For many years, a symbiosis of human beings and animals. The feeling, the knowledge, the pleasure, it is in our genes. It was so in the past and it is still so. We have been brought up working with cows for many generations.
A dairy farmer in Moerkapelle since 1980. Our farm has been rooted here for generations. This photo reflects our love of cows. 'Josi' during the dairy show in Gouda, 1987.
In 1988, we moved to the village of Kantens in the province of Groningen. The mostimportant reasons were the space and the opportunity to develop the farm. We also consciously chose to move to a region where there were both dairy and arable farms. We have always focused on cooperating with arable farmers.
Since the end of the 1990's, we have been increasingly oriented towards international dairy farming. We have achieved this by becoming members of the European Dairy Farmers and Global Dairy Farmers organisations, and owner of DairyNext. The photo shows a visit to the dairy show in Hangzhou, China.
In 2000, we built new farm buildings. Extensive attention was given to the climate in the stalls and the comfort of the cows. This means that we use modern techniques to promote the health and well-being of our cattle, techniques that reflect today's ideas on animal welfare.
In 2016, we added a free stall barn with two automatic milking systems. We opted for a barn with special rules for cow comfort and environment. This way we want to optimise cow comfort and focus even more on sustainability.
In addition, the barn is situated in such a way that we can once again graze our cows. In this way, our cows can be seen by everyone and we meet a social desire.
Milk is a fantastic product. You can also turn milk into attractive and healthy dairy products. Dairy products form part of a healthy diet. That was the case in the past, it is currently the case and will also be the case in the future.


Korean Consulate General Seattle office support, this is APCC 5th year free Korea Day event. We want participants to have the hands-on experience along with cultural story telling to learn about Korean culture. Monthly Taste of Asia in May will be Korea, so participants will get to learn about Korean Mandoo, dumpling making, and how to prepare in different ways. We will also have "who will make the best looking Mandoo" contest. Afternoon will be fun with ink on rice paper to make "Min Wha" which is folk painting of traditional Tiger along with story behind. Each participant will take their finished painting home.


A new video for Middle-earth™: Shadow of War™ featuring Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick, Silicon Valley), has appeard online. Kumal Nanjiani portrays The Agonizer, a spirited yet deadly Orc enemy, who is just one of the numerous personalities players may encounter through the Nemesis System in the upcoming open-world action video game.
The video provides a first look at Nanjiani's Orc character delivering a variety of humorous one-liners that players may come across throughout their game experience. Viewers are also treated to a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Nanjiani's voice recording session, where he provides additional insight on his preparation for the role.
Set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Middle-earth™: Shadow of War™ is an open-world action RPG that continues the original narrative of Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™. Players will be engrossed in a richer, more personal and expansive world full of epic heroes and villains, iconic locations, original enemy types, more personalities and a new cast of characters with untold stories, all brought to life by the award-winning Nemesis System.
Middle-earth™: Shadow of War™ will be available from 10 October 2017.


The notion is pretty simple. By buying longer-dated Treasurys, prices will rise and long-term interest rates will fall. Lower long-term interest rates may help spur investment. By selling short-term securities, their prices will fall and their yields will rise, attracting foreign capital.
For the average investor, the potential changes could be huge. If the Fed is successful in lowering long-term rates, investors could get even lower rates on mortgages, while enjoying higher rates on short-term investments like T-bills and money market accounts. Simply put, if all goes according to plan, Operation Twist would lower expenses and increase income for most investors. Unfortunately, even with history as a guide, the first Operation Twist was so modest in scope that it's difficult to determine if it will work now. I think it will remain ineffective.
The program remains smaller in scope than the Fed's quantitative easing programs. Only $400 billion will be re-deployed in this operation through the end of June 2012.
Despite the smaller size and the fact that this policy won't make any substantial changes to the size of the Fed's balance sheet, the program received three dissenting votes from the Fed's 10-member committee.
With this weak showing in the economy, the Fed left interest rates unchanged, in line with its earlier meeting announcement to keep interest rates near zero through mid-2013. Negative data coming out in the past few months shows that the economy continues to weaken. In the second quarter of 2011, U.S. GDP grew at a weak 1 percent. Over the past few Fed meetings, the central bank has still not ruled out other means, to stimulate the economy and to keep asset prices from plunging.
Many market watchers expected Operation Twist to take precedence over another round of quantitative easing, as the first two rounds of the controversial program did little to stimulate the economy. Some economists derided the program as mere money-printing that fueled inflation. Others predict more QE from the Fed in the future.
IMPORTANT TAKEAWAY FROM THE SPEECH.
I wrote about the possibility of a mega mortgage ReFi by Fannie and Freddie few weeks back. I already pointed out to an obvious flaw in the ReFi story. If a Trillion or so of mortgages were rapidly prepaid, then who would buy all of the new (much lower coupon) mortgage paper?
Now we have the answer. The Fed will put the new MBS paper back on its Balance Sheet, $ for $. There will still be many bondholders outside of the Fed who will get prepaid much faster than they had assumed. Most of that is in pension/bond funds. No one cares about them. I think that Treasury will announce the plans for a Mega Refi in the not too distant future. It could come this weekend or next week. Obama will wait just enough time after the complex Fed decision so that 99% of all people don't connect these two dots.
I expect the Fed to announce additional quantitative easing. This action will scotch the fear trade, tighten credit spreads and send treasury yields higher.


This powerful bubble machine has double wheels and dual blowerfans, meaning large quantities of bubbly fun for a number of different parties and events. Unleash hundreds of bubbles upon kids parties, weddings and marquee events for a fun-filled effect for everybody to enjoy!
The SB 2000 is a new technology, high quality bubble machine which filles the bubbles with smoke as they're made resulting in hundreds of tiny orbs floating around the room. Bubble machine hire is particular popular at weddings, birthday parties and events, and the SB2000 from Beamz not only produces huge quantities of bubbles, but also add's smoke and LED lighting to the mix creating a truly unique effect. If you are planning on renting a bubble machine then this really could be the choice for you.


Exchange Online is part of the Office 365 suite of products.
In the Microsoft 365 admin center, choose Admin centers / Exchange.
Office 365 for business - Admin Help: how to get started with the Microsoft 365 admin center, reset passwords, and more.
Email in Office 365 for business - Admin Help: how to set up email, fix problems, and import email.


