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Hell? Yes. (A Beginning)
So this week I am preaching on hell.
I've never done this. I'm Presbyterian. We don't talk about hell a whole lot.
It's not polite.
Or decent and in order.
But I've heard my fair share of sermons on hell because I grew up in fundamentalist Baptist churches where it seemed to creep into most of them.
Hell, as it was described to me was a place of eternal torment. There was fire in hell as well as brimstone, agony, anguish, eternal regret and the Devil and his minions, who added to the horror by dreaming up even worse ways of torturing lost souls.
And as if that wasn't bad enough---after spending years in hell, lost souls had the Lake of Fire to look forward to after Jesus' Second Coming. There they would do laps in a burning "lake" for all eternity alongside the eternally doomed Lucifer and his band of fallen angels.
I was a rather frightened child.
In fact, at a "Watch Night" service for New Year's Eve I watched a movie that scared me so badly I slept with a nightlight for two years afterward.
"Watch Night" services---for the blissfully unaware---are late night services that we used to hold at the fundamentalist churches I attended. They happened on New Year's Eve. Instead of partying, dancing and downing champagne to ring in the New Year, we were singing hymns listening to sermons and spending an hour or more on our knees praying that Jesus would come back soon---hopefully that night, since we were all in church.
At one of these fun-fests someone showed a "Christploitation" film entitled The Grim Reaper. The idea was to invite "unsaved" people who were going to hell in a handbasket to church that night so they would avoid the damnation of a New Year's Eve party and watch a movie that was designed to share the Plan of Salvation with them.
The Grim Reaper was that film. It was made in 1976 by Tom Ormond, who, before becoming a fundamentalist Christian, made his living making low budget horror movies. It also had appearances by Jerry Falwell and evangelist Jack Van Impe playing themselves.
They make it look difficult.
In the movie a young man who is a race car driver dies in a horrible accident. As he is dying, his brother and father stand near him. His brother, who is a Baptist preacher, tries to get him to pray a sinner's prayer, but the young man refuses to do it unless his dad does. The father refuses, and the young man dies. After trying to contact the spirit of his son in a seance, the father returns home where the ghost of his son appears to his wife in a vision. He is burning in hell, and tells his mother, "Hell is so hot, Mama!" A demon comes to drag him back. The father later has visions of his son burning hin hell, and accusing him of putting him there.
So it was a family film.
Here's a segment from the movie that I found online. Watch it if you dare.
You're probably wondering what frightened me so badly.
It was the clothes. Those leisure suits and big old fat ties scared me to death.
No... I kid. I'm a kidder.
It was actually the poorly done special effects of the young man drifting through his mother's bedroom that did it for me. I was a sheltered young fellow, so sue me.
These were the images of hell that I carried with me. It was a "Turn or Burn" theology. Unless you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, I was told, you would spend eternity burning in hell.
These are the same images of hell, and the same sort of theology that still dominates much of evangelical Christian culture.
I completely understand why mainline, mainstream Christian-type people tend to downplay hell in their theology... or ignore it altogether.
If your reason for wanting to follow Jesus is based solely on a desire to escape hell, you're ignoring what God is really up to in the world: writing a Big Story of Salvation and Redemption for all of Creation.
There's no escaping the fact that Bible talks about hell on more than one occasion.
And if you are a Christian you can't just blithely say, "God is a loving God, who loves everyone, and just oozes love, and such a loving God wouldn't dare do anything that isn't loving." Although plenty of Christians do just that.
God is love. And love is just.
And what is just, stands in sharp contrast against what isn't just, what isn't right, and what isn't good. Honestly, we all desire that kind of God. There's a lot that's wrong in the world, and there are some evil people who seriously need some justice. Who wouldn't want what's wrong to be made right? Who wouldn't want evil to get it's comeuppance?
Which is why I believe in hell. But just as I believe the kingdom of God is breaking through all around us----I also believe that hell exists on this earth, in this time as much as it does in eternity.
And I don't believe it's a fiery pit... or a lake of fire... or a really cold place that is so cold that it feels like you're on fire... The poet Dante, who gave us The Inferno, had an active imagination, and I bet he didn't sleep well either. Centuries after he wrote his epic poem that toured the reader through the many horrible levels of hell, Dante's poem still informs what many people still believe about the place.
Here's the thing, I don't believe it's a place at all. Okay. Maybe it is, but it's definitely some other place that is beyond our understanding and imagination in this place.
And it is with this that we begin our journey into hell and back for the week...
Next: What the Bible has to say about hell, and what we do with all of it.
Christian fundamentalism Dante doctrine Ever After fundamentalism Hell Lake of Fire The Grim Reaper


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This has been a summer project for us. In the next post, I report on an intermediate activity we did. Our results will follow that.
This entry was posted in Measurement and tagged 8 years old, giant slide, Griffin, height, summer project. Bookmark the permalink.
OMG I miss the Fair. Cannot wait for the next installments.


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Joe Boozell | NCAA.com | January 23, 2019
Michigan State-Iowa prediction: 3 stats tell us who will win this top 20 matchup
Andy Katz: POY Candidates
No. 6 Michigan State travels to Iowa City to take on No. 19 Iowa on Thursday night at 7 p.m. ET. You can catch the game on FS1.
Here are three statistical factors that will determine who wins this crucial Big Ten matchup.
Michigan State-Iowa: Prediction, 3 keys
Can Michigan State stay out of foul trouble?
Iowa has the No. 10 offense in the country, per KenPom, and a big reason why is because of how often it gets to the foul line. The Hawkeyes shoot the third highest free-throw rate in the country, and drain them at a solid 75.7 percent clip. That's an incredibly efficient source of offense. Tyler Cook shoots a whopping 7.2 free throws per game, and his supporting cast is good at drawing contact, too.
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Michigan doesn't foul any more or less than your typical opponent, but it's going to be interesting to see who draws the Cook assignment. It will likely be Kenny Goins. Goins is a solid defender who isn't asked to do a ton on offense, so if he's unable to contain Cook without fouling, Michigan State can survive.
The Spartans have been phenomenal on defense lately. They rank sixth in the land there and have held four of their last six opponents under 60 points. And those foes weren't slouches — Purdue and Maryland can score. They had no shot against Michigan State.
The Spartans have the technique, lateral quickness and strength to avoid fouling. But keep an eye on this in the beginning part of each half.
Iowa has trouble containing dribble penetration
Perhaps the biggest factor in this game. Michigan State plays inside-out and makes 56.8 percent of its 2s, which ranks 11th. Goins, Nick Ward and Xavier Tillman form a solid frontcourt rotation, and Cassius Winston is excellent at slicing into the paint and either finishing himself or kicking the ball to the open man. He's averaging 7.3 assists.
No. 6 Michigan State takes down Maryland
And Iowa has a hard time containing drivers. It has the No. 96 defense and its downfall on that end is opposing 2-point percentage; the Hawkeyes allow foes to shoot 51.9 percent from inside the line, which ranks 236th. Iowa's two best players are big men, but neither really protects the rim. Point guard Jordan Bohannon has his moments on offense but he'll likely have a hard time staying in front of Winston.
MORE: The 5 teams who have the most balance
Iowa might want to try some zone to mitigate this issue, but Michigan State shoots 38.4 percent from 3, so this game has a "pick your poison" feel. The Hawkeyes are skilled, but aren't the most athletic bunch. Winston could have a field day.
The Spartans have plenty of bodies to throw at the Hawkeyes' big guys
As mentioned before, the Spartans have three capable big men in Goins, Tillman and Ward. The frontcourt is a strength for both teams. Cook is Iowa's best player, but don't sleep on Luka Garza.
Iowa upsets No. 16 Ohio State
He only plays 23.3 minutes per game, but he still averages 13.9 points. And he's been getting more burn lately, averaging 30 minutes and 21 points in his last two outings. The 250-pounder is a nightmare matchup down low, and Iowa torches teams who only have one good defensive big (or none).
The 3-point shot is all the rage these days, and for good reason. But this specific matchup is about the big guys. If one member of the Spartans' giant trio gets in foul trouble, it's all good. But if the Hawkeyes are able to send two of them to the bench, they'll have the advantage. With Josh Langford still out, the Spartans are a little thin on perimeter players, and they'd rather not go small.
MORE: NCAA.com college hoops home
Michigan State is arguably the hottest team in America right now, having won 12 games in a row. And while the Hawkeyes have been a pleasant surprise this year and are at home, the Spartans are well-equipped to handle their strengths. There's no obvious area for Iowa to exploit.
Score: Michigan State 82, Iowa 74
How we're doing with these predictions
Conference play has not been kind to us. We've dropped to 5-6 on the season, which obviously means we're due.
Kentucky vs. Auburn (Jan. 19)
Our pick: Auburn
Result: Loss
Virginia vs. Duke (Jan. 19)
Our pick: Virginia
Virginia Tech vs. Virginia (Jan. 15)
Our pick: Virginia Tech
Ohio State vs. Michigan State (Jan. 5)
Our pick: Michigan State
Result: Win
Virginia vs. Florida State (Jan. 5)
Kentucky vs. North Carolina (Dec. 22)
Our pick: North Carolina
Gonzaga vs. North Carolina (Dec. 15)
Kansas vs. Villanova (Dec. 15)
Our pick: Kansas
Gonzaga vs. Tennessee (Dec. 9)
Our pick: Gonzaga
North Carolina vs. Michigan (Nov. 28)
Duke vs. Auburn (Nov. 20)
Our pick: Duke
College wrestling: Key results and takeaways from this weekend's duals
Here's everything you need to know about the wrestling results from this weekend and what to make of recent lineup changes, athlete performances and potential championship success.
The 2020-21 men's college basketball season has produced some unexpected stats and storylines.
These 5 scoring duos are making an impact in the 2020-21 men's basketball season
These five scoring duos are making an impact during the 2020-21 men's college basketball season.


