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The Light at Dusk: A Profile of Joan Didion
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Kevin Nance
No one, least of all Joan Didion, would consider The Year of Magical Thinking (Knopf, 2005), her National Book Award–winning memoir about coping with the sudden death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, a happy book. In fact it's a harrowing journey through a blasted heath of grief and loss, with denial (he wasn't really sick, he isn't really dead, no, not really) her only solace. But the writing itself was healing. Didion has never been a great talker—she's referred to herself as "neurotically inarticulate"—but is, as critics have repeatedly pointed out over the past forty years, peerless on the page, blessed with a fluid yet miraculously compressed prose style that somehow melds the thunderclap clarity of Hemingway and the sinuous depths of Henry James. In eighty-eight fever-pitch days at the typewriter, she wrestled with Dunne's ghost, emerging, as always, victorious, or close enough. A chaos of emotions was brought into a semblance of order. There was closure, a cauterizing of wounds, a dulling of pain, even a measure of peace.
Photographs by Pieter M. Van Hattem
Not this time. Not with her new memoir, Blue Nights, published this month by Knopf, in which she returns to the subject of the loss of a loved one: her daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, who soon followed her father into the dark, but whose death was not to be talked or thought of, not with any great rigor, and certainly not written about. "I wouldn't want to have a long conversation about Quintana's death," Didion told New York magazine in late 2005. But about two years ago, she did have that conversation—with herself. It was one of those dreaded talks, like the one with your parents, when you're a teenager, about the facts of life, or when you confront a friend about going into rehab. There was, for one thing, the complication of Quintana's privacy. Didion wondered whether she had the right to write about Quintana, to reveal her secrets, including the circumstances of her adoption as an infant, her history of emotional and mental problems (including depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and borderline personality disorder), and the details of the cascade of illnesses (brain hematoma, pneumonia, septic shock, a coma) that claimed her life at the age of thirty-nine.
"The Year of Magical Thinking was about my life together with John, and it didn't deal much with Quintana, in part because I wasn't comfortable with that—Quintana's life was her life," Didion says one recent afternoon in her apartment on New York City's Upper East Side, her voice as small and reedy as her petite, famously frail physique. "But after a while, I just started it, and once I'd made that decision, I knew I had to shake off that doubt. It was time to think about Quintana, and about our relationship. It was time."
What Didion realized—after finally training on herself the steely, pitiless gaze that in earlier years had stripped the armor off icons like Ronald Reagan and Bob Woodward, leaving them naked as deluded emperors—was that she had achieved, as Quintana's mother, something a good deal less than perfection. She had failed, as mothers often do, to appreciate the complexity of her daughter's often surprisingly dark personality, aspects of which manifested themselves early. When Quintana was five, the Dunnes came home to their beach house in Malibu, California, to discover that she had placed a telephone call to Camarillo, a nearby state psychiatric hospital, to inquire about what she needed to do if she was going crazy. On another occasion she called 20th Century Fox to ask what she needed to do to be a star. In her early teens, she produced "a novel I'm writing just to show you," featuring a girl named Quintana who, believing herself pregnant, tells her parents. "They said they would provide the abortion," the budding novelist wrote of her fictional parents, "but after that they did not even care about her any more."
And yet Didion—as she came to see while writing Blue Nights—persisted in treating her beautiful blonde daughter as simply a normal child, hardly more than a doll in a dollhouse, there to be fed, clothed, nursed, and dearly loved but not to wonder much about, not to suspect of roiling, vertiginous depths. "Quintana had more self-knowledge, even early on, than I ever had of her," she says now in a halting voice. "Did I fail her? Totally. Obviously. I thought of her as a baby, whereas very clearly, if you look at the things that she was doing when she was four and five and six years old, she was not a baby, even then. Even then, she had these dark feelings, dark thoughts." As if in her own defense, Didion points out a framed photograph of John and Quintana when she was four or five. "Look at her! She doesn't look like a child with dark feelings, does she?"
She doesn't. In the photo, Quintana looks like a doll in a dollhouse, albeit one with—if you didn't know she was adopted—what appear to be her mother's eyes: cool, sober, steady, disinclined to look away.
In this flowing, nonlinear, often elliptical memoir, Didion recounts her memories of Quintana throughout their lives together, rediscovering—or, more often, discovering for the first time—the significance latent in small episodes, fragments of dialogue, moods, and moments. All of it is poignant, though not all depressing; there are, amid the darkness, pinpricks of light. "In a lot of ways, given all the problems she had, I didn't give her credit for being as on top of things as she was," Didion says now about her daughter. Elsewhere she fashions a gauzy shroud of remembrances of others, many now dead: friends from the movies (including actress Natasha Richardson, who died after a freak skiing accident in 2009 and whose mother, Vanessa Redgrave, starred in Didion's Broadway adaptation of The Year of Magical Thinking), Chicago mob fixer Sidney Korshak, and Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham. But she keeps returning to Quintana, craving her presence, haunted by her non-presence, filled and refilled like a chalice at Communion, replenished by memories that are forever running out.
Unlike The Year of Magical Thinking, then, Blue Nights was not a therapeutic experience for its author. Not exactly. "Well, obviously it was, in a sense—anytime you get something out of your hidden mind into your front mind, I guess you could call that therapeutic," Didion says quietly. "But in Magical Thinking, dealing with John's death, I didn't come to any negative conclusions about my own part in it. I didn't come out of it thinking that I was in some way more responsible, more culpable, than I had thought. It wasn't my fault. But to some extent, I came away from this book about Quintana thinking that it was about my failure, and that I had not appreciated that it had been my failure. It's less finished than Magical Thinking, more sad, more not right. And in Magical Thinking, although I may not have realized it, I was working my way toward a satisfying resolution. If someone dies a natural death and you think that you could not have in any way affected the outcome, you feel that it's resolved in a satisfactory way. Quintana's death…" Didion's hands, fragile and ridged with dark veins, float in the air, describing something that words cannot. "Her death I can't resolve in a satisfactory way," she says, her voice just above a whisper. "There's too much business left unfinished between us. That can never be finished."
She finished the book, though, and is bracing herself, at the age of seventy-six, for a round of press interviews for which she has no prepared script, no "cool way," as she puts it, to answer the questions she knows will come. And although Blue Nights proved far more difficult to write than The Year of Magical Thinking—instead of eighty-eight days, it took nearly a year to produce the 188 pages—she seems to take a certain grim satisfaction in the fact that she confronted head-on what was perhaps the most painful aspect of her own history. If her procrastination in writing about Quintana was symptomatic of a fear of revealing secrets—not only her daughter's but also her own—in the end she got down to business, as she always does, and spared no one, least of all herself.
"I've always had the sense that if there was ever any doubt about whether I should deal with something, then I have to deal with it," she says, some strength reentering her voice. "The image that always comes to my mind is that if you keep your eye on the rattlesnake, the rattlesnake can't get you."