text:
Science Saturday Archaeological discovery confirms Lake Geneva tsunami research
This content was published on July 6, 2019 12:55 PM Jul 6, 2019 - 12:55
Researchers believe a massive rock fall from the Le Grammont mountain close to where the Rhone flows into Lake Geneva caused part of the river delta to collapse and slide into the lake causing a tsunami
(Wikimedia commons: Alexey M)
Gallo-Roman remains uncovered by Vaud archaeologists appear to corroborate earlier research about a giant tsunami on Lake Geneva in AD563 triggered by a rockfall and underwater landslide.
A Gallo-Roman house and everyday items recently discovered by Vaud archaeologists in thick mud close to where the River Rhône meets Lake Geneva has enabled researchers to precisely date a catastrophic tidal wave on the lake centuries ago.
Previously, geological evidence had confirmed historical accounts passed down over centuries of an eight-metre-high lake wave that struck in 563, Swiss public television, RTS, reported on Fridayexternal link. But there was no archaeological proof to back it up.
However, Gallo-Roman remains recently uncovered at a site near Noville, canton Vaud, appear to add to the growing body of evidence about the tsunami.
"We can see a preserved section of wall made up of blocks connected by mortar that has been displaced," archaeologist Morgan Millet told RTS.
According to research published in 2012 by the University of Genevaexternal link, a massive rock fall - probably from the Le Grammont mountain close to where the Rhône flows into lake at its eastern end - caused part of the river delta to collapse and slide into the lake.
Historical accounts describe how huge waves then inundated everything on the lake shores, devastated villages, destroyed a bridge and mills in Geneva and passed over the city walls; it is not known how many people were killed.
Hidden danger Swiss "underestimate" lake tsunami risks
Swiss lake tsunamis are disasters in waiting, warns Geneva University researcher Guy Simpson, co-author of a study into a giant tsunami on Lake ...
By Simon Bradley in Geneva
German (de)Werden Tsunami-Risiken in der Schweiz unterschätzt?
Japanese (ja)内陸国スイスに潜む津波の危険性
"The mountain landslide crashed onto sediment on the Rhône plain that was completely saturated with water," said Philippe Schoeneich, a geologist at the University of Grenoble. "The impact liquefied the sediment, transforming it into a liquid sludge that spread across the plain."
Cremation remains and everyday objects, which were also found in the mud, have been restored and dated.
"Some of the more remarkable items include a small circular fibula brooch, which is not entirely conserved, but has holes in which you can insert a small chain," said Millet.
The most recent object is from the fifth century, but the layer of mud contains nothing from 563 or thereafter.
"We have to imagine a violent disaster with between ten and 30 million cubic metres of rock falling from the mountain onto the plain. For tsunamis, like any other natural disaster, not much is left standing afterwards," said the archaeologist.
Major Swiss tsunamis
In 563 a massive rock fall at the eastern end of Lake Geneva caused part of the Rhone delta to collapse and slide into the lake, triggering a tsunami that caused considerable destruction around the lake.
In 1584 an earthquake near Aigle in canton Vaud in the Rhone Valley damaged villages along the north-eastern shore of Lake Geneva, and caused a rockslide that killed 320 people and a tsunami that reportedly flooded shorelines in Villeneuve, Lausanne and Geneva.
On September 16, 1601 a magnitude six underwater earthquake in Lake Lucerne triggered huge waves which left the city of Lucerne under water.
In 1687 a spontaneous collapse of the Muota river delta near Brunnen triggered a five-metre tsunami which caused widespread flooding around Lake Lucerne.
On September 2, 1806, a huge rock fall from the Rossberg mountain in central Switzerland destroyed the village of Goldau, claiming 457 lives. The easternmost part of the rock mass hit Lake Lauerz, triggering a 15-metre-high tsunami. Around ten people died in the resulting flood on the southern shores of the lake.
RTS/sb
Switzerland discovers
Archaeological discovery confirms Lake Geneva tsunami research Jul 6, 2019 - 12:55 Gallo-Roman remains uncovered by Vaud archaeologists appear to corroborate earlier research about a giant tsunami on Lake Geneva in AD563 triggered by a rockfall and underwater landslide. A Gallo-Roman house and everyday items recently discovered by Vaud archaeologists in thick mud close to where the River Rhône meets Lake Geneva has enabled researchers to precisely date a catastrophic tidal wave on the lake centuries ago. Previously, geological evidence had confirmed historical accounts passed down over centuries of an eight-metre-high lake wave that struck in 563, Swiss public television, RTS, reported on Friday. But there was no archaeological proof to back it up. However, Gallo-Roman remains recently uncovered at a site near Noville, canton Vaud, appear to add to the growing body of evidence about the tsunami. "We can see a preserved section of wall made up of blocks connected by mortar that has been displaced," archaeologist Morgan Millet told RTS. According to research published in 2012 by the University of Geneva, a massive rock fall - probably from the Le Grammont mountain close to where the Rhône flows into lake at its eastern end - caused part of the river delta to collapse and slide into the lake. Historical accounts describe how huge waves then inundated everything on the lake shores, devastated villages, destroyed a bridge and mills in Geneva and passed over the city walls; it is not known how many people were killed. "The mountain landslide crashed onto sediment on the Rhône plain that was completely saturated with water," said Philippe Schoeneich, a geologist at the University of Grenoble. "The impact liquefied the sediment, transforming it into a liquid sludge that spread across the plain." Cremation remains and everyday objects, which were also found in the mud, have been restored and dated. "Some of the more remarkable items include a small circular fibula brooch, which is not entirely conserved, but has holes in which you can insert a small chain," said Millet. The most recent object is from the fifth century, but the layer of mud contains nothing from 563 or thereafter. "We have to imagine a violent disaster with between ten and 30 million cubic metres of rock falling from the mountain onto the plain. For tsunamis, like any other natural disaster, not much is left standing afterwards," said the archaeologist. Major Swiss tsunamis In 563 a massive rock fall at the eastern end of Lake Geneva caused part of the Rhone delta to collapse and slide into the lake, triggering a tsunami that caused considerable destruction around the lake. In 1584 an earthquake near Aigle in canton Vaud in the Rhone Valley damaged villages along the north-eastern shore of Lake Geneva, and caused a rockslide that killed 320 people and a tsunami that reportedly flooded shorelines in Villeneuve, Lausanne and Geneva. On September 16, 1601 a magnitude six underwater earthquake in Lake Lucerne triggered huge waves which left the city of Lucerne under water. In 1687 a spontaneous collapse of the Muota river delta near Brunnen triggered a five-metre tsunami which caused widespread flooding around Lake Lucerne. On September 2, 1806, a huge rock fall from the Rossberg mountain in central Switzerland destroyed the village of Goldau, claiming 457 lives. The easternmost part of the rock mass hit Lake Lauerz, triggering a 15-metre-high tsunami. Around ten people died in the resulting flood on the southern shores of the lake.
Science Saturday How much of a risk are tsunamis in Switzerland?
A Swiss research project has been looking at the risk of tsunamis occurring in lakes in Switzerland.
This content was published on September 15, 2018 1:00 PM Sep 15, 2018 - 13:00
Japanese (ja)海のないスイスで津波の研究

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Teaching Democracy: Balancing between Free Speech and Offensive Expressions
Event: Far-Right Extremism in the classroom
13-14 June 2019, Berlin, Germany
History education is more and more perceived as a means to strengthen democratic values among students. In order to become full and active members of society, students need to learn about mutual respect, tolerance and peaceful resolution of conflicts. This requires methods of teaching that allow freedom of thought and expression of opinions in the classroom.
However, one of the difficulties that teachers face when they want to engage students in open discussions, is how to deal with expressions that are offensive, discriminating, or even racist. What to do with these statements and the students expressing them? How can you, as a teacher, address the difference between 'just expressing opinions' and offensive statements; and how can you uphold a climate of open debate while at the same time condemning certain statements made by students?
Far-Right Extremism
These questions lay at the heart of the Far-Right Extremism in the Classroom meeting, organized by the Radicalization Awareness Network (RAN), which brought together teachers, policemen and academics dealing with far-right extremism (FRE). Because of its strong online presence, youngsters across Europe are likely to come across FRE ideas, and bring them to school. These are often xenophobic, racist and white supremacist messages about immigration, nationalism, history and democracy.
Efforts to prevent these ideas from spreading, or to silence them during discussions in class, are framed by FRE students as censorship and a violation of their freedom of speech.
Teachers from different countries expressed their concerns. In Greece, the renaming of North Macedonia earlier this year has fueled right-wing and nationalist expressions in schools. In Belgium a school was confronted with a group of students who shared racist comments and pictures online, threatening to kill international students. When organizing a 'week against discrimination', a school in France saw it's promotion posters against antisemitism and homophobia being removed by students. And a school in Finland had to deal with parents hiding outside the schoolyard, reporting every time they saw a student with an immigration background doing something wrong.
Pitfalls: the Will to Control
One of the pitfalls when dealing with racism and discrimination in class are what Christer Mattsson (University of Gothenburg) refers to as 'controlling pedagogies': interventions by teachers aimed at altering the mindset of the student in question. Examples of such pedagogies are (1) walking in someone else's shoes, a strategy by which teachers ask students to alter their perspective, and (implicitly) urge them to change their mind; (2) the hot seat, a strategy by which teachers make the student in question the center of attention, and fire questions at him/her; (3) physical separation, a strategy by which the student is sent out of the classroom and separated from the group.
Although, these teaching strategies are often applied with the best intentions, their results can be counterproductive. Teachers use them to control what is said and expressed in the classroom. Controlling what is expressed (or even forcing desired expressions) can produce distrust against authority. Students will learn that some expressions are desired by the teacher. They will avoid saying what the teacher doesn't want to hear, and just say what they know the teacher wants to hear. This will not lead to any significant change in the students' mindset.
Furthermore, excluding particular students from the classroom, or grouping difficult students together in a different class, will only further distance them from their classmates and might even further radicalize their ideas. Physical separation often produces mental separation.
Controlling pedagogies are therefore merely quick fixes: they might work at the time being, but they won't establish any long-term change in the behavior of students, and won't enable them to reflect on where their ideas and beliefs come from.
Changing Teaching Culture
A shift in focus is needed: from quick pedagogies of control towards sustainable pedagogies of emancipation. Teachers need to help students understand themselves, and this can only be done in a non-judgmental environment. Such an environment demands teachers that are non-judgmental, and this often proves to be problematic. In a lot of schools, teachers who are non-judgmental are considered to be soft, whereas acting harsh is considered to give teachers the appearance that they are firm.
In order to empower students to become more aware of their own values, we first have to empower teachers to be able to do so as well. Instead of secluding or separating offensive expressions, teachers need a to be able to convey a message that is more positive and inclusive. They need to understand where students get their ideas from, and why some students feel the need to express them. Teacher training can help them achieve this.
The RAN EDU meeting will result in a paper that shows schools and teachers how to respond to FRE.
Written By Jilt Jorritsma, EuroClio Research trainee.
Jilt Jorritsma2020-06-03T14:15:56+02:00June 27, 2019|Categories: Articles|
About the Author: Jilt Jorritsma
Montenegro – a missed opportunity for dealing with the past
Remembering the past, but thinking about the future: Impressions of the war from a Ukrainian history teacher
Video-testimonies in Education – Introduction to the USC Shoah Foundation's Global Educational Work
Where history and youth work meet: remembrance and memory in a non-formal setting
Challenging Stereotypes and Preconceptions in History: How to recognize and dismantle them
The Art of Storytelling – How Hendrik van Doezum, candidate for History Teacher of the Year, uses video lessons to teach history
The Same Gift: Reflections on Visits to 3 Schools on the European Continent as a Visiting Teacher
Evens Foundation 30th Anniversary Celebration at Bozar
Teaching with Historical Newspapers in European Schools: A Collaboration with Delpher Newspaper Database and the Dutch Royal Library
Railways and Connectivity: Teaching Modern History From A New Angle
Representing Women During the First World War
Paintings of Everyday Life: How Art can be used in History Lessons
Historical Thinking, Culture, and Education: Call for Papers January 30, 2023
6th Public History Summer School, University of Wrocław (12-16 June 2023) January 26, 2023
Conference – "The Politics of Memory as a Weapon: Perspectives on Russia's War against Ukraine" (8-10 February 2023) January 23, 2023
Help us pilot teaching practices January 20, 2023
Call for Experts for the project "Football Makes History II" January 20, 2023
Call for EuroClio Board Members Candidates January 20, 2023


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Quadratino è una serie a fumetti creata da Antonio Rubino.