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That 90's Show is a hit and miss sequel
The beloved nineties sitcom That 70s Show receives a sequel series from Netflix in That '90s Show. The series is the brainchild of original series creators Bonnie and Terry Turner, who bring along their daughter Lindsey Turner while another alum Gregg Mettler serves as showrunner.
It's 1995, and Eric Foreman (Topher Grace) and his wife Donna (Laura Prepon) have returned to Point Place to visit Red (Kurtwood Smith) & Kitty (Debra Jo Rupp) for the July 4th weekend.
Their only child, daughter Leia Forman (Calie Haverda), is desperate for adventure in her life or at least a best friend who isn't her dad. Deciding she wants to stay in Point Place for the remainder of the summer, Leia finds what she's looking for right next door when she meets the dynamic and rebellious Gwen (Ashley Aufderheide).
Leia quickly blends in with Gwen's friends. The crew includes Gwen's loveable brother Nate (Maxwell Acee Donovan), his intelligent, laser-focused girlfriend Nikki, the sarcastically insightful Ozzie (Reyn Doi), and the charming Jay Kelso (Mace Coronel). Leia realizes adventure could happen there just like it did for her parents all those years ago. As they say, history repeats itself, and the Foreman basement full of teens again! While Kitty is happy, the Forman house is now a home for a new generation; Red isn't keen on the idea.
While I was never an uber fan of That 70s Show, I've seen enough show episodes to give the sequel a series look. But hesitation sets in when I think about FOX's failed early 2000s non-connected That 80s Show. The pilot for the series starts strong enough, and it was great to see the OG characters make a return. Eric, Donna, Kelso (Ashton Kutcher), and Jackie (Mila Kunis) show up in the pilot with a passing-the-torch vibe to their offspring.
I also liked the expansion of Red & Kitty's characters, as Kurtwood Smith and Deborah Jo Rupp both still have that sharp comedic timing. Kudos to the creative team for integrating the two into the storyline. Additionally, fan favorites Fez (Wilmer Valderrama) and Leo (Tommy Chong) return for a few extended cameos. Regretfully though, the positives stop there, as a big issue with the show is the scripting.
I did chuckle throughout the ten episodes, but many jokes fell flat regarding the teen characters. One of the worst jokes occurs when Leia dabbles in marijuana for the first time, which results in her seeing Kitty and Red as video game characters. Another joke that fails involves Raisin Bran. Calie Haverda, Reyn Doi, and Ashley Aufderheide show decent comic timing though. The other characters are just half-hearted attempts at characters from the original show.
In watching the show, it felt like the bulk of the writer's room wasn't teens in the nineties. I was around the same age as the characters in the nineties, so I expected stronger time-period jokes or references. The results would be better if the show focused on Red & Kitty enjoying retirement and traveling cross country, as the writers could focus on Rupp and Smith's chemistry.
The show is partially successful since there are some decent moments with the veteran cast members. While fans of the original show may find something to enjoy with the series, newer fans may not. Hopefully, the writing will improve if there's a second season.
Final Grade: C-
That '90's Show is streaming on Netflix now.


The Faculty of Health, Science and Technology has an opening for one fixed-term full-time employment for four years as Associate Senior Lecturer in Biology at the Department of Environmental and Life Sciences. The initial three years will focus on research in the field of river ecology with focus on stream habitat modelling and environmental flows.
The River Ecology and Management Research Group (NRRV), a research group within the Department of Environmental and Life Sciences at Karlstad University, conducts both basic and applied research in rivers, lakes and the surrounding landscape. The group is interested in the sustainable use of natural resources in watersheds, working for solutions to environmental problems that benefit both society and nature. Areas of research addressed by the research group include river connectivity and the effects of hydropower, aquatic-terrestrial habitats and linkages, winter ecology under global climate change, endangered species, conservation biology, and social-ecological research relating to river regulation and fisheries (https://www5.kau.se/en/river-ecology ; http://www.nrrv.se). Many research topics are conducted in collaboration with stakeholders from industry, administrative agencies, interest organizations and landowners as well as with the group's extensive international research network. The group was recently selected as a 'Strong Research Environment' by Karlstad University, and has received directed funding to further develop its research profile. The research for the first three years of this position focuses on stream habitat, one of the core interests of the research group, and includes collaboration with group members.
For the first three years the position will be approximately 80% research and 20% teaching. Teaching will include courses in the undergraduate and master programs in Biology. The main duty of the position is to conduct research on the effects of habitat degradation, restoration, and streamflow on stream fish populations with a focus on regulated rivers. The successful candidate will be expected to evaluate the effects of habitat and stream flow on fish distribution, growth and abundance employing advanced ecological modelling. The candidate will be the main researcher in the new project: "Advanced ecological modelling for prioritizing environmental flows and habitat restoration in regulated rivers". The project is a collaboration between Karlstad University and key actors in river restoration including world-leading modeling consultants DHI Sweden AB, and hydropower companies Vattenfall AB Fortum AB, and Sydkraft AB.
To be eligible for the position, applicants are required to hold a PhD in ecology or related fields or has equivalent scientific competence. The candidate must have completed the degree or equivalent competence no more than five years before the last date for applications unless special grounds exist.
Excellent oral and written communication skills in English are required.
We are searching for a highly motivated candidate with experience in the fields of fish and river ecology, river rehabilitation, and advanced computer analyses. In the assessment procedure, emphasis will be placed on the applicant's scientific experience in fish ecology, river habitats and ecosystems. Knowledge of macrozoobenthos is an advantage. Special attention will be given to research skills, as demonstrated by the quality of the applicant's PhD thesis, publications, funded research proposals, and other scientific merits. The applicant should have well documented abilities in experimental design and knowledge of statistical and modelling tools. Additionally, interpersonal skills facilitating rapid integration into the research group are important. Experience teaching Biology at the university level is also a merit.
The position is a fixed-term full-time employment for four years. For the first three years, the position will include approximately 80% and 20% other duties at the university (e.g. teaching). The starting date is 1 September 2018 or by agreement.
An Associate Senior Lecturer shall, upon application, be appointed as Senior Lecturer if the eligibility requirements are achieved (The Higher Education Ordinance Ch. 4 § 4). When the appointment for Senior Lecturer is applied for, the applicant should have passed the required training course of teaching at the university level. Permanent employment at Karlstad University normally requires good knowledge of both Swedish and English. The applicant should be expected to be able to teach in Swedish by the end of the 4-year appointment as Associate Senior Lecturer. For other terms see The Higher Education Ordinance Ch. 4.
Karlstad University values personal qualities such as the ability to cooperate and establish good relations with colleagues, as well as the ability to work independently and to take initiatives. Karlstad University is an equal opportunity employer.
The application should include well documented qualifications. Applicants are responsible for submitting a complete application in accordance with the advertisement and for ensuring that the documentation allows for objective and qualitative assessments. A complete application should be submitted no later than the application deadline.
Max ten research publications and max five works designed to convey information, e.g. text books, educational software or popular science articles.
More information on the application is available in "Application guidelines for the appointment/ promotion of professor or senior lecturer and appointment of associate senior lecturer and postdoctoral research fellow" at www.kau.se under vacancies. "Regulations for appointment and promotion of teaching staff" is also available there.
Karlstad University has chosen advertising channels for this reqruitment and decline any contacts from advertising or reqruitment agencies.


