text:
To Hell With It
Pity The Bitch: worn out after a big writing project, and her RSI so bad on Friday evening that SHE COULDN'T LIFT A GLASS OF WINE!!!! Well, that was it. Envy The Bitch: she's off to the sun for a week to nurture her arm and hone her bitching skills while drinking cava through a straw...
Taking Comfort by Roger Morris
Macmillan New Writing. Cause of well documented controversy. No advances for writers, but, according to the website, books by talented new writers who 'otherwise might fail to get into print'.
A potentially dangerous statement to make, this last, you might think, but now they've made it, let's examine it via the one the Bitch has now read, Roger Morris's Taking Comfort.
Here's the blurb through which you approach the book:
It's Rob's first day in his new job. On the way into work, he sees a student throw herself under a tube train. Acting on an impulse, he picks up a file she dropped as she jumped. Over the next few days, he's witness to other disturbing events, some more serious than others. From each one he takes a 'souvenir'. As his behaviour becomes increasingly obsessive, he crosses the line between witnessing disasters and seeking them out, and events begin to spiral out of control.
Hm. Sounds a bit like a thriller and not, therefore, quite The Bitch's cup of tea, a very different sort of thing from the brilliant psychological story by the same author, The Symptoms of his Madness Were as Follows which she once published in metropolitan, her literary magazine. Though that, too, was about a man with an obsession... So let's give it a go.
The bookseller holds it up (The Bitch has had to order it) and the dustcover confirms the impression: those dun greys, those fine lines like the crosshairs of a gun's sighting, that view of the tube station similarly circled, the blood-red lights of the train intimating violence and death, that minimalist collage of what seem like mystery/thriller clues: the knife, so iconically thrillerish, pointing towards that unsettling scene, but then the stranger teabag with its cosier Agatha-Christie-type connotations. The typeface: angular and sans serif mainly, though curiously not entirely, but on the whole at odds with its message 'Taking Comfort' - though, The Bitch thinks, carrying home the black shiny Waterstone's bag, comfort is perhaps what people read thrillers for: the comfort of the familiar mode, the comfort of violence packaged and dealt with and formulated - precisely the things which make her impatient with the genre.
She gets home. She sits down. She opens the book up, and she knows straight away that this is something else. Nothing formulaic at all, but something original and exciting; it's a book which deals, yes, with the violence and the existential fear which imbue every thriller, but its real task is to question our contemporary psychological reality, and the way it does this is by attention to LANGUAGE.
Language is where this book is at. Rob, the book's main character, (like Morris himself) works in marketing. He weighs words, he knows the weight of words, and we learn to weigh them with him as the book plugs us directly into his psyche. The novel begins as Rob makes his way to his new marketing job carrying his new briefcase, a Di Beradino classic, its marketing copy running in his head:
Robust stitching and lined with a cotton material Flapover conceals triple sectioned interior pus pockets on front Size 44 x 33 x 14cm
He is a marketing man. He can appreciate the abrupt punctuation-free poetry of that copy.
He is a marketing man. A phrase which recurs, a litany inside Rob's head, like other phrases, and phrases in the heads of other characters, replicating the psychology by which we maintain our tenuous hold on reality, and our sense of safety. The Bitch appreciates the poetry of this prose.
Furthermore, the novel is concerned with the way in which, in our commercial yet post 9/11 world we assuage our existential dread with objects:
In his hand, you have to imagine how it feels, the Di Beradino classic briefcase... The whole focus of his being is in the grip of his hand around that hard leather handle, in the way the seam stubs into the underbellies of his fingers, in the swing of the handle in its sold brass satin finished fittings. In the sense he has of its contents and how they influence the swing and how that swing uplifts him.
This is how we 'take comfort', how all of the novel's characters take comfort, pinning their fears and desires on certain objects - Rob's wife Julia on her particular brand of cooking knife, the Sabatier Au Carbone 8 inch Carbon Steel Chef's Knife (the knife on the dustcover), the receptionist on her Twirl mug - their psyches/identities and the objects becoming intertwined. And the form of the book replicates this perfectly, each short chapter being named for a branded object, and each moving forward the action through a character's relationship with that object.
It is Rob's intimate understanding of all this, as a marketing man, which sets him on the obsessive object-collecting course which will lead towards terror...
And as the Bitch is reading, she becomes aware of her own implication in these things. She remembers how she felt about the shiny black Waterstone's bag as she brought the book home. How she loves those bags, their glossiness, the depth of their blackness, the way they slip on the surface of the books inside them, and the freight of memory they carry, all those author readings when Robert Topping was at Manchester Waterstone's...
And the hardback book now in her hand. Taking Comfort. There's a lovely weight to it, solid without being heavy, it kind of anchors comfortably in her hand. And the cover, a matt ground with the picture and objects picked out in a shiny texture, and the dustcover very nice substantial paper, weighted in place around the contours of the book, with a comforting silky feel to the touch. The flyleaf a classy heavy paper in navy. In fact, the book is beautifully bound, just like books used to be, and the creamy paper is more than satisfying to turn and of a texture which makes the print easy to read. And there's a dark-blue ribbon marker which The Bitch can't help sometimes handling, and at its end a ridge of glue to stop it unravelling, a little nub which is somehow satisfying to rub across the cushion of your thumb. As an object this book is a beautiful thing, freighted, weighted, with this meaning: that this novel has been published with thought and care - is it too much to say even with love? - by people who understand it and want to do it justice, and have thought about how to carry its meanings in a concrete dimension.
And then The Bitch begins to notice imperfections which, freighted with this meaning, are touching, almost moving: on page 23 of her copy a small portion of the print is smudged, which makes her think of the guys at the printer's working on this book - all the work that has gone into this book! - and the care which has meant that there are no other smudges; and then she comes upon a pair of pages which have creased, ever so slightly, in the folding process, and the even fainter imprints of those creases on the adjoining pages, and she thinks of the people working those folding machines, and of the fact that however mechanised the printing process nowadays, it's still such a searingly human endeavour...
Yet none of this distracts her from the words of the novel; strangely, but not so strangely, the novel and these thoughts enhance each other. And as she reads compulsively on - this is a book The Bitch can't put down - and the events, as the blurb promised, spiral, she finds that she is fingering the final pages, and maybe she wouldn't have noticed she was doing it but for the fact that she finds these pages won't open at the bottom, they're not properly cut. And it even occurs to The Bitch that this could be a deliberate marketing ploy, but whether or not it is, it adds to her sense of excitement, as well as flooding her with thoughts of former times when the pages of books, routinely, had to be cut, and in a very concrete way this places this book, so supremely about our contemporary existence, in the tradition of great writing in which it belongs.
So. This is a book which opens up your perceptions, challenges your assumptions and makes you think about language. Does this mean, as Macmillan say, that 'it might otherwise have failed to get into print'? Well, if The Bitch's own experience as a writer is anything to go by, she thinks, yes, probably. It is clearly the thriller aspect of the book, though, which Macmillan have decided to stress in the marketing, and as I said in an earlier post, with the right marketing you can sell anything. I hope I'm right, because this book deserves to be read, and people deserve the chance to read it.
Labels: Book blurbs, Book review, MacMillan New Writing, Marketing fiction, my reading, Roger Morris
Living Through the Kids
With reference to my final comment yesterday, here's a piece by John Mullan in today's Guardian, about one way books can be kept alive.
Posted by Elizabeth Baines at 11:01 am 1 comment: Links to this post
Labels: Marketing fiction
Glittering Inconsistencies
Jason Cowley, in today's Observer, writes about what he calls 'our age of awards'. Prizes are becoming the ultimate measure of cultural success and value, he says, and compares them (as I compared the Observer's own recent 'Best Of' list) to sports events.
There was a time when, as Wordsworth wrote, 'Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.' The culture is no longer so patient. In a time of information overload - of cultural excess and superabundance - our taste is being increasingly created for us by prize juries and award ceremonies... Prizes create cultural hierarchies and canons of value. They alert us to what we should be taking seriously: reading, watching, looking at, and listening to. We like to think that value simply blooms out of a novel or album or artwork - the romantic Wordsworthian ideal. We would like to separate aesthetics from economics, creation from production. In reality, value has to be socially produced.
I think Cowley hits the nail on the head here, but I also think he seriously weakens his own argument by taking to task Martin Amis and Phillip Roth for purporting to despise prizes yet nevertheless being in thrall to them. Amis, he says, for all his elevated disapproval, is preoccupied perhaps more than any other writer of his generation by the larger literary game, by who is winning and losing, and goes on to cite Amis's novel on the subject, The Information. As for Roth, a writer known to take an active part in his own jacket designs, Cowley calls him 'disingenuous' for allowing himself to be represented on his latest by merely a long list of prizes won, an act which Cowley calls 'an exercise in self-aggrandisement'.
But surely, in relation to Amis, the point is that it is those who fall on the wrong side of a cultural situation (Amis is famously not a prize-winner) who know best its iniquities (and will be obsessed with them)? And if, as Cowley says, prizes have a stranglehold on our culture, then an understanding of the iniquities does not free anyone, including Roth, from the trap. Cowley thinks there is a sense of presumption in not noting where or when the writer was born: as if to say, 'You know exactly who the famous and excellent Philip Roth is, he needs no introduction.' Instead, we are told only what he won, as if past achievement validates the present offering. Well, excuse me, but, against the grain of the cult of personality, I think a writer's literary history is more important than his personal one...
But then at the end Cowley tells us this about the prize culture: ...it shouldn't be taken too seriously, and one wonders how serious he himself is being. This is his reason: no one now has heard of the first Nobel Literature prizewinner, Sully Prudhomme, who won that year over Tolstoy. But, to take his earlier argument further, it's a different culture now. In this era of remainders and the slashing of backlists, would Tolstoy's books remain on the shelves nowadays long enough to become classics, or would they have been binned, as he tells us Lionel Shriver's were before she won the Orange Prize?
Posted by Elizabeth Baines at 12:49 pm No comments: Links to this post
Labels: Literary prizes
Tagged, Memed, Caught Out Again
The Bitch has been tagged, memed, and last week when it first happened she didn't even know what it meant.
Last week Debi Alper, who has a fabulously witty blog, tagged her thus: Five Things Feminism Has Done For Me. Well, this is what feminism has done for The Bitch:
1. To make her stick to her own agenda (fiction and publishing, not feminism!).
2. To make her set her own rules (five things be blowed).
Today Roger Morris zaps her: Eight Things About Me.
What???? Well, here goes:
1. Far from wanting to reveal eight things about herself, The Bitch would still be anonymous if Blogger hadn't undone her (for The Bitch's anonymity was in part an attempt to underline her view that in our present cultural climate words and ideas are subverted to image and personality).
2. Even on her writer's blog The Bitch tries to stick to professional matters, though she knows she's not successful, and anyway being professional means using images etc in just the way she critiques here.
3. The Bitch once ate for breakfast a literary agent who wanted to sell her fiction as autobiographical.
4. The Bitch once ate for tea an editor who ditto.
5. The Bitch keeps a bullwhip ready for when newspaper journalists come calling and ask to go to the loo and go through your cabinet.
6. Schooled from the age of five, The Bitch has never, ever allowed anyone to misquote her
7. or judge her work by her life.
8. The Bitch is a writer of fiction. (Geddit?)
And now I'm supposed to tag someone else. How about Ms Baroque, Fessing Author, Alias Lucy Diamond , nmj, and Bournemouth Runner at The Art of Fiction (and they can choose either meme or none at all..)
Labels: Journalism, literary anonymity, memes
The Bitch Munches her Words
I stand corrected: there was at least one other writer I knew at Murat Belge's talk on Freedom of Expression last Saturday. Last night we were waiting in the Museum cafe to be let into the Animal Room (!) for a reading by the American poet Sharon Olds (a Manchester Literature Festival and Poetry School event). Poet and Poetry School coordinator Linda Chase came up and said she'd seen our backs in the church. She was way at the back and left before I turned round at the end to check out the crowd - because, from what she said, she hadn't been nearly as impressed as I and The Partner were, though she was too busy organising last night's event to stick around and say why...
Labels: Freedom of expression, Manchester Literature Festival
Oh, The Bitch is undone! (Maybe).
Last night she went with The Partner to a reading by the Irish poet, playwright and novelist Sebastian Barry. Now Barry to The Bitch's mind is a quite brilliant writer, a writer after her own heart, one of those you read and get the quite spooky feeling that he's written what you might have written, or would have written if you could/in another life, or already once did in a previous life etc, etc. Turned out he's a brilliant reader as well, which so few novelists are, and The Bitch was bewitched, and, as he read from his latest novel A Long Long Way, laughing and in tears.
Then he turned to one of his plays and read a long tale-telling speech from near the end about a dog and a ewe, which he pronounced, exactly as the Bitch's Irish father did, 'Yo'. The Partner gave The Bitch a nudge, and she knew what he was thinking: about the tale her father always told of the time he was eight years old but not at school because his parents were so poor, and the schoolmaster happened by and asked him if he could spell ewe, and he could, so after all he went to school, paid for by the church... It's one of those little incidents from real life I've pleated into the made-up rest of a novel of I've just written.
Well, then I went to get my copies of Barry's books signed, and I told Barry what a brilliant writer I thought he was, not caring if he thought I was a suck, and he looked ridiculously pleased, and it was like some kind of literary love-in. And then The Partner, who was standing right beside The Bitch, said,'Tell him about your father's ewe.' For god's sake! (These people at signings, wanting to come up and identify, and tell you their life stories!) But Barry was looking curious now - or was that glazed? - and out of embarrassment, The Bitch told him.
A strange look had come over Barry's face. 'What church was that?' he wanted to know. 'What town was it?' The Bitch answered in embarrassment, feeling possibly patronised - for god's sake, it was meant to be just a throwaway anecdote! She began to leave (to make a hasty retreat) and Barry said, his face impassive: 'Don't be surprised if you come across that incident in the next thing I write.'
The Bitch jumped like a scalded cat. 'You can't! I've just put it in my novel!'
'We'll just have to see who gets there first.'
'But that's not fair! You've got a publisher, and I haven't yet!'
His face was bland, beatific. 'It never is fair.'
'Bastard!'
His grin was impassive, enigmatic.
I think he was joking (why the hell would he want my silly little anecdote?). But just in case: YOU READ IT HERE FIRST.
Posted by Elizabeth Baines at 7:53 am 5 comments: Links to this post
Labels: author readings, stolen ideas
Voices and Ears
Yesterday afternoon I went to St Ann's Church in the centre of Manchester for the talk on Freedom of Expression by Turkey's Murat Belge, an Amnesty International event which was part of the Manchester Literature Festival.
How could this be more timely - two days after Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist, was awarded the Nobel Prize and the French parliament approved a bill outlawing the denial of the Turkish massacre of Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century. (Earlier this year, of course, Pamuk narrowly escaped trial for his 'insult to Turkishness' in referring to this episode and calling it a massacre.) Belge is indeed Pamuk's publisher in Instanbul.