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Occasional essay
Inclusion of drugs in provincial drug benefit programs: Who is making these decisions, and are they the right ones?
Andreas Laupacis
CMAJ January 08, 2002 166 (1) 44-47;
Dr. Laupacis is with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, and the Departments of Medicine and Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont. He is a Senior Scientist of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Over 2 years ago, I joined the Drug Quality and Therapeutics Committee (Therapeutics Committee) of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Using mainly cost-effectiveness criteria, the committee suggests to the minister which drugs should be included in the drug benefit program for Ontario residents over the age of 65 years and those on social assistance.
Given that resources for health care are limited, it seems sensible to me that cost-effectiveness is the main criterion used to determine which drugs are reimbursed from the public purse. However, some physicians believe that the Therapeutics Committee unreasonably increases the bureaucracy associated with patient care and restricts their ability to prescribe useful medications. In addition, many in the pharmaceutical industry view the committee as having a predominantly cost-containment agenda, and members of the public have complained that the Therapeutics Committee deliberates in private and that patients have no input into the process.
In this essay, I describe the organization of the Therapeutics Committee, the annual budget of the Ontario Drug Benefits Program and the major drugs the program funds. I also provide some thoughts about the Therapeutics Committee, in particular, and about the use of information concerning the cost-effectiveness of drugs in general.
Organization and process of the Therapeutics Committee
The Therapeutics Committee consists of 10 physicians and 2 pharmacists selected on the basis of their clinical expertise or ability to interpret economic evaluations, or both. Members usually serve a term of 3–5 years. Manufacturers who wish to have their drug included in the provincial formulary prepare a detailed submission that describes the drug's clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, using a checklist prepared by the committee. Each submission is reviewed by 2 or more external consultants and 1–2 committee members. They are asked to take a societal point of view and not to focus only on the budget of the Ontario Drug Benefits Program.
For each drug, the committee has 3 options: General Benefit, Limited Use and a third category, known as Section 8. Approval as a "General Benefit" drug means that the cost of the drug is reimbursed for all patients with no restrictions. "Limited Use" means that the cost of the drug is reimbursed only for patients who meet certain clinical criteria. Physicians must confirm that patients meet these criteria by signing a special prescription form and entering a number that corresponds to the Limited Use criterion. If the drug is not in either of these 2 categories, it will not be paid for unless a special written request indicating the reason why the drug is required for a particular patient is sent to the Drug Programs Branch of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. This classification is known as Section 8. The request is reviewed by ministry staff based on clinical criteria set by the committee, or by external medical consultants, and a decision about reimbursement is made.
Committee members vote on each decision, and a simple majority prevails. The minutes of committee meetings and external reviews are confidential. However, if a drug is not listed as a General Benefit drug, the manufacturer is provided with a written summary indicating the main reasons for the committee's decision. Manufacturers may appeal committee decisions.
Annual budget of the Ontario Drug Benefits Program
In 1999/2000 the total expenditure by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care on drugs was $1.6 billion, and the annual rate of increase during the previous 3 years (despite what some consider an unacceptably restrictive review process) was 10.6%, 9.9% and 10.1% (Fig. 1). In 2000/01, the increase in expenditure was 15% (Linda Tennant, Drug Programs Branch, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Toronto, Ont.: personal communication, 2001). In 1999/2000, 11% of submissions for nongeneric drugs were listed as General Benefit, 27% as Limited Use, and 62% as Section 8 (Linda Tennant: personal communication, 2001). The 10 drugs with the highest reimbursement costs for the ministry in 2000/01 are listed in Table 1.
Fig. 1: Total costs, beneficiaries and prescriptions of the Ontario Drug Benefits Program (ODBP) between 1992/93 and 1999/2000. Bars illustrate the annual costs of the ODBP.
The use of cost-effectiveness information in decision-making about drugs
My 2 years on the Therapeutics Committee have led me to a number of observations, some of which are discussed here.
Cost-effectiveness is often determined by effectiveness, not cost
A cost-effectiveness analysis summarizes the health benefits derived from an investment in health care. Many cost-effectiveness analyses are relatively straightforward: most highly effective drugs are cost-effective, and most marginally effective drugs are not cost-effective. For example, although the use of cyclosporine for patients having renal transplantation is expensive, it is also cost-effective, because it is so much better than previous immunosuppressive regimens.1 On the other hand, clopidogrel was only associated with a 0.5% difference in vascular events compared with ASA in the CAPRIE trial.2 Because clopidogrel costs $2.36 per day compared with $0.01 per day for ASA, it is not surprising that clopidogrel is not cost-effective for the primary prevention of stroke.
Despite much having been written about the optimal methodology for cost-effectiveness studies,3,4,5,6 my experience suggests that in most instances the subtleties of economic evaluation do not play an important role in decision-making. Analyses that require extensive modelling often include so much uncertainty that they do not provide much help with the decision. The one exception is when multiple sensitivity analyses suggest that the result is unaffected by changes in all key variables.
The price charged for drugs is important but never justified
Other than effectiveness, the most important factor that drives a cost-effectiveness analysis is the price charged for a drug. In an ideal world, the drug company would charge a price that reflected the costs of developing a drug, the need for funds for future research to develop new drugs and a reasonable profit margin.
I have never seen a submission that explicitly justified the price charged for a drug, so I am left to speculate about how this is done. There appear to be 2 general methods. If there is already a competitor in a similar class on the market, the new drug is usually given a price that is close to that of the existing product. This highlights the importance of the price charged for the first drug in a class, because that will probably determine the price for future drugs in that class and for other drugs used to treat the same disorder. The other method appears to be to guess the maximum the market will bear. This depends upon a complex mix of factors including how "high-profile" the disorder is, how many alternative drugs are already on the market, the price of alternative drugs and what others have suggested may be an attractive cost-effectiveness ratio.
Although I and my colleagues have published "tentative guidelines" for what might be considered to be an attractive cost-effectiveness ratio,7 others have pointed out8 that the definition of "cost-effective" can be expected to change with time. Although the Therapeutics Committee does not use an explicit threshold for what is cost-effective, my sense is that the committee's threshold is different from that suggested in our article, for example, $50 000 per quality- adjusted life-year would be considered relatively unattractive.
Some industry analysts argue that it is impossible to determine prospectively the true cost of a drug in an accurate fashion because of the unpredictable nature of drug development and that price controls would curtail innovative research.9,10,11 The government is often in a difficult position when trying to balance the desires of health care providers for affordable drugs with the wish to attract pharmaceutical and biotechnology investment to fuel the economy. The best way to determine drug prices from a societal point of view is an issue that deserves more careful policy analysis and rational debate. The price of generic drugs should be evaluated as well. In Ontario, a generic company may charge as much as 63%–70% of the brand name price,12 which seems higher than production costs would justify.
Reasons why a drug does not receive a General Benefit listing
In my opinion, there are 4 main reasons why a drug does not receive a General Benefit listing. First, its effectiveness compared with currently available therapies may be relatively small (e.g., clopidogrel versus ASA for primary stroke prevention2). Second, the drug's price may be much higher than the most frequently used comparator drug but only marginally more effective (same example). Third, the drug's effectiveness may not have been convincingly demonstrated. This occurs most frequently either because no head-to-head randomized trials with a frequently used competitor drug have been done or because surrogate markers with uncertain clinical importance have been used as the measure of effectiveness. Fourth, the drug may be only cost-effective in a subgroup of patients, and the committee may be concerned that the drug will be used in a much larger group of patients if it is classified as a General Benefit drug (e.g., COX-2 inhibitors).
Cost-effective drugs can still be costly
Among the "top ten" drugs that have the highest total reimbursement costs per year are 2 statins and one angiotensin convertase inhibitor (Table 1). The efficacy of both classes of drugs has been convincingly demonstrated, their use is cost-effective in many patients and, therefore, they are listed as General Benefit drugs. However, this serves to remind us that most cost-effective drugs are not cost saving and that their use in a substantial portion of the population entails a large cost. I am not arguing that these drugs are not good value for money (I prescribe them for my patients regularly), but it is wrong to think that the use of these drugs will save the health care system money.
Limited Use as a method of affecting prescribing
The size of the Ontario Drug Benefits Program budget, and its recent rapid increase, illustrates the fact that total costs are important. Indeed, they are so important that the minister of Health and Long-Term Care and the premier of Ontario have suggested that the province should re- examine whether it can continue to afford the Ontario Drug Benefits Program as it currently exists.13
