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US unions
US unions see unusually promising moment amid wave of victories
Labor strategists hope wins will turn into a larger trend but acknowledge it won't be easy as corporations fight fiercely against unionization
A Starbucks barista in Buffalo, New York, helps out the local Starbucks Workers United in Mesa, Arizona, in February. Photograph: Ross D Franklin/AP
Steven Greenhouse
Wed 16 Mar 2022 06.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 16 Mar 2022 06.01 EDT
The recent, much-publicized wave of union victories in the US at companies as varied as the giant coffee chain Starbucks, trendy outdoor outfitters REI and media group the New York Times is spurring hopes that this will somehow turn into a much larger unionization wave that lifts millions of Americans.
This is an unusually promising moment for unions, labor strategists say, as they strain to figure out how best to build a larger wave, although they acknowledge it won't be easy because US corporations fight so fiercely against unionization.
'Insidious and seductive': Uber funds lobbying group campaigning to stop gig workers unionising
Union strategists are debating whether there are ways to transform the wins at Starbucks – workers at six Starbucks have voted to unionize so far – into a wave of unionization at McDonald's and other fast-food companies, and whether the REI victory could be a springboard to victories elsewhere in retail, perhaps at Walmart or Whole Foods.
"We have a moment right now," said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the union that the REI workers voted to join. "I think that success breeds more success. When people see what's happened at some Starbucks in Buffalo, they ask, 'Why can't we do that, too?'"
His union is campaigning hard to win a rerun union election at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, but labor experts say it's much easier for unions to win at a Starbucks with 30 employees or an REI store with 100 than at an Amazon warehouse with perhaps 5,000 workers and management running an all-out, anti-union campaign.
A union button is seen on an REI employee's vest in New York City. Photograph: Ron Adar/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock
"You have thousands of people who are standing up at Amazon wanting to be part of this movement," Appelbaum said. "It relates to how people feel they were treated during the pandemic. Their contributions were not being rewarded sufficiently, and the risks they took were not being recognized sufficiently. Workers felt the callous indifference of too many employers. Plus, workers were concerned about the profiteering that was going on and the exponential explosion of income inequality. That we have such a pro-union president is helpful, too."
Moreover, workers feel unusually empowered because of the low unemployment rate and record number of job openings.
It is a moment when many workers are making inquiries about unionizing (beyond the well-known efforts among grad students, adjunct professors and museum workers). Organizers say workers at McDonald's, Target and Trader Joe's are asking about unionizing. That first union victory at a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, in December has led to workers at 140 Starbucks in 27 states petitioning for unionization votes. What is happening at Starbucks is the wildfire that union organizers dream of – an organic, bottom-up, fast-spreading effort.
Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs with Justice, a labor rights group, said all this worker energy is great. But acknowledging how fierce anti-union campaigns can be, she said: "The pressure is on us as a movement to help move this forward. It's really an uphill battle."
The recent string of lopsided union wins was impressive and inspiring: 88 to 14 at REI in Manhattan, 25 to three at Starbucks in Mesa, Arizona, 404 to 88 among New York Times tech workers, and 142 to 44 at the Art Institute of Chicago. These victories came despite vigorous anti-union campaigns by management.
"We're in a moment when we are questioning how effective traditional union-busting tactics are," said Rebecca Givan, a labor studies professor at Rutgers. "Traditional union-busting tactics like scaring immigrants and dividing workers by race – how effective they are has been brought into question." Givan said workers at Starbucks stores that have unionized speak with workers at other Starbucks to inoculate them against anti-union efforts by telling them what anti-union message and tactics to expect.
While the recent union wins fuel optimism, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January that just 10.3% of US workers are in unions and just 6.1% in the private sector. In the 1950s, more than one in three private-sector workers were in unions, in the 1980s, more than one in five. Now it's just one in 16.
The pressure is on us as a movement to help move this forward. It's really an uphill battle
Erica Smiley
Tefere Gebre, who recently stepped down as executive vice-president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's main labor federation, said unions were doing far too little to seize the moment and unionize workers. "Workers want unions, but the question is, do unions want workers?" Gebre said. "If you talk to any labor leader, they'll tell you, "That's what we're really for. We want members.' How you mechanize that is a different thing."
Gebre said far too many union leaders don't want to stick their necks out and spend members' dues money on unionizing more workers. "Right now we have fiefdoms that people think are big enough," Gebre said, warning that if union membership continues to decline, unions will inevitably lose clout.
"For far too long our growth strategy has been entirely attached to politics, but that has failed us over and over," Gebre said. A Republican filibuster has blocked Joe Biden's push to enact the Pro Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize.
Gebre said the nation's unions should send far more organizers and money to back the union drives at Starbucks and Amazon. "The rest of the labor movement should be willing to lend a hand," even if they don't get any of the members, said Gebre, who was recently named Greenpeace's chief program officer. "That's what solidarity means."
A person holds a sign reading 'Vote union yes!' in front of an Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama. Photograph: Dustin Chambers/Reuters
Unions have often balked at organizing small workplaces like restaurants with a few dozen workers, preferring to focus on larger workplaces. In addition to seeking a $15 wage, the Fight for $15 – which was largely financed by the Service Employees International Union – sought to pressure McDonald's to agree to remain neutral and not oppose unionization. That might have allowed efforts to unionize dozens of McDonald's and hundreds of McDonald's workers at once, but McDonald's rejected pressures to agree to neutrality.
Workers United, the union that is organizing Starbucks, is an Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate, but has taken a different approach. "It's better to organize 10,000 workers at a time than 25," said Erik Loomis, a labor historian at the University of Rhode Island. "But the more 25s you organize, the more people will see that success and gain confidence to take action themselves. You're seeing that with Starbucks."
Givan said the Starbucks victories might inspire workers at McDonald's, Chipotle and other fast-food companies to seek to unionize, and if just one or two of those restaurants unionize, it could spur many workers at those chains to seek to do likewise, especially in union strongholds like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Seattle.
"We don't have the luxury as a movement to be picky on strategy," said Smiley of Jobs with Justice. "At this moment, we have to let every flower bloom – not in a way that will burn the future, but in a way that will crack open the door to allow us to think a little differently."
Stephen Lerner, architect of the SEIU's groundbreaking Justice for Janitors campaign, said it was exciting that Starbucks workers are organizing and winning elections. But he said that even when workers win union elections, corporations often drag their feet for years before ever reaching a union contract, that is, if they ever agree – a strategy that hugely frustrates workers.
"That's why to beat giant corporations, you need comprehensive campaigns," Lerner said. "We need giant campaigns to pressure giant companies at multiple levels to make sure they negotiate and reach good contracts."
Seeing how intense anti-union efforts can be, many labor leaders resist calls that they do more organizing if unions are ever to grow larger and stronger. "Organizing at any place is too hard," Gebre said. "In the entire history of the labor movement, it's never been easy. But that's what unions are there for: to do the hard work."