Now, you know, I always have a funny feeling about churches. I can never enter a church without thinking of the tensions around religion in my own childhood household (my parents were of different religions, Catholic and Protestant), and they take me back to those days and Sunday School where I always felt like both a traitor and a heathen and was filled with a frightening sense of being out of place and somehow punishably in the wrong. But somehow yesterday...
The sun was drenching Manchester as we drove in, mid-October and people strolling in sleeveless vests and sandals; this wasn't the Manchester we have always known (it used to be frosty for the Poetry Festival!), it was Manchester autumn easternised, and the John Rylands Library on Deansgate, newly cleaned and extended, no longer seemed simply grimly Northern Neo-Gothic but glowed a mediterranean red. And St Ann's Church was filled with light, the stained-glass windows showing up as delicate pastel, and all the wood coloured like honey.
At the front, as people filed in, Murat Belge was trying out the microphone, which didn't seem to be working very well. He was a little man, and he wasn't fierce or intent as the picture above portrays him, but he looked like someone's grandad, and he had a twinkle in his eye. 'Come nearer to the front,' the organisers asked us, because of the microphone problem and because , they said, Murat Belge had a 'very quiet voice', and we did. Beginning his talk in an indeed quietly husky voice, Belge explained: he'd had glottal cancer, and having the choice of surgery, had opted (he said with a twinkle) 'to lose a little of his voice rather than his life.'
And then in his quiet husky voice he talked for forty minutes, about the significance of Pamuk's Nobel Prize and the French parliamentary vote, about the history of Turkey which has given rise to its present position, caught between east and west and the forces of traditionalism and modernisation, and about the prospect of Turkey's entry into the EU. No need for microphones: everyone was riveted, and you could have heard a pin drop in that church.
Magaret Atwood in Friday's Guardian and Robert McCrum in today's Observer praise the choice of Pamuk for the Nobel as the absolutely right moral decision, and of course they are right. I have only read Pamuk's Snow, and at the time I and my reading group, bringing to it our contemporary western literary expectations, found it heavy going, but that novel has stayed with me since in a way few novels do: dream-like and snowbound, aching with isolation and confusion and the sense of lost empire. However, Belge, an avowed internationalist, fears that the prize, and the French parliamentary vote, will provoke a backlash. He told us that although at one time 70% of the Turkish population was in favour of EU entry, that figure, under the influence of the traditionalists, has now dropped to 40%. Pamuk is viewed by many in Turkey as a traitor, and now, Belge said, in the wake of these two major events, the traditionalists will be able to say, Look at the kind of people we would be joining if we joined the EU. And he agreed with a comment from the floor that if Turkey does not join the EU, the way will be paved for a strengthening of fundamentalist Islamism.
Another question from the floor: 'What would happen to you if you gave this talk in Turkey?'
Belge paused. Then: 'Nothing.' He twinkled. 'Nothing. Usually. When it happens [arrest or prosecution for speaking out], it happens because a certain group decides go to the authorities and force them to act. And the authorities will act thinking, Well, nothing will really happen... But then of course sometimes it does [and people are imprisoned].'
He paused again. In the gap I noticed that the stained-glass window to my left was a modern replacement, a result of the IRA bomb.' But you know, the worst thing that happens is that you speak out, you give a talk, you write a paper and nothing happens. It is as though you never said it at all...'
And then it was over, and there was tea at the back, and buns made by the ladies of the church, just like in my childhod, and I swallowed mine too quickly, because, I tell you, I don't care, this Bitch was crying, and also wondering why I recognised no one here in the church, only one Manchester librarian. Murat Belge is a literary man, a publisher, a scholar of English literature, a Professor of Comparative Literature, and this was a literature festival, but as far as I could see the audience was made up not of literary people but of members of Amnesty International who had travelled from miles away, and politics students. Not a writer among them. Well, of course there may have been, for all I know, but there was not a writer that I knew, none from the Manchester writing scene who could be expected to turn up to events at a literature festival.
Aren't writers interested in these issues? Aren't British writers political nowadays? Oh well, these aren't our issues, are they, we're free, aren't we, to say whatever we like, and we've got such a great life nowadays there's something almost embarrassing about people who write dark novels... But these are our issues, increasingly: Murat Belge may have 'sacrificed some of his voice' but his message is loud and clear. So why, as in Turkey, are there people not listening here?
Labels: Freedom of expression, Manchester Literature Festival, Murat Belge, Orhan Pamuk
Uncreative Writing
As someone who has taught creative writing, the Bitch must seem a bit of a hypocrite to criticise creative writing courses, as I did in my post 'Authors and Authority', but then I've had first-hand experience of the pitfalls.
Interviewed today in the Guardian by Laura Barton, Booker winner Kiran Desai points out one of the problems: They demand you write a certain way because you have to present your work in half-hour instalments. You are having to polish only a little bit of it. It suits the short story more than the novel. She could never have written her 'monster' novel under these circumstances, she says.
The Bitch has often guiltily thought that it's nigh on impossible to write any novel under these circumstances. In particular, novels which play narrative games with readers' expectations simply don't lend themselves to the piecemeal week-by-week judgement of others' expectations. But for any novel to be unified and organic, you usually need to get to the end before you can know precisely how to hone the beginning, after all.
Labels: creative writing courses, Literary prizes
Too much experience?
Others have seen the prevalence of new writers on this year's Booker shortlist as evidence of the judges flying in the face of fashion and hype, and concentrating for once on talent alone. But here's John Ezard, reporting on Kiran Desai's win in today's Guardian:
...the publishing market treats novelists as promotable contenders with their first and second books, mature talents by their third, and burned out with their fourth and subsequent titles. This year's passed-over favourite, The Night Watch, was a fourth novel [and from the only established author on the list].
Labels: Cult of youth, Literary prizes
Short and Sharp
The brilliant and deliciously cruel keyboard of John Crace:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/digestedread/story/0,,1891754,00.html
A British Sporting Event?
Robert McCrum tells us that, unlike the Americans, we British don't like lists and 'bests of' in our cultural life. Well, you could have fooled me, and anyway he goes ahead and gives us one: The Observer Best Novel of the Past 25 Years and runners up.
The winner is JM Coetzee, with Disgrace (in good old colonial style The Observer, 'following the Booker', decided to define 'British' as including 'Ireland and the literary traditions of the Commonwealth'); 2nd place goes to Martin Amis's Money, and joint third to five novels: Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess, Ian McEwan's Atonement, Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled, and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. Joint eighth place is shared by Ishiguro (again) (The Remains of the Day) and John McGahern with two novels, Amongst Women and That They May Face the Rising Sun.
This is not a readers' poll. If this poll has any consequence, McCrum opines, it derives from the fact that we have consulted with mainly professionals. Ah, that best of British... Those polled were writers themselves and critics. Well, I have recently argued that writers are excluded from debate about the meanings of their work, but this is not that kind of debate. It does not appear to be much of a debate at all, but just another of those winners-past-the-post British exercises, pitting different kinds of writing against each other in the pursuit of some kind of mythical pinnacle.
What does it all mean? McCrum feels that his wider trawl through the 'Commonwealth' makes The Observer poll more culturally inclusive than the similar American poll conducted last spring, but putting culturally diverse writings in competition with each other, in which some will 'win' and some won't, is surely to operate exclusivity. I notice some names missing from the list of those polled - apparently some declined, for these sorts of reasons - and isn't it obvious that writers, understandably, might well gun for the kind of writing which includes their own? (One would never want to accuse anyone of voting for their friends, of course!) And does it mean anything that, although the list of voters is almost half women, only one woman makes it to the first eight, and out of 51 runners-up only 18 are women? (What, so it's true, then: women's novels are less good than men's? Or no: women novelists are still in awe of the men while the men aren't so thrilled by the women? Which?)
And some of the names missing from the list of voters? Well, actually, JM Coetzee, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. Is there some kind of poetic (or novelistic) justice going on here?
Labels: Literary lists, literary prejudices, Women writers
Rub those pound signs out of your eyes...
You couldn't put it better than this:
http://www.gawker.com/news/unsolicited/unsolicited-why-you-dont-want-a-big-advance-203569.php
Labels: Writers and publishing
Selling Words
Jessica Ruston at the Book Bar, recently reviewing Marisha Pessl's novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics, laments the snides on the web implying that Pessl's youth and good looks are the reason for the attention the book has received. Good looks don't necessarily mean lack of talent, she says, and marketability is no bad thing: publishers to have to market books, after all.
Well, she's right of course on both counts, and any publisher would be mad not to use whatever is available to market a work. I've done it myself. When I published a literary magazine I and my colleagues worked like hell to sell the short stories we had chosen to publish, and we used all the marketing tools we could grab: buzz words (urban was the big buzz word of the time, so we subtitled the mag New Urban Writing, though we never for a moment let this influence the stories we chose, and not a soul ever complained about this last, which shows the power of the label); bright colour:
fancy photomontages: and towards the end, big bleed photos:
What we were trying to peddle were recognisable coolness and an air of youth, but what we were actually selling were the challenging and often experimental creations of talented and serious minds. As any snake-oil saleman will tell you, you can sell anything; you don't actually have to give people only what they think they want, as current marketing philosophy would have it.
On the other hand, though, I did always have a kind of sinking feeling, a feeling that things shouldn't be like this, that in a better society words would not have to be sold like this, subsumed to fashion and image...
How to Sell a How-To Book
I posted below on the tendency in British culture to exclude writers, unlike artists, from debate about the meanings of their work and the ways in which it should be read. Today DJ Taylor writes in the The Guardian about the proliferation of books by experts - most notably John Mullan and John Sutherland - instructing us how to read novels.
Taylor's main point is that these books, aimed in the main at reading groups, reinforce, through their choice of novels for discussion, 'the stranglehold exerted on literature by the three-for-two promotion and the high-street discount'. Thus, he says, they contribute, in a way which would probably horrify their authors, to the 'homogenisation of our literary culture.'
He has a point, I think. The Bitch is in a reading group whose members pride themselves on being immune to hype, and on forming their own opinions without recourse to others - black looks for any fool who brings to a meeting reviews downloaded from the internet. But if these How-To books would never sell to my lot, they are clearly selling to someone. And anyway: which books come to mind when my independent, stroppy lot are thinking of books for discussion: why, the Booker shortlists, of course, the books they've seen in three-for-two promotions - they're the only ones they can be expected to have heard of, after all.
And if these How-To books didn't feed into the expectations of reading groups, how would they sell?
Labels: How to read fiction, Marketing fiction
Don't We Just Love a Scapegoat?
Looking back at the last few lines of my last post, and musing on the fact that no one seems prepared to take at all seriously James Frey's claim that he originally intended his book as fiction, but that he was persuaded otherwise by his publisher, I've decided to bring to the top Rupert's comment on my post 'Novels versus Memoirs':
As an agent, I feel quite strongly that Frey was shafted by his publisher and agent. Not only must they have known that embellishment was going on, they *did* know - I met an editor at Doubleday who told me, prior to the book's Oprah laurels, that he was sure some of the book wasn't true. It is deeply disingenuous of the professionals closely involved in the book's publication to claim they were duped by Frey, ruthless of them to drop him, and deeply immoral for them to continue to profit from the discredited works which they are merrily doing.
Posted by Elizabeth Baines at 5:32 pm 1 comment: Links to this post
Labels: James Frey, memoirs v novels, The question of authenticity
Authors and Authority
Last week the Bitch went to a literary do and took with her a pair of young artists unused to literary events. Their outsiders' take on the evening seemed amusing at the time, but in retrospect raises serious issues about the status and power of writers in a Britain of market-led publishing on the one hand and rampant creative writing courses on the other.
The event was a prize-giving, the culmination of a competition run by an organisation whose main activity is running short courses and workshops for writers. A founder tutor and competition judge announced the prizes, in some cases inviting the author to read, and in every case talking in some detail about the winning work.
My artist guests were both fascinated and shocked. Firstly, they were fascinated by the thing I have always taken for granted, the spectacle of authors getting up and reading out their work aloud, sometimes with confidence, sometimes visibly shaking, sometimes reading well and sometimes not so well. What struck them forcibly, as contemporary artists trained to create work in such a way that it speaks for itself, was that the author was thus forced to be in the way of the writing, and the writing itself thus subsumed and ultimately divested of authority. This is obvious when the reading is bad, but it's true even if the reading is good, and of course it's true even at a famous author reading, where the whole thing plays into the cult of personality.
More importantly, however, the thing which shocked the artists was the compere's commentary. Trained in London art schools to take full responsiblity for the meanings of their work and, to that end, to control the context in which it appears, they were staggered that writers could be in a position where another person could decide independently what their work was about and announce it to the world, while the author had no opportunity for speaking about his or her work. Well, I laughed at the time, the judge was after all saying pretty nice things, and I was one of the winners, and it doesn't do to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it's true that when he said my story was a 'rite of passage' piece I was pretty gob-smacked for a moment, and couldn't work out how he made that out, and later when I did it struck me that, much as he'd liked my story, he may well have missed the point.
And afterwards it set me thinking. Clearly we can never expect to have ultimate control over how our work is read - books are ultimately what readers make of them - and clearly sometimes authorial intention fails to be realised, but writers do sometimes do new things which need to be read in new ways. Yet it does seem that on the whole it is the writers who have least voice in any debate about their work. One of the biggest crimes, for instance, has always been for a writer to take issue with a newspaper criticism (so undignified!), and now, it seems to me, the whole creative-writing teaching explosion has led to an ethos in which the authority on the meaning of a writer's work is not the writer but another (the teacher). Interesting that while the teaching of art has so much longer a history than the teaching of creative writing, artists do not suffer this situation. And look at James Frey, apparently utterly without control of the context of his work, and when he tells the Guardian that he first wrote his book as fiction, he may as well have said it into the wind, for there's John Burnside writing in the same paper last week, making the argument I have made about different kinds of literary truth, but nevertheless overlooking this crucial point.
Ironic, really, when you think of why we write in the first place...
Posted by Elizabeth Baines at 12:05 pm 1 comment: Links to this post
Labels: author readings, creative writing courses, cult of personality, James Frey, status and power of writers


