text:
dataDir = '../data/baseTests/';
dataFile = '2p5Offset';
run parameters.m
dataFile2 = '5Offset';
dataFile3 = '7p5Offset';
dataFile4 = '10Offset';
dataFileFull2 = [dataDir dataFile2 dataFileSuffix];
dataFileFull3 = [dataDir dataFile3 dataFileSuffix];
dataFileFull4 = [dataDir dataFile4 dataFileSuffix];

numRuns = 1000;
csvrange = [rowStart colStart rowStart+numRuns-1 colStart+2];
DATA1 = csvread(dataFileFull,rowStart,colStart,csvrange);
DATA2 = csvread(dataFileFull2,rowStart,colStart,csvrange);
DATA3 = csvread(dataFileFull3,rowStart,colStart,csvrange);
DATA4 = csvread(dataFileFull4,rowStart,colStart,csvrange);

x1 = DATA1(:,1);
x2 = DATA2(:,1);
x3 = DATA3(:,1);
x4 = DATA4(:,1);

diffX1 = 2.5-x1;
diffX2 = 5-x2;
diffX3 = 7.5-x3;
diffX4 = 10-x4;

figure;
axes('Linewidth', 3.5);
nhist({x1, x2, x3, x4},'legend',{'Starting at 2.5', 'Starting at 5',...
                                 'Starting at 7.5', 'Starting at 10'},...
                               'box','location','EastOutside','fsize',16,...
                               'linewidth',3);
hold on;
xlabel('Final Position')
StartingPosition1 = plot(2.5, 0, '*');
StartingPosition2 = plot(5, 0, '*');
StartingPosition3 = plot(7.5, 0, '*');
StartingPosition4 = plot(10, 0, '*');
title('Central Stable Equilibrium Tendencies','FontSize',18)

figure;
axes('Linewidth', 3.5);
nhist({diffX1, diffX2, diffX3, diffX4},...
      'legend',{'Starting at 2.5', 'Starting at 5','Starting at 7.5',...
                'Starting at 10'},'box','location','EastOutside','fsize',16,...
                'linewidth',3);
hold on;
xlabel('Displacement from the Initial Positions')
title('Central Stable Equilibrium Tendencies - Expanding Returns','FontSize',18)


text:
Get Ordained | Minister Login
Minister Login Get Ordained
Marriage Laws By State
Wedding laws in the United States vary from state-to-state and from county-to-county. The Universal Life Church has assembled the Internet's most comprehensive database of these various state marriage laws. Do you plan on getting married or performing a wedding ceremony?
Using the map below, please click on the state where the ceremony will be taking place for a more detailed explanation of each state's wedding laws and a comprehensive tutorial to performing wedding ceremonies in that state.
Select a state... Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington DC West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming
Get County specific Information
You can also get information specific county marriage law information here:
Alabama Counties
Additional county information is unavailable at this time.
Alaska Counties
Arizona Counties
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How to Become an Ordained Minister
The specific requirements for wedding ministers, like the documents necessary to perform a marriage, also vary from one location to another. The first step in the process is to ensure that you have become a minister by getting ordained online with a valid religious organization like the Universal Life Church Monastery. Legal online ordinations from the Universal Life Church are accepted in almost every area of the United States, the only exceptions being Virginia and some parts of Pennsylvania.
Ordained Minister License
After becoming ordained, you should check the marriage laws of the state you'll be performing a wedding in and contact the office of the local marriage authority (usually the county clerk) to confirm what you need. Then, purchase the required minister certificate or ordained minister license to perform the wedding. Additionally, the Universal Life Church offers minister training to help new ministers prepare for weddings and other ceremonies.
International Marriage Laws
Ministers ordained online by the Universal Life Church have also found success in some international areas. You can view detailed explanations of international marriage laws for select countries below.
Australia Canada Germany Ireland New Zealand United Kingdom
The Universal Life Church has produced this reference guide to aid people around the world in understanding marriage laws in their area. The pages located within will provide general information and help to point you in the right direction (in many areas it is difficult to locate the relevant legal code). The Universal Life Church is not a law firm and does not purport to give specific legal advice. Everyone's situation is different, and we would always advise that you contact the office of your local marriage authority or a licensed attorney to address any specific questions or concerns you may have.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A mill worker was 100 pounds overweight and wanted to lose weight but was too embarrassed to attend the nutrition classes his employer was offering. So he met with the presenter in her office to ask if she would be willing to help him individually. She agreed.
For the first week, all she asked him to do was write down everything he ate each day. He did, and brought his list to her the next week. She looked it over and then asked him to eat one piece of fruit every day in the coming week. He said to her, "But what about the pound of fudge I eat every day?" She encouraged him not to worry about it because it would take care of itself. And it did! The next week she asked him to add one vegetable (he had none on his list). He continued adding week by week until he was eating six plus servings of fruits and vegetables daily. He took small steps and focused on the positive instead of the negative. This gave him the courage to gradually begin changing his diet and exercise patterns, and eventually he was successful in achieving his weight loss goals.
The important principle from this story is to focus on the positive. Add the positive to your life, and pretty soon the negative will be left behind because of the lack of room. When looking at your diet, look at something good that you could do. Maybe you could add one fruit each day, an apple, perhaps? Maybe you want to increase your water intake in order to help your brain and body function better. Maybe you would like to start eating breakfast regularly. Or maybe you could choose to eat two cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kale, or cabbage every week in order to help your body clean out the toxins. Then, later, when that has gone well, you can add another healthy and nutritious habit to your diet.
The point is to choose to add something good to your diet, and not beat yourself up over the "bad." Research shows that dwelling on and highlighting the good is beneficial for your body, mind and spirit. If you choose to think about this positively and make positive additions YOU WILL SUCCEED!
In the beginning, God gave us the best diet possible. Today, scientists are discovering more and more about the amazing benefits of eating a diet that closely resembles the diet of Eden. Our nutrition is one of the most powerful tools we have to promote health. By improving our nutrition, we can substantially increase disease prevention and be healthier, happier and more energetic.


Don't you want to be #Toofaced?
Want to win a $500#shoppingspree at #GLAMBOT? Click bit.ly/Win500GLAMBOTShoppingSpree to enter our free giveaway contest for your chance to win. Earn entries by sharing on twitter/tumblr/facebook and inviting your friends!


This book was completely mind blowing. It's so much better that the first one. It keeps the readers on edge through and through trying to prevent despair rule on Gabrielle's life. I was awestruck by its storytelling and its dreadful images.
It tells the story of Gabrielle, she is the daughter of Mary from the first book, 'The Forest of Hands and Teeth' and how her life changes one night after the Mudo/Unconsectrated appear in her way.


text:
Home of the Month
Copyright © 2019, Point Loma-OB Monthly
Ocean Beach Planning Board to decide civic projects list
The OB Planning Board will send a letter to the City asking that police enforce no parking hours from midnight to 5 a.m. at the Dog Beach lot (Spray and Long Branch streets) and prohibit beach fire pits burning there past midnight.
( File)
By Savanah Duffy
The Ocean Beach Planning Board (OBPB) discussed Capital Improvement Projects (CIPs) during its meeting on May 1 at the OB Rec Center.
Every two years, the City of San Diego asks community planning boards for a wish list of their most important civic projects (those proposed must cost more than $100,000). OBPB's requests for the following have all received funding and are in process — a new OB Lifeguard Station, the OB Library expansion, the salt water pool and stairs project, and OB Pier structural retrofits.
However, OB Pier parking lot improvements, additions to Saratoga Park and Rec Center upgrades have not yet been accepted as CIPs, so the board will re-group at next month's meeting to decide if it will re-submit these proposals or request different CIPs. Their decision is due to the City by July 1.
Overnight parking at Dog Beach
A resident who lives near Dog Beach, identified as "David," brought up the topic of overnight parking there. He said the only time it's illegal for people to be parked in the lot by Dog Beach is from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m., and that police enforcement at 2 a.m. has helped shoo people out of the lot. However, the "van-lifers" (as David called them), all show back up at 4:01 a.m. to park in the lot. "It's like a big parade!" he exclaimed.
Vice-chair Kevin Hastings commented that the lots "are for everyone," but added, "that's precisely why we need these limitations, because if we don't have them, a select few people abuse and exploit it (the lot), and then no one else can use it."
David went on to express concern with the fire pits burning constantly as many homeless individuals and transients take over the pits, keeping others from accessing them.
A motion was made to send a letter to Police Chief David Nisleit, City Council member Jennifer Campbell and Police Officer David Surwilo asking for police to enforce parking hours from midnight to 5 a.m. at the Dog Beach lot with an additional request to enforce that fire pits not burn past midnight.
Cycle tracks on W. Point Loma Blvd: OBPB chair Andrea Schlageter reported that the Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB) voted in favor of cycle tracks along West Point Loma Boulevard to improve safety conditions for bicyclists on that road. She said OB planners did not need to vote on the proposal due to the location and support from the Peninsula planners.
OB parks and more: Seamus Kennedy, community rep for Council member Campbell, said that the City budget will support multiple improvements for Dusty Rhodes Park, Robb Field and other areas along the way, and that Campbell's office is looking into the use of the chemical Roundup around Robb Athletic Field and trying to find a non-toxic alternative.
OBPB made a motion to approve writing a letter in support of the PCPB's letter requesting striping improvements at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, Nimitz Boulevard and Interstate-8 Terminus.
Chevelle Newell-Tate, rep for State Senator Toni Atkins, said she wanted to clarify that SB 330, despite confusion in the press, does not eliminate height limits in coastal areas. What the bill actually does is prevent cities from reducing their height limits, e.g. San Diego City can't decide to lower its height limits from 30 feet to 20 feet.
—The next OBPB meeting is 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 5 at the Rec Center, 4726 Santa Monica Ave. oceanbeachplanning.org
NewsLocal
Editor's Notebook: The Summer of 2019
EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK:I love the above photo of Ocean Beach , taken on the Fourth of July, just before the 17-minutes-long fireworks spectacular burst into the air, launched from boats anchored off the pier.
Blondes on Beers: Summer Spotlight
Blondes on Beers:The "summer" season in San Diego may be year-round, but at the breweries and tasting rooms in Point Loma and Ocean Beach , summer is a special time.
Raglan House in Ocean Beach offers New Zealand-inspired burgers, beers
IN GOOD TASTE:Head down Bacon Street in Ocean Beach and you'll find a little slice of Kiwi culture at Raglan Public House, named after Raglan, New Zealand.
Navy will consider 'Grand Central Station' in redevelopment of Point Loma base
The Navy is making room for the possibility of a much-talked-about transit center, one that local leaders have dubbed "San Diego Grand Central Station," at the 70-acre base that overlooks Interstate 5 in Point Loma .
Peninsula News Briefs: New performance center coming to Liberty Station, Ocean Beach's portable pool program, improvements being made to Point Loma High School and more
NTC Foundation will create performance center at Bldg. 178The Naval Training Center Foundation is slated to receive the largest grant in its history to begin renovation of the long-empty Building 178 at 2800 Roosevelt Road in Liberty Station into a major performing arts center, announced State Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins and State Assemblymember Todd Gloria.


