in basic trim. This rifle is chambered for the .500 Nitro Express, one of the best possible choices for a dangerous game rifle. (Picture courtesy Merkel USA)
The base model Merkel double rifle is the Model 140 with a boxlock modified Anson & Deeley action featuring double underlugs and a Greener top cross-bolt. This rifle is made as the 140AE (African Express) in a range of calibers suitable for large deer on up to dangerous game: .375 H&H Magnum, .416 Rigby, .470 NE, .500 NE.
The Model 140AE features an articulated front trigger, express sights (50, 75 and 100 meters), hard soldered barrels, and ejectors. Ejectors make reloading a double rifle vastly more easy and for most hunters are recommended: if you need to reload quickly when dealing with a dangerous quarry, broken fingernails trying to prise out a stubborn fired case might just be the least of your worries. The rifle has provision for Weaver style telescopic sight mounts. Some people don't like a rifle-scope on a double rifle but they can be a wise choice in certain shooting situations. So it is good to have a quality rifle-scope in quick detachable mounts. If you are thinking of this for the more powerful calibers such as the .470 NE or even .500 NE then a rifle-scope with a long eye-relief is going to be important. One specialist rifle-scope is the German Nickel Magnum 1.5-6×30 EDS. This rifle-scope is made specifically for heavy recoiling rifles and has a 4.9″/125mm eye-relief. The extended eye-relief comes at a price however and that price is a reduction of the field of view by comparison with rifle-scopes with a shorter eye relief. For the Nickel Magnum 1.5-6×30 EDS the field of view is 15m – 5.5 m at 100m (45 ft. – 16.5 ft. at 100 yd.).
An example of the 140AE (African Express) with optional deluxe features.
The overall length of the Model 140 is 40.16″/102cm with a barrel length of 23.6″/60cm. Weight begins at 10.14lb/4.6kg on up depending on caliber.
Optional features include a Pachmayr recoil pad, (which would be recommended), octagonal barrels, and various engraving and deluxe walnut stock options.
You will find the Model 140AE on the Merkel website if you click here.
Model 141 Petite Frame Boxlock
Merkel 141 small action double rifle in 30-06. A perfect rifle for whitetail deer, and anything else a 30-06 is good for. The 141 is made on the small 28 gauge action. (Picture courtesy Merkel USA).
The Merkel 141 is made on the petite 28 gauge action and so with its short barrels it is one of the lightest double rifles in the world. This rifle also has a feature built in to permit regulating the barrels by the use of adjustment screws at the muzzle.
The Merkel 141 features adjustable barrel regulation via two screws at the muzzle.
The Model 141 features a modified Anson & Deeley action with dual locking under-lugs and a Greener top cross-bolt. Available calibers for this rifle are: 7x65R, .30-06 Springfield, .30R Blaser, 8x57IRS, and 9,3x74R. All bar one of these are rimmed cartridges made specifically for use in double rifles and combination guns. The 30-06 will be a common choice for American buyers. The 7x65R is the rimmed sibling of the rimless 7×64 Brenneke, which has been one of the most popular cartridges in Europe.
The standard Model 141 comes with double triggers incorporating a European set trigger mechanism on the front trigger. A set trigger provides a safe way to have a light trigger pull available on a hunting rifle. On a double rifle the front trigger is normally pushed forward to activate it. If the shot is not taken the set trigger can be unset by applying the safety catch and then pressing the trigger, it will click harmlessly. The rifle must of course be kept pointing in a safe direction when doing this.
The Model 141 tips the scales at 6.6lb/3kg and has 21.6″/55cm barrels giving it an overall length of 38.2″/97cm.
You will find full information about the Model 141 at the Merkel website if you click here.
Model 160 Sidelock
The Merkel 160 side-lock double rifle with deluxe features such as optional engraving.
The Merkel Model 160 is a true side-lock double rifle with detachable locks to make cleaning and servicing easy. The Model 160, like the model 140, is made as an "African Express" version as the 160AE. This rifle is made in the same calibers as the 140AE: .375 H&H Magnum, .416 Rigby, .470 NE, .500 NE, and additionally in .450/400 NE. The .450/400 NE is an excellent caliber choice for a double rifle. The 450/400 packs similar power to the .375 H&H Magnum but uses a rimmed case operating at lower pressures. The .470 NE and the .500 NE are however the better choices for a dangerous game double rifle as they are rimmed cases, and use heavy large diameter bullets at moderate velocity.
This side-lock 160AE has been beautifully engraved.
Like the 140 AE the 160AE has hard soldered barrels, ejectors, and an articulated front trigger to prevent injury to the trigger finger when firing a heavy caliber rifle.
Rifle weight is 10.1lb/4.6kg on up. Typical weight of a .500 NE as an example should be up around 10.75lb or so to comfortably handle the recoil.
Barrel length of the 160AE is listed as 23.6″/60cm and the rifle's overall length is 40.2″/102cm.
There are various engraving, walnut and custom options available for the 160AE. You will find full details at the Merkel website if you click here.
Model 161 Petite Frame Sidelock
Model 161 small action (petite action) side-lock with optional deluxe features including custom engraving and Class 6 walnut.
The Model 161 small frame double rifle is made on a 28 gauge shotgun size sidelock action and so, like its Model 141 box-lock sibling, it is a short, light and quick rifle. The rifle has double under-lugs and Greener cross-bolt. The Model 161 is made in the same caliber range as the 141: 7x65R, .30-06 Springfield, .30R Blaser, 8x57IRS, and 9,3x74R. (Other calibers are available on request).
Weight of the Model 161 is approximately 6.6lb/3kg depending on caliber. With a barrel length of 21.6″/55cm the rifle has an overall length of 38.2″/97cm. The rifle has a front set trigger, quarter rib express sight set up for driven hunt, and the quarter rib is prepared for a pivot mount for telescopic sight fitting. Ejectors are an optional extra, and there is a large range of other custom options available.
You will find the Model 161 on the Merkel website if you click here.
Model B3 O/U Double Rifle
Merkel B3 over/under double rifle "Jagd Edition" with Class 5 walnut stock.
The Model B3 over/under double rifle uses a safety cocking mechanism rather than a traditional safety catch and also features an adjustable lower barrel so the owner can re-set the barrel regulation to suit the ammunition they are using. This rifle is not intended as a dangerous game rifle but for driven game situations, and so it has a single trigger as standard, with a double trigger being optional.
Calibers are .30-06 Springfield, .30R Blaser, 8x57IRS, and 9,3x74R. All of these are suitable for wild boar or any species likely to be encountered on a driven hunt. The double rifle design is also easy to use in a driven hunt situation where you may have to unload and move to various stations during the day.
The Model B3 weighs approximately 7lb/3.2kg and with 21.6″/55cm barrels has an overall length of 38.2″/97cm.
You will find the Model B3 at the Merkel website if you click here.
Model B4 Bergstutzen O/U Double Rifle
Merkel B4 Bergstutzen (Mountain Rifle) with Kahles rifle-scope and Quick Detachable double-lever mounts. This rifle is the "Black Edition" with Class 5 stock wood.
The Merkel B4 Bergstutzen (Mountain Rifle) is an unusual concept for US shooters in that each of the double barrels is in a different caliber. The idea behind this is to provide a small caliber for such game as fox, and a standard caliber for chamois or deer. To this end the rifle's small caliber barrel can be had in .222 Remington, .223 Remington, or 5,6x52R (i.e. .22 High-Power Savage – A Charles Newton design). The larger caliber barrel choices are 7x57R, 7x65R, .308 Winchester, .30-06 Springfield, .30R Blaser, 8x57IRS, and 9,3x74R.
This model has an adjustable lower barrel, and that feature is of especial importance in this dual caliber model so that the two barrels can be adjusted to shoot closely parallel to each other, or to a common point of impact at a set distance if you prefer that method.
The B4 Bergstutzen has a finely tuned double trigger and is only available in Titanium Nitrided finish in either black or Suhl edition.
Like the Model B3 this rifle has a selective cocking switch instead of a traditional safety catch. These are a very good safety mechanism.
You will find the Model B4 Bergstutzen on the Merkel website if you click here.
Model 323 O/U Double Rifle
Merkel Model 323. This picture is of a "Jagd Edition" model with Class 8 walnut.
The Merkel Model 323 is the deluxe over/under double rifle with a sidelock action featuring double under-lugs and Kersten locking mechanism. This rifle is made in 7x57R, 7x65R, .30R Blaser, 8x57IRS, 9,3x74R, and .375 H&H Magnum, with other calibers available on request. In .375 H&H Magnum this could be a superb rifle for the "World wide one rifle hunter", preferably fitted with a sensible low powered rifle-scope in quick detachable mounts.
For rifle-scope mounting Merkel offers the choice of either Suhl swing mounts or Suhl claw mounts.
Ejectors are optional on this fine rifle and if it were to be used as a dangerous game rifle in .375H&H Magnum that is an option I would be sure to fit.
Weight of the Merkel 323 is approximately 8.2lb/3.7kg and length is 40.5″/103cm with 23.6″/60cm barrels.
A Merkel Model 140 in .375 H&H Magnum. The standard models such as this one are listed by Merkel USA at USD$13,255.00. (Picture courtesy Merkel USA).
A double rifle is not going to be the cheapest thing you ever buy, but Merkel double rifles are not out of reach, being similar in price to a modest new car or a nice used one. If you are able to consider a hunting trip to Africa then it is near certain you can contemplate owning one. The Merkel Model 140 rifles on the Merkel USA website were mostly listed at USD$13,255.00 at time of writing, in calibers from 30-06 to .375 H&H Magnum up to the even more serious .470 NE and .500 NE. Not cheap, but not over the top expensive either – not for a rifle that offers "life insurance" in the way a double rifle does.
If you are looking for one of the sidelock 160AE prices will be significantly higher than that, but even the more expensive Merkel models with engraving and higher grade walnut options are still about half the cost of a comparable British "best" rifle from the likes of Holland & Holland, Westley Richards, Anderson Wheeler or Rigby: and if the going gets tough out on safari a couple of .500 Nitro Express bullets from a Merkel Model 140 is going to stop the buffalo, hippo or pachyderm just as surely as the British rifle would.
Merkel have a US distributor and you will find the double rifles at the Merkel USA website if you click here.
(All pictures courtesy Merkel unless otherwise noted).


