text:
https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/browse;jsessionid=1F97F684A8188ADB9A2753E02598959B?pageSize=20&sort=titlesort&t_0=music_Topics%3A22&t_1=music_Eras%3A10&t_2=music_People%3A10
Biographical Article (10)
Open Section Music Theory and Analysis (10)
Aerophones (Blown Instruments) (1)
Flutes (1)
Chordophones (Stringed Instruments) (1)
Bowed Chordophones (1)
Organ (1)
21st c. (2000-present) (10)
Western Europe (3)
Critic or Journalist (1)
Instrument Maker (1)
Music Technologist or Audio Engineer (10)
Scholar (10)
1-10 of 10 Results for:
Acoustics x
21st c. (2000-present) x
Music Technologist or Audio Engineer x
Bowsher, John
Murray Campbell
(Michael)
(b London, August 26, 1933). English physicist and acoustician. He obtained a BSc in physics from Imperial College, London, later gaining the doctorate there with research into high-amplitude stress waves. After holding a research fellowship at the electronic music laboratory of the Canadian National Research Council in Ottawa, he worked for five years in the acoustics section of the UK National Physical Laboratory, where he carried out research on the psycho-acoustic perception of short duration and very low frequency sounds. In 1966 he was appointed to a lectureship in acoustics at the University of Surrey, where, in collaboration with colleagues in the US, Europe, Israel and Australia, he established a group which became noted for its research into the acoustics of wind instruments and their subjective assessment. He played a major part in the establishment there of the Tonmeister course in music and applied physics. An accomplished trombonist, his most notable research has been in the acoustics of brass instruments, where he supplemented and elucidated physical measurements by applying psychological testing procedures to the assessment of brass instrument tone quality. He developed a non-invasive technique which allows the bore of an instrument to be reconstructed by injecting acoustic pulses into one end and recording the reflections....
Coltman, John W.
Clive Greated
(b Cleveland, July 19, 1915). American physicist and acoustician. After studying physics at the Case School of Applied Science (BS 1937) he obtained the PhD from the University of Illinois. From 1941 to 1980 he held various research and management positions at the Westinghouse Corp. His research into the acoustics of the flute, carried out in a small laboratory at his home, has contributed significantly to what is known today about the behaviour of flutes and organ pipes. Several of his papers are recognised as standard reference material. His theory of feedback and how this relates to the means by which the flautist produces the desired frequencies and loudness is particularly relevant to performance. He also studied the significance of mouth resonance and the effect of mode stretching on harmonic generation. His work on the intonation of both antique and modern flutes and his critical assessment of Theobald Boehm's methods have helped in shaping current views on the historical development of the instrument....
(b Cleveland, OH, July 19, 1915; d Pittsburgh, PA, Feb 10, 2010). American scientist and acoustician. After studying physics at Case Institute of Technology (BS 1937), he carried out research in nuclear physics at the University of Illinois (PhD 1941). He then joined the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, remaining with the firm for the rest of his professional life; he retired in 1980 after a distinguished career culminating in six years as Director of Research and Development. In his youth he had become an accomplished flute player, and during his undergraduate studies at Case he encountered the notable acoustician Dayton C. Miller. This meeting led to a lifelong interest in the acoustics of the flute, and Coltman developed a laboratory at his home in which he conducted many important and illuminating experiments on flutes and flute playing. Particularly significant was his contribution to the understanding of the subtle interaction between the air jet blown across the flute embouchure hole by the player and the resonances of the air column within the flute pipe. Over four decades, starting in the mid-1960s, he published more than 40 papers on the acoustics of flutes and organ pipes. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers....
Fletcher, Neville
Murray Campbell and Clive Greated
(Horner)
(b Armidale, NSW, July 14, 1930). Australian physicist and acoustician. He studied at Sydney University (BSc 1951) and Harvard (PhD 1956); after a period working in industry and with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Radiophysics Laboratory, he was appointed in 1963 to a chair in physics at the University of New England, NSW. In 1983 he became director of the CSIRO Institute of Physical Sciences and in 1988 visiting fellow at the Australian National University. He studied the flute with Victor McMahon in Sydney and James Pappoutsakis in Boston. Most notable in Fletcher's extensively published research is his work with Suzanne Thwaites on sound generation in flutes and organ pipes, on flute performance techniques and on reed and lip-valve generators in woodwind and brass instruments. He also studied the vibration characteristics of gongs and cymbals, and with the composer Moya Henderson invented the alemba, a keyboard percussion instrument of tuned triangles. He is best known as co-author of the influential ...
Harris, Cyril M(anton)
(b Detroit, MI, June 20, 1917; d New York, NY, Jan 4, 2011). American acoustician. At UCLA he studied mathematics and physics (BA 1938, MA 1940), then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study acoustics under Philip McCord Morse (PhD 1945). In posts at Bell Telephone Laboratories (1945–51) and Columbia University (from 1952), where he taught in the engineering school as well as the graduate school of architecture and planning, he researched the acoustical properties of building materials, airborne sound, and musical instruments. He was acoustical consultant for more than 100 halls, including the Metropolitan Opera House (1966); Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis (renovation 1968); Great Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois (1969); the concert hall and opera house at the John F. Kennedy Center (1971); Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis (...
Hutchins [Maley], Carleen
D. Quincy Whitney
(b Springfield, MA, May 24, 1911; d Wolfeboro, NH, Aug 7, 2009). American violinmaker, acoustician, and writer. A trumpeter and biology graduate of Cornell University (AB 1933) and New York University (MA 1942), she left both disciplines to embrace string instruments and acoustical physics. While teaching science and woodworking at the Brearley School, chamber music colleagues convinced her to take up viola. A woodcarver since childhood, Hutchins, at age 35, decided to make a viola. Hutchins then studied luthiery with Karl A. Berger (1949–59) and Stradivari expert Fernando Sacconi. While she and Harvard physicist Frederick A. Saunders performed more than 100 acoustical experiments (1949–63), Hutchins taught herself acoustical physics by making string instruments. In 1963 Hutchins and colleagues Robert Fryxell and John Schelleng founded the Catgut Acoustical Society. She published the CAS journal for more than 30 years, helping bridge the gap between violin makers and acoustical physicists. Hutchins made more than 500 instruments, authored more than 100 technical papers on violin acoustics, and edited ...
Meyer, Jürgen
(b Brunswick, March 16, 1933). German acoustician. In 1957 he enrolled in the Technical University of Brunswick as a student of electronics and music, becoming a research scientist in the acoustics laboratory at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Brunswick in 1958. In 1960 he was awarded the doctorate by the Technical University for a dissertation on the behaviour of organ flue pipes, supervised by Martin Grützmacher. Meyer was appointed head of the acoustics laboratory in 1971, and under his direction the laboratory established an international reputation in musical instrument acoustics, room acoustics and psychoacoustics. At the Musikhochschule in Detmold he became a lecturer (1968) and professor (1980); in 1985 he became head of the audio acoustics department at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Brunswick, retiring in 1996. A skilled violinist and conductor, his musical background has informed his research on the influence of acoustics on performance. Meyer has carried out definitive studies of the directional properties of instruments and the platform placing of orchestral groups. He has also given numerous public lectures involving acoustical demonstrations by live orchestras. President of the German Acoustical Society between ...
Nederveen, Cornelis
(Johannes )
(b Schiebroek, Netherlands, July 31, 1932). Dutch physicist and acoustician. At Delft University he obtained a degree in technical physics (1956) and took the PhD (1969). The major part of his professional career has been spent at TNO (Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research). He is an accomplished jazz clarinettist. His most important contribution has been to the fundamental acoustics of woodwind instruments. In aiming to find more rational design procedures, he has made a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the resonance of tubes, incorporating the effects of side holes, bends, mouthpieces and reeds. This allows detailed calculations to be made of the hole positions in a woodwind instrument and predictions to be made about aspects of tuning and tone quality. His findings are presented in Acoustical Aspects of Woodwind Instruments, which has become a standard text for designers of woodwind instruments.
'New Key Mechanism for Clarinet', ...
Rossing, Thomas D.
(b Madison, SD, March 27, 1929). American physicist and acoustician. After studying at Luther College, Iowa (BA 1950), and Iowa State University (MS 1952, PhD 1954), he worked for the Sperry Rand Corporation. He was appointed professor of physics at St Olaf College, Minnesota, in 1957, then at Northern Illinois University in 1971. He has contributed greatly to the understanding of percussion instruments. Particularly noteworthy was his experimental demonstration of Chladni figures showing the vibrational modes of a kettledrum head (1982) and his work on bells (1984). His research with Johan Sundberg and colleagues in Stockholm revealed important features of the formant characteristics of the voice in solo and choral singing. He is best known as co-author of the influential The Physics of Musical Instruments (1991).
'The Physics of Kettledrums', Scientific American, no.247 (1982), 172–8 ed.: Acoustics of Bells (Stroudsburg, PA, 1984)...
Taylor, Charles (ii)
(Alfred )
(b Hull, August 14, 1922; d March 7, 2002). English physicist, writer and lecturer on the physics of music. He studied physics at Queen Mary College, London (BSc 1942), and at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (PhD 1951, DSc 1959), where he was a lecturer then a reader in physics (1948–85). As professor and head of department of physics at University College, Cardiff (1965–83), he established the first electronic music studio in a British university (1970); he was visiting professor of experimental physics at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (1976–88), and became emeritus professor of physics at the University of Wales in 1983. He was elected an honorary fellow of the Institute of Acoustics (1985).
Though his major research activity was in the study of X-ray and optical diffraction, the important musical acoustics research group which he founded at Cardiff carried out pioneering holographic studies of the vibrational modes of stringed instrument bodies. In ...