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Home Page for Mani Zandifar | Parasol Laboratory
Mani Zandifar
Software & Systems Group
Parasol Laboratory url: http://parasol.tamu.edu/~mazaninfardi/
Department of Computer Science and Engineering email:
Texas A&M University office: 419A HRBB
College Station, TX 77843-3112 tel: 979-862-3411
USA fax: (979) 458-0718
I'm currently working on STAPL (Standard Template Adaptive Parallel Library) project. STAPL is a parallel library which simplifies parallel programming by providing interfaces similar to the sequential ISO C++ Standard Template Library (STL). I have added a Skeleton Framework to STAPL, which allows programs to be specified regardless of their internal parallel implementations. Skeletons raise the level of abstraction in parallel programs to formal specifications, allowing programs to be formally analyzed and transformed regardless of their parallel implementation. I provide efficient implementations for skeletons such as map, zip, reduce, scan which can scale beyond 100,000 cores, and also allow such skeletons to be composed and serve as the building blocks of real-world applications. In this framework, I use various software design patterns which allows it to be portable, extensible, and tunable.
The STAPL Skeleton Framework, Mani Zandifar, Nathan Thomas, Nancy M. Amato, Lawrence Rauchwerger, In Workshop on Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing (LCPC), Hillsboro, Or, Sep 2014. Proceedings (abstract, PDF)
Composing Algorithmic Skeletons to Express High-Performance Scientific ApplicationsBest Paper, Mani Zandifar, Mustafa Abduljabbar, Alireza Majidi, Nancy M. Amato, Lawrence Rauchwerger, David Keyes, In 29th International Conference on Supercomputing, Newport Beach, CA, 2015 (abstract, PDF)
MSc in Computer Science, TU Delft, the Netherlands. Abstract Reduction Operations Models in LIME Programming Model
BSc in Computer Engineering, University of Tehran, Iran. A RAD (Rapid Application Development) Tool for AJAX-based Portals
The STAPL Skeleton Framework
Mani Zandifar, Nathan Thomas, Nancy M. Amato, Lawrence Rauchwerger
This paper describes the STAPL Skeleton Framework, a high-level skeletal approach for parallel programming. This framework abstracts the underlying details of data distribution and parallelism from programmers and allows them express parallel programs as a composition of either existing elementary skeletons such as map, map-reduce, scan, zip, butterfly, allreduce, alltoall or user-defined custom skeletons.
Skeletons in this framework are defined as parametric data flow graphs, and their compositions are defined in terms of data flow graph compositions. Defining the composition in this manner, allows dependencies between skeletons to be defined in terms of point-to-point dependencies, avoiding unnecessary global synchronizations. In addition, we show a transformation which enables applications written in terms of skeletons to run on more than 100,000 cores. To show the ease of composability and expressivity, we implemented the NAS Integer Sort (IS) and (EP) benchmarks using skeletons and demonstrate comparable performance to the hand-optimized reference implementations.
Composing Algorithmic Skeletons to Express High-Performance Scientific Applications
Mani Zandifar, Mustafa Abduljabbar, Alireza Majidi, Nancy M. Amato, Lawrence Rauchwerger, David Keyes
Algorithmic skeletons are high-level representations for parallel programs, which hide the underlying parallelism details from program specification. They are defined in terms of higher-order functions, which can theoretically be composed to build larger programs. Many skeleton frameworks support efficient implementations for standalone skeletons such as map, reduce, zip both for shared-memory systems and small clusters. However, expressing complex skeletons that are constructed through composition of these fundamental skeletons in these frameworks either requires complete reimplementation or suffers from limited scalability due to required global synchronizations. In our framework, we represent skeletons as parametric dataflow graphs and describe composition of skeletons as point-to-point dependencies of their dataflow graph representations. As a result, we eliminate the need for reimplementation and global synchronizations in composed skeletons. In this work, we describe the process of translating skeleton-based programs to dataflow graphs and define rules for skeleton composition. To show the expressivity and ease of use of our framework, we show skeleton-based representation of the NAS EP, IS, FT, and CG benchmarks, and to show reusability and applicability of our framework on real-world applications we show an N-Body application using the FMM (Fast Multipole Method) hierarchical algorithm. Our results indicate that expressivity can be achieved without loss of performance even in complex real-world applications.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


How is it that we are supposed to have Joy and sing "Joy to the World" when the world and life is painful? We all would want to have that sense of Joy in our hearts and in order to have that Joy we need to understand that JOY IS FOUND IN THE THINGS THAT WE DEPEND UPON. The Christmas story teaches us that Joy is possible!
The coming of Jesus brings Peace. Sometimes we have the idea that Peace is a passive thing that all of the sudden will come to us. However, Peace won't just happen, Peace must be pursued. How do we experience Peace in all circumstances?