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Podcast » In The Gap
Episode 2: Roots
Center for American Progress researcher Jocelyn Frye reflects on how the gender pay gap and gender pay discrimination persists today—and its historic roots, from slavery to segregation.
In The Gap was created with the support of the Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting and In These Times magazine. Contact the show at podcast@inthesetimes.com.
CHANDRA THOMAS WHITFIELD, HOST: Welcome to In The Gap, a podcast about how and why Black women aren't getting their green. Yes, I'm talking about money. I'm your host, journalist Chandra Thomas Whitfield. Today, we start, well, from the beginning: history.
[FROM RECORDING] JOCELYN FRYE: As Black women's bodies were viewed as merchandise, and they were used to produce more merchandise. They were mistreated. They were subjected to terrifying sexual exploitation solely for the purpose of producing more children that also would be born into servitude. And even though that history is long behind us, the stain of that experience continues to live with us.
WHITFIELD: That's our guest today, researcher Dr. Jocelyn Frye from the Washington D.C.-based think tank The Center for American Progress. She is going to help us dig into the roots of the gender pay gap and its ongoing impact on the lives of Black women in America.
So let's face it. Economic and employment opportunity has always centered around race and gender from day one. For many Black women in the labor force, that has meant battling the double whammy of managing the challenges that come with being both Black and a woman in America—something that Black feminist scholar Moya Bailey refers to as "misogynoir."
Many experts assert that since the era of slavery, the dominant view is that Black women should be laborers, not power brokers or decision-makers, but moneymakers—our Black bodies serving the primary purpose of generating profit for others and birthing more Black laborers. So both during and well after slavery, Black women have most often been pushed into caretaking and service jobs. And that's a trend that persists. In fact, today nearly a third of Black women work in the service sector, especially jobs like child daycare, hotel housekeeping and home health aides. And that's compared to just one eighth of white men. This is the kind of work that requires a lot of responsibility, but offers very little in terms of pay.
Dr. Frye, our guest today, is among many scholars who assert that history matters. She says that the pay discrimination that Black women face in the workforce today is merely an extension of longstanding racist and sexist belief that have long been held in this country.
Welcome to In The Gap, Dr. Frye.
FRYE: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.
WHITFIELD: You know, the research—you know what the research says, and quite frankly, the statistics are pretty sobering. They suggest that Black women have always had to work to help ensure the economic stability of this country and their families even while facing ongoing discrimination.
For example, Black women have always had the highest levels of labor market participation of any group of women, regardless of age, marital status or presence of young children at home. Black women continue to be disproportionately represented in service jobs and low-wage domestic jobs that involve cooking, cleaning and caregiving, yet simultaneously we're often devalued as mothers and wives in American society.
So you fast forward to current day, and despite notable advancements in educational attainment and entrepreneurship, the numbers show that Black women are earning on average about 61 cents for every dollar earned by white men, adding up to an estimated average lifetime earnings gap between Black women and white men of close to $950,000, and you say this all has direct ties to the days of enslavement. Please explain that.
FRYE: You touched on it a little bit at the beginning, which is that we can't talk about Black women's experiences in the workplace without understanding first how we view work and how we view the work of Black women. And I think the reality is that we think about work differently, whether it's work being performed by men or women or people of color or Black women or Latinas or so forth.
And if you look historically, we have treated what we call work differently. We viewed it differently depending on who's performing it. So when, you know, when we go back, historically men were perceived as doing quote-unquote "the real work." Women were in the home and certainly doing work and hard work, but it wasn't viewed as quote-unquote "work" in the same way. It was devalued. It was what women were supposed to be doing. And Black women were really caught in the intersection of that because on the one hand, they certainly were not perceived of as doing the same work as white men.
However, there was a view that Black women, coming out of our history of slavery, were quote-unquote "best-suited" to basically be doing work for white families. They were always viewed as being in service of the status quo that was a prevailing white majority. They were devalued in terms of how people perceived them vis-à-vis white women. White women were put up on a pedestal to be revered, but at the same time, they were certainly not respected as doing real work that was compensated to the same level as white men. So that has its roots in how we have viewed women and people of color, and Black women stand at that intersection—that intersection of racism and sexism that is very much embedded in our history as a nation.
And that history is relevant. It's relevant in terms of how we view them today, but it certainly is relevant when you think about the trajectory of work for Black women because they were always expected to work, right? This was never an instance where they said sit at home and quote-unquote "take care of the family." They were expected to work and support other folks taking care of their family. And they were expected to do it for little or no wages and often in the process ignore their own personal family realities.
So that history is important because it informs how we viewed work being performed by Black women, and it informs to the sense that there continue to be biases and stereotypes about who Black women should be in the workplace
WHITFIELD: Now, OK, you're talking a lot about the workplace, but let's bring this back even further to slavery. What was the climate like for Black women during slavery?
FRYE: Horrific is an understatement. We all know, unfortunately, that terrible history of Black and brown bodies, but particularly Black folks being sold and bartered and brought to this country as property and not as people. So our history, the very earliest history in this country, is dependent on a view of Black people and particularly Black women not as people, not as citizens, but something less than that and really something to be owned and to be utilized for the furtherance of the rest of the community, and Black women's bodies were viewed as merchandise. And they were used to produce more merchandise, right?
They were mistreated, they were subjected to terrifying sexual exploitation solely for the purpose of producing more children that also would be born into servitude. And even though that history is long behind us, the stain of that experience continues to live with us, in part because we have yet to fully reconcile ourselves as a nation to that reality. It's hard to really confront the fact that you treated a group of people as something less than human beings, and you use them as objects and as property just to further your personal interests. We sort of know that intellectually, but it's painful, right? It's painful.
It feeds a narrative of disrespect and devaluation about who Black women were that quite frankly continues to this day. And it is a painful history, but it is a reminder. And it's an important reminder that the Black women were not viewed as people. They were not given the same dignity and humanity. And as a result, their feelings, their autonomy was rendered invisible, and they were treated really as if their feelings, their personal goals, their desires, their families, nothing else mattered. And it's important because as we talk about these issues today, we still have those concerns, and it's rooted in that. And we have to be cognizant that that's where it comes from.
WHITFIELD: How would you say this evolved over time as we got into the abolition of slavery?
FRYE: The post-Civil War era, when we have the abolition of slavery and we have a period of reconstruction—on the one hand, there were theoretically new attitudes and opportunities for Black women and Black men. But we also can't ignore the reality that what's in people's heads and hearts and minds doesn't just disappear overnight.
And so while there may have been a change with a legal framework that enslaved people, the new world still had very few opportunities for Black women. They were still primarily doing mostly domestic work. And so there was still these types of jobs that were essentially caring for other, typically white families. They were still held in less esteem, for lack of a better word, than white women, and they were still expected to work and support their families because the conditions were bad for all Black people.
You know, it wasn't like Black women could adopt what people call a traditional family, where they would stay at home and the breadwinner, the husband, would go out and work. Black women were still working because the broader economic environment was one that required both people to work.
So the legal framework had changed to be sure, and they were not necessarily living in slavery for no compensation. The reality is that the opportunities for them were still in the lowest paying jobs, and the attitude was that of course they should work, they're expected to work. But nobody was really paying much attention to their opportunities and their development as people and supporting their families.
WHITFIELD: Yeah, I know that was a big topic that came up when the movie "The Help" came out, and I know there was a lot of issue—some people were saying, I don't want to see a movie about this, and why are we always shown as domestics and things? But I personally was torn about whether to see it, but when I did see it, I really thought that they did a great job of showing what you're talking about. You're seeing her have, Viola Davis's character, having to teach her daughter to do all these things at home while she meanwhile was at a white family's home, polishing silver and taking care of their baby. But meanwhile, her own family was left to fend for themselves.
FRYE: Right, right. Well, I mean, it's the irony, and I think the reality of the experience of Black women is that they often are caught at these crossroads where we tell ourselves sort of one national narrative, but if we actually look beneath it and look at the unique experiences of Black women, we see a different story. And it's important for us to understand that history. It is hard sometimes to watch and think about Black women who were doing mostly domestic or labor jobs, and it can be demoralizing, I suppose, at times. But I think for me, the way I look at that is that it's also incredibly inspiring, and it shows the resilience and the perseverance of Black women who struggled in a very different way during times that for many of us are simply unimaginable, but nonetheless forged ahead in a way that brought strength and greater economic stability to not only themselves, but the community.
So I think it's important for us to understand that history because it informs where we are now. And when we talk about things and fast-forward and talk about contemporary conversations about workplace discrimination or attitudes and stereotypes about Black women, if you don't understand the history, then you don't understand why the attitudes that Black women confront are different than white women and Latinas. Our history is deeply rooted in that experience of slavery and that view of Black women and Black men as something less than human to service the nation. And even though we moved beyond it, and we've created more opportunities, that history is still very much underneath our development and how we've gotten here.
WHITFIELD: Well, I've also read that throughout history, Black women have also routinely been excluded from many worker protections—for example, protections under the New Deal, such as minimum wage, overtime pay and collective bargaining legislation. And from what I understand, that did not initially apply to a lot of the service industries that Black women were disproportionately and continue to be represented in to this day. So what role can you tell us about government and law in perpetuating this disparity?
FRYE: Right. I think that's an excellent point, which is that I think part of our history is that the disparities and the challenges that Black women have faced in the workforce and just in our society at times have been perpetuated by our own institutions and our government. And if you look at, for example, some of the progress that we like to lift up—for example, around over time, minimum wage—some of those protections were not available to jobs that were disproportionately performed by Black women. And perhaps the one that is most notable is some of the home-care workers were not covered by those protections.
WHITFIELD: Absolutely.
FRYE: And that disparity, that inequity was not fixed until President Obama came into office. And people often point to the fact that one of the first bills that he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which dealt with equal pay more broadly, but the fix that was needed for Black women came later. It was related to a different Supreme Court case involving a woman named Evelyn Coke, who was a home-care worker and who was not being paid what we would call fair wages, not getting overtime and the like.
So it's important for us to dig beneath some of those historic landmarks and recognize that for a whole set of reasons, very much rooted in our historical views of who does what work and how that work is compensated, the protections that we sometimes hold dear don't actually cover people in the same way.
The same is true these days around minimum wage. And there's the tipped minimum wage for tipped workers who are certainly disproportionately women and often are women of color. And they get a much lower wage than what people think of as the minimum wage. So I think it is certainly the case that one of the things that we have to be mindful of is that our history has always led to a devaluation of the work that Black women do.
WHITFIELD: Now I'm curious how this relates to white women in the workforce. I know I did read that in the '70s there was a large number of white women who decided to go to work and they no longer wanted to do the household duties, so they passed a lot of those duties on by hiring women of color to handle those in their household. But I know today there just seems to be a huge divide in thought between Black feminism and white feminism. How does that all play out when you think about it in the context of Black women and white women in the workforce?
FRYE: Yeah, that's a great question. I look at it in this way: Both white women and Black women experienced enormous levels of discrimination throughout our history. The reality is that if you look back to the founding of our country, that women generally across all races had severe restrictions on whether they could own property, whether they could work in certain jobs if any and how they were treated across society. So I think as a threshold matter, it's a false narrative to simply pit them against each other, right? When both were dealing with different forms of oppression.