There are about 70 countries that prohibit dual citizenship, some more strictly than others. And even more that discourage it.
there's a lot of develloped countries in that list, almost half of OECD is there (Japan, germany, Spain, Norway, Korea...). And some would have been part of that list a few years ago (like Sweden that eased up its stringent laws in 2001).
And the fact that India and China are able to use the potential of their diaspora while banning dual-citizenship should also say something.
But yeah, that sentence was wrong.


text:
The Big Idea: Linda Nagata
For The Last Good Man, author Linda Nagata decided to take a risk with one of her characters, who is not the usual sort for the literary milieu Nagata has her story inhabit. Who is this character? And what were the repercussions of that risk?
LINDA NAGATA:
For most of my career, I've written novels based only on what was intensely interesting to me at the time. In the early days it was nanotechnology, cryonics, the vastness and wonder of space, biotech, and artificial worlds. My settings would regularly shift between near future and far.
And then, abruptly, I abandoned science fiction and took a turn into pure fantasy.
"With magic?" one hard SF writer asked me in dismay.
"Yes, actually."
So much for author branding. Clearly, market savvy was not part of my process.
But older and wiser, right?
Not exactly. I made another abrupt turn and dove into military science fiction with the Red trilogy—high-tech thrillers published by Saga Press in 2015. The books were well-reviewed. The first volume was a Nebula-award nominee and named as a Publishers Weekly best book.
It seemed logical to follow up on that seeming success so I resolved that for the first time I would approach my next book with a little market savvy. I would write another military-themed story, again with a near-future, high-tech setting. That way, I told myself, I'd have a better chance of holding on to the readers I'd gained with the trilogy because I'd be giving them something similar-but-different.
Next, it occurred to me that if I set the new book even closer to the present time, I might have a chance of pushing beyond the science fiction genre and making inroads into the military thriller market.
Hey, we can all dream.
The Red trilogy was written around a unit of US Army soldiers. Following that similar-but-different philosophy, I decided the new novel would involve a private military company, because that would allow for more freedom with the plot.
Even with the benefit of hindsight, this all still makes sense to me. But in selecting my protagonist, I embarked on a major gamble.
My version of brainstorming is to engage in swiftly typed stream-of-consciousness question-and-answer sessions. It's the best way I know to develop ideas. I was brainstorming the possible identity of my main protagonist when I typed this:
Hey. Maybe she's middle aged. (How to kill a novel in one bad move.)
Generally speaking, middle-aged women are not considered to be cool main characters of the sort that commonly inhabit techno-thrillers. So this was a perfect example of the creative and logical parts of my mind contending with one another. The logical part immediately recognized the risk, but the obstinate, defiant, creative part turned out to be in charge. Later on, in the same session, I typed:
Man, I like the retired-army-woman character.
I liked her—at that stage it was just the idea of her—because she was an atypical protagonist for the sort of book I wanted to write.
On Twitter there has often been talk of how middle-aged women don't exist in science fiction. That's an exaggeration, of course. Looking back at my own work, the protagonist of the second novel I ever had published was a woman of "mature years." Still. I felt as if a gauntlet had been thrown down and I wanted to pick it up, accept the challenge, and write a riveting but realistic story about a can-do, older woman. I knew it was a market risk. Nevertheless, I thought I might persuade at least a few readers to go along with me, and besides, it's fun to kick clichés to the side of the road.
So my "retired-army-woman character" stayed, becoming the Big Idea behind The Last Good Man.
Of course there is a lot more going on in this novel. The Last Good Man is a fast-paced, high-tech, military thriller that deals with autonomous weapons, big data, A.I., surveillance, remote warfare—and their effects on human relationships. But from the first day that the story truly started to take shape, I knew it would be centered on a woman. Specifically, True Brighton, retired US Army soldier, former helicopter pilot with frontline experience, a forty-nine-year-old mother of three who's been happily married for three decades, and who is not at all ready to retire.
True works for a private military company and despite her husband's misgivings, she is a valued part of the company's hostage rescue team. She's also realistic about the limits that aging will place on her. I'm reasonably athletic, so it was fun to foreshadow those limits, working from my own experience.
Middle age is an interesting time. There can be more freedom as children reach adulthood, but there is also a sense that time is getting short and that old age with all its limitations is just around the corner.
True feels the pressure of time, and she also carries an extra burden. She is haunted by the death of her oldest son, a soldier too, who was brutally killed in the line of duty. When a chance discovery during a hostage rescue mission indicates there is more to his death than she's been told, a mother's resolve comes over her to uncover the truth, regardless of the cost.
This was a challenging novel to write, I think in part because deep down, I doubted the marketability of it from the start. Somewhere along the way though, it became a novel I needed to write.
Still, my doubts were not misplaced. New York publishing houses didn't know what to make of it. No one said specifically, Middle-aged mom? No way! But it was implied that marketing The Last Good Man would be a challenge that no one quite knew how to handle.
So The Last Good Man went out under my own imprint—and I'll admit to sweet satisfaction when it earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly.
I hope you'll give it a try. After all, it's readers who ultimately decide if a Big Idea is "market savvy."
The Last Good Man: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Indiebound|Powell's
Read an excerpt. Visit the author's blog. Follow her on Twitter.
← Putting the Head On Cover Here, Because Why Wouldn't I
More Fireflies →
21 Comments on "The Big Idea: Linda Nagata"
I'm a big fan of Ms. Nagata's works. This is on my short list to read soon.
Her science *works* even when it's crazy superscience (Deception Well, Vast). And that's never aat the expense of the characters. Go. Read.
Marc Criley (@That_MarcC)
Ex-military middle-aged woman as protagonist? Absolutely! *Nearly* retired middle-aged woman general as protagonist totally worked in Robert Bennett's "City of Blades". I'm looking forward to giving this novel a spin.
I just started it. About 10% in, and so far it is frackin' great.
P.I.Neapple
Nicely written excerpt, and the premise sounds engaging, but – and this may get a spoiler – even with the "near future" setting, is there anything more to the choice of the Iraqi warlord as the (presumably) big bad?
Or is that simply the default?
danwest
After reading the Red trilogy I hope you continue to find military science fiction a "market savvy intensely interesting" direction to take your writing.
So, PI Neapple, don't get too hung up on the Iraqi warlord. He's not the big bad.
I'm about 50% through right now, and it's not letting up yet. Super fast paced, exciting, lots of fun, compelling central mystery. The protagonist's identity is not just a gimmick, it drives the entire plot.
Also, it bears mention that this is a stronger, tighter, better-written novel than Ms. Nagata's Red trilogy, which I found to be compelling and interesting but flawed – occasionally clunky language, some odd plotting and pace choices including major events that seemed unnecessary, and a few characters that strained believability. This book remedies those flaws entirely.
vonneanton
I hope this is a huge success for Ms. Nagata and those New York publishing houses cover her ass in smooches.
Shrike58
I wanted to like "Red" (very glad to see Ms. Nagata back in the saddle) but for the reasons some folks mentioned I had a hard time suspending disbelief…this sounds better.
Wasn't really hung up on the Iraqi warlord as antogonist, but was curious if there was some plotting behind it or if he was just the default, generic bad guy … Like the "Russkies" during the Cold War, or the "Yellow Peril" back in Homer Lea's day…
There are certainly plenty of failed states where evil warlords could have their lairs, and presumably will be even more in the near future, but Iraq – especially given what that country has gone through in the past several decades – is less likely to be such in the near future than some others … Oil wealth alone is not enough,but it is far better than nothing to build an economy upon…
Granted, Canadian oligarchs and Swedish warlords are a stretch for the near future, but something more speculative than the default Arab/Muslim crazy guy is always interesting.
Encouraged by the statement there is more to the antagonist than the above, of course.
Privateiron
Peter Watts, Canadian oligarch. Watch this terrifying vision of the future on CBC, each Tuesday starting February 31. It's a beauty way to go.
Been working my way through the Red trilogy, but this sounds even cooler.
Susan Beaty (@shbeaty)
Bought this one yesterday and hope to start it when I finish working my way through library books that are due next week.
Great article. Bought the book and will try and get to it soon.
whylaa
Linda, Thank you for your "Big Idea" post. Unlike many, I have never read anything you've written. I started reading fantasy and science fiction in the 70's. But when I hit my 30's and 40's, I shifted into mainly non-fiction. Later, I went back to school, so my bed time reading was consumed with required texts, lit theory and other essays. Since graduation, I've been able to return to reading stories of my choice. I started reading this blog to learn about new-to-me authors and books (and because I like the writing). Despite recognizing your name, and having the book cross my radar, I put it in the perhaps, if there's time, category.
Thank you for changing my mind. :)
Whoops. Sorry! Should have mentioned, downloaded and queued up as next to read.
February 31? I have obviously missed something. ;)
johntshea
Canadian oligarchs? I wouldn't be surprised! They've been lulling us into a false sense of security for 200 years now, with their tasty maple syrup and stuff. Watch 'SOUTH PARK, THE MOVIE' if you don't believe me!
old aggie
Oh yeah, *this* goes on my TBR pile ASAP.
BTW, the older you get (if you're blessed/fortunate to be able to stay healthy), the farther away "old age" gets. Right now, to me, even 75 doesn't seem like it will be "old age" – just more years to be creative and do stuff I enjoy and make some kind of a contribution to civilization. :-)
SF.Fangirl
This is already near the top of my to read list. The Red was good; although, not without flaws.
I did like the characters in The Red and I'm looking forward to meeting the middle-aged mother, retired army helicopter pilot. Sounds like someone is like to know.
I think that was me. But! I'll read this latest!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