annenberg media ♪ captioning sponsored by annenberg/cpb narrator: north america is comprised of canada and the united states.
behind e incity neighborhoods ll of unemployed and underemployed residents. in the heart of the roxbury neighborhood is dudley square, still the regional hub for the city bus line, once, only downtown ston had more shoppers. today, it is rundown, according to developer joyce stanley. stanley: dudley's been an area that's been neglected for a long time by the city, by a lot of banks and the state. d what we want is something to be le to develop sof e buildings, d the rgngsant is something e in ouareao develop narrator: the hope is that large restored buildings might attract new employers to the area. it's a gamble boston needs to make using someone else's money. they desperately need jobs to combat poverty.
map relative verty levelsfor . unfortunately, there are too many poor neighborhoods that qualify. there are many ways to draw the empowermt zone boundary that will decide who can and cannot receive the employment training, developmenmoneand jobs. busome of e choices stand out. haar: you can really define who lives in what neighborhood, and where are the neighborhoods th are living in poverty. and unfortunately, they happen to have a very strong relationship. narrator: but they're not all classic minority neighborhoods. marty nee is a leader from south boston, on the harr, where most residents are white irish-americans. maybe the face of poverty in boston is not just black; maybe it's not just hispanic; maybe there's a broader face of poverty that we need to look at.
the harbor, the interstate highways and new tunnel to the airport. adjacent neighborhoods also contain underutilized industrial space. accordg to some experts, new enterprise will succeed only if it exploits fundamental geographic advantages. commerce in roxbury, for instance, should capitalize onlose psical connections to the central business district. here, proximity can partially compensate for population with low worker skills. east's t hopeful that their proposal integrates the best economic, political d urban geography, east's t the boston team meets one last ptime before submission. what we have been able tos to incorporate all of the important points that people ha made. narrator: they submit the proposal and begin the waiting game.
a large chain constructs a new supermarket. the city offered them incentives to move into neighborhoods they had once ignored. the hope is to bring greater convenience and competitive prices, while anchoring this small shopping center. an intangible result of empowermt zone funding is more cultural and psychological. neigorod and ethnic pride is part of the strategy to promote self-sufficiency and growth. it's a spirit you can feel in places like the popular la cocina restaurant at merengue. this project is like a dream come true. narrator: hector piña is part of the sizable latino community here, and with feder loans and grants, la cocina will expand from 22 seats into this adjacent space for 90. most of the contractors are local, so what we did was, we tried to recycle the money within the community.
economic and demographic data in mapping an empowerment zone. we saw how relative location to the central business district proving their residents links to transportation and jobs. as cities across america seek to reenergize their urban cores, geography can provide the tools and concepts for successful urban planning efforts. in north america, growing cities are being transformed as more and more people choose to live and work far from the old urban centers. such is the case in chicago, illinois, in the midwestern section of the united states. t as delopment here expands outward, it must compete withctive farming communities on the edges of this metropolitan area.
but to many, this farmland is better suited for growing something other an corn. usses reca so tirmployees, ke mrgwn now they have what they've always wanted-- a house in the country. owarommu it's a rural community. it's just... it's a feel-good kind of place to live. come in this route and... narrator: just down the road, tim edmonds is building a whole new community for people like margot brown. soon his efforts will transform this farmland into corporate office parks, a golf course and 4,600 new homes. this is, indeed, an edge city. as you look at suburbanization of america and following transportation corridors, both north and south-- whatever the geographic area happens to be-- it is, uh, an example of that. people here are commuting within the 25-to-30-mile radius.
um, u're not going to see too much migration into the city, but they are currently working with about a 25-mile radii, and they're looking for value and looking for, uh, lifestyle. the development is really creating a whole, new town. uh, we will have up to 5,000 residential units, roughly 400 acres of commercial office areas. we have various retail components, golf courses, school sites. so you're going to see all the elements that you would see in most hometowns. uh, they will all be in one development. narrator: one development-- building over 2,600 acres of prime farmland. pihl: sobo is fe xioumo buyangrth is put pssureo.
, phys lesle pihl: d you could take the money xioumo buand go fishing pssureo. and forget about the chores and the war and the droughts ey're binyoures. ey're buyi youcommunity. they're changing everything andthat you hold dear,oughts and, uh, that's... that's a very tough decision. narrator: is undergoing a post-industrial a w trenotransformation, away from its agriculture and even its urban roots. metropolitan chicago is being reformed, and its new edges are reaching out further and further into the surrounding farmland. greene: this community is very typical of the suburban fringe of chicago.
has come right up against this western road-- randall road. and typical of this type of development, what's followed is retail. up and down randall road for miles is strip mall after strip mall. and this is the latest example. where a new store has come in, you see this wide, expansive parking lot. this was once all farmland, and now what's in its place is this new shopping development. narrator: and local governments are hard-pressed to try and control the pace of change. man: somebody woke up that route 47 and 90 tied together. i mean, people have been going through here akgene forthey'rt ert hereasil o opscon in a town where mayor ed banks currently serves a population of 2,098.
i wish i could figure that out. i think they're tied to the land. they've been out here for generations. the likelihood of more money i don't think is a real consideration. i think he's jusinove t old rm. narrator: individual holdouts can't compete with the constant pressure for development. richard greene charts the rapidly changing land use to investigate development's impact on the area's prime farmland. the geographic information system hasoweds from t soil onseiconoiquit dfoverthe twoto rlladdresd eied uan lanuses from t soil atgrne's gis pdus ap dfoverthe twoto rlladdresd highlighting in red productive farm communities which are most threatened by encroaching development.
could soonon its way narrator: devethe irony is the threat w e to margot's quality of life greo is created by other people just like her. she and michael used to live in schaumburg, t itas toowdedo mangoanund brown: what we han mao that was space, peace and quiet, d pretty much everything i need is at my fingertips. nathamic d people want peace and quiet, along with shorter commutes and continued access to the conveniences of modern life. edmonds: everybody is convenience-driven. and we want to have everything at our fingertips. u're seeinthis migration and the eating up of these areas by development, that's undeniable. it's not that we've created it; we're taking advantage of the demand.
can moderate the eff of gwth, as the search so does development's steady push down the interstate. in north america automobiles and highways have come to dominate the landscape of human settlement. along the way, they have led to an urban development pattern that is unique in the world. the highways here provide extraordinary mobility to the people who live in north america. and that mobility helps fuel rapid growth the result:ancommercials newly developed edge cities. the overall effect: lower population density. the loss of our most buproductive farmland--we sw land, that once paved over, cannot be put back to agricultul use.


Using the simulator consists of assembling parameters and market data onto a number of simple sheets and then calculating VaR and CVaR by clicking the button on the main control panel (shown below) for the type of simulation required.
Position data. Positions can be linear (eg shares; cashflow-mapped bonds) or options.
Asset Details depending on the simulation type. For example, correlations and volatilities for Monte Carlo simulation and for some copulas; Student T degrees of freedom for copula simulation. Historical price data for historical simulation.
The Finance Add-in for Excel includes tools to estimate all inputs required, such as volatilities and correlations, copula calibration parameters, GARCH parameters (for FHS), option "Greeks" etc.
The VaR Simulator application uses the VaR, copula and other components from the Finance Add-in for Excel. More information.
The Hoadley VaR Simulator is free to download to users who have purchased the Hoadley Finance Add-in for Excel and are still within their one year free download period.


Ronald Reagan 2/6/1911 Birth Actor and 40th President of the United States.
* 9/9/1956 - Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.
* 4/12/2002 - Pedro Carmona becomes interim President of Venezuela during the military coup against Hugo Chávez.
* 7/1/1870 - The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence.
* 5/17/1915 - The last British Liberal Party government (Herbert Henry Asquith) falls.
* 12/28/1950 - The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park.
* 6/16/1989 - Imre Nagy the former Hungarian Prime Minister, is reburied in Budapest.
* 3/28/1913 - Guatemala becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
* 1/7/1993 - The Fourth Republic of Ghana is inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as President.
* 7/6/1189 - Richard the Lionheart is crowned King of England.
* 10/19/1812 - Napoleon I of France retreats from Moscow.
* 10/9/1874 - General Postal Union is created as a result of the Treaty of Berne.
* 5/17/1863 - Rosalía de Castro publishes Cantares Gallegos her first book in the Galician language.
John Dewey 6/1/1952 Death US philosopher and educational theorist.
* 9/19/1946 - The Council of Europe is founded following a speech by Winston Churchill at the University of Zurich.
* 3/3/1938 - Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia.
* 6/11/1942 - World War II: The United States agrees to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
* 8/30/1862 - US Civil War: Union forces are defeated in Second Battle of Bull Run.
* 9/14/1847 - Mexican-US War: Winfield Scott captures Mexico City.
* 10/19/1864 - Confederate raiders launch an attack on Saint Albans, Vermont from Canada.
* 9/29/1364 - Battle of Auray: English forces defeat the French in Brittany; end of the Breton War of Succession.
* 5/27/1905 - Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima begins.
* 3/28/1809 - Peninsular War: France defeats Spain in the Battle of Medelin.
* 7/21/1954 - First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
* 5/22/1962 - Continental Airlines Flight 11 crashes after bombs explode on board.
* 8/30/1914 - Battle of Tannenberg.
* 10/19/1864 - Battle of Cedar Creek Union Army under Philip Sheridan destroys Confederate Army under Jubal Early.
* 4/2/1804 - Forty merchantmen are wrecked when a convoy led by HMS Apollo runs aground off Portugal.
* 6/1/1796 - Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state of the United States.
* 12/28/1846 - Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.
* 2/16/2005 - The Kyoto Protocol comes into force, following its ratification by Russia.
* 9/14/2003 - In a referendum Sweden rejects adopting the euro.
* 9/14/2003 - Estonia approves joining the European Union in a referendum.
* 2/21/1948 - NASCAR is incorporated.
* 7/31/0904 - Thessalonica falls to the Arabs who destroy the city.
* 11/18/0326 - The old St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated.
* 11/18/1626 - St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated.