text:
Alternative Dispute Resolution Services
Art Resolve members to offer seminar as part of Mediation Awareness Week 2017
Petra Warrington writes on the proposed reforms to save more art for the nation
Petra Warrington and Gregor Kleinknecht
Court proceedings can be very expensive, consume much valuable time, generate harmful publicity, destroy goodwill and relationships between the parties and, in the end, satisfy none of the parties. There is often a clear incentive and, in many cases, an obligation on the parties to a dispute to consider and actively engage in alternative dispute resolution (ADR), primarily by way of mediation. There are added advantages for the parties in using ADR in art and cultural heritage disputes, where publicity can "burn" a work's marketability. Case law consistently points to the judiciary's encouragement of ADR. This is reflected in court guidance and case management, which includes asking the parties whether they have considered ADR at various stages of the litigation process. The court has discretion to order a stay of proceedings to encourage the parties to explore settlement through mediation and other forms of ADR if the case is deemed suitable. Moreover, a failure by a party to properly consider ADR can have adverse costs consequences.
The court room can be an ill-fitting forum to decide disputes relating to art, objects of antiquity and historic sites. Such cases are often complex, can involve multiple parties in a cross-border context, and require specialist expertise and knowledge of case-specific factors, whether that be art market practice or particular cultural sensitivities and historical associations. The disputes that frequently arise in the art and cultural property context raise a diverse range of issues from title, authenticity and provenance to standards of valuation, due diligence and appraisal to problems of loss, misappropriation, fraud and theft. Legal principles can be applied to these issues but may not always satisfactorily deal with them.
Out-of-court options can provide the parties with unique specialist knowledge in addressing such issues and flexibility in how to resolve them. This article discusses the most common methods of ADR, their special characteristics and potential advantages to litigants as well as the potential costs consequences of refusing to engage in mediation.
Mediation is a voluntary, flexible and confidential method of resolving disputes outside the court system with the help of a neutral third party. The role of the mediator is to assist the parties with negotiations and facilitate discussions enabling them to reach a settlement. The mediator does not impose a result and the parties maintain control of the outcome of the mediation and whether or not a settlement is reached. The mediation is 'without prejudice' to the parties' legal position, but, if a settlement is reached, it can be converted into a binding agreement.
Mediation is highly effective in resolving cultural heritage and art disputes, as it allows the parties privacy, convenience and control and is also more time and cost effective than court proceedings. Moreover, a mediation agreement can incorporate solutions that a court could not provide, such as future trading agreements. The focus of a mediated solution is on the interests of the parties and can allow the parties to preserve their reputations in the marketplace. Mediation also easily accommodates cases of a cross-border nature. There is a high percentage of settlement in mediations.
Early neutral evaluation is a voluntary, non-binding process by which the parties agree to obtain an opinion about their dispute from a respected neutral third party with relevant expertise. The neutral hears each party's submissions and then states his/her view on the likely outcome of the dispute or issue. The neutral can also give advice on how it could or should be resolved. The evaluation given by the neutral may well influence the parties to settle the dispute, either in accordance with the advice, or in some other way depending on subsequent negotiations. Early neutral evaluation is 'without prejudice' to the parties' legal position.
Expert Determination
Expert determination leads to the chosen expert imposing a binding decision on the parties and can be an effective, quick and economic means of settling certain types of dispute. The expert will be appointed based on his or her professional background, and some cases may call for the appointment of two experts. The process by which the decision is reached is informal. Expert determination is best used where there is no conflict of factual evidence and where the issues are of expertise and/or of law. In international cases, expert determination should not be used unless there is agreement about the language of the decision and the legal system for its enforcement. A decision made by the expert is final and binding and can be challenged only on very limited grounds arising from its fundamental validity, and not from differences on issues of fact, law or professional opinion.
Arbitration is a formal system of dispute resolution leading to a binding result which is similar to a court judgment, and is known as an arbitration award. There are very limited grounds to challenge an arbitration award. Arbitration is suitable for disputes of all kinds, particularly where there are issues of fact, law and expertise, and where international enforcement is required. Arbitration awards are enforceable in over 100 countries, whereas judgments of the English courts are enforceable only in Europe and certain Commonwealth countries. Elsewhere (notably in the United States) fresh proceedings are required to enforce an English judgment. Depending on the case and the agreement between the parties, one or more arbitrators of appropriate expertise will be appointed. Arbitration remains entirely private, unlike court proceedings.
Costs consequences of refusal to mediate
The attitudes of litigants to mediation, in particular, has been addressed by the judiciary in numerous cases. There is a well-established principle that a party who refuses to consider whether a case is suitable for mediation will be at risk of an adverse finding on costs (Dunnett v Railtrack plc [2002] EWCA Civ 303). The Court of Appeal considered the situations in which a refusal to mediate could give rise to costs sanctions in Halsey v Milton Keynes General Trust [2004] EWCA Civ 576, and Lord Justice Dyson set out a non-exhaustive list of considerations when determining whether a party had acted unreasonably in refusing to mediate, including: the nature of the dispute, the merits of the case; other settlement options available to the parties; the cost of mediation; delay; and the prospect of success.
The court concluded that the general rule that costs follow the event (i.e. the losing party pays the winning party's costs) could be displaced where the losing party can show that the winning party unreasonably refused to mediate. This finding should make any party to a dispute pause for thought, as prevailing in court will not guarantee a victory in costs if mediation should have been explored but was not. Where a suggestion to mediate is rejected without good reason for doing so, costs sanctions are likely to follow.
If the parties to a dispute are not sufficiently encouraged to explore mediation or other forms of ADR by virtue of their inherent benefits, such as the potential to save time and money, protect privacy and reach a more flexible, commercially minded settlement, then the risk of exposure to an adverse costs order may make them think again.
This article was originally published for members of PAIAM. The original can be found here.


text:
Die Dero Bank AG (Eigenschreibweise Dero Bank oder dero:bank) mit Sitz in München war ein Bankinstitut, das sich schwerpunktmäßig auf Kapitalmarktlösungen für den Mittelstand konzentrierte. Hundertprozentige Muttergesellschaft ist die Trillium Capital S.a.r.l. (vormals VEM Holding S.a.r.l.) mit Sitz in Luxemburg. Auf Antrag der Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (BaFin) eröffnete das Amtsgericht München am 14. März 2018 ein Insolvenzverfahren und bestellte einen Insolvenzverwalter. Mit einer Bilanzsumme von 27 Millionen Euro zum 31. Dezember 2017 war die Bank vergleichsweise klein.

Portfolio
Sowohl sie selbst als auch die BaFin verstanden die Dero Bank als ein Unternehmen, das sich auf die Betreuung mittelständischer Kunden spezialisiert hatte. Die Dero Bank gab selbst an, den deutschen Mittelstand in allen Bereichen des Kapitalmarktes zu beraten und zu unterstützen. Die BaFin ordnet das insofern ein, als sie von einem Nischenanbieter im Investmentbanking spricht, der Anleihe- und Aktienemissionen, Börsengänge, Designated Sponsoring sowie Aktienerwerbsangebote anbiete.