Send a link of property IA0000138630 to your family and friends.
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This House, located in Woodgrange, Hibberdene / KwaZulu Natal, is currently for sale. This property is marketed by Tyson Properties Shelly Beach Office for R 1 075 000. It has 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and approximately 1249 square meters. The price per square meter for this property is R 861. For further information on this property, nearby schools and amenities, please contact the agent. It has been listed on ImmoAfrica.net since October 7, 2017.


text:
DELUX ENTERPRISES India
About DELUX ENTERPRISES
Company Delux Group is well known in the domestic and international market as manufacturers and exporters of CASTING and MACHINES. Mr. Darshan Lal Sehdev is the Director and founder of Delux Group (an entrepreneur) which was established in 1971.His ability to guide the company in its identification, acquisition has led to its emergence as one of the best iron manufacturers in its class. He has been awarded with Self Made Industrial award from the Institute of Trade and Industrial Development.Delux Groups growth has been founded on a consistent philosophy that to be able to deliver the range and quality of products customers demand and the scale and worldwide presence to do so competitively. We follow stringent quality control measures at every stage of our production process to ensure flawless production.Today, we are dealing with China, South, Africa, Kenya, Egypt, U.A.E and Middle East. Our goal is to be more than just successful. It is to be admired for our culture and for the quality, service and management standards that implies. Nothing less will do.We are committed to building strong, long-term relationships with customers through timely product development and effective engineering support. Its missions is to create and maintain an entrepreneurial environment and to enhance flexibility and continuous up gradation of our operations
DELUX ENTERPRISES
Product/Service(We Sell):
chaffcutter machines,Radial Drilling Machines,Lathe Machines,Centrifugal Pumps,chaff,chaffcutter
G.T Road, Near Octroi Post,, Battala, Dist., Gurdaspur, Punjab, India Zip: 143505
Company Website URL:
http://www.deluxindia.com
Contact with DELUX ENTERPRISES
Province:Punjab
City:Batala
Street:G. T Road
Telephone:91-1871-222040
Mobile:09872812240
Fax:91
Chaff Cutter