Storia
Quadratino è stato pubblicato dal giornale per ragazzi Il Corriere dei Piccoli dal 1910 al 1911. Una prima versione del personaggio è apparsa nel 1909, sul medesimo giornale, nella storia intitolata La tragica istoria del triangolo e del quadrato.

La serie raccontava le surreali birichinate di Quadratino, dalla testa a forma di quadrato, da cui il nome. Lo attorniano mamma Geometria, nonna Matematica, zia Algebra e la tutrice Trigonometria; in ogni episodio, l'omonimo protagonista della serie, in conseguenza delle sue monellerie, si ritrova la testa trasformata ora in un rettangolo, ora in un triangolo o in un'altra figura geometrica; alla fine della storia, la mamma, la nonna, la zia o la tutrice, riportano la testa di Quadratino alla sua forma normale.

Note

Fumetti italiani

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Non-Metal / Metal Related / Alternative Metal • United Kingdom
Porcupine Tree is a progressive/aternative rock band formed in England.
Porcupine Tree began as a joke between Steven Wilson and Malcolm Stocks in 1987, the joke being Porcupine Tree being a long-forgotten 70's space rock band. This joke was shown on their debut 'On the Sunday of Life'. Soon, Steven Wilson had Porcupine Tree evolved from a joke to a heavy space rock band.
After four releases, Porcupine Tree took an alternative rock/progressive rock path with the releases 'Stupid Dream' and 'Lightbulb Sun'. These albums still contain metal influences and space-rock atmospheres, but are mostly based in prog/alt rock
In 2002, Porcupine Tree released their 'In Absentia' album. This album showed Porcupine Tree including even more metal elements. This in turn led to 2005's 'Deadwing', their heaviest album up until that point. The band continued with their metal style until they went on hiatus in 2010 after the release of 'The read more...
Thanks to The Angry Scotsman for the addition and Lynx33, Unitron, adg211288, Bosh66 for the updates
PORCUPINE TREE Online Videos
Porcupine Tree - Herd Culling (Official Video)
Porcupine Tree - Rats Return (Official Video)
Porcupine Tree - Of The New Day (Official Lyric Video)
Porcupine Tree - Harridan (Official Lyric Video)
Porcupine Tree - Time Flies (Official Video) 4K
See all PORCUPINE TREE videos
Buy PORCUPINE TREE music
More places to buy metal & PORCUPINE TREE music
PORCUPINE TREE Discography
PORCUPINE TREE albums / top albums
2.80 | 21 ratings
On The Sunday Of Life
Non-Metal 1992
Up The Downstair
The Sky Moves Sideways
Stupid Dream
Lightbulb Sun
Metal Related 2002
Deadwing
Fear Of A Blank Planet
The Incident
Closure/Continuation
PORCUPINE TREE EPs & splits
Moonloop
Staircase Infinities
Nil Recurring
PORCUPINE TREE live albums
Coma Divine: Recorded Live In Rome
XMII
Rockpalast
Octane Twisted
PORCUPINE TREE demos, promos, fans club and other releases (no bootlegs)
Tarquin's Seaweed Farm
Love, Death & Mussolini
The Nostalgia Factory
Spiral Circus
Insignificance
Coma Divine II
Stars Die: Rare And Unreleased
Transmission IV
Delerium EP
Porcupine Tree Sampler 2005
We Lost The Skyline
PORCUPINE TREE re-issues & compilations
Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape
Voyage 34: The Complete Trip
Stars Die: The Delerium Years 1991–1997
PORCUPINE TREE singles (14)
Voyage 34
Voyage 34: Remixes
Stranger By The Minute
Pure Narcotic
Four Chords That Made A Million
Shesmovedon
Alternative Metal 2005
Way Out Of Here
Bonnie The Cat
PORCUPINE TREE movies (DVD, Blu-Ray or VHS)
Arriving Somewhere...
Anesthetize
PORCUPINE TREE Reviews
PORCUPINE TREE Closure/Continuation
Album · 2022 · Metal Related
While it may have been assumed that PORCUPINE TREE called it quits after the lackluster response to their 2009 album "The Incident" and the robust solo career of Steven Wilson (and other projects) that launched soon thereafter, it was indeed the case that Wilson, Gavin Harrison and Richard Barbieri had been planning the next chapter of PORCUPINE TREE all along only kept the project under lock and key leaving the fans to wonder if such a thing would ever materialize. Everyone had to wait until 2022 some 13 years later but finally it has become a reality that PT has indeed decided to carry on by releasing the band's 11th studio album with the rather clumsy title CLOSURE / CONTINUATION.
Unfortunately bassist Colin Edwin didn't participate in this reunion so the band carried on as a trio with Wilson picking up the bass part as well as handing guitars, vocals, mixing and role as band leader. Despite Wilson projecting his new dedication to his solo career, Blackfield, No-Man, Bass Communion, God and Storm Corrosion (does the guy ever sleep?), PORCUPINE TREE had been working behind the scenes on this album for the last decade whenever everyone had a free moment. The results of all this behind the scenes resulted in a rather standard PORCUPINE TREE affair that sounds as if the band never went away and that the ensuing 13 years were a mere two or three.
The band launched the single "Harridan" early as far back as December 2021 and whetted the appetite for rapid PT fans in hopes of another "In Absentia," "Deadwing" or "Fear of a Blank Planet." The hype was heavy but when the album finally was released in June 2022 the enthusiasm sort of fizzled out with complaints about the lack of growth that was deemed necessary to launch PT into the next chapter and well let's face it, the fact CLOSURE / CONTINUATION sounds more like the solo material of Wilson than PT at their peak. The album features the typical rockers and ballads all in atmospheric space prog form however the crossover metal aspects of the band's early 2000's have been tamped down considerably and replaced by some of the electronic wizardry of Wilson's solo efforts.
"Harridan" was an excellent teaser single with jittery firm bass groove that offers everything a PORCUPINE TREE fan could hope for. Lengthy prog workouts that revolve around Wilson's subdued vocal style accompanied by just enough rock heft to craft the proper contrast, the song featured strong hooks and was instantly likable with only the occasional complaints of overtly too complex for its own good keeping it from greatness. Actually it was those very complexities that made it more attractive as PT has been decidedly and often too accessible for its own good at least for the tastes of true prog stalwarts who love the entire arsenal of proggy tricks and trinkets to be implemented. The fans would have to sample a series of singles before the actual release with "Of The New Day" and "Herd Culling" pacifying the fans before the actual album hit the scene.
CLOSURE / CONTINUATION features seven tracks with the deluxe edition featuring three extra. In all honesty i can see why many feel let down by this album as it sounds like business as usual without any significant developments in the band's overall sound. The extra layers of complexity make it a bit more alienating and more difficult to get into upon first listen unlike past glories. The hype raised expectations and the album sort of hums along just like any old PT album of the 21st century. The usual suspects of mopey ambient drenched slow parts followed by heavier rocking upbeat moments is by now the PT playbook. There just aren't enough surprises or magic moments to be found on this one but at the same time this one is much more engaging than the nadir of the band's career "The Incident."
I think it's agreed that CLOSURE / CONTINUATION will probably not go down as anyone's favorite PT album but after several attentive listens i'm actually quite enthralled with this album and its subtle intricacies. Perhaps it's the sappiness of the second track "Of The New Day" that derails the momentum early on for many (as it did me at first) but beginning with "Rat's Return" this album is successful in delivering ample doses of everything PT is known for and in good form. Certainly no instantly sing-along songs here with repetitive motifs but this is by no means as inaccessible as anything in the rock in opposition camp. This is simply PT stretching its boundaries and putting its feelers out as to ascertain a new path to forge in the 2020's. Personally i'm loving this album even if i agree that it doesn't live up to the hype or compare with the greatest albums of the past. After all even a weaker PT album is light years ahead of what many lesser bands can conjure up. BTW the three bonus tracks are excellent and actually better than some of the material on the official album.
To all the world, it looked like Steven Wilson had closed the door on Porcupine Tree after The Incident proved to be a somewhat patchy release, and after his solo career kicked into high gear with Grace For Drowning. Far from it - it turns out that Wilson, Richard Barbieri, and Gavin Harrison had kept in touch all this time and had in fact been gently tinkering with new Porcupine Tree material as far back as 2011.
Does it sound like the Porcupine Tree of old? Well, not quite - but that was a band which went through many incarnations, from psychedelia and space rock to Radiohead-esque art rock to borderline prog metal. In addition, it's perhaps inevitable that all three musicians have moved on musically in the intervening decade-and-a-bit - and certainly there's traces of the pensive jazz fusion and synth aspects of Wilson's solo work creeping in here and there.
Is it on the level of the best of the original run of Porcupine Tree albums? I don't think so, but it's far from bad. It feels almost relaxed - the band enjoying working together after all this time, and offering a new, somewhat jazzier side of their sonic universe.
PORCUPINE TREE Nil Recurring
EP · 2007 · Metal Related
Having been released five months after the album "Fear of a Blank Planet," the 4-track EP titled NIL RECURRING was basically the leftover tracks that were written and recorded during those same sessions but for whatever reason were not deemed as viable candidates to be included on that album. This EP is just shy of 29 minutes of playing time with each track running form the 6 - 8 minute playing time. Considering these were all a part of the larger "Blank Planet" recording sessions, it's no wonder that these four tracks sound very much in the same stylistic approach of the third phase of PORCUPINE TREE which began with the band's critically acclaimed breakthrough album "In Absentia."
The all instrumental title track begins the EP and has been explained by Steven Wilson that the title was sort of a joke because the subject matter of an instrumental track can only be NIL. With the help of King Crimson superstar Robert Fripp on lead guitar the album displays a fierce dedication to meaty metal guitar riffs and progressive oddball time signatures all battered and deep-fried in Wilson's classic psychedelic secret sauce. Featuring variations on a RECURRING theme, this track exemplifies the band's rise to fame by upping their game as key player's in the world of 21st century prog and the band's uncanny ability to seamlessly mix and meld all the elements that forged the band's unique sound.
"Normal" is the most confusing because as you first listen to it you start to have a sense of deja-vous like haven't i heard this before? It's like one of those Dr Strange in the Multiverse moments where you swear you've heard it before but yet you haven't. This track was in reality the early working of what would become "Sentimental" on "Blank Planet" only it features parts of other tracks as well ranging from "My Ashes" and "Anesthetize." The track is as good as anything from the band's most lauded albums but showcases a completely written mishmash of various songs that work quite well. The track features new guitar riffs and other experimental touches while cranking out the familiar lyrics heard on the "Blank Planet" version.
"Cheating The Polygraph" is the one track that i can understand why it didn't make it onto the original album. It's a bit too loud, a bit too eclectic and a bit outside of the parameter of the "Blank Planet" sound however this is one of my all-time favorite PORCUPINE TREE tracks with its balls to the wall alternative metal heft and diverser than normal vocal style of Wilson. Also Gavin Harrison delivers some excellent percussive duties as he showcases both his off-kilter restraint as well as pulling out all the punches for some ferocious metal attacks. Even the guitar solo is unhinged while Colin Edwin's bass antics whizz up and down the scale more angsty than usual. The accompanying electronic ambience and space rock effects are also in fine form. This track should've been the next direction of the TREE instead of "The Incident" but that obviously wasn't in the cards.
The most indulgent of the tracks, "What Happens Now" is considered the track that most wears out its welcome due to the lengthy noisy jam that comprises the latter half. The track starts off with some tasty tribal drumming and psychedelic space rock as usual in classic PORCUPINE TREE fashion complete with Wilson's mopey vocal delivery. Once the oscillating electronic features chime in the track becomes more lively and the contrasting dynamics and build up of counterpoints becomes quite stimulating and magical. The track engages in that delectable psychedelic noodling with cool ass production gimmicks before engaging in an all out frenzy of ratcheting up the tension with subtle tempo increases, incremental shifts in agitation and a more bombastic series of explosive noisy propositions. Many consider this one too long but personally i love how it ends the EP by just going for it with NIL a f.u.c.k. to give.
It may only be an EP and probably should've been tacked on to "Fear of a Blank Planet" and simply called bonus tracks but personally i find this album as essential and brilliant as anything PORCUPINE TREE has unleashed onto the world. Of all the so-called EPs that the band has released (something like 15 or so) only the 1994 "Staircase Infinities" and this one, NIL RECURRING are what i would deem as essential. Originally this was self-released in limited quantities and not so easy to find but with the band's continued popularity always increasing the entire back catalogue has seen a resurgence of reissues with the most elaborate having been released by Peaceville. What can i say? This is an excellent album in its own right and leaves me wanting more!
PORCUPINE TREE Fear Of A Blank Planet
Following in the wake of the breakthrough album "In Absentia" and the following "Deadwing," PORCUPINE TREE was riding high as the 21st century's newest top dog prog rock band having honed their unique blend of psychedelic space rock with progressive alternative rock and metal. The band took full advantage of their new found success and engaged in massive touring as well as continuing to crank out new material with incremental leaps of sophistication. The next in line was the 2007 release FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET which parodied the well known Public Enemy album title "Fear of a Black Planet" only instead of gangstsa woes of racial problems in the USA, this concept album tackled the desensitizing nature of having our senses bombarded with stimuli in the 21st century. The album was a huge hit and critically acclaimed across the world.