That's our history, but it is true that the way that that played itself out was certainly differently—that white women were often expected to be at home, and the opportunities for them to do anything other than that were limited and sometimes looked down upon. They were acting out of the norm. And you see this tremendous influx of white women in particular into the workforce in the '50s, '60s, '70s, post-World War II. That is a clear trend, as after World War II, many of them had gone into work as men went off to war. That continued to happen, and you see a growth in white women's labor force participation.
For Black women, they were already working. They were always working because of our history of slavery. They were working in different types of jobs typically because the workforce was incredibly segregated. People have to remember in the '50s and '40s and even into the '60s and early '70s, it was not uncommon to look up at job announcements and advertisements for Black women, Black men, white women, white men, right? They were incredibly segregated. So that was true.
And it is also true that in recent years, as people have tried to define the women's movement as largely a white women's movement, it leaves Black women and other women of color out. And it sometimes ignores the reality that racism and sexism inform the experiences of Black women. It's not solely about their gender, right? All of that is true. And so I think for us, it should be less about whose experience is worse and who's eclipsing somebody else. It should be much more about, we have to be cognizant of the unique experiences we bring to the table.
WHITFIELD: What about treatment? I mean, I think about the Me Too movement right now, obviously started by a Black woman. And when you look back at Black women in that regard, in terms of treatment on the job, harassment, just overt discrimination, what have you found in your research were common experiences?
FRYE: The thing that's most important if you look back at the research and the data is that we have to be very clear about what the research really tells us. If you look at, for example, sexual harassment, people talk about the trajectory of the case law and what we know about the incidents of sexual harassment. And often what gets lost in the conversation is that many of the early cases that form the foundation for sexual harassment law were actually cases brought by Black women, and those very early landmark Supreme Court cases were cases that involve Black women.
WHITFIELD: Wow.
FRYE: And it's an important story, not simply because it's an interesting fact, but it is a reminder that the roots of this issue have often been borne by women of color, Black women, who are living with the legacy of that history of slavery, right? A people sort of looking at them and treating them as objects to be used, to be degraded, who do not view them as full persons, right? That misuse and abuse of power to degrade women is rooted in our history, as we talked about earlier.
So it is important for us to understand that, fast-forward into the 1980s with some of those landmark sexual harassment cases, that Black women in the workforce were dealing with that legacy. And I think it is incumbent upon us to claim and reclaim the narrative that is out there. People, particularly the media, has glommed onto the celebrity of the moment who has an allegation of sexual harassment, and we ought not to diminish that or say that it's not important, but our priority must be to say that is important, but it is reflective of a broader narrative that includes women across race, across class, across economic status and across occupation. And the same experience of the actress in L.A. is similar to the experience that the farm worker in Florida is experiencing, and the hotel maid in Chicago. And then we have to recognize the breadth and depth of the problem and understand how it manifested itself in different forms and it impacts women across race and ethnicity. We have to do that. And there's certainly a lot that we can say about white feminists and Black feminists and to what extent white feminists acknowledge the dual oppressions faced by Black women.
But the truth of the matter is today, we also need to be able to look at the common challenges that we face. We are both living with the reality that harassment and gender-based violence continue to be problems that women experience every day. And we have to be able to see each other's oppressions in our advocacy, right? It's not enough to simply speak to your own experience if you are not pulling in the fact that there's somebody out there who's working in a field somewhere and is wearing bulky clothing 'cuz she's trying to hide from the person who's in charge who may want to attack her. You have to own that, and you have to acknowledge that reality as well. And I think we all collectively have to take that responsibility. We can't just say that's about them and not about us. Because the truth of the matter is that as much as we talk about the broader society disrespecting Black women, we also have that issue in our own community, right? We look sometimes and we dismiss sexism, we dismiss that. We treat that as, a colleague once said, as men being naughty.
WHITFIELD: Boys will be boys, right?
FRYE: Boys will be boys. So we have to own that. We can't just pretend like that's just something out there. That's something we have to confront as well and we have to push back on. And it's hard, right? It's hard in an environment where Black men also experience deep levels of racism and sexism and a criminal justice system that is unfair. It is hard, but we have to confront it if we're going to deal with it.
WHITFIELD: Now you have said in your work that the dramatic pay disparities between Black women and white women is not new, speaking of history, and that closing the gap so to speak will require quote, "prioritizing reforms that specifically address the unique discrimination that Black women face at the intersection of race and gender." I was like, whoa, that's a lot to take in there. [Laughs] That's why I like talking to you smart people. But describe that unique discrimination, and what are the next steps?
FRYE: One of the reasons I said that very long sentence is because oftentimes when we talk about the gender wage gap and we talk about equal pay, we mention the fact that Black women earn less and then we go on. Then we start talking about, here are the policies. My point is that, well first, OK, hold up, stop, right? Black women earn less for a reason. And so let's unpack what that reason is. And it is rooted both in the fact that they are women, but also the fact that they are Black women, and that there is a unique experience that they bring to the table that is different from Black men and different from white women, and that we have to understand it and we need to understand what does that look like. That's the first thing.
Then the second thing is that as we think about solutions, we have to make sure that those solutions actually are intentional about focusing on what is the impact on Black women. If we are going to talk about things like greater pay transparency and making sure that we know what employers are paying people in different types of jobs, then we need to make sure that the information that we're getting actually gives you insight into what Black women are earning and not just women writ large. And then there are things like making sure that we can actually engage employers on understanding what's going on in their workplace, not just for women writ large, but specifically for Black women—where are Black women in terms of hiring and moving up the career ladder? What we know is that their wages are tied to a number of things, including their ability to move out of what people would call sort of the traditional jobs that Black women have done historically and higher paying jobs. And if we're not actually measuring that, if we're not holding employers accountable for that, then that change won't happen. So there are also solutions around pushing employers to do better in terms of moving folks up the ladder and evaluating to what extent that they are doing it, not simply for women, but for Black women.
There are things that we can do around stronger enforcement, around making sure that the law is working vigorously for everybody. And in doing that, are we targeting jobs and occupations that Black women are likely to be in? And is there scrutiny looking at those jobs? Are they looking at those jobs where they are less likely to be working? To me, all of those types of solutions are what we need to think about as we think about how do we close the gap.
WHITFIELD: To be honest, when you get deep into this work, which is actually what inspired me to do this podcast, it can be a little disheartening. It just feels sometimes like doom and gloom, like no hope, just everything's against you. But we don't want to leave it with that. You mentioned earlier resilience, the resilience. What message of hope can you leave us with—what is the hope that we can walk away with today?
FRYE: I think the hope and the inspiration is that Black women are the hardest-working people I know, and they have accomplished and continue to accomplish things that nobody has ever expected them to do. When you look back historically at where Black women have come from, the truth of the matter is nobody should have survived all that. You couldn't have written a more horrific story, but we're here and we are …
WHITFIELD: Oh, are you quoting "The Color Purple" on me? [Laughs]
FRYE: Really, really. And we're thriving and surviving and succeeding despite all of these odds that should have been counted against us. And to me, that's the hope and the inspiration, right?
Should we do better? Absolutely, we should do better. Should we create policies that create a level playing field that acknowledge the multiple oppressions that Black women experience across society? Absolutely. We have an obligation to do all those things, but the positive is that Black women have been extraordinarily successful and capable, even in spite of those terrible things, and continue to do amazing things, and that they are people who families rely on each and every day. And the truth of the matter is that not only are they succeeding for themselves, but they are the model. When people talk about the resistance and who's leading the charge for women, it is often Black women, and it's Black women not just for Black women, it's Black women for all women, it's Black women for society.
Black women have been able to do extraordinary things, and people are finally waking up to that and seeing that. We should be proud of it, we should celebrate it and we should have confidence that it will continue. And I think if you bring all of that to the table, if you take inspiration from the strength of Black women in spite of enormous odds, then it enables you to not only do the work today, but it enables you to do the work enthusiastically and positively.
I would never count a Black woman out of anything. I have the utmost confidence in Black women's ability to do better, to be better, to get paid better, because I know what they've done before.
WHITFIELD: Absolutely. Well, I have to say, you took the challenge. I actually have a tear in my eye. I'm kind of holding it together.
But no, it is good sometimes just to hear a message of hope, and I do a lot of mentoring personally, and I see the attacks, and I see a lot of discouragement among the young Black women that I do mentor. And I always tell them, go look at history, go look at what these women have accomplished because that's really all you have, and I said, and they had far less, far less the opportunity and resources than you have today. So you just have to press on.
Man, I have chills. [Laughs] Well, thank you so much, Jocelyn Frye, for joining us today.
WHITFIELD: Again, that was Dr. Jocelyn Frye, a senior fellow overseeing the policy development for the Women's Initiative for the Center for American Progress, which is a progressive think tank based in Washington D.C.
Her words, to me, they are just a testament of the longstanding belief that those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. Slavery and discrimination are definitely moments in history that we do not want to relive. We want to move forward. So we thank Dr. Frye for just giving us that insight.
Today's show was hosted and produced by me, journalist Chandra Thomas Whitfield, and edited by House of Pod. Our music is "Convoy Lines" by Blue Dot Sessions. In The Gap was created with the support of the Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting and In These Times magazine, which has been covering issues of equity in social justice since 1976. To learn more about the In The Gap podcast and the pay gap for Black women, go to www.inthesetimes.com/inthegap.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Competition newsletter 01 May 2015
Commission issues Statements of Objections to Gazprom and Google
In April, the European Commission issued Statements of Objections (SO) in two high-profile cases, against Google for certain online practices and Gazprom in respect of gas sales to Central and Eastern Europe.
The Commission is currently investigating various aspects of Google's activities. On 15 April, the Commission issued an SO against the company alleging that Google favours its own comparison shopping service, Google Shopping, in its search results to the detriment of competing services. Comparison shopping services allow consumers to search for products across a number of online sellers and compare prices. It is alleged that Google Shopping is positioned and displayed more prominently in natural search results on the Google search engine, and that penalties applied by Google to the ranking of other comparison shopping services are not applied to Google Shopping. This puts competing services at a disadvantage in terms of customer attention and the resulting viewer traffic, and as a result such services have experienced lower growth than Google Shopping.
The Commission considers that Google's failure to treat its own and competing comparison shopping services in the same way is an abuse of Google's dominant position for online search services.
In addition, on 22 April an SO was sent to Gazprom, the Russian gas operator, alleging that certain Gazprom commercial practices constitute abuse of a dominant position in the gas markets of eight EU Member States. Gazprom is alleged to have imposed territorial restrictions in its supply agreements with customers, including export bans, destination clauses (i.e. a requirement that purchased gas be used in a particular territory), a requirement that approval be obtained for re-export etc. The Commission has in the past challenged similar restrictions in respect of gas sales from in - and outside the EU, alleging that they partitioned Member State markets, and enabled Gazprom - in combination with price calculation formulas favourable to Gazprom - to charge unfair prices on some of those markets. The Commission also claims that Gazprom has also conditioned gas supplies on wholesalers entering into unrelated commitments in respect of gas transport infrastructure, such as participation in investments or allowing Gazprom to maintain influence over the investment policy of a major pipeline.
Please click on the links below for the other articles in the May 2015 competition newsletter:
Leniency arrangements in Australia undermined
Tesco's Mastercard claim survives strike out attempt
CMA publishes first report on concurrency
Nigel Parr
London | Dublin
Nigel.Parr@ashurst.com