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Actor Joel McHale; comic Marc Maron; professional basketball player Blake Griffin; comic Dusty Slay.
Bears Bites: Jimmy Clausen in "Do or Die" Situation with Team
The Bears' minicamp is also discussed in this Monday batch of headlines
Published Jun 23, 2014 at 8:51 AM | Updated at 8:52 AM CDT on Jun 23, 2014
In this Monday edition of Bears Bites, we put a bow on the Chicago Bears' minicamp from last week, take a look at what a former Bears GM has to say about Jay Cutler, and see the steps that Jimmy Clausen is trying to take in order to make the team's roster as they prepare for the season.
We start out with our pal Matt Eurich, who breaks down all the happenings from the team's minicamp in Lake Forest. [Bleacher Report]
Jimmy Clausen, who was signed by the Bears to compete for the back-up quarterback position with Jordan Palmer and 2013 draft pick David Fales, termed his chance with the Bears a "do or die" proposition, and went into detail on how he's had to try to learn a huge chunk of the offense in just a couple of weeks. [CBS Chicago]
Former Bears GM Jerry Angelo may not be that high on Jay Cutler (he ranked him 13th on a list of top quarterbacks in the NFL), but he still believes that the Bears quarterback will have "an outstanding year." [CSN Chicago]
The Bears have gone from having one of the NFL's worst offensive lines to having a really solid one, and guys like Jared Allen have been impressed by what they've seen from the group tasked with protecting Cutler in the pocket. [Chicago Sun-Times]
The team's defense was wretched in 2013, but according to Matt Bowen, there were plenty of positive signs coming out of minicamp. [Chicago Tribune]
Finally, we provide a second piece of bread to our minicamp sandwich as Mike Flannery checks in with his own recap of the Bears' recent training sessions. [Bear Goggles On]


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Legacy Loans Program – Test of Funding Mechanism
Andrew Gray (202-898-7192)
The FDIC is taking the next step in the development of the Legacy Loans Program (LLP). The LLP is part of the Public-Private Investment Program announced in March by the Secretary of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC, and was designed to help banks remove troubled loans and other assets from their balance sheets so that banks could raise new capital and be better-positioned to provide lending to further the recovery of the U.S. economy.
In June, the FDIC indicated that it would continue to develop this program by testing the LLP's funding mechanism through the sale of receivership assets. This step will allow the FDIC to be ready to offer the LLP to open banks as needed.
The first test using the LLP funding mechanism commenced this week. In the transaction to be offered, the receivership will transfer a portfolio of residential mortgage loans on a servicing released basis to a limited liability company (LLC) in exchange for an ownership interest in the LLC. The LLC also will sell an equity interest to an accredited investor, who will be responsible for managing the portfolio of mortgage loans. Loan servicing must conform to either the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) guidelines or FDIC's loan modification program.
Accredited investors will be offered an equity interest in the LLC under two different options. The first option is on an all cash basis, which is how the FDIC has recently sold receivership assets, with an equity split of 80 percent (FDIC) and 20 percent (accredited investor). The second option is a sale with leverage, under which the equity split will be 50 percent (FDIC) and 50 percent (accredited investor).
The funding mechanism is financing offered by the receivership to the LLC using an amortizing note that is guaranteed by the FDIC. Financing will be offered with leverage of either 4-to-1 or 6-to-1, depending upon certain elections made in the bid submitted by the private investor. If the bid incorporates the 6-to-1 leverage alternative, then performance of the underlying assets will be subject to certain performance thresholds including delinquency status, loss severities, and principal repayments. If any one of the performance thresholds is triggered over the life of the note, then all of the principal cash flows that would have been distributed to the equity investors would be applied instead to the reduction of the note until the balance is zero. The performance thresholds will not apply if the bid is based on the lower leverage option.
The FDIC will be protected against losses on the note guarantee by the limits on the amount of leverage (both in terms of a maximum ratio and dollar amount), the mortgage loans collateralizing the guarantee, and the guarantee fee. The FDIC will analyze the results of this sale to see how the LLP can best further the removal of troubled assets from bank balance sheets, and in turn spur lending to further support the credit needs of the economy.
This announcement is for informational purposes only and is not an offer for the sale of securities. An offering to accredited investors, containing additional technical details of the offering, including an offering memorandum describing fully the details of such offering, will be made available to these investors in accordance with securities laws applicable to sale of securities to accredited investors.
FDIC press releases and other information are available on the Internet at www.fdic.gov, by subscription electronically (go to www.fdic.gov/about/subscriptions/index.html) and may also be obtained through the FDIC's Public Information Center (877-275-3342 or 703-562-2200). PR-131-2009
Last Updated 7/31/2009 communications@fdic.gov


Professional, Certified and Background Checked!
At Personal Pet and Home Care we provide pet transportation service and can take your pets where they need to be on time. We provide one way or round trip transportation to veterinarians, groomers, trainers, boarding houses, airports, medical emergencies or any other place your pet needs to be. Long Distance Ground Transport, Hospital Transfer, Airport Services, Pet Removals, Terminal Curbside, and much more.
What does Pet Taxi do?
Pet Taxis transports dogs, cats and most exotic animals. We transport to and from all airports, rent airline approved carriers and can even arrange to pick up or deliver your pet regardless of whether you'll be there or not. We also will make traveling around your home easier, with transportation to and from kennels, groomers and Vet's.
Do you go out of my city, and state?
• Local Pet transportation service to veterinarians, groomers, and boarding facilities in our outside your metro area.
When your pet requires emergency veterinary care, depend on us Emergency Transport service to get your pet to the nearest animal emergency hospital.
What makes using your service different from using a regular taxicab? Safety, Reliability and Courteous service are the extras you receive when you experience our pet transportation service. Anyone can get you from point A to point B. It's the professionalism, care and attention to you and your pet's every need that separates us from any taxicab or other services. We make every effort to accommodate any special request you may need to make your pet's trip a safe, comfortable and worry free experience.
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Is there an additional charge if I want you to transport more than one pet? There is a $5.00 charge for additional pets after the first pet in the same household.
Do you provide assistance with getting my pet down from my apartment? Yes. This is one of the main benefits of using our service and that separates us from a regular taxi service. Our driver can assist you with getting your cat into their carrier, carrying your dog down, or assisting you in other ways that makes your trip to your destination easier on you.
What is your cancellation policy? If you need to cancel a scheduled appointment, we ask that you give us as much notice as possible. As long as we do not send a driver out, there is no cancellation fee. However, if we do send a driver, the minimum one way quoted rate will be charged.
Does my pet need to be in a crated while being transported? All cats are required to be crated for the simple reason that they are more difficult to restrain and the chances of them escaping are considerably higher. When transporting dogs, we usually crate all dogs except when the owner is accompanying their dog, if the dog is too large for the available crate or if the dog is injured and crating is not possible. In these cases, we prefer that dogs wear a harness in order to be safely fastened and secured in our van. Dogs that show aggression towards people or other dogs will need to be crated in order to be transported.