PORCUPINE TREE pretty much upped its game on this release with a greater emphasis on the progressive rock aspects of their sound but the heavier metal parts were also nurtured in a similar fashion with drummer Gavin Harrison in particular displaying a much more technically infused sophistication than on his previous two albums with the band. Pretty much everything PORCUPINE TREE had achieved on "Deadwing" was ratcheted up a few more notches all the while without sacrificing the inner core of what the band was all about, namely instantly catchy and poignant melodies that transmogrify into myriad motifs and moods and highly complex composiitons. The album also added a string and orchestral backdrop as well as King Crimson's Robert Fripp and Rush's Alex Lifeson delivering some cameo appearances.
With only six tracks that are just shy of 51 minutes, FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET excels on variations of a themes. Strong melodic songwriting is teased out into sprawling psychedelic excursions with periodic metallic heft and electronic fueled modernity. In a way Steven Wilson delivers what i call mope prog as his middle range voice perfectly narrates the moody dark subject matter and keeps the musical procession fairly even keel and rather hypnotic with the beefy Tool-esque bass grooves and Radiohead styled detachment. The title track begins the album with an energetic guitar arpeggio but quickly showcases the layering effect of various guitar parts along with the bass and drumming variations. While it begins like a PORCUPINE TREE business as usual proposition, the track unleashes the fully power of Wilson's fascination with metal music as well as the cool ethereal synthesizer sounds that also make the psychedelic space rock aspects stand out.
"My Ashes," one of the few tracks not exclusively written by Wilson showcases Richard Barbeiri's brilliant songwriting with a more melancholic tune that allows the piano and symphonic rock backing to provide some chill time before the monstrously long "Anesthetize" plays on for almost 18 minutes, making it the longest track since Wilson's early psychedelic years on "The Sky Moves Sideways." This track perfectly displays Harrison's percussive overdrive with super tight drum rolls that churn out an incessant tribal rhythm while the echoed guitars and subtle sounds slowly ooze and erupt in and out of the musical procession. The track showcases an exquisite guitar presence of Robert Fripp and navigates many mood swings while it more or less nurtures a single bass groove that maintains a consistent hypnotic spell throughout the track's run with only the moments of pure metal madness breaking the nonchalant flow.
"Sentimental" slows things down with the by then famous piano style of Richard Barbeiri that sort of takes the rhythmic swing of a polka song and adapts it to the keyboards. Accompanied by Wilson's downer vocal style, the lyrics narrate the psychologically drama of today's youth but the track shifts to a complementary musical motif that is somewhat contrary to the opening piano parts which is a trademark PORCUPINE TREE style of modulation shifts that this album has perfectly mastered as the band performs these musical gymnastics without missing a beat.
The album really doesn't lose any traction as "Way Out Of Here" takes another turn to a completely different style of playing without derailing the overall mood of the album's conceptual theme. While most albums drag down towards the end, FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET just remains engaging until the very end as the closing "Sleep Together" delivers an ominous electronic sounding gurgle as the song slowly ratchets up into a heavy symphonic rocker while maintaining the psychedelic electronica throughout its entirety with a satisfying climax of psychedelic codeine rock splendor. Yeah this album is sort of a downer but in a good way. The music sort of navigates your mood level through the bleak subject matter and walks that usual PORCUPINE TREE tightrope between monotonous psychedelic hypnotism and active progressive rock technical workouts.
FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET displayed a remarkable maturity over the slightly inferior "In Absentia" and found the band at the top of its game. It seemed though that this was the end of the road for this third phase of the band's existence and the band was unable to match the magnitude of this album's perfection on the following "The Incident." This album found PORCUPINE TREE at its most calculated cleverness where the complexities were subdued in the subtleties of every cadence crafted or prosody presented. The mope rock scene had gone full fledged prog beyond anything Radiohead achieved on "OK Computer" or Grandaddy's indie rock classic "The Sophtware Slump." PORCUPINE TREE had slowly but surely made it to the top of the world of modern progressive rock and in its wake left three exquisite masterpieces in the first decade of the 21st century. While i prefer "Deadwing" to this one, i have to admit that this one is not far behind. Yet another triumphant achievement from Steven Wilson and friends. Although it took a few years for this to sink in completely, in the end i have succumbed to the magnanimous monstrosity that is FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET and it has easily become one of my favorite modern prog albums of all time.
PORCUPINE TREE In Absentia
Slowly but surely the solo project of Steven Wilson that began as a joke and was created simply to create music inspired by the most lysergic sounds of Pink Floyd incrementally gained steam and the momentum to reach the status of international prog stardom. After Wilson turned the project into a full band experience with 1996's "Signify," PORCUPINE TREE had all but set its basic blueprint of mixing 90s alternative rock with 70s psychedelic space rock made all the better with elements of progressive rock mined from various sources. In many ways PORCUPINE TREE was like the more progressive counterparts to Radiohead with a very similar approach of mixing Krautrock inspired electronica, beefy guitar grooves reminiscent of the grunge era and a propensity for Pink Floyd's space rock set to thought provoking lyrical content.
The band's second phase culminated with "Lightbulb Sun" which found them crafting some of the catchiest crossover prog tunes of the new millenium thus showcasing the band's propensity for delivering strong ear wormy hooks, eerily haunting harmonies and cleverly crafted space rock contrasted with a bit of alternative rock heft however the best was yet to come as the band ratcheted the aforementioned elements up a few notches and cranked out a trilogy of what many would deem three of the greatest prog rock albums of the 21st century. The first of this string of well-crafted albums came in the form of IN ABSENTIA in 2002 and with its instantly eye-catching album cover you know immediately you're in for something a bit out of the ordinary. This was also the first album to be released on a major record label. Lava Records may not ring a bell for many but is in face in partnership with Atlantic Records and has sold over 100 million albums, so they know what they're doing obviously!
While the next step of PORCUPINE TREE's inevitable ascent to the top of the prog world may have been unstoppable, a couple well known factors played a pivotal role in how the band developed and upped its game. The first was the addition of drummer Gavin Harrison who played with an impressive number of artists before landing his role with Steven Wilson and friends. His seasoned approach and technical drumming prowess were exactly what PORCUPINE TREE needed to take them to the next level of technical wizardry and take them out of the dream pop-infused sorta prog camp to the whole enchilada. Add to that, Wilson acquired a taste for the world of metal music having discovered Burzum, Meshuggah and prog metal superstars Opeth. After meeting Mikael Åkerfeldt and producing Opeth's "Blackwater Park," the indelible mark of metal would leave its filthy little claws in Wilson's psyche and PORCUPINE TREE would never be the same.
The differences are noticeable immediately. While IN ABSENTIA begins with some psychedelic teasers as the album starts, the opening track "Blackest Eyes" doesn't take long to showcase the band's newly acquired progressive metal bombast taken to the proper level of technical wizardry with Harrison's drumming skills. The beautiful thing about PORCUPINE TREE is that Wilson never jettisoned the old to make room for the new. Like a beautiful orchestral symphony he simply added more complimentary elements to the band's already established sound and improved what had come before as well and IN ABSENTIA presents those standards impeccably with all the attention placed on the melodic developments first and foremost and the supporting elements simply falling where they may. The result was an amazing display of prog compositional fortitude made all the better by an immaculate production job and mixing.
For the most part IN ABSENTIA is the perfect balancing act between the art of ear wormy art rock, sophisticated prog, heavy guitar oriented alternative metal and psychedelic space rock made all the more ethereal by an excellent display of electronic musical forms such as trip hop and ambient music at key moments. The tracks all stand on their own with each adding a vital element to the band's repertoire. While the opening "Blackest Eyes" displays the band's new love of metal, the album spends most of the time in the space rock zone with tracks like "Trains" and "The Sound of Muzak" more in the vein of material off of "Lightbulb Sun." At this point the metal had made its debut but was used sparingly. The heavy music is let off the leash though on the all instrumental "Wedding Nails" which displayed that the band's fascination with heavier music was not a mere fad.
While the Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Nirvana style grunge are the key ingredients on IN ABSENTIA, on the hardcore prog side of things, there is a heavy King Crimson influence at times most prominent on the proggiest track of the album "Strip The Soul" however much of the proggier elements came in the form of production with subtle contrasts between mixing the various instrumental parts. While guitar solos erupt occasionally IN ABSENTIA was still more psychedelic space rock than anything remotely metal madness. This was controlled heavy but in a good way. What the band's biggest achievement on this album was that it featured a keen display of various musical motifs and interesting ways of crafting a series of interconnected ideas that somehow resulted in a warm organic process. Take "Gravity Eyelids" for example. It starts off as a trip hop arty space rock song and then transitions seamlessly into a a grunge-fueled Nirvana meets Radiohead sorta track.
While many have hailed IN ABSENTIA as the first prog masterpiece of the new millenium i have to disagree that there had been some fine albums already released by Spock's Beard, Transatlantic, Pendragon and even avant-proggers Present but where PORCUPINE TREE succeeded where they did not was in the fact that a major label offered a much larger audience and therefore IN ABSENTIA did indeed become one of the best known and best selling prog releases in the early 2000s. Although this is a prog classic indeed, personally i don't find it perfect but nearly so. While PORCUPINE TREE had mastered the art of fusing its influences and idiosyncrasies into a seamless whole on this release, the track "Prodigal" just seems like filler to my ears. It's not a bad track but is the one that screams Pink Floyd the loudest and ultimately comes off as totally unneeded. Same for the following ".3" which delivers a lot of psychedelic noodling before finding some true substance. It should've been edited to half the length or deleted altogether. The track "Heartattack in a Layby" would've been a perfect followup downer track to pacify the feisty metal oriented "Wedding Nails."
Overall IN ABSENTIA truly is one of the great works of the 21st century not only in terms of prog but in the greater rock universe as well. Everything Wilson and company had been working towards came to fruition on this album and made PORCUPINE TREE one of the biggest prog acts OF the 21st century. While i may not find this album absolutely perfect i certainly cannot deny its relevance, its professionalism and the uncanny strength of most of the material presented. Yes it is a bit too long at over 68 minutes and had the two weakest tracks been nixed it would've made this a perfect listening experience for my ears but even as it is i can't complain too much. I much prefer the following "Deadwing" and "Fear Of A Blank Planet" which took the approach delivered on IN ABSENTIA in sheer perfection however there's no reason to deny this first installation of the band's peak years of its classic status. Given my preference for the following albums i had to psychoanalyze my reasoning for listening to this one less and my conclusion is that the metal and space rock elements hadn't quite completely integrated quite yet in addition to my already presented nitpicking. Anyways, no matter how you slice it, IN ABSENTIA is brilliant prog release that signified prog was alive and well in the new millennium.
PORCUPINE TREE Movies Reviews
PORCUPINE TREE Arriving Somewhere...
Movie · 2006 · Metal Related
Focusing on the more metal-oriented material from Deadwing and In Absentia - though notably steering it back in a more rock-oriented direction in order to allow this material to sit a little more comfortably beside the "indie prog rock" stylings of Stupid Dream, Lightbulb Sun and Recordings (picks from all of which surface here). Fans of their earlier psychedelic and space rock styles might be disappointed that those aren't represented, but on the plus side there's a liberal sprinkling of rarities here such as the glorious Buying New Soul as well as Revenant, So-Called Friend and Mother and Child Divided, those three songs having only appeared on various special editions of Deadwing. Not the definitive Porcupine Tree live experience, but a pretty decent one nonetheless.
PORCUPINE TREE Shouts
Time Signature wrote:
Their heavy stuff is heavy enough for inclusion in the MMA. Note that the MMA is album-based, so, even though PT are not a metal band, they are included because of their metal-oriented albums. And I fully support their inclusion.
Metallica999 wrote:
Their later stuff is heavier, but they are not really a metal band. Definitely worth checking if you are a fan of prog music though.
[email protected] wrote:
OK, which albums is more metal ?
PORCUPINE TREE Index