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Mantelli Adriano
San Marino di Parma 13-02-1913 – 06-05-1995 Firenze
Spediz_GCE_1
La Spezia - primi di agosto del 1936
La missione "segreta" composta dai piloti: S.Ten. Dante Olivero (6° Stormo), S.Ten. Adriano Mantelli (1° Stormo), S.Ten. Giorgio Franceschi (4° Stormo), Serg. Raffaele Chianese (4° Stormo), M.llo Bruno di Montegnacco (1° Stormo), Serg. Gian Lino Baschirotto (1° Stormo), Serg. Achille Buffali (6° Stormo), Serg. Raul Galli (1° Stormo), Serg. Manlio Vivarelli (4° Stormo) e dagli specialisti: Cresti, Brunetto, Gerbino Grego, Barzacchi. Trattasi di una Squadriglia al completo di uomini e materiali, posta sotto il comando del Olivero.
??? (1°), ??? (2°), Adriano Mantelli (3°).
Adriano Mantelli e' il primo a sinistra.
deq414
Il Ten. Adriano Mantelli.
ron343
Ronchi dei Legionari - "Giornata dell'Ala", primi anni '50
Il Col. Adriano Mantelli, pluridecorato e collaudatore dell'A.M. e' anche un campione aliantista e si esibisce con l'aliante "Canguro" in occasione della manifestazione aerea organizzata dall'avv. Furio Lauri, fondatore della Meteor.
Ronchi dei Legionari - 1953
Il Col. Adriano Mantelli ad una manifestazione aerea sull'aeroporto di Ronchi ove si esibirà da grande campione di pilota d'aliante. Mantelli, classe 1913, inizia ad appassionarsi agli alianti fin da giovane e ne diventa pilota e progettista. Nel 1934 diventa pilota della Regia Aeronautica e assegnato al 1° Stormo di Campoformido. Nel 1936 partecipa alla Campagna di Spagna e consegue dieci abbattimenti e due medaglie d'argento al V.M. Rientrato dalla Spagna diventa collaudatore e sperimentatore a Guidonia. Durante il Secondo Conflitto vola sul MC 200 ed MC 202. Si spegne nel 1995.
per gentile concessione
Biplane fighter aces
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_mantelli.htm
Adriano Mantelli was born on 13 February 1913 in Cortile San Marino di Parma, his father being a regular soldier.
He became interested in aviation at a young age, and from 1929, he avidly participated in model flying competitions with aircraft that he had built himself. From 1931, Mantelli dedicated himself to glider design, and the following year he obtained his glider flying licence. Concurrently, he graduated from the Parma Regio Istituto d'Arte (Royal Art Institute) - a school attended by fellow would-be ace Giuseppe Cenni. Indeed, both men would also commence their flying careers together. Joining the Regia Aeronautica in 1934, Mantelli gained his military 'wings' and became a fighter pilot. He was commissioned (in Servizio Permanente Effettivo) on 7 October 1934. Initially, he flew CR.20s with the 1o Stormo Caccia. In 1935, he transferred to a Squadriglia equipped with CR.32s that had been formed at the Reparto Sperimentale Volo (Experimental Flight Establishment) at Guidonia expressly to defend Rome. Finally, Mantelli joined the newly formed 6o Stormo Caccia at Ravenna, in Emilia, which was led by Colonnello Vincenzo Velardi. The latter officer subsequently commanded Italian airmen in Spain. He served as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, using the nom de guerre "Arrighi". By the end of August, after the first 12 CR.32s, and their pilots, had reached Melilla, three more had been sent to Majorca and nine were offloaded in the port of Vigo de Galicia, on Spain's Atlantic coast, from the Spanish ship Ebro. The latter had been renamed Aniene in Italy so that it could run contraband under a flag of convenience.
The nine CR.32s delivered to Vigo de Galicia were unloaded on the night of 27 August, although the presence of a British naval vessel in the port at the same time meant that this operation could not be completed in secrecy. Nine pilots under the command of Tenente Dante Olivero (from 6o Stormo) were also on board Aniene, and each of them had a false identity. Amongst the aviators were Sottotenente Mantelli ('Arrighi') and Sergenti Brunetto di Montegnacco ('Antonio Romualdi'), GianLino Baschirotto ('Edoardo Giri') and Raffaele Chianese, while five groundcrew provided technical support. The men and their machines then travelled by train southwards along the Vigo-Orense-Salamanca-Caceres-Seville route, which was controlled by Nationalist forces that had recently occupied the eastern Extremadura to unite the occupied zones of southern and north-western Spain. The reassembly of the nine aeroplanes, which were destined for the Segunda Escuadrilla de Caza del Tercio (2a Escuadrilla de Caza del Tercio), commenced after the three-day journey had ended in Tablada on 30 August.
...........................................
In the spring of 1937, Mantelli returned to Italy and eventually became a test pilot at the Guidonia Aircraft Experimental Centre near Rome. On 12 February 1940, he was promoted to Capitano. He transferred to the Direzione Costruzioni Aeronautiche (Aircraft Construction Directorate) in Naples. In 1943, he still served in the Direzione Costruzioni Aeronautiche. Mantelli flew his last combat mission on the morning of 8 September 1943 - the day of Italy's Armistice with the Allies - in a Macchi C.202 against a formation of USAAF B-17 bombers targeting Frascati. As a test pilot and flight instructor for the new Fiat G.55 fighter, he then served in the Aeronautica della Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic Air Force). Mantelli ended the war with 9 biplane victories. During his career he had been decorated with two Medaglia d'argento al valor militare, one Medaglia d'argento al valor aeronautica, one Croce al merito di guerra, one Medaglia commemorativa della campagna di Spagna and one Medaglia di benemerenza per i volontari della guerra Spagna. A post-war trial cleared Mantelli of 'collaboration' by serving with the Aeronautica della Repubblica Sociale Italiana. He continued to design and construct light civil aircraft in Italy and Argentina prior to re-joining the Italian air force in 1951. Rising through the ranks, Mantelli became a Generale and eventually retired in Rome. Remaining active, he died from a sudden illness at the age of 82 whilst waiting for a train at Florence station on 6 May 1995. During his long flying career, Mantelli had flown more than 10,000 hours in 200+ aircraft types, setting several international light aircraft records in the process.
Biplane victories: 10 and 6 shared destroyed.


text:
Headway Emotional Health Services
Discovering Headway
"I just want to say thank you for the support provided by Headway. We have had our new full time staff, Liz, for a week and many positive outcomes are being felt building wide."
-Shannon McParland, Principal, Sioux Trail Elementary
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Site Map - © 2020 Headway Emotional Health Services


We are traveling to the San Fransico Bay for the prison of all prisons. We talk about some of the hardened criminals that passed through the bars of Alcatraz. We also touch on the tortured souls that are still there, trapped between the steel and concrete fortress. Al Capone would be so proud of us.


