We couldn't keep up the separation and were overhauled slipping first into second, then third. We held onto third place until the final week of the season when Gosport surprised the competition with a late surge to claim the title.
My plan for the season was to build on the gains of last season. Despite telling the board that ???? was acceptable, deep down I wanted to win the league. This was a very lofty goal, especially given that our squad was not as good as other sides in our Division.
I also wanted to go deep in the Southern League cup as this was a competition which we stood a chance of winning.
Building on the base we established last season I identified areas we needed strengthen. Right back, left and right midfield, and striker were all places I felt we were lacking depth.
Evans had bad luck with injuries last season and was lucky to get a chance this year. Sensing this, he proceeded to break the club record for most goals in the season with 15 from 38 appearances. The starting spot is his to lose moving forward!
Cory Phillips is a youngster who started his career playing for me at Slimbridge. I felt that we had unfinished business and when he was released from Slimbridge I decided to give him a chance. He has played 41 games for us, contributing ten goals with an average rating of 6.70.
Not bad but not great either. He has been playing second fiddle to Evans this season and 22 appearances were off the bench.
Owens made sixteen starts and nine substitute appearances bagging seven goals and six assists. With the decision to play only one striker he struggled to get game time so with his development in mind I decided to send him out on loan for the last two months of the season.
Lil Driver came in when I was searching for a striking alternative to Owens and Evans. Didn't really pan out and only played a handful of games with an injury curtailing his involvement.
Young Ben Lancaster is a pacey winger who has been in a battle with Richard Lovell for the right wing spot. 19 appearances netted him one goal and six assists with a tidy average rating of 6.80.
The battle for the starting position on the right will continue next year, with Owens also being added to the mix. As the wings are a place I am looking to strengthen, it is quite likely that either one or both of these players may be replaced.
Lovell is a home grown right midfield player who has stepped up into the first team. Not as quick as Lancaster, Lovell is a better technician however, and is good with the ball at feet. He favours playing slightly further up the pitch which doesn't suit quite the style of play.
He features in 37 games this year with all of those being starts. He bagged seven goals and six assists and boasted a 6.80 average rating.
New signing Richard Proctor hit the ground running and has been a first choice for most of the season. His participation was cut short by a hamstring injury which saw him miss the last five games of the season, and this injury ultimately hurt our chances of winning the title. His return of eight goals and ten assists was good for a 6.89 average rating.
Although his best position is as an attacking midfield player, he was a standout signing for the team in a more central role. Proctor formed a good partnership with Sutton in the central midfield and I am hopeful that the two of them can push on into the upcoming campaign.
Sutton spent much of the early campaign filling in in the Defensive Midfield role due to Beeney being injured. It wasn't until Beeney's return that he got to play in his more natural role of central midfield. His 46 appearances saw hin grab three goals and eight assists at an average rating of 6.78. What was impressive is the 17 times he featured at CM his average rating jumped to 7.18.
Nathan Tait's appearances few and far between this season. This was mostly due to the move of Richard Sutton up into the central midfield and the arrival of Richard Proctor. This will be his last season with the club.
Danny Scott made 38 appearances for the side this season. 14 of those were off the bench and most of these were in the central midfield. His return of four goals and five assists was quite modest. With the drop in form of David McCall he may well move out wide next season.
It was a season of two halves for David McCall. His return of eight goals and 11 assists at 6.83 sounds impressive. However his production dropped off drastically with only one assist and no goals from 11 Feb and an average rating of only 6.53.
Ged Fitzpatrick didn't get a real chance to impress due to my selection decisions. In hindsight I should have given him a few more starts, but he never stood out as being a better alternative to those players at the club. He did play in the playoff final games and acquitted himself well.
Kelvin Lovelock never got going with the side. He came in when I was trying to find options for backup to McCall on the left but was never able to kick on. He featured in only three games before going out on loan. This kind of signing will not be happening again.
Darron Beeney had a horror season. He broke his leg in almost the first game of the season and was out for five months. He returned to action just after Christmas and featured in 20 matches, during which time he bagged 2 goals and 2 assists. The two goals came in each leg of the final and were instrumental in us getting promoted so fair play to the guy.