John has an MBA from Babson College and over 30 years of successful experience in the management of high technology businesses. He served as VP Sales & Marketing for a high technology start-up that went public during his tenure and was owner and president of an international software distribution company.
John established The Gould Family Foundation to support humanitarian organizations that serve the poor in the developing world. John is Director of the foundation. The Foundation supports the international mission work of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur including building a school, upgrading hospitals and clinics in the Congo and establishing Small Family Farm programs in Peru and the Congo. It also supports the work of IMEC, a humanitarian organization that upgrades hospitals and clinics and equips small family farms and schools in the developing world.
John serves on the Board of IMEC. He founded and is involved in the management of the Youth Mountain Adventure Program, which serves underprivileged, urban youth, with the Appalachian Mountain Club.
Steve recently retired as the SVP of Human Resources for Dynamics Research Corporation (DRC), a $300M federal IT/Business Systems contractor in Andover, MA. For ten years, he was responsible for leading all aspects of DRC's human resources functions, talent acquisition, executive development and retention, internal communications and chair of the DRC Ethics Committee in support of the achieving the company's strategic business objectives. DRC was acquired by Engility Corporation in 2014.
Prior to joining DRC, Steve was a senior human resource executive within high-growth, leading- edge technology solutions organizations. As Senior Vice President for Human Resources at Brooks Automation, he was a key to the successful integration between Brooks and PRI Automation. Previous to that, he held several Human Resources leadership roles in the support of new business start-ups and high growth businesses within Digital Equipment Corporation. Steve is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and Columbia University's Advanced Program in Organization Development and Human Resources Management.
The DtM team served as a mentor and partner for Healthcare's Grant H@ckfest. This 48-hour hackathon was hosted by MIT H@cking Medicine, the Kauffman Foundation, and CAMTech. Elizabeth gave a keynote to the more than 350 students, young entrepreneurs, engineers, and medical professionals, using the story of Firefly to illustrate the importance of developing a focused project statement.
During the pitch sessions, DtM presented a new project idea -- a system for connecting medical devices such as Firefly to donors, hospitals, NGOs, and service technicians via sms text message. Our hackathon team, "DataWings for Firefly," created a working data visualization prototype that won an athenahealth award. The DataWings team was so inspired by the experience that they will continue to work on the project in hopes of creating a proof of concept that we can present during 2014.
Elizabeth's talk at Healthcare's Grand H@ckfest is part of our series sharing lessons learned from the design and launch of Firefly phototherapy. This series is made possible with support from The Lemelson Foundation in celebration of 20 years of improving lives through invention.
Our Board of Advisors is expanding fast! This month we are honored to announce that Leith Greenslade has joined our Board of Advisors, bumping our network of industry experts to a whole new level!
Leith is Vice Chair, Office of the UN Special Envoy for Financing the Health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Co-Chair of Child Health at the MDG Health Alliance, which work in support of the UN Secretary-General's Every Woman, Every Child movement to accelerate achievement of the MDGs and advance the health of women and children globally. Serving in several positions with the Australian Government, including as Policy Advisor and Speechwriter to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health, as Economic Adviser to the Leader of the Opposition and as Chief of Staff to the Shadow Minister for Social Security and the Status of Women, Leith holds a Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, a Masters in Business Administration from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a First Class Honors Degree from the University of Queensland. Leith lives in New York City with her three daughters and is a passionate advocate for the empowerment of women and children.
We are happy to announce that DtM donor and friend, Suzanne Graves, has joined our board of advisors! Suzanne is the first New York based member of our Board of Advisors, stretching our advisor network from Alaska to New York city!
Suzanne manages the Machina Trading LTD family office funds, which invests in hedge funds and private equity – with a focus on angel and growth capital investing. Suzanne has fifteen years of experience in management roles with finance and technology companies both in NYC and Seattle. Suzanne is an investor and close advisor to Artivest Inc., a NYC-based financial tech company delivering curated electronic access to private funds. She serves on the Board of HalsaMD, which focuses on building facilities specializing in bariatric medicine.
Previously, Suzanne served as COO of Area 51 LLC, a market neutral hedge fund. Suzanne held management positions at CourtLink (now subsidiary of Lexis Nexis) as well as Destinations/Teren Corp. (acquired by Galileo International). She received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Washington. Suzanne lives in New York City with her husband and twin sons. Suzanne is originally from Vietnam and immigrated to the United States in 1975.
On January 23, David Solomon joined Design that Matters as our new Interaction Intern, a half-year full-time position. In his third year in Northeastern's undergraduate Computer Engineering program, David brings eight years of rapid prototyping experience from his role as a student leader at the South End Technology Center in Boston.
David is currently in his third year at Northeastern University pursuing a B.S. degree in Computer Engineering. He comes to DtM with experience in electronics, coding, digital design, circuit design, and fabrication from his work in the Fab Lab at South End Technology Center and his studies. His experience spans operating laser cutters, vinyl cutters, and 3D printers to using programs such as LibreOffice Draw, Inkscape, Arduino, and Eagle to design multiple projects. David has helped instruct young people in the use of Fab Lab machines, so that they can take a spontaneous idea and transform it into something tangible right before their eyes.
During Summer/Fall 2014, we look forward to presenting a series of essays sharing the lessons learned designing and launching Firefly Newborn Phototherapy. This blog series is made possible with support from The Lemelson Foundation in celebration of their 20-year history of improving lives through invention.
With visionary support from The Lemelson Foundation 2011-2013, Design that Matters formed a partnership with East Meets West Foundation and Vietnamese manufacturer Medical Technology Transfer and Services to design, test, manufacture, and deliver innovations to serve the needs of poor communities around the world. Our first product is Firefly Newborn Phototherapy, a world-class technology to treat newborns with jaundice.
Firefly has won many awards including the Edison Award Gold, the top Spark! design award, IDSA IDEA Silver, and was featured in the October 2013 Fast Company Innovation by Design Award issue. Firefly is listed in the 2013 World Health Organization Compendium of Medical Devices highlighting the most innovative health technologies for low resource settings.
As of June 1 2014, Firefly devices have treated over 3,000 newborns in Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, East Timor, Thailand, Malaysia, and Ghana. Together, we expect to distribute at least 1,000 Firefly devices, reaching over 500,000 newborns.