'Remote' and 'undiscovered' are the two words that best describe the Wollemi Wilderness. The inner area of the park can only be reached by long overnight hikes through thick scrub and rugged bush. A maze of ridges and gorges make this country extremely difficult to navigate – small creeks quickly turn into inpenetrable canyons and deceptive slopes rise suddenly into impassable grags. It is no wonder that this wilderness has kept secrets like the Wollemi Pine hidden for so long.
Thankfull, some of the parks more popular areas are well-trodden and located close to Wollemi House. The following small selection of walks offer a glimpse of the vast world that lays beyond.
Once a mining town, the Newes area now represents a near labbyrinth of firetrails, old train tracks, tunnels and foot pads that provide relatively easy access to some of the more remote and unique places in the Blue Mountains region.
Behold, 'The End of the Earth' – a rock lookout with extensive views over the Wollemi Wilderness. The walk begins at the far end of the rock platform where a foot track picks up and heads down the ridge. Upon decending to the river there are spectacular sights of the Colo Gorge, one of the largest gorges in Australia. Enjoy a swim and quench your thirst in the pristine waters before returning for the climb back out. 4hrs return.
This is an easy walk from Mt. Wilson Fire Station and which leads to the clear (and cold!) waters of Wollangambe River. Enjoy the narrow gorge from the lookout or descend into its cool depths to experience the wild magic of this untouched river.


text:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Uses of Class org.apache.orc.impl.PositionedOutputStream (ORC Core 1.5.3 API)</title>
<meta name="date" content="2018-09-25">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../../../../stylesheet.css" title="Style">

JavaScript is disabled on your browser.

Skip navigation links

Overview

Package

Class

Use

Tree

Deprecated

Index

Help

Prev

Next

Frames

No Frames

All Classes

Uses of Class
org.apache.orc.impl.PositionedOutputStream

Packages that use PositionedOutputStream

Package
Description

org.apache.orc.impl

org.apache.orc.impl.writer

Uses of PositionedOutputStream in org.apache.orc.impl

Subclasses of PositionedOutputStream in org.apache.orc.impl

Modifier and Type
Class and Description

class
OutStream

Constructors in org.apache.orc.impl with parameters of type PositionedOutputStream

Constructor and Description

BitFieldWriter(PositionedOutputStream output,
              int bitSize)

RunLengthByteWriter(PositionedOutputStream output)

RunLengthIntegerWriter(PositionedOutputStream output,
                      boolean signed)

RunLengthIntegerWriterV2(PositionedOutputStream output,
                        boolean signed,
                        boolean alignedBitpacking)

Uses of PositionedOutputStream in org.apache.orc.impl.writer

Fields in org.apache.orc.impl.writer declared as PositionedOutputStream

Modifier and Type
Field and Description

protected PositionedOutputStream
StringBaseTreeWriter.directStreamOutput

Skip navigation links

Overview

Package

Class

Use

Tree

Deprecated

Index

Help

Prev

Next

Frames

No Frames

All Classes

Copyright © 2013–2018 The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Pennywise Stares Out From The Shadows In Latest Pic For Andy Muschietti's It Reboot
Michael Briers Mar 23, 2017 10:08 am 2017-03-23T10:50:18-05:00
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 isn't the only 2017 film to receive the spotlight from Empire Magazine, as the outlet has now conjured up a suitably terrifying new image for Andy Muschietti's imminent It reboot.
Recreating the famous gutter scene from Stephen King's beloved horror novel – not to mention the moment when Tim Curry stared out from the shadows in the 1990 TV miniseries – the picture in question gives us a fleeting glimpse at Bill Skarsgård as the sneering, otherworldly clown known to you, I and the residents of Derry, Maine as Pennywise. What's interesting here is that, after Matt and Ross Duffer's initial plans for an It reboot came apart, New Line has actually cited Stranger Things as an inspiration – talk about going full circle – and the inclusion of Finn Wolfhard (he plays Mike Wheeler on Netflix's sci-fi phenomenon) only ramps up the nostalgia factor.
But reviving a dormant horror icon is no mean feat, and as Andy Muschietti revealed to Empire, the creative team is employing a less-is-more approach when it comes to both Pennywise and the supernatural horror he (it?) brings. Here's what the Argentine director had to share on his upcoming reboot, and I hope you're wearing brown pants.
Footage of New Line's horror reimagining was screened to those in attendance at SXSW 2017, indicating that it shouldn't be too long before the first trailer for It finds its way online. September 8th is the date for your diaries and at least for the time being, those ambitious sequel plans – sequel plans that revisit the Losers Club years after the fact – remain firmly intact.
Source: Empire
A star-studded exercise in mediocrity aims for Netflix success