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Book Party
closeReview A professional critic's assessment of a service, product, performance, or artistic or literary work
50 years ago, a presidential commission called out America's 'white racism.' It didn't go over well.
Three books look back on the landmark Kerner Report: "Separate and Unequal" by Steven M. Gillon, "Healing Our Divided Society" by Fred Harris and Alan Curtis (eds.) and "The Kerner Report," with an introduction by Julian E. Zelizer
The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the "Kerner Commission") in session in Washington, 1967. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
Book critic
March 2, 2018 at 11:00 AM EST
THE KERNER REPORT: The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
Princeton University Press. 498 pp. $35
SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL: The Kerner Commission and the Unraveling of American Liberalism
By Steven M. Gillon. Basic Books. 374 pp. $32
HEALING OUR DIVIDED SOCIETY: Investing in America Fifty Years After the Kerner Report
By Fred Harris and Alan Curtis (eds.). Temple University Press. 469 pp. $24.95
Presidential commissions are the most malleable of Washington tools. They are deployed after searing national traumas, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the 9/11 attacks. They tackle specific economic concerns, such as small-business development or the future of the aerospace sector. And sometimes they are even meant to counter nonexistent threats, such as President Trump's short-lived Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
When you're not sure what to do but really want to seem like you're doing something, announce a commission. You'll usually get decent press, a fancy report and time enough for the public to move on.
That is what President Lyndon Johnson had in mind when he created the Kerner Commission to examine the riots that exploded across the country, from Watts to Newark to Detroit, in the late 1960s. Johnson hoped the panel would affirm his Great Society programs and civil rights leadership. Instead, a commission led and staffed by conventional, establishment figures leveled an unexpectedly dire warning in its best-selling March 1968 report: "Our Nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal." The 11-member panel blamed white racism and called for massive new government spending and reforms to redress the conditions afflicting black communities. The commission may not be especially well-remembered — save among aging, nostalgic liberals — but it should be, with controversial and consequential findings that resonate 50 years later.
"The Kerner Report represented the last gasp of 1960s liberalism — the last full-throated declaration that the federal government should play a leading role in solving deeply embedded problems such as racism and poverty," historian Steven M. Gillon writes in "Separate and Unequal," his compelling new history of the commission. The panel, formally named the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also embodied the eternal contradictions and trade-offs between lofty goals and limited resources, between a problem's diagnosis and the prospects for its cure. The Kerner Commission was right about race in America, but its very ambitions enabled the backlash against much of what it hoped to achieve.
"What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again and again?" That is the mandate Johnson gave the members of his new commission in a Saturday morning White House meeting on July 29, 1967, less than a week after race riots left dozens dead and hundreds of buildings burned to the ground in Detroit. "Let your search be free," he urged. "As best you can, find the truth and express it in your report."
Except that wasn't really what he wanted. The commission included Republicans, Democrats, labor leaders, business execs, law enforcement officials and members of Congress, but Johnson made sure to appoint loyalists such as Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner as chairman and lawyer David Ginsburg as executive director. The president expected them to assure the public that he was doing right by black America, yet also reassure white Americans that the problems in the country's cities were not so scary. When Johnson later admonished Sen. Fred Harris, the commission's youngest member, not to forget that he was a faithful LBJ man, the president added, "If you do, Fred, I'll take out my pocketknife and cut your peter off."
But the commission soon split into factions, more over substance than political allegiances. Harris and Vice Chairman John Lindsay, the charismatic New York mayor, argued strongly that racial discrimination and lack of jobs and opportunity for African Americans were key forces behind the riots, whereas businessman Charles "Tex" Thornton wanted the commission to state that the riots were caused by disrespect for law. "He feared that linking the riots to poverty gave people permission to loot and destroy property," Gillon writes.
[The racism of good intentions: review of 'Stamped from the Beginning' by Ibram X. Kendi]
The commission dispatched teams of investigators to several cities that had endured rioting, and they returned with detailed reports featuring interviews with residents and officials, as well as statistics from local agencies and census data. "The evidence they gathered of persistent racial discrimination, and a growing gap between blacks and whites, was both overwhelming and irrefutable," Gillon writes. They charted the disparities between urban black schools and suburban white ones, the daily discrimination in access to housing and employment, and the prevalence of police misconduct against black communities. The investigators tasked with studying the Detroit riots said that police there "often performed with no greater professionalism than one might expect from a huge armed force of white civilian extremists."
Those field teams were packed with young idealists — including returning volunteers from some early Peace Corps cohorts — who doubted that Johnson's Great Society efforts went far enough. Soon, senior commission staffers became convinced that conditions in black neighborhoods were so bad, and white power structures so indifferent, that there was a "rational dimension" to the riots. And after hearing testimony in Washington and visiting the affected cities, even skeptical commissioners started turning. "I'll be a son-of-a-gun," Thornton said, explaining that the experiences "brought me 99 miles further to the left than I thought I would be."
Ginsburg cobbled a consensus around the theme of "white racism" for the final report — "broad enough to gain the support of Democrats and Republicans on the commission, yet elusive enough to avoid pointing fingers at specific institutions" — but that left a more practical matter: How would the commission answer Johnson's final question, on preventing future outbreaks of violence?
Lindsay, who emerged as the commission's dominant player, argued that attacking white racism was insufficient; the panel also had to address the poverty, substandard schools and inadequate housing in black neighborhoods that, in his view, flowed from racism. "It's a plain example of national neglect," he told his colleagues. The commission ended up calling for massive jobs programs, income supplements and major expansions of public housing, among many other initiatives. Lindsay and Harris believed that the commission needed to "shock the public into confronting the legacy of race in America and propose a more aggressive federal program to attack the roots of the unrest," Gillon writes.
But as the potential costs of such efforts reached the tens of billions of dollars, the commissioners who were members of Congress expressed skepticism that anything like this could pass on Capitol Hill. And it wasn't clear that such ambition was even the point. "How did we get into all these recommendations?" Thornton grumbled. "We're a riot commission." Only Ginsburg's heroic efforts produced a unanimous report. Commissioners who barely knew one another trusted him to iron out their differences. He also deflected criticisms by reading lengthy portions of the draft report aloud in commission meetings, leaving less time for debate. (Slow clap.)
Officially published on March 1, 1968, the report became a sensation, selling nearly 1 million copies in two weeks. Even today, the 2016 edition reissued by Princeton University Press is a riveting read. It doesn't just detail particular riots but recounts key events preceding them. It features a meaty chapter on the history of America's racial conflicts since colonial times. It describes the frustrated hopes of African Americans in the nation's cities. And its call to action is dramatic: "To pursue our present course will involve the continuing polarization of the American community and, ultimately, the destruction of basic democratic values."
The commissioners had discussed whether the report should urge the administration to redirect funds away from the Vietnam War and toward domestic spending, but they decided the notion would be too fraught. Instead they wrote vaguely that the "great productivity of our economy" would finance reforms and asserted that America must "generate new will — the will to tax ourselves to the extent necessary to meet the vital needs of the Nation."
The commission had identified vast social problems, and it decided that vast governmental solutions were the appropriate response. It is not an uncommon impulse, then or now, but it undermined the commission's cause. "In their well-intended desire to provide a clear road map for change," Gillon writes, "the commission overestimated both the public's appetite for reform and the administration's ability to achieve it."
The Kerner Report generated substantial news coverage — the "white racism" charge was irresistible for headline writers — yet the president who launched it barely acknowledged it. Johnson was furious that the report neglected to praise his record, and he refused to publicly thank the commissioners. "He could not understand how the commission could think it was a good idea to recommend billions of dollars in additional social spending at a time when Congress would not fund existing Great Society programs," Gillon explains. Good thing there was no pocketknife handy.
The commission's conclusions also strengthened the emerging conservative backlash against Johnson's Great Society. Richard Nixon seized on the report for his law-and-order campaign in 1968. "The major weakness of the presidential commission is that it, in effect, blames everybody for the riots except the perpetrators of the riots," he told a radio show days after the report was published. Weeks later, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, and the violence that followed effectively ended the debate over the commission, Gillon writes. White Americans became even less willing to countenance appeals for racial justice or endorse massive new federal spending for cities.
"The report overestimated the will of white suburban voters to support programs that benefitted urban blacks at the same time that it underestimated their fear of racial unrest," Gillon concludes. "In so doing, it further alienated a key group of voters whose power would only grow in the decades that followed. The Democratic Party would spend the next five decades trying to lure them back."
And, if the 2016 election is any indication, it is still trying.
Many of the commission's findings are relevant today — "hauntingly relevant," historian Julian Zelizer writes in his introduction to the 2016 edition. No surprise, then, that Harris, the last surviving member of the commission, has co-edited a book of essays attempting to update the original report for its 50th anniversary.
"Healing Our Divided Society" includes worthy contributions from economists, criminologists, educators, journalists, nonprofit leaders and pollsters. It concludes that, despite areas of significant progress, conditions for many black Americans remain dire. Schools have resegregated. The wealth gap between white and black America, already substantial, widened severely after the Great Recession. And mass incarceration is a way of life. "Prison has become an economic development policy for rural whites and a housing policy for urban minorities," it states in a typically damning passage. "A racially biased prison-industrial complex has been created."
[The radical chic of Ta-Nehisi Coates]
Yet, if the concerns recur, so do the blind spots. The ambition is vast — major job creation programs, tax credits, minimum-wage increases, single-payer health care and much more — but implementation is again hazy. The book's shortest chapter, less than two full pages, is devoted to financing these reforms: Tax increases for wealthier Americans. Taxes on financial transactions. Elimination of tax loopholes. Higher estate taxes.
Like the original Kerner Report, "Healing Our Divided Society" calls for new political will to change course, and those specifics are even more amorphous. "We will need to tap into the infinite love that lies below the surface in our nation," writes contributor Dorothy Stoneman, founder of YouthBuild USA, "listen to the hearts and minds of young leaders who have suffered from poverty and have a better vision, and build a dynamic movement that is a magnet to the best in all of us and together build a nation that is more wise, loving, respectful."
Reformers must emphasize values and not just programs, the book declares, even if all its contributors offer their own pet policy ideas. "We know what works," it affirms on more than one occasion, with a confidence that should inspire skepticism. "Now, we must build the will to do it."
I wish a couple of Tex Thorntons — and definitely a David Ginsburg — had been thrown into the mix.
Some of the contributors do acknowledge the challenges of funding and approval — "I recognize that our politics will have to change for the full policy agenda I discuss to be enacted," economist Jared Bernstein writes — while others look back on the lessons of the original effort. "The Kerner Commission reached the right conclusion at an inconvenient time," Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne contends. "The prospects of financing the massive project of social reconstruction the commission called for were negligible."
There are political moments when the nation needs prophecy more than policy, others when it requires wonks more than sages. The marvel and the tragedy of the Kerner Commission is that it attempted to do, and be, both.
Follow Carlos Lozada on Twitter and read his latest book reviews, including:
When racism matters, but just not as much as everything else
The 'racial procrastination' of Barack Obama
Is diversity for white people?