Geschichte
Die Dero Bank wurde 1997 gegründet, firmierte damals aber noch unter VEM Aktienbank AG. Ende 2015 erfolgte die Umbenennung. Am 8. Februar 2018 teilte die BaFin mit, dass sie über die Dero Bank ein Moratorium verhängt hat. Damit gilt für die Bank ein Veräußerungs- und Zahlungsverbot. Zahlungen darf sie nur entgegennehmen, sofern sie der Tilgung von Schulden gegenüber der Dero Bank dienen. Als Auslöser nennt die BaFin drohende bilanzielle Überschuldung, als Begründung die Sicherung von Vermögenswerten in einem geordneten Verfahren. Da die Bank der Entschädigungseinrichtung deutscher Banken angehört, sind Einlagen von je bis zu 100.000 Euro grundsätzlich geschützt. Die dafür notwendige Feststellung eines Entschädigungsfalles erfolgte am 14. März 2018.
Im Februar 2018 wurde durch die BaFin die Eröffnung des Insolvenzverfahrens beantragt. Das Amtsgericht München hat am 14. März 2018 das Insolvenzverfahren eröffnet.

Weblinks
 Internetpräsenz der Dero Bank AG (Archivierte Seite vom 25. April 2018)

Einzelnachweise

Kreditinstitut (München)
Unternehmen (München)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Manufacturers recommend that you have your roof inspected every six months. As the old saying goes prevention is better than repair. As a homeowner if you train yourself to recognize potential problems on your roof you can save yourself thousands of dollars in interior and exterior repairs.
Take a look at the video Safe Homes Canada made to teach home owners the most most important aspects of inspecting your roof.
Reliable Roofing Contractors Of Washington is a not-for-profit organization that connects consumers with pre-verified roofing contractors. If you are in need of roofing services we would be glad to provide information for 3 high quality roofing contractors. Just visit our contact page and provide the required information.


text:
Carol Bishop-Gwyn (CA)
Art and Rivalry
Decrease quantity for Art and Rivalry
Increase quantity for Art and Rivalry
The unauthorized biography of Canada's most famous artist couple and the rivalry that drove them.
She painted as if with pure light, radiant colours making quotidian kitchen scenes come alive with sublimated drama. He painted like clockwork, each stroke precise and measured with exquisite care, leaving no angle unchecked and no subtlety of tone unattended. Some would say Mary Pratt was fire and Christopher, ice. And yet Newfoundland's Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (or Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner...) presented their marriage as a portrait of harmony and balance. But balance off the canvas rarely makes great art, and the Pratts' art was spectacular.
As a youth at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Mary pursued her future husband, a prodigious art talent, and supported his determination to study painting instead of medicine. They married and removed themselves to a Newfoundland outport where his painting alone provided the means to raise a family. But as Mary's own talents became evident and she sought her own hours at the easel, when not raising their four children, and as rumours of Christopher's affair with a young model spread, the Pratts' harmonious exterior slowly cracked, to scandal in Newfoundland and fascination across the country. A marriage ended, and gave way to a furious competition for dominance in Canadian art.


text:
Q: PHP - SQL: Combine two rows into single row with multiple columns O/pI want to join two rows into single row with multiple columns(dynamically) using SQL Query in PHP.

Output should be grouped by tf4hid and date.
SQL Query
Select tf4hid,tf4iid,date,product,planqty
from tf4i
group by date,product

This prints row by row but i need to generate columns based on the available products in the columns.

A: You can try to use condition aggregate function.
SELECT tf4hid,
       date,
       MAX(CASE WHEN product = 'MS(EURO-IV)' THEN planqty END) 'MS(EURO-IV)',
       MAX(CASE WHEN product = 'HSD(Euro-IV)' THEN planqty END) 'HSD(Euro-IV)',
       MAX(CASE WHEN product = 'Super_Petrol' THEN planqty END) 'Super_Petrol'
FROM tf4i
GROUP BY tf4hid,date

EDIT
dynamic pivot version. create the sql then execute dynamically.
SET @sql = NULL;
SELECT
  GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT
    CONCAT(
      ' MAX(CASE WHEN product = ''',
      product,
      ''' THEN planqty END) ''',
      product , ''''
    )
  ) INTO @sql
FROM tf4i;

SET @sql = CONCAT('SELECT tf4hid,
                          date, ', @sql, '
                   FROM tf4i
                   GROUP BY tf4hid,date');

PREPARE stmt FROM @sql;
EXECUTE stmt;
DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;

sqlfiddle

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


We have been offering event photography to WTD Promotions for a while now. We have been pleased to photograph many leading professional darts players including Terry 'The Bull' Jenkins, Simon 'The Wizard' Whitlock, Andy 'The Pieman' Smith and Kevin 'The Artist' Painter.
The latest exhibition event saw Andy 'The Hammer' Hamilton and Jamie 'Jabba' Caven head to Crewe for a great evening of darts. As with all the other players we made a portrait of each player as well as offered our event photography. We are able to photograph fans with the famous players which are then printed immediately and signed so the customer can take the print away with them there and then!
Our events 'photobooth' is available for parties, guest speakers or proms. If you are organising an event get in touch to see what we offer!


text:
Q: SmartGWT and GWT upgrades not refreshed after upgrading jar versions I have an opensource project in GitHub that I am working on with lots of changes, etc.  I recently upgrade the maven pom file to use the lastest Spring Release (from 3.1 to 3.2.3).  I also upgrade from GWT 2.5 to 2.5.1, and finally from SmartGWT 2.5 to 4.0.  After some minor code changes, I was ready to test this.
I can tell you that the Maven code builds successfully, STS/Eclipse report no errors.  I can build run the app with no problems.  The issue stems from when I run the app, the text boxes cannot have data entered into them, and the link items appear as text boxes.
After doing some research on the SMartGWT forums, I see that the browser cache needs to be cleared which I have done several times.  I deleted my entire target directory which also deleted any gwt generated classes, code, ui, nocache.js, etc.   I can re-run the maven build which re-creates everything.  Again, I can clear my cache, and still the problem happens.
UPDATED:
I created a new SmartGWT 4.0 and GWT 2.5.1 project from scratch.  I created a new login screen, I added small bits of code at a time, and watched to see what would happen, would it work or not.  It broke when I got to adding all the DynamicForm attributes.   Adding the datasource at this time is what broke my login form.  I agree there really is no reason to bind this to the datasource at this time.  In the onClick of the Submit button, I call the loginDS.fetch(criteria) manually.
So, that would be my advice to anyone working with SmartGWT, if something doesn't work, just start re-adding stuff back slowly, and keep testing until you narrow down exactly what is causing the form/screen to not work.    I hope this helps other people!

A: Check in Eclipse for the project settings, make sure you have the right versions selected for the libraries. For example, the GWT SDK is under Google>Web Toolkit.

A: I basically just followed my own advice above as well.
I just took the broken widget and re-created a new version, and slowly moved over one method at a ime until I found the broken code.  I fixed that piece, and everything worked.
The actual broken code was that  I was tying the datasource to my form, and I didn't need to do that in my situation.