Total costs are determined by the price of the drug, the total number of patients with the disorder(s) for whom the drug has been demonstrated to be cost-effective and the number of patients without that disorder(s) for whom the drug is prescribed. The last-named "prescription creep" is of considerable concern and can be caused by the use of the drug for a disorder for which its benefit has not yet been demonstrated (leukotriene antagonists for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), or by patients at low risk of an adverse event for whom the cost-effectiveness ratio is unattractive (e.g., the use of COX-2 inhibitors by patients at low risk of a gastrointestinal bleed).
Limited Use is a blunt method of influencing the use of some drugs. However, it is much less restrictive than Section 8 and gives physicians the responsibility for appropriate prescribing, within certain boundaries. The committee hopes that the Limited Use criteria will ensure that patients who will benefit the most from these drugs will receive them, while at the same time the overall expenditures will be limited. The downsides of the Limited Use process are the inconvenience to practitioners who must remember the Limited Use codes, the inconvenience to pharmacists who must often contact physicians when the prescriptions are incorrectly filled out, the possibility that some patients who meet the Limited Use criteria will not receive the drug because of the extra paperwork involved and the possibility that some physicians may provide incorrect information on the prescription because they feel that their patient would benefit from the drug (I believe that the last-named occurs infrequently).
Although it seems intuitive that Limited Use criteria are effective, there is surprisingly little information available to support their efficacy. Recent information comparing the market share of drugs available as Limited Use products in Ontario with their market share in provinces in which they are classified as General Benefit drugs suggests that the market share is indeed generally lower when the drug is classified as a Limited Use drug (Linda Tennant: personal communication, 2001). Further research is needed in this area, which should include a comparison of the effects of Limited Use criteria with other less proscriptive mechanisms of influencing prescribing, such as practice guidelines.
The Therapeutics Committee currently only communicates the reasons for its decisions to the drug manufacturer. I believe that this is a mistake and that the Therapeutics Committee can only gain by making public a brief lay summary of the major reasons why a drug is not listed as a General Benefit drug. Although some will disagree with the decisions, disagreement is common among clinicians when assessing effectiveness, let alone cost-effectiveness. At least everyone will be aware of the reasons for the decision. Indeed, I would support making the Therapeutics Committee meetings open to the public, provided that the committee can continue to function efficiently and that high-quality internal and external reviewers can still be obtained. The views of pharmaceutical companies about open committee meetings would be interesting, because this would automatically mean that the contents of their submissions would be available to their competitors (one of the reasons for the current confidentiality of the deliberations is that some submissions contain information that is not yet in the public domain). Finally, it must be remembered that the Therapeutics Committee only makes recommendations to the minister. Other factors may influence the minister's decisions, and Therapeutics Committee decisions are sometimes (although rarely) overturned.
I am convinced that the Therapeutics Committee makes reasonable decisions in what are often very difficult circumstances. The committee must make decisions from a societal perspective, which can be uncomfortable for a practising clinician, but this is essentially no different from the decisions made by the many physicians who take on administrative roles such as chief of staff or head of pharmacy and therapeutics committees. I believe that the Therapeutics Committee should make the reasons for its decisions public, that manufacturers should be encouraged to justify the prices that they charge for their drugs and that a careful policy analysis of drug prices from a societal point of view should be undertaken. Pharmaceutical committees that select drugs for reimbursement by provincial drug benefit programs are just one piece of the puzzle that affects drug use. Others include appropriate prescribing by physicians, involvement in the prescribing decision by patients, methods of encouraging compliance with medications, and responsible drug promotion by the pharmaceutical industry.
Acknowledgements: I thank the following for their comments on previous drafts of this article: David Alter, John Conly, Kathy Knowles-Chapeskie, Michael Evans, Anne Holbrook, Gary Naglie, Paul Oh, Don Redelmeier and Christine Rivet.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not those of other members of the Drug Quality Therapeutics Committee, the Ontario Drug Benefits Program, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, or the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.
Competing interests: Dr. Laupacis is a member of the Drug Quality and Therapeutics Committee of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
Laupacis A, Keown P, Pus N, Krueger H, Ferguson B, Wong C, et al. A study of the quality of life and cost-utility of renal transplantation. Kidney Int 1996;50(1):235-42.
CAPRIE Steering Committee. A randomized, blinded, trial of clopidogrel versus aspirin in patients at risk of ischemic events (CAPRIE). Lancet 1996; 348:1329-39.
Russell LB, Gold MR, Siegel JE, Daniels N, Weinstein MC. The role of cost-effectiveness analysis in health and medicine. Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine. JAMA 1996;276(14):1172-7.
Weinstein MC, Siegel JE, Gold MR, Kamlet MS, Russell LB. Recommendations of the Panel on Cost-effectiveness in Health and Medicine. JAMA 1996;276(15):1253-8.
Siegel JE, Weinstein MC, Russell LB, Gold MR. Recommendations for reporting cost-effectiveness analyses. Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine. JAMA 1996;276(16):1339-41.
Detsky AS. Guidelines for economic analysis of pharmaceutical products. A draft document for Ontario and Canada. Pharmacoeconomics 1993;3:354-61.
Laupacis A, Feeny D, Detsky AS, Tugwell PX. How attractive does a new technology have to be to warrant adoption and utilization? Tentative guidelines for using clinical and economic evaluations. CMAJ 1992;146:473-81.
Gafni A, Birch S. Guidelines for the adoption of new technologies: a prescription for uncontrolled growth in expenditures and how to avoid the problem. CMAJ 1993;148:913-7.
Davidoff F. The heartbreak of drug pricing. Ann Intern Med 2001;134(11): 1068-71.
Willison D, Wiktorowicz M, Grootendorst P, O'Brien B, Levine M, Deber R, et al. International experience with pharmaceutical policy: common challenges and lessons for Canada. Ottawa: Health Canada; 2001. Health Transition Fund no NA236.
Calfee JE. Pharmaceutical price controls and patient welfare. Ann Intern Med 2001;134(11):1060-4.
Ontario Drug Benefit Act. Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1990. Toronto: Queen's Printer for Ontario; 2000 May 12. ch. 0.10.
Benzie R. Harris backs review of drug plan. National Post [Toronto] 2001 Jun 12; Sect A:4.
Canadian Adverse Drug Reaction Newsletter (85-94)
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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CBC News - BC
Discovery Islands salmon farms to be phased out over next 18 months
Karin Larsen
Decision made in consultation with local First Nations, minister says
The controversial open-net salmon farms in the Discovery Islands near Campbell River, B.C., will be phased out over the next 18 months.
In making the announcement, Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan said all 19 farms have to be free of fish by June 30, 2022, when their renewed 18-month licences expire, and that no new fish can be brought in.
Jordan said the decision was difficult but reflects the consultations she had with seven First Nations: the Homalco, Klahoose, K'ómoks, Kwaikah, Tla'amin, We Wai Kai and Wei Wai Kum.
"We heard overwhelmingly from First Nations in the area that they do not want these fish farms there," she said. "They feel that they should have a say in their territorial waters, and I absolutely agree with them."
Chief Darren Blaney of the Homalco First Nation said he was pleased with the outcome, noting the cultural importance and significance of salmon to his nation.
"[Wild, local] stocks have been declining over the years," Blaney said. "Salmon are pretty resilient. I think if we give them and opportunity, they will start to rebuild."
For years, critics of the farms have said they are contributing to the collapse of wild Fraser River salmon stocks because sea lice and other pathogens transfer from the farms to migrating juvenile wild salmon as they swim through the narrow channels to get to the ocean.
Bob Chamberlin, chair of the First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance, said his group was also pleased with the decision.
"People have become aware, not only of the critical state of wild salmon in British Columbia, but what threat the fish farms operations, as they currently are, pose to wild salmon runs," he said.
The B.C. Salmon Farmers Association says the decision puts salmon farming in B.C. and across Canada at risk.
"This comes at a bad time, during a pandemic when local food supply and good local jobs have never been more important," the group said in a statement.
"We have just received this decision, and will be taking some time to consider it and speak with the numerous companies and communities involved in salmon farming in the province before commenting further."
In September, 101 B.C. First Nations and their supporters called for the removal of the Discovery Islands salmon farms, asking they be moved to land-based closed-containment systems.
One week later, Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientists said the current farms were "minimal risk" to Fraser River salmon based on nine separate peer-reviewed risk assessments. Sea lice was not considered in the studies.
Jordan said today's decision does not mean fish farms elsewhere will necessarily face the same fate.
"Discovery Islands is one area, it's not an indicator of how everything is going to go," she said.
She said the 18-month period allows for the three million farm salmon in the pens to grow to harvestable size.
She expects 80 per cent of the fish will be gone by April 2021, in time for the start of the next Fraser River out-migration period.
The majority of the 19 Discovery Islands salmon farms are owned by three companies: Mowi Canada West, Cermaq Canada Ltd. and Grieg Seafoods Ltd.
Currently, nine of the 19 farms are fallow with no fish in their pens.
Fraser River salmon returns are at a historic low this year with only 270,000 expected.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/salmon-farms-discovery-islands-closing-1.5845502
Cooke Aquaculture proposes $58M salmon hatchery on Digby Neck
Retired doctor donates 24-hectare wilderness property to NS
Maine salmon producer denies allegations it misled consumers
Final Penobscot salmon estimate for last year drops by nearly 200 fish