Only ice cream and cake surpass cheesecake on American restaurant menus, says Flavor And The Menu, a magazine and website for restaurant chefs.
The article points out that plain cheesecake is a blank canvas, waiting for an artistic or flavorful treatment—or both.
The next time you plan to bake a conventional cheesecake, consider playing around with these options.
You can combine more than one on/in a single cheesecake. Check out photo #4: rainbow cheesecake with a "still life" top.
Candy: There's much to choose from: brittle, candy pieces (butterscotch, fudge bits, baking chips [butterscotch, chocolate, cinnamon, mint, etc.]), seasonal items like candy corn or Easter egg malt balls, toffee, a swirl of seasonal fruit purée, sugared nuts, trail mix. Just look around the store for inspiration.
Cake and cookie pieces: brownie, cookie dough, doughnuts, pound cake, crushed or mini Oreos, shortbread.
Forget the gloppy canned cherry or blueberry topping. Use the sauce to spark enhanced flavors.
Elevate the conventional: Think salted caramel sauce, Mexican-style chocolate sauce, framboise sauce (raspberry sauce with raspberry liqueur)*.
Fruits beyond the can: fruit syrup, coulis, a mosaic of fresh fruits, seasonal fruit purée or a "still life" like photo #4 (fresh berries, meringues, herb sprigs, edible flowers).
Ganache or icing, spread or piped (photo #2). Ganache becomes a semi-hard chocolate topping, like chocolate truffles (here's a recipe).
Consider turning the sauce or piped icing into a decorative design such as loops (photo #2) or zigzags.
Smooth: Consider crème fraîche, chocolate ganache, icing or whipped cream, plain or flavored.
Scattered: Scattered candies add texture and color, such as like chocolate-mint lentils or coffee/mocha lentils or confetti sprinkles.
Sparkling: Add some sparkle with edible glitter.
Fruits & Flowers: For the most beautiful top, create a "still life" of fruits, meringues, and sprigs of fresh herbs.
Crust: Try a brownie or cake crust, or cookies beyond Oreos and grahams.
Bottom: Decorate the bottom perimeter with squares of chocolate or other candy.
Bottom-plus: The latest rage is rainbow cheesecake (photos #3 and #4).
How do you want to present the cheesecake?
 St. Patrick's design from Kraft, using a stencil and glitter, and  a ganache top with decorative icing, from Harry & David.  Rainbow cheesecake (here's the recipe from She Bakes).  Rainbow cheesecake with a "still life" top (here's the recipe from Taste | Australia).
Baked in a jar, cake pop, deconstructed, heart shaped, individual mini, layered with cake, mousse, rainbow cheesecake square, trifle.
So many variations, so much fun ahead!
*You can purchase the sauces and add spices, liquors, etc. to create your flavor.


text:
Q: Keep slider elements on the same row with position relative I have a slider with 3 slides for now. I want those 3 slides to be on the same rows or to be moved to the same row without position: absolute.
Live fiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/5z167ypt
HTML:

Slide 1

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Beatae reiciendis maiores quia excepturi doloribus fugit nemo in inventore quidem at modi quasi rerum nulla ut, ab libero adipisci sint dolores.

Slide 2

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Beatae reiciendis maiores quia excepturi doloribus fugit nemo in inventore quidem at modi quasi rerum nulla ut, ab libero adipisci sint dolores.

Slide 3

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Beatae reiciendis maiores quia excepturi doloribus fugit nemo in inventore quidem at modi quasi rerum nulla ut, ab libero adipisci sint dolores.

  <button id="next">Next</button>
  <button id="previous">Previous</button>

CSS:
.slider,
.controlers{
  width: 80%;
  margin: auto;
  overflow: hidden;
}

.slide{
  position: relative;
  width: 100%;
  float: left;
  transform: translateX(0);
  transition: 1s transform ease-in-out;
  text-align: center;
}

.slide-left{
  transform: translateX(-100vw);
}

.slide-right{
  transform: translateX(100vw);
}

jQuery:
//On clicking #next button
$('#next').click(function(){
    var current = $('.active-slide'),
        next = $('.active-slide').next();

  //Move current active slide to the left & remove active class
  current.removeClass('active-slide').addClass('slide-left');

  //Add active class to nect slide to be in the center & remove slide classes
  next.addClass('active-slide').removeClass('slide-right slide-left');
});

//On clicking #previous button
$('#previous').click(function(){
    var current = $('.active-slide'),
        previous = $('.active-slide').prev();

  //Move current active slide to the right & remove active class
  current.removeClass('active-slide').addClass('slide-right');

  //Add active class to previous slide to be in the center & remove slide classes
  previous.addClass('active-slide').removeClass('slide-right slide-left');
});

For now, The 3 slides are divided into 3 rows. Each slide is moving right and left in a separate row. I want all the 3 slides to be moving in the same row.

A: You can use plugin for slider. Like Slick Slider

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Deldar (persiska: دِلادَر, دلدر, Delādar, دُلدُر) är en ort i Iran.   Den ligger i provinsen Västazarbaijan, i den nordvästra delen av landet,  km väster om huvudstaden Teheran. Deldar ligger  meter över havet och antalet invånare är .

Terrängen runt Deldar är lite bergig. Den högsta punkten i närheten är  meter över havet,  km väster om Deldar. Runt Deldar är det ganska tätbefolkat, med  invånare per kvadratkilometer. Närmaste större samhälle är Ḩammāmlār,  km öster om Deldar. Trakten runt Deldar består i huvudsak av gräsmarker.

Inlandsklimat råder i trakten. Årsmedeltemperaturen i trakten är  °C. Den varmaste månaden är augusti, då medeltemperaturen är  °C, och den kallaste är januari, med  °C. Genomsnittlig årsnederbörd är  millimeter. Den regnigaste månaden är november, med i genomsnitt  mm nederbörd, och den torraste är augusti, med  mm nederbörd.

Kommentarer

Källor

Orter i Västazarbaijan

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This Pretty Naked Palette will make you look gorgeous, naturally. Soft, neutral tones that will enhance and beautify without making you look too made up. 100% Natural, nourishing formulas packed with antioxidants, vitamins and beautiful colors from pigments of fruits, seeds, flowers and vegetables.
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Flax Seed, Toffee, and Chestnut Eye Shadows: Use fingers or brush to deliver color to the lids, tear ducts, crease or under bottom lashes. Make sure to blend!


If you're on a pay as you go price plan, you can top up data using the USB modem application (Vodafone Mobile Broadband). Remember, you need to establish a connection to the internet.
Top up data, go to 2a.
Check balance, go to 2b.
Click the field next to "TopUp by Debit or Credit card".
Click the field next to "Check Balance".


Thank you for your interest in our Master Blogger and Reader list.
It's really a list for you. We offer a lot of events and instead of having to fill out form after form you just fill out this ONE form and you're done!
You'll get one weekly email (sometimes two if something pops up last minute) with a list of events for you to post. When on this list you'll never be asked to review. If there's a book with a review you'll have to sign up for that particular event so that you'll get the ARC and we'll know you're interested in reviewing.
We'd love for you to share them all but we understand that you may not always be able to do that. However, we ask that you only complete this form if you sincerely want to post for our authors - as they will get a copy of this list so they can thank you.
If you ever have any questions feel free to reply back to the emails I send you and ask. Also, if you ever want to pause or stop posting I ask that you send me an email to let me know. There's no hard feelings. Thanks for your interest and support in helping indie authors get their books out to all our fellow book worms!
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text:
Workahellerism
Steven Heller admits he "was" afraid of blogs. Be a Design Cast Nº 50:
Q. And he actually asks what your hatred with blogs is.
A. Well, at the AIGA Conference Next, which happened in October, I moderated the "Blog o' Fear" panel…. And I don't hate blogs. I was afraid of blogs. Fear sometimes generates what appears to be hate but really is insecurity…. But blogs, it's not important enough to hate. On the other hand, I did fear the fact that blogs would kind of usurp what I was doing, and that was, you know, in any change, in any transitional period, one has trepidations….
I think "design criticism" is a term we have to define as a common term, and I don't think that exists yet. The blogs are such that you can't call it necessarily Design Criticism with a capital D and C ; you have to look at it with lower-case letters because it's in transition, it's moving. Blogs are either news, they're reportage, they're commentary, they're tidbits….
And so what I do find about blogs, and I guess I could say hate comes close to the emotion, is that I'm obsessed with them, and anytime I'm given an opportunity to write, I write, even if I don't have the time to do it. So it's a personal thing. It has very little to do with the great – the overview of the blogs. But, that said, design citicism is still in its infancy.
This is bullshit, of course, since graphic-design magazines have been publishing graphic-design "criticism" for 50 years, approximately Heller's age. Is he still in his infancy? ("I'm old," he states flatly in the podcast. So is design "criticism.")
Further admissions:
He "like[s] to" have five books in progress each year.
Some books ("five or six") never get finished, but don't tell the publishers that.
He really needs collaborators, researchers, designers, cowriters, and coeditors in order to finish these books. He's all about ideas, but not great at follow-through, apparently. (He as much as admits that the collaborators do most of the work. I've always viewed his coauthored books as akin to scientific publishing, where the eminent figure might be lead author but all the work was done by the second name listed.)
He's written or cowritten 120 books. Some are stinkers and some are out of print.
Now, I also watched the first ten minutes of his presentation at TypoBerlin about an icon of design history so obscure that nobody had ever heard of him. The icon is so obscure I'm not even going to look it up (or bother linking).
It was quite amazing to watch. Even with a single digicam focussed unmovingly on Heller's head and shoulders, you could tell he was losing the audience with every passing second. He knew everything about the topic and his entire air and delivery style were consistent with that. But he also made the mistake of veering off into little in-joke tangents of the sort you find at design conferences – little offhand references that the audience is supposed to get. But they weren't getting it, and it wasn't just because they were all Germans listening to a second language. The sole audience for Heller's topics is Heller. He needs collaborators just to get the work done and as a sanity check to verify that non-Heller persons would ever give a shit. The Berlin audience didn't.
Clearly he's a workaholic, a Type A personality with his own studio separate from his dwelling (another admission in the podcast). He is abetted by a good memory and a vast clipping file, I assume. For the first time in his career, he is faced with an author as prolific as he is, except that it is a distributed authorship, "the blogs." Maybe he should be afraid. But really, the design-press intelligentsia – all of them Baby Boomer intellectuals with a publishing background – will keep him in his five-book-a-year stipend until he goes senile or croaks.
I could go on about this at hellerian length, but let me just cut to the chase. This podcast, at long last, made me understand that some people have a wide, tall, deep space in which they are able to work. All I've got is a tiny cushion on top of bare daily functioning, and only in that tiny cushion work may occur. The cushion is vulnerable and can pop like a balloon at the slightest deviation from prime conditions. Most typically, on grey Toronto winter days I can't do anything. My personal work envelope is so tiny and fragile it can be erased completely by a cloudy day.
You might be able to run to catch the bus, but you'll never finish a marathon. Steven Heller makes me realize I can't even finish the hundred metres. It is no consolation that he has been wrong on blogs from day one and his bread and butter, design "criticism," is doomed. He works and I don't.
Filed under ☞ The death of graphic-design criticism · The Weblog medium
https://blog.fawny.org/2008/01/19/workahellerism/