Chris Hulbert only played 834 minutes this season and will be lucky to retain his place. He was used a mainly cover in the midfield and looked slightly out of his depth.
Aaron McGreevy was the first choice right back until his form took a dive. This coincided with the campaign reaching a climax and I suspect that he does not handle pressure well. He is definitely lucky to be retained for next year.
Luke Vine came in as an alternative to McGreevy. Sadly he was only an equal to McGreevy and doesn't offer enough to the side. I think there is only room for one of them in the squad moving forward, and as bad as McGreevey played, Vine played worse.
Oliver Bouton has been one of our two top center backs this season. He started 52 games at an average rating of 6.73 and was never substituted!
Extending his contract required little thought on my part! It remains to be seen whether he can make the step up. We will not know until the games start in earnest.
A product of last years youth intake, Jones made 46 starting appearances for the first team this season. He averaged a 6.72 average rating with a 6.88 rating in the playoff matches which augers well for his mental development.
I suspect he may struggle next season against better players however so I am looking to strengthen the central defense and employ him as cover while he matures.
Young Ramsay spent a lot of time on the bench due to his ability to play in any position in the back four. Not really good enough for the side but is kept on the payroll for another season.
Peter Boden was another youth candidate from last season. He didn't impress and only featured in 17 games with a poor rating of 6.53.
Joe Berry was a permanent fixture at left back this season. 45 games with an average rating of 6.70. He managed a 6.88 rating in the playoff's.
Youngster Wood is only cover and I expect he will be replaced next season. He only played two matches this season.
Goalkeeper Dan Harvey had another strong season and was one of the first players who I considered when it came to the next seasons side. I have a feeling that he may come under pressure from youngster Luke Billings who is developing well.
Gerry Harris spent the season on the bench and never featured in the first team. With Billings now firmly the number two keeper, his opportunities will be limited.
I felt it was important that Billings got some game time under his belt so sent him out on loan to Leatherhead for the season. He played 29 games with an average rating of 7.08. He will be back challenging for the first team next year.
Here are the players who joined the side for this campaign.
Nine players left the side. Of these the departure of Simon Warbey was the most disappointing. The fact that he went to a side in the Skrill South was an indication that he was above the current level of Hungerford.
In hindsight the releasing of Tom Harker-Smith might have been a poor decision. A better move would have been to keep him and then replace him with someone better.
Gosport were surprise winners, coming from behind to win a threeway tie on goal difference. Week 46 was the only week they were in first place. They were helped by all of the top three teams being unable to win any of their last three games.
We exceeded expectations in beating both Slimbridge and then Merthyr Town over two legs.
Both wins were by a single goal on aggregate, with us winning the opening leg and then hanging on in the return fixture.
We had a great run and exceeded the targets set by the board. In the end we were bundled out by Bristol Rovers in the fourth qualifying round.
Sadly the same couldn't be said for the run in the Southern League Cup. We put in a poor performance and exited in our first match in the competition.
After careful consideration, this is the team of the year. For a team which was promoted, our numbers were not that great. This doesn't auger well for next seasons campaign in a higher division.
Darron Beeney gets in on the strength of his performance at the tailend of the campaign, while David McCall is lucky to be included as his form tailed off badly towards the end of the campaign.
James Evans was a little fortunate to be in the squad following an injury affected campaign last season. This year he made up for that with a club record 15 goals across all competitions.
I passed the 300 career game mark this season.
The end of my 6th full season in management. During this time I have bagged one title and two promotions.
The upcoming season will be a challenge for me. Can I take a side which was regarded as a lower half side last year and keep them winning at a much higher level.
As discussed elsewhere, my squad building philosophy is based around retaining the first eleven and then go out into the marketplace to recruit someone better who will push the incumbent down the pecking order. Obviously this is not an exact science, and in situations where the best player is not obvious I have kept a couple of candidates.
We had six candidates who show some promise. Of these, Dawson and Brice are the pick of the litter.