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Buffalo Bills Reunite With Tight End Lee Smith
The Buffalo Bills have signed tight end Lee Smith to a three year deal. The former Bill is back in Buffalo where he was from 2011-2014.
Casey Gruarin
The Buffalo Bills have signed 31-year-old tight end Lee Smith to a three-year deal. This report is according to the Official Buffalo Bills social media accounts and website. The deal is worth up to $9 million. The deal includes fully guaranteed money for the first two years.
Smith was drafted in the fifth round in 2011 by the New England Patriots. He was cut in camp and then picked up by the Bills after. He was a member of the Bills from 2011-2014 and has been with the Oakland Raiders since. Smith will contribute on special teams and only as a blocker. He has never had more than 12 catches in a season in his 8-year career. Smith has also never had over 100 receiving yards in a season. Smith's extraordinary blocking skills will only help the offensive line and the running game.
The signing of Lee Smith will help the tight end room even more. Smith appears to be a roster lock along with Tyler Kroft or else he wouldn't have been signed to a multi-year deal with guaranteed money. What remains to be seen now is how many tight ends the Bills will keep on their roster and who those tight ends will be. Jason Croom, Dawson Knox, and Tommy Sweeney will most likely battle for the third and possibly fourth tight end spots on the Bills roster. Brandon Beane has suddenly taken a poor tight end room and made it competitive. He has added plenty of quality depth who can all compete for roster spots. Also, he has added tight ends who are all good at different aspects of football. Smith is a good blocker, Knox is a solid pass catcher, and the rest of the tight ends can do a little of both. Beane has once again shown he loves versatility, depth, and competition. Smith's blocking, special teams ability, and experience will help the Bills greatly and add more depth to the tight end position for the next three years.
Related Topics:Bills RosterBuffalo BillsLee SmithOakland RaidersTight Ends
2.05 / More Buffalo Bills Draft Talk with Kevin Guerard and the Latest Bills Transactions
Bucky Brooks Thinks Highly of Cody Ford
Born and raised in Buffalo, as a Bills Mafia member since the day I was born here. Passion and love for football and football analysis


In this op-ed, 12-year-old social justice activist, motivational speaker, and budding journalist Naomi Wadler reflects on her life a year after her viral March for Our Lives speech.
Growing up as a girl of color redefines your view of America. It impacts your experiences, your sense of self, and your opinions of the world around you. When I took the stage at the March for Our Lives rally one year ago, I was really nervous, but I knew I also had something to say – something I wanted to add to the conversation that was deeply personal and important to me.
I am not alone. Every day, I witness young girls of color exercising their power to take a stand and bring about change in their community — whether it's Marley Dias, who launched the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign to bring more attention to literature featuring black female protagonists, or Kheris Rogers, who created her own clothing line to cherish our complexions and was the youngest designer to show her line at Fashion Week. There's also Amika George whose campaign for free menstrual products took off in the U.K.
We are innovators, writers, scientists, designers, students, athletes and much, much more. We have the ability to defy expectations, to dream big and achieve big.
And that confidence to step forward and take action starts with self-love and acceptance. Somedays, I don't like how I look or how I feel. If you're like me, sometimes you may feel like you're not enough – smart enough, friendly enough, funny enough – but I am here to tell you that you are. You are enough. We have to lift each other up just as much as the world sometimes lets us down.
Society may paint girls of color in certain ways: Loud, aggressive, hypersexual, greedy, angry, lazy, dumb. These stereotypes would be laughable if they weren't terrifying.
On stage in D.C., I asked those in the audience and those watching from home to join me in my mission to rewrite the narrative for girls of color and to use their platform to create more opportunities for black and brown girls to shine, share, and have not only a seat but also a voice at the table.
In that moment, I was representing Courtlin Arrington, Hadiya Pendelton, Taiyania Thompso – young black women who had been victims of gun violence in their communities. I wanted to acknowledge the American girls whose stories don't make the front page of every national newspaper or don't lead on the evening news. And I still stand for them.
But this past year filled with so many exciting opportunities that I am thankful for has also been a period of reflection and growth. I'm now in middle school. I serve on the boards of some amazing organizations that have provided me with even more insight into social justice issues.
From all of these experiences, I've decided to expand my platform to other focus areas that affect girls of color, particularly black girls, such as school discipline policies, domestic and sexual abuse, and the ways those issues are connected to the school to prison pipeline.
Did you know that black girls are almost four times more likely to be arrested in school than white girls? That's what a 2017 joint study from Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Equality and the National Black Women's Justice Institute found. Another joint report last year from the Center on Poverty and Equality, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the Human Rights Project for Girls revealed that sexual abuse of one of the major predicting factors of girls entering the juvenile justice system. I share these points to highlight the fact that so much more work needs to be done and why I think we all have a role to play.
It's been studied that strong, positive relationships between peers and adults are what help to keep young people on a path toward success. With the platform I've been given, I see it as not only a privilege, but a responsibility, and I plan to use my platform to support girls like me.
One way I'm planning to do that, thanks to support from Ellen DeGeneres, is a new web series that just launched on ellentube called DiversiTEA with Naomi Wadler. The show gives me a chance to interview people I admire like Serena Williams, Jameela Jamil, and Olivia Wilde on hot topics that range from self-love and body image to feminism and social justice. But what I'm most excited about are the messages from those conversations that will hopefully inform and inspire others.
I also plan to use my own personal social media platforms to uplift and share the voices and stories of other girls of color to help rewrite the narrative that has often been written for us.
We can do it because we already have thanks to examples like Shirley Chisholm, Serena Williams, Sojourner Truth, Claudette Colvin, Marian Wright Edelman, Stacey Abrams, Kamala Harris, Yara Shahidi, and many others.
Remember, you don't have to travel around the country speaking on a national platform. Real change starts locally; real change starts with you.
You can have a conversation with key audiences you might want to influence in your school or community, or you can ask your friends to come with you to a rally to support an idea you believe in. You can send a postcard or letter to a member of Congress, your governor, or local politicians on a particular issue you champion. Every time you advocate, you are making a difference.
And if people say you're too young or that you're repeating what an adult has told you, tell them like I do that I may be young, but I also have an opinion and a voice. We know the difference between right and wrong and one day – sometime soon – we'll be able to vote and run for office as so many women of color successfully did last year in the 2018 midterms. But the work starts now.
As Women's Herstory Month comes to an end, the push to support and empower girls all over the country and the world to stand in our power and use our voice to bring about change is rising. And that is a wonderful thing. Let's continue to use that momentum and build on it by using our voices and sharing our ideas. Let's not wait for others to come to us. Let's be the changemakers we already are.