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End of the Faith?
Apr 3 • 5 Comments
This week marks the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entering World War I. Dubbed "the war to end all wars," many historians say it was instead the war that ended the faith.
The U.S. entered the war in Europe on April 6, 1917 (the conflict began in June 1914). By mid-August 1914, it had escalated into a world war, claiming in two months the lives of 400,000 French soldiers. The slaughter escalated. By year's end, two million combatants were dead. The former chapel of the French military academy of Saint-Cyr listed its dead for various years. For 1914, it read: "The Class of 1914"—all of it.[1]
The fundamental problem in this war was the rise of the machine gun. It decisively shifted the advantage to the defender, who could hold his position indefinitely. Trench warfare ensued. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were two of the combatants. Tolkien was a 24-year-old British officer. The hideous warfare he experienced shaped The Lord of the Rings, where hobbit Sam Gangee is horrified to look into the bog of Dead Marshes. "There are dead things, dead faces in the water," he said with horror. "Dead faces!"
By the end of the war, the total number of military casualties would exceed 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.
Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor, says World War I marks "the end of faith itself." That's because every combatant nation in the war believed God was on its side. Military chaplain Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy noted that the declaration of war sparked "a run on the bank of God." Only the Vatican condemned the war.
The Anglican bishop of London, Arthur F. Winnington-Ingram, wrote in 1915 that the church's explicit duty was "to mobilize the nation for a holy war." In one sermon, he urged British forces to "Kill Germans—to save the world, to kill the good as well as the bad, to kill those who have shown kindness to our wounded as well as those fiends." A British Easter card showed the risen Christ walking alongside British soldiers.
A German preacher described the war as the Spirit of God coming upon the nation. It was "a New Pentecost." In his paper "Sword-Blessing," Pastor Franz Koehler wrote that the World War will "transfigure our nature, like the Word and Spirit."
The French produced posters depicting angels watching over the allies. One featured L'Ange au Sourire (The Smiling Angel), a stone statue of Reims Cathedral carved between 1236 and 1245. After the Germans shelled the cathedral, only her head was found. She became an icon of French resistance against "German barbarity."
Even Americans got in on the act. Former president William Howard Taft believed the "Germans had mistaken the Devil for God." A U.S. Army poster featured a crucifixion to highlight wartime atrocities, often depicting the victims as attractive young females.
Muslims found all this to be offensive. In 1914, Sheikh-ul-Islam declared an Islamic holy war on behalf of the Ottoman government. He urged his followers to take up arms against Britain, France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro in World War I. They did.
That same year, Achmed Abdullah, an Afghan Muslim, warned that the war would incite "a coming struggle against Europe and America, a Jihad, a gigantic day of reckoning" to teach Westerners "with the whirring swish of the sword when it is red." The dechristianization of the West began the next year, 1915, with the Armenian genocide. A century of Islamic determination ensued to "not only to exterminate the Christian population but to remove all traces of their religion," Jenkins writes.
In 1914, Karl Barth, then a young theology student in neutral Switzerland, was horrified to read of Christians exalting the war. "I suddenly realized that I could not any longer follow their ethics and dogmatics or their understanding of the Bible and of history. For me at least, nineteenth century theology no longer held any future."
Nor did it for Europe's leaders. Most disavowed the religious institutions—almost all Protestant—that had aligned with the various combatant nations. There was "an enormous longing for a new world order."[2] World War II featured almost no religious imagery, as Europe had become post-Christian.
America wasn't far behind. Spared the devastation of the war, the post-Christian shift was slower. America had spasms of spirituality. First, fundamentalism, then the charismatic renewal, then "premillennial ideas surged," writes Jenkins, but at the fringes of society, irrelevant but enjoying numerical success, especially from 1960 onward.
In the darkest hours of World War II, Winston Churchill famously said: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." I'm not sure World War I was the end of the faith. But 2017 is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. If so, the Western church would be wise to recalibrate how long it will take to be taken seriously again. It will likely take decades.
[1] Philip Jenkins, The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade (New York: HarperOne, 2014), p. 31.
[2] Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (New York: Penguin, 2005), p. 5.
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John Bishop says:
Mike, do you have a copy of A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and a Great War by Joe Loconte? If not, I'll bring you one. The best book I've read in the way WW I helped shape Lewis and Tolkien.
Trent McEntyre says:
How much of the decline of the churches during the 20th century do you think was due to the individualism of the leaders and members? Where was the council of close friends to wrestle with Barth or other influential theological voices? Do you think the way that churches functioned in institutional structures that divided the Church across national and ethnic lines compromised the vitality of Christians once nations went to war? What if more than just the Roman Catholic church had a universal voice to unite believers across nations during these great wars?
Trent: Can't answer your last question as we can't know history that never happened. Your first question can be addressed.
The decline was largely due to a privatized, truncated (two-chapter) gospel that sought to save souls but largely ignored society (it was going to hell, anyway).
Your 3rd question: I don't think it's a logical necessity that churches functioning in institutional structures compromise the vitality of the faith. Of course, it happens throughout history. But we also have examples of the church flourishing as it functioned in institutional structures, seeking the flourishing of all.
Marc Horton says:
Relevance seems to be at the heart of the matter.
Barnabas says:
Thanks John for the book prompt.
Thanks Mike for your thoughts.
Your further comment with regard social involvement is enlightening.
IMO discipleship should involve full
P (hysical,
E (motional,
R (ational,
S (piritual,
O (ptional,
N (otional,
A (spirational
resonance for healthy growth, in context of a healthy community
S (afe,
P (urpose,
A (ccess,
C (omfortable
E (xpress self)
Depersonalisation creates the dissonance, through failure of
L (anguage
I (nterpretation
S (ocial
E (mpower
D (iscern ment
Pseudo Zionism is created by ethnic idolatry.
Church universal beyond boundaries potentially moderates.


Background and Aims: Inflammatory Bowel Disease is associated with psychosocial issues which reduce quality of life and impair medical management. However, these issues are rarely addressed in routine care. A model of integrated psychological screening and intervention was trialled to measure prevalence, patient participation, and potential benefits to mental health and/or quality of life.
Methods: During a 12-month period, 490 adult patients at an established hospital-based service were approached to complete screening instruments for anxiety, depression, general distress, quality of life and medication adherence. Disease-specific and demographic data were also collected. Patients who scored highly on screening questionnaires were offered psychological intervention (in-service or externally referred). Participants were reassessed after 12 months.
Results: Psychological screening was well-accepted with 68% (N=335) participating. Psychological care was "needed", with 55% (N=183) scoring highly for anxiety, depression and/or general distress. Half of those "in need" (N=91) accepted intervention. In those who accepted, levels of anxiety (M1=12.11 vs M2=9.59, p<.001), depression (M1=8.38 vs M2=6.42, p<.001), general distress (M1=17.99 vs M2=13.96, p<.001), mental health quality of life (M1=54.64 vs M2=59.70, p<.001) and overall quality of life (M1=57.60 vs M2=64.10, p<.001) each improved between intake and follow-up. Engagement in psychological intervention was six times greater for those treated in-service versus externally referred [X2(1)=13.06, p<.001, OR=6.47].
Conclusions: Mental health issues are highly prevalent in people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Patients are open to psychological screening and treatment. Psychological care can improve patient mental health and quality of life, and works best when integrated into routine management.


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Immanuel Lutheran Church receives $5,000…
Immanuel Lutheran Church receives $5,000 outreach grant
Immanuel Lutheran Church and School in Loveland recently received a $5,000 Lutheran Community Economic Outreach Bridge Grant from the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation. The funding was awarded to Immanuel's Elder Assistance Fund based on its effectiveness in addressing basic needs of the local community such as food, clothing or shelter.
Immanuel Lutheran Church and School has also elected to participate in a complementary two-to-one challenge grant program sponsored by the foundation. For every dollar raised by Immanuel Lutheran Church and School from donors through March 31, 2013, the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation will provide an additional 50 cents — up to $5,000 — in support of the organization's Elder Assistance Fund.
Loveland's Thompson Career Campus shaping up with steel, concrete
New bill could increase access to HIV care for Coloradans
This week in Loveland history for Jan. 19-25, 2020
Colorado History: After 10 years effort to found Larimer County town of Bulger failed