text:
Home Alternative Investments How Insurers Are Affecting ETF Flows
How Insurers Are Affecting ETF Flows
A new report from S&P Dow Jones Indices this week estimates that insurance companies added $1.5 billion in ETF assets last year, bringing the total invested in these products to more than $45.4 billion.
Recently, VettaFi contributor Dan Mika spoke with Raghu Ramachandran, head of S&PDJI's insurance asset channel, about why the insurance industry has been so slow to embrace ETFs, and what recent regulatory changes could lead to greater adoption industry-wide.
Dan Mika, contributor, VettaFi: Let's start off with some of the figures from the report. In 2021, insurance companies invested $1.5 billion of new net assets. But we also saw a big rotation out of equity ETFs and into fixed income. Why?
Raghu Ramachandran, head of insurance asset channel, S&P Dow Jones Indices: What we've heard from clients is that it goes [back] to the liquidity of ETFs. Another trend that has been going on in the insurance industry is the allocation to alternative investments, and those alternative investments have a higher capital charge. As those values have increased, the capital charges for insurance companies have gone up, and the best way to reduce capital charges is to sell things that are liquid. From what we've heard clients saying, they were selling equities to reduce the capital charge in the balance sheet. It's the liquid alternative, and ETFs are very liquid.
Mika: Last fall, the New York Department of Financial Services started allowing firms domiciled in that state to substitute individual bonds with bond ETFs. How much is the insurance industry using ETFs for risk management purposes or for strategies outside of generating returns?
Ramachandran: The NYDFS regulation is unique to New York, but insurance companies outside New York have been using ETFs long before [that regulation came to pass].
The first case for which most insurance companies use ETFs is cash utilization or cash equitization. Let's say an insurance company gets $5 million in excess premiums, and then they have to invest it, according to their allocation. But because the cash markets were tight, and the supply of bonds wasn't readily available, it was easier to buy an ETF and essentially get the yield, duration, credit, and the risk exposure that matches their allocation. [Then,] as bonds become available, you can sell out of the ETFs. That gets their cash out of the cash bucket and into the allocation bucket, [which is where] insurers need it to be.
Similarly, if you have, say, a high yield portfolio, and you want to adjust that, ETFs are an easy way to make a change, as opposed to having to sell or buy bonds. You can adjust your tactical allocation very quickly, because the liquidity in the ETFs and the underlying indices allows it to be easily transacted.
Mika: The implied compound growth rate for insurance company assets in ETFs is growing 100% every four to five years. But as of the end of 2021, the total owned by insurers amounts to just $45 billion of the $7.8 trillion in assets held in ETFs by all parties. Why do you think the adoption from insurers has been slower than in the retail space or in large-scale institutional investors?
Ramachandran: Historically, that's had to do with regulatory constraints. Previously, any commingled vehicle, like mutual funds or ETFs, carried a capital charge of 30%, regardless of what was owned in it. So when you were buying an equity ETF versus [individual] equities, there was no cost difference, and insurance companies started buying equity ETFs [but not fixed income ETFs.]
Then about six years ago, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners put out some new rules that allowed for look-through into fixed income ETFs. Investment-grade bonds have a capital charge of 3% versus 30% for [individual] equities. [Author's note: In this context, "look-through" means that for the purpose of risk management, insurance companies can treat ETFs based on their underlying assets, rather than treating ETFs solely as equities. Before the look-through was implemented, a fund like the iShares iBoxx USD Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (LQD) would carry capital charges similar to holding a stock. After the rule was enacted, insurers could treat shares of LQD and other bond ETFs as if they were bonds.]
So it didn't make sense to buy a fixed income ETF and get a 30% capital charge, when you could buy the bonds and get a charge of 3%. Now that insurers have the look-through to the underlying, companies can start investing in fixed income ETFs and get that lower capital charge.
Now the NDRC is not a regulatory agency, so each individual state had to adopt those regulations [to allow insurers to treat ETFs based on their underlying assets for the purpose of risk hedging]. It varies by state how fast they adopted it, but most states have adopted it. New York had not until very recently allowed the look-through, so for New York companies, they still had to hold fixed income ETFs at an equity capital charge price. As those regulations changed, they understood the underlying liquidity and efficiency of an index-based product.
A big part of the conversations we have had with insurance companies revolves around educating them on what an ETF is, how it's structured, the index is public and it's not a black box. It's just a matter of getting them comfortable with that.
Mika: In the report, you found that ETF trading volume was pretty much flat from 2020 to 2021, while trade turnover declined by 24%. What does that mean? Is that a sign these assets are going to be relatively sticky?
Ramachandran: You have to bifurcate ETF usage into two cases. One is, are they using it as a positional strategy, and the second is, are you looking at it as a transactional strategy.
If you look at the transactional stuff, you see the fixed income has a higher trade ratio. There's a big part of ETF usage where insurers buy an ETF, then rotate into [directly holding underlying securities], as securities become available. Then there are other securities that they hold longer, and insurance companies tend to hold assets longer because their liabilities are long-term. So when they take that position, it tends to be sticky.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit the Institutional Income Strategies Channel.
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Home The Beats Politics U.S. House green lights Trump impeachment inquiry
U.S. House green lights Trump impeachment inquiry
Colorado Dem Neguse calls the vote a 'solemn day for our country' while Republican Buck calls it 'a Halloween trick.'
Robin Bravender
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 31: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gavels the close of a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives on a resolution formalizing the impeachment inquiry centered on U.S. President Donald Trump October 31, 2019 in Washington, DC. The resolution, passed by a vote of 232-196, creates the legal framework for public hearings, procedures for the White House to respond to evidence and the process for consideration of future articles of impeachment by the full House of Representatives. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on Thursday voted to formalize its impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
Lawmakers adopted a resolution that lays out procedures for the inquiry that is already taking place in the House. That investigation is centered on whether the president abused his power by attempting to pressure the president of Ukraine to investigate Trump's political opponent.
The measure passed largely along partisan lines by a vote of 232-196, with no Republicans backing the resolution. One independent, Justin Amash of Michigan, voted in favor of the resolution and two Democrats voted against it.
Democrats hailed the resolution as a roadmap that will provide for a fair and transparent process, while Republicans supportive of the president assailed the effort as a political attack.
"What is at stake in all of this is nothing less than our democracy," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said ahead of the vote. "Sadly, this is not any cause for any glee or comfort. This is something that is very solemn."
House Democratic leadership had previously announced a formal inquiry, but held a floor vote in part to combat complaints from Republicans that the full chamber hadn't been allowed to vote. Still, Thursday's vote is unlikely to reduce the partisan fighting over the process.
Trump wrote on Twitter Thursday morning, "The Impeachment Hoax is hurting our Stock Market. The Do Nothing Democrats don't care!" He added later, "The Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!"
Trump's critics in the House insist that the president's behavior and their constitutional obligations have driven them to pursue their investigation.
"The House impeachment inquiry has discovered a substantial body of evidence that the president of the United States has violated the Constitution by placing his political interests above the interests of the country, thereby putting both our democracy and the nation's security in jeopardy," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). "In light of this evidence, the House of Representatives must fully investigate."
Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) said the vote marks "a serious and solemn day for our country."
The House's impeachment inquiry, he added, "has exposed the truth and uncovered significant evidence that the president abused his power. To honor the oath to defend the Constitution that each of us took, we must move forward with this impeachment inquiry."
His colleague, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), said on Twitter that the president "has been accused of abusing his power, betraying the American people and undermining our national security. He's openly invited some of our biggest adversaries to intervene in our elections and has blocked Congress's every attempt to get to the truth."
Republican lawmakers continued to decry the process, drawing criticisms from Democrats that they're making procedural arguments to avoid discussing the president's behavior.
"No matter what is said by the other side today, this is a dark day and a cloud has fallen on this House," said Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.
"The resolution before us today is not about transparency, it's about control. It's not about fairness, it's about winning," he said.
On Twitter this morning, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) called today's vote "nothing more than a Halloween trick to try to give this sham some credibility."
The impeachment inquiry, he said has been "without due process, fairness or transparency for over a month. No American should be subjected to this kind of unfairness."
Buck's fellow Coloradan and GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn also took to Twitter to blast the vote in Halloween-themed terms. "This is a 'trick' for the American people, and a 'treat' to our enemies as the full resources of the House Intelligence Committee are focused on impeachment, not national security."
Some moderate Democrats who voted for the inquiry stressed that their support for the investigation does not indicate how they may ultimately vote on articles of impeachment.
House lawmakers could vote as soon as this year on articles of impeachment against the president. If approved, the articles would be the subject of a trial in the Senate, where the GOP-led chamber is unlikely to vote to convict the president.
by Robin Bravender, The Colorado Independent

U.S. House green lights Trump impeachment inquiry

Colorado Dem Neguse calls the vote a 'solemn day for our country' while Republican Buck calls it 'a Halloween trick.'

by Robin Bravender, The Colorado Independent
October 31, 2019

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on Thursday voted to formalize its impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

Lawmakers adopted a resolution that lays out procedures for the inquiry that is already taking place in the House. That investigation is centered on whether the president abused his power by attempting to pressure the president of Ukraine to investigate Trump's political opponent.

The measure passed largely along partisan lines by a vote of 232-196, with no Republicans backing the resolution. One independent, Justin Amash of Michigan, voted in favor of the resolution and two Democrats voted against it.

Democrats hailed the resolution as a roadmap that will provide for a fair and transparent process, while Republicans supportive of the president assailed the effort as a political attack.

"What is at stake in all of this is nothing less than our democracy," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said ahead of the vote. "Sadly, this is not any cause for any glee or comfort. This is something that is very solemn."

House Democratic leadership had previously announced a formal inquiry, but held a floor vote in part to combat complaints from Republicans that the full chamber hadn't been allowed to vote. Still, Thursday's vote is unlikely to reduce the partisan fighting over the process.

Trump wrote on Twitter Thursday morning, "The Impeachment Hoax is hurting our Stock Market. The Do Nothing Democrats don't care!" He added later, "The Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!"

Trump's critics in the House insist that the president's behavior and their constitutional obligations have driven them to pursue their investigation.

"The House impeachment inquiry has discovered a substantial body of evidence that the president of the United States has violated the Constitution by placing his political interests above the interests of the country, thereby putting both our democracy and the nation's security in jeopardy," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). "In light of this evidence, the House of Representatives must fully investigate."

Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) said the vote marks "a serious and solemn day for our country."

The House's impeachment inquiry, he added, "has exposed the truth and uncovered significant evidence that the president abused his power. To honor the oath to defend the Constitution that each of us took, we must move forward with this impeachment inquiry."

His colleague, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), said on Twitter that the president "has been accused of abusing his power, betraying the American people and undermining our national security. He's openly invited some of our biggest adversaries to intervene in our elections and has blocked Congress's every attempt to get to the truth."

Republican lawmakers continued to decry the process, drawing criticisms from Democrats that they're making procedural arguments to avoid discussing the president's behavior.

"No matter what is said by the other side today, this is a dark day and a cloud has fallen on this House," said Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

"The resolution before us today is not about transparency, it's about control. It's not about fairness, it's about winning," he said.

On Twitter this morning, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) called today's vote "nothing more than a Halloween trick to try to give this sham some credibility."

The impeachment inquiry, he said has been "without due process, fairness or transparency for over a month. No American should be subjected to this kind of unfairness."

Buck's fellow Coloradan and GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn also took to Twitter to blast the vote in Halloween-themed terms. "This is a 'trick' for the American people, and a 'treat' to our enemies as the full resources of the House Intelligence Committee are focused on impeachment, not national security."