text:
10 Details Surrounding Katherine Knight, Who Butchered Her Boyfriend And Turned Him Into Stew
by Factionary 1 week ago 1 week ago
When Katherine Knight (born in 1955 in Tenterfield, New South Wales, Australia, and very well known for her extreme and sudden outbursts of anger) married her first romantic partner, an alcoholic co-worker David Kellett, her mother took the groom apart.
She said to him: "You better watch this one or she'll fucking kill you. Stir her up the wrong way or do the wrong thing and you're fucked, don't ever think of playing up on her, she'll fuckin' kill you."
Given this precedent, a few years later, not many people were surprised to know that she had killed her fourth partner, John Price: everyone was, however, immediately horrified at learning how she had done it and, more importantly, what she had done afterward.
This is a story of domestic violence, murder, and uncontrollable rage, an account of the first woman ever to have been sentenced to life without parole in Australia.
Keep on reading as we revise ten details on the story of Katherine Knight, the woman who turned her partner into stew.
10 Katherine's Beginnings
Like so many murderers and antisocials, Katherine's life begins in a family of criminals and madmen. Ken Knight was an alcoholic who repeatedly used violence and psychological abuse to rape her mother up to ten times a day.
Her mother Barbara was a staunch misandrist, who nevertheless told Katherine to "put up with it and stop complaining" when she said to her that one of her partners wanted to try things in their sexual life that she wasn't comfortable with: years before, in the small, conservative town of Tenterfield, nobody had lifted a finger at the sexual abuse that Katherine and her siblings suffered at the hands of the family.
9 A Bully
This turned Katherine into (or stimulated her to become) a tough person: calm during periods in which she would receive awards for good conduct, she would then explode in sudden outbursts of violent rage.
At school, she was a bully and attacked by a teacher acting in self-defense after violently attacking her first. She left school at fifteen without ever having learned how to read or write.
8 A Butcher
At first, she got a job working as a fabric cutter in a clothing factory. Katherine eventually found what she called her "dream job," a butcher's position at a local slaughterhouse, where she ultimately received a set of butcher knives.
In a gesture that should have caused enough alarm to prevent her from committing her later crimes, she hung those knives over her bed, where they would remain in each of her different residences so they "would always be handy if I (she) needed them."
7 And A Bruiser
She was also very well known for using these knives and her fists in all sorts of bar fights around the town.
She would often step to defend her first husband (the Kellett mentioned above), whom only she could hit: after trying to strangle him on their wedding night for falling asleep after having sex "only" three times, she once went in a rampage of kidnapping a driver after slashing her face, holding a young boy hostage, and trying to get to Queensland to kill her husband and his mother after he had left her because she nearly killed him with a frying pan.
6 Knight's Former Partners
All of his three previous partners before John Price (Kellett, a miner named David Saunders, and a co-worker in the slaughterhouse called John Chillingworth) had extreme violent incidents in which she attacked them.
She once beat Saunders in the face with an iron and stabbed him in the stomach with a pair of scissors after an argument, and previously she had cut the throat of his dingo puppy to show him what would happen if he ever had an affair with another woman. Like she did to Kellett, she often hit Chillingworth with a heavy metallic pan.
5 John Price, A Terrific Bloke
Finally, John Price came into her life. A well-known and popular miner known as a "terrific bloke" by his companions, he was aware of her violent reputation but still took her into his home in 1995.
By all accounts, his children liked her, and, despite a few arguments escalating into a physical confrontation, Knight's behavior was in one of her "quiet" times, and everything was, according to Price's commentaries to a friend, "a bunch of roses."
4 On And Off
This came to an end in 1998, when they fought after Price repeatedly refused to marry her, unconvinced after previous divorces that marriage had anything to do with a couple's happiness.
Knight recorded a tape of some old medical kits that Price had taken from work in a twisted set of actions and sent it to his employer, who fired him from a position he had been occupying for seventeen years.
This made her relationship into an on-and-off sort of deal, with Price repeatedly having enough of Knight, only to later take her back again.
3 The Murder
Eventually, he had enough: a series of fights in the year 2000 ended with Knight stabbing him, after which he threw her out of his house and took a restraining order on her for him and his children.
Fearing for his life, he didn't want to return home that day from work, but he was afraid that she would target his children instead.
He returned and sent the children away, then went to sleep: Knight arrived, they had sex, and in the middle of the night, she stabbed him to death with a butcher's knife, with Price waking up and trying to flee before succumbing to his thirty-seven wounds.
2 Kitchen Of Horrors
Not satisfied with this, Knight then skinned his body and hung the skinned body from a hook in the living room.
She chopped his head off and brought the head to the kitchen, where she cooked it in a casserole with vegetables.
She then served this in several plates, one for each of his children, and took down the body to arrange it into a relaxed position (with legs crossed and the left arm resting on an empty bottle of soda) to defile it further.
She left a handwritten note on top of a photograph of him, falsely accusing him of raping her daughter and his children, of confounding the investigation.
1 Never To Be Released
Amazed at her murder's cruelty, the judge that later tried Knight inscribed in her sentence, the words "never to be released."
Impenitent for her actions as any psychopath, Knight repeatedly has appealed the ruling for considering it "too severe.
In one of the replies to her, an Australian court would summarize the feeling of all those who hear from her case: "This was an appalling crime, almost beyond contemplation in a civilized society." She is still in prison, now 65.


69 MORE Reasons I love Israel!
Well, kids! It's been ages since the last time I blogged. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me "When are you writing a new blog post?" I'd have... like 40 dollars. And most of that would be from my mom. But here I am, back in action, special for the best holiday of the year- Yom Ha'atzmaut! I can't say that nothing has happened in my life since September 2016, of course it has. But nothing that moved me to write a blog post, I guess. But now that I'm back here, maybe I'll stay! Aliyah starts with excitement and new and different and then a few years in, it's normal. It's your life. Sure, the bank is always an experience, but you've already been to the bank 100 times! So hopefully I can get back into making quality content on this blog- even if I have to just make stuff up- just kidding!
1) I love that I could watch the American presidential election go down from the sidelines, because if I lived in NYC I know I would have been completely immersed. And probably gone crazy.
2) I love that I've met my mayor six times.
3) Unlike my family in NYC, I love my mayor.
4) I loved watching everyone running the Jerusalem marathon in different colored t-shirts denoting worthy Jewish charities.
5) I love that delicious kosher options are exploding all over Israel-so many that visiting friends don't even know where to start and need to plan return trips to try them all.
7) I love that Israel wants to help the Jewish nation grow- providing IVF and fertility services for women who are struggling to conceive.
8) I still love the vibe of the shuk at night- a learning about my history and culture with the graffiti-ed murals painted on all the stalls.
9) I love the National Israeli Baseball Team, who came out of nowhere to make the whole country so proud when they rocked the World Baseball Classic.
11) I love how Israel won 2 Olympic (bronze) medals and the country celebrated more than America and her 121 medals ever could.
12) I love how excited Israelis are about Ama're Stoudemire- they love basketball and America so no matter what he does here for his team, he's a hero.
14) I love the unity I'm seeing from our ally, the USA. I'm excited for the strengthened friendship Nikki Haley and David Friedman seem to be spearheading.
15) I loved seeing the desert bloom this winter as the South hosted the Darom Adom (Red South) festival.
16) I love how handy and well-equipped Israeli guys are- they can pitch a tent, start a fire, change a tire and make a mean poika (kind of a beach stew) without breaking a sweat.
17) I love spending Shabbat in Tel Aviv! I know, right? I have the privilege of having shabbat dinner with 150 young professionals of all stripes and then enjoying an incredible Shabbat day kiddush every time I go!
18) I know it might seem odd, but after many years, this year I went to my first Henna- twice! I love Hennas! I love the pageantry and the food and the music and the culture of my Sephardi brothers and sisters.
19) Speaking of smachot- I love Israeli weddings! Most of them may not be as lavish as the ones in the States, but they are so beautiful! The backdrops, the views, the mix of guests- every wedding holds the potential for the best night of the year.
20) I love photo magnets! Apparently this hasn't caught on in the US just yet (I think you do photo booths?) but it's super fun to get photo mementos of being all dressed up with your friends and blanketing your whole fridge in magnets.
21) I've said it before but I love wine festivals! And since last year, I've discovered that Herzeliya also has a white wine festival- so that's basically a dream come true!
22) I love the normalcy that comes with living here almost 3 years. Life here now is normal, and I love knowing that I'm where I'm meant to be.
23) I love that I live in the center of Jewish world- it's so fun always bumping into someone you know from back in the day or getting to see friends and family from the old country when they make a visit here.
24) I love the left- wing Israelis. I know that seems odd coming from me, but defending my position and my ideology in a productive and meaningful way both opens my mind and strengthens my own beliefs.
25) I love that the rhythm of the country is based on Judaism. Weeks, months and years- Israel moves to a Jewish beat.
26) I love that losing your wallet often ends with its return and your faith in humanity rejuvenated.
27) I love how here in Israel, my third cousins are just "cousins." I feel just as close to them as I do my first cousins back in the States, because they have taken me into their family so fully and lovingly.
28) I love that Tinder in Israel is basically JSwipe and Jews are able to meet other Jews and start Jewish families and have Jewish babies. Makes me smile.
29) I love ending a fun night out with a 3 AM shwarma.
30) I love that even the graffiti is Jewish- Na Nach Nachman Me'uman!
31) I loved the way the country stops on Yom Hazikaron and Yom Hashoa. A lot has been said about it, but I agree. It's beautiful and important.
32) I love how different Yom Hazikaron is from Memorial Day in the States. I love that Israelis consider it one of the holiest days of their year and grieve so fully for their loved ones. It hits home for everyone here, and it's palpable.
33) I love Yom Ha'atzmaut! Don't get me wrong, July 4 is super fun but for me it doesn;t compare to Israeli Independence Day. And the celebrations are non-comparable too- Israelis GO WILD for their tiny country built on miracles!
35) I love that little kids will tell you we must save water "for the Kinneret"
36) I love that this country actually utilizes the Hebrew (lunar) calendar! In the US, I probably couldn't even tell you the lunar month. Here, you can write the Hebrew date on your checks!
37) I love that Israelis are called Sabras- prickly on the outside but sweet on the inside is the perfect fruit-based analogy.
40) I love when Birthright season begins- I pray now more than ever, Jews in the diaspora will see how incredible Israel is and spread the word.
41) I love Wine Wednesday. It's a charity initiative in Tel Aviv where young professionals get together (Usually on a gorgeous rooftop) to raise money for a worthy charity and drink wine with friends. It's the best way to give back!
43) I love when people say that I'm so lucky that I live here, and I get to tell them that they too can live here! And the government will even give them money to do so!
44) I love that Israel revived a dead language. What was for so many year only utilized in Torah study is now a thriving and ever-growing language representing the Jewish homeland.
45) I love that cab drivers will always have a guy for you. It is amazing how they can truly see how perfect Dudu and I would be for each other after 7 minutes in a cab.
46) I love the sign on the bus that says what day of the Omer it is.
47) I love having one day of chag. When I lived in the States, I swore the extra day made the chag extra beautiful. I lied. Make that one day beautiful.
48) I love that Aroma gets in on Jewish holidays like giving gelt on Chanuka and funny face wrapped chocolates on Purim.
49) I love the aggressive love Israelis show you once you finally establish that it is, in fact, coming from a place of love. It's like a country full of people who want what's best for you, whether or not you want the same.
50) I love that Shabbat dinner isn't just for the Orthodox here- that so many Israelis consider this beautiful custom an important tradition.
52) I love that the buskers here play Jewish songs.
53) I love the siren before Shabbat, letting you know the country is about to slow way down.
54) I love the Bar mitzvah celebrations in the Old City- a cacophony of shofar blowing and bongo playing accompanying the 13 year old and his 50 closest family members and friends.
55) I love that Israelis call their friends "neshama" or "soul."
56) I love borrowing money from someone behind me on the bus and having them tell me to give it to tzedaka instead of paying them back.
57) I love that the municipality decorated the side streets of downtown Jerusalem all summer, making our beautiful city even more so!
58) I love the Israeli folk dancing in public places- Israeli senior citizens staying fit and young by cutting a rug on a Tuesday evening.
59) I still love the light rail- even when it gets held up for 17 minutes for suspicious objects, it's still a super quick and comfortable alternative to the bus and it has made Yafo street pedestrian and therefore an excellent place to stroll.
60) I love that I have the ability to connect with other Israelis anywhere in the world. Whether is was my pub-crawl guide in Amsterdam, my waiter in Paris or the owner of my bagel store in NYC, being Israeli gives you an instant connection to other people around the world. Israelis are a roaming people, but it's certainly special to find a piece of home so far away.
61) I love Jerusalem stone- its is strong, and beautiful and everything in this city is composed of it. Every time I see it in the States and hear how hard it was to get it and how expensive it was to import it, I think "My city is just covered in the stuff!"
63) I love that the Israel haters bother me less- I live here, I see the good, I know the truth. I can see for myself how wonderful it is, I don't need their approval or acceptance. And I'll never get it any way, so why be upset about it?
64) I love how people say "Shabbat shalom", not "Have a good weekend." This may be due to the fact that essentially our whole weekend is shabbat, since Sundays are workdays, but I prefer to see the Jewish beauty in the concept.
65) I love how there are a bazillion native English speakers, but no one ever seems to ask us to proofread their signs or menus! I wait patiently for the day when someone posts a job opening seeking "translations proofreader." Then my aliyah will be truly perfect.
66) I love how this is a country full of Jewish mothers, which means that pretty much everywhere you go, someone in looking out for you and worrying about you. Makes ya feel good.
67) I love how we call Israel "Ha'aretz- the Land" and anywhere outside of it "Chutz La'aretz- outside the Land."
68) I love how when I had a bit of trouble coming up with so many things, everyone had a suggestion which made me fall even more deeply in love with this place.
69) I love how now that this is my home, I get to find new things to love about it every day!
Thank you for reading and feel free to add your own reasons! Looking forward to another fantastic year in Israel, awaiting the day when you join me and together we can celebrate Israel's 70th- next year in Jerusalem!