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Center for Health Hazards Preparedness
Statistical Consulting Center
Commonwealth Institute of Kentucky
Youth Violence Prevention Research Center
Center for Health Organization Transformation
Department of Bioinformatics & Biostatistics
Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences
Department of Epidemiology & Population Health
Department of Health Management & Systems Sciences
Department of Health Promotion & Behavioral Sciences
Experiences in Sri Lanka
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SPHIS Home » News » Experiences in Sri Lanka
Wickramatillake and Jacobs
After receiving a Fulbright Specialist Grant, Robert Jacobs, PhD, spent a portion of the spring semester in Sri Lanka where he worked at the University of Moratuwa alongside alum, Aseni Wickramatillake, MD, MPH ('10). Jacobs shares with us about this experiences.
What was your primarily role while at the University of Moratuwa?
I worked in the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) program at the University of Moratuwa. The OSH program is housed in the Department of Building Economics in the Faculty (School) of Architecture. The program offers training at the undergraduate and post-graduate (Master's degree) level in OHS. My primary role was as a lecturer but I also participated some field studies looking at health and safety issues in the garment manufacturing industry (one of the largest industries in Sri Lanka).
Can you tell me about your work with our alum, Dr. Aseni Wickramatillake?
I worked with Aseni on health and safety issues. Aseni is a physician who received her MPH degree here at UofL. In addition to having a faculty appointment in OSH at the University of Moratuwa, Aseni works with the OSH community in Colombo (the capital of Sri Lanka) to implement OSH programs for local industries.
I worked with her at the University through lectures and class discussions but we also set up a field study at a local garment manufacturer that does piece work (putting together shorts, shirts, etc. from pre-fabricated pieces) for major international manufacturers. The manufacturer was interested in transitioning from a sitting work stations to what was called 'dancing stations' designed to enhance worker productivity by having workers move to points in the production line were the process was slowest or where bottle necks were occurring.
Occupational Safety and Health is a major issue in Sri Lanka, not because they don't have the regulations on the books, but because they do not have a robust system of implementing them.
The emphasis was to improve production but OSH was not being considered. The transition would require that workers stand for the entire shift thus potentially creating work health/safety issues. I worked with Aseni and students at the University of Moratuwa to perform a walk-through of the facility, including an evaluation of the processes they use to train new hires as well as an ergonomic evaluation of both the sitting and standing work processes. We had a closing conference with the management of the factory to discuss our preliminary observations then returned to the University where the students, Aseni and I put together a workplace assessment and sent it to the management at the garment manufacture for their consideration. Several assessment recommendations were made and suggestions about possible follow-up health and safety studies that could be done by the University of Moratuwa faculty and students in the future.
I also participated with Aseni in a workshop titled 'How Best to Manage Hazards at Your Workplace' for office managers in small businesses. This workshop was held at a local hotel in Colombo and I provided two lectures that focused on health and safety in the United States and to provide specific guidelines on how to set up a safety program in a small business. Aseni also provided presentations at the workshop. There were about 75 attendees at the day long workshop.
What are the top three public health challenges in Sri Lanka?
- Clearly Occupational Safety and Health is a major issue. Not so much because they do not have the regulations on the books, but because they do not have a robust system of implementing them.
- A second big challenge is waste management. Just as I was getting ready to leave for Sri Lanka there was an accident where 28 people were killed because of a garbage dump collapse (see news accounts). There are very few waste landfills in country so disposal is a major issue.
- A third big challenge is traffic. Not only are there high numbers of traffic fatalities, the cost due to traffic congestion (delays) places an enormous burden on the economy.
- Other challenges include the resurgence of Dengue fever, an aging population, and increasing incidence of cardiovascular disease.
How has this opportunity enriched your career?
Clearly having the opportunity to travel and experience another culture expands ones perspective, not only culturally, but, in this case, by providing an additional perspective on the practice of OSH. Identifying the differences and similarities helps me to put into context why some activities/interventions that work in the U.S. would not work in Sri Lanka (or other country) and is instructive in understanding why some health and safety programs work well and why others do not.
What was most memorable about your experience?
First, the classroom interactions with the undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Moratowa provide a number of opportunities to discuss the differences and similarities between OSH as practiced in Sri Lanka and the U.S., and thus insights into each culture. These were enjoyable and lively discussions and were particularly constructive to my understanding of some of the key OSH issues in Sri Lanka and the challenges of implementing effective OSH programs.
Second, the additional unplanned activity at the University of Peradeniya focused on safety in university laboratories provide an opportunity to assist the University in developing and implementing a university-wide safety program. If this comes about it will be a major step in assuring that laboratory safety issues are addressed, and possibly serve as a model for other universities in Sri Lanka.


Two parents are going out on a lavish dinner date, which they have wanted to do for a while, but cannot because of their newborn baby.
There is a small problem as well. Their newborn baby seems to have an amass of orbs, how this baby got a ton of orbs is unknown, but you are promised them if you babysit the baby without any problems. What they are is unknown to them, but you know what they are perfectly.


We purchased a old school arcade (old style, new technology) that the sides of it and the front marquee can be customized. This arcade will be sitting in our game room of our office. We want the old school characters and gaming machines (mario, joust, pac-man, zelda,atari, nintendo, sony, sonic the hedgehog, mortal combat, dig-dug, space invaders, etc) to be on the design. We want the design to have a good flow not just copied and pasted to the template. Having the "good guys" on one side and "bad guys" on the other is also something we would like to see. We want our logo on the marquee and have a retro look to it.
About #2, @Nasrul After looking further can you also remove the blue and red guy on the right side. Can you leave the pac man bad guys but bring them in front of the blue grid that is laid on top. also can you add the following characters: Link from Zelda, guy with whip from Castlevania, Metroid, and Joust.
About #1, @Nasrul The design I see is only the marquee. We need the right and left side of the arcade designed as well.