The State of Nebraska has seen 230 reported cases of West Nile virus in 2018, according to a release from the state's Department of Health and Human Services.
The total is the state's highest since 2006 when there were 264. Before that, the state saw 1,994 cases and 27 deaths in 2003. This year, the state has had 11 reported deaths, which is the most since 2003.
In 2017, the state had 68 reported cases and one death caused by West Nile.


text:
Q: GWT + FileUpload + RESTful Just recording my experience to the fellow googlers:
The GWT FormPanel code:
myFormPanel = new FormPanel();
myFormPanel.setMethod(FormPanel.METHOD_POST);
myFormPanel.setAction(GWT.getModuleBaseURL() + "myGwtServlet");
myFormPanel.setEncoding(FormPanel.ENCODING_MULTIPART);

Don't forget to add your fields and FileUpload widgets.
GWT's project web.xml:
<servlet>
  <servlet-name>myGwtServlet</servlet-name>
  <servlet-class>package.server.MyGwtServletServiceImpl</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
  <servlet-name>myGwtServlet</servlet-name>
  <url-pattern>/project/myGwtServlet</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

Download apache-commons FileUpload and IO here. Also, download the last mimepull, which currently is mimepull-1.9.4.jar.
GWT Servlet code:
public class MyGwtServletServiceImpl extends HttpServlet{
  @Override
  public void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res)
          throws ServletException, IOException {

    FormDataMultiPart form = new FormDataMultiPart();

    try {
      List<FileItem> items = new ServletFileUpload(new DiskFileItemFactory()).parseRequest(req);
      for (FileItem item : items) {
        if (item.isFormField()) {
          form.field(item.getFieldName(), item.getString());
        } else {
          FormDataBodyPart content = new FormDataBodyPart("fileToUpload"
              , new ByteArrayInputStream(IOUtils.toByteArray(item.getInputStream()))
              , MediaType.APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM_TYPE);
          form.bodyPart(content);
        }
      }
    } catch (FileUploadException e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }

    // create Jersey Client to consume webservice
    ClientConfig config = new DefaultClientConfig();
    Client client = Client.create(config);
    client.addFilter(new HTTPBasicAuthFilter(email, password));

    WebResource webResource;
    String service = getYourWebServiceAddress();

    // initialize webservice
    webResource = client.resource(service);

    // invoke webservice
    ClientResponse webService = webResource.
        type(MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA).
        accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON).
        post(ClientResponse.class, form);

    // extract JSON response
    String json = webService.getEntity(String.class);

    // write the calling result
    PrintWriter callingResult = res.getWriter();
    callingResult.println(json);
  }
}

Jersey WebService code:
@POST
@Consumes(MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA)
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
@Path("/yourPath")
public YourReturnClass yourMethodJson(@FormDataParam("yourParam1") String one
    , @FormDataParam("yourParam2") String two
    , @FormDataParam("yourParam3") String three
    , @FormDataParam("..") String until
    , @FormDataParam("yourParamN") String n
    , @FormDataParam("fileToUpload") InputStream fileToUpload) { /* same as GWT servlet */