Ever wondered what the Arizona desert is like? This is a great tool to see how to get from the Phoenix airport to one of the coolest places in the city that will take your breath away. Dobbins Lookout, at 2,330 feet, is the highest point on South Mountain and is accessible by trail or public roadway . That's where you're headed! Great for meditation and study. Buckle up!


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Littérature britannique et irlandaise
Littérature postcoloniale
Les dossiers transversaux
Domaine américain
Domaine britannique
L'essentiel de l'anglais oral
Phonologie et Phonétique
Stylistique
Programmes d'enseignement et sélection de ressources
Porte-clés grammatical
Workbook et précis
Les ressources web
Vous êtes ici : Accueil / Civilisation / Domaine américain / Immigration et minorités / The Young Lords
The Young Lords
Par Johanna Fernandez : Assistant Professor - Baruch City College (NYC) , Claire Richard : Journaliste - Indépendante
Publié par Clifford Armion le 22/01/2013
The Young Lords were the children of the first large wave of Puerto Rican migration to the North East of the United States, in cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Hartford. The Young Lords was begun not in New York, interestingly enough, but in Chicago. And it was initiated by the efforts of the leader of the Young Lords, who initially in Chicago had been a gang. Cha Cha Jimenez, who was the leader of that gang, worked with a leader of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, to transform this gang into a political organization. Interview of Johanna Fernandez (Baruch City College, NYC) by Claire Richard.
http://video.ens-lyon.fr/eduscol-cdl/2013/ANG_2013_jfernandez.mp4
I grew up in the Bronx, in the 1980s. And as you probably remember, New York City and the nation was undergoing a pretty serious urban crisis, with the crack epidemic and the rise of AIDS. And I learnt in college that a very young group of radicals, who considered themselves revolutionaries, had addressed many of the issues that were gripping the Bronx in the 80, but they had done so in the 1960s. They were young people like myself, and I was shocked that I had not learnt anything about the organization, while growing up in the Bronx.
The Young Lords were the children of the first large wave of Puerto Rican migration to the North East of the United States, in cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Hartford.
The Young Lords was begun not in new York, interestingly enough, but in Chicago. And it was initiated by the efforts of the leader of the Young Lords, who initially in Chicago had been a gang. Cha Cha Jimenez, who was the leader of that gang, worked with a leader of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, to transform this gang into a political organization.
They modeled themselves after the Black Panther Party, and they organized in neighborhoods like East Harlem, the Bronx, but also neighborhoods in Philadelphia, Chicago and Hartford. They fought for Puerto Rican independence, but they also fought to address the conditions of poverty under which Latinos, Puerto Ricans, but also African-Americans lived during that period. And they focused mainly, interestingly enough, on issues of public health.
So in East Harlem, they launched a series of demonstration against the fact that the Sanitation department was not regularly picking up the garbage. They also organized around the very problematic issue of childhood lead poisoning. They occupied Lincoln Hospital, they also conducted door to door testing for childhood lead poisoning but also for tuberculosis.
They also had a very popular breakfast program for children. The Young Lords and the Black Panther should be credited because they popularized the idea that if children went to school hungry, they weren't going to be able to learn. And if today we have a regular breakfast program for poor children in public schools, it is because of the efforts of the Young Lords and the Black Panthers.
The Young Lords, like the Black Panthers, initiated a series of educational program in the community, which they called P.E., Public Education. They would host meetings in the projects, in churches, in community centers, in which they discussed a particular issue, like imperialism. Or the subject could be the history of the Puerto Rican independence movement, or the character of US colonialism in Puerto Rico.
The Young Lords adopted a 13 points program, and within this 13 points program, they called for the liberation of all Third World people and Third World nations.
One of the points of the 13 points program called for women's liberation, it took a position against racism in the United States, but also against racism within the Latino community. And in fact, the Young Lords were amongst the first radicals to theorize the ways in which racism manifested itself in Latin America rather than in the United States.
They also organized women's caucuses within the organization. Groups of women came together, who were Young Lords, to address the ways in which the organization practiced sexism on a day-to-day basis, how men were projected as leaders and public speakers, while women sat back and did the secretarial work of the organization. And in fact, the women of the Young Lords forced the organization to change its platform, and its position on women. You had people like Iris Morales and Denise Oliver, Minerva Soya and others, who lead the struggle and forced the men of the organization to own up to their sexism.
They did believe in armed struggle, and they believed that eventually, the liberation of Puerto Rico would come as the result of a Revolution, in which the people of Puerto Rico would take up arms against US imperialism.
It was a position that went back to the history of resistance in the African-American community here in the United States but also Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico. That in the face of oppression, people who are under attack, who are experiencing the terrorism of the State and the terrorism of racism, have the right to defend themselves.
The Young Lords were under the violent surveillance of the government of the United States, through its surveillance program, COINTELPRO, the counter intelligence program of the FBI. So the Young Lords suffered the same fate that the Black Panther Party did: government agents would infiltrate the organization and create confusion and battles, political battles within the organization, which lead eventually to its demise.
The end of the organization was also the product of the end of the movement. The Young Lords emerged in the late 1960s, and by the early 1970s, the entire movement was experiencing movement exhaustion.
What we see happening, in the aftermaths of the movements of the 1960s, is a conservative reaction to the gains of the civil rights, the Black power, women's movements. And so the history that emerges of that period in the 1980s is one that focuses on the good civil rights movements, rather than the more controversial Black Power and Brown Power movements of the late 1960s, that challenged the very essence and basis and economy of American society. The Black and Brown power movements of the late 1960s challenged American capitalism.
The Young Lords is important because it's part of a legacy of radical resistance to oppression in the United States, that goes back to the slave rebellions, in the 18th and 19th century. They're important because they helped address the issues of racism and class oppression, and part of what they argued was that, at core, the problems of racism and poverty were connected to the broader problems of capitalism.
They were part of a movement, of a broader movement, that transformed the culture of American society. There wasn't a revolution in the 1960s as a result of these movements, but there was a cultural shift, that opened up a space for people of color, not just African-Americans, but Latinos, that address issues of discrimination amongst women, but also gay oppression. There was a gay caucus in the organization!
So they formed part of a broader movement that truly changed the face of American society.
Johanna Fernandez, Claire Richard, "The Young Lords", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), janvier 2013. Consulté le 17/01/2022. URL: http://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/civilisation/domaine-americain/immigration-et-minorites/the-young-lords
Immigration et minorités
La place des États-Unis dans le monde
La présidence américaine
Le rêve américain
Les grands courants politiques
brown power
portoricain
What Does a New Yorker Think When He Bites into a Hamburger?
Race Relations and the Presidency of Barack Obama
Les Etats-Unis de Barack Obama : "The Race Question"
Interview de Randall Kennedy
In Support of Affirmative Action
Reclaiming space in New York City
Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies
Time Square - Before and After
The 9/11 memorial, an ambitious renunciation
The black community in New York, past and present