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Was Che Guevara Evil?
Fighting for Christendom with Oranges and Lemons
Appallingly, Che Guevara has been moving through recent history from revolutionary thug to iconic freedom fighter and recently, an iconic poster boy for too many socialists and the ardent left wing. He has also become somewhat iconic to the gay lobby - strange when he was also happy to put gay men up against his bloodstained revolutionary wall.
The internet remains divided on his status with wishy-washy liberal justifications such as:
This is a really controversial topic that has no true answer to. Evil is based on whether or not the person nows [sic] truly that there [sic] actions harm others. Che fought for the poor and in his mind any actions taken to bring about socialism was justifiable.
and from some-one known, perhaps not surprisingly as Trotskyi:
He was a man who stood up for what he believed in and that was the equality of all people. He worked to put an end to capitalist and imperialist systems that degraded humanity. He was also a loving father, who cared very deeply for his family as well as for the people around him.
Good and evil are, of course, relative terms. To the capitalist, Che is evil because he stood against the capitalist and demanded fair treatment for workers.
For people seeking a better life, he is good, a hero who worked for peoples' rights.
That all sounds fair and reasonable until we move past the broad "ends justifies the means" and "its all in ones perspective" arms length arguments and look at Che Guevara, the man defined by his own actions. He may have started out the noble revolutionary, but there is little debate amongst those that take the time to look into his life that he ended up a murderous, brutal, inhumane thug responsible for heinous crimes.
His own diary explains that he is fully aware of his evil actions:
* "Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!"
* "We don't need proof to execute a man. We only need proof that it's necessary to execute him. A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."
* "He went into convulsions for a while and was finally still. Now his belongings were mine."
* "I'd like to confess, papa, at that moment I discovered that I really like killing."
Here's a nice summary of about Che Geuvara from a commenter called Tantor on a post from Michelle Malkin :
I STRONGLY recommend reading Fontava's book which shows what a sickening monster Che was, signing the death warrants on 1892 men, women, pregnant women, and boys. When Che killed his first man, he wrote a letter home to dad saying how much he loved killing people. What a sick and evil bastard.
A distraught mother came to La Cabana prison where Che set up his murder shop and begged for her teenaged son's life. He heard her out, picked up the phone, ordered her boy shot THAT NIGHT, and slammed the phone down. He played this sadistic game on several mothers. He was a little man who thought he could become big by crushing others. When crowds of mothers and wives, sisters and daughters came to La Cabana to see their doomed loved ones, Che set his guards on them with clubs.
When misguided lefty lawyers came to Cuba to help the revolution by assembling evidence against the accused, Che told them that he would shoot them today and try them tomorrow. Evidence was a bourgeois artifact, Che said. "We execute from revolutionary conviction!"
The verdicts of trials were posted on the schedules in the courtroom where they were to be heard. The same grieving mother in black fingered accused man after accused man as the Batista criminal who killed her son.
After sending a few hundred victims to the wall to be shot, Che saw the waste of all that spilled blood and began harvesting it for profit. He had condemned people stop on the way to the wall to have their blood drawn, a lot of it. Some of it went to local hospitals and some of it was sold to North Vietnam. While Che was pocketing the profits from his victim's blood, he was publicly castigating American capitalists for being capitalist bloodsuckers.
Che's victim's were buried in mass graves. The cemetery was ordered by Che not to notify the families of the dead until three days after they were buried. They were not told where they were buried and they were forbidden to visit the cemetery. They were also forbidden to memorialize their loved ones at home, their places watched by the local revolutionary committees, the network of informers set up in every communist control to maintain control of the population.
The irony of these brain-dead hippies worship of Che is that they would be the first ones Che would have shot or imprisoned in his regime. One of the first things Che did after attaining power was to outlaw rock 'n' roll music, which Che considered decadent Yankee music. You could go to prison for playing it. The Cuban dissidents called it "midnight music" because that's the only time you could safely play it, and you had to play it low so that the local revolutionary committee member didn't hear you and denounce you.
Che also hated long hair and blue jeans, which he considered contrary to revolutionary morality. Che wanted the youth to blindly obey the Party leaders, to happily give up their weekends to work in the fields, all the while singing revolutionary songs and chanting revolutionary slogans. Literally. Che wanted all the young to be drones in a Cuban commie hive. Individuality is a crime, Che said.
Che's thugs would round up kids with long hair, jeans, listening to rock 'n' roll and put them in prison under a new law against behavior indicating a trend toward criminality. At best, being a hippie in Cuba would buy you a stint in jail and some beatings, maybe a long sentence in the Cuban gulag being worked to death.
Some hippies were simply shot on the spot by Che's goons who would have their death certificates attribute the cause of death to traffic accidents. A mortician in Havanna who later escaped says that most of the traffic accident victims who came to his funeral home had bullet wounds.
Che came to speak at the United Nations to speak and made no secret about Cuba executing people and defended the necessity of it. He also freely spoke about the need to destroy the US. That made him the toast of the radically chic in New York, who hosted him in their penthouses.
While he was being feted, Che had multiple plots in progress to destroy New York which were discovered and defeated. One plot was to plant big bombs in all the major department stores - Macy's, Gimble's, etc - the Friday after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year. They would have been full of women and children. Che would have been the Bin Laden of the '60s had it succeeded. Nothing so neatly illustrates the masochistic treasonous stupidity of the Left than pouring champagne and serving hors d'oeuvres to a murderous revolutionary mass murder who wanted to blow them and their children into bloody chunks.
Che was a stinking commie. Literally. His revolutionary comrades would comment that he reeked. Che just didn't bathe. Even when he went to Africa on an ill-fated attempt to stir up revolution there, the natives complained that Comrade Che did not go down to the river to wash.
Che was a book burner, thug, tyrant, coward, sadist, thief, and a serial murderer. The lefty worship of him demonstrates their own ignorance, masochism, anti-democratic character, and self-destructive compulsion.
As Tantor mentioned, ex-Cuban Humberto Fontova wrote a short book about Che Guevara, which included some interviews from victims of Guevara. He probably included himself, having lost his father to a firing squad.
However, he also focused much of his efforts to expose the left wing liberals of Hollywood pushing a romanticised version of Che Guevara's life that has created so many 'useful idiots' as he called the T-Shirt wearing (and bikini wearing) Hollywood elite. A short essay in response to Carlos Santana wearing a Che T-Shirt to the Oscars presents a very powerful story of Che's inhumanity.
So there's my opening salvo to "Was Che Guevara Evil?" Anyone out there with an alternative view?
It seems to me that Che Guevara has become a legend bigger than his real life. As an influential figure in Latin America that rallied people behind an idea that America and American capitalism was solely to blame for the woes of Argentina and Cuba, he has come to represent the liberal crusade that is standing up to the so-called evils of today's American Imperialism. Is it somehow appropriate that they picked Che Guevara as their icon then?
If you want to be ahead of the curve, buy a Saddam Hussein T-Shirt.
Related: Helen Clark, Che Guevara and The Motorcycle Diaries
Related Post: You think that's stupid?
Or click on the Che Guevara category label for an up to date list of posts from New Zealand Conservative (I'm bound to do more eventually)
Tags: Che Guevara, Communism, Hot Topics, ZenTiger, ZenTiger's Picks
MathewK said...
Off course he's evil, why else would leftists be wearing t-shirts with his picture on them.
12:09 AM, October 02, 2008
nyokodo said...
MK,
Just because someone is leftist doesn't mean they're evil...
It's a good thing we put our faith in God, not in mortal men. The idolization of any character that takes them beyond the failings of their humanity, both big and small, is to be deplored. The creation of the mythological Che makes for some extremely interesting and contrasting social commentary.
Institutions and movements that we revere have often been lead by men whose evils have been glaringly obvious.
This list makes for interesting reading and highlights the point:
http://listverse.com/religion/top-10-most-wicked-popes/
The amazing irony of the mythological Che that has divorced him from the evils of his humanity is that those who hold him up as an icon of revolution and adorn their shirts with his image are propagating the very system he so loathed. Often their sense of rebellion is hypocritical - how many of those t-shirts have been made in sweatshops in South America or Asia - the very sort of practice Che was killing to destroy. The irony is overwhelming.
Che is a story of tragedy, where a right motivation slowly faded into the creation of a man who thirsted for blood. He is a story of someone who wished to address evil but ended up wallowing in its iniquity as his methods became the motivation... thus disallowing any sense of conscience to critique how he was trying to achieve his goal.
His tragedy should act as a conscience to anyone (such as myself) who engages in humanitarian causes, where the evils of the world are so in our face and so emotionally overwhelming. He acts as a picture of how even the best intent can destroy us if we don't maintain a standard and a conscience in how we address the evils we see... he reminds us not to become the evil.
... love the new look by the way. Very slick!!
Allow me to be clear... in case any vultures are circling who might jump on that link I gave as reason to attack the wonderful people who run this blog... I didn't give it as a jab at the Catholic Church, but as a way of highlighting that even the best institutions are subject to the ravages of the failings of human individuals. We're all capable of horror.
It's seeing the reality of humans that I am interested in - de-mythologizing the idolized where such idolization has removed any sense of the reality of their humanity.
radar said...
This is an interesting question.
If the criteria for being evil is that you have killed people, then there are many, many people who are currently not viewed as evil who should be. The current christian president of the United States has invaded two countries, where a fair number of innocent civilians have died. If Che is evil because he killed people, then George Bush is evil because his actions have killed more people than Guevara's ever did.
I think it is fashionable among conservatives to label historical figures such as Che evil, and never discuss the crimes of convservatives. Too close to home, perhaps? Who knows. Either way it is one-sided.
I am personally a Conservative quite willing to admit to evil Conservatives, and the evil committed by Conseratives. Although there aren't many other anti-war Conservatives on this blog.
Radar, that's not the criteria. If you read the post and links, you will see that Che took particular pleasure in killing people, and showed absolutely no compassion.
He was an atheist, and like many communists, declared the ends justified the means.
Therefore, your loose thesis falls down. In order to discuss Bush and Iraq you first need to discuss Saddam and his actions. Something the anti-Bush crowd seem to have selective memory over, or be willing to forgive.
But you are also sidestepping the issue.
I present specific information, and there is no comment about it, just the "other people are evil, lets discuss them, or lets decide that if everyone is equally evil, then evil is irrelevant."
I'm more interested in analysing Che's actions and seeing how pro-Che people excuse them rather than gloss over them. Is any-one up for that?
Well, yes, if Che took pleasure in killing people then you could argue that he was evil, depending on your definition of evil. I would argue though that emotion can easily be seperated from this. Say, for instance, if Jeffrey Dahmer did not feel pleasure in killing people, it was just something that he felt compelled to do. He would therefore not be evil, as he did not take pleasure from his crimes.
"In order to discuss Bush and Iraq you first need to discuss Saddam and his actions."
I disagree completely. No one is arguing that Saddam was not evil; I am certainly not. I didn't even mention him purely because it is generally accepted that he was a despotic tyrant. But, my point is that a lot of civilians have died as a result of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, yet many conservatives still hold President Bush in quite high regard. He is a christian, and his actions are responsible for quite a lot of cargnage. Far, far more than Che Guevara's. Which was my other point.
I disagree completely. No one is arguing that Saddam was not evil; I am certainly not. ... But, my point is that a lot of civilians have died as a result of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq,
With that statement, you completely dismiss the argument "for evil to prevail, good men simply do nothing".
The policy of non-intervention (or cynically, no political interest) sees millions of people displaced, brutalised, robbed, raped and slaughtered every decade around the world.
Little was done when Saddam was killing his own people. Ho-hum, not our problem.
With the policy of non-intervention, the allies are blamed for going to war against Hitler (sure he was evil, but we didn't have to fight him and cause many deaths) and yet standing by watching Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot at work, we don't question the policy of non-intervention?
You cannot ignore Saddam's actions and then criticise Bush. It's too simplistic.
And back to the point - Che, was he evil? At some point he lost his humanity, and his inhumanity towards others characterises the evil I allude to.
Universal: I am fundamentally anti-war. Every right thinking person is. But just like killing in self-defence, it's an option that can never be taken off the table. I am not anti-war enough to accept the gas chambers and mass graves of civilians without attempting to resist such evil.
8:58 AM, July 01, 2010