Check out our interview section, where we get up close and personal with Artistes,fashion designers, celebrities and iconic individuals within the Afro-community.
AU: Can i start by saying thanks for honoring our invitation to this interview session at Afrocentricity Unleashed.
Radical 77:Thanks for hosting me.
AU: For the benefit of our readers, who is Radical 77 and how did you get that name?
Radical 77 : Okay, I'm Radical77 not a typical one aka Olaonipekun Olabode Osoba,and the Radical came from my mum due to my way of seeing things differently and standing my ground, from my childhood.
AU: Tell us what growing up was like?
Radical 77: Growing up wasn't that easy in Lagos and the UK as my family experienced some unsettled life,but life is really beautiful and it entails a lot of ups and downs which really shaped me into who i am today; my lyrics potrays that.
AU: When did you start your musical career?
a professor at my unversity encouraged me to try rap, as my style suits can be likened to more consious-styled rap.
AU: So how has the journey been so far?
Radical 77: I really thank God since my journey has been awesome, and i consider myself blessed.i can't deny the effect of God and my Fans on my career since I started making it in the industry approximately 2 years ago.
AU: Your style of Afrobeats is very unique since it includes a blend of the Yoruba language. How would you describe your style to our readers?
AU Your shows have been known to be well attended, and it also cuts across a lot of social barriers.What is the secret behind this?
Radical 77:It's always By God's Grace and i always get to know the fans i'm performing for before going on stage; that then determines the tracks i perform. For instance, before my western fans i would perform more of my western Oriented work and would do more of my afro beat before my afro fans.
AU:You performed at the last "crack ya ribs" comedy show in Glasgow which was a huge success with the social media going riot. How was that for you?
Radical 77: That was a great achievement i have to admit. The crowd was huge and i made my fans go wild.
AU:Do you have any albums or demos in the offing at the moment which our readers can check out or buy?
Radical 77: Yes I've released 5 Singles which can be accessed via,www.hulkshare.com/Radical77, www.soundcloud.com/Radical77 and www.reverbnation.com/Radical77.
AU: And do you have Social media links i.e Facebook, twitter and the like?
AU: Radica 77 it has been a pleasure to have you on our couch.We do wish you very best in your music career.
Radicall 77:Really appreciate!Iit's been really good fun lounging and chatting with you. Thanks a lot.
Daughters Who Walk This Path depicts the dramatic coming of age of Morayo, a spirited and intelligent girl growing up in 1980s Ibadan who is thrust into a web of oppressive silence woven by the adults around her. It's a legacy of silence many women in Morayo's family share. Only Aunty Morenike—once protected by her own mother—provides Morayo with a safe home, and a sense of female community which sustains Morayo as she grows into a young woman in bustling, politically charged, often violent Nigeria (http://penguin.ca) Afrocentricity Unleashed caught up with Yejide Kilanko, the author of Daughters who walk this path. Enjoy!
Afrocentricity Unleashed: Can I start by asking (for the benefit of our readers), who is Yejide Kilanko?
Yejide Kilanko: I'm a poet, short story writer, novelist and Social Worker in children's mental health. I currently live in Ontario, Canada with my family. My debut novel, Daughters Who Walk This Path, was published by Penguin Canada in April 2012.
Yejide Kilanko: I was born in Ibadan, Nigeria as the first of five children. My father, a retired university professor, shared with us his love of books and scrabble. So, I fell in love with words at a very early age. I subsequently spent six years at boarding school in Onitsha, a city located in the eastern part of the country. I'm very thankful for that experience and the friends I made.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: When did you develop your passion for writing?
Yejide Kilanko: I started writing poetry at the age of 12. It was the best way I dealt with the angst of growing up in very uncertain times. As a Political Science undergraduate at the University of Ibadan, I wrote for two student press organizations.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: Were there any authors or books you particularly liked while growing up?
Yejide Kilanko: A lot of the books I read came from the African Writer's Series and from these, the works of Buchi Emecheta, Cyprian Ekwensi and Ama Ata Aidoo, really made me think about issues relating to gender roles and societal expectations. I also read a lot of the books from Macmillian's Pacesetters Series. In my teenage years, I started watching and reading plays. Zulu Sofola's Wedlock of The Gods and Athol Fugard's Sizwe Bansi is Dead are favourites.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: Your new book "Daughters Who Walk This Path" has received a lot of positive and some negative reviews locally and internationally with regards to the portrayal of ills of the Nigerian society. What do you have to say about this?
Yejide Kilanko: I'll like to say that I'm delighted that people are reading Daughters. It's every writer's dream. One thing all Nigerians, can all agree, is that there's lots of room for improvement in our society. For that change to happen, we need to have ongoing, meaningful conversations. That I can be a little part of making these conversations happen, is an honour.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: Would you say the issue of child abuse and the abuse of women is still a prevalent issue in Nigeria in the 21st century, or could we play safe and stick to a more comfortable fictional explanation?
Yejide Kilanko: I definitely think that women and child abuse is still a big problem in Nigerian society. I know many people who have been affected and I'm not alone. While Daughters is a work of fiction, it does present an accurate picture of current events.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: Would you say male chauvinism is highly prevalent in the African and Afro Carribean society?
Afrocentricity Unleashed: Why would you say this?
Yejide Kilanko: From what I know, African and Afro Caribbean societies are mostly patriarchal in nature. In my opinion, this only supports environments where male chauvinistic beliefs thrive.
Afrocentricity Unleashed:In your opinion, what do you think the government, Non-governmental organizations or Charity bodies can do to rehabilitate children or women who are or have been subject to abuse?
Yejide Kilanko: To me, the use of the word rehabilitation, suggests that children and women who have experienced physical or sexual abuse are somewhat responsible for their situation. I don't think that's the case. What they need is unflinching support from their families. Relevant services from NGOs working with that population. It's also important that law enforcement personnel and judiciary, protect and provide opportunities for to seek redress.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: So besides writing potential bestsellers, what are Yejide`s pastimes?
Yejide Kilanko: I love to sing and usually listen to music while I write. I also like to cook. I find the whole process of chopping and stirring, very relaxing.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: What food do you like preparing the most?
Yejide Kilanko: My favourite dish to cook is spicy jollof rice. My kids who love to eat it, call it red rice. They've told me to open a restaurant.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: Is there any book in the pipeline which your ardent readers can possibly look forward to?
Yejide Kilanko: My second novel is all written and due for publication in 2014. I'm currently researching a third.
Yejide Kilanko: Read, read, read. Read books across different genres. You'll learn a lot. A writer is someone who writes so don't be afraid to put something down even if it doesn't sound right. You can worry about fixing the sentences later. Don't give up on yourself before you even begin. Seek feedback about your work. Don't let it crush you. Practice does make better. Keep writing even when you want to give up. Remember to enjoy the process. Remind yourself daily why the heartache of writing and seeking publication is all worth it.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: Can your readers connect with you on any of the social Medias i.e facebook, twitter and the like?
Yejide Kilanko: I have a website http://www.yejidekilanko.com/ You can find me on facebook as https://www.facebook.com/YejideKilanko.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: On a final note, is there anything you would like to say to your readers out there?
Yejide Kilanko: Thanks for your support. It really makes all the difference.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: Yejide, Afrocentricity Unleashed would like to wish you best of luck in your career and earnestly look forward to another opportunity to discuss with you when your new book is published.
Yejide Kilanko: Thank you for having me and I look forward to coming back in the future.
Afrocentricity Unleashed: We look forward to having you back. Thanks again.