Some moderate Democrats who voted for the inquiry stressed that their support for the investigation does not indicate how they may ultimately vote on articles of impeachment.

House lawmakers could vote as soon as this year on articles of impeachment against the president. If approved, the articles would be the subject of a trial in the Senate, where the GOP-led chamber is unlikely to vote to convict the president.

This article first appeared on The Colorado Independent and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Robin Bravender, Newsroom Washington bureau chief, was previously an editor and reporter at E&E News and covered campaign finance and energy at Politico.


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GDS software developed by us typically offers whole suite of services for the OTAs, ranging from passenger service systems (PSSs) to revenue management systems (RMSs). The passenger name record (PNR) in the airline reservations system is maintained in the GDS system. If a passenger books an itinerary containing air segments of multiple airlines through a travel agency, the passenger name record in the GDS system would hold information on their entire itinerary, each airline can fly on would only have a portion of the itinerary that is relevant to them. This would contain flight segments on their own services and inbound and onward connecting flights of other airlines in the itinerary.
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Assembly Bill 2888 Mandatory Minimum Legislation
It is an unfortunate reality, that many rape victims do not come forward to authorities about the tragedy they have experienced. There are a number of reasons why the victims of sexual assault choose to be mute about what befell them, but some of the most common reasons are shame, guilt and the fact that sex crimes are extremely difficult to prove. Offenders are often acquitted or receive light sentences, scantily matching the crime.
A couple weeks ago, we wrote about the case of Brock Turner, a former Stanford University swimmer who was given an extremely light sentence for the sexual assault of a fellow student. After being found guilty of three felony charges, the presiding Judge Aaron Persky gave Brock six months in jail and three-years of probation. As to be expected, millions of Americans were left scratching their heads, some of which were calling for a judicial review.
As we talked about previously, the reason behind the "slap on the wrist" rested on a loophole in how California defines rape. This prompted emergency legislation to be put forward, broadening the scope of rape. Last week, Assembly Bill 2888, was introduced by Democratic Assemblymen Evan Low and Bill Dodd and co-sponsored by Democratic State Senator Jerry Hill (supported by Santa Clara County's District Attorney Jeff Rosen), which would place a mandatory minimum sentence of three years for similar crimes in the future, NBC News reports.
"We need to change the law to protect the next Emily Doe from the next Brock Turner," said Rosen. "Let's give the next campus sexual assault victim no reason to fear that her attacker will end up walking around free after spending less time in jail than it takes to finish a single college semester."
Please take a moment to watch a short video on the subject below:
If you are having trouble watching the video please click here.
Ronald G. Brower is a criminal defense attorney in Southern California. Based out of Orange County, Attorney Brower has represented individuals charged with crimes in state and federal court.
Contact the Law Office of Ronald G. Brower online or by telephone at 714-997-4400.
Labels: Aaron-Persky, Assault, Brock-Turner, California, crime, offenders, Rape, sentencing laws, Sexual Assault
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The Formerly Enslaved Household of the Grant Family
Sarah Fling History Fellow
How Long? 18 minutes
This article is part of the Slavery in the President's Neighborhood initiative. Explore the Timeline
Women are often overlooked in history for their role in the institution of slavery. First Lady Julia Dent Grant, wife of President Ulysses S. Grant, was a steadfast slave mistress for more than half of her life—an often forgotten part of her identity. Though Grant himself grew up in an abolitionist family in the free state of Ohio, his marriage to Julia Dent led him to become involved in slavery while the two lived in Missouri on Julia's family estate. As a result, Ulysses Grant was the last U.S. president to have owned an enslaved individual. Grant's legacy as the respected Commanding General of the Union Army, and his efforts as president to protect black citizenship have long obscured his personal slave-ownership, as well as that of his beloved wife.
Julia Dent Grant's interactions with slavery are well-documented in her personal memoirs, first published in 1975. Her father, Frederick Dent, purchased a plantation in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1820.1 The plantation, called White Haven, ran using enslaved labor; Dent oversaw a workforce of approximately thirty enslaved individuals on two Missouri properties.2 In 1830, when Julia was only four years old, there were at least eighteen enslaved individuals at White Haven.3 In her reminiscences, she described growing up surrounded by enslaved servants like Henrietta, Sue, and Jeff, whom she considered playmates during her childhood, before assuming control over them in adulthood:
We always had a dusky train of from eight to ten little colored girls of all hues, and these little colored girls were allowed to accompany us… we would wander by the brookside, catch minnows with pin-hooks…I, being of very provident nature, required these little maids to each carry a bucket to bring home my captives.4
Slave quarters at White Haven, photographed in the twentieth century
It was common for slave owners to allow their children to play with enslaved children who were close in age. These childhood years were formative periods where "white girls practiced techniques of slave discipline and management, made mistakes and learned from them, modified their behavior to meet various conditions, and ultimately decided what kind of slave owners they wanted to become."5 Mary Robinson, the enslaved cook, along with Rose and Kitty, enslaved "nurses," also played important roles in Julia's upbringing.6
Ulysses S. Grant's childhood was vastly different from Julia's. Born in Ohio to Methodist parents, he was not raised with nor surrounded by the institution of slavery. His father, Jesse Root Grant, was an abolitionist who taught his son that slavery was cruel and immoral. Grant received a formal education and later enrolled at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he befriended Julia Grant's brother, Frederick "Fred" Tracy Dent. Fred was Ulysses Grant's roommate at West Point, and the two became good friends during their time at school. After graduating in 1843, the U.S. Army stationed Brevet Second Lieutenant Grant in St. Louis; while in Missouri, Grant visited his old friend at his plantation, White Haven. There, Ulysses Grant met and fell in love with Julia Dent, and the two became engaged a year later. However, Grant's military duties in the Mexican-American War led to a four-year separation; the two finally married in 1848.
After Grant resigned from the U.S. Army in 1854, he faced financial hardship. Having received eighty acres of land as a wedding gift from Julia's father, the Grants returned to Missouri to live off the land. There, Ulysses Grant became increasingly involved in slavery at White Haven. Grant farmed alongside enslaved field workers daily, while also working with them to build a new home—this log cabin would come to be known as "Hardscrabble."7 Grant left no record of how he felt about his new proximity to the institution of slavery, but he and Julia benefitted from their free labor after moving to White Haven.
"Hardscrabble" circa 1891. The cabin was built by enslaved laborers overseen by U.S. Grant
These experiences working alongside enslaved individuals may have taught Grant how to supervise and discipline enslaved workers under his stead. The Dents were adept slave owners, with years of experience controlling the enslaved labor population at White Haven. Grant's agricultural training under the Dents would have included many lessons regarding both farm and labor management, as Grant's Ohio upbringing would not have prepared him for these tasks. According to historian William S. McFeely, Grant "tried to mold himself into the kind of farmer-planter his father-in-law was."8 With these aspirations came slave-ownership, whether Grant approved of the practice or not.
Between 1857 and 1859, Julia's father—aging and widowed—granted Ulysses Grant almost complete oversight of White Haven and the enslaved laborers there, truly testing Grant's newfound knowledge of farming and labor management.9 A letter from Grant to his sister, Mary, in 1859 describes the progress he had made at White Haven in the supervision of both crops and enslaved people: "I now have three negro men, two hired by the year and one of Mr. Dents, which, with my own help, I think, will enable me to do my farming pretty well."10 Though impossible to know how Grant felt about these interactions, Julia's sister, Emma Dent Casey, wrote that "although I know that he [Grant] was opposed to human slavery as an institution I do not think that he was at any time a very rank abolitionist or that he opposed it so violently that the acceptance of Julia's slaves had to be forced upon him."11
Grant's involvement in slavery eventually went beyond the "acceptance" and management of the Dent family's enslaved laborers — Grant himself came into ownership of a man named William Jones from his father-in-law at some point during the 1850s.12 While there are no known documents or letters related to a bill of sale, Grant later emancipated Jones in 1859. The motivation behind this is unclear; with a number of enslaved individuals already at his disposal at White Haven and larger financial troubles, it seems unusual that Grant elected to become a slave owner. Whatever the reason, Grant assumed a more personal but short-lived role in the perpetuation of human bondage. On March 29, 1859, U.S. Grant manumitted "my negro man William, sometimes called William Jones, of Mulatto complexion, aged about thirty-five years…being the same slave purchased by me of Frederick Dent."13 Many historians have pointed out Grant's choice to manumit William Jones rather than sell him in a time of financial hardship for his family. Ronald C. White wrote that "Grant could have received at least $1,000 for this slave if he'd tried to sell him… at this point he could have surely used the money."14
Facsimile of original manumission papers for William Jones
Courtesy Missouri Historical Society
In 1859, Grant's financial problems (worsened by a bad harvest and a national economic panic that began two years earlier) led him to relocate his wife and four children to St. Louis.15 At this time, Julia asserted ownership of four enslaved individuals "gifted" to her by her father: Eliza, Dan, Julia (Jules), and John. Her legal proprietorship is unclear due to lack of documentation; it is likely that the enslaved individuals remained under her father's legal ownership, and that he allowed Julia to utilize their labor as she began to manage her own household. In any case, she presented herself as a slave mistress and brought these individuals with her to St. Louis. According to Julia, these four enslaved people "were young, ranging from eighteen to twelve years of age. They were born at the old farm and were excellent, though so young."16 While Julia managed Eliza, Dan, Jules, and John, Ulysses benefitted from the home they cleaned, the food they cooked, and the care they provided for his children.