These are favorite cookies all over Greece. The recipe calls for blanched almonds, sugar, egg whites, lemon juice, bread crumbs, and self-rising flour. The key to working with the dough (which is very granular) is to coat hands with seed oil (sunflower or other) while forming the cookies so the dough doesn't stick.
Preheat oven to 340°F (170°C).
Beat the egg whites and sugar until foamy. With a wooden spoon, stir in all remaining cookie ingredients until well mixed (the mixture will be similar to Rice Krispies with marshmallow).
Lightly oil hands before making the cookies. Take a large handful of dough and squeeze to make a cohesive mass. Form into flattened log-shaped cookies about 1 inch across and 3 inches long. Place on a non-stick cookie sheet or on lightly oiled baking parchment paper on a cookie sheet and bake at 340°F (170°C) for about 30 minutes until golden.
Watch the cookies carefully toward the end of cooking time. They can get very dark very quickly.
Remove from cookie sheet and cool.
Optional: Blanch a few more almonds and separate into halves. Decorate the top of each cookie with one or more halves before baking.


three SAS Metadata Bridges of choice, plus General Industry Standards, which is included automatically.
SAS Data Management Standard Server includes a SAS Data Management Contextual Extraction Language Pack of choice. It also includes a locale of choice for either the SAS Quality Knowledge Base for Contact Information or the SAS Quality Knowledge Base for Product Data. If nothing is selected, the English (USA) locale for the SAS Quality Knowledge Base for Contact Information is included by default.
The Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86) is required. If this software is not already installed on your machine, visit the Microsoft Download Center.
On Windows, OpenSSL 1.0 or later is required. The OpenSSL DLLs must be installed in the Windows system directory or in a directory that is in the system PATH.
SAS Data Quality Standard Server includes a SAS Data Management Contextual Extraction Language Pack of choice. It also includes a locale of choice for either the SAS Quality Knowledge Base for Contact Information or the SAS Quality Knowledge Base for Product Data. If nothing is selected, the English (USA) locale for the SAS Quality Knowledge Base for Contact Information is included by default.
SAS Data Management Standard Studio includes a SAS Data Management Contextual Extraction Language Pack of choice. It also includes a locale of choice for either the SAS Quality Knowledge Base for Contact Information or the SAS Quality Knowledge Base for Product Data. If nothing is selected, the English (USA) locale for the SAS Quality Knowledge Base for Contact Information is included by default.
OpenSSL 1.0 or later is required. The OpenSSL DLLs must be installed in the Windows system directory or in a directory that is in the system PATH.


Sr. Vice President - Gunnebo India P.L.
Every one has bills to pay, cash rewards often disappears that way. Though Cash rewards are highly desirable but is always considered income or perceived as a salary. We do a lot of brainstorming for our R&R programs and Travel Incentive program is always a most sought after R&R activity as it provides a tangible memory of the company that awards, has a lasting trophy value, appeals to participants imagination and meets their emotional needs.
Besides the above, Our programs are planned meticulously to include other goals of the company, we also treat these programs as a bonding opportunity between management and partners.


Com2u | Dropbox: Do I need it?
Com2u » Blog » Dropbox: Do I need it?
Dropbox offers a way to synchronise files between all the computers you own. It also enables you to share folders with other dropbox users – great for families, students, and project managers alike.
Once you have dropbox installed on your first computer, you can install it on every other computer you use. For every computer you have dropbox installed on, a duplicate will be made of your data. And when you change any file on any computer, the file is updated on every computer that dropbox is installed on. This means I can be working on a word document on the comfort of my desktop computer at home, then when i get to the office i can work on the same document on the computers there.
As an IT Service provider, we often need to share rapidly changing files with our clients, as well as our techs and occasionally external contractors. Previously this would have involved hundreds of emails flying about, and almost always end up with some people not working from the latest version. These days, managing a project between people is dead easy. I simply create a folder for the project, and invite my colleges to join in. From this point any files added to the folder are available for all of us to see and edit. And should any of us stuff something up so bad as to be unsalvageable, dropbox handily keeps every version of every file you have on its servers (for up to 30 days on a free account, or forever if you upgrade to a larger package), so you can revert to a previous version of the file.
So, the review has been pretty glowing so far. With every good there has to be some bad, right? Well, yes there are a few minor niggles. One of these is the paid packages available to choose from. Your free account gives you 2Gb of space, and you can increase this quota to up 8Gb by referring friends.
After that you have to start paying. Currently the only options available are 50Gb for $9.99 per month, or 100Gb for $19.99 per month. If you were a large firm wanting to roll out dropbox to all your employees, I can imagine that 100Gb may not be enough. On the other side of the coin, 50Gb is too much for some people.
The only other disadvantage is that it is currently only available for Intel/AMD based systems. A lot of network servers and newer portable devices are based on PowerPC and ARM chipsets. While this isn't a problem for your average user, it can make the decision of weather to use dropbox in a corporate environment or not a tricky one.
On the other hand, there are apps for accessing your dropbox files from iPhone and Android based devices.
You can sign up for a dropbox account and join in the fun here.
« « Why Google Apps ?