text:
Facebook's Libra is so shady it actually united Congress
By Matt Binder 6 months
For the second day in a row, Republican and Democratic lawmakers slammed Facebook over its digital currency, Libra.
Members of the House Committee on Financial Services backed the message of their Senate colleagues from yesterday: they don't trust Facebook.
Rep. Maxine Waters opened the hearing by blasting Facebook's "pattern of failing to keep consumer data private on a scale similar to Equifax" and said that if Libra launches, "the company and its partners will yield immense economic power that could destabilize currencies."
Libra is a blockchain-based digital currency, or cryptocurrency, which Facebook formally announced last month. It's overseen by a non-profit headquartered in Switzerland, the Libra Association, of which Facebook is a member. The social media giant also created a subsidiary group, Calibra, for its own Libra-related products.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez listed all the different industries Facebook has disrupted — publishing, advertising, telecommunications — alluding to the monopolistic nature of of the company.
"Why should these activities be consolidated under one corporation?" she said.
"I don't think you should launch Libra at all," stated Rep. Carolyn Maloney. "At the very least you should agree to do this small pilot program fully overseen by you, the Federal Reserve and the SEC."
"We will take the time to get this right," replied David Marcus, head of Calibra, without agreeing to the proposed pilot program.
SEE ALSO: 'Like a toddler' with matches: Facebook slammed by senators in Libra hearing
One of Facebook's main selling points for the digital currency is the ability to provide instantaneous monetary transfers at minimal fees. Rep. Patrick Henry asked Marcus, a former president of PayPal, why they needed to create its own currency to do so.
"We would like for Libra to be a digital global currency and as a result be one unit of digital currency for the whole world." Marcus replied. "This is why we believe it's the right approach."
Facebook's second day of Congressional hearings on its Libra cryptocurrency didn't go much better than its first day.
Image: Alex Wong / Getty Images
Much like at the Senate's hearing, Republicans commended Facebook on the endeavor to build something new. Some on the committee even criticized the idea of holding hearings on Libra right now, just one month after the company's announcement.
"Kudos on the innovation," said Rep. Sean Duffy.
But, this didn't stop the Republican Congressman from stumping Facebook's Marcus with a line of questioning regarding who can use Libra.
"Can Milo Yiannopoulos use Libra? Can Louis Farrakhan? Both of those people are banned from Facebook," said Duffy. "Can a gun dealer?"
The sale of firearms on Facebook's marketplace is banned from the social networking platform.
"I don't know yet," explained Marcus.
Concerns regarding Libra being used to fund drug trafficking and terror, as well as its general effects on economies and markets across the world, were shared by both sides of the aisle.
"I'm concerned a 2020 launch date represents deep insensitivities about how Libra could impact U.S. financial security, the global financial system, the privacy of people across the globe, criminal activity and international human rights," said Rep. Ann Wagner, a Republican.
"We need Zuckerberg here," Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman demanded. "This is an attempt to transfer enormous power from America to Facebook."
WATCH: Facebook's new currency, Libra, is being taken seriously by big banks
TOPICS: Facebook, Tech Topic, Tech, Cryptocurrency, Big-tech-companies, library, Congressional-hearing, Calibra


At House Match Property Management we are truly committed to the business of property management better and that is why we are proud members of the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM). We have invested a lot of time and education in order to be part of NARPM and when choosing a property management company you want a team that you can trust completely. It is important that the property management company that you hire has received proper education and training. Getting a property manager that is a member of NARPM can only benefit you and your investment.
The National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) is an association of real estate professionals who know first-hand the unique problems and challenges of managing single-family and small residential properties. NARPM promotes a high standard of business ethics, professionalism, and fair housing practice. NARPM members have to take a mandatory ethics class every four years. The Association also certifies its members in the standards and practices of the residential property management industry and promotes continuing professional education.
Education and experience are crucial factors in successfully managing a property. Most states require property managers to have a real estate license but unfortunately, property management education isn't a huge part of the real estate licensing process. Hiring a NARPM member ensures that your property manager has met specific and ongoing education and experience which protect you as a rental property owner. Being a NARPM member helps property managers stay on top of the latest laws and regulations locally as well as nationwide, rent values, vacancy factors, and real estate market trends.
Know important pending legislative items that affect your property.
Have the ability to recover NSF checks, evict tenants, and collect bad debts.
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According to the video, how did boarding schools attempt to assimilate Native children into American society?
Week 7 Assignment
Unspoken: America's Native American Boarding Schools
The video for this assignment is a special production of PBS Utah. It explores the history of the federal Indian Boarding School system, whose goal was the assimilation of Native Americans. What is amazing to me is how close to now this system feels. We hear from many students and survivors of the boarding school system. (Also, I believe the film would be much better without the music.)
A– Watch the video, Unspoken: America's Native American Boarding Schools
+ Weblink:https://www.pbs.org/video/unspoken-americas-native-american-boarding-schools-oobt1r/
B– As you watch, answer the questions below. When you are finished, save your work, and upload it into Blackboard.
1– According to the video, how did boarding schools attempt to assimilate Native children into American society? What did Indians have to do when they went to boarding schools? (Minute 2-4)
2—Please summarize the comments of Forrest Cuch and Harry Walters (min. 9.30-11).
3— How did boarding schools inadvertently create a pan-Indian identity? (min. 17-18)
4—How did Indians turn boarding schools from places where their culture was destroyed to places where their culture was preserved and fostered? What is your opinion of the Santa Fe Indian school. (min. 35-40)
5— Consider the definition of genocide adopted by the United Nation in Article II of the Genocide Convention. The crime of genocide includes two main elements:
One — A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
Two– A physical element, which includes the following five acts:
+ Killing members of the group
+ Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
+ Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
+ Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
+ Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group based on the lecture notes from Week 6 and based on the lecture notes from Week 7.
Then think about the lecture notes from Week 6 and Week 7. In your opinion, did people in the United States commit genocide against Native Americans in the period from 1848 thru the present? Please explain why or why not use the definition above and facts from the lecture notes. Was it genocide, but not quite? Lastly, if you consider this genocide, who would you hold responsible? These are opinion questions. I would like to hear your opinion based on the facts that you have been presented.
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According to the video, how did boarding schools attempt to assimilate Native children into American society? was last modified: November 9th, 2021 by Admin2
The work can be from any humanities discipline except film and television.
Why did you choose this reading in particular to discuss?
What are some of the issues that a company might encounter with local managers relating to hiring and retention?
Tags: mental, Religious


Not that i know of, all i would suggest is that your centre bike would be further forward like most motorbike trailers.
Thanks for all the replys and insights into how you have gone about teaching your own kids. I would have been happy to put training wheels on a bike for him to learn with. But after hearing some of these stories im might consider waiting a little longer until he masters the pedal bike. Cheers everyone.


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Small Pleasures
If not in stock, the expected delivery time to our store for this item will be 3-5 working days.
1957, the suburbs of South East London. Jean Swinney is a journalist on a local paper, trapped in a life of duty and disappointment from which there is no likelihood of escape.
When a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud.
As the investigation turns her quiet life inside out, Jean is suddenly given an unexpected chance at friendship, love and - possibly - happiness.
But there will, inevitably, be a price to pay.
Women's Prize 2021 - longlist
There Is Nothing for You Here
Boundless Leadership
100 Things We've Lost to the Internet
Murakami T
Fry's Ties
The Handbook to Building a Circular Economy
People From My Neighbourhood
Single and Forced to Mingle
The Intelligent Investor REV Ed.
The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank's Diary)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Diary of a Young Girl (Diary of Anne Frank)
Complete Persepolis
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Blue Period 5
Attack on Titan 34
Zom 100
Super Mario Manga Mania
Shaman King Omnibus 1 (Vol. 1-3)
Pokémon Adventures Collector's Edition, Vol. 1, 1
Venus in the Blind Spot
Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun, Vol. 1


Leverage the insight gained from behind-the-scenes industry data to manage risk and spot opportunities. Our extensive data sets allow you to dig deeper into global market fundamentals to gain critical insight into the wider market, access competitor intelligence, calculate margins and inform your strategy.
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Critical third party information to give you valuable insight on your competitors and the wider market.
Our specialist team have compiled all the relevant statistics, meaning you have everything you need in one place.
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We provide a range of industry data, including capacity and production statistics, demand indicators, imports and export data, freight rates and production costs.
Comprehensive compilation of all global steel making costs, by product and region for flats and longs.
Single source for all global steel making production, capacity and capex data, plus forecasts.
Fundamental statistics, including supply/demand balances, demand indicators and forecasts across a range of commodities.