Meet Coby! Coby is a sweet girl who was rescued from a closed down dog farm and was lucky enough to get into rescue. Coby is a sweet and loving girl who would love nothing more then to find her forever home. We are looking for a home that understands the responsibilities of owning and raising a puppy. Coby is patiently waiting for a home to find her own.


Beaphar Sivo Breed is a high quality crumb food for Pheasants, Chickens, Quails, Turkeys, Partridges, Peacocks and Guinea Fowl from the age of 4 weeks up-to 6 months old. The size of the crumb is suited to the smallest species and is therefore easy to digest. A protein level of 28% and added vitamins and minerals ensures optimal nutrition. From 0 to 4 weeks of age feed Beaphar Sivo Start.
Beaphar Sivo Start is a high quality, complete crumb food for Pheasants, Chickens, Quails, Turkeys, Partridges, Peacocks and Guinea Fowl from 0 to 4 weeks of age. The size of the crumb is suited to the smallest species.


Amalfi is a small town on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. Due to an earthquake in 1343, most of the old city slid into the sea, leaving an iconic rocky coastline. The remains of Amalfi cover a small area which can easily be walked one end to the other in 20 minutes. Ferries from Amalfi sail up the Amalfi Coast to Salerno and Positano, and across to the island of Capri. Below, you can find all the Amalfi ferry timetables, journey times as well as our best prices.
Navlib runs a fleet of 10 hydro-propelled jets and 2 catamarans. There is plenty of seating available on board each vessel allowing you to relax and enjoy the view of the Amalfi Coast.
Amalfi is at the heart of the Amalfi Coast, a stunning mountainous coastline formed partly from an earthquake. The area offers a large selection of restaurants, bars, boutiques and with Navlib, you can travel further up the coast to Salerno and Positano. Book ferries to Amalfi right here with AFerry.
The town of Amalfi is built up the rocky coastline around the harbour. It's only a short walk to find restaurants and shops.
Navlib runs ferry services up and down the Amalfi Coast, and it's often quicker than travelling by car. The ferry service connects Amalfi to Salerno, which has direct Eurostar connections.
Travelling by car in Amalfi is an unforgettable experience, but a challenging one. The roads are windy, narrow and cliff-hanging making a difficult drive, however there are some stunning views from areas in Amalfi you wouldn't be able to reach without a car.


WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER, PORTRAITS...looking for that special photograph of your Grand Child or perhaps of a Grandparent and Grand Child, a Picture for Mother's Day or Father's Day, Christening photos, pregnancy images or Mum & Babe shots, photographs of your Son / Daughter's 1st / 5th / 18th / 21st / 40th / 50th / 60th Birthday, your Son or Daughter's School Prom or University / College Graduation [Cap & Gown], do you want Gymkhana, Horse & Eventing shots or perhaps a photograph of your family pet, be it a Dog, Cat, Horse, Rabbit, Bird etc., does your Rock Band need publicity and/or website images, do you need pictures for your website or maybe even a flyer, need image special effects or digitally modified photos created (or just the horizon straightened in your favourite image, to hang on the wall) - do you want that photograph(s) taken in familiar surroundings / family home / outdoor location [especially for your children or pets], need images of your product / vehicle taken for your website or for publications. Contact me now by using the Contact button below.
I am a well traveled photographer and in the past I have worked with over 26 different nationalities, therefore I am particularly sensitive to a wide rage of cultural and ethnic characteristics and requirements (Now includes the TRNC aka N Cyprus).
I was working as the Events Consultant with The Worcestershire Grapevine until 2016 and you will see some of my images and copy, starting in the June 2012 edition all the way through to 2015/16.
Need some remedial work carried out on an existing image that may require some subtle (or perhaps even not so subtle !) adjustments and where my Adobe Photoshop skills can help? Perhaps you want me to remove artefacts or irritating posts or poles sticking out of someone's head, improve colours or lighting, change images to Black & White or sepia tones, straighten that horizon, improve / replace the sky, add special effects or perhaps create a montage of images (see example in People/Portraits).
Want to build your Model portfolio (and help me build mine - TF Based), live in or around the Vale of Evesham/Worcestershire/South Birmingham or Alsancak, Cyprus, are you looking for the opportunity to do some shoots whether you are well established or just up and coming. Please get in touch...mobile number(s) is/are at the top of page or use the contacts page. Want images like these of Harriett (Right) ? Click here to view more images or go to the Models pages for other photoshoot examples.
I have Portable Studio kit including backgrounds and lighting and so it is very much a case of Have Photo Will Travel, if that is what you need ?
If you have a project or a commission where I can help you then please contact me using the details on the Contact Form/Page and I will respond ASAP. Contact me now for a free consultation and quote, especially if you are seeking a Wedding or Civil Partnership Photographer. Please review the Wedding Packages page for details of the services I provide. See more Harriett images here. Other model shoot images are available here.
Take a look at the recent project which I have called Smoke and Mirrors. Digital abstract art using photographs taken of smoke, manipulated in Photoshop and/or blended with additional images of flames, fireworks, sunset skies to form coloured end product. A few examples shown below but for a comprehensive set of these images, click the link - Smoke and Mirrors (All 9 pages of them). You can see the base / starting images (Building Blocks) which were used to make these creations here.


text:
Q: Rails' render is generating bizarre, subtly wrong content I've got an app that hosts simple html pages for people. Some of whom use tables for design layout. (Not me, I swear!) For some mysterious reason, render breaks these layouts in Internet Explorer.
Here is the simplest way I've been able to reproduce the issue.
When I save an html file into public/ and access it through Mongrel, it appears fine in all browsers. If I use the following code to render the file, it gets funky:
render :file => '[app_directory]/public/sample.html'

Internet Explorer creates an empty text node for each newline, which leads to gaps in the table. The raw html is apparently identical, but when served with render it is somehow changed in a way that makes Internet Explorer unhappy.
I'd be terrifically grateful for any pointers on how to stop this. Thanks!
Edit 1: The mystery deepens...
I have figured out how to get Chrome to have the same error. Here is code that works in Chrome, and is broken in IE:
# tab_controller.rb
render :inline => tab.public_html

But when I change this to use an external ERB template, the strange whitespace shows up in Chrome as well:
# tab_controller.rb
@html = tab.public_html
render 'show'

# show.erb
<%=raw @html %>

I'm sure there is an explanation for this, but the more I dig the stranger it gets.
Edit 2: Headers
Here are the response headers that IE gives for the statically served file:
Response        HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection      close
Date            Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:33:20 GMT
Last-Modified   Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:38:21 GMT
Content-Type    text/html
Content-Length  913

And here are the response headers that IE gives for the content produced via render. The content that has the issues:
Response         HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection       close
Date             Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:28:18 GMT
Content-Type     Text/html
X-UA-Compatible  IE=Edge
ETag             "43d392ddbbcf3856ced3de672005c26f"
Cache-Control    max-age=0, private, must-revalidate
Set-Cookie       _rails_static_html_session=[session stuff]; path=/; HttpOnly
X-Runtime        31.964569
Transfer-Encoding   chunked

Edit 3: Code
You can (I hope) reproduce the issue by putting the following code in any random controller:
html = "\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n          	\n
\n
\n          	\n
\n
\n          	\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
	\n
\n
\n\n"

render :inline => html
File.open('/railsappdirectory/public/sample_html.html', 'w') {|f| f.write(html) }

When you access this with Internet Explorer through the rails app, there will be gaps between the images. When you view the html file as a static asset, there will be no gaps.

A: I used a simple php file to serve the same content with different headers, and found that the following header rails was using caused the problem:
X-UA-Compatible: IE=Edge

A comment on this question explained how to stop rails from serving this header. In your config/environments/*.rb files, ensure that the following setting is false:
config.action_dispatch.best_standards_support = false

Thanks everybody for helping!

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U9 Lakers are 7 & 8 years old, and for the 2021-2022 season that means their year of birth is 2014 and 2013. Our U9 Lakers play in the West Country League.
For 7 & 8 year old players who are new to Hockey, SLMHA has developed a new Program called Learn to Play. This is a great opportunity for U9 aged players to start the season and learn the basics of the game in a fun, cooperative and supportive environment. After learning the basics they are able to enter the regular U9 stream at a prorated rate. Check out the Learn to Play tab for more information.
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Hello everyone, I am pleased to join the SLMHA Board of Directors for my inaugural year. I have been a youth hockey coach for five years, and I have been proud to call Sylvan Lake home for the past 8 years with my wife and two sons.
I am also an alumnus of the association. I grew up in Spruce View, and when there wasn't enough kids to make a team anymore, Sylvan Lake became my home association, and it was one of the best things to ever happen to me. After graduating the program, I played two years of Junior B and one year of Junior A, before receiving an offer to continue playing hockey and pursue my education in the NCAA. I played two years at New England College before taking over behind the bench for their Junior Varsity program for my final year. After graduating, I got a job with the Okotoks Oilers of the AJHL as their Business Manager, where I spent four of the best years of my life.
The game of hockey has been great to me. It has given me the opportunity to see the world, enjoy some unique experience, and it also introduced me to my wife. This is the whole reason I wanted to join the Board of Directors this year, to afford other kids the opportunity to experience what I did, thanks to volunteers in the association when I was a player.
My goals for year for the program are the same for my kids, who play U9 and U11 – for all of the members to learn the value of teamwork, fair play, hard work, and most of all – FUN! The hockey is just a bonus for me.
I look forward to meeting everyone this year, and if you have any questions, or just want to chat hockey, feel free to reach out or flag me down at the rink!
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Chrissy Teigen is basically all of us right now.
Just a few hours after news broke that Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from Brad Pitt after two years of marriage, the 30-year-old model took to Twitter to speak out on the shocking split.
"Brad and Angelina," Teigen, who's married to "All of Me" singer John Legend, wrote on Tuesday. "How am I supposed to go to work today?"
Fans were quick to respond to the relatable tweet, writing things like, "Don't divorce John, you guys are love's last hope," "this means you and John are now the No. 1 celebrity couple. Congrats on the power rankings," and "how are ANY of us supposed to go to work?!"
According to court documents obtained by ET, Jolie filed for the dissolution of marriage and listed the separation date as Sept. 15, 2016. The Maleficent star is asking for physical custody of their six children -- Maddox, 15, Shiloh, 10, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 8.
A source close to the couple tells ET that the split "was a long time coming."
"They have been fighting for the last year," the source added. "They haven't slept in the same bed for a big chunk of that. When they were in New York City the last time together, they had separate rooms at the Greenwich and were on their own schedules."
Jolie, 41, and Pitt, 52, tied the knot in August 2014 in France. The two met in 2005 while on the set of their film, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, while Pitt was still married to Jennifer Aniston. Jolie was previously married to Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton.
ET has reached out to both Jolie and Pitt's reps for comment.


Gundam Versus proves successful as usual on last week's PS4 download charts for Japan.
While the popularity of the Gundam franchise in Japan may have slowed down a little in the past few years, there are no doubts that it's still a fan favorite.
Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan and Asia released the weekly download rankings for PS4 games on the Japanese PSN, and unsurprisingly the recently-released Gundam Versus is right on top.
Portal Knights remains firmly close to the top after debuting first last week, while Summer Lesson: Alison Snow also continues its tail after having been in the top-five for three weeks in a row.
D3 Publisher's naughty rogue-like JRPG Omega Labyrinth Z debuts just out of the top-five in sixth place, while Final Fantasy XIV keeps on going after the release of the expansion Stormblood and its debut in first place.
Incidentally, Gundam Versus also topped the Media Create charts for retail sales last week, and the firm released its weekly analysis.
According to Media Cretae, the game (which debuted with 121, 444 copies sold at retail) significantly outperformed its predecessor Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme VS Force on PS Vita, which sold 87,000 copies in its first week, but it sold less than half the prior title on PS3, Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. Full Boost, which debuted with 270,000 copies sold.
To Media Create's analysis, in light of the digital download ranking, we can also add that digital distribution itself is another probably factor. With Sony's push for digital that came with the PS4, the Japanese audience has become much more accepting of full game downloads, so it's very likely that a higher percentage of sales are on the PlayStation Store, compared to the PS3 era.
Bandai Namco has revealed some long-awaited DLC for Gundam Versus as Gundam SEED characters will finally make their debut.


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Vietnamese president visited on 2008 May 12th

		2008 May 12th, VinaTaiwan's staffs was very honorific when they greeted Peresident Tran Duoc Luong's visiting. He gave VinaTaiwan the medal to celebrate 5 years anniversary.

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		Director Le Van Duan inspected, directed factory units of heating, installation and commissioning of advanced heating system, modern which imported directly from Japan.

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Asia VinaTaiwan aluminum factory

		30/09/2011, Mr. Le Van Duan directed accelerate construction, automobile assembly plants in Asia VinaTaiwan Aluminum company.

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General Secretary visited on 2010 July 20th

		On 20/07/2010, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong visited AsiaVinaTaiwan aluminum production plant and awarded a medal for career development in the period of economic renewal for Mr. Le Van Duan - General Director of the Company .

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What is the digital switchover?
The digital TV switchover is Government policy. It will mean that almost everyone will be able to receive digital TV through an aerial (Freeview).
Digital TV also uses less broadcast space which means that after switchover, there will be more room for new services such as wireless broadband, local TV and High Definition Television (HDTV).
To keep your TV service, you will need to convert your TVs to digital before your area's switchover date.
What are the benefits of going digital?
Digital TV offers new ways to enjoy your TV service:
Greater choice of TV channels
New features such as on-screen listings, interactivity, audio description and subtitling for people with visual and audio impairments.
Optional additional channels and services including premium channels(e.g movies, sports), broadband and telephony.
Greatly improved picture quality.
How do I receive digital TV
There are various ways to receive digital TV.
Freeview- For most a free platform is available via a compatible aerial, using a freeview TV or a freeview set top box. This provides a mix of around 100 different TV and radio stations and is available to 73% of the UK currently. After digital switchover in 2012 this will increase to 98%.
Freesat- This digital platform is also free and is currently available to 98% of the UK. This requires a small satellite dish and compatible satellite receiver. Providing around 150 TV and radio stations it has a similar line up of channels as freeview. It is rare not to receive a reliable signal via satellite in the uk.
Sky- This platform has a subscription based service in the UK and requires a small satellite dish. Available to 98% of the UK. Starting from £17 per month up to £65 per month. It provides all of the channels that freeview and freesat has plus many more which are tailored to your specific subscription. If you require the most variety of channels sky is the best choice.
Virgin- This platform also has a subscription based service in the UK. Only available to 51% of the UK, requires your street to be cabled with a Virgin network. Advantages being you do not require an aerial or satellite dish on your property. Virgin has a similar line up to Sky and historically at a lower premium, howether Virgin has always been in the shadows of Sky and can be more unreliable.
Foreign Satellite- Foreign satellite provides many thousands of channels of free digital TV. Howether there is a limited number of English available, similar to freeview and freesat. There are many foreign language channels available depending on which 'bird' (satellite) you are aiming at. Premiership football fans can benefit from foreign satellite viewing:). Foreign satellite requires a dish, that can range mainly from 50cm to 120cm. Some enthusiasts can go to a dish size of 4 meters.
Other digital platforms-
BT Vision- Available from BT for a monthly subscription. This set top box requires a aerial feed to view all current freeview services. It also has on demand services such as movies, sport, blockbusters and other on demand content. This requires a BT phone line connected to the set top box.
Talk Talk TV- Formerly known as Tiscali TV. This is another subscription service which also includes broadband internet access and phone line. Similar to BT vision, there are on demand services available.
Top up TV- Available through an aerial with a specific set top box. Provides more channels than standard freeview, but with a monthly subscription.
Internet Tv- Digital tv is becoming more available over the internet these days and provides a great catch up service.
BBCs iPlayer allows you to watch the last 7 days of BBC programmes for free on your PC at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer
ITV- Similar catch up service for the last 30 days at www.itv.com/itvplayer
Channel 4- On demand service, with some pay per view, www.channel4.com/4od
Five- Repeats on www.demand.five.tv
Sky- Some sky TV and movies available at www.sky.com/skyplayer free for sky subscribers.


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Violinist.com - News & Advice - Teaching
Laurie Niles
Menuhin Competition 2014: Jurors Brian Lewis, Ilya Gringolts and Olivier Charlier Give Master Classes
March 5, 2014, 5:50 PM · Having a master class with a jury member is one way to get an idea of what details they are seeking in a competitor's playing. At the Menuhin Competition, all of the jurists gave master classes. We already visited the master classes given by Pamela Frank, Joji Hattori and David Kim; on the final day of the competition were three more sets of master classes by Brian Lewis of the Butler School of Music, Ilya Gringolts of the Hochschule Basel, and Olivier Charlier of the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris.
Unfortunately, many of these classes were happening simultaneously, so I regret I could not attend them all. Particularly, I was unable to see the master class of the French violinist Olivier Charlier, about whom many students were raving with gratitude afterwards. I saw mostly the master class by Brian Lewis, with a little peek into the class given by Ilya Gringolts.
The first student who played for Brian Lewis was Ari Boutris, 13, with Wieniawski's "Polonaise."
After Ari played, Brian started by describing the composer, Henryk Wieniawski: "He was a very wild man with big appetites," he said, adding that he liked to gamble (even losing his del Gesù in a bet once) and to drink a little too much, er, milk.
"When you play this, you have to be very wild and find each character of each section," Brian said. "Each gesture means something."
The music is also full of "appoggiaturas," a great word that literally means "to lean," he said. Musically, "we're going to lean on the note that doesn't belong. Mozart is full of these," and they create musical tension.
He asked Ari to name three things in his playing that he was already doing well (and there were more than that!) When Ari hesitated a little, Brian explained, "All my students can easily list what they what to improve, but you have to be able to let the things that you do well, also, and be very specific in your analysis." They came up with a list of three things he did well already, and another list of three things to improve, one of which was intonation. On the subject of that, Brian quoted his own late teacher from Juilliard, Dorothy DeLay; "Intonation is the thing you'll be doing your whole life," he quoted, adding, "you won't ever get done with intonation work!"
Brian emphasized that one must relax the body, as "physical tension is the enemy of music." He then asked everyone in the room to stand up, so we could all learn some exercises to do, before playing the violin. Brian said that he does these exercises every morning, starting with a pretty simple swing of the arms, coordinated with knee bends:
Unfortunately my phone-video did not capture the entire demonstration, so here is a description of the other warm-up exercises Brian recommended:
Imagine putting three lemons between your shoulder blades, then "make juice"
Pinkie up, pinkie forward, up, forward….(Here's a demonstration)
Rub hands together vigorously
Arms out to the side, stretch hands up
Massage face (pinch your own cheeks a little)
Next was Esther, a student from the Butler School, who played part of the Elgar Violin Sonata. When she finished, Brian said that "I would love for you to live in a bigger box." For example, Elgar write "fff" at one particular spot; "he wants volume of sound." Brian had her play about three places in the sonata that were similar in terms of notes, but different in terms of dynamics, just to illustrate the range of dynamics needed.
He also wanted more character, and one way to do that is to be more demonstrative about when the bow stroke changes in the music.
Brian talked about "zero-gravity playing," playing in a position where the bow slides neither toward the bridge nor toward the fingerboard, but just rests where it is because the violin is held flat, not sloping down. Such a position allows for maximum projection; "Take your sound and bring it to everyone in the audience -- fill the space."
He also talked about having a rapid bow stroke and opening from the elbow. To practice opening rapidly from the elbow, he had everyone try a karate chop, "HAH!"
Another exercise for opening the elbow and adding speed to the bow stroke is to do scales with a tiny down-bow at the frog, then travel in the air to the tip for a tiny up bow, then continue: frog, tip, frog, tip. Then double the speed! Here's a short example:
He said that when you perform something, really go for the "wow" factor, try to find "what makes you special with your voice." Performing is your chance to really say something; "when you are standing up performing, it's the only time people aren't going to interrupt you!"
Brian answered questions at the end of his class, for example: How do you stay inspired to practice? He said he is inspired by going to concerts, and also by learning new music. "You don't have to learn the whole thing at once, start with just one phrase," he said.
To make practicing more appealing: The first thing he does when practicing is to spend 10 minutes playing anything he wants, anything at all. It helps him open the violin case -- because "the hardest thing about practicing is opening the case." He said he also likes to read and learn the history behind the composers and pieces he is playing.
Listening also is important. If you listen to a number of versions of the piece you are playing, "there is a history in your ear about how the piece goes." And that doesn't mean that you will wind up trying to clone the pieces you've listened to; instead it simply gives you a point of departure. Because, of course, you are going to…"study the score -- the full score," he said.
One way to approach a new piece is to simply read through the whole thing and put brackets around the places you can't play. Then go straight to those places and practice them. As a student at Juilliard, he once took a challenge to learn the Sibelius Concerto in three days, with the help of his teacher, Dorothy DeLay. They canceled all his classes and went to work; he practiced eight hours a day; two and a half of those with piano. "On the third day, I had to play the whole concerto in master class!"
But it taught him an important lesson: "By knowing how to organize your practice time, you can learn more and more." Keeping a practice journal can help with that, as can keeping consistent practice. He said that at one point when he was younger, he went for seven years without missing a day of practice!
I peeked in for a few minutes for a master class given by Ilya Gringolts, who was helping a student with phrasing.
The student was holding every fourth beat, without really being conscious of doing so. "It's predictable and harmful to the melody," Ilya said. "You have to think over the bar line, think longer phrases." He asked her, what is it in music that moves people? "I'm thinking of two things, he said, "rhythm and harmony. Those are the two things that move us the most in music."
Ray Nichol
March 9, 2014 at 03:14 PM · First, thank you Laurie, for attending the masters classes and for allowing us a small glimpse into what these exceptional violinist experienced. While reading your article I was busy writing down notes and mentally adjusting my daily practice routine. Thank you again. Ray


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Raiders Opinion: The Weather Factor
by Grant Richards
in AFC, AFC West, Featured, Las Vegas Raiders, NFL, NFL Featured
Although sportsbooks are setting the over/under for the Raiders-Bengals game around 48, the teams' combined scores likely will not come close to that. During the teams' regular-season matchup, the score was 13-6 at the end of the third quarter before the Raiders' wheels fell off the cart and allowed the Bengals to score 19 points in the fourth.
In The Cold
Additionally, neither team has played in a game with a forecasted temperature below 50 degrees in the last three weeks. Many teams, like the Green Bay Packers, can be molded by the cold and use this to their advantage, but the Raiders have played in a dome in the last three weeks while the Bengals have seen relatively nice weather in their recent games. Transitioning from a dome or warmer temperatures to below freezing (Saturday's forecasted high: 30 F) can make players tense up when attempting actions (passing) that require increased movement. Cold weather also decreases the flight of the football, making deep passes just a bit riskier.
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Approach Shift
Should both teams adopt "cold weather" playcalling, the Raiders could see themselves at a boosted advantage. Recently, the Raiders have squared off against dominant backs such as Nick Chubb, Jonathan Taylor, and Austin Ekeler and held both Chubb and Ekeler to under 100 yards, while slowing the league's leading rusher and allowing him 114 yards and what could be considered a below-average day. Despite the Bengals making an aggressive push to not only make the playoffs but also win the AFC North, running back Joe Mixon has not been much of a factor. As the Bengals lean more and more on the pass, Mixon has seen his touches decrease, and because of this, he has not surpassed 100 rushing yards since November.
Resurgent Ground Game
In the opposite light, Josh Jacobs has rushed for over 100 yards in two of his last three starts and appears to be operating at full speed, which unfortunately is not always the case. During a press conference following the heart-stopping win over the Chargers, Jacobs described himself as "the closer" and he will need that same mentality against Cincinnati. Both Derek Carr and Joe Burrow have showcased their impressive abilities to make astounding throws under pressure, whether the pressure be situationally or the pass rush, but the Bengals take an edge when judging the level of talent the quarterbacks throw to. Keeping this game under control, similar to the Browns game should leave the Raiders an opportunity to stay in the driver's seat, whereas a shootout could quickly get away from them.
Recipe For Success?
Fortunately, the Raiders have proven their ability to stick around in most high-scoring affairs, but with Carr's history in cold weather, it would make more sense to keep deep or chancy throws on a "when needed" basis. Throughout the season, the Raiders have shown the ability to win slow and win fast, but Saturday will be a day to win in the trenches instead of winning in the air.
Tags: Derek CarrJoe BurrowJosh JacobsLas Vegas Raiders
Patriots' Isaiah Wynn Will Miss Wild Card Game Against Bills
Way Too Early New York Jets Free Agency Targets
Grant Richards


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Toyota expands Prius recall, reveals up to 20,000 hybrid inverters failed
Roger Hogan, left, and sons Roger Hogan and Stephen Hogan at their family dealership Toyota of Claremont. The Hogans refused to sell these Prius vehicles, believing they were not safe to drive because the power system has a defect.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
By Ralph VartabedianStaff Writer
As many as 20,000 Toyota Prius owners have had electric power system failures after the company recalled their vehicles in 2014 and attempted to remedy a safety defect by modifying software.
The disclosure was made by a Toyota executive during testimony in a high-stakes, two-month-long civil trial that had closing arguments Monday in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana. The jury of seven men and five women is scheduled to begin deliberating on Tuesday.
The case was brought against Toyota by Roger Hogan, one of the largest Toyota dealers in Southern California, who alleges that after he began sounding alarms about the problem Toyota retaliated against his dealerships in San Juan Capistrano and Claremont.
Separately, Toyota last week notified its dealers across the U.S. that it is again expanding the scope of the electric power system recall to include Prius models made in 2018. The recall covers 500 Prius Model C vehicles that have a manufacturing issue with the direct current converter, a part of the power system, that could cause a loss of power and "increase the risk of a crash," according to notices sent to dealers. The company said it is still considering the remedy but will replace the direct current converter, which is distinct from the component affecting previous recalls, if necessary.
The original recall covered about 800,000 Priuses in the U.S. from model years 2010 to 2014. Toyota issued a second recall last October, when the company acknowledged that the first recall still left owners unsafe.
Full coverage: Toyota Prius defects and recalls »
The lengthy trial involves a highly unusual battle over safety allegations between an auto manufacturer and one of its top dealerships. Hogan at one time was president of the Toyota Dealers Assn. in Southern California and describes himself as a lifelong Toyota loyalist. The company, however, during the trial portrayed Hogan as a rogue opponent who was trying to get even with the company for its actions against one of his sons.
Toyota has disputed allegations made by Hogan that it retaliated against him for raising safety concerns, saying that his dispute with the company dates to 2016 when the company said the son was not qualified to act as a general manager. Hogan has disputed that assertion.
For Toyota, the trial resurrects some of the same issues of transparency on safety issues that it confronted with its unintended acceleration problem, which emerged in 2009 with the quadruple fatal accident involving an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer and his family. After congressional hearings, investigations by federal regulators and court battles, Toyota pledged to be more responsive to safety complaints and provide more authority for its U.S.-based safety engineers.
Toyota is alleged in the current trial to have breached those promises. All of the decisions about the electric power system and the recall remedies were made in Japan, according to Hogan's attorney Amnon Siegel, citing testimony during the trial by Toyota executives. And Siegel alleged the company concealed the seriousness of the inverter problems and withheld key information about how the software was supposed to help prevent safety risks.
Toyota declined to answer specific questions about testimony but issued a broad statement: "Toyota is committed to the safety and security of its customers, and we are confident the evidence has shown that Toyota acted appropriately in addressing vehicle safety issues and in its business dealings with Mr. Hogan. We believe Mr. Hogan's allegations are without merit."
The problems with the electrical power system affect a key component known as an inverter, which boosts voltage from the battery and converts to alternating current, similar to what comes out of a household outlet. The Prius inverters were overheating and frying internal high power transistors, leading to a loss of power that in many cases left owners stranded on the side of the road.
Toyota attempted to fix the problem by modifying the inverter software on model years 2010 to 2014, though it never disclosed how the software or its modifications would result in less overheating. The fix did not prevent the overheating, and inverter failures continued.
Tom Trisdale, vice president for product quality at Toyota Motor Sales USA, the company's marketing arm, testified on June 11 that the company had received 18,000 to 20,000 warranty claims for inverters covered by the recall. A Toyota spokesman declined to comment on that number.
In January, Toyota told its engineering consultant Exponent, which it has used to help defend legal claims in the past, to begin analyzing the inverters and instructed dealers to send all failed inverters directly to Exponent, according to testimony. As of March, 830 inverters and components had been sent to Exponent over a 50-day period, a rate of about 17 per day.
The company agreed in 2014 to replace the inverters under an extended warranty coverage if they did fail, but chose not to replace all of the inverters with a newer design that was released at some point in 2014.
Siegel dismissed the software fix as a strategy that saved Toyota billions of dollars, telling the jury, "If you drop your iPhone and crack the screen, you are not going to plug it in and get a software fix."
The company originally asserted that the software fix was intended to both prevent the failure of the inverters and assure the safety of the vehicle occupants if the inverters did fail by allowing the car to enter into a "limp home" mode that would travel at somewhere around 15 mph. But Hogan and some vehicle owners asserted that the inverters failed without entering limp home.
Toyota attorney David L. Schrader told the jury Monday in closing arguments that not a single accident "related to the recall" has been confirmed. "The recall has worked," he said.
Hogan filed a defect petition with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in late 2017, alleging that the software fix was not working and that inverters were still failing without entering limp home. Last summer, NHTSA met with Hogan and with Toyota officials a half dozen times.
In October 2018, Toyota issued a second recall to fix the inverter problem. In the second recall, the aim was not to prevent an inverter overheating and failure, but rather to assure that the vehicle would not lose all power, according to defect information reports filed by the company in October.
Hogan is asking for tens of millions of dollars in damages, alleging Toyota committed fraud by concealing the defects and breached good faith and fair dealing by retaliating against him in his business operations, specifically by not providing him with enough top-selling truck models and causing his sales to lag. An academic expert analyzed the vehicles Toyota provided to Hogan and his sales, concluding that the allocations cost him millions of dollars in lost profits.
The company disputed that claim, saying Hogan hadn't earned the right to those vehicles, based on his sales record. And if Hogan is that unhappy with Toyota, Schrader said, he could sell his two dealerships for an estimated $62 million.
Ralph Vartabedian
Ralph Vartabedian, a national correspondent at the Los Angeles Times, joined the newspaper in 1981.


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Antecedentes

Fechas de la gira

Referencias

Giras musicales de BTS

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The city broke ground on "The View" Housing Project on Thursday afternoon. The building will be located at 8314 2nd St.
The View is a six-story modern architecture building developed to incorporate the best elements of open-space, natural light, innovative landscaping and a rooftop garden with a view of Downtown Downey. The building will have 50 units, 35 two bedroom and 15 three bedroom, ranging from 795 to 1002 square feet. The amenities will include a commuity room on the first floor, a rooftop garden and a private patio for each unit. Rent will range from $532 – $911 for a two bedroom and $610 – $1049 for a three bedroom, depending on the household income.
The total project cost of $20 million dollars was multi-funded by, City of Downey Community Development Commission Housing Fund, City of Downey HOME, HACoLA City Industry Fund, Federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits 9%, JP Morgan Chase.
This will be the first residential building built in the Downtown area. In mid 2008 the Downtown Redevelopment Agency purchased the site, along with the Avenue Theater on Downey Ave. for the porpoises of creating mixed-use development in the Downtown area. In mid 2009 the Redevelopment Agency sent out requests for proposals to redevelop the two sites. The city received a total of six creative proposals. After a lengthy evaluation the city selected, National Community Renaissance (National CORE) as the developer for both sites. Due to budgetary restraints the city elected to have the View project done first because it would have the most beneficial impact to the Downtown.
Construction will take an estimated two years with a planned opening early 2015.