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20 questions Feb. 19, 2016
Reggie Watts Answers His Own Late Late Show Questions
By Devon Ivie
Photo-Illustration: Vulture and Photos by CBS
Reggie Watts's questions on The Late Late Show have arguably become as integral to the show as James Corden himself. "Reggie's Questions"— which range in topic from aliens and comedy to music and sensuality — somehow manage to marry silliness and poignancy, much to the confusion and excitement of the evening's guests.
But how did it all begin?
"I think the show might have gotten [the idea for questions] from Comedy Bang! Bang!," Watts told us. "Sometimes Scott Aukerman would turn to me and say, 'Hey, do you have a question for our guests?' And I'm pretty sure that was what it was inspired from. Then we started to experiment on the show and realized, Hey, this isn't so bad, let's keep doing it." Here, we turned the table on Watts and had him answer 20 of his Late Late Show questions that he's asked guests since the show's debut last March.
Do you believe that artificial intelligence will be the beginning or end of human civilization?
Artificial intelligence is a tool, so it really depends on how we decide to utilize it. But hopefully it'll be a part of the new age of enlightenment.
If you were an eagle, either a real eagle or a robotic eagle, would you tend to attack people in the evening or in the daylight?
Probably in the daylight, because it would have maximum fear impact.
If you had to choose between muffins, cookies, crackers, crisps, or just a good time inside of a boat, which one would you choose?
I'd definitely have a good time on the inside of a boat.
How have things been lately, and are you still into it?
They've been good. Yeah, I'm still into it.
Do you believe that if a person falls down that it's a bad thing?
No. Unless the result is really catastrophic. But in general I think it's a good lesson.
When you think about humor, do you think of it as a human capability independent of gender?
Yes, definitely independent of gender. All-inclusive and also independent.
There's this movement to have electric bikes. What do you think? You think electric bikes are okay?
I think they're great! I think electric bikes are super cool and really fun.
In a fictional setting, if there were a medium- or large-size monster that was heading down a corridor and you had a choice to go either backwards or run towards it, what would you choose?
I would probably want to run backwards, but for some reason I think it would be better to run towards it.
If you were infinitely tall, would you find that the power would override your judgment and you would destroy everything around you?
I think it would.
If you were given a choice to remove your pancreas permanently or to develop a new line of railroad products, which would you choose?
That's a hard one because I do love railroads. I'd have to say I'd stick with the pancreas because it's kind of important.
If you were surrounded by a thousand children who seem to look alike, and they were heading towards you in an ominous way, and you're real close to a really amazing maze garden, what would you do?
I would say, "Try to catch me if you can, fuckers!" And then I'd run into the maze.
Do you ever imagine yourself in the future committing atrocities that will affect an entire generation of people in a positive way?
If you were able to be a fictional spirit animal, what would you be?
A Cthulhu. It's an H.P. Lovecraft creature-god that he created. It's an octopus with a man's body.
If you were a scarecrow, do you think that you would be effective at scaring crows or other types of avian species away?
I don't think I would be. I have too great of a foundation for birds.
If you were at an estate sale and you saw an amazing wicker furniture set for outdoor usage that was in fair condition, would you haggle with the people that were officiating for the person who had just passed away, or would you simply turn around and say, "Hey, man, what's up?"
I would probably just say, "Hey, man, what's up?" That way I could get a lot of information about how shit's going down at the estate sale.
If you were camping on a field in a plain in Idaho or Wyoming and you saw a bunch of gophers coming out of holes, slowly making their way to you, and you noticed that they were holding very small knives, what would you do?
I would say, "Try to catch me if you can, fuckers!" And then I'd run away very quickly.
Do you believe that humor is one of the highest forms of enlightenment?
Would you consider living on a submarine if the submarine was headed for someplace very mysterious?
Yeah, if I was with the right crew. [Pauses.] Jack White, Flying Lotus, some kind of a theoretical physicist, and maybe the engineering team behind Tesla.
How many times a week do you think about the nature of consciousness?
Probably five times a week.
If you were a cartoon and you were able to become a three-dimensional person in real life, would you do it?
Oh man, that's a real tough one. If I had the knowledge of what it was like to be a three-dimensional person, I'd probably stay a cartoon. But I think I'd probably stay a cartoon regardless.
reggie watts
Reggie Watts Answers His Own Late Late Show Qs


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All That Jazz: Conservatory Is Nation's First Independent Degree-Granting Institute Devoted to Jazz
Some early New Orleans jazz trumpeters performed with a handkerchief draped over their fingers, to prevent anyone from stealing their hottest licks. Other musicians more generously shared their hard-won knowledge, but for most of the music's history, aspiring jazz players picked up information wherever they could, observing more experienced players at work on the bandstand and memorizing solos by wearing out the grooves on treasured recordings.
The old-school oral tradition was still very much a factor during pianist Susan Muscarella's formative years at Cal in the early 1970s, when the jazz education movement was in its infancy. In a sense, the educator and the movement have developed together, though she still places a premium on pairing students with working musicians. Muscarela credits her tenure as director of the UC Jazz Ensembles with preparing her to eventually found the private, Berkeley-based California Jazz Conservatory.
This year the institution received a groundbreaking accreditation by the National Association of Schools of Music-making it the only independent degree-granting institute in the United States solely devoted to jazz. To celebrate, the school, founded as the Jazzschool in 1997, was rechristened as the CJC in February. In addition to the CJC's four-year bachelor of music degree in jazz studies, the institute continues to offer classes in its non-degree-granting academy, now known as the Jazzschool Community Music School at the California Jazz Conservatory.
A prodigiously gifted pianist, Muscarella was a composition major at Cal when her involvement in the UC Jazz Ensembles reignited her teenage interest in jazz. The program's founder, Dave Tucker, recruited her as associate director in 1975, and she quickly set about creating a rigorous syllabus, even though most of the students considered the program an extra-curricular pursuit. She took over as director in 1984 and held the position until 1989.
"All along I had my heart set on creating a formal program of study. That's what I envisioned from day one," Muscarella says from the office in the basement of the historic Kress Building, where the CJC helped anchor the Addison Street Arts District in 2002 after quickly outgrowing its original digs above La Note Café on Shattuck. "I was the first one to really design any kind of curriculum at UC Jazz. Even though there was a performance ensemble, there was no brochure describing a course of study, nothing that talked about anything but performance."
Muscarella experienced that essential "frission" between the stage and the classroom herself with the UC Jazz Ensembles. Most memorably, her trio opened for the Bill Evans Trio at Zellerbach Hall, one of the last performances by the piano legend who died in 1980. The opportunity to interact with one of her musical heroes was as profound as the nuts and bolts skills she acquired.
"All those experiences provided a real-time guide to run what I'm doing now," Muscarella says. "Each area informs the other. The administrative experience really helped me with personnel issues. But if I wasn't a performer I wouldn't have a sense of who to hire or who to book. It all came together in designing a synergistic program of study."
One measure of the CJC's success is the stellar roster of musicians on faculty, such as bassist/composer Jeff Denson, who tours and performs with alto sax great Lee Konitz. The CJC's vocal institute regularly attracts some of the most creative singers in jazz, like German-born New York improviser Theo Bleckmann. And as part of the unveiling of the CJC, the school announced Berkeley pianist Benny Green as the first artist in residence. As a player whose jazz education took place on the bandstand, first with Berkeley jazz and blues vocalist Faye Carol and then in New York with powerhouse vocalist and talent scout Betty Carter, he brings a decidedly old-school perspective to the classroom.
"There's one key ingredient I feel is missing from jazz education these days in a school environment: listening sessions, musicians getting together and listening to music to discuss what they're hearing." Green says. "When I do this it's often astounding what the students notice. Then I want to bring these elements we're noticing to the situation of playing and interacting together, de-emphasizing what's written."
http://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2014-05-06/all-jazz-conservatory-nations-first-independent-degree


Ecologists and authors Tom Wessels and Amy Seidl will be keynote presenters at Communicating Science, held October 5-7, at Antioch University New England (AUNE) in Keene, New Hampshire. Registration is now open for the weekend event.
Tom Wessels, a preeminent terrestrial ecologist and AUNE Environmental Studies faculty emeritus, has written several books that include Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England and The Myth of Progress: Toward a Sustainable Future. His Forest Forensics: A Field Guide to Reading the Forested Landscape was published this year.
Amy Seidl has authored Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World and Finding Higher Ground: Adaptation in the Age of Warming, and has taught at both Middlebury College and the University of Vermont. She also hosted the Vermont Public TV series Emerging Science and co-founded the eco-media company Bright Blue.
The Communicating Science event will explore innovative ways to convey environmental and scientific information. It is designed to help individuals and organizations more effectively communicate complex scientific information and environmental issues. Participants will learn to craft compelling content across a spectrum of media to inform government policy, environmental management, corporate decision making, community participation, and the daily choices of individuals.
An Outdoor Art Exhibition in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Whole Terrain, AUNE's literary journal of reflective environmental practice, will be held in conjunction with the weekend.
Organizers are still accepting proposals for both workshops and outdoor artists. Find information on workshop proposals here and proposal forms here. If you're an artist, find information and a call for entries here and entry forms here.
For further information, contact wholeterrain@antioch.edu or call 603-283-2377. Rates for the weekend are $80 for the general public, $60 for AUNE alumni and employees, and $40 for all students. Stay tuned to the Whole Terrain website for further details about the weekend.