Aris Sissouras has advised governments on health sector affairs and promoted research for health-care services in Europe for more than two decades. From 2011 to 2012 he was the chair of the independent Expert Committee for the reform of the country's National Health Services. He is a professor of operational research and the director of the Health Policy and Operational Management and Planning unit at the University of Patras, Greece. Sissouras has worked on committees and working groups at the World Health Organization as well as a project to develop health indicators in the European Union (EU), and he was a member of the High Level Committee on Health of the EU. He was in the team that developed the plan in 1983 for the creation of today's Greek National Health System (NHS).


text:
DeFi (Decentralized Finance) allows individuals to perform various financial transactions without the need for a centralized intermediary. Its purpose is to democratize access to finance and promote financial inclusion which should lead to a better world for all of us. DeFi offers the ability to customize and conduct trades and loans without the need for permission, as well as the ability to manage counterparty risk. DeFi's scope is limited to these capabilities and does not extend to any other functions.
The fall of FTX has been devastating, but it has also reinforced the need for a player offering proper DeFi solutions.
Innovation Halt
The stagnation and lack of innovation in the DeFi space despite significant investment is a primary concern. This can be attributed to a combination of factors including impatience, inadequate research/development and failure to identify the appropriate product-market fit. This has led to a proliferation of poor token economics that prioritize short-term gains over long-term value, resulting in wasted capital and short sighted investments.
What Sigma Labs is Doing
Sigma Labs have further reduced its operations in certain areas to optimize our spending and remain focused on refining the value proposition for $SDEX while also making necessary changes to better suit the market. Pivot points and adapation are essential to survive the bear market.
These optimizations include:
Explanation like 5 years old (ELI5)
Heavy visual representations
A multi-chain ecosystem
Refactoring its token loop
Virtually eliminating the barrier of entry
Adjusting user experience for retail
For further clarity regarding the downfall of numerous crypto giants, Sigma Labs remains directly unaffected by the following notable events:
Three Arrows Capital - bankruptcy
TPS Capital OTC - exposure to 3ac
Celsius Network - bankruptcy filing
Voyager Digital - bankruptcy filing
FTX/Alameda Research - bankruptcy filing
Genesis Global Trading - withdrawal halt
Genesis Block HK - permanent closure
Many "investors" are desperate and continue their attempts to redeem investments with large numbers of refunds requested or SAFTs sold at a discount. Many projects may run out of funding from poor token economics while others may be impacted by the situations at FTX, LUNA or other notable failures. As a result, venture capital fundraising has been on decline and some funds may shut down due to a lack of liquidity and/or being over-leveraged. Alternatively we believe there will also be opportunities amidst these difficult times for certain parties who are able to weather the storm.
Although we have been fortunate enough to avoid the direct impact of the tumultuous events of the past year, it does not mean that our operations will proceed as usual. The Sigma Labs team has had to swiftly adapt to the changing landscape and make substantial sacrifices to maintain our ability to achieve success. The economic downturn has also taken a toll on many individuals, leading to personal losses and added difficulties. As we move forward, it is crucial for our team to exercise caution with our financial resources while simultaneously working diligently to achieve more with fewer resources.
The prospects for 2023 are very promising; With the potential for a recovery from the bear market of 2022, new developments and applications of layer 1 and layer 2 blockchain technology and advancements in DeFi technology. All of these factors converging make for an exciting year ahead in the cryptocurrency markets.
We remain committed to our mission of revolutionizing DeFi for the next million users as we continue building towards that goal. We appreciate the support of our community and looking forward to becoming an outlier in the industry.
Roland Haggins
Introducing the Liberty Pool - Elevated APYs
Sigmadex will introduce the Liberty Pool to ensure incentives and its token economy is stabilized.
Markets have taken a shock from the collapse of FTX and associated organizations. Sigma Labs remains on track.
Announcing sSDEX Claim Drop for AVAX Holders 🎁
Claim free sSDEX using MetaMask if you possess AVAX in your wallet.


So "long posts this weekend" ACTUALLY = got super sick. Oyyy.
I do love this Nina Ricci dress (sadface Olivier sadface) though, once on display at an exhibit at The Met. Give me this dress and a pack of Tylenol and I am ready to go.


Trotignon, J. G.; Décréau, P. M. E.; Rauch, J. L.; Guirriec, E. Le; Canu, P.; Darrouzet, F.
The WHISPER relaxation sounder that is onboard the four CLUSTER spacecraft has as its main scientific objectives to monitor the natural waves in the 2 kHz–80 kHz frequency range and, mostly, to determine the total plasma density from the solar wind down to the Earth's plasmasphere. To fulfill these objectives, the WHISPER uses the two long double sphere antennae of the Electric Field and Wave experiment as transmitting and receiving sensors. In its active working mode, the WHISPER works according to principles that have been worked out for topside sounding. A radio wave transmitter sends an almost monochromatic and short wave train. A few milliseconds after, a receiver listens to the surrounding plasma response. Strong and long lasting echoes are actually received whenever the transmitting frequencies coincide with characteristic plasma frequencies. Provided that these echoes, also called resonances, may be identified, the WHISPER relaxation sounder becomes a reliable and powerful tool for plasma diagnosis. When the transmitter is off, the WHISPER behaves like a passive receiver, allowing natural waves to be monitored. This paper aims mainly at the resonance identification process description and the WHISPER capabilities and performance highlighting.