The Old Dominion Football Club (ODFC) and CESENA USA has consolidated the experience developed by its own technical staff and the experience acquired from the A.C. Cesena technicians to create a unique learning environment for our youth players and coaches.
This "elite" travel soccer portion of the Old Dominion Football Club (ODFC) is a consolidation of efforts and strong working relationship between two youth focused organizations. CESENA USA is fully committed to bringing an advanced player and coach education system to our area members.
Both A.C. Cesena S.p.a and its' US based affiliate CESENA USA have identical developmental philosophies which clearly puts an emphasis on structured and methodical soccer education. Both organizations have highly trained and accredited staff most holding coaching credentials from the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) and European Football Association (UEFA) and licenses form organizations within the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL).
CESENA USA will work closely on a yearly basis within its academy structure to identify quality players and possibly fill the ranks of the Italian professional league or its respective youth systems.
CESENA USA has also committed to working closely with A.C. Cesena S.p.a senior developmental staff to provide learning opportunities for youth coaches as the demand for "higher learning" continuous to increase.
A.C. Cesena and Cesena USA On Same Page When Training!
An interview with Cesena USA Program Director, Andy Vera.
How has A.C. Cesena and their "brand" of teaching influenced you in developing your program here in the US?
"I've been affiliated with this great club (A.C. Cesena) since 2009…during that time I've been fortunate enough to have some great mentors at the club…great coaches that have demonstrated to me excellent teaching techniques…the same "Metodo Giovani" (Young Method) utilized in Italy is applied here at Cesena USA…we use the exact same teaching methodology as our Italian partners".
Who applies this "method of teaching" at ODFC Cesena?
If you had to breakdown the Cesena Method into understandable teaching objectives, what would they be?
At what age groups do you begin applying this methodology?
What do you say to those that may question your methods and doubt their validity?
©2019 Cesena USA / SportsEngine. All Rights Reserved.


A few years ago, I received an invitation to a wedding of some distant cousin-in-law taking place in the British Virgin Islands. It was the fourth such request I had received that year. My friend Bill happened to be the groom in one of these weddings.
It didn't escape me that in each of those nuptials, one party came from a very affluent family, while the other was from a more modest background. The spark that lit these tropical fires had to start somewhere. In Bill's case, I doubt it was he, the groom from Iowa, but rather Kate, the bride from Martha's Vineyard.
To be fair, Kate's mother had taken over the entire affair. It was to be an intimate get away for the couple, and turned into a full-blown circus on St. Kitts.
Could this have been a harbinger from the mouth of babes?
Testing his theory, I ran upstairs to my office and found the other three announcements. Then, I began inspecting websites of the airlines and resorts listed in the invitations as offering "special rates" for a week-long stay.
On average, just the travel and accommodations reached five figures for each wedding. This didn't take into account any other expense. I calculated the cost for attendance at all four ceremonies, and saw a healthy chunk of my retirement fund vanishing.
More problems loomed on these exotic horizons. Golf was to be the theme at two of the gatherings. The listings recommended personal caddies, all U.S. golf pros, who could accompany me to the Caribbean for just another year of Jason's college tuition.
While decent at Putt-Putt, I didn't hit the links much. I called downstairs to Jason, and asked him if he wanted to caddie for me. Alas, he had smelled trouble and was already in the living room caddying the TV remote.
What about wedding gifts? I had to give some thought to that.
My first inclination was to accept the invite to Bill and Kate's wedding, since I had seen them much more recently than 35 years ago at a middle school graduation. That would leave me only one real present to deal with.
Initially, I thought a fitting gift would be my attendance. Presumptuous, yet still setting me back a few years in the bank account. Wouldn't such personal expenditure be appreciated? How exactly do you shop for someone whose family can get them anything?
Buying a Porsche or ski condo in the Alps would have to be left to one of Kate's uncles. I had to think of something earthly. Books were no good. Even though the bride and groom liked a good read, there was something about reaching into my personal stock of collectibles that smacked of convenience.
I remembered that Kate loved a well-made margarita, so I thought the most advanced 12-way blender would be a practical gift that the newlyweds could use right away.
Yet from my past discussions with Bill, I recalled a full traveling kitchen staff and fresh Aegean pomegranates flown in weekly for morning juice and evening cocktail mixes. Kate's family had a power lifter named Mario back in the kitchen squeezing each seed by hand.
Somehow, I didn't think they were registered at Sears.
Jason was right, after all. I accepted my fate as a member of the vulgar throng and decided to save my retirement and his college tuition. In light of more recent economic events, it turned out to be prescient.
Instead, I sent laudatory cards. The enduring tan would have been nice, but I let the idea go.
Before that wedding, I had a chance to speak to Bill. He expressed overwhelming feelings at the anticipated opulence of his ceremony, and told me he felt best served by being a good prop for the wedding album.