text:
Where does Sergio Agüero rank amongst the Premier League's greatest strikers?
17/03/2021 by Josh Butler
Those of a more rational persuasion say love at first sight is little more than a common trope, that the instantaneous and enduring attraction between two parties is but a weary and contrived literary convention reserved for fairy tales, Disney princesses and Hollywood romances. Ask Manchester City fans, however, where they were and what they were doing when they first witnessed Sergio Agüero take to the Etihad turf, and perhaps this romantic phenomenon possesses more credence than it is granted.
Thirty minutes was all the Argentine striker required to introduce himself to the Premier League back in 2011. Where some foreign footballers require weeks, months or even years to adjust to the frenetic pace of England's top flight, Agüero immediately dispelled any fears that he would necessitate a protracted period of adaptation.
Within the space of half a dozen touches after appearing as a substitute for Nigel de Jong, City's £35m signing had snatched a brace and laid on a fine assist for Spanish playmaker David Silva. Thirty minutes, three goals – and all courtesy of Agüero's right boot.
There was no other way to describe what City fans had witnessed that afternoon. It was love at first sight: immediate, irrefutable and, though they may not have realised at the time, destined to endure. Agüero would not transpire to be the footballing equivalent of a one night stand or an exotic holiday fling; rather, over the course of nine magnificent seasons, Kun, as he has been affectionately known since his childhood, has forged an enviable career that has seen him threaten the duopoly of the Premier League's two striking standard-bearers: Thierry Henry and Alan Shearer.
Notwithstanding his less than illustrious return in 2012, when Henry departed England for Barcelona, he did so having asserted himself as one of two of the English game's finest centre-forwards post-1992. Both he and the venerable Shearer possessed at the time of their retirements many of the Premier League's goalscoring records. As the history books attest, they share seven Golden Boots, 19 hat-tricks and a grand total of 434 goals. Throughout their respective careers, the pair set, broke and reset all the records; they became the benchmarks against which all others were and are measured.
Henry was the only footballer to score in excess of 20 times for five consecutive seasons; Shearer the only man to score in excess of 30 for three years running. Shearer was the first footballer to win the Golden Boot three years in a row; then Henry repeated the feat himself almost a decade later. Henry reached the 100-goal milestone in 160 games; Shearer managed it in 124. In short, Henry and Shearer can boast two legacies few – if any – thought could or would be triumphed any time soon.
And yet enter stage left, Sergio Agüero, a man for whom the insurmountable has become the achievable. Over the course of nine years, the lethal Argentine has recorded more goals than Henry, registered more hat-tricks than Shearer, and, staggeringly, scored at a more regular rate than them both. It is par for the course for most observers of the Premier League – both casual and ardent – to name either one of Shearer or Henry as the league's greatest ever centre-forward, and with good reason, but Agüero has staked a credible claim to the throne the former Arsenal and Newcastle men squabble over.
There have been others that have come and gone, dynasties that have risen and fallen into ruin: the legacies of Ruud van Nistelrooy, Luis Suárez, Fernando Torres, Didier Drogba and Robin van Persie have been etched into the annals in the years since Henry and Shearer hung up their boots, but none can profess to have enjoyed the longevity and, remarkably, the consistency of Agüero. It was a marriage between a media-shy Argentine and the world's most-watched league that seemed destined for fruition from the very beginning.
Read | Before Sergio Agüero there was Shaun Goater: the hero before the glitz
Agüero arrived in Manchester off the back of a stellar spell with Atletico Madrid, who had plucked him from Independiente when he was a mere 17 years old and, as is their wont, sculpted him into a prolific goalscorer over the course of five seasons. Young, dynamic and with proven European pedigree, Agüero's signature signalled City's intent not only to establish themselves as a credible force in the present, but as an enduring threat to the hegemony inter-city rivals Manchester United had enjoyed for the previous two decades.
Thanks in no small part to Agüero's maiden contribution of 23 league goals, the dividends were immediate. In 2011/12, after a gruelling 38-game-battle with Manchester United, City were crowned champions of England for the first time since 1968, and it would be Agüero who sealed a momentous triumph with his now-legendary 94th-minute winner over QPR on the final day of the season. It is a goal that requires no fanciful introduction, for it has been watched the world over; an indelible imprint on the post-1992 footballing landscape.
It remains a moment deeply entrenched in emotion, unfettered by the restraints of logic or reason. Some will argue much of the essence of football has been extracted and distilled into a bland, sterile series of statistics and metrics, but this moment has somehow escaped the pablum of analytics. A mystery even to the man who executed it. "I wish I could tell you how I did it but I can't," Agüero once told The Guardian. "I thought for all the world that Mario [Balotelli] was going to have a go himself but he just moved it on one more and it fell at my feet and I just thought: 'Hit the target, hit it as hard as you can and hit the target.' And it went in."
His place in Manchester City folklore was declared forevermore. Had he not kicked another ball for the club, Agüero would still be spoken about today in reverential tones – the man who wrestled the title from United's grasp with literally the last kick of the season. And yet, remarkably, this goal has gone down not as the defining moment of a closing chapter, but rather the hook of the opening one.
In an environment where players arrive and depart with alacrity, Agüero has remained a reliable mainstay at Manchester City, outliving and often outperforming the other forwards who were brought in to compliment him or to provide competition, until he alone remained the preferred option for a succession of managers that included Roberto Mancini, Brian Kidd, Manuel Pellegrini and, finally, Pep Guardiola.
Able to operate as a lone striker or in tandem with a partner, Agüero developed into something akin to a 'nine-and-a-half' while at Manchester City. Capable of playing off the shoulder due to his clever movement and devastating turn of pace, he could also work as a second-striker, especially when deployed alongside more archetypal target men like Edin Dzeko and Alvaro Negredo.
Although not a unique skillset, per se, Agüero possessed in his prime a combination of attributes that permitted him to thrive in a number of scenarios and across a number of roles. Should an opposition manager find a way to thwart the threat Agüero presented, the wily Argentine would simply reply with a swift and measured counterstroke.
Following the sacking of Mancini at the end of the 2012/13 season – a disappointing campaign both for City, who finished a distant second to a resurgent Manchester United side, and for Agüero, whose personal goal tally was nearly halved – Agüero assumed the mantle of the club's primary goalscorer, a role that precipitated a change in approach for the Argentine. Previously, he had often been deployed in tandem with his compatriot Carlos Tevez, who departed that summer for Juventus, but under Pellegrini, he was used as the club's central menace.
Read | Sergio Agüero: the early years and Atlético Madrid diaries
Despite only playing on 23 occasions in the league throughout 2013/14, during which he was also substituted 15 times, he still managed to score 17 goals – roughly once every 90 minutes – and contributed nine assists to City's ultimately victorious title campaign. Had Agüero not missed great swathes of the season between December and March thanks to a succession of calf, hamstring and knee injuries, Luis Suarez's astonishing 31-goal, golden-boot-winning haul may well have been under serious threat.
This, in fact, would become something of a recurrent theme throughout Agüero's career; though often prolific, scoring at a rate even Henry would've raised an eyebrow at, his perennial assaults on the golden boot were so often thwarted by spells on the treatment table.
The following season, 2014/15, despite relinquishing the title to Chelsea, Agüero's output rose once again, as he clinched his first – and to date, only – golden boot with 26 strikes in 33 appearances. After scoring in the opening fixture against Newcastle, Agüero totalled 14 goals and three assists in his first 15 outings, which included crucial strikes against Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool. He would also come perilously close to tying the record for the most goals scored in a single Premier League match when he struck four times against Tottenham in a 4-1 home win.
Three seasons into his time with the club and it was fast becoming apparent that Agüero was potent enough to win matches on his own, but City were cruelly robbed of his services when he was forced off after just seven minutes against Everton on 6 December with knee ligament damage. These would be the only five matches he missed all season, and his goalscoring continued in earnest in January, where he rounded off the campaign with a further 12 goals and five assists. In doing so, he secured the golden boot ahead of Harry Kane, while also finishing as both Manchester City's top scorer and assister – a feat yet to be repeated in light blue.
After scoring four against Spurs in the previous season, the 2015/16 campaign saw Agüero finally elected to an exclusive club, as he joined Shearer, Andy Cole, Dimitar Berbatov and Jermaine Defoe in having scored five goals in a single match. His haul came during a 6-1 win over Newcastle and was achieved in a mere 23 minutes – the fastest quintuplet in Premier League history.
Under the guidance of Pellegrini, whose brand of football had been labelled "death by beautiful geometry", Agüero operated at the point where all these intricate lines met: the apex. His work was typically done in and around the box, where he utilised his immense upper body strength, low centre of gravity and volatile acceleration to terrorise defenders in areas where they simply knew they couldn't touch him. As such, his goal and assist return rocketed with uninterrupted game time, but his impact outside of the attacking intentions in the final third was negligible.
City, at the time, did not play the extreme pressing game for which they subsequently became famous for under the regimentation of Guardiola. Pellegrini required Agüero to finish moves, not fashion them through relentless harrying. As such, when attacking play broke down, City were susceptible to rapid counter-attacks.
It was this openness that ultimately contributed to Pellegrini's downfall, as the club finished second and fourth respectively, eight and 15 points behind the eventual champions Chelsea and then Leicester. Agüero, for the second season running, surpassed the 20-goal milestone in the league, eventually finishing joint-second in the race for the Golden Boot, level with the fleet-footed Jamie Vardy and one behind Kane.
Read | Thierry Henry and the unforgettable 2003 dismantling of Internazionale
This perceived failure paved the way for the arrival of Guardiola, whose predisposition to possession-heavy football often an enormous amount of pressing from his front line. Immediately, despite having plundered 102 goals in 150 appearances under Mancini, Kidd and Pellegrini, Agüero's place in the Spaniard's plans was called into question.
"It is not enough to receive the ball from his teammates. He has to help us in the first pressure and run a lot and help us a lot with movement," Guardiola explained in 2017. "You cannot be brilliant when you disappear when you [don't] have the ball. It is impossible. Football is a connection between what you have with the ball and without the ball."
There were some who doubted the Spaniard's apparent pedantry when it came to the performance of his central striker. If he was scoring goals, did his perceived lethargy in his work without the ball truly matter? Indeed, in Guardiola's first full season, Agüero helped himself to 20 league goals in 31 games. Here was a man who had scored in excess of 20 goals three years running; a man at the peak of his powers. There were few strikers in world football more prolific, and yet Guardiola still wanted to eradicate the minor flaws from an almost flawless footballer.
Agüero reacted accordingly. In his first season under Guardiola, the number of sprints he recorded per 90 minutes rose by nearly 40 percent. The average distance he covered in a game increased by over a kilometre. Within a year, one of the deadliest forwards in the division was both fitter and hungrier.
Having developed from a cunning second striker into a predatory number nine, he underwent another transformation into something of a pressing forward. Willing to shuttle across the pitch to hunt in tandem with the wingers, Agüero was part of a sustained sortie whereby City were regaining the ball higher and higher up the pitch. Duly, more chances presented themselves, and teams soon discovered Agüero was every bit as clinical as he had been under Mancini and Pellegrini.
In the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons, Guardiola's dominant City clinched back-to-back titles with the new Agüero very much the focal point of a team that scored 201 league goals across 76 games. The Argentine claimed 21 goals and six assists in a mere 25 outings in the 2017/18 campaign, while in the 2018/19 edition, this rose to 21 goals and eight assists.
Not that the methodology of his goal-scoring altered much. Between 2014 and 2017, 15 percent of his goals occurred inside the six-yard box, while between 2017 and 2020 it stood at a marginally improved 20 percent. His rate inside and outside the penalty area remains almost identical, too, proving that although the man himself changed his approach, his goalscoring philosophy remained the same.
Furthermore, his game-winning strike against Burnley at Turf Moor on 28 April ensured Agüero would equal yet another Premier League record, as he became only the second man after Henry to score 20 or more goals for five consecutive seasons.
Read | When Dennis Bergkamp finished first, second and third in the August '97 goal of the month competition
Sadly, the ultimately futile 2019/20 campaign was a year crippled by injury, thus robbing him of the chance to break Henry's record. Agüero would only start less than half the available league matches, albeit he was still capable of posting a tally of 16 league goals, four shy of the total needed to extend his remarkable run to six seasons in a row.
For those of a statistical persuasion, it's a testament to his sheer lethality that Agüero has consistently outperformed his expected goals (xG) tally in all but one of those five campaigns, with the only time he failed to match expectations occurring in Guardiola's maiden season in charge – a campaign hindered by the added complication whereby Agüero was tasked with overhauling his game to fit his new manager's ethos.
As for his record in Europe and the question of his wider reputation, Agüero has managed to maintain a respectable scoring rate, despite City's repeated failures to make inroads in the knockout stages of the competition. With 36 goals in 56 games, he presents no competition to the likes of Ronaldo, Messi, Van Nistelrooy and Lewandowski, but he has scored more regularly than Raúl, Henry, Shevchenko and Ibrahimovic.
It is perhaps only these shortcomings on the European stage – as much down to his club as personal responsibility – that preclude Agüero from the conversation around who has been the world's premier centre-forward of the last decade.
As of now, City are on course to clinch yet another Premier League title – their third in the last four seasons – but it is a main course served with a side of sadness, for it appears as though the 2020/21 campaign may well turn out to be Agüero's last in the sky blue of the Citizens.
Another injury-plagued year has seen the Argentine register only a handful of appearances across all competitions, and with his contract due to expire in the summer, there are no signs that a deal is in place. As hard as it is to fathom, we could all be witnessing the forlorn swansong of a man who has come to redefine the role of the Premier League striker.
Even though the years and the injuries are robbing spectators of his presence, Kun's legacy exists in both history and memory, and will only endure over time, like that of his predecessors in Shearer and Henry. Simply, whether you value his talents from an artistic or statistical perspective, there is no denying that, if goals are the gauge by which a striker is judged, there are few so rich as Agüero.
As for City fans, when it comes to Agüero, it was always love. From when he first stepped onto the Etihad pitch to the curtain call they all dread. Perhaps they will know when that fateful moment will come. Perhaps they won't realise they were in the good old days until they have left them. But it doesn't matter. Sergio Agüero was always love at first sight.
By Josh Butler @joshisbutler90
Tags: aguero, man city, premier league
Josh Butler 17/03/2021