text:
The Terrifying Legacy of David Koch
Previous Article How Sleazy is LA's Planning Process? More Than You Imagine!
Next Article 400 Years After Slavery's Start, No More Band-Aids
PERSPECTIVE--David Koch, one of the two infamous billionaire Koch brothers, died Friday at the age of 79.
The Wall Street Journal is quick to point out that, in addition funding a vast conservative political network, Koch gave about $1.3 billion of his nearly-$60 billion fortune to various philanthropies. But what Koch may ultimately be most remembered for is helping to seed the climate-change denial movement in the 1990s. Indeed, David Koch was one of the most powerful people in the world over the last three or so decades, and he did his level best to stymie any effort to stop the biggest threat to human society.
The Kochs' place in funding climate denial is covered well in the recent book "Kochland" by Christopher Leonard. They were big funders of a key 1991 Cato Institute conference, which mobilized furiously after President George H.W. Bush announced he would support a climate change treaty. They went on to spend gargantuan sums boosting up the handful of credentialed scientists who deny climate change, funding climate-denying "think tanks" and publications, donating to climate-denying politicians (and refusing money to those who don't), and so on. Greenpeace estimates that between 1997 and 2017 the Koch family spent more than ExxonMobil funding climate denial, and thus established climate-change denial as conservative dogma. While conservative parties in almost every other country have endorsed at least some kind of climate policy; the reason Republicans still do not is to a great degree the responsibility of just two men.
The Kochs were also key players in the successful effort to beat back a cap-and-trade bill in 2010, the closest the U.S. government has ever come to any kind of emissions policy.
The main reason they did all this, of course, was to protect and expand their gigantic fortunes — which were and are heavily based on fossil fuels. (In classic libertarian John Galt fashion, they inherited their money from their father, who was a founding member of the John Birch Society and made most of their additional money paying other people to dig up natural resources they neither created nor found.) As Jane Mayer writes in a review of "Kochland":
"Leonard also quotes Philip Ellender, Koch Industries' top lobbyist, as claiming, in 2014, that the Earth had gotten cooler in the previous eighteen years. In fact, according to NASA, eighteen of the nineteen hottest years on record have occurred in the past two decades. Yet the Koch machine bought its way into Congress and turned climate-change denial into an unchallengeable Republican talking point. Meanwhile, after the cap-and-trade bill died, the planet continued heating, and the Kochs' net worth doubled."
One underrated part of extreme inequality is how it warps the public discourse. In this case, two ultra-rich men with a bottom line to protect were able to spend so much on propaganda, campaign donations, university donations, and so on that they turned the brains in one of two American political parties to rancid tapioca. A nation with an egalitarian income distribution is one in which regular people have a much greater freedom to think.
Today a senile climate change denier is president of the United States, where he (wittingly or otherwise) has done the Kochs' bidding. Donald Trump has stacked the federal bureaucracy with Koch-style ideologues, cut taxes on the rich, rolled back environmental regulations, and tried to keep as many filth-spewing coal power plants in business as possible. Naturally, he is standing idle while the greatest number of fires ever seen are burning across the Amazon basin — apparently started by ranchers and loggers eager to cash in on the fascist presidency of Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro — threatening a catastrophic "dieback" in the rainforest that would release tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
In the decades to come, climate change will be the issue that determines the fate of not only American politics but human society. And it will be the issue on which the history books judge everyone, not just David Koch.
(Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post. This was posted originally at theweek.com and most recently at Common Dreams.) Photo credit: Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams. Illustrated | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images, August 23, 2019)


This year's highlight: Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook, scheduled to kick things off Tuesday night at 6 p.m. Pacific (9 p.m. Eastern).
Not being one of the 500 elite invited to attend, we've been monitoring the conference's live-stream line-up hoping to see Cook's keynote listed.
For Cook and the rest (full list here), we'll have to rely on the live blogs.
UPDATE: It's over. Not much news, but plenty of live coverage. I recommend the fast-typing Ina Fried.


text:
The Bridge Uganda
Belarusians can learn a lot from Armenia's Velvet Revolution | Russia
Year of the Overcomer-Prophet Elvis Mbonye
Kabuleta blasts Media over "COFIT" reporting in new rant.
Muntu Blocked in Kamwenge
Is Johnson Byabashaija courting Enid Kukunda for protection?
Bobi Wine released on Bail
EXPOSED! Ugandan gospel singer Julie Mutesasira weds fellow woman
Police Bosses Convene at Bulange ,Mengo Over Weekend Security Raid on Mbogo Clan Thanksgiving Function
Martha Kay shows off flexibility while exercising (VIDEO)
Kenzo's Manager Martin Beta Introduced By Fiance To Her Parents In A Classy 'Kwanjula'- Photos
I've failed to get a wife
MTN Uganda Promises to Compensate Data Lost During Internet Shutdown
FULL LIST: Vice President Ssekandi, 21 Ministers Voted Out
US Ambassador Natalie Brown Blocked from Visiting Bobi Wine
Police Admits to Shielding Off Bobi Wine's Residence, Controlling Who Gets Access to Him
Museveni Wins Presidential Election Amid Internet Shutdown
Airtel gets a cheaper license, Was bribery at play?
Ray G welcomes first daughter with fiancée Annabell (PHOTOS)
Galaxy FM's Mariat introduces lover, see photos
National Telecom Operators ordered to suspend access to social media platforms
Ykee Benda opens up about affair with Martha Kay
Mariat Candace Nasasira introduces fiancé to parents and friends
Sourced
In the last two weeks, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Belarus to protest against the widely disputed results of the country's August 9 election, which handed President Alexander Lukashenko some 80 percent of the popular vote and a sixth term in office. A police crackdown on peaceful protesters in the days after the vote saw nearly 7,000 demonstrators arrested, and sparked allegations of abuse and torture at the hands of security services. The opposition candidate, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who refused to concede defeat against Lukashenko, was forced to flee the country two days after the election.
Lukashenko managed to remain in power for 26 years without facing a significant challenge to his authority by playing the West and Russia against each other. Despite this tactical jockeying, however, Lukashenko always stood closer to Russia, entering his country in Russia-led regional groupings. In 1999, when the then Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, was weak and his power was leaching away, Lukashenko even proposed to unify his country with Russia, with the hope that he would eventually emerge as the leader of the new union. The rise of Putin eliminated such hopes for Lukashenko, but the idea to merge Belarus and Russia remained under consideration. Indeed, Putin started pushing for a merger last year, partly as a way to sustain his own rule beyond 2024.
The Belarusian protesters are facing unique challenges, not only because they are revolting against a violent and highly authoritarian regime, but also because they are trying to trigger a democratic transition in a country placed firmly in Russia's authoritarian security orbit.
Among those with strong security and economic ties to Russia, Belarus is only the second state, after Armenia, where people have risen against their Kremlin-backed rulers. As such, Armenia's "Velvet Revolution" in 2018, during which the masses successfully triggered a democratic transition through peaceful disobedience, offers a range of tactical lessons for both the opposition movement and the government in Belarus.
Three key lessons emerged from Armenia's democratic breakthrough.
First, the protesters in Armenia worked hard to keep the protests strictly local. They resisted attempts by the ruling forces to frame the protests as another Western-instigated "colour revolution", which would have delegitimised the movement. To achieve a successful democratic breakthrough, the Belarusian opposition should mimic this approach, and capitalise on the grassroots nature of the protests.
Second, the leader of Armenia's protest movement, current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, signalled early, clearly and consistently that the movement, if successful, would not lead to a shift in foreign policy away from Russia. This messaging played an important role in keeping the Russian soldiers in their bases during the revolution. While Armenia's security needs are quite different from those of Belarus, protest leaders in Minsk could also benefit from managing Russia's threat perceptions.
Third, Pashinyan held formal and informal negotiations with incumbent political forces from the very beginning. As a result, Armenia's protest movement unfolded within an imperfect but, nevertheless, constitutional order. This ensured some level of political stability, increased the perceived legitimacy of the protest movement and emboldened more people to take to the streets – a key marker of successful disobedience campaigns everywhere.
In many respects, the movement in Belarus is similar to Armenia's Velvet revolution of 2018. Just like Armenia, Belarus is a former Soviet nation that still has strong economic, political and social ties to Russia. Both countries are members of Russia-centric regional organisations such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union, and they are both economically reliant on Russia.
But there are also some significant differences between the ongoing protests in Belarus and the Velvet Revolution that took place in Armenia.
Unlike Armenia, there is not a strong civil society in Belarus. In the post-Soviet era, Belarus has always been under a strict dictatorial regime while Armenia has been led by what could be described as "soft authoritarians". This allowed Armenia's civil society enough space to organise itself and consolidate a protest culture through a long string of public protests before an opening for democratic transition appeared in 2018. Such processes are only beginning in Belarus.
But the protest movement in Belarus is perhaps in a better position than Armenia's in a few important aspects – Belarus is not involved in an unresolved regional conflict. In the region, dictatorial regimes often use prolonged conflicts to create a false dichotomy between security and democracy, and silence opponents. This tactic was used by Armenia's pre-revolution rulers for years and is currently being used in neighbouring Azerbaijan by Ilham Aliyev to silence opposition forces inside the country.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Lukashenko is trying to contrive an external threat where there is none. He has claimed, inaccurately, that NATO forces are building up in Eastern Europe, attempting to portray the protest movement in Belarus as a threat to its, and Russia's, security.
Another advantage the pro-democracy movement in Belarus has over the one in Armenia is the democratic character of its immediate neighbourhood. As I have written elsewhere, the extent of regional connectivity in Russia's vicinities can make or break the Kremlin's incursions into its "near abroad", be they military or hybrid. The democratic consolidation in, and regional ties between, the Baltic states, therefore, is an obvious political asset for the pro-democracy movement in Belarus. Furthermore, Belarus also shares a border with Poland, and therefore the European Union.
This is in sharp contrast to Armenia which is surrounded by authoritarian states, the sole exception being Georgia to its north. The Armenian pro-democracy movement formed a democratic dyad with Georgia, which helped it constrain Russian involvement and complete its Velvet Revolution. Intervening in Belarus would be much more costly for Russia, given the regional resiliency around Belarus from the Baltics to Poland. And unlike in Armenia, Putin's past attempt to formally unite Belarus with Russia created a backlash among the populace in Belarus, exposing the disingenuous nature of Putin's claims of "protecting" Belarus's security and independence. Russian intervention in the context of post-election protests can revive such fears and push more people into the streets.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Source – www.aljazeera.com
Related Topics:ArmeniaBelarusEuropeRussia
Vipers SC: Newly Promoted General Manager Mulindwa Expects Progress
Senegal seeks to move huge ammonium nitrate stock from Dakar port
Greece to boost military amid tension with Turkey | Turkey News
How much longer can the Belarusian president hold on? | Europe
Alexey Navalny out of artificial coma after 'Novichok poisoning' | Germany News
Refugees in Italy bear brunt of coronavirus angst | News
Belarus protest leader 'abducted' after mass anti-gov't march | Belarus News
Banksy-funded rescue boat helped after distress call | Europe
The eagerly awaited first fellowship of controversial Prophet Elvis Mbonye left viewers shocked as he declined to issue his now famous prophecies citing a refusal to settle for the new normal. In an on online service watched by thousands, the Prophet said him prophesying would " be a concession to gathering online, rather than physically" further stating that it is not the will of God that church should meet online!
The Covid-19 SOPs given by the government and Ministry of Health have heavily impacted gatherings and as a result, ministries with large congregations have resorted to online services. The prophet however insists that this is a ploy to diminish the influence of the Kingdom of God.
He however proceeded to give the Prophetic Word of the year , saying "This is the year of the Overcomers" amidst cheers from those present. He also stated that this would not be a "gloomy" year, probably meaning that this would be a good year. Given that many of his prophecies have actually come to pass, should we pay more attention to him? We eagerly await the prophecies this year.
Presidential hopeful Joseph Kiiza Kabuleta has expressed dissatisfaction with the media over what he says was"alarmist reporting" over the Covid-19 pandemic which he calls "COFIT" a term we believe is a wordplay between covid and profit, a view held by many that claims that the disease was exaggerated to maximize funding and corruption. Kabuleta has come to be known for his straight shooting style and admirable command of facts and policy, even being touted as the "smartest candidate" in the race.here is the full statement:
MEDIA AND THE COFIT ENTERPRISE
By Joseph Kabuleta
"Don't look at where you fell, but where you slipped"
We know where the media fell. They fell when they were caught in the crossfire between opposition politicians and trigger-happy security hitmen; when they were unfairly targeted as they went about their noble duty of covering this explosive elective season. Sadly, some journalists are nursing wounds; others weren't so lucky.
But it's important for us to understand where they slipped.
If someone is sitting by the roadside sipping on his brew and he sees a gang of people sprinting past him, as if for their lives, it's understandable if he impulsively joins without asking questions. But if after nine months he is still sprinting, and has still not asked any questions, then there's something terribly wrong with him.
When we first went into lockdown in March, it was probably the best course of action because we didn't know the full extent of the Cofit threat. But in the first 90 days, it was clear to all and sundry that it was never going to rank among Uganda's top health challenges. And that's not my opinion.
The Daily Monitor on July 15th quoted Dr Baterana Byarugaba, the Mulago Hospital Executive Director, describing the Cofit strain in the country as a mild form of flu which does not require hospital admission since it can be treated at home or in lower health facilities.
"l told Ugandans right from the beginning that the type of coronavirus we expect in Uganda is the mild one. It can be treated at health centre II, III, IV or the district hospital," the top Medic said.
I read the story with glorious delight supposing that finally common sense, (or should I say science sense) would inform our decisions as a nation. But it's difficult to know where science stops and politics starts. It's become clear over the months that Cofit is not just a virus that causes respiratory problems, it's a lot more than that; it's a weapon in the hands of politicians that gives them power beyond their wildest dreams. In America, for instance, Democrat Congressman Jim Clyburn said Cofit is a "tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our (leftist) vision" while actress and activist Jane Fonda said that Cofit was "God's gift to the left."
Our media could have taken the side of poor Ugandans by showing the immense suffering and death from preventable sicknesses that resulted from the harsh Cofit measures; they could have highlighted the plight of businesses permanently closed and workers rendered redundant and sent back to villages. They could have wondered why truck drivers were testing negative in Kenya and positive in Uganda, or wondered why Cofit deaths only started after Prophet Museveni showed us a macabre lineup of coffins in his address, or why every celebrity who dies since then is ruled as Cofit (no autopsy required)
They could have told us that according to Worldometer, Cofit has a 0.28% mortality rate (or a 99.72 survival rate) and that it doesn't rank anywhere in the Top 10 of Uganda's health challenges; they could have told us that a child dies of malaria every two minutes (and Uganda accounts for 3% of the world's malaria fatalities), which means that more Ugandans die from mosquitoes in ten days than Cofit has (allegedly) killed in the nine months it's been on our lips.
Ugandans (especially of my age) have lived through real pandemics. As a young man growing up in the early 90s, nobody had to remind me that AIDS was real. Goodness me, I knew it was! And I didn't need police to force me to wear protection, I knew the consequences. The fact that we are constantly being reminded that 'Cofit is real' tells a story of its own.
The media could have asked why Uganda, with one of the lowest Cofit cases or deaths, still holds on to a 9:00pm curfew when Kenya moved to 11:00pm in September, as did South Africa and several countries. The media could have told us that Malawi, Burundi, Tanzania and, recently, Ghana all held successful elections with full blown campaigns in 2020, and we aren't hearing people dropping dead from Cofit in any of those countries. May be they should have tried to find out if people are dropping dead in Tanzania which altogether ignored all Cofit measures and went on to acquire middle-income status while Ugandans were still in lockdown.
They could have told us about the asymptomatic Cofit patients who were filmed dancing the night away in hospital wards, or of people suffering from other diseases who dare not go to hospital because they fear to be given a fake Cofit label and held for two weeks against their will.
The media could have told us that Cofit deaths across the world have been grossly inflated. Minnesota lawmakers say Cofit deaths could have been inflated by 40% after examining death certificates (according to The Washington Examiner) while Fox News reported that in Colorado 45% of Cofit corpses "were also found to have bullet wounds".
They could have told us that 22 European countries, all of which had tens of thousands of Cofit deaths, opened their schools in the fall, and there has not been any reported spikes in cases as a result. They could have told us that more people have been killed by security men enforcing Cofit measures than by the virus itself.
Well, they could have…but they didn't. And that's where they slipped.
Instead they chose to go down the path of alarmist reporting and in so doing became, inadvertently or otherwise, enablers of Uganda's trillion-shilling Cofit enterprise. Like Squealer in George Orwell's Animal Farm, the media used flowery language to drum up fear by keeping people's eyes transfixed on swelling numbers while the thieves carried their loot and stashed it away, and loan money was distributed among family members or used in regime prolongation.
The recent joint television news bulletin, and the adverts that followed, were the peak of hysterical reporting. "Zuukuka Tusaanawo" (wake up, we are perishing) screamed an advert featuring top media personalities. What a load of……(fill in appropriate word).
Remember, all the tyranny we have witnessed in this season has been done in the name of Cofit, and such sensationalist reporting justifies it; it gives dictators like Museveni the perfect pseudo-moralistic cover to unleash their most despotic fantasies while actually pretending that it's for the good of the people. Unfortunately, the terror has now spread to the very media people whose hyperbole enabled it in the first place. There is such a thing as the law of cause and consequence, after all.
Instead of the media walking out of pressers and threatening to boycott government functions, let them threaten to stop all Cofit reporting. Museveni himself would come running with chocolate in hand.
If the president extended curfew by just two hours, for instance, he will have put as many as 200,000 Ugandans back to work especially in the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industries; but he doesn't care, and sadly neither do many middleclass Ugandans who suppose that it's their moral obligation as responsible citizens of the Global Village to fret over Cofit just because their 'fellow citizens' in Europe and America are doing so. Of course they can afford to do that because their corporate jobs have, for the most part, insulated them from the devastation of the government-instituted Cofit measures. They can enjoy working at home, beer in hand, as they listen to CNN and BBC and still expect the full complement of their salaries at the month end, and that makes them feel every bit like 'their brothers' overseas.
Such aspirational conformists are more likely to be offended by my stance on Cofit because they haven't traversed crook and creek of this country and seen the damage reigned on this fragile society; not by the virus, but by the measures supposedly instituted to mitigate it.
You see, perhaps the most enduring damage this regime has done to our society is creating a three-part hierarchy of class and needs. At the zenith are a handful of connected '1986 generation' and their families who feel entitled to all power and wealth. Beneath is a small (and shrinking) middleclass, and at the bottom of the pyramid is a mass of peasants. Every society, to various degrees, is ordered in the same fashion, but what makes Uganda unique is that the megalomaniacs at the top don't give a nickel about the plight of the middleclass and the middleclass in turn don't care a bit about the quandary of the peasant. The charlatans at the top will impose punitive taxes on the middleclass, then dip into NSSF coffers at a whim to share out their savings, and no one can stop them.
And the middleclass Ugandan, armed with his medical insurance, and safe in the knowledge that his wife is unlikely to die in child birth (20 Ugandans do EVERY DAY), and his children are very unlikely to die of malaria (20 do EVERY DAY), or from malnutrition (thousands do every year), will go around trumpeting Cofit because it's more relevant to his status than malnutrition or malaria.
I could just as easily go down that path. I could also close my eyes to mothers failing to get breast milk because they can only afford half a meal a day (black tea with a piece of cassava), and the malnourished babies that emerge as a result; I could close my eyes to the teenage girls that were given out in marriage because schools closed, or those given out to meet family needs; I could ignore the fact that our president is opening 5-star markets in cities which have 1-star referral hospitals; I could also choose to look the other way and enjoy my middleclass lifestyle, but as an aspiring leader, I cannot.
As a leader, my aspiration is to remove the privileged/entitled class, to expand the middleclass (and their income), and to shrink the peasantry; but mostly to blur the lines that separate each category.
It doesn't bode well for our country if the average Corporate Ugandan knows more about racism in America than about extreme poverty in Teso or Busoga because that disqualifies him/her from the solution to those local problems.
And finally, I have come to the realization that the biggest pandemic afflicting our country is poverty and the virus that causes it is called M7-1986. Vaccination against it is January 14
Alliance for National Transformation presidential candidate Gen. Mugisha Muntu has been blocked from campaigning in Kamwenge according to a statement he released earlier today.Below is the full statement:
Today in Kamwenge, as we have done since the start of the campaign season, we headed out to speak with the people. We had earlier in the week agreed on the venue with security agencies. No one had anticipated that it would rain as much as it did, making it impossible for us or the people to access.
After identifying an alternative place only 100m away from the original venue, negotiating with the owner and communicating the same to the public, we headed to the second venue only to be stopped by police.
Our policy has always been to do all we can to be reasonable, even in the face of unreasonable action on the part of the state. We engaged the police leadership in a civilized, respectable manner well knowing that they intended to not only frustrate us, but cause us to act in ways that would give them an excuse to cause chaos. This was on top of their intimidating the radio we had booked and duly paid to appear on.
While we are confident that we are on the right side of both the law and reason, we have chosen not to endanger the lives of our supporters or the general public by escalating the situation. We will do everything humanly possible to avoid a single life being lost or blood being shed on account of our campaign.
And yet this truth remains: the regime's days are numbered.
ChangeYouCanTrust
CountryBeforeSelf
Politics20 mins ago
Justine Bagyenda's Lawyer, Robert Kirunda refuses to comment on own possible role in dubious underselling of defunct banks
Radio Sapentia's Sister Irene Succumbs to Covid-19
Bebe cool Releases Election banger
BREAKING! Former Kampala Lord Mayor Alhaj Nasser Ntege Sebaggala Is Dead
Winnie Nwagi trolled for rebounding a 4-year-old leopard print outfit
How Attorney General William Byaruhanga and other mafia lawyer cheated a family of their property
Uganda scoops 7 AFRIMMA 2020 nominations
Suspending Campaigns helps Museveni-Joseph Kabuleta
Copyright © 2020 The Bridge Uganda. mediatechug@protonmail.com