  /* process your data here */

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROHAN HANDE
The World Order That Donald Trump Revealed
When it comes to foreign policy, the president's most important characteristic is not amorality or a lack of curiosity; it is naïveté.
Tom McTague and Peter Nicholas,
By Tom McTague and Peter Nicholas,
To Donald Trump's critics, four years of posturing has left him exposed for all the world to see. The president hasn't made America great again, they argue; he has made it weaker than it's ever been: disrespected, ridiculed, and now even pitied, as it struggles to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic. He has failed to rebalance relations with China, failed to deal with North Korea, failed to end the endless wars in the Middle East, failed to cow Iran, failed to stop European free-riding, and even failed to improve relations with Russia. And that's before one considers his record of undercutting or destroying international treaties on climate change, trade, and nuclear weapons.
To Trump's supporters, this is manifestly unfair. The president has, for them, finally reversed Barack Obama's weakness: He has reinforced red lines, put America first, ripped up bad deals, corralled allies to pay more for their own defense, led the global change in attitude against China, defeated the Islamic State, and kept the United States out of any new wars. Add to that deals in the Middle East to normalize ties with Israel and the new line of communication with Pyongyang, and the world, they say, is now a safer place, and one that is better for American workers. If he has ruffled feathers and offended people along the way, so be it.
Both of these theories miss the real significance of Trump's presidency. After decades of international adventures that have left the U.S. overstretched, overwhelmed, and overburdened, it was Trump who blurted out the uncomfortable truth: American foreign policy was failing, and had been for decades.
Through a combination of hubris, ignorance, instinct, and ego, he pointed at the reality and demanded to know why it was being allowed to continue. Why was America still fighting wars in the Middle East and elsewhere? Why wasn't it partnering with Russia against Islamist jihadists? Why was China allowed to abuse the rules of the game? Why were American workers losing their jobs to poorer countries? And why were so-called allies in Europe allowed to place high tariffs on American produce while American workers paid for their defense? Were these countries even allies at all?
One doesn't have to like Trump or believe he has been a successful president to acknowledge that each of his challenges contains a grain of truth: American leaders were naive to allow China such an easy pass into the World Trade Organization; NAFTA did help hollow out American manufacturing; Europe was allowed to free-ride on American largesse; and the U.S. has become too tied up in military commitments. More than that, though, he was correct on the most fundamental point of all: the direct link between America's economic strength at home and its power and stature abroad.
When Trump's first book, The Art of the Deal, was atop best-seller charts in the late 1980s, second on the list was a scholarly work called The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, by the Yale professor Paul Kennedy. That book warned that the U.S. could not sustain a policy of global supremacy indefinitely while its relative wealth continued to fall. The U.S. had risen to dominance in the aftermath of Europe's implosion after World War II, but, Kennedy argued, this was an abnormality.
The challenge for America, he wrote, was to bring into balance its means and its commitments. In effect, whether it liked it or not, America was moving from being the only power that mattered to the greatest power in a world of them. The book, published in 1987, came out just before the fall of the Soviet Union and America's unipolar moment of glory. Its central warning, however, has boomeranged back into relevance.
Trump may have no idea that he is revealing any of this; he may not even agree with the things he is revealing. Yet he is revealing them nonetheless. "He's a Paul Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers person," Fiona Hill, Trump's former senior director on European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council, told us, before adding: "Though I doubt he ever read the book."
The remark came during one of several dozen interviews with senior Trump administration officials, foreign-policy specialists, diplomats, and aides in the U.S. and Europe. In those conversations, we discussed Trump's worldview; his chaotic policy making, singular lack of curiosity, inability to compromise, penchant for dictators, and dislike of allies; and, above all, his curious ability to point out base truths that were being ignored.
Time and again, we were struck by the assessment, related by multiple sources in separate meetings, that Trump's most important characteristic when it came to foreign policy was not what his critics charge—his amorality or vindictiveness, his lack of success or diplomatic vandalism. They said his most important characteristic, at once his most transformative strength and his greatest weakness, was his naïveté.
Minutes after Trump took the oath of office, any remaining hope within the U.S. foreign-policy establishment that he might be tamed by the magnitude of his responsibility was burned off in the fire of his inauguration address. Trump set out his story of what had gone wrong for America—a story he'd been repeating on and off for 40 years. "For many decades, we've enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry," he said. "Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military … defended other nations' borders while refusing to defend our own; and spent trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay." The U.S. had made other countries rich, Trump said, while it grew poor.
Over the course of 2017, Trump would flesh out these instincts in a series of set-piece speeches. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on his first foreign trip as president, he promised an end to idealistic interventions. At the United Nations General Assembly, in New York, he declared it was time that America put itself first. "We can no longer be taken advantage of," he said—by adversaries or by allies.
Within a year of his taking office, the various strands contained in these speeches were pulled together in what remains the most coherent foreign-policy document of his presidency to date: the National Security Strategy, written by then–National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and his deputy, Nadia Schadlow. "When I came into office, rogue regimes were developing nuclear weapons and missiles to threaten the entire planet," Trump wrote in the foreword. "Radical Islamist terror groups were flourishing. Terrorists had taken control of vast swaths of the Middle East. Rival powers were aggressively undermining American interests around the globe. At home, porous borders and unenforced immigration laws had created a host of vulnerabilities. Criminal cartels were bringing drugs and danger into our communities. Unfair trade practices had weakened our economy and exported our jobs overseas. Unfair burden-sharing with our allies and inadequate investment in our own defense had invited danger from those who wish us harm."
Here, then, was the Trump charge sheet, built on a lifetime of instinct and anger—a set of accusations, explicitly laid out or implicitly made, against not only Obama, but all post–Cold War presidents. George H. W. Bush had failed to foresee a revanchist Russia or to establish an economic package to bring it into the fold; Bill Clinton had paved the way for China's rise and had expanded NATO to Russia's borders; George W. Bush had trapped the U.S. in unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and Obama had begun a process of American withdrawal and a pivot to Asia without the commitment to see it through. The central problem for Trump's opponents is this: He wasn't wrong.
When Trump took over in January 2017, decades of negotiations with North Korea had failed to stop the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons; ISIS was running a self-declared caliphate that stretched across much of Iraq and Syria; Russia had diluted American influence in the Middle East and expanded its power at its borders; China had abused its official status as a developing economy, without showing any signs of becoming more liberal or democratic; European allies were contributing only a fraction as much as the U.S. for their collective defense; and American jobs were being lost, and its government was becoming ever more indebted. The country had a foreign policy that wasn't working, built on an economy that wasn't either.
The French philosopher Montesquieu noted of the Roman empire's decline, "If the chance of one battle … has brought a state to ruin, some general cause made it necessary for that state to perish from a single battle." In other words, if it took only the election of Trump for America's global leadership to collapse, or one bad Democratic candidate to let in a man committed to tearing down America's postwar foreign policy, there must be deeper reasons the system was so fragile to begin with.
Speaking with an array of officials, diplomats, analysts, and advisers—many of whom requested anonymity to freely discuss sensitive issues, diplomatic relations, or government deliberations—it was striking just how many times our conversations came back to this central point. Hill told us, for example, that Trump was "a symptom of malaise, and decline, and decay" in the U.S. more widely. Similarly, Patrick Porter, a professor of international security and strategy at Britain's University of Birmingham, told us it was impossible to disentangle Trump from the world he inherited.
Schadlow, writing in Foreign Affairs, argued that Trump had "offered some correctives to the illusions of the past—often bluntly and sometimes inconsistently." She believes that Trump's interventions "stem from an embrace of the uncomfortable truth that visions of benevolent globalization and peace-building liberal internationalism have failed to materialize, leaving in their place a world that is increasingly hostile to American values and interests."
This is the intellectual frame for Trumpism, a version of the rise-and-fall philosophy of the 1980s—of great-power competition and relative decline, strategic retrenchment and paranoia, about the next great threat.
Kennedy's book touched a nerve in 1987, but was quickly overtaken by the end of the Cold War. Yet the fundamental premise remains sound, according to many of those we spoke with. As Dan Coats, Trump's former director of national intelligence, told us, America's place in the world is changing: "We're going to have to adapt to that change. We can't just rely on what it has been for the last 70 years."
Kennedy's thesis—that relative economic power is linked to relative geopolitical power—is key to Trump's intellectual defenders today. America's power, in this worldview, has declined and will continue to do so. In 1960, U.S. GDP represented 40 percent of the global total, according to the World Bank. By the time Clinton left office, in 2001, the U.S. contribution to global GDP was 32 percent. In 2018, the U.S. accounted for 24 percent. This share was expected to decrease to 14.78 percent by 2025, according to separate projections by the International Monetary Fund. At the same time, U.S. military spending as a percentage of its GDP has fallen consistently over time: from 6 percent in 1988 to 3.4 percent in 2016, according to the World Bank.
Trump may not know any of this, or see it strategically. The argument he makes is not new, nor is it uncontested. (Indeed, many of those brought into his administration reject such declinist arguments out of hand.) Yet the Trump critique—that American foreign policy has been failing, and that America has been weakened by its relative economic decline—is powerful, because it challenges assumptions both Republican and Democrat elites had considered settled.
"'Because we've always done it' is never sufficient with him," Susan Gordon, Trump's former principal deputy director of national intelligence, told us, describing interactions with the president. "If the best the system can offer is, 'This is the way we've done it,' he will say, 'Well, why? Why are we doing that? Why in the world is that to our advantage?'"
The challenge doesn't have to be consistent, or logical, or moral, or sensible, and it often isn't. "It doesn't matter if it's ugly," one senior adviser to a European leader said in an interview. "Ugly and bad ideas can have just as much force as coherent ideas. Ultimately, we can't get our slippery hands around it, because we're civilized and try to systematize everything. But this is fundamentally uncivilized and doesn't easily fit into a single system."
In short, Trump, even as he calls out the American-built world order for its failures, has no coherent plan to replace it, no system that would work better. He isn't trying to reorder the world; he's just pointing at the order and calling it naked. Or as Hill put it: "He's a chaos agent."
"The convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office," Henry Kissinger wrote in his memoirs. In our conversations with senior U.S. advisers and officials who have worked directly for the president, their assessments returned to this point: His character is his destiny.
For Trump, uniquely, these fears and vanities were formed entirely outside the traditional schools of American presidential power—state capitals, the U.S. Congress, or elite military academies. Having never made a study of politics, international relations, or history, Trump's convictions are those of another world—a world beyond Washington and the foreign-policy establishment. His critics argue (and his supporters often admit) that he couples those convictions with a distinct lack of curiosity about the world. "He's not interested in the history: the history of relationships, anything that has gone before him," Hill said. "His presidency was like a white slate before him. I used to joke that for him, time was divided into A.D., 'After Donald,' and B.C., 'Before was crap.'"