"Web standards are intended to be a common base… a foundation for the world wide web so that browsers and other software understand the same basic vocabulary".
2. What are Web Standards about?
For web designers and developers, Web Standards are about using standards (Structural, presentational, Object and Scripting languages) and best practices (valid, semantic and accessible code) to benefit your users, your clients and yourself.
5. What is valid code?
Validation is a process of checking your documents against a formal standard, like those published by the W3C. A document that has been checked and passed is considered valid.
How do you make your code valid?
6. Why use accessible code?
How do you make your code accessible?
Use markup rather than images to convey information.
7. Why use CSS to separate content from presentation?
9. How do your VISITORS benefit from Web Standards?
10. How do your CLIENTS benefit from Web Standards?
11. How do YOU benefit from Web Standards?
13. How do you achieve Web Standards?
Web Standards are not a black and white issue. All developers should be aiming to gradually move towards Web Standards-based sites.
Web Standards benefit your users, your clients and yourself.


Text Messaging and Your Organization: What To Consider?
Many organizations are always looking for new and innovative ways to stay connected with their employees. While calendar invites and emails have had success, text message open rates are at 85 percent, according to a Shift Communications survey. Text messaging is a simple form of communication that most people in your workforce are familiar with.
But the question is how to correctly use text messaging. What is the best subject matter to share via text message? How frequently should you send out text messages?
While there is not one simple and direct answer to those questions, we do have a simple response: Do what makes sense for your organization.
Some of the clients we work with love to use text messaging to alert their traveling sales teams of product updates with related links to a website. Other clients like to update their employees on weather alerts. Thanks to its versatility, SMS has become a powerful tool.
How frequently would these text messages be sent out? Some employees would benefit from weekly updates while others would like updates once a day.
Because text messages are usually quick touches, most employees enjoy the interactions and you'll notice a higher open rate than emails.
Sign up for our upcoming webinar and find out a few more tips.


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Q: Find a formula for the sequence 1,3,6,10,15,...
Write a formula/formulae for the following sequence:
b). 1,3,6,10,15,...

I am not getting any pattern here, from which to derive a formula.
This sequence does not look like the examples I could solve: like

a) 1,0,1,0,1...

where I got that  $S_n =1 $  (for $n=1,3,5,7,...$)  and   $S_n=0$   (for $n=2,4,6,8,...$)
or

c.) 1,1,1,2,1,3,1,4,1,...

where $S_n=1$ for $n=1,2,3,5,7,...$  and $S_n= n/2$ for $n=4,6,8,..  $

A: For (b) you can observe the difference between next and previous terms is in A.P.
Thus you can define it recursively as $s_1 = 1$, $s_{n+1}=s_n + (n+1)$.

A: Mike Pierce has already given the answer.
Still let me mention that the $n$-th term of the sequence is the sum of the first $n$ natural numbers.
Hence $$s_n = \frac{n(n+1)}{2}$$
It is also possible to derive the above by solving the recurrence relation given by Amey Deshpande.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange