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H-Diplo Essay 366- Mire Koikari on Learning the Scholar's Craft
Policy Series 2021-27: The Trump Administration and the Middle East: Not Much Change, Not Much Success21 min read
May 4, 2021 by F. Gregory Gause, III·Comments Off on Policy Series 2021-27: The Trump Administration and the Middle East: Not Much Change, Not Much Success21 min read
Much like its predecessor, the Trump administration came into office rhetorically committed to reducing the American military and political footprint in the Middle East and left office with the American role in the region largely unchanged; like its predecessor, it came into office ready to engage diplomatically on Arab-Israeli questions, with an eye toward a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and it left office with little progress on that core conflict of the Arab-Israeli arena. It succeeded in expanding the number of Arab countries that diplomatically recognize Israel, but those recognitions did little to change the immediate geopolitical dynamics of the Arab-Israeli issue. They were more a testament to the enduring centrality of the United States in the Middle East, a backhanded acknowledgement that Trump's initial desire to de-emphasize the region in American foreign policy had failed. Unlike its predecessor, the Trump administration increased pressure on Iran, in the failed hopes of either renegotiating the 2015 nuclear deal or, more ambitiously, bringing about regime change in Tehran. The new Biden administration is seeking to restore dialogue with the Islamic Republic. The Trump administration privileged relations with Saudi Arabia even beyond what previous administrations had done, but with the result of making Saudi-American relations a more toxically partisan issue than in the past.
America and the World—The Effects of the Trump Presidency
The Trump Administration and the Middle East: Not Much Change, Not Much Success
Essay by F. Gregory Gause, III, Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University
Published on 4 May 2021 | issforum.org
Editor: Diane Labrosse | Production Editor: George Fujii
https://issforum.org/to/ps2021-27
The Trump administration leaves office with the Middle East and America's role in it mostly unchanged. That fact is testament to the pressures for continuity in America's approach to the region. Reducing the American footprint would require a rethinking of 30 years of military policy, since the Gulf War of 1990-1991. The Pentagon has established bases and facilities all along the Persian Gulf littoral's Arab side – in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman. Where the American military has poured concrete, it is loath to leave. Such a military reduction would also require reversing twenty years of American focus on counterterrorism that resulted from the 9/11 attacks. With salafi jihadist groups continuing to play a role in the Middle East, if counterterrorism is a primary goal it would be hard for any administration to declare the region unimportant to American security. Continued, bipartisan support for Israel raises the costs to any American president of de-emphasizing the region. The Trump administration's specific policy of pressuring Iran was absolutely inconsistent with a desire to reduce the U.S. military and political presence in the Persian Gulf. A real reduction of the American focus on the Middle East would require a profound reassessment of American interests there. While that might be overdue, it was not a task the Trump administration was willing to undertake.
The United States Military in the Middle East: Not Much Change
When President Trump entered office, there were about 58,000 American troops in the Middle East (including Afghanistan). In December 2020, there were about 42,000 in the region (excluding Afghanistan), but regular rotational deployments by air and naval units meant that the number could rise to as many as 65,000 at any particular time.[1] Like President Barack Obama before him, Trump came to office committed to avoiding military engagements in the region. He did draw down the number of American forces in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, though not to zero. However, the system of American military bases in the region did not change at all during Trump's four years in office. The Fifth Fleet remains headquartered in Bahrain; 13,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Kuwait in December 2020; Al Udeid airbase in Qatar is home to 8,000 troops.[2] The administration surged forces into the region on numerous occasions, frequently in response to Iranian actions. President Trump left office with the American military infrastructure in the Middle East basically unchanged.
The Trump administration fell victim to the same temptations as the Obama administration regarding military force and the Middle East. America's stick is so big that it is hard to resist using it. Trump did not do anything as substantial as the Libya campaign. But he launched missile attacks on Syria in 2017, increased the intensity of the air campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2017-2018, and maintained the very active drone strike campaign that his predecessor conducted against what the U.S. saw as terrorist targets. He began his term by increasing the American force presence in Afghanistan but subsequently reduced it before leaving office. Trump avoided any major new military commitments in the region, but he did not completely end any of the commitments that he inherited and, through his policy of "maximum pressure" on Iran,[3] added a potential escalation risk that had to be managed.
A Big Change, But Not Much Success: Policy toward Iran
The one area where the Trump administration took a completely different approach to regional issues from its predecessor was Iran. President Trump campaigned against the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement among the United States, the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany, the EU and Iran that set limits on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of U.N. sanctions. He disparaged the agreement as a "disaster" and "the worst deal ever negotiated" while campaigning.[4] Upon entering office, and bowing to the advice of more conventional foreign policy advisers like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Trump maintained the agreement even as he continued to criticize it. In October 2017 he finally "decertified" American participation in the JCPOA.[5] As that first group of advisers left the White House, the administration adopted a policy of "maximum pressure" on Iran, centering on surprisingly effective unilateral American sanctions that had the effect of cutting Iran off from the world financial system. Iran's oil sales plummeted amidst economic hardship and scattered protests around the country.[6] The COVID-19 crisis and the resultant plunge in world oil prices in March 2020 further increased the pressures on the Islamic Republic.
The ultimate goal of the "maximum pressure" policy was not clear. Official administration policy was that the U.S. sought a return to negotiations with Iran for a better deal, one that would strengthen and extend the limitations on Iran's nuclear program, limit Iranian missile capabilities and roll back Iranian involvement in regional trouble spots. President Trump even sought direct contact with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during the U.N. General Assembly meeting of fall 2019. At the same time, Tillerson's successor as Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, laid out a set of preconditions for talks with Iran that could only have been reached through regime change. In the end, Trump never had to decide just what he wanted from Iran, because Tehran was not willing to engage with his administration on Washington's terms.
The Iranian response to "maximum pressure" was to create crises in the Persian Gulf, in hopes that international pressures would bring Washington back to a multi-lateral negotiation. In the summer of 2019 Iran mined ships in the Arabian Sea, just outside the Strait of Hormuz and shot down an American drone flying over the Persian Gulf. In September 2019 Iran launched an audacious missile attack on Saudi oil facilities that took over 5 million barrels of oil a day off the market for weeks.[7] These crises exposed the tensions in Trump's approach to the region. He did not want to launch yet another military adventure. At the last minute, he called off a planned bombing of Iranian sites in retaliation for the downing of the American drone.[8] Despite the decades-long contention that the free flow of oil from the Persian Gulf was a vital American interest, Trump made no proportionate response to the attack on the Saudi oil facilities, the most serious challenge to oil flows since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Yet in order to maintain "maximum pressure," the administration had to sustain the military presence in the region as an ultimate threat to Iran. It also sought more piecemeal payback, most notably killing the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, in a drone attack in Baghdad in January 2020.[9] The Quds Force is the IRGC's overseas arm, extending Iran's military and political presence in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere, and Soleimani had become the face of Iran's regional presence.
The "maximum pressure" policy failed. Iran did not negotiate the theoretical "better deal" that Trump sought;[10] nor did the regime collapse. Rather, it began to exceed the limits on its nuclear program set by the JCPOA. By the time the Trump administration left office, Iran arguably was closer to nuclear weapons breakout capability than it had been when he took office.[11]
A Complicated Embrace: Saudi Arabia
The Saudi-American relationship has been close for decades, but President Trump elevated it to an unprecedented level of direct presidential involvement and access. In the process, he also moved it into the field of partisan politics in an unprecedented way. Saudi Arabia has never had many defenders in the American political system, but Democratic and Republican residents of the White House have always wanted to have a good relationship with Riyadh, the largest oil exporter in the world and a major player in the politics of the Middle East and the Muslim world. Increasing numbers of Democrats in Congress and the foreign policy establishment now see the country through the lens of Trump's embrace of it, which will inevitably affect how Saudi-American relations develop under the Biden Administration.
Trump's flirtation with Riyadh began even before Trump took office, with the establishment in late 2016 of a close relationship between his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner with Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the young son of the Saudi king known as MBS, and then the Minister of Defense. Trump made Riyadh the destination of his first foreign trip, upending a long tradition of American presidents visiting either Mexico or Canada for their first venture abroad. Shortly after the visit, on June 6, 2017 Trump publicly backed by tweet the boycott and embargo of Qatar that had been declared by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, despite the fact that Qatar hosted America's largest airbase in the Middle East and that his secretaries of State and Defense were attempting to mediate the crisis. Later that same month, MBS muscled his way into the crown prince position, turfing out his older cousin, Prince Muhammad bin Nayif, who had been America's primary interlocutor on counter-terrorism issues since the 9/11 attacks. The Trump administration signaled that they not only approved of the change, but perhaps even had a hand in it. That level of involvement, or at least public signaling of such involvement, by the United States in the politics of the Saudi ruling family was unprecedented. Trump had personalized the relationship with Riyadh in a dramatic way.
The negative consequences of that personalization became clear in October 2018, when Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. United States intelligence agencies assessed that the operation was ordered by MBS.[12] The outcry in Washington was immediate and bipartisan. Khashoggi was living in Virginia, was well known to American elites and was writing an occasional column for the Washington Post. The brutality and brazenness of the act struck a chord. Combined with the continuing Saudi military campaign in Yemen, which was creating a humanitarian disaster without resolving the political crisis there, the Khashoggi killing made MBS persona non grata to the American political establishment. But not to President Trump, who continued to defend him, provide U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia's Yemen campaign, and tout the benefits of arms sales to the Saudis for the American economy.[13]
In his 2020 campaign, President Biden termed Saudi Arabia a "pariah." Upon entering office, he suspended American military aid to Saudi Arabia's Yemen operations.[14] It is unlikely that the Biden Administration will completely break with Saudi Arabia. The equities in the areas of regional geopolitics, counterterrorism and oil that have always sustained the relationship are still there. But President Trump's personal embrace of MBS, and the equal and opposite Democratic reaction against MBS, has introduced a level of partisanship into the relationship that is a new and unpredictable factor going forward.
Peripheral Success, Core Failure: The Arab-Israeli Arena
The most significant Middle Eastern diplomatic success of the Trump administration in the Middle East was the late 2020 diplomatic recognition of Israel by four Arab states: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.[15] Jared Kushner made what came to be called the "Abraham Accords" the major focus of his efforts at the end of the administration. While important as further indicators of the continuing normalization of Israel's role in the region, these recognitions did not change the fundamentals of the Arab-Israeli arena. Contrary to the way they were portrayed by Trump and his loyalists, they were not "peace" agreements.[16] None of the four Arab states had fought a war against Israel (although some Moroccan troops participated in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War[17]) or were even geographically close to it. All except Sudan had some level of relations short of diplomatic recognition with Israel in the past. Most importantly, this diplomatic movement came after the administration failed to create any breakthrough in the core Israeli-Palestinian issue. In an unintended way, that failure might have actually led to the Accords themselves.[18]
The Trump administration came to office, like many of its predecessors, proclaiming a renewed commitment to Arab-Israeli peace. Signaling its importance, Trump gave that portfolio to Kushner. But Trump also wanted to be an historically pro-Israeli president, as his evangelical Christian base wanted. Before Kushner presented his "deal of the century" to the Israeli and Palestinian governments in 2019, the Trump Administration in November 2017 recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the American embassy there. This step gave the government of Benjamin Netanyahu something that it always wanted, without a quid pro quo to advance the peace process, and alienated Palestinian opinion. When Kushner finally did present his peace plan, which called on Palestinians to forsake independent statehood for theoretical commitments of tens of billions of dollars in investments in their territory, the Palestinian Authority did not give him the time of day.[19]
Conclusion: Not Much Change, Not Much Success
President Trump, for all his unconventional diplomatic style, blustery rhetoric, and promises to put "America first," ended up pursuing a relatively conventional American foreign policy toward the Middle East. Despite his oft-stated belief that America's global allies were free-riders taking advantage of U.S. naiveté, he did not substantially change the American military footprint in the region. He prioritized counterterrorism, as had his two immediate predecessors. His administration developed its own plan for Arab-Israeli peace, which failed. So had the plans of many of its predecessors, however, including the Obama and Bush 43 administrations. Trump maintained close relations with traditional American allies, though his pro-Israel tilt was more pronounced than that of previous administrations and his embrace of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has complicated Saudi-American relations for the Biden administration. He departed substantially from the Obama administration's approach to Iran, but it was Obama who was more the outlier among recent American presidents on this issue. Trump's hard line toward Iran was much closer to George W. Bush's "axis of evil" and Bill Clinton's "dual containment" stances.
President Trump's Middle East policy was not that different from his predecessors, but it was also distinctly unsuccessful.[20] The Abraham Accords should be put in the win column, but there was no movement on the core Arab-Israeli issue, the Palestinian-Israeli relationship, that could be the basis for real peace. The ISIS territorial caliphate was destroyed, but that result was well on the way by the time Trump took office. Trump's singular innovation in the Middle East, the "maximum pressure" policy toward Iran, was a complete failure. He neither brought Tehran back to the table nor changed the regime. Iran's regional influence in the broken Arab states – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen – was as great in 2021 as it was in 2017, if not more so. Trump left office with Iran closer to developing a nuclear weapon than when he entered. The Biden administration is thus seeking a return to negotiations with Iran to undo the damage.
The lack of success of American policy in the Middle East in the last three administrations is notable. The Clinton administration, despite its unparalleled regional position in the wake of the Cold War and the Gulf War, could not close the deal on its Syrian-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli peace initiatives. The George W. Bush administration defeated the Taliban and Saddam Hussein militarily, but could not stabilize the successor regimes in Afghanistan or Iraq. Iran's regional influence increased markedly as a result of Bush breaking the states to its east and its west. The Obama administration tried to support democratic change in the Arab Spring and ended up with civil wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen and reconsolidated authoritarianism in Egypt. Its diplomatic success with the JCPOA was easily overturned by Obama's successor. Trump's failures in the region do not make him unique among recent American presidents.
These failures, along with the palpable American fatigue with the Middle East, have led many to speculate that American power in the region is in decline.[21] It is hard to argue that America's power position is as enviable as it was in the early 1990's. However, it would be a mistake to discount the American regional role too much. It is still the dominant regional military power. Its regional allies dwarf those of Russia and China. Only the U.S. can put substantial economic pressure on regional states. The Abraham Accords offer an indication that regional states still want to be on America's good side. Every Arab state opening to Israel, from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's treaty in 1979 through the negotiations of the 1990's up to these recent recognitions, has been first and foremost an effort to cultivate the United States. The UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan had little to gain from direct relations with Israel, but they had plenty to gain from Washington.[22] For the UAE, which is linked to Saudi Arabia in the Yemen military campaign and in its coziness with the Trump administration, recognition of Israel was a way to signal to both American political parties that it wanted to be part of the American project in the Middle East. Saudi and Emirati willingness at the end of Trump's term to end the boycott of Qatar stems from the same readings of the regional balance of power. The United States still has plenty of cards to play in the Middle East. A new administration with a defter diplomatic touch and a more modest agenda could reverse the recent string of failures.
F. Gregory Gause, III, is professor of international affairs and John H. Lindsey '44 Chair in the Department of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University. He also serves as the department head and as a faculty affiliate of the School's Center for Grand Strategy. His most recent book is The International Relations of the Persian Gulf (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
[1] Ash Carter, "The Logic of American Strategy in the Middle East," Survival 59:2, 13-24.
[2] Mike Sweeney, "A Plan for U.S. Withdrawal from the Middle East," Defense Priorities, December 2020, https://www.defensepriorities.org/explainers/a-plan-for-us-withdrawal-from-the-middle-east (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[3] https://www.heritage.org/defense/event/after-the-deal-new-iran-strategy (last accessed 7 March 2021).
[4] Yeganeh Torbati, "Trump election puts Iran nuclear deal on shaky ground," Reuters, 9 November 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-iran/trump-election-puts-iran-nuclear-deal-on-shaky-ground-idUSKBN13427E (last accessed 7 March 2021).
[5] For references to the early months of the Trump presidency, see the author's "Donald Trump and the Middle East" in Robert Jervis et al., Chaos in the Liberal Order: The Trump Presidency and International Politics in the Twenty-First Century, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018): 273-286.
[6] Farnaz Fassihi and Rick Gladstone, "With Brutal Crackdown, Iran is Convulsed by Worst Unrest in 40 Year," New York Times, 3 December 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/world/middleeast/iran-protests-deaths.html (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[7] "Special Report: 'Time to take out our swords' – Inside Iran's plot to attack Saudi Arabia," Reuters, 26 November 2019, https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1XZ16H (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[8] Michael Shear, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt, "Trump Says He Was 'Cocked and Loaded' to Strike Iran, but Pulled Back," New York Times, 21 June 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/us/politics/trump-iran-attack.html (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[9] Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman and Farnaz Fassihi, "How Months of Miscalculation Led the U.S. and Iran to the Brink of War," New York Times, 13 February 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/us/politics/iran-trump-administration.html (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[10] David Sanger, Farnaz Fassihi and Rick Gladstone, "Urging Iran to 'Make the Big Deal,' Trump Ties Nuclear Negotiations to Election," New York Times, 5 June 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear.html (last accessed 7 March 2021).
[11] Sune Engel Rasmussen and Laurence Norman, "Iran's Nuclear Program: How Close Is Tehran to Developing Nuclear Weapons?" Wall Street Journal, 10 February 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-nuclear-program-11610564572 (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[12] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/26/us/report-jamal-khashoggi-killing.html (last accessed 7 March 2021).
[13] F. Gregory Gause, III, "After the Killing of Jamal Khashoggi: Muhammad bin Salman and the Future of Saudi- U.S. Relations," CSIS Brief, 12 December 2018, https://www.csis.org/analysis/after-killing-jamal-khashoggi-muhammad-bin-salman-and-future-saudi-us-relations (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[14] Ben Hubbard and Shuaib Almosawa, "Biden Ends Military Aid for Saudi War in Yemen. Ending the War Is Harder," New York Times, 5 February 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/world/middleeast/yemen-saudi-biden.html (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[15] Karen DeYoung and Steve Hendrix, "Trump critics hail accords between Israel and Arab countries even as original goal of Palestinians peace remains unmet," Washington Post, 31 October 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-middle-east-accords/2020/10/31/f0585dec-19fc-11eb-aeec-b93bcc29a01b_story.html (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[16] Fred Kaplan, "A Big Deal but Not a Peace Deal," Slate, 15 September 2020, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/trump-israel-uae-bahrain-deal.html (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[17] Chaim Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars, (New York: Vintage Books, 1982): 285, 287, 296.
[18] Martin Indyk, "Trump's Accidental Diplomacy in the Middle East: How a Botched Peace Plan Produced the Abraham Accord," Foreign Affairs, 19 August 2020, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2020-08-19/trumps-accidental-diplomacy-middle-east (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[19] Michael Crowley and David M. Halbfinger, "Trump Releases Mideast Peace Plan That Strongly Favors Israel," New York Times, 28 January 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/world/middleeast/peace-plan.html (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[20] For a similar argument about Trump's failures in the Middle East, see Steven Cook, "Trump's Middle East Legacy is Failure," Foreign Policy, 28 October 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/28/trumps-middle-east-legacy-is-failure/ (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[21] "The United States proved to be an unreliable ally [for democracy movements]. And other powers that intervened forcefully to stamp out the revolts and bend the region to their will – Iran, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates – have only grown more powerful." Ben Hubbard and David Kirkpatrick, "A Decade After the Arab Spring, Autocrats Still Rule the Mideast," New York Times, 14 February 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/world/middleeast/arab-spring-mideast-autocrats.html (last accessed February 19, 2021). In a poll of academics who study the Middle East conducted in February 2021, 75% believed that the United States was weaker in the region than it was ten years ago. Marc Lynch and ShibleyTelhami, "Here's how experts on the Middle East see the region's key issues, our new survey finds," Washington Post, 16 February 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/16/heres-how-experts-middle-east-see-regions-key-issues-our-new-survey-finds/ (last accessed 19 February 2021).
[22] Lara Jakes, "Trump Incentives for Signing Peace Accords with Israel Could Be at Risk," New York Times, 20 December 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/us/politics/trump-israel-sudan-peace-accord.html (last accessed 19 February 2021).
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Mindful Kindful YOUniversity teams up with Cuesta College Community Programs!
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We will meet 1x a month, for a total of 4 two-hour classes. Each class builds upon the other, with the first class being the foundation for all other classes, and "on your own" practices and journaling to complete in between classes. Please have your teen plan to commit to all four classes.
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text:
Q: on a countably union of $F_\sigma$ sets Let $F$ be a countably union of $F_\sigma$ sets, say $F_i$ for $i\in \mathbb N$. Is it true that if $F$ is not meager then there is an $F_i$ with non-empty interior? For me it's true but I can't find a strong argument to prove it. Thank you

A: You can use contradiction to prove it.
If all $F_i$ are of empty interiors, then countable union of $F_i$ is meager.

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What's the weather like today? Meteorologists look at lots of data to answer that question. That's what you'll do in this Planet Diary activity.
Here's a satellite view of today's United States weather. Look at the color scale used for clouds below the map. Based on today's cloud cover, which parts of the country can expect unsettled or stormy weather today?
Check out today's temperature map. Look at the color scale. Which part of the country is coldest today? Which is warmest?
Unsettled weather is often found along weather fronts. Look at today's weather fronts. Cold fronts appear as blue lines with triangles; warm fronts are red lines with semi-circles. Describe the positions of today's cold and warm fronts.
The map also shows areas of high (H) and low (L) barometric pressure. High pressure usually signals clear weather. Low-pressure often means unsettled weather. Where are today's high-pressure areas? Where are the low-pressure areas?
Look at today's precipitation. Where is it raining or snowing?
How closely do the locations of today's unsettled weather correspond to the locations of low pressure areas and weather fronts?


> something really odd. Is there a way to prevent this substitution ?
> BTW, the Impact font is embedded in the PDF.
If the font is embedded, it shouldn't need to get substituted.
If you suspect a bug here, please email me that PDF.
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Amazon is finding itself in the spotlight recently and for good reason. Their new Kinde e-readers look great, and more importantly have a starting price of under $99! They also, thank goodness, got rid of that horrible looking keyboard. With different models offering different features it's hard to find a reason not to buy one. The entry evel model has a buttton interface for page turning, wifi connectivity, and shows well designed ads on the home screen and as screen savers. The top of the line e-ink e-reader features an infrared touchscreen (like the latest from Barnes & Noble) and adds 3G cellular connectivity for buying books from Amazon. At these prices I'm having a hard time seeing how Barnes & Noble can compete. Their entry level Nook is $139. The only other thing I used to be able to cite as a big selling point for Nooks were their ability to check out e-books from libraries, but earlier last month Amazon announced their file format was now avaiable in libraries. So why wouldn't you get a Kinde? The only reason I can come up with is if you are already invested in B&N books that won't be accessible on Kindle. But these were just the appetizers to Amazon main dish, a tablet.
The Kindle Fire is a 7 inch Android run tablet. The hardware specs aren't exactly mind blowing; no 3G, no cameras, small storage space, middle of the road speed. It runs some flavor of Google's Android but it's been heavily altered, some would say improved, and it has deep tie-ins with Amazon's services. Specs wise it is no iPad killer, but it's the integration of Amazon's services that make it a possible iTunes killer. Fires come with a 1 month free trial of Amazon Prime. I wasn't entirely knowledgeable about Prime. I thought it just got you free 2 day shipping. Turns out it gets you a bunch of streaming tv and movie content, unlimited space in their MP3 storage locker, and the 2 day shipping all for $80. That's less than $7 month. Did you hear that Netflix? Add in their large e-book store, their well priced mp3 store, their new and growing Android App store, and what look to be more popular magazines and periodicls and you have a very media centered device with lots of choices. Oh and did I mention the price? $199. Possibly the first sub $200 tablet that will be worth it. I'm not counting the HP TouchPad as it is both discontinued and only being made available at $99/$150 so they could quickly get rid of them.
It remains to be seen just how good a tablet this wil be, but I have no reason to think it won't be at least decent to use. It is obviously aimed at media consumption and should handle web tasks fairly well, but make no mistake, in terms of versatility this is not an iPad killer. What it is is a Barnes & Noble Nook Color killer, though to be fair B&N is expected to announce a new Nook Color shortly and it remains to be seen if B&N can compete on price (the current Nook Color retails for $249), because it can't offer all the other media service Amazon can. Besides B&N, Google should also be worried about this. Though the Fire runs Anroid, it is heavily customized and doesn't access Google App Market, lending more fuel to the argument that Android is too fractured for consumers to get in on. Apple should also take note of this, not for the hardware, but for the media integration. iTunes may have won the music wars but the video wars are still taking place.
Amazon also found itself in the middle of a rumor, that at first I ignored because it made no sense to me, but as more and more serious tech blogs reported it I began wondering about it. As most are aware HP has all but given up on webOS and is looking to get the most return it can get for it. Well Amazon might be talking to HP about taking webOS off their hnds. I'm not sure I see a reason for Amazon to do this as it would basically be starting over if they use webOS on their future tablets. The argument being made is this would make it so Amazon didn't have to face the wrath of Microoft in paying licensing fees for Android. Or they could simply want the patents that came with Palm. It will be interesting to see if this comes to fruition or not. One thing's for sure, though, Amazon is on the move.


The present paper contributes to the debate on efficiency of production in noblemen estates on the eve of the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861. One strand of the literature argues that size reduction of noblemen estates in the first half of 19th century made them less efficient. However, some scholars argue that performance of the estates did not suffer or even increased. Supporting the latter, we provide new evidence that two or more smaller estates, owned by one landlord, were more productive than one large because of better reallocation of labour. For this we develop a new dataset of noblemen estates with data on incomes, the number of serfs (souls), and information about the landlord, using documents of the noblemen elections of the Ryazan province in 1827. These rich sources include information about estates, souls and income, submitted by 776 noblemen – voters and candidates to positions in the noblemen self-administration and the local government. Estimating a simple production function we show, for example, that yearly income of a nobleman, who holds two estates with 50 souls, each of the estates having 50 souls, was more than 300 rubles higher than a nobleman with one estate and 100 souls.


When you type "depression stock photos" into Google image search, the results are less than encouraging. It's a 50/50 split of mostly white, mostly male models with their head in their hands or a gun to their head. When you're among the one in four suffering with a mental health problem, an article illustrated by a photo like this is demoralising.
While it's brilliant that the conversation around mental health has really opened up over the last few years, it's disappointing to still see such limited imagery out there on major platforms; imagery that makes depression look like a headache.
The design and photo team at Refinery29 are well versed in the limitations of existing stock photography and, in response, we've been producing our own stock photography with the aim of representing real women's experiences for over five years. It is vitally important to us that the women you see on the R29 website are representative and relatable. But when it came to mental health, it wasn't just the people in the photographs who needed to be representative – we wanted to creatively reflect depression, anxiety, mood disorders and more as you feel them, instead of a 'one size fits all' image that doesn't really speak to anyone.
Earlier this year, we set up an anonymous survey with the aim of getting to the root of how mental health disorders actually feel. We asked sufferers in our audience to respond with words and phrases that summed up their experiences so we could work these into a visual representation. The results from the survey were shocking.
"[Depression] feels like I can barely keep my head above water", read one. "[OCD is] like there's someone in your head just feeding you lies", said another. "[Depression is] foggy, like you're behind a thick pane of glass watching everyone else live life", yet another stated, and "[Stress] feels like loads of brightly coloured squiggles intersecting with each other, too much going on."
Working alongside photographer Flora Maclean, who shares our passion for representing mental health disorders visually with sensitivity and respect, we translated these words and phrases into visual concepts. The resulting series of images make some of the more complex feelings of the mind tangible. They exist to give sufferers clarity of experience and remind them that they aren't alone on their journey. They exist to encourage empathy and understanding.
Prints from £40 are available to buy here, with proceeds donated to OCD UK.
This series is on show at the Exposure Gallery in partnership with The Photography Movement, 22–23 Little Portland St, W1W 8BU from 19th to 31st October, entry is free.


PALM BEACH, FL, USA, January 25, 2017 /EINPresswire.com/ — Bringing 2016 to a close, Arthur E. Benjamin, of Arthur E. Benjamin Foundation and Founder of American Dog Rescue, locked down a title sponsorship for the sold-out 3rd annual musical brunch, Books, Bellinis, and Bel Canto fundraiser, to be held on Sunday, February 5, 2017 at Club Colette in Palm Beach, Florida, and helped push EWF across the finish line with a generous donation of $10,000. Already a trusted advisor, Founders Society donor, and major supporter, with this gift, Mr. Benjamin's total giving to EWF now tops over $20,000 to date.
For the past three decades, Arthur has been passionately involved in philanthropic efforts related to breast cancer, cancer research, education and animal welfare. On a national scale, Arthur works tirelessly on a number of important causes, chief among them, to save abused and abandoned dogs and place them in loving homes. Arthur also serves on the board of the nationally recognized youth development organization, Boys and Girls Clubs of Broward County, and was recently honored for his years of service and financial support.
Mr. Benjamin's donation includes a community outreach gift of $7,200, which provides educational books for a Title I elementary school. EWF and Mr. Benjamin (along with furry friends, Bandit and Charlie) will present this wonderful gift personally to children of a local school in Palm Beach County later this spring. The gift includes an interactive story time with Loretta Neff, children's author and EWF founder, and signed books for 480 children.
"Arthur Benjamin's generous gift is just one more example of his leadership and devotion to education and the humanities", said founder and executive director, Loretta Neff. "This milestone demonstrates the fact that donors see our passion for what we do and understand the importance of our cause. Arthur was the first to offer support last year as a Founders Society donor and event title sponsor and we owe him a debt of gratitude", commented Loretta Neff, founder of the EW Foundation.
Since 2014, EWF has benefited over 10,113 children with their award-winning books and programs and provided author visits and signed copies of Author Loretta Neff's first book, Tame Your Manners, to twenty (20) academies and schools and fourteen (14) charities.


Props: Use the song written by Judy Raizor, "Pokey Was His Name-O" to teach to the children. It is sung to the tune of B-I-N-G-O.
Summary: Jesus was humble on Palm Sunday when he was presented as Israel's Messiah. We should be humble and not make fun of others less fortunate than ourselves. This sermon helps young children learn to accept the mentally disabled.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon a burro, and upon a colt, the foal of a burro.
Now about 500 years later, Jesus was about to go up to a city called Jerusalem. He was going to the temple (a very big church). Many people loved Jesus so much that they thought he ought to be their King. They were tired of the Roman soldiers that lived in their land and refused to obey God. They were tired of being treated so badly by strangers who were cruel and mean.
Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Bethphage, there lived a little burro with his mother. He was not as fast as the other little burros. When he brayed he did not sound a "hee haw" like the other burros. He just sort of said "haw" and that was all. The other little burros used to make fun of him. In fact, they called him Pokey because he was SO SLOW. The other burros jumped and bounced around whenever their owner tried to put things on their backs to carry down the road. But not Pokey, he was meek (that means gentle) and he would carry the burdens of his owner quietly without making even a peep of a bray.
"Oh, Momma!" said Pokey. "Did you hear that?" "Yes, son," she replied, "I am so proud of you." Then they put garments on Pokey's back and Jesus sat on Pokey. Then Pokey followed beside his mother as Jesus held on. They walked slowly up the hill. The people cut palm tree branches and laid them along the path and shouted: Blessing and honor to the son of David; Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. Blessing and honor in the highest.
Now some of you boys and girls may see some children that are not as fast as others at school. They may talk differently or even look a little different, but they are trying just as hard as you. They are SPECIAL to God (mentally disabled), to show us how to be gentle and patient and willing to help others. Now I do not want you to make fun of them. Instead, remember the story of Pokey the little burro, and understand that God has made a special purpose for each one of us.
Special thanks to Judy Raizor for writing the words to her song "Pokey Was His Name-O" and giving permission to include it here.
And Pokey was his name-o.
And Jesus will be happy.


Want some well earned tips on how to make yourself feel better on a daily basis? Meet transformation leaders and an inspiring father-son team, Chief & Sarge!
The High Vibe Tribe Interviews from TheMindBodySpiritNetwork.com introduce your to powerful change agents that have been through challenging life situations that they've decided to overcome in a big way!
Today's transformational leadership team is a fun, lively and inspiring father-son duo called Chief and Sarge.
Chief is Chief Harold Peck JR, a former 26 year Army Veteran with 5 deployments to Iraq, has overcome significant mental, emotional and spiritual challenges in his life to get where he is today. It is because of his ability to overcome these challenges and have a fun and fulfilling life that he is inspired to help you do the same as well.
Sarge is Harold's 18 year old son Phillip who has literally died twice, had two heart attacks (one that was featured on local news when he was 9 years old) and 3 major surgeries. He too has been in the depths of darkness.
E + R = O or Event + Response = Outcome.
Change your mindset about how you choose to respond to an event and you change your life in whatever direction your mindset is going.
Do you tend towards the victimhood mindset where you find yourself pointing and blaming outside of you? Or do you accept responsibility for your own power and how you choose to respond to anything?
Listen in to today's High Vibe Tribe Interview as Chief & Sarge share 3 simple strategies for how to make yourself feel better while brushing your teeth!
You can subscribe to Chief & Sarge's YouTube CHannel here and tap into the high vibe energy, fitness, fun and joy-FULL living of this father son transformation team.
Check out Chief Harold Peck's Transformational Leadership and Change Your Mindset, Change Your Life website here.
Do You Find Yourself Falling Into Energy Sinkholes?
.You can connect with this inspirational transformational leader in The Mind Body Spirit Network here.
If you want to tap into the fun, fitness and lively conversation with Chief and Sarge, subscribe to their YouTube Channel here.


text:
Q: Efficiently Find Unique Intermediate Nodes Connecting Two Sets of Nodes in Neo4j/Cypher I have data on movies that can be either comedies or dramas.  I have actors in those movies, who can have multiple roles per movie.  I want to find all distinct sets of movies and actors where:
(drama1:Movie {Genre:'Drama'})-[role1]-(actor1:Actor)-[role2]-(comedy:Movie {Genre:'Comedy'})-[role3]-(actor2:Actor)-[role4]-(drama2:Movie {Genre:'Drama'})
That is, I want to find where two (different) dramas are connected by a comedy with which both dramas share at least one actor.  I'm struggling to do this efficiently and to get neo4j to give me distinct groups of drama1,drama2,actor1,actor2,comedy.   My data is on the order of a few million nodes and tens of millions of relationships, so efficiency is important.  A toy setup, which can be plugged into the neo4j online console is:
create (a:Movie {Genre:'Comedy'}), (b:Movie {Genre:'Comedy'}), (c:Movie {Genre:'Comedy'}), (d:Movie {Genre:'Comedy'}), (f:Movie {Genre:'Drama'}), (h:Movie {Genre:'Drama'}),(i:Actor {Name:'Sarah'}),(j:Actor {Name: 'Maria'}),(k:Actor {Name:'Mike'}),(l:Actor {Name:'Jane'}),(m:Actor {Name:'Sam'}),(q:Actor {Name:'Matt'}),(r:Actor {Name:'Tom'}), (i)-[:ActedIn]->(a),  (i)-[:ActedIn]->(a) , (i)-[:ActedIn]->(a), (i)-[:ActedIn]->(a) , (i)-[:ActedIn]->(f) , (j)-[:ActedIn]->(b) , (j)-[:ActedIn]->(h) , (j)-[:ActedIn]->(h) , (q)-[:ActedIn]->(c) , (q)-[:ActedIn]->(b) , (q)-[:ActedIn]->(a) , (r)-[:ActedIn]->(f) , (r)-[:ActedIn]->(f) , (r)-[:ActedIn]->(a) , (j)-[:ActedIn]->(b) , (j)-[:ActedIn]->(c) , (k)-[:ActedIn]->(d), (l)-[:ActedIn]->(c) , (i)-[:ActedIn]->(a) , (i)-[:ActedIn]->(h) , (m)-[:ActedIn]->(h)
I've mostly tried variations of
match (drama1:Movie {Genre:'Drama'})-[role1]-(actor1:Actor)-[role2]-(comedy:Movie {Genre:'Comedy'})-[role3]-(actor2:Actor)-[role4]-(drama2:Movie {Genre:'Drama'}) return drama1,actor1,comedy,actor2,drama2

A: You can use a multi match query like this:
MATCH p = (drama1:Movie {Genre:'Drama'})-[r1]-(a1)-[r2]-(comedy:Movie {Genre:'Comedy'})-[r3]-(a2)-[r4]-(drama2:Movie {Genre:'Drama'})
MATCH (drama1)-[]-(a:Actor)-[]-(drama2)
WHERE drama1<>drama2
RETURN nodes(p)

Query explanation:

*

*The first MATCH find 2 dramas connected by a comedy

*The second MATCH tells that the 2 dramas have to be connected by the same actor

*The WHERE clause indicate that the 2 dramas have to be different

*RETURN clause returns the pattern

There is no much to do to optimize the query because you are not filtering by any property, so you are going through the entire graph. You can try creating an index on 'Genre' property but it's not recomended if you only have two different values.
An other option is using SKIP/LIMIT to retrive patterns in smaller bulks:
MATCH p = (drama1:Movie {Genre:'Drama'})-[r1]-(a1)-[r2]-(comedy:Movie {Genre:'Comedy'})-[r3]-(a2)-[r4]-(drama2:Movie {Genre:'Drama'})
MATCH (drama1)-[]-(a:Actor)-[]-(drama2)
WHERE drama1<>drama2
RETURN nodes(p) SKIP 0 LIMIT 100000

This query gets the first 100k patterns and then you have to increment the skip to get the next 100k (SKIP 100000 LIMIT 100000). By this way you have to run 10 queries to get all patterns.


SOMA MOVE – Presence in breath and movement.
Join us in a powerful and flowing SOMA MOVE session where we let the breath lead us through flowing and never ending movements. You will experience a combination of power, grace, sweat and presence.


Linus Roth adds a new and very moving and consoling album to his discography with music by Hartmann, Weinberg and Shostakovich.
What a delight, surprise, and opportunity it must be, for a musician to find an unperformed, unrecorded, entirely or relatively unknown piece of music by a major composer, indeed by one of the Greats—Shostakovich in this case. What we have here is nothing less than Dmitri Shostakovich's Unfinished Sonata for Violin and Piano—the complete and massive double exposition of the first movement of what would have been a grand-scale work along strict classical lines. Shostakovich wrote it in June of 1945. Manashir Iakubov writes in the introduction of the score, published by the Dmitri Shostakovich Archive in 2012, that the sonata-movement contains a particularly strong link to the Tenth Symphony, in which Shostakovich would go on to recycle both themes of the exposition.
The Concerto funebre began life in a particularly dark period of Karl Amadeus Hartmann's. Freedom, indeed humanity, seemed under siege in the late summer of 1939. In this climate, Hartmann set out to write a funereal piece for string orchestra in one movement. Just a few months later it had morphed into the four-movement Violin Concerto—the Concerto funebre. The "Violin-Concertino" —as the German composer and music theorist Winfried Zillig refers to it—is such a profound and deeply personal musical statement that it communicates this with moving immediacy to the listener even today... It was "a counterpoint of profound mourning to the hysterical jubilations during the Polish campaign" (Zillig).
Concertino for Violin and Strings while on summer holidays: its lyrical sweep and its tender gracefulness are magnificent.
Right around the same time, and equally of (partially) upbeat and romantic disposition is the Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes op.47: he thought strictly of his mother's homeland when working on this rousing miscellany of tunes and themes that doesn't sound so differently from what the Georgian Aram Khachaturian composed at the time.


This award serves as an incentive to participate in ET@MO's Online Teaching Foundations Program. Online Teaching Foundations is a program for Mizzou instructors interested in exploring teaching online or building on their previous experience.
Award applied to professional development activities including conference or webinar registration, books, resources, etc.
The instructor's academic unit also will receive $250 upon the instructor's completion of the ET@MO course.
As a recipient, you will be invited to participate in a campus conference or presentation so that you may share the applications of your learning with the campus community.
All ET@MO requirements for successful completion of the Online Teaching Foundations Program apply.
Instructors (regular and adjunct) teaching an online (OL) or e-learning (EL) class supported by Mizzou Online are eligible.
This is a two-part application.
Share a summary of what you desire to learn from the program.
Upload a summary of your take-aways from the program. Provide specific examples of how you will incorporate these in your online class(es).
Note The incentive cannot be applied to participation prior to Spring 2016.


text:
Who Believes in Kushner's Peace Plan? Apparently Not Kushner
Peter Isackson • May 09, 2019
Jared Kushner (right) on 8/4/2017 © Michael Candelori / Shutterstock
Once again, the Trump administration tells us the "deal of the century" will be revealed in a month or so, possibly only to be laughed at.
The world continues to wait in anxious anticipation of what was once called Donald Trump and Jared Kushner's "deal of the century" for the Middle East. It may soon be known as "deal of a century" since there's no telling which century it might be revealed in. That should keep it in the news for some time to come as its release can always be announced as imminent.
Although recently expected for mid-April and previously March, February and January as well as most of the tail end of 2018, the Kushner plan may be released after Islamic month of Ramadan in early June or — according to Al Jazeera — "perhaps not even then."
Jared Kushner, the identified author, appears worried, if not depressed, by the potential critical reception of his masterpiece. "It's been very disheartening for us to see the Palestinian leadership has basically been attacking a plan (when) they don't know what it is," he said. The one thing they do know, however, is that the plan's author and the Trump administration as a whole appear to be so ashamed of its contents that they keep postponing the date at which their opponents will have a chance to "know what it is."
Here is today's 3D definition:
Disheartening:
Deeply disappointing for people who fail to make the slightest effort to understand the futility of their own expectations or the arrogance they project to those they hope to convince
Contextual note
Kushner, the son-in-law of America's grand master of the "art of the deal," doesn't appear to have absorbed the key lessons his father-in-law guru should have taught him. One of the first principles of negotiations should be: Don't denigrate the party you're negotiating with, especially if the terms of the negotiation have not yet been made clear. But here is what Kushner says of the Palestinians: "If they truly cared about making the lives of the Palestinian people better, I think they would have taken very different decisions over the past year — and maybe over the last 20 years."
The Jerusalem Post now affirms that "the plan will be unveiled in June." Quoting Kushner himself, it reveals how little confidence the author of the deal has in the eventuality of a positive reception. All he can do is hope against hope and count on both parties "believing" in his plan. "I hope they will look at it and suss it and see if they do believe that this is a pathway for a better future." Kushner even resorted to use the informal British term "suss," which no Brit would use in such a way and in such a context. This may simply prove that anyone incapable of understanding the practices and assumptions of one culture (Arab) will probably also have difficulty with another one (British).
In an article that begins with the idea that "two states" doesn't mean the same thing to Israelis and Palestinians, Kushner used a technocratic ploy to avoid dealing with this major issue. "If you say two state, it means one thing to the Israelis and one thing to the Palestinians, so we said let's just not say it, let's just work on the details of what it means," he said. It's similar to defining the forest one tree at a time before agreeing that the forest exists.
The Times of Israel repeats Kushner's explanation that the "peace plan is going to be centered around the 'bottom-up' model — 'which is how do you make the lives of the Palestinian people better.'" At least this is clear. He defines the Palestinians as the bottom, who may one day — if they renounce their "evil" ways — aspire to a prosperity similar to (but certainly not equal to) the Israelis' prosperity. It's the tiny carrot that replaces the big stick. Explaining his bottom-up approach, he added that he was looking at what they could "resolve to allow these areas to become more investable." Just as Trump lectured Kim Jong-un about the value of North Korean beach property, Kushner appears to be sticking to the party line if not following Trump's one-track mind. After all, what is Gaza other than a future Honolulu in the making?
Historical note
Kushner has been preparing his plan for two years, practically since President Trump's inauguration in January 2017. Some may remember that at that time, Trump made Kushner "personally responsible for an astonishing variety of tasks, despite lacking any apparent knowledge or experience relevant to any of them." Now, as the media awaits the reaction to Kushner's solution for the Middle East, the president's son-in-law has begun pitching his solution to immigration across the US-Mexico border. The pre-release buildup has begun with a briefing of Republicans in Congress, though no one will be surprised to learn that "a senior administration official … declined to say when the White House would release the plan publicly or when Trump hopes to see action in Congress."
Jared Kushner lets us know that his peace plan emerged from his own study of the history of Middle East peace plans. He proudly announces the innovative tack he has taken: "We've taken what I think is an unconventional approach. We've studied the past efforts and how they failed and why they failed … We've tried to do it a bit differently." Most observers take the last part of the sentence to translate as: Why they failed … We've tried to do it [fail] a bit differently. And in that he is likely to succeed.
Nothing illustrates Kushner's confusion and ignorance more than when he "cited as a 'good attempt' the Arab Peace Initiative adopted by 22 Arab states in 2002. 'But if that would've worked, we would've made peace a long time ago on that basis.'" That should stand as one of the great tautologies in the history of global diplomacy. Seventeen years after the event, we learn that if a proposed peace plan had worked, peace would have been the result. The French call that a lapalissade, derived from the name of Jacques La Palice, a 16th-century nobleman. The classic example is: "If he weren't dead, he would still be alive."
*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil's Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer's editorial policy.
CategoriesAmerican News, Arab News, Donald Trump News, Middle East & North Africa, Middle East News, North America, Opinion, Politics, US news, US politics news, World News TagsIsrael, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Jared Kushner, Jared Kushner news, Latest news, Middle East, Middle East news, Middle East peace plan, news on Jared Kushner, world news
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


How to find more about an individual loan and compare loans?
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After having such a long break over summer coupled with the summer assignment "A8 Monkey Business" I was quite looking forward to returning to college and working in the college environment again. I do feel however that it was a beneficial task to complete a whole assignment with hardly any reference to both tutors and my peers as it taught me to be much more independent and work through problems myself.
During the first week back we were handed out the new assignments "A9 Box Clever", "A10 iMe" and "A11 On the Job". My first thought as we started looking through the assignments was how much the standard of the work has increased now we have moved into the second year. Even though we had been told previously that the work was going to get much harder and that we were going to need much more stamina this year I feel that it really hit home during the first week. This is something that I am relishing however as I feel that you need to be constantly challenging yourself if you want to improve.
The sessions that we are having with John throughout the first semester are working on assignment "A9 Box Clever". I was quite eager to start with this assignment as it involves creating a CSS page which I feel is going to be one of the most useful skills to have when it comes to gaining employment. Over the last 3 weeks we have been going through several tutorials to supplement the lectures that we have had. I feel has been really advantageous as I am already starting to feel much more comfortable using CSS than I was before the assignment started.
Along with the tutorials we have also been working on the first essay of the assignment which was to "Evaluate the impact that CSS has had on web design to date". I have been quite happy with the progress that I have made on this essay as I have completed several drafts to the point where it is now almost complete. I feel that I have really benefited from John being able to look through the essay and suggest ways in which I could improve as I have been looking much closer at what I'm doing. I now feel quite confident that after a few alterations in my self study this week the essay will be finished to the correct standard.
I have also learnt that I have passed assignment "A8 Monkey Business" since I returning back to college. I had mixed emotions about this because on the one hand I was quite relieved that I had passed but on the other was disappointed that I couldn't achieve a Merit. I think that this was a good experience for me as it has stopped any complacency which may have been creeping in and I am now focused on achieving higher grades for the present assignments. If I were to do the assignment again I would spend much more time evidencing my research as I feel that this was the major factor on missing out on the higher grades this time around. Evidencing my research is something that I am going to be much more aware of for future assignments.
The assignment that we have been focusing on with Steve since we returned is "A11 On the Job". This assignment involves undertaking a live project as a member of a team. One of the first tasks that we had to do was to decide which member of the team would be the most appropriate for the roles of Project Manager, Designer and Developer. After a brief meeting we decided that I would take the role of Project Manager, Marc would take the role of Designer and Rich would take the role of Developer. One of our first tasks was to give a presentation including designs for a generic Nursery and Sports team. This was an extremely challenging task as we were only given a minimal amount of lesson time accompanied by our self study to get prepared for this. However I do feel that we communicated well for this and were quite prepared for presentation given the circumstances.
After actually giving the presentation I was not confident that we would be given any of the projects and felt that the dynamics of the team weren't quite right. A short time later we were told that we would not be doing any of the projects and that we would need to find our own clients which I felt proved that something needed to change. I decided to hold a team meeting to discuss how we felt everything went and how we were going to progress as a team from here. After quite a constructive meeting we decided that the team would benefit from a restructuring of our roles and it was decided that Rich would take the role of Project Manager, I would take the role of Designer and Marc would take the role of Developer.
In the last week we have advanced quite a lot with the assignment and we have now got one client with the possibility of another also. It is not really possible to judge how the team has changed since deciding to swap roles but it is very encouraging that we have been able to find a client so quickly and get the ball rolling.
I am pleased to see that you managed to find a client so soon after missing out on the two jobs we had to pitch for.
We are yet to have a meeting with our client and I already feel that we are behind in our overall schedule.
I think we will have a busy couple of weeks to catch up!
Thanks Scott. We have been pretty lucky that we knew somebody who wanted a website straight away. We have managed to have 3 or 4 meetings with the client now and are presenting our final digital screen design on Monday.
Im surprised you havent had the chance to meet with your client yet but hopefully you will be able to catch up soon!


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Home Web Specials 2010 Web Specials 4,000 workers go on strike in Rangoon
2010 Web Specials
4,000 workers go on strike in Rangoon
Burma, 6 March 2010 – In the latest escalation of labour tensions in Burma, around 4,000 factory workers at an industrial estate on the outskirts of Rangoon staged a sit-in on Saturday to demand better pay, according to sources in the area.
Workers at two garment factories in South Dagon Township's No. 2 Industrial Zone began their strike at around 8.00am, the sources said.
"When the workers got out of the company bus this morning, they refused to enter the factory compound," said an eyewitness, adding that riot police arrived at the scene soon after the strike began.
The factories are owned by a company called SGI.
"The factory owner said he would comply with the workers' demands, but he forced them to go home," said another person who witnessed this latest mass action by Burmese workers.
In recent months, workers employed by factories in Burma's commercial capital have shown growing dissatisfaction with stagnant wages, as inflation continues to erode the value of their earnings, most of which are spent on the purchase of basic commodities.
Meanwhile, there were also reports that several thousand factory workers in Shwepyithar Township, on the western outskirts of Rangoon, also staged a sit-in on Friday to demand higher wages and better working conditions.
Labour Ministry representatives were involved in negotiations between the workers and the factory management, the reports said.
According to a senior official from the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI), the unrest is related to recent pay hikes for government employees. Public servants' monthly salaries were raised by a flat rate of 20,000 kyat ($20) in January.
READ MORE: Artikel khusus berkaitan antirasuah harus dimasuk dalam perjanjian perundingan kolektif (Malay/English)
The UMFCCI senior official said that the wages of garment factory workers are significantly lower than that of workers in Cambodia and Vietnam.
"The basic monthly salary of workers here is US $30-50, while workers in Cambodia and Vietnam are earning at least $120 a month," he said. – Irrawaddy.org
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Kinetics of crystal growth in a terrestrial magma ocean
Solomatov, Viatcheslav S. and Stevenson, David J. (1993) Kinetics of crystal growth in a terrestrial magma ocean. Journal of Geophysical Research E, 98 (E3). pp. 5407-5418. ISSN 0148-0227. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20130625-093544733
The problem of crystal sizes is one of the central problems of differentiation of a terrestrial magma ocean and it has been an arbitrary parameter in previous models. The crystal sizes are controlled by kinetics of nucleation and crystal growth in a convective magma ocean. In contrast with crystallization in magma chambers, volcanic lavas, dikes, and other relatively well studied systems, nucleation and crystallization of solid phases occur due to the adiabatic compression in downward moving magma (adiabatic "cooling"). This problem is solved analytically for an arbitrary crystal growth law, using the following assumptions: convection is not influenced by the kinetics, interface kinetics is the rate controlling mechanism of crystal growth, and the adiabatic cooling is sufficiently slow for the asymptotic solution to be valid. The problems of nucleation and crystal growth at constant heat flux from the system and at constant temperature drop rate are shown to be described with similar equations. This allows comparison with numerical and experimental data available for these cases. A good agreement was found. When, during the cooling, the temperature drops below the temperature of the expected solid phase appearance, the subsequent evolution consists of three basic periods: cooling without any nucleation and crystallization, a short time interval of nucleation and initial crystallization (relaxation to equilibrium), and slow crystallization due to crystal growth controlled by quasi-equilibrium cooling. In contrast to previously discussed problems, nucleation is not as important as the crystal growth rate function and the rate of cooling. The physics of this unusual behavior is that both the characteristic nucleation rate and the time interval during which the nucleation takes place are now controlled by a competition between the cooling and crystallization rates. A probable size range for the magma ocean is found to be 10^(−2) − 1 cm, which is close to the upper bound for the critical crystal size dividing fractional and nonfractional crystallization discussed elsewhere in this issue. Both the volatile content and pressure are important and can influence the estimate by 1–2 orders of magnitude. Different kinds of Ostwald ripening take place in the final stage of the crystal growth. If the surface nucleation is the rate-controlling mechanism of crystal growth at small supercooling, then the Ostwald ripening is negligibly slow. In the case of other mechanisms of crystal growth, the crystal radius can reach the critical value required to start the fractional crystallization. It can happen in the latest stages of the evolution when the crystals do not dissolve completely and the time for the ripening is large.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/92JE02839 DOI Article
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/92JE02839/abstract Publisher Article
© 1993 by the American Geophysical Union. Received May 5, 1992; revised September 9, 1992; accepted December 4, 1992. The authors wish to thank the reviewers G. Lofgren and K. V. Cashman for thoughtful criticism of the first version of the paper. Experimental data on plagioclase were substantially extended by courtesy of K. V. Cashman. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant EAR-89-16611.
NSF EAR 89-16611
Official Citation:
Solomatov, V. S., and D. J. Stevenson (1993), Kinetics of crystal growth in a terrestrial magma ocean, J. Geophys. Res., 98(E3), 5407–5418, doi:10.1029/92JE02839


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Welcome to the award winning Ilkley Chat!
ILKLEY NEWS
ASK ILKLEY
Survey asks for views on Ilkley's Riverside parks and playground
The Ilkley Playground Project is back and is calling for the community to share their thoughts on what the future playground should look like as well as broader views on the Riverside Parks area.
A comprehensive online survey has been developed and is being shared through local media and community groups.
A newly formed committee chaired by Nicola Holmes, owner of local events & photography company Soul & Co, is working closely with Friends of Ilkley Riverside Parks to research and investigate aspects such as user frequency and behavior and desired play equipment.
Nicola says: "before moving ahead with any plans or fundraising we want to engage the community and work with them to design a playground that is fit for purpose and is accessible for all ages and abilities."
The Ilkley playground and the Riverside Parks are widely used by the Ilkley community. During lockdown there has been reporting of a poor state of repair of many pieces of play equipment and it is clear that a total overhaul is required. The playground is a focus point for visitors to the Parks and we want to ensure the experience is as enjoyable and positive as possible.
Kyle Green, District Councilor for Ilkley and Ben Rhydding added: "since my election I have been banging the drum for better investment by Bradford Council in Ilkley, including asking for support to help make the Riverside park area somewhere residents and visitors can come and enjoy responsibly. I have been delighted to work on this survey with the excellent volunteers who I am working hard with to help ensure both the park areas and playground are invested in adequately by Bradford Council, as well as making sure that residents' views are listened to."
The survey can be completed at https://s.surveyplanet.com/ecUbJYoWVj
Ilkley Local History Hub to he held virtually
Manor House coffee mornings return
Northern to launch lockdown timetables
© Copyright Ilkley Chat 2021


We hear many apocryphal tales regarding the evils of smartphones and the Internet.
Myriad cartoons, blogs and articles bemoaning the dumbing down of society and the lack of interaction they have caused.
I am aware of these cautionary tales and I am sure there is some merit in having concerns, but I am now speaking from personal experience and I can honestly say that, when used correctly, they can revolutionize your life.
No statistics or research studies to cite, just what I have personally experienced since leaving behind everything I knew to finally go and see this wonderful planet of ours.
I don't have years of experience of travel, but I do have years of experience of the internet and downloading useful apps to my iPhone.
Here are some of the ways this has made my new travel addiction a fun and worry-free experience.
Firstly, getting to your first destination.
From the comfort of my most recent temporary home I logged into Skyscanner.
This is a fantastic app that scans the majority of flight providers to find you the cheapest or quickest or most direct options available.
It even allows you to look at the cheapest options in a range of dates so you don't have to search each time for the best option.
Once you have chosen the flight that you want, you can click on it and it will take you to the website you need to complete the transaction.
My first flight was with RyanAir and I got directed to their app, which just made things even easier.
I am pretty sure that all major flight providers have an app now, but this is the one that I used and it made the daunting task of catching a flight easier than getting a bus in London.
From this app I was able to choose my flight and pay for it using either PayPal or my bank card, without having to leave my chair.
The app walked me through any additional extras that I might want, such as a window seat, express boarding, baggage, etc., and within minutes I had paid for my flight.
I got an email very shortly after that which told me I could now check in.
I went to the app, checked in online and had the electronic boarding pass on my iPhone ready to go straight to my flight.
No printing, no fuss, no additional charge, no time wasted.
Two apps down and I was already 1,400 miles into my journey.
Once I left my base in the UK I would be reliant on 4G until I hit a free WiFi spot.
While 4G is great, it isn't always reliable and usually comes with a cost attached.
This cost can get enormous once you've left your home country.
Within Europe, cafes and bars are wising up to the fact that their clients will often consider connectivity before deciding where to stop, so there are lots of places now offering free WiFi.
If you need to log in to work out your next move then knowing the nearest WiFi spot is priceless.
There are several WiFi-finding apps to choose from, but WifiMap.io is my favorite, as it provides the passwords too, so you don't have to worry about asking for them and not being understood.
This app will also provide a link to any details regarding the establishment, so you can make sure you'll be sitting somewhere pleasant while you get on with any necessary admin.
Now this one seems obvious, but I'm really not convinced that everyone uses it to its full potential.
I have a very loose itinerary on this vacation so that I can be flexible and go where the wind takes me.
Google Maps has made this very possible in numerous ways.
On one occasion, while in Malaga, Spain, it became necessary for me to move on to a new destination sooner than expected.
I had a vague idea of my ultimate destination and zooming in and out of the map made it possible for me to check out all of the options for towns and cities that I may have wanted to visit on the way.
Upon deciding that I would either head to Seville or Granada I simply typed Granada into the app and then hit the blue button in the bottom right in order to get directions.
On the next page it starts with driving directions along with a handy estimated duration, but I don't intend to be driving very much on this journey.
However, if you look just above the map there are choices for driving, cycling, walking and public transport.
Click on the public transport button and Google Maps will have found you options for buses, trains, trams and underground services.
Each leg of the trip is clearly marked, and you can choose either a start time or an arrival time and you can opt not to show any of the options if you want to avoid buses or the underground, for example.
This service even shows you exactly where the stops are, what the codes are for the bus stops (if there is one) and the timetable for the service you are considering.
If you want to buy a ticket ahead of time there is often a link to the transport provider's website.
Now I have only used this in Europe, but so far it has not let me down once.
It is also possible to find useful places by asking the app.
Post offices, banks, supermarkets, cinemas, cafes and most places that you may want to visit are already programmed in.
Just type in what you want and you will be shown where the nearest ones are along with details of their websites and services.
On top of these incredibly helpful and practical uses the app has also helped me out with sightseeing.
When I went to Sevilla I knew that there were one or two places that I absolutely had to see.
Both Star Wars and Game of Thrones (I'm a big fan) were filmed at the Real Alcazar Palace and the Plaza de Espana and I wasn't going to leave before I had walked in the footsteps of some of my heroes.
I didn't need the addresses of these landmarks; I just started typing in the names of the places and there they were in my drop-down list, so I clicked on them and I had walking directions all the way to my destination.
Priceless! In fact, priceless is the right word because once you've had your route mapped out with the little blue dots it is possible to turn off your connection and save that precious 4G access, as Google Maps will continue to tell you where you are on the map without connecting to the internet.
Obviously you can't amend your route without logging back in, but you can get to your destination.
This is without question the most useful tool in your box, so don't leave home without it.
This may get a few raised eyebrows — how on Earth can a place for sharing photographs make travel any easier?
When we consider traveling, we often take into account the practical considerations such as where we're going to stay, how much it will cost and how we're going to get there, but we often overlook the more emotional difficulties we might encounter.
After a difficult few days in a place I wasn't enjoying I had fled to the nearest establishment that provided free WiFi in order to plan my next move.
Once I had settled myself into the beachfront cafe with a rare, but absolutely necessary, beer and free WiFi, I decided it was time to feel connected to some much-missed family and friends.
There is more criticism of these sorts of platforms than any other type of internet use; however, when used correctly they work exactly as they were originally intended.
They keep people separated by distance and circumstance, yet still connected.
I took some lovely shots of my spot on the beach, uploaded them with an explanation that things had gone awry but were back on track now and posted my story.
As I sat working out where I was going next I was able to see likes and comments come pouring in.
You know when you have a bad day and you need to offload?
Well, when you're on a one-woman nomadic trip to who knows where, that can be tricky.
I think that the thought of being separated in this way can put people off the idea of travel, but I can confirm that there in that cafe I offloaded.
I chatted with friends who were online there and then fielded messages from people who were aware of my situation and were pleased I was out of it, and received a few 'atta girls' on Instagram from well-intentioned strangers.
Within an hour I felt infinitely better and ready for the next adventure.
It's not an obvious one, but in an article about technology making travel easy, social media has to be very high on the list.
The language barrier can be incredibly daunting and, while English is a second language in much of Europe, it is always appreciated when you are seen to be making an effort by the locals.
iTranslate is a fantastic tool to have at your disposal.
There are hundreds of languages to choose from and you can easily switch between writing in English and getting a translation or writing in the word or phrase that you don't understand and having it translated for you.
It also has an option to hear the word so that you can be sure of getting your pronunciation just right.
This handy little app also has a way to get around the worry of being stuck somewhere without a signal because you can download a language pack if you know that you will be in the same country for a while.
The more you use a language in the real world the more it sinks in, so you will definitely be learning a new skill while also making your travels that much easier.
At this early stage of my adventure, it is already clear to see how technology is helping me to achieve my mission to travel the world.
I'm also able to do it with very few resources and still enjoy every step of the journey.
I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to be as extreme in their approach to travel as I have been, but I hope that I have demonstrated how being adventurous doesn't require bravery as much as it does free WiFi connections!
A very welcome development for the modern day Phileas Fogg.
P.S. What is your favorite travel app?


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Photos from the Liverpool F.C.-A.S. Roma Rematch at Fenway Park
Hosting this second meeting of these two clubs in three years, Boston has finally become electric for soccer.
By Matthew Reed Baker·	 7/24/2014, 11:17 a.m.
These people are not watching baseball / Photo by Jesse Burke
Liverpool F.C. and A.S. Roma have been in Boston all week in anticipation of Wednesday night's rematch from their game here back in 2012, which Roma won 2-1. Two years ago, both teams were facing unsure futures, having just come off mediocre seasons with LFC finishing 8th in the British Premier League and Roma finishing 7th in the Italian Serie A. Those couple of years have made quite a difference as both teams are coming off powerful 2013-2014 seasons, each finishing 2nd in their leagues, qualifying for the Champions League, and stocking various World Cup teams with their players. For these reasons—and simply because more Americans are interested in watching soccer live after the World Cup—the mood was far more electric in the stadium and around town this year.
At Fenway Park, red Liverpool jerseys were far more dominant, but Roma did have a big turnout of fans, too. There were even a handful of fans wearing their German national team gear, still high off Die Mannschaft's World Cup championship. Before the game, a bit of history was necessary, as this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough stadium disaster that killed 96 Liverpool fans and changed security procedures at soccer games ever since. Kenny Dalglish, who was the star player and team manager at that match, came out a released 96 red balloons during a moment of silence.
Then the game was on, and let's face it: it was a friendly, which means of course that it was a preseason match where the coaches are just trying to see what works and get younger players more time on the pitch. Neither team dominated and the match was scoreless for 90 minutes. Liverpool excelled at possession at midfield, while Roma had more penetration and stronger attempts on goal. Fans got to see impressive play from new players Emre Can and Rickie Lambert, who had Liverpool's best shot on goal in the game, and then there was whirling-dervish midfielder Philippe Coutinho, who confused every Roma player and set up plays for his teammates all over the field. As for Gerrard, Sturridge, Kolo Toure, and other stars who had been in the World Cup, their training regimen started late due to that tournament, so they mostly didn't play. But they did come out to midfield at halftime for a special introduction, so fans could see them and pay tribute.
And then, the 90th minute brought chaos in front of the Liverpool goal and a score for Roma. It was credited to Roma's Marco Borriello, but the main thing we saw was the ball going between defensive sub Jack Robinson's legs. Game over: Liverpool 0, Roma 1.
Roma thanked their fans in left field, and the whole Liverpool team took a long, slow lap around the stadium, led by manager Brendan Rodgers, who applauded the crowd. So sure, Liverpool is now 0-2 at their Boston home, but the end result mattered only so much. To the supporters who lingered and lingered until the last player left the field, what mattered most was that they were here again.
Before the match gets underway, fans line up for photo ops outside of Fenway Park.Photo by Jesse Burke
A man plays the bagpipes before the match.Photo by Jesse Burke
Liverpool players line up with young fans before the game, which kicked off the club's pre-season tour and includes stops in Chicago, NYC, and more.Photo by Jesse Burke
Fenway Park was packed for the 'Football at Fenway' match between AS Roma and Liverpool FC. The teams last faced off in July 2012 at Fenway, when Roma won 1-0.Photo by Jesse Burke
The friendly match gets underway.Photo by Jesse Burke
Liverpool defender Martin Skrtel.Photo by Jesse Burke
Roma forward Francesco Totti.Photo by Jesse Burke
Liverpool goalie Brad Jones.Photo by Jesse Burke
Fans at the match.Photo by Jesse Burke
A fan (wearing a Red Sox hat) steps in to field the ball.Photo by Jesse Burke
A fan watches the match from the crowd.Photo by Jesse Burke
Liverpool midfielder Emre Can.Photo by Jesse Burke
Liverpool striker Rickie Lambert.Photo by Jesse Burke
Roma pulls out a win in the final minutes, 1-0, and the squad's outnumbered fans show off their pride.Photo by Jesse Burke
Liverpool goalie Brad Jones gets some love from his fans as he walks off the field.Photo by Jesse Burke
A Liverpool fan reacts after his team falls to Roma, 1-0.Photo by Jesse Burke
Roma takes the trophy for their win.Photo by Jesse Burke
The Liverpool team looks on as Roma takes the evening's prize.Photo by Jesse Burke
The Insider's Guide to Getting Out of a Parking Ticket in Boston
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SENDING MESSAGES
Two big news stories of the last week are the missile attack on Syria and the "mother of all bombs" being used in Afghanistan. The juxtaposition of these stories with the April tax filing deadline is so ironic it demands comment. These two attacks on other countries are classic examples of why we have budget problems. These stories also speak volumes about who we think we are, vs who we actually are, as a society.
The U.S. attacked an airbase in Syria with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government. Our missile attack was intended to "send a message" to Syria that use of chemical weapons would not be tolerated. But rather than being an effective message, or doing anything about chemical weapons, it appears to be simply a waste of money. Cruise missiles cost over a million dollars apiece. The message sent last week cost us at least $60 million. Yet nothing was accomplished. News reports say the air field is already back in operation. The Assad government is still in place. His military capability was not significantly "degraded." But we are marching deeper into another Middle East quagmire.
Since missiles cannot speak, one would think it a more effective way to "send a message" would be by TALKING with the opposition. We could have had our ambassador deliver the message ….oh…right, WE DON'T HAVE AN AMBASSADOR IN SYRIA!! We cannot talk directly with Assad's government. We have a rocky history of on-and-off diplomatic relations with Syria. We closed our embassy in February of 2012. Syria maintained an embassy in Washington until March of 2014 when we kicked them out.
The attack on Syria says more about our lack of a coherent, consistent foreign policy than any message on chemical weapons. We have no coherent plan to help end the conflict in Syria or restrict chemical weapons. We have no follow up strategy to the bombing. We have no unified international support. This action illustrates the hypocrisy of our overly militarized foreign policy. Yes, Syria violated international law by using chemical weapons. But WE VIOLATED INTERNATIONAL LAW by bombing Syria. One wrong doesn't justify another wrong. It also makes no sense that after 6 years of civil war and an estimated 470,000 Syrians killed that we should be so concerned about 100 more being killed by chemical weapons. When you are dead it makes no difference what weapon was used.
The current administration imposed travel bans on people from some Muslim countries. They closed the country to refugees from war torn Syria. During the campaign Trump said we should stay out of Syria. He did not favor military action to punish the Assad government for earlier use of chemical weapons. DOES ANYONE HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT BECAUSE OF THE RECENT PICTURES OF THE GAS ATTACK HE NOW CARES DEEPLY CARE ABOUT SYRIAN CHILDREN?
Foreign policy is always rooted in domestic politics. I suspect these attacks are about the need to appear "strong." The administration wanted to create the illusion of doing something even if that action was ineffective or costly. These bombings are a cynical effort to divert attention from domestic problems and create media images of President Trump being a tough guy.
The second story is about the use of the largest conventional bomb in world history in Afghanistan. The Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), was nicknamed the Mother of All Bombs. It was thirty feet long and weighed 21,000 pounds. This bomb detonated before it hit the ground obliterating everything in a 1,000 yard radius and sending a lethal shock wave more than a mile. Most news reports say the weapon program cost $314 million to develop and each bomb cost $16 million. Other reports say it only costs $170,000 per bomb. The Pentagon is notorious for poor accounting, so who knows the real story.
Reports are that perhaps about 100 ISIS (Taliban, Al-Qaeda, or whatever we are calling them at the moment) combatants were killed. HOW WE CAN ACCURATE COUNT BODIES FROM THIS POWERFUL A WEAPON IS A MYSTERY. Like in past wars the Pentagon is just making up numbers. Once again this expensive weapon appears to have accomplished very little and didn't change the course of the longest war in U.S. history. After 16 years in Afghanistan we are stuck in a never ending cycle of violence and a never ending waste of our tax dollars.
But war is profitable for the arms merchants. It makes little difference which political party is in charge. We have been bombing in the Middle East almost continuously for 26 years since the first Gulf War in 1991. The situations in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen are not improving. Everyone agrees that there are no military solutions to the civil war in Syria or conflicts in the rest of the region. So why do we think bombing one air field will do any good? Why do we think using a bigger bomb will make a difference?
We like to think of our country as the good guys. We think we promote peace, justice and democracy. But we are known for our military power and not our ability to arbitrate conflicts. We are the largest maker and seller of weapons. We have invaded, destabilized, and overthrown more countries than any other nation. We have a global military presence greater than any empire in the history of the world. And we have refused to cooperate in many efforts to reduce weapons such as landmines and nuclear weapons.
We have a culture that glorifies military action. We consider leaders who use diplomacy to be weak. Robert C. Koehler, a journalist writing in "Common Dreams," asks important questions we all need to consider.
"Why are the weapons of war the only tools we choose to wield — the only tools we can imagine wielding — against the threat we call terrorism? Why are the multi-billion-dollar agencies of government trapped at such a feeble level of consciousness — war consciousness — that they are able to envision nothing but the wreaking of more destruction to "keep us safe," when everything about this activity weakens us, endangers us, makes us ever less safe?"
We should send fewer "messages" and do more actual problem solving.