text:
extern "Java"
{
  namespace java
  {
    namespace security
    {
        class Permission;
        class PermissionCollection;
    }
  }
}

class java::security::Permission : public ::java::lang::Object
{

public:
  Permission(::java::lang::String *);
  virtual void checkGuard(::java::lang::Object *);
  virtual jboolean implies(::java::security::Permission *) = 0;
  virtual jboolean equals(::java::lang::Object *) = 0;
  virtual jint hashCode() = 0;
  virtual ::java::lang::String * getName();
  virtual ::java::lang::String * getActions() = 0;
  virtual ::java::security::PermissionCollection * newPermissionCollection();
  virtual ::java::lang::String * toString();
private:
  static const jlong serialVersionUID = -5636570222231596674LL;
  ::java::lang::String * __attribute__((aligned(__alignof__( ::java::lang::Object)))) name;
public:
  static ::java::lang::Class class$;
};

#endif // __java_security_Permission__

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: How do I get the Formatted Value of a cell using Google Apps Script I want to use Google Apps Script to create a string by concatenating values from a selection of cells within a Google Spreadsheet. The problem is that I won't know whether the cells contain numbers, dates, or text. When the value is a number or date, I want to get the formatted value, the way it is displayed in the spreadsheet.
For example, here is a function that will return the value for a named range.
function getValueByName() {
    var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
    var theRange = ss.getRangeByName("theNamedRange");
    return theRange.getValue();
}

If the named range contains a date, formatted as 11/6/2013, then this function returns the value as "Wed Nov 06 2013 01:00:00 GMT-0700 (MST)".
I understand that what I am wanting would result in rounding errors for decimal values, but I don't care about that in this case. I just want to get the formatted value.
Thank you.

A: I believe the existing answers are now outdated, as a new function getDisplayValue() seems to be what OP is looking for.

Using your example, we can get the formatted value, in this case 30%, of a range (cell) like this:
function getValueByName() {
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var theRange = ss.getRangeByName("A1Notation");
  var value = theRange.getValue() // 0.3
  var formattedValue = theRange.getDisplayValue(); // 30%
  return formattedValue;
}

This returns the displayed value of the top-left cell in the range, so useful if the range only has one value. Use getDisplayValues() for a larger range.

A: You will have to know the type of data coming from each cell and handle it the right way in each case...
if it's a string, keep it as it is, if it's a date use Utilities.formatDate to show it the way you want (see doc here) and if it's a number you can also format it as necessary using Utilities.formatString (see doc here).
To get the type, use instanceof, for an example have a look at this recent post

A: There's a lib for that! SheetConverter library.
Gist here.
Here's how you could get a single formatted cell:
var formattedValue = SheetConverter.convertCell(value, format);

You'll find other goodies to convert whole ranges into HTML tables, or generate the HTML for a single cell (including fonts, background colors, text colors, and most other formatting elements).
Disclosure: I'm the library author. But that's not my picture on the "ScriptExamples" site!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
CHINA'S ALLEGED PESKY ANTI-STEALTH CAPABILITY
October 30, 2014 / Joseph P. Farrell / 6 Comments
This article was shared by Mr. M.N., a regular reader here, and it's worth passing along, especially in view of America's "Pivot to the Pacific" strategy and its growing concern over China's growing power. America's doctrine of warfare as it has emerged since World War Two (under the learn-while-you-burn tutelage of the Germans) has been one of technological and fire-power superiority and attrition, backed up by an immense logistical capability, a doctrine that, in some sense, had to emerge to combat the cluster of potential enemies arrayed against it in the post-war world, and in a world with an economically powerful and technologically capable China, with a vast population base, that doctrine is even more reliant upon technology and fire-power attrition. And the key to that doctrine is in turn the necessity of achieving and maintaining air superiority. To this end, of course, America has developed an expensive array of radar stealthy fighters and strategic bombers, a luxury that smaller powers cannot afford.
Except... there's a glitch in this wonderful stealthy world: it doesn't work as well as the popular imagination thinks it does:
Did China Just Render America's $1 Trillion Stealth Fighter Program Obsolete?
I hope you caught the problems here(and let's also recall, in this regard, Lockheed Martin's fusion reactor claims, and the lack of any really good hard data backing it up):
"In a 2013 RAND Corporation report, one of the nation's foremost military analysts, blasted the F-35 for being a fighter that "can't turn, can't climb, can't run." Proponents of the F-35 reply that because it's stealthy, it shouldn't have to do any of those things -- lobbing missiles at its foes from over the horizon, and long before they can even see it.
"Unfortunately, it turns out that the F-35 may not do the "invisibility" thing very well, either.
"As DefenseNews.com recently revealed, China has a new device that may be able to track Lockheed's F-35 fighter with "passive" radar detection technology. Dubbed the DWL002, China's equipment can apparently detect stealth aircraft at distances of up to 400 kilometers -- and 600 kilometers for larger "stealth" targets -- processing "pulse, frequency agility, pulse duration, tactical air navigation system, distance measuring equipment, jitter/stagger radar, and identification friend or foe" signals emitted by the otherwise stealthy aircraft to determine its location."
And there's more bad news of an historical nature to ponder:
"This problem with the F-35's lack of invisibility, it turns out, is not limited to China. According to DN, both the Czechs and the Ukrainians have similar systems for passive intercept of electronic signals, capable of detecting stealth aircraft.
"Similarly, Aviation Week reported earlier this year that certain very high frequency (VHF) radar systems, such as Russia's P-14 Oborona VHF early warning system, and its 3D Nebo SVU active electronically scanned array (AESA), may also be capable of detecting the F-35. (A new Chinese naval radar system, Type 517M VHF, may be similarly effective against the F-35.)
"And of course, there is the Balkan War incident to keep in mind. On March 27, 1999, Serbian anti-aircraft forces used a 1960s vintage P-18 VHF acquisition radar system (working in conjunction with an SA-3 SAM system for proximity targeting) to detect and down a F-117 stealth fighter jet."
And let's not forget the recent USS Donald Cook incident either, where an obsolescent Russian Sukhoi-25 apparently shut down the missile frigate's Aegis missile defense system, not even allowing it to reboot.
Now there's two problems here, and one of them is well-known, and the other concerns my high-octane speculation of the day. The well-known problem is this: radar is not, as the popular imagination has it, a "bounce," but rather, is a secondary transmitter effect. The radar signal itself stimulates a current in objects which become a secondary transmitter via resonance, transmitting a signal back... know the resonance, and, theoretically, viola... one can stimulate that secondary current effect. Now, with stealthy aircraft, all the gimicks are meant to damp this effect. Looking at the Serbian downing of the F-117 in 1999, my guess is that this would appear to have been the basis of their ability to down the aircraft, probably, as hinted at in the article though not openly stated, through some sort of interferometry effect that magnified that secondary transmitter effect.
Which brings us to the second problem, one huge with implications for the "Pacific pivot," for after a trillion dollars, it appears, at least on the surface, that we're left with, as the article begins, with an aircraft that (1) can't climb, (2) can't turn, (3) can't run, and (4) can't be invisible either. So why not simply build a conventional aircraft to do all those things, like France, the U.K., Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan and anyone else with an air force does? Indeed, all of those countries certainly have the technological capability to build stealthy aircraft, yet, they do not do so. And I suspect the question is more than just budgetary concerns; they also know these basic principles, and know, ultimately, that there can be countermeasures conceivably rendering stealth not-so-stealthy.
So why does the USA insist on pursuing it?
My high octane suspicion is that "stealth" programs are exactly that, "stealthy" not in the radar invisibility sense, but in the budgetary sense, and that the real money is going for something else, and altogether much more exotic than stealth. After all, this is Lockheed-Martin we're talking about folks, and you cannot tell me that $1,000,000,000,000 has only bought a plane that can't climb, can't turn, can't run, and can't ultimately be stealthy. A trillion dollars would buy lots of big underground facilities, fusion reactors, DARPA warp drive projects, and tractor beams though... but that's another story...
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DownunderET on October 30, 2014 at 12:44 pm
It's taken Lockheed Martin 10 years to get the F-35 to this stage, and now it's a LEMON. They asked a few countries to get on board and toss in a few Billion to keep the LEMON going.
Now you gotta ask yourself, if there is a war of some sort, they will definitely NOT be using fighter jets, which puts Tom Cruise out of a job, and the Top Gun school for pilots gets a face over and becomes a Holiday Inn.
Oh, and then there's the money thing, and the billions that they have thrown at this excuse for a fighter plane, they would have been better to develop a flying saucer, eh….whoops !!!!
Guygrr on October 30, 2014 at 10:54 am
It's my opinion that satellites are not only all seeing eyes in the sky, but that they are already heavily weaponized, both together rendering flybys obsolete. I'm sure that the PTB can already drop tungsten shells or fire phased array scalar weapons at whomever they choose. Plus the ability to fly at Mach 17+ allows them to outpace any conventional defensive capabilities. I agree that the entire stealth program is a shield for SAPs. A possible reason the European countries don't spend so much is because they do not have to maintain the PR of being the biggest baddest fastest kid …I mean military, on the block. Besides I have a feeling if we switched governments with say Germany, the German people as a whole would not stand for our government's …. I don't even know what to call it anymore… pure evil. I'm just waiting for the day, presumably Dick Cheney or some other nefarious individual, cancels the F-35 program claiming "sorry all we have to show for your trillion dollars and years of labor is this nice life size model, of course it doesn't fly but it sure is shiny… *he cackles*"
Speaking of that particular nefarious individual reminds me of a few words of very helpful advice I received a while back. If you ever find yourself about to climax but it's too soon just picture Dick Cheney, I guarantee that will delay the approaching inevitably. Now my first time trying this I pictured the guy naked. big mistake. it sent my Cheney too far in the intended direction and left me with emotional trauma. Keep his clothes on and you'll be good to go.
Robert Barricklow on October 30, 2014 at 9:56 am
What's going under the radar is exactly that, hidden finances and how they have been implemented, w/o a discouraging word, while the deer and the antelope watch soap operas & pay-for-view sports.
Lost on October 30, 2014 at 8:31 am
Re: The Donald Cook, a problem
The claims look entirely made up.
So if that's the argument for these systems existing, those claims undermine that argument.
Now, I'm sure that Russians and Chinese etc have various ways of looking for stealthy aircraft, and perhaps this particular Chinese system is very real
And right, most of this spending is being used for other purposes.
Odd though: No mention of the Lockheed F22.
marcos toledo on October 30, 2014 at 8:24 am
These merchants begun selling junkie goods to everybody and getting away with it for centuries and have never learn their lesson. Their companies are folding left and right and the still doing the same stupid mistakes. These idiots couldn't make it as street venders selling drugs or used cars sales people. The late Hiram Rickover complained about these over priced junk merchants before he died at a congressional hearing.
Erdem on October 30, 2014 at 7:47 am
I'd say the Secret/Dark/Black Lockheed Martin and the Normal Lockheed Martin are separate entities and that the personnel in one does not know about the other. Normal Lockheed Martin can be a pool where they recruit the talent for the Black part but under normal conditions I would not expect them to involve the black projects guys in normal projects like the F-35.
The same may go for the Russians and Chineese because they both are trying hard for their own stealth crafts.
The Serbian incident may not be too important – after all they knew the corridor where they came through and when they came through. They had to fire up the missile without radar lock and have the missile activate its own seeker once it was "up there". OTH radars can give an early warning but do not provide tracking data.
Stealth is like those thongs, once it's out there you can't go without it. Why have a huge radar cross section when you can have a smaller RCS?
The question nobody asked Lockheed Martin is ;" Are you paying for the Fusion Reactor Research from your own pockets?"