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... in photos
Towards an auto-generative Public Domain?
30 Sep 2019 | 844 words | algorithms art artificial intelligence copyright dystopia photos
A couple of days ago, I came across the website generated.photos (via the Verge) a new service that offers 100.000 computer generated portrait images and positions them as an alternative to traditional stock photos. The Verge article highlights the fact that the pictures can be used "royalty free" and the generated.photos website claims that "Copyrights … will be a thing of the past". This made me postulate on twitter that we might very well be witnessing the emergence of an "auto-generative public domain".
It has since become clear that the creators of generated.photos do not intended to contribute the output of their algorithms (or for that matter the algorithms themselves) to the public domain: By now the website has been updated to note that the images are available for non-commercial use only. A new terms and conditions page states that "Legal usage rights for content produced by artificial intelligence is a new, largely unknown domain" only to go on to list a number of restrictions on the use of the "materials and software" made available on generated.photos.
As noted in the terms of conditions the copyright status of images (and other types of artworks) that are autonomously created by AI-powered software is largely unsettled. As Andres Guadamuz notes in his excellent overview post on the topic, there are generally two schools when it comes to the question if computer generated artworks are (or should be) protected by copyright. One school argues that copyright protection only attaches to works that have been created by humans and as a result computer generated artworks can by definition not be copyrighted. The other school points out that such works are not created without any human intervention (someone needs to start up the software and set basic parameters) and that whoever initiated the generation of these works should be considered the creator and receive at least a minimum level of (copyright) protection as a reward for their investment.
In the case of generated.photos it is evident that the people behind the project have made a considerable investment into the project. The website states that they have shot more than 29.000 photos of 69 models that have subsequently been used as a training set for the software. Judging by notes on their website, the 100.000 images made available on the website have been created using the open source generative adversarial network StyleGAN that is freely available via GitHub. It remains to seen if creating photos (which are copyright protected) that are then used to train a out of the box GAN does indeed mean that the output of the network is (a) protected by copyright and (b) that the copyright belongs to the entity that trained the GAN.
While it seems to be at least possible that the creators of generated.photos do have a legitimate copyright claim in their output, that does not necessarily invalidate the idea that we are witnessing the emergence of an auto-generative public domain, i.e circumstances in which computer algorithms produce a (possibly endless) stream of artworks, that are indistinguishable from human created works and that are free from copyright and can be used by anyone for any purpose.
In terms of quality, the images provided by generated.photos are still far from indistinguishable from human made stock photos, but it is clear that it is only a matter of time before the technology gets good enough to produce high enough quality outputs at scale. Projects like the next Rembrandt illustrate this development is not limited to stock photography but will likely happen across the full width of human creative expression.
The future: AI driven on demand creation of visual assets
Such a development would dramatically upend a large number of creative professions. It seems like it will only be a matter of time before stock photography and other forms of creative work where the primary draw is not the specific style of a particular creator will be replaced by AI-generated output that will cost almost nothing to create. Once AI powered systems will be able to deliver high quality creative output at zero marginal cost the question if these outputs are protected by copyright or not will be largely meaningless (a single system releasing its output into the public domain will render any attempts to enforce copyright futile).
From the perspective of those making a living by creating stock photos, background music and other forms of creative work that is about to be eaten up by AI, the emergence of this "auto-generative public domain" must feel dystopian. Under these conditions the primary question that we must ask ourselves is not how we can fit works created by computer algorithms within the framework of copyright law. Instead we should ask ourselves how we can create the conditions for human creators to leverage these technologies as tools for their own creative expression. Instead of mourning a future in which humans are no longer employed to shoot endless variations of the same stock photos, we should look out for entirely new forms of creative expression enabled by these tools.
The revolution was televised (and projected from a plastic chair)
12 Feb 2011 | 186 words | egypt photos revolution technology
As one could have expected the big picture has some impressive pictures from the events in egypt on thursday and friday. my favorite picture (love the chair) is this one showing a crowd watching Mubarak's thursday night television address:
Also really like the mosaic tile facade of the building of state television (especially in combination with the Munthadar Al-Zahdi references) in this shot:
They also have a photo that perfectly illustrates those silly twitter/facebook revolution claims. if this picture says anything in this regard it is that the revolution was largely dependent on mobile phone chargers:
this revolution is powered by mobile phone chargers
and finally this picture clearly gives a pretty good illustration of why the army had no real choice but to side with the people (or at least not against them). which is even more true since all those people are the army's customers.
nevertheless it should be remembered that Mubarak was an Army (or rather Air Force) man himself before he became president. In this light it might not be the best idea to lay all your eggs into the army's basket.
How to carry a shark through the streets of Mogadishu
01 Jan 2011 | 38 words | fish food mogadishu photos somalia war
Just found this picture in the 'the year 2010 in 100 pictures' issue of the NRC magazine.
Probably my favorite picture from 2010. the NRC magazine shows a tiny little version, click on the image above for high-res.
Exploring the Paris Métro
25 Dec 2010 | 90 words | metro paris photos public transport
Speaking about required reading: head over to sleepycity.net for wonderful (and long) write-up by a guy who has spend the last years exploring (at night on foot) the Paris Métro system. The article is illustrated with a bunch of terrific photos.
Reading this makes me jealous. Personally i have never come any further than maybe 150 meters into the tunnel extending from the 'Waterloo' station in my old hometown of Hannover. These guys claim that they have explored alomst the entire Métro system in Partis (214KM according to wikipedia). respect!
More ruralism and less urbanism
23 Nov 2009 | 73 words | art exhibition photos urbanism
Spend yesterday afternoon at the paris photo exhibition/fair in the über-horrible carrousel du louvre in Paris. The whole thing did not really live up to the hype (and the long queues) but fortunately there was one photo that made it worth having ventured into the belly of the cultural-industrial beast:
'un poco de historia, la havanna, mayo 1971' by José A. Figueora.
Bonus: services provided by Dr. Paul of Sese Island, East Afirica
Parallel infrastructures
13 Sep 2009 | 236 words | art europe exhibition migration netherlands photos review
Over the last year or so Sara (together with Suzanne Valkenburg and Eefje Blankevoort) has explored the world of vacation parks in the Netherlands. Many of these parks that had originally been designed for dutch families to spend their summer vacations have – over the years – attracted new types of temporary and permanent residents: Kenyan athletes competing for price money in dutch running events, Afghani refugees, African agriculture students, Dutch drop outs and polish contract workers and their families. Slowly these vacation parks have morphed into an almost invisible buffer zone, assigned to those people that mainstream society attempts to keep out of sight.
The website www.beloofdeland.org ('het beloofde land' ('the promised land') is the name of one of these parks) documents 5 of these vacation parks through video, text and photo's, contrasting their current status with archival material from times when these places where the unchallenged territory of families on vacation. Installations based on this online documentary can be seen in the context of the Made in Arnhem exhibition (from 12 september until 25 october), in the Open Air Museum Arnhem (inside a 1950s vacation house by dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld – from 13 september until October 27th) and in De Verdieping in Amsterdam (from 26 september – October 4th).
Yellow suzuki swifts issued to polish temporary workers by their temp-working agency 'Exotic Green' in front of vacation homes in Patersven/Zundert (foto: Suzanne Valkenburg).
Dark fibre
23 Apr 2009 | 323 words | copyright india film media photos piracy technology
In march we spend a week in bangalore with jamie and the darkfibre crew. we had flown there to take pictures of them while they were shooting for dark fibre (more pictures will become available later).
Dark fibre crew at work on the rooftop terrace of a IT office building in South Bangalore
It was fun and extremely interesting to watch the production from behind the scenes and i am really looking forward to the film (jamie has promised that there will be a trailer on the 13th of may). in the meanwhile there is an interview with jamie and his co-director peter mann on the website of the center for internet and society in bangalore:
'Dark Fibre' is set amongst the cablewallahs of Bangalore, and uses the device of cabling to traverse different aspects of informational life in the city. It follows the lives of real cablewallahs and examines the political status of their activities.The fictional elements arrive in the form of a young apprentice cablewallah who attempts to unite the disparate home-brew networks in the city into a grassroots, horizontal 'people's network'. Some support the activity and some vehemently oppose it — but what no one expects is the emergence of a seditious, unlicensed and anonymous new channel which begins to transform people's imaginations in the city. Our young cable apprentice is tasked with tracking down the channel, as powerful political forces array themselves against it. Not only the 'security' of the city, but his own wellbeing depend on whether he finds it, and whether it proves possible to stop its distribution. Meanwhile, mysterious elements from outside India — possibly emissaries of a still-greater power — are appearing on the scene. This quest for the unknown channel is reminiscent of a modern-day 'Moby Dick', with the city of Bangalore as the high seas and our cable apprentice a reluctant Ahab. The action is a combination of verite, improvisation and scripted action.
bikeboard.pl
09 Mar 2009 | 98 words | photos cycling
A while ago i got a flickr request by someone from a polish cycling magazine called bikeboard.pl if they could use my Ōmiya Keirin keirin photo set to illustrate an article about keirin in their upcoming issue. i said yes and they promised to send me a copy. Today i received two copies of the mag which contains a 7 page article about weird cycling cultures (at least that is what i assume since i do not read polish at all). The three pages dealing with keirin are entirely illustrated by pictures taken from my set:
bikeboard magazine
Computer Science is the Science of the Future [and more pics from Cuba]
07 Dec 2008 | 333 words | future cuba photos technology education
So i finally finished uploading my pictures from cuba to flickr [see here and here]. among them is one more series that deserves special attention. it consists of a number of photos of an abandonened boarding school building that we found along the road from Bayamo to Las Tunas in eastern Cuba. The soviet-style prefabricated builing stands at a stark contrast with the surrounding countryside. When we first stopped there we had no idea what the building was. While exploring the building it became clear that it used to house a boarding school (there is a former boarding school head's office next to the former communist party of cuba's office) on the first floor of one of the wings.
I would guess that the building stands empty for at least 5 years or so. Based on this it is in remarkably good condition: Everything that can be reused (such as the window panes or the threads of the second staircase) has been taken away, but for the rest the building is remarkable clean and the walls are still covered with propaganda slogans promising support for Fidel, Raúl & the Revolution.
Most interesting were a number of rooms that seem to have been used as computer science labs. There are two rooms in the vast building that have inscriptions in a programming language (basic?) painted on the walls: In one – otherwise empty – room the inscription on the wall reads:
INPUT ["mensaje"] , PRINT [] OPEN "dispositivo:nombre" FOR AS [see picture here]
and in another room the inscriptions on the wall read:
PRINT [] DIM , INPUT ["mensaje"] , IF-THEN-ELSE IF THEN [else ] [see picture here]
Another wall in the same room also has 'La Computacion es la ciencia del futuro' ('Computer science is the science of the future') written on on it. What has obviously been intended as a motivational slogan for the pupils now stands in an almost absurd contrast with the surroundings. Guess the future happens elsewhere these days…
Cuban recycling art: beautiful self made race-carts
03 Dec 2008 | 289 words | art cuba improvisation photos urbanism
Cubans are probably the global kings of recycling [not in our spoiled western meaning of the word though, they will happily leave their sandwich wrappers and cigarette boxes lying next to a natural pond in the middle of a national park]. it appears that they can prolong the active life of pretty much any vehicle by decennia using a welding gun and some imagination. The many custom build taxis and busses based on 1950's american cars are the prime example of this, but there are many other examples that do not appear on you standard postcard [such as containers or chairs]. One particular area where these recycling skills are applied are children's toys:
In a number of cities we have seen boys racing down small hills (or other slopes) on self constructed carts made from scrap wood and industrial ball bearings:
These carts are extremely beautiful in their simplicity and the kids we saw playing with hem exposed great skill in navigating them down the pothole ridden streets of Havana and Santiago de Cuba. The carts are all variations on a basic design, that consists of a wooden rectangle used as a frame. at the back of the frame there are two ball bearings on an axle and above them is a small plank to sit on. the third wheel is attached to a piece of wood that is attached mid-way to one of the sides of the wooden frame with a singe nail or screw. the piece of wood extends beyond the frame on the other side and the carts can be steered by moving the extended part of this 'front axle' forwards or backwards.
More images of carts and kids riding on them on my flickr account.


Following a meeting a young woman, Susan, in a coffee shop, a vibrant but unnamed young man is killed after being hit by numerous cars in a terrible accident - all unbeknownst to Susan. Later, that apparently dead man turns up at Susan's Father's house (Bill, played by Anthony Hopkins). It turns out that it is actually the embodiment of Death using the man's body - the Grim Reaper, so to speak. He turns up because Bill is going to die. Susan eventually falls deeply in love with him, believing him to be the man she met at the coffee shop. Death, now under the influence of human desires and emotions, becomes attracted to her as well. Bill angrily confronts him about his relationship with his daughter, but Death (who has now been formally introduced as "Joe Black") declares his intention to take Susan with him for his own. Ultimately, "Joe" takes Bill to the afterlife, but allows the man whose body he had used to come back to life, at which point he greets Susan, with all memories of his time as Death gone, and the destiny of their relationship is left open to interpretation.


Ottawa, April 26, 2016 – Following today's announcement of Annie Perreault's induction to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame, which will be officially held November 1, 2016, in Toronto, Speed Skating Canada and the Fédération de patinage de vitesse du Québec issue the following statements of congratulations.
"Annie Perreault's induction is another demonstration of the impact of our sport in Canada as she will become the 17th member of Speed Skating Canada to be inducted in Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. Once again, congratulations to Annie Perreault and all the 2016 inductees!"
Full details on Annie Perreault's induction is available on the Canada's Sports Hall of Fame website: http://www.sportshall.ca/newsroom/announcing-the-class-of-2016.html?proID=&catID=all&eventID=&newsID=&lang=EN.