As the Grant family's financial situation worsened, Ulysses Grant decided to move to Galena, Illinois in 1860, to take a job promised to him at his family's leather shop. To Julia's disappointment, she had to hire out Jules, Dan, John and Eliza to "persons whom we knew and who promised to be kind to them."17 Though Julia did not want to be separated from them, Illinois was a free state, and should they be emancipated, her father reminded her in a letter that she could not "do without servants."18 Colonel Dent was correct; Julia's dependence upon enslaved people became obvious during their absence. In her memoirs, she describes the revelations she had upon assuming domestic independence in Illinois; namely, Julia realized she did not know how to sew, cook, or care for her ailing children. One incident occurred when Julia attempted to make Maryland biscuits for Grant's family in Galena. She complained in her memoir that "they were not at all like home biscuits… I presume that the cook would have done better if I had ever prepared any before… I had only cut out small cakes with my thimble from the dough prepared by my black Mammy."19 Later, when Julia's youngest son, Jesse, fell down a flight of stairs, she lamented that "I wished then I had never come to Illinois, nor left my faithful nurse [Jules]."20
Mrs. Grant did not have to survive without Jules for long. Although the fates of Dan, Eliza, and John are unknown, it is clear that upon leaving Illinois Julia reclaimed control of Jules, her most trusted enslaved nurse, when Ulysses Grant became a Colonel in the Union Army at the start of the American Civil War in 1861. As Grant rose through the ranks, ultimately assuming his position as Commanding General, Julia followed Grant through battle-ridden cities across America, with Jules in tow. In fact, Julia wrote in her memoirs that Jules "came very near being captured at Holly Springs."21 This memoir entry demonstrates one way that Julia put Jules in harm's way without her consent, but their proximity to battle also put them both in danger of imprisonment, disease, and death every day. Moreover, Jules' status as a black woman created a heightened risk at the hands of Confederate soldiers, known to treat African-American prisoners more violently than their white counterparts.22
Emancipation ordinance from Missouri, January 1865
Unsurprisingly, Julia's use of enslaved labor did not go unnoticed, especially as the wife of a Union officer. In 1862, Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine reported: "Until we can secure pure men in habits and men without secesh [secessionist] wives with their own little slaves to wait upon them, which is a fact here in this camp with Mrs. Grant, our country is lost."23
In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to enslaved individuals in Confederate-held territory, but Missouri, a border state during the Civil War, was exempt from this act. As a result, Jules remained in bondage; Missouri would not abolish slavery until January 1865.24 Rather than languishing in wait for freedom, Jules self-emancipated—running away from the Grant family during a stay in Louisville, Kentucky in 1863 and eventually marrying. Julia Grant wrote that she "regretted this, as she was a favorite with me."25 At White Haven, it is likely that many enslaved individuals owned by the Dent family similarly took advantage of the Civil War by running away.26
As Julia came to terms with the loss of Jules, Ulysses Grant vacillated over supporting abolition. Early in the war, Grant was not inclined to criticize slavery as a practice; in 1862, Grant wrote his father: "I am sure that I have but one desire in this war and that is to put down the rebellion. I have no hobby of my own with regard to the negro, either to effect his freedom or to continue his bondage."27 Yet, as the war continued, Grant's indifference to the abolitionist cause began to change. In 1863, Grant wrote to Elihu B. Washburn: "I never was an Abolitionist, [n]ot even what could be called anti slavery, but I try to judge farely and honestly and it become patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North and South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without slavery."28
Another factor which may have altered Grant's perception of slavery was the enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army. African-American soldiers first began to serve in regiments in late 1862 in Louisiana, Kansas, and Tennessee. President Abraham Lincoln and the federal government were slow to enact legislation allowing for enlistment of black soldiers, but emancipation, as well as conversations with prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglass, convinced the president that recruitment of African-American soldiers would bolster the Union cause.29 Grant supported African-American enlistment, writing President Lincoln: "I have given the subject of arming the negro my hearty support. This, with the emancipation of the negro, is the heavyest blow yet given the Confederacy."30 On May 22, 1863, the War Department formed the Bureau of Colored Troops, and by the end of the war in 1865, approximately 180,000 African Americans had served in the Union Army.31 Yet, these men (and sometimes women) faced unequal treatment, including drastically lower pay than their fellow white soldiers. In the end, the important role that African Americans played in the Union Army's victory may have persuaded Ulysses S. Grant to support their cause later in his life. Click here to learn more about the household of President Abraham Lincoln.
Unknown African-American soldiers in the Union Army
The post-war period was one of major transition for the Grant family. Though Julia had lost both her personal servant and her childhood home, her husband's election to the presidency in 1868 was a joyful occasion. Julia was delighted to entertain, decorate, and enjoy life in the spotlight. Even better, the Grants—who were used to a large staff during the war—were again cared for by others once they moved into the White House, this time by paid men and women. While a number of first ladies in history have disliked this very public life, Julia Grant reveled in it; she even cried upon leaving the Executive Mansion in 1877, and scolded her husband for refusing to seek a third term.
Meanwhile, Grant's presidency built upon his experience fighting alongside African Americans in the Civil War and led him to advocate for racial equality throughout his two terms. Grant attempted to rectify administrative shortcomings in the wake of President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policies. Although many Americans—even those who opposed slavery—did not believe in enfranchisement for black citizens, Grant vocally supported the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. He opposed the rise of white supremacist groups in the South, like the Ku Klux Klan, and sent federal troops into the region to combat racism and curb violence. The Enforcement Acts, passed by Congress in 1870, provided new protections to African Americans and gave the federal government authority to intervene in any states that obstructed the rights of black citizens. Grant's alliance with African Americans led to his reelection endorsement by Frederick Douglass, one of the most famous abolitionists of the nineteenth century. Click here to learn more about the enslaved households of President Andrew Johnson.
Douglass wrote in his memoir:
Though I worked hard and long, to secure the nomination and the election of Gen. Grant in 1872, I neither received nor sought office under him. He was my choice upon grounds altogether free from selfish or personal considerations. I supported him because he had done, and would do, all he could to save, not only the country from ruin, but the emancipated class from oppression and ultimate destruction.32
As president, Ulysses Grant also supported the migration of African Americans to areas outside of the continental United States—an idea previously held by other presidents including Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, James Monroe, and others. Click here to learn more about the enslaved household of President James Madison. Click here to learn more about the enslaved household of President James Monroe.
However, unlike previous presidential plans which aimed to remove a so-called "inferior race" from the United States altogether, Grant's 1869 proposed annexation of Santo Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic) aspired to create an escape for African Americans from racial prejudice. Technically, the island would become an American state and remain a part of the country.33 He wrote:
[San Domingo] is capable of supporting the entire colored population of the United States, should it choose to emigrate. The present difficulty in bringing all parts of the United States to a happy unity and love of country grows out of prejudice to color. The prejudice is a senseless one, but it exists. The colored many cannot be spared until his place is supplied, but with a refuge like San Domingo his worth here would soon be discovered…34
This political cartoon criticizes Congressional Republicans like Charles Sumner for opposing U.S. Grant's annexation treaty. Their opposition led to a major fissure in the Republican party.
Grant also hoped that racial equality in Santo Domingo might "extinguish that hated system of enforced labor" in other Caribbean nations, including the neighboring island of Cuba.35 Interestingly, Frederick Douglass was supportive of Grant's plan and even traveled to Santo Domingo as Assistant Secretary to the Commission of Inquiry on the topic.36 Douglass and other abolitionists considered the island "an opportunity both to advance and to vindicate a radical vision of racial belonging."37 Despite these efforts, the annexation was eventually impeded by President Grant's political opponents in the Senate, who argued that imperial behavior in the Caribbean was as immoral as the slave-economy that the North had just abolished. Grant's administration was also marred by scandal, leading to a legacy which often overlooks many of his political triumphs and his actions to protect African American citizens. Grant's actions as president underscored a belief in racial equality that contradicted actions in his early adulthood. Similarly, Julia Grant supported her husband's fight for racial equality in America, and made personal efforts to allow African Americans to attend her White House receptions, ordering ushers to "admit all who call."38
After the presidency, Julia and Ulysses S. Grant kept in contact with a few of their former enslaved servants, including Mary Henry. Mary, who grew up with Julia, was interviewed by a Boston Globe reporter in 1900. She described her close relationship with Mrs. Grant: "I stood as close to her while she was being married as you are to my bed…when her children were born they were handed to me as they came into the world."39 Before Henry died, Julia Grant sent her money and assured that she would be buried in the Dent family plot in Bellefontaine Cemetery, Missouri.40
Grant's life is perhaps best documented within his personal memoirs, written as he was dying of throat cancer and published in 1885. Across two volumes, he documented his childhood, military service, Civil War leadership, and presidency in detail, and these volumes are often considered by historians to be one of the best sources on Grant's life. It is important to note that within these memoirs, Grant made no mention of his personal role in the institution of slavery, though he accounted for national sentiment regarding abolition and accounted for the impact of slavery on the Civil War. In the preface of these memoirs, Grant warned that "there must be many errors of omission in this work," but referred primarily in this statement to "officers and men engaged" in the Civil War.41
Ulysses S. Grant is pictured while writing his memoirs in June 1885. He died only one month later.
Within the pages of these memoirs, Grant mentioned in passing his time at in Missouri but did not write about owning William Jones, farming alongside enslaved individuals at White Haven, or running the plantation in Frederick Dent's stead. In describing the construction of "Hardscrabble," a project that was completed primarily by enslaved labor, he simply wrote: "A house had to be built also. I worked very hard, never losing a day because of bad weather, and accomplished the object in a moderate way."42
Though it is impossible to know if Grant purposely or unintentionally omitted his own slave-ownership from these memoirs, his choice was crucial in shaping the way that scholars and historians have discussed Grant's relationship to slavery and abolition in the years following their publication. For almost a century after the completion of these memoirs, academics relied on Grant's personal recollections for their own historical biographies; as a result, his legacy was often based off of what key moments he chose to include—and exclude. Though nineteenth century biographers like Hamlin Garland and William Conant Church discussed Grant's interactions with the enslaved population at White Haven, his personal slave-ownership remained undiscovered for more than half a century; Lloyd Lewis's Captain Sam Grant, published in 1950, appears to be the first mention of Grant's ownership of William Jones.43
To this day, Grant and his family's involvement in the practice of slavery is often overlooked, though it was a crucial part of their identity before moving into the White House. Their actions and choices serve as an example of the fact that women were key participants in the institution of human bondage, rather than innocent bystanders, and show that evolution in Grant's stance towards slavery and African American equality benefitted the country in a number of ways. While President U. S. Grant's personal opinion on slavery is still debated by historians, it is undeniable that his military and presidential leadership aimed to ease racial tensions in the American South and bolster African American rights in the Reconstruction Era, particularly in terms of enfranchisement.
This article was originally published April 17, 2020
"Slavery at White Haven," Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/ulsg/learn/historyculture/slaveryatwh.htm.
Ibid. According to the National Park Service, Dent also owned another St. Louis property where he utilized enslaved labor.
1830; Census Place: St Louis, St Louis, Missouri; Series: M19; Roll: 72; Page: 326; Family History Library Film: 0014853.
There is no legal documentation that confirms whether Julia independently owned any enslaved individuals in her lifetime or simply borrowed and managed individuals legally owned by her father. Nevertheless, she claimed dominance over these enslaved individuals as a slave mistress throughout the first half of her life. "Slavery at White Haven," Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/ulsg/learn/historyculture/slaveryatwh.htm; Julia Dent Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant, Ed. John Y. Simon (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1975), 34-36.
For more information regarding the role of white women as slave mistresses, see Stephanie Jones-Rogers, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 2; Catherine M. Lewis and J. Richard Lewis, Women and Slavery in America: A Documentary History (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2011).
Julia Dent Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant, 34-36.
"Hardscrabble: The House That Built Grant," National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/ulsg/learn...; The Grant family only lived at "Hardscrabble" for a short time, returning to White Haven after the death of Julia's mother to oversee the maintenance of the plantation.
William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1982), 69.
"Hardscrabble: The House That Built Grant," National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/ulsg/learn...
"To Mary Grant," The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Vol. 1: 1837-1861, Ed. John Y. Simon (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967), 340.
"When Grant Was a Farmer," The Columbus Journal, February 24, 1909.
There is no extant evidence of the purchase of William from Frederick Dent—only proof of manumission. This makes it difficult to know exactly how long Grant owned the enslaved man or to trace the rest of Jones' life. Research is ongoing.
"Manumission of Slave," The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Vol. 1: 1837-1861, Ed. John Y. Simon (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967), 347.
Ronald C. White, American Ulysses (New York: Random House, 2016), 130.
Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant Vol 1. (New York: Charles L. Webster Co., 1885), 210-215.
Ibid, 82.
Ibid, 83. This statement probably refers to Confederate Major General Van Dorn's raid on Holly Springs, which Julia, her children, and Jules narrowly missed when visiting Grant in Oxford, Mississippi in December 1862.
For more information on the especially harsh treatment of black captives by Confederates, see "Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War," U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, https://www.archives.gov/educa... and David Silkenat, Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2019).
"January 12, 1862," The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 4: January 8-March 31, 1862, Ed. John Y. Simon (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972), 119; This statement is also critical of Grant's drinking habits.
"Ordinance Abolishing Slavery in Missouri," in Record Group 005: Office of the Secretary of State, Special Collections, Constitutions and Constitutional Conventions (1845-1945), Missouri State Archives, https://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/africanamerican/guide/image005c.
Julia Dent Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant, 126.
The plantation itself remained in the ownership of the family until the Grants gradually sold the farm's livestock and leased it to other owners in 1875. Julia was devastated to part with her family's plantation.
"To Jesse Root Grant," The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 5: April 1-August 31, 1862, Ed. John Y. Simon (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973), 263-264.
"To Elibu B. Washburn," The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 9: July 7-December 31, 1863, Ed. John Y. Simon (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), 217-218.
Jim Percoco, "United States Colored Troops," American Battlefield Trust, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/united-states-colored-troops.
"Ulysses S. Grant to Abraham Lincoln," August 23, 1863 in Abraham Lincoln Papers, Series 1, General Correspondence 1833-1916, Library of Congress.
"Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War," U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, https://www.archives.gov/educa.... Black soldiers also served in the Confederate Army, albeit in much smaller numbers—including enslaved individuals forced to follow their owners into battle.
Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: From 1817-1882, ed. John Lobb (London: Christian Age Office, 1882), https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2007#Douglass_1349_524.
Nicholas Guyatt, "America's Conservatory: Race, Reconstruction, and the Santo Domingo Debate," The Journal of American History 97, no. 4 (2011), www.jstor.org/stable/41508911, 999.
"Reasons Why San Domingo Should Be Annexed to the United States," The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 20: November 1, 1869-October 30, 1870, Ed. John Y. Simon (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995), 73-74.
Nicholas Guyatt, "America's Conservatory: Race, Reconstruction, and the Santo Domingo Debate," 989.
According to Julia Grant's memoir, none came. Julia Dent Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant, 175.
"Julia Dent's 'Mammy'," The Boston Globe, April 27, 1900.
Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant Vol 1., 7.
Ibid, 125-126.
See Hamlin Garland, Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character (New York: Doubleday and McClure Co., 1898); William Conant Church, Ulysses S. Grant (New York: Fred DeFau and Co., 1897); Lloyd Lewis, Captain Sam Grant (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1950).
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The Year of Too Much Wrestling
2019 was a year of expansion and explosion in pro wrestling. It was a lot to digest. Here are five big takeaways.
By Kenny Herzog Dec 19, 2019, 1:04pm EST
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The shifting currents in pro wrestling this past year represented more than a sea change. They were tidal and seismic in both scope and subversion of conventional order. Ever since World Wrestling Entertainment chairman Vince McMahon acquired his closest competition—Ted Turner's WCW and Paul Heyman's ECW—at the turn of the aughts, WWE has had a stranglehold on the industry's mainstream gaze. But since Cody Rhodes and billionaire backer Tony Khan announced the incorporation of All Elite Wrestling on January 1 (and premiered the weekly TNT series Dynamite in October), AEW has crystallized a renewed wave of attention on competing and less established promotions that—poetically—evokes the very territorial network McMahon vanquished and consolidated during Hulkamania days of yore.
It seems as if overnight, wrestling blogs and podcasts were poring over the backstage transactional gossip and in-ring match and/or televised results of New Japan Pro Wrestling, Major League Wrestling, Game Changer Wrestling, Championship Wrestling, Billy Corgan's resurrected NWA, Women of Wrestling, and more, alongside comprehensive coverage of WWE (itself fragmented into distinct properties—Raw, SmackDown, and NXT—on competing networks) and a few select mini-majors like Ring of Honor or Impact. And the latter, newly hosted for broadcast by AXS TV (and anchored by third-generation phenom Tessa Blanchard), has a golden opportunity to be buoyed by the rising tide—even though its place as the defacto no. 2 promotion may have blocked other AEW-style challengers for the past decade-plus.
The Ringer's 2019 Year in Review
Check out The Ringer's look back at the best and most notable of 2019
This has been a tremendous development for wrestling talent—who finally have bargaining power and a measure of creative freedom—and executives—who stand to make money, obviously—and alerted lapsed and lay viewers in equal measures that the sport is thriving and evolving as a vital component of contemporary culture. However, with that has arrived an almost instantaneous whiplash—if not backlash—among diehards, who've been overwhelmed with options and dragged into a factional war for a fraction of their time.
So, what can one say about the Year of Too Much Wrestling? Perhaps that, in fact, it wasn't nearly enough. It's likely too soon to zoom out and assess the broader condition. It has, after all, been a scant 52 weeks within the business's century-plus tradition—and less than that of dueling TV products. But as the year draws to a close, it is certainly worth homing in on some of what we could plainly observe with our eyes and ears as we toggled from NXT to AEW Dynamite to NJPW to MLW Fusion to SmackDown to ROH, and to Twitter reactions and dirt-sheet digging and downright dizzying accounting of all the overlapping personnel and on- and off-screen story lines. Here are, then—and in ascending order—our top five takeaways from the year in wrestling, 2019, a year like no other.
5. What's With the Attitude?
The Future of Pro Wrestling Is Tessa Blanchard
The mode of wrestling on display in every promotion is pointedly contemporary. Emblematic of macro-societal trends, skill sets have become more fluid. Cruiserweights strike and kick like combat veterans, while men made of mountain rock like Viking Raider Ivar cartwheel and suicide-dive as if oblivious to their mass. But once most of today's wrestlers get on the microphone to spit game, their style is decidedly retro. Live S- and F-bombs during Chris Jericho's Dynamite promos and Jon Moxley's mid-match banter have become routine, with WWE responding to the call. (Actually, it may have fired the first shot this summer when then–Raw color man Corey Graves bellowed, "Holy shit!" as Braun Strowman plowed Bobby Lashley through the ramp entrance's LED display.) But big deal. An average Sunday-night installment of Mr. Robot, which shares a network with Raw, rivals Martin Scorsese movies in sheer density of dirty words. Even your typical mic'd-up Major League Baseball game is good for one or two inadvertently broadcast four-letter words. All this walking up to safe harbor's edge (a long-held misnomer, as no governing body forbids cable stations from airing profanity) and fourth-wall-breaking barbs between companies merely papers over the fact that there are only so many stories to tell in two or three hours' time, week after week. (Looking at you, love triangulators Lana/Lashley/Rusev, or estranged mentor/mentee Cody Rhodes and MJF, etc.) Nor is there anything novel about ginning up conflict among parallel businesses, as any student of the Attitude Era and Paul Heyman's influential period running ECW (which concluded in 2001) understands.
New Japan's been staging unfiltered post-bout pressers for several years, its longtime U.S. partner ROH has run afoul of censorious standards since inception, and MLW pushed the envelope of passable prime-time language upon debuting Fusion in 2017.
Which is why it's almost quaint to see that former ROH star Kevin Owens calling "bullshit" on his adversaries on Raw (a show that Heyman, incidentally, currently oversees) or Adam Page promising AEW fans real "cowboy shit" at an upcoming PPV can elicit collective blushes and OMGs. Mainstream wrestling in particular has merely caught up with not just its own industry's brasher upstarts but larger cable-TV trends, and in some sense circled the wagons back to its Attitude Era forebears. But something about WWE and AEW, in particular, vying for the naughtiest invective feels patronizing at best. If their stabs at supremacy come down to who can finish an episode with the most elite flurry of epithets, we might be witnessing a race to the middle.
4. Peace in Wartime
The so-called Wednesday Night Wars—the catchphrase hastily applied by fans and media once WWE graduated its developmental NXT brand from WWE Network to USA on Wednesday nights, in direct opposition to AEW's premiering Dynamite—have been, thus far, fairly cold. Some of that owes to the sheer unwieldiness of today's media-and-TV landscape compared with 20-plus years earlier. Finding a broad audience for content is more challenging than ever before, let alone manufacturing or sowing the seeds for widespread fascination with the relative supremacy of rival entities. The brass tacks of things is that record-setting ratings for Dynamite and rapidly sold-out PPVs have had to fight for headlines with NXT nudging back even or ahead in side-by-side viewership comparables and reports of underwhelming overall live attendance. (Perhaps prompted by persistent chatter about the latter, AEW put out a statement just this week boasting of more than 5,700 tickets sold on average per event in 2019.) Makes you want to go and pledge allegiance to one or the other, right? (It doesn't.) Wrestling has its niche following, and that following is savvy and sleuthy and more interested in behind-the-scenes machinations and wonky stats than sitting with bated breath for each combatant's next scripted move. And when it comes down to it, NXT has creatively outmuscled Dynamite to this point by maxing out all the resources at its disposal—reassigning big names like Finn Balor to the brand, having premium Raw main-eventers such as AJ Styles make cameos, seeing each melodramatic AEW character turn and raising it—and making clear that rather than refuse to go down without a fight, it won't stand for one in the first place. No one said toppling a monopoly would be easy, and for all the deserved criticism leveled at Raw and SmackDown's dearth of good ideas and vulnerability to being outwitted, there's serious reason to question whether they can ever truly be outmaneuvered or outgunned.
3. The Fatigue Is Real
At one point recently, my DVR spilled over with nearly a dozen unwatched hours of wrestling from virtually as many promotions—from the preceding week. It's unclear what would motivate any less compelled individual to tally that much time tuning into, recording, and streaming the slightest majority of it. From the looks of things on Reddit, to name one forum, not too many are even sure where to start. This boom period, which had been brewing before AEW but was undeniably intensified the moment Dynamite detonated on our screens, has made plenty of onlookers wonder when competition curdles into compromised returns. Wrestling fans consume content at an insatiable clip, but they're being forced more than ever to consider the source, which can be challenging when nearly every televised show cross-pollinates talent and cross-references the other. For whatever it's worth, I removed at least one of those weekly wrestling shows from my DVR, which, as someone who writes about wrestling in 2019, either makes me enlightened or mere impostor.
2. Fear Not: There Is an Action Plan
Piggybacking off the previous entry, I am here to help. First, set MLW's Fusion to record on Saturdays at 9 p.m. via beIN Sports. (It's the network that otherwise carries a lot of international soccer.) Owner Court Bauer revived his dormant franchise in 2017 following a 13-year hiatus and quickly leveraged short- and long-term deals with performers including Low Ki, Pentagon Jr., Austin Aries, the Hart Foundation, MJF, Tom Lawlor, Ross and Marshall Von Erich (yes, those Von Erichs), Jimmy Havoc, Mance Warner, and present-day champion and Samoan dynasty scion Jacob Fatu. Fusion is a tight hour of studio-era storytelling elevated by a more-than-modest budget and grounded in the reliable rolling out of several matches featuring modern and time-honored fighting styles alike.
Ring of Honor TV has remained slippery on the cable guide and coy with the match content it even airs, imploring fans instead to enroll in its streaming Honor Club. It's been a weird year for those guys. New Japan's weekly AXS spot is steady as she goes, but with its top stables in states of transition and overall roster regrouping after so many high-profile defections to WWE and AEW, you can get away with checking back in once the road to January's Wrestle Kingdom has run its course. Championship Wrestling From Hollywood is a true outlier, scattered across syndication partners. Its action is more quirky than consequential, and it just lost its biggest name in Scorpio Sky, but Joey Ryan still pops by on occasion to put lollipops in his pants.
Elsewhere, I'll be frank that I haven't streamed enough of NWA Power or AEW Dark to determine whether it's worth cutting the cable cord and limiting myself to online-exclusive goodies, but people are really digging Power, another program that harkens back to studio intimacy and piss and vinegar. (A pattern, perhaps?) But my sincere advice would be to give Impact another go. It's been rejuvenated since relocating to AXS, and continues putting talent in the pipeline that get thanklessly poached by WWE and now AEW (hello, Santana and Ortiz). I even enjoyed their shticky bits in 2019. The Rascalz, for one, are a huge step forward from the good ol' boy creative that gave us Aces & Eights. I realize that doesn't quite cover it, but what I'm suggesting is that if you have no more than 10 hours or 10 percent left to spare in your calendar or recording software once WWE and AEW's flagships have had their way with you, fill up on some Fusion, don't fight the Power, and consider that at least one wobbly stalwart is still making an Impact.
1. The Stars Are Aligned
And they are visible under an all-time brightest sky. Pro wrestling is far from totally democratized, but individual performers have a better shot at exposure than ever before, without having to log 10,000 miles in vans and popping pills to stay upright and sane. (Although for those that have, they're getting a fair shake at the big time before it's too late.) In turn, fans who've yet to see some hotly tipped daredevil on the VFW circuit have been empowered to judge a wide range of talent for themselves without waiting for them to be vetted by WWE brass. To be sure, those cryptic protocols still exist, but for every exclusively bound big name—from AEW's Elite to WWE faceplates like Becky Lynch and Roman Reigns—there are dozens of workers across promotions reveling in self-determination and dealing their own hand as they build powerful brands by way of strategic booking and social media manipulation. But however scattered the players, the field is utterly astonishing at times. Bray Wyatt, Ricochet, Kenny Omega, Tessa Blanchard, Keith Lee, Will Ospreay, Kairi Sane, Penelope Ford, Nick Aldis, Bianca Belair, Velveteen Dream, Jon Moxley, Bea Priestley, Jacob Fatu, Alexander Hammerstone, Jungle Boy, and Britt Baker (and on and on) ... all young, hungry, and hellaciously distinct and dynamic, and all given a spotlight to reach anywhere from several thousand to multiple millions of eyeballs week in and week out at venues and on flat screens, phones, and laptops here and abroad. Monitoring their comings and goings from one destination to another, not to mention speculating on their next moves and sparring over Twitter about merits and misfires, is wearying. But fear not: The chaos of wrestling programming writ large simply can't endure, but the now-and-future stars all this upheaval has erected a platform for most assuredly will.
Kenny Herzog has covered everything from wrestling and television to politics and pop music for outlets including Rolling Stone, New York magazine, Esquire, Paste, Bleacher Report, Slate, ESPN, Nylon, Mic, and many more for nearly 20 years. You can find him on Twitter @kennyherzog.
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