Many of those we spoke with said Trump's instincts came from 1980s New York. It is certainly true that by the '80s, Trump's worldview—his convictions, in Kissinger's lexicon—seems to have formed. Taking his first steps into national politics with an open letter to the American people, Trump declared in September 1987 that "the world is laughing at America's politicians." That same day, he told Larry King in a CNN interview that other countries "laugh at us behind our backs; they laugh at us because of our stupidity and [that of our] leaders." The fear then was Japan's rise, and America's fall. The U.S. was paying for others' defense while being undercut economically, Trump complained. The story hasn't changed in the years since, only the principal threat, which is now China. (Two senior former U.K. officials who worked closely with Theresa May during her time as British prime minister told us that Trump's real-estate background was never far from the surface in conversations. He used one meeting with her to criticize the U.S. embassy being moved in London, and became fixated on the lease on the ambassador's residence there. The intervention, on such a small matter, left May baffled.)
Trump's opinions on the world, and America's role in it, may have emerged in the '80s, but they were conceived much earlier. "When Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946, the power of the United States was unprecedented," write Charlie Laderman and Brandan Simms in Donald Trump: The Making of a World View. "In Trump's formative years, however, Americans were forced to come to terms with the fact that America's power, though considerable, had its limits."
The 1960s and '70s brought the Vietnam War, defeat, and division. Kim Darroch, who resigned as Britain's ambassador to the U.S. after leaked cables detailing his unflattering assessment of the president sent Trump into a rage, told us that in his assessment, much of the president's worldview reaches back to the America of those years. "A lot of things fixed in Trump's mind do come from the 1950s, including a vision of America where the coal mines are working and factories are full and churning out American products that everyone buys. In a way, MAGA, if you want to drill down, is about re-creating America's golden age."
So although many in the Trump administration attempted to control him, or to impose their own philosophy upon him—McMaster, Schadlow, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson—none succeeded. His convictions were formed before reaching high office.
Yet, isn't this partly what his supporters like about him—that he is different and doesn't hide it? Trump has the rare gift of saying the bit most people don't say out loud: He moved the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem because evangelicals who supported him liked it. Russia isn't that bad, and the U.S. is not so innocent either. And who cares about the Kurds? It's not like they fought on D-Day.
Two 2018 incidents point to Trump's unwillingness to abide by diplomatic rules, and his wildly differing priorities from the foreign-policy mainstream. In both instances, his naïveté (or, less charitably, his ignorance) illuminated the flaws in his critics' own arguments.
Four officials in the U.S. and U.K. related the story of Trump's visit to London that year, which was overshadowed by an interview he gave to The Sun newspaper at the beginning of the trip, humiliating May by accusing her of ruining Brexit and ending hopes of a U.S. trade deal. Darroch recalled that the interview "instantly swamped all the other news" from the visit. "I just couldn't quite understand why he had done it, really," he said. Trump's remarks were doubly painful for May because they were accurate, pinpointing the fundamental problem with her strategy, while also increasing her political difficulties at home. To make matters worse, he also said Boris Johnson would make a good prime minister, and Johnson would indeed go on to succeed May, winning the Conservative Party's largest parliamentary majority since the Margaret Thatcher era. "It totally ruined any goodwill built up," Lewis Lukens, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in London at the time, said of Trump's newspaper interview.
(The trip made an impression on Lukens for other reasons. During Trump's remarks at a private dinner at Blenheim Palace attended by the prime minister, the president segued into a discussion of his golf course in Scotland, mentioning its impressive sand dunes, Lukens told us.)
Miles Taylor, who was the chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security until his resignation last year, pointed to another set-piece event, the 2018 G7 summit in Canada, which happened just before Trump was supposed to meet with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in Singapore. "The president was flippantly disregarding allies, disagreeing with them on everything, and effectively ruined the summit, and then refused to sign on to the [G7 joint communiqué], and then did, and then walked it back," Taylor said of the meeting, adding that the president had complained before the trip that he did not even want to go to the summit. "It was a stunning side by side to see the president of the U.S. kick America's allies in the teeth before he flew off to meet with a murderous dictator that's threatened to annihilate the U.S. and some of our closest allies in the region. If that doesn't sum up Trump's misplaced priorities, I don't know what does." And yet, even here, doesn't Trump have a point? He is surely right to criticize the G7 as outdated, a throwback to an era of European dominance that doesn't reflect today's power dynamics. And nuclear weapons are arguably the greatest threat to the planet. Even some of those who loathe Trump admitted to us that his moves on North Korea, combined with his rejection of the traditional rules of diplomacy and grand strategy, had opened up a line of communication with Pyongyang that had made the world slightly safer, even if these efforts had achieved no tangible results.
Blurting out truths, painful or otherwise, does not amount to a strategy, though. Trump rails against China, but has done little to win over allies to form a more powerful bloc against Beijing; he has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accords, arguing they are inadequate, yet has made no progress on alternatives.
Trump is instead a mishmash of his instincts. Those instincts pull in contradictory directions: to restore the American supremacy of the 1950s, to revive the winner-takes-all style of the 1980s, and to reject the imperial restraints now holding the country back. Trump's instincts cry foul at the very system of global leadership that America built—its institutions and alliances, military commitments and defense accords. At the same time, he demands more acknowledgment of American might, for the ease of the '50s, when America did what it wanted and the rest of the Western world did what it was told.
Trump's critique of the U.S.-led world order—however chaotic, unintentional, and incoherent—is not the only thing he has revealed.
There is also the emptiness of his official agenda, and the lack of any desire to build a strategy. To revisit the core early texts ostensibly articulating Trump's foreign policy is to travel to a world that bears little resemblance to reality. Take the National Security Strategy, a document of seriousness, intellect, and thoroughness which calls for "principled realism" to advance American influence. Does Trump believe any of it? Is he in any way principled or realistic in his foreign policy? Does he even seek to advance American interests, or simply make it worth America's while financially? Those we spoke with said Trump would do a deal with China tomorrow if Beijing agreed to buy America's soybean crop for the next decade, which would bolster his stock among midwestern farmers and, by extension, his reelection chances.
The entire document, in fact, is awash with arguments that, although coherent and credible, do not match Trump's worldview. The paper states that America's allies and partners "magnify" its power. Does Trump really agree? It says the U.S. "will compete and lead in multilateral organizations so that American interests and principles are protected." The opposite has happened. It states: "We encourage those who want to join our community of like-minded democratic states." Trump has declared his desire for Russia to rejoin the G7, welcomed the autocratic Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán to the White House, and bonded with Kim Jong Un. It adds: "There can be no moral equivalency between nations that uphold the rule of law, empower women, and respect individual rights and those that brutalize and suppress their people." Trump ignored the beheading and mutilation of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, congratulated Vladimir Putin for his rigged election victory, and has quite literally morally equivocated between the U.S. and Russia.
Bolton told us Trump never knew what he meant by "America first." "It was a slogan," he said. Bolton recalled a campaign speech Trump gave at the Nixon Center that easily fit within the broad outlines of Republican Party foreign policy. "But did he mean what he said at that speech?" Bolton asked. "Had he thought about it? Did he remember what he said 24 hours later? I don't know."
A second revelation that Trump has brought to light is one of American decline itself. To be clear, Trump seems to grasp the raw potential of American power in a way that Obama did not. Should Trump pull American troops out of Afghanistan, for example, no European country would be able to stay—none has the military capacity to do so without American cover. This tangible power has been showcased throughout Trump's presidency: in the "mother of all bombs" dropped on Afghanistan in 2017, in the extraterritorial financial sanctions imposed on any business working with Iran after the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear deal, in the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.
And yet, although the world of 2020 might still be dominated by the U.S.—and will be for decades more—it is not 1950s-style domination any longer. Trump has been unable to impose his will on Iran, which has not capitulated despite the economic blockade. The European Union has not given Trump what he wants on tariffs, nor has Germany scrapped its planned oil pipeline with Russia (which the U.S. has complained about as European double-talk, demanding action against Moscow, while working with it on strategic energy infrastructure). China has not given way on trade, or anything else. Instead, Trump's bellicosity has fueled demands in Beijing, Brussels, Berlin, and Paris for greater autonomy from American power—for China to use its own technology so that it can avoid reliance on Silicon Valley, and for Europe to develop its own defensive capabilities, pushed by France and Germany, so it can find its voice in world affairs.
A third revelation of Trump's tenure is the nakedness of the world's carping about the U.S.—allies' demands for American protection and moral leadership, while nevertheless making deals with American adversaries. He revealed the emptiness of NATO's promises to share the burden of defense or to make the sacrifices necessary to construct real alternative bases of power. His finger-pointing, naïveté, and vanity revealed that the G7 was outdated and in need of reform; that Russia remained the only truly existential nuclear threat to the U.S.; that China was abusing the system; that Europe must do more; that Britain and its leadership must stop whining and make a choice on trade; and that the Middle East has been a disaster, largely of American making.
Ultimately, Trump's power is tied up with his candor—his inclination to say the same thing to world leaders that he says to Sean Hannity. In the words of one of his most senior former advisers, who listened to his calls with other leaders, Trump saw the world in terms of strength and weakness. Anyone who asked for things—traditional allies such as Britain, France, and Germany—was weak and therefore not worthy of respect. But the brutal reality is that he is only saying explicitly what was implied before. Until America's allies are no longer the demandeur in the relationship, the power can reside in only one place.
Finally, Trump has revealed his own lack of curiosity, rigor, and strategic foresight. All of his other revelations do not mean he has any of the answers to America's long-term or immediate foreign-policy challenges.
From the turn of the 21st century, the U.S. has seen its manufacturing base diminish and the balance of power and wealth drift across the Pacific toward China. Faced with this reality, Obama's proposed Asian pivot is understandable and defensible. And so too is Trump's demand for burden sharing as America grapples with a more powerful adversary. The corollary of both strategies and demands, however, is the sharing of power alongside the financial burden. This is the contradiction at the heart of Trumpism: between righteous grievances and longing for lost supremacy.
This "declinist" account is not accepted by those who have surrounded Trump. Nor is it accepted by Trump's most bitter critics. Indeed, mainstream Republicans and Democrats remain united by a shared belief in American leadership. Both sides in the U.S. today are complicit in the fairy tale that American supremacy is everlasting and cannot be questioned.
This is Trump's greatest legacy in the realm of foreign policy. To debate whether his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal was the right decision; or whether slapping tariffs against European allies was outweighed by his confrontation of China; or indeed if that confrontation was carried out in the best way possible, in some way misses the point. To question if his strategy worked (or if it made sense), if he had a vision for the world, if his demands were coherent, is worthwhile, but belittles his impact.
Perhaps Trump was found wanting over the past four years. But in his demands, questions, and threats, he also showed how the American-built foreign policy consensus—of engagement with China; of subsidizing allies' defense; of military interventionism in faraway lands; of unabashed advocacy for free trade—was found wanting, too.
This story was originally published by The Atlantic. Sign up for their newsletter.
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