text:
N.S. fishermen rescued by Marine Atlantic ferry after boat catches fire
Published Tuesday, September 11, 2018 11:27AM ADT
Last Updated Tuesday, September 25, 2018 9:37PM ADT
Three fishermen from Cape Breton are happy to be back home and thankful for being rescued by the crew of a Marine Atlantic ferry after their boat caught fire.
The crew, from We'koqma'q First Nation, were fishing red fish when their vessel caught fire. The crew blamed a hot pipe that quickly ignited everything around it, including the safety raft.
"Before I left, I hugged my family because you never know, right," said Christian Phillips."I called them before I left and said I loved them. I didn't expect this."
Before jumping into the ocean in their survival suits, Capt. Blaine Hamilton radioed for help.
"I was trying to stay calm, keep my senses about me, but I knew we had to get off, we had to abandon ship," said Hamilton.
The distress call was heard at 10 p.m. Monday by a passing Marine Atlantic ferry en route to Port aux Basques, N.L.
The MV Leif Ericson switched course and responded to the vessel, which was 50 miles south of Port aux Basques, N.L.
For nearly two hours the three men waited, bobbing in the waters of the Cabot Strait 90 kilometres northeast of Sydney.
"I have experience with Coast Guard, so it was not my first search-and-rescue call, but what we didn't know was what we were going to find," said Scott Dowding, the captain of the MV Leif Ericson. "The boat was on fire. Were they overcome? We didn't know what to expect actually."
The captain and two crew members were in the water and their boat was on fire when the ferry arrived.
Only one member of the crew was transported to hospital because he has diabetes and his medication went down with the boat.
The MV Leif Ericson returned to North Sydney around 1 p.m. on Tuesday with the three fishermen on board.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kyle Moore.
Scott Dowding, the captain of the MV Leif Ericsson, and the three fishermen he rescued returned to North Sydney on Tuesday. (KYLE MOORE)
The MV Leif Ericson is part of the Marine Atlantic fleet, which travels between Cape Breton and Newfoundland and Labrador. (Marine Atlantic)


What is the value of u human being's life these days? And how do we express that? Is money a proper unit? And does the fixed amount apply for everybody or should we distinguish different types of people?
Who is worth most to you?
My personal conviction is that every human being has an equal value. Although I must admit that sometimes I categorize them unconsciously. If that's the case I point out to myself that this person also has a life story. A history that molds a person to what he has become. And if you know the underlying story, you sometimes understand why somebody acts in a certain way.
In our society it's all about achievements. If you don't perform you don't contribute and in fact don't count. Sportsmen? They are often heroes. But why? They only showed an achievement in sport. Don't get me wrong, I too admire those performances and like to watch them. But I mean this: are achievements really the standard for the value of a human being? Someone who comforts or helps, someone who encourages or inspires, can someone like that also be called a hero? Can you call someone a hero if he shows love to a person that is being looked down upon?
And what about criminals? Do they have the same value even if they did the most horrible things? In my view they do, but I very well understand this view needs some clarification. Because I also think it is dreadful what people can do to each other and everything in me revolts when I hear of certain crimes. But wouldn't it be extraordinary if we can make a distinction between the person and the crime? De crime itself is bad, but is the person who commits a transgression immediately lost also? Or can and do we still want to see the value of that person? And are we still prepared to invest in such a person?
Nuances are also hard to find in expressions about refugees. Then I think: would you trade places, really? Do you really want to arrive here after a grueling journey without any possessions? Well, you would possess something: deep traumas, unprecedented misery and a sad and uncertain image of your future.
Maybe we should look at people in a different way. In that respect we can learn so much from children, who in their purity are a great example for 'us grownups'. Maybe we should get more wise instead of more intelligent. Move the accents of value. Recently I told my son that it's very special if you can say sorry to someone else. At first he didn't understand and replied: "A diamond is very special". And in fact he couldn't be more right and I could confirm: "Saying sorry is just as special as a diamond".
We have to understand more and more that being important has nothing to do with status, being valuable has nothing to do with achievements and being rich has nothing to do with money. And like it already gets plainly clear in an ancient book: one human being is worth more than all treasures on the earth.