text:
Paralys
The Boy With a Camera for a Face
Dulce Dolor
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Good Short Films
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A Guide to Feminist Porn in 15 Short Films
David Lynch: The Early Short Films (1966 -1995)
GSF's Best Short Films 2015
The Arab Series
Beyond the Short: New generation of Italian video-artists
Power, Pleasure & Pain: Gaspar Noé (NSFW)
Gone Astray
"My Self": the intimate diary of Jennifer Medina
Jennifer Medina is a Venezuelan photographer and video maker, based in New York City. Her works sweetly look at...
The selfie generation seen by the young Venezuelan artist's eyes.
(Self produced)
USA / 1minutes
La Boca Del Léon
La Boca Del Léon is a story directed by Alfonso García López and written by Vincent Blonde, inspired by the...
A man obsessed with the world of dead messes up with the dark arts and make one last call for help.
(Geo Films)
Spain / 5minutes
On Replay
Men Buy Sex – by Alice Russell
Men Buy Sex is the first documentary by Alice Russell and she chooses a quite delicate theme. She decided to...
A shortdoc about paid sex that will probaly trigger a very long discussion.
(Fat Rat Films)
UK / 8minutes
Caveirão
São Paulo do Brasil, night time. It's 3:33 am and the time stops. We are in a deserted area...
Every night, time stops for a moment in Sao Paolo, and ghosts and mosters of all kinds dance and play music on the city's deserted streets.
(Hornet)
Brazil / 10minutes
Oscars 2018: The 10 Animated Shorts Finalists
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said that 10 films have advanced in voting in the Animated...
Here are the magnificent ten finalists for this year's Academy Awards: What is new is that 5 of these are available online
/ minutes
Charlie Hebdo, Before the Massacre.
"For the first time ever, a worldwide chain of events has been started by a drawing." says Jean "Cabu"...
The documentary of the New York Times takes us inside the editor office of Charlie Hebdo. A testament that's also a cause for reflection.
(New York Times)
A new short film from Federico Heller explores a well travelled dystopian sci-fi narrative territory—addiction to future technologies, war and...
In the slums of the future, virtual reality junkies satisfy their violent impulses in online entertainment.
(3dar)
Argentina / 9minutes
Modern Life is Rubbish
It's hard to think of a more fitting title for this bittersweet story about separation and the division of...
A recently broken-up couple separating their music collection leads the way for a dissertation on love, loss and the inherent evil of greatest hits albums.
(Self-produced)
UK / 13minutes
Scrambled – by Bastiaan Schravendeel
Can a Rubik's Cube still be an intriguing game for millennials? It is probably the question that the animators...
The immortal charm of the Rubik's cube
(Polder Animation)
Netherlands / 7minutes
The Arab Series #4: The Wind
The Wind is the stop-motion animated short directed by Teir el Akhdar collective, comprised of Lina Ghaibeh, May Ghaibeh,...
The Teir el Akhdar collective tells us Syria and the war through loss, displacement, and forced migration.
(Teir el Akhdar)
Syria / 4minutes
The grief process is a recurring theme throughout the history of cinema. Extremely subjective and universal at the same...
The ghost of a little girl wanders through a dark and spooky city as her parents mourn her passing.
Denmark / 8minutes
Otherhalf – by Ben West
Otherhalf is described by the authors as a comedy about a man who decides to "break up" with himself. The...
A literal conflict with themselves, by Framestore
(Framestore)
USA / 10minutes
Nuclear Waste (Yaderni wydhody) is the striking fourth short film by Ukrainian director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, following Incident (2006), Diagnosis (2009) and Deafness (2010) which represent some kind...
He is a truck-driver at a radioactive wastes utilization plant. She works at the plant's decontamination laundry.
(Arthouse Traffic, Volodymyr Tykhyy)
Ukraine / 23minutes
The Six Dollar Fifty Man
Suburban Neo Zealand, 1970s. Smalltown life ain't easy for those who are different, especially during childhood. Andy is a...
A festival favorite, this dramedy shows how hard it is to be a "superhero" in a suburban school in the 70s.
(Sticky Pictures)
Neo Zealand / 15minutes
The Most Astounding Fact
In an interview with Time, astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson shares his personal and poetic perspective on the wonders of...
"What's the most astounding fact you can share with us about the universe?" The astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson answers.
Online Premiere: Terra
A regular night on a ferry headed to Sicily. It's presumably Winter, one of those off-season trips in which...
Various human types meet on a night ferry's regular trip.
(CSC)
Italy / 23minutes
Written by proven duo Drew Grubich and Nickolas Duarte, fresh authors of the award-winning Fish Hook, Sea Change is a...
Two sisters travel up to Pacific Coast to seek an alternative treatment for the younger sister's misterious disease.
(Crown Chimp Productions)
It is an evening like many others, a Friday or a Saturday probably, the city is steeped in their...
A lost soul wandering in the city until he's reached by the specter of Death in a revelatory encounter.
(El Zorrero Films)
Little Shit – by Richard Gorodecky
The acclaimed short film Little Shit by Richard Gorodecky has collected many awards in its festival run, including that...
A child's journey to discover his and London's hidden nature
(Post Panic)
"Box" is a "demonstrative" shortfilm published by Bot & Dolly, a San Francisco-based production house specialized in robotics, automation and shooting...
The first world experiment of 3D mapping on 2D objects in motion achieved via remote control of two industrial robots and the combined use of different technologies.
(Bot & Dolly )
Short Film Day: beautiful shorts in the shortest day of the year.
On December 21, the shortest day of the year, 22 Italian cities and 17 internationals celebrated the short film...
Thanks to the Italian Short Film Centre the national short film scene stands out at the Short Film Day with a wide and quality selection.
Chop My Money – by Theo Anthony
Patient, the protagonist of Chop My Money, short doc directed by Theo Anthony, lives in Goma, Congo. In Congo there...
This world is not the world: a day in the life of three street kids in the Eastern Congo
(Theo Anthony Productions, LLC)
"The sunken homeland; visiting a strange place, and the certainty that we are not alone. ECHO is about how...
People, animals and buildings create a visual echo in this surreal and atmospheric animation.
Germany / 5minutes
Oscars 2018: 10 Documentary Shorts Finalists
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has unveiled the 10 finalists for the Documentary Shorts Oscar. The...
Like the nominees in the feature-length Best Documentary category, these 10 films feature an array of powerful subjects
Torino Short Film Market 2017: Interview with Jacopo Chessa
Torino Short Film Market is back with its second edition. From November 29 to December 1, 2017, in the...
From November 29 to December 1, the one and only short film market in Italy comes back with its second edition: a small talk with its creator
Lazy Daze – by Brian Smee
How is like a dog's dream? Maybe something similar to what is depicted by the young American animator Brian Smee in...
A kaleidoscopic journey into a dog's dream.


text:
Hellenbrand Honored as Friend of Expo
Oct. 8 2020 07:11 PM
The information below has been supplied by dairy marketers and other industry organizations. It has not been edited, verified or endorsed by Hoard's Dairyman.
World Dairy Expo is honored to present Michael Hellenbrand of Cross Plains, Wisconsin with a posthumous 2020 Friend of Expo Award. This award is given annually to volunteers of World Dairy Expo who continuously go above and beyond for the organization. Sadly, Hellenbrand passed away this summer, but the positive impact he had on World Dairy Expo will remain for years.
Hellenbrand served on the World Dairy Expo Board of Directors as the current First Vice President and was a past Treasurer and former chairman of numerous committees. His financial background, gained through years of working on Wall Street, were a valuable asset to Expo as Hellenbrand helped to strengthen the organization's financial position. He also played a large role in the construction of the New Holland Pavilions at the Alliant Energy Center and was a vocal advocate for Showring ethics and youth exhibitors.
"Mike was a true ambassador for World Dairy Expo," shared Bill Hageman, WDE Board President. "While he especially enjoyed providing opportunities for youth to experience the thrill of showing on the colored shavings, he was also very willing to share his time and his perspective for the greater good of the Expo family. He was the kind of friend who would pick you up if you got knocked down, but at the same time, one who was willing to give it to you straight – good news or difficult news."
A virtual award presentation can be found at www.worlddairyexpo.com or on Expo's Facebook page.
Serving as the meeting place of the global dairy industry, World Dairy Expo brings together the latest in dairy innovation and the best cattle in North America. Crowds of more than 62,000 people, from nearly 100 countries, will return to Madison, Wis. for the 54th event, September 28 through October 2, 2021, when the world's largest dairy-focused trade show, dairy and forage seminars, a world-class dairy cattle show and more will be on display. Download the World Dairy Expo mobile event app, visit worlddairyexpo.com or follow WDE on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube for more information.
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text:
Q: Popup is not a proper child of its parent window? I'm trying to create a stylish window with icon in the top-right corner that is partly outside the window boundary. Since this is not directly possible (content falling outside the window is clipped), I'm using a Popup control for it.
<Popup Placement="Right" HorizontalOffset="-80" VerticalOffset="-40" IsOpen="True" AllowsTransparency="True"
       PlacementTarget="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType=Grid}}">
  <Image Source="pack://application:,,,/graphics/AdminIcon.png" Stretch="None" />
</Popup>

It works fine, as long as I don't switch between windows. Thereupon it looks like the Popup is neither a proper child of the Window, nor a fully separate window of its own; something in-between.
I'll try to explain it with two images:
Image1: Window loaded and popup showing nicely in the right-top corner:

Image2: ALT + TAB: Notepad somehow injects itself between Popup and Window

How do I solve this problem?

A: Instead of a Popup you may use a borderless, transparent Window:
<Window ...
    WindowStyle="None" AllowsTransparency="True" Background="{x:Null}"
    MouseLeftButtonDown="Window_MouseLeftButtonDown">
    <Grid>
        <Grid Margin="0,20,0,0" Background="White">
            ... window content goes here
        </Grid>
        <Image
            Source="/graphics/AdminIcon.png" Stretch="None"
            HorizontalAlignment="Right" VerticalAlignment="Top" />

    </Grid>
</Window>

with this MouseLeftButtonDown handler
private void Window_MouseLeftButtonDown(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e)
{
    DragMove();
}

and perhaps a close button somewhere.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Tour Chunyaxche and Muyil lagoons and swim in a centuries-old Maya canal. It's a lovely way to see the second-largest lagoon in Quintana Roo, and the mangroves harbor orchids, saprophytes and numerous birds. To reach the lagoon shore by car, turn down a dirt road about 250m south of the Muyil archaeological site.