Beryllium is a soft, silvery-white, shiny metal. It is very light and has a high melting point, so it is desirable for use in metal alloys. It is used in alloys with nickel and copper as a light-weight structural material.
Using the Next button (below) you'll find a total of 57 Beryllium images for you to choose from! Or use the search tool above to find other images illustrating almost anything you can imagine. Or use the search tool above to find other images illustrating almost anything you can imagine.
Information about the USGS Beryllium: Economic Geology, Material Flow, and Global Importance of a Key Critical Mineral project.
The Beryllium deposit at Spor Mountain was initially mined by Brush Wellman beginning around 1970. The company is thought to mine 1% grade BeO ore at Spor Mountain (and reports 75 years of reserves at current mining rate). Ore is mined from linear open pits that follow the strike of the tilted ore-bearing tuff.
Search or browse our list of beryllium ore mining companies by category or location. Mining Beryllium The Elements Unearthed The next videos that will be completed for the Elements Unearthed Project are two episodes on the sources, mining , refining, and uses of beryllium .
Jan 13, 2017· Beryllium is a lightweight metal with unique mechanical and thermal properties that make it ideal for use in many applications and industries including defense, aerospace, telecommunications, automotive electronics, and medical specialties.
Alibaba.com offers 91 beryllium ore products. About 23% of these are other ore, 5% are other mining machines, and 1% are rubber belts. A wide variety of beryllium ore options are available to you, such as lump, mine, and fines (powder).
Exposure to soluble beryllium salts (sulfate, ammonium carbonate, beryllium carbonate, and beryllium hydroxide) during the extraction of metal from the ore can induce BeS. Exposure to the ore itself does not induce BeS.
Search or browse our list of Beryllium Ore Mining companies by category or location. online service >> Beryllium Portable Crusher quickpcsolutions.org.
Find great deals on eBay for Beryllium Metal in Lab Chemicals. Shop with confidence.
The production of beryllium, which is an integral component for the production of nuclear weapons, has been practically suspended in Russia since the late 1980s, however its large-scale production is expected to resume at the beginning of 2018.
That year, the Beryllium Machining Facility at Vashi received a $0.2 million order from a US company for the manufacture of beryllium shaft assemblies. The production and machining of beryllium has also raised health concerns for workers at the Vashi Complex.
Find great deals on eBay for beryllium. Shop with confidence.


An international platform for discussion and debate on some of the most challenging issues facing universities across the world.
explore the internationalisation of higher education through the demands placed on leadership and management.
understand the development of enterprise and innovation in universities.
examine the changing relationship between universities and their students.
experience a wide-ranging and diverse Research Festival.
Key note speakers include Professor Georges Haddad, Director of the Division of Higher Education, UNESCO; Gina Poole, Vice President, Innovation and University Relations, IBM; Professor Mosa Al-Mosawe, President, Baghdad University.
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English Steeples: 16 Notecards
16 notecards, each featuring an immaculate line drawing of one of the finest medieval parish church towers and spires in England
Previous Mesopotamia
Next Ornament and Decoration in Islamic Architecture
This set of 16 notecards with envelopes is inspired by Julian Flannery's Fifty English Steeples, the first systematic survey of the 50 most important medieval parish church towers and spires in England, covering a period of some 500 years. The gorgeous box includes 16 notecards in 16 different designs and 16 envelopes.
Churches Medieval History Notecards
Format: Notecards
Extent: 16
Publication date: 8 December 2016
Sixteen notecards: 1. St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, Oxfordshire 2. St Michael, Coventry, Warwickshire 3. Ludlow, Shropshire 4. Southwold, Suffolk 5. Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire 6. Lavenham, Suffolk 7. Boston, Lincolnshire 8. St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol 9. St Cuthbert, Wells, Somerset 10. Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire 11. St Mary Magdalene, Taunton, Somerset 12. Louth, Lincolnshire 13. St Nicholas, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland 14. Grantham, Lincolnshire 15. Ewerby, Lincolnshire 16. West Walton, Norfolk
Remarkable Plants: Box of 20 Notecards
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Book of Kells - Animals: Box of 16 Notecards
Trinity College Library, Dublin
Fifty English Steeples
Julian Flannery


Anemia is diagnosed when levels of red blood cells are too low. Red blood cells which carry oxygen to the body depend on hemoglobin, their red pigment, for proper functioning. Characteristically, the cells are unusually small and pale and the condition is called iron-deficiency anemia. Such a deficiency is identified by the number of red blood cells, the amount of hemoglobin in the red blood cells, and the volume of red blood cells after being centrifuged (hematocrit).
Iron: Medical professionals usually prescribe iron supplementation, since it is essential for iron-deficiency anemia however those who are not diagnosed with iron deficiency should not take iron supplements. Taking iron when it isn't needed does no good and may do some harm. Because iron extracts are a frequent cause of childhood fatal poisonings, be sure to keep any iron supplements well out of reach.
Liver extracts: Bovine liver extracts are an excellent natural source of iron and other vitamins and minerals for non-vegetarians.
Vitamin A 10,000 IU per day is often recommended along with iron for better absorption.
Vitamin C (500 mg per day, taken along with iron for better absorption.
Dietary iron: Lack of dietary iron is often part of but not all of the problem.
Vegetarian diet note: Vegetarians are slightly more at risk for iron-deficiency, so attention must be paid to the diet.
Fiber: Don't consume high-fiber foods at the same time you take iron supplements.
Iron deficiency is identified by a blood test measuring iron in the body. The condition may have many causes unrelated to nutrition such as bleeding ulcers, excessive menstrual bleeding, hemorrhoids, gastrointestinal bleeding caused by drugs, colon cancer, or in undeveloped countries, parasitic worms, malaria and vitamin A deficiency.
There are also forms of anemia with plenty of iron in the blood, but it is not properly absorbed for utilization by the red blood cells.
Fatigue, weakness, lethargy, poor immune system functioning, and poor concentration.
Pica a peculiar symptom is the desire to consume strange things such clay, paint, or cardboard.
Serious anemia can give rise to headaches, lightheadedness, tinnitus, pale skin, irritability, restless legs syndrome, and too readily being out of breath.
Anemia occurs when the body produces too few red blood cells, loses too many of them, or if red blood cells are destroyed faster than they can be replaced.
In order to treat both the cause of iron deficiency and the lack of iron itself, your medical professional drugs and supplements such as ferrous sulfate, fumarate and gluconate, and polysaccharide-iron complex. There are side effects such as diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, and nausea. Iron may also be delivery via injections if oral consumption is not tolerated.
See research on which this discussion is based.


How would I use the css styles in a wordpress template?
To use these styles on all tables within your WordPress installation, you would simply copy the code from the CSS file and paste it into the CSS file for your WordPress template.
If you just want this applied to certain tables, you're going to have to alter the CSS file you download and add some class or ID selectors to the definitions.


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#MeToo campaign shows breadth of sexual assault issue
Samantha Moffett
Alyssa Milano started the #MeToo movement with a single tweet. SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE
Two words put the severity of the sexual assault problem into perspective: Me Too.
#MeToo tweets and status updates revealed thousands of victims of sexual assault and continue to flood social media. The campaign was created over a decade ago by Tarana Burke, but was relaunched Oct. 15 by actress Alyssa Milano.
The tweet that started it all, "If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet." This tweet came after sexual assault accusations surfaced against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
The movement sought to bring sexual assault victims together. Many victims posted a simple #MeToo while others went on to tell their stories, but all of the posts showed just how widespread the issue of sexual assault is.
Scrolling through my Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds, which were filled with #MeToo posts, left me feeling infuriated and heartbroken, but all the while inspired.
The movement creates a sense of solace for those who choose to make their experiences public, and in a time of recently surfaced details of sexual assault cases, it shows unity among the masses.
The #MeToo campaign does the job of addressing the elephant in the room.
Every 98 seconds someone is assaulted, as reported by the Rape Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). In only 48 hours, the hashtag was tweeted nearly one million times, according to the Associated Press. The #MeToo campaign brought a long overdue discussion to the table, but it was not be the first time.
The "Yes All Women" campaign that highlighted those who struggle with mental and physical abuse was popular on Twitter in 2014. While the campaigns are a positive way to bring together victims of assault, it should not take social movements and uproars to spark the discussion.
If there is one thing to be taken away from the movement, it should be that you can know someone for years and still not know their struggles. The movement should spark a discussion on the scope of the problem and possible solutions.
The #MeToo posts are just scratching the surface, as many victims choose not to come forward. As reported by RAINN, only 344 of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to the police, meaning about two of every three go unreported.
The sexual assault problem is a global epidemic for both men and women. Hopefully, the #MeToo campaign signals a shift in how the scope of sexual assault is viewed.
Samantha Moffett is a sophomore majoring in mass communications.


The instance A new song. : To the tune of the British grenadier, (electronic resource) represents a material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Oklahoma Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Instance, Electronic.


Maybe not of wisdom itself but definitely of someone who is said to have been extremely wise: Solomon. And here the puzzle begins. Why should a rhizomatous plant have anything in common with one of the most reverenced biblical figures who "the whole world sought audience with to hear the wisdom God had put in Solomon's heart"? Nobody knows. There are more or less plausible explanations why, and the more we try to understand the mystery the more we want to have that symbol of sagacity in our garden. It does not hurt to grow something so closely related to that noble quality, does it? And the appearance of the plant perfectly matches its symbolic meaning for in the case of Polygonatum, both the wisdom and beauty reside in one home.


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Tag Archives: Guns
Background checks required to buy ammunition in California
Ammunition purchases in California require a background check, according to a state law that took effect Monday.
July 1, 2019 in U.S..
Bernie promises pro-abortion justices and higher middle-class taxes, says 'assault weapons' should be banned
In a debate filled with statements revealing the Democratic Party's shift leftward, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders pledged to appoint only pro-abortion justices, raise taxes on the middle class and prohibit so-called assault weapons.
June 28, 2019 in U.S..
Gun rights made all the difference for these would-be victims
According to a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which compiled and analyzed various studies involving the defensive use of firearms, Americans use firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually.
Democrats move to make gun-makers liable for gun crimes
"It's like blaming Ford or General Motors for the negligent use of their cars," Lawrence Keane said. "It is wrong to hold the gun or any other industry liable for the criminal misuse of nondefective products sold lawfully."
Gov. Scott vetoes gun-purchase waiting period, signs unlimited abortion
Taking action on two of the most controversial pieces of legislation this session, Gov. Phil Scott has signed an unlimited abortion bill and vetoed a gun control bill.
June 11, 2019 in TNR News.
Politicians are calling for a ban on silencers. Here's what you need to know.
Politicians are calling for a ban on silencers after a disgruntled Virginia Beach, Virginia, city employee used one while gunning down 12 co-workers.
June 9, 2019 in U.S..
Parents can be prosecuted in Delaware now for not safely storing guns
The new law makes unsafe storage a misdemeanor, and a gun owner could face a high-misdemeanor if the unsafely stored firearm is used in the commission of a crime, according to Delaware Online.
Trump: Unarmed civilians are 'sitting ducks'
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that unarmed civilians are "sitting ducks" because they obey laws that prevent carrying guns for self-defense.
Bernie Sanders changes tone on guns amid mass shooting fallout
Just days after a mass shooting occurred at Virginia Beach, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders harshly criticized the National Rifle Association and called for more gun control. But some of his latest comments run contrary to statements he's made in the past.
June 4, 2019 in TNR News.
Letters to legislators: Firearm purchase waiting periods harm and jeopardize Vermonters
S.169 firearm purchase waiting periods affirmatively harm and jeopardize a significant number of innocent, law-abiding Vermonters whose self-defense needs are innate, reflexive and instinctive.
May 15, 2019 in Commentary.
House committee votes out 24-hour gun-purchase wait, veto showdown ahead
The House Judiciary Committee on Monday voted 7-4 to approve new gun legislation that includes a 24-hour wait period to purchase a handgun, among other rules.
May 14, 2019 in TNR News.


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Securing a World of Climate Resilience, Prosperity and Peace
By Jutta Wolf
BERLIN (IDN) – In the run-up to the Climate Action Summit at the UN in New York on September 23, the World Future Council (WFC) has called for immediate measures to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 to avoid climate catastrophe and to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050, and elimination of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction.
A declaration emerging from a gathering of WFC Councillors and recipients of the Right Livelihood Award at SEKEM, Cairo, pleads for diversion of the USD 1.7 trillion global military budget to sustainable development, urgent action to accelerate the transition towards a green new deal while mainstreaming circular, regenerative economies, and the eradication of hunger by adopting 100 per cent agroecology.
The declaration further calls for protection of at least 30 per cent of the world's oceans by 2030, transformation of all curricula to education for sustainable development, and the appointment of guardians for future generations at all levels of decision-making.
The gathering at SEKEM – from September 13-15 – also adopted the work programme of the World Future Council. The organisation works with policy makers, promoting the spread of best policies across the world. "We brought together change makers from around the world and all walks of life. They are urging decision-makers to take rapid action to address the earth emergency," said Alexandra Wandel, the foundation's Executive Director.
In regards to decarbonizing the world's energy systems, the WFC gathering urges policy makers to implement climate policies based on scientific evidence and new technological opportunities.
"Renewable energy is a pathway to prosperity. The technology has huge positive impacts on livelihoods; it creates decent jobs and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Let's bring light, income and health to people across the planet," said Dipal Barua, Councillor of the World Future Council and Founder of Bright Green Energy Foundation Bangladesh.
To end war and build a secure and sustainable future, the gathering calls on governments to adhere to their obligations as UN members to eliminate nuclear weapons and resolve international conflicts through diplomacy, mediation, arbitration and adjudication.
"In this increasingly interconnected world, there is no longer any excuse to base our security on war or on threatening to annihilate the planet," said Alyn Ware, Councillor of the World Future Council and Global Coordinator of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.
The World Future Council is further calling for a transition to 100 per cent agroecology and will expand its work of researching, identifying and championing best policies that up-scale agroecology and thereby address issues of biodiversity, water, agroforestry and landscape restoration, livelihoods, climate, health and animal welfare.
"We need to change our direction. We have the answers; we simply need to act," says Jan McAlpine, Councillor of the World Future Council and former Director General of the United Nations Forum on Forests.
The SEKEM gathering furthermore calls for effective institutions to safeguard the rights of present and future generations at all levels of government decision making. The council advocates education for sustainable development and calls for it to be widely implemented.
"We applaud the children and youth of today for their creativity, courage, and commitment in demanding action to address the challenges we are facing in securing their future," said Auma Obama, Councillor of the World Future Council and Founder of the Sauti Kuu Foundation.
Oceans are under vast pressure from overfishing, pollution and acidification. While recognizing that a wide range of transformative measures is needed, the newly founded commission on oceans and waterways will advocate for the protection of at least 30 percent of the oceans by 2030.
"Every person depends on the ocean to live – for seafood, jobs, well-being, and oxygen. We need to take care of our oceans the way they have taken care of us," says Anna Oposa, Councillor of the World Future Council and Chief Mermaid of Save Philippine Seas. [IDN-InDepthNews – 17 September 2019]
Photo: Gathering of WFC Councillors and recipients of Alternative Nobel Prize from 13 to 15 September at SEKEM, Egypt. Credit: SEKEM.
facebook.com/IDN.GoingDeeper - twitter.com/InDepthNews
Jutta Wolf


A 21-page federal complaint filed in May made headlines this week alleging that Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano (FORBES No. 15 Most Powerful Woman in the World) has been discriminating against male employees of the department in favor of female cronies.
Most specifically, the suit, filed by James T. Hayes, a special agent of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (A DHS office) in New York City, alleges that under Secretary Napolitano's direction female staffers were routinely promoted over males. Additionally, female officials under the DHS umbrella are accused of fostering caustic and "sexually offensive" workplaces for men.
According to Hayes' claims, Dora Schriro, who now runs New York City's Department of Corrections, was named special adviser to Secretary Napolitano on Detention and Removal Operations despite having no "experience in managing a federal law enforcement department." Hayes formerly served as the director of ICE Detention and Removal Operations in Washington D.C., but says he was demoted following Secretary Napolitano's appointment to the top DHS post in 2008. Schriro, he says, began her climb in his stead.
One can't help but to detect a whiff of jealousy in the details surrounding the suit. Schriro, as it turns out, previously led both Missouri and Arizona's Department of Corrections, which does put her close to Napolitano (the DHS Secretary served as Governor of Arizona between 2003 and 2009 while Schriro was running the DOC) but does sound a lot like law enforcement experience. Further, Hayes' allegations don't seem to jive with his own career trajectory. He's held high-ranking assignments prior to- and post-2008, including his current position in New York where he oversees 8,500 government employees and a budget of $2.5 billions.
But Hayes' issues with Napolitano don't stop with his own hampered career path. He also names Suzanne Barr, the current chief of staff for the ICE, and alleges she knowingly created a hostile environment for her male staffers.
If there's truth to the allegations, they certainly could be "blistering" for the DHS, and for Napolitano's credentials as a fair and focused leader of the third largest department in U.S. politics. The temperature in Washington, however, and among staffers under the secretary's purview seems cool and collected on the issue. With public relations aplomb, they responded quickly to a request for comment and seem assured that Hayes' claims will be proven false in short order.
Still, for a prominent female politician, allegations that her leadership could be tainted by discrimination of any kind are problematic. Napolitano, who I recently spoke with, is keeping her focus forward. This summer she testified before congress on the three biggest threats facing the nation: aviation procedures, cyber security and homegrown violent extremism.
The lawsuit was first reported Wednesday afternoon by Debbie Schlussel, a conservative blogger.


text:
package de.unioninvestment.eai.portal.portlet.crud.scripting.model;

import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.Serializable;

import de.unioninvestment.eai.portal.portlet.crud.domain.model.ContainerBlob;

/**
 * Repräsentiert ein Binary Large Object im Datenmodell
 *
 * @author markus.bonsch
 *
 */
public class ScriptBlob implements Serializable {

	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
	private final ContainerBlob containerBlob;

	public ScriptBlob(ContainerBlob containerBlob) {
		super();
		this.containerBlob = containerBlob;
	}

	/**
	 * Dem CLob ein neuen Wert setzten.
	 *
	 * @param value
	 */
	public void setValue(byte[] value) {
		containerBlob.setValue(value);
	}

	public boolean isEmpty() {
		return containerBlob.isEmpty();
	}

	/**
	 * Liefert ob sich der Feldinhalt des BLobs gändert hat
	 *
	 * @return true falls sich der Wert sich geändert hat.
	 */
	public boolean isModified() {
		return containerBlob.isModified();
	}

	/**
	 * Setzt den Modified Status zurück.
	 */
	public void commit() {
		containerBlob.commit();

	}

	public InputStream getInputStream() {
		return containerBlob.getInputStream();
	}

	ContainerBlob getContainerBlob() {
		return containerBlob;
	}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The Gist: the health benefits of ginger, Matthew Dicks tells a story.
Maria Konnikova assesses the credibility of ginger's health benefits. Are they B.S.?
My ginger candy cure can't be B.S., right?
On The Gist, Maria Konnikova of the New Yorker shares what's she's learned from research into ginger's super food status. For the Spiel, hear a performance from last night's live Gist from Moth champ and professional storyteller Matthew Dicks. He's the author of The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs, available now.


I can't find any official news on this, but a good friend of mine who has worked there for many years posted the news. The Office Grill and Sports Bar on Frankford Ave. has closed permanently.
I've checked their website and Facebook page to see if there was any official announcement, but there doesn't look to be one. However, a close friend of mine who has run sound for many of their live band shows posted on Facebook that it was the "Last night for The Office Grill and sports bar." And he would know.
I'll keep looking to see if there is any official word, but their website has no more events coming up. Same with their Facebook.


Home Repair of North Carolina is a full service repair and remodeling company which provides a full range of services to residents and businesses throughout the Cape Fear region of North Carolina. We specialize in kitchen and bathroom remodeling, and provide a quote that fits your individual needs.
We always strive to give our customers prompt attention, listening to their needs and advising them on all of the different options available. Our experience allows us to provide expert work at a reasonable cost. Please give us a call, or fill out our contact form for more information about our services.