Whichever way you look at it, we have out performed this season. If you evaluate the players through the eyes of my assistant manager, a high percentage of our side are only good enough to play in the division below. That we have made the playoffs with this squad is a positive achievement. We are nowhere near the finished article, however.
Moving forward I will be changing the way that I approach building the squad. I have extended the contracts for the core of the team for next season. This provides a solid foundation and will be the basis for maintaining our position in the league. The objective is to be at least as strong as we were this year.
Into this mix I will be looking to add additional players who have the ability to add to the team. Currently our average is only 20.59 which is rather low. I will be looking to add one or two older players with experience, but only if they improve the squad. This is the key point – a player must only be signed if he is an improvement and will seriously challenge the incumbent in his position.


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LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Los Angeles police officers fatally shot a homeless man on Sunday in an incident that was caught on video and posted online, local media reported.
The graphic video, which was posted on Facebook, shows a violent altercation between a man and several officers in LA's Skid Row area near downtown.
The circumstances around the shooting were not immediately clear but the video appears to show a man flailing at officers as they try to subdue him.
A voice yelling "Drop the gun!" can be heard before several shots ring out and several onlookers cry out in alarm.
The Los Angeles Police Department didn't immediately return a call for comment, but local media said at least one officer had opened fire.
The man was declared dead at a hospital soon after the shooting, police spokesman Sergeant Barry Montgomery told the Los Angeles Times.
Skid Row is a run-down area that houses many hostels and services for the region's homeless people, some of whom pitch tents on the sidewalks.
Officers were responding to a robbery call and a witness said the victim had been fighting with someone in his tent, the Times reported.
The video comes against a backdrop of highly publicised police shootings of black men that sparked weeks of protests late last year.
A local CBS television affiliate reported that tensions in the area remained high for hours after the shooting.
The video also shows police grabbing a woman after she picks up a baton that an officer dropped, then appears to raise it.
Viewer discretion needed as the video may be distressing.


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text:
News / Moray
Floral tributes left at scene where boy was killed after being hit by van
by Rita Campbell
Floral tributes to the boy that died.
Flowers have been left at the scene where a seven-year-old boy died after being hit by a van in Elgin.
The crash involved a red Renault Master motor van driven by a 46-year-old man, who was uninjured after the incident, which took place at around 5.30pm on Friday on Brechan Rig.
Floral tributes were placed at the scene today.
Road Policing Sergeant Steve Manson said: "My thoughts, and that of my officers, are very much with the family and friends of the 7-year-old boy who sadly died in this tragic collision.
"I would appeal to anyone who may have seen the crash or who may have seen the red Renault Master van shortly beforehand and who hasn't yet spoken with police to do so as a matter of urgency to help us piece together exactly what happened."
Anyone with information who hasn't yet come forward should contact Police Scotland via 101.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
literary award winner
Review 1563: #1956 Club! Palace Walk
I experienced quite a bit of culture shock reading Palace Walk, which made me realize that although I have read books set in Egypt about Egyptians, all but one were written by Western writers, and that one, Map of Love, was much more modern. Palace Walk is about Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his family, and I believe it's Mahfouz's own family thinly disguised.
The novel is the first of three in Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy. It begins with al-Jawad's wife, Amira, getting up at midnight to help her husband get ready for bed after his usual night of carousing and womanizing. Although her husband is a good friend and convivial participant in nightly drinking bouts, at home he is an angry tyrant to his wife and children. I found it interesting that although he has the reputation of a righteous and observant man, no one seems to think his drinking and womanizing make him a hypocrite.
Mahfouz was a writer in the Realism school and as such explores both the good and bad facets of his characters' personalities (although it sometimes seems like Realists concentrate on the gritty). The novel develops slowly, introducing us to al-Jawad, Amina, and his five children—Yasin, a government clerk who immerses himself in sensuality like his father but with less control; Fahmy, a university student who is serious and ardent; Khadiya, the older, sharp-tongued daughter; Aisha, the younger, beautiful daughter; and Kamal, a schoolboy who may be Mahfouz's alter ego.
Beginning in 1917 near the end of World War I, the novel at first focuses on purely family concerns such as Fahmy's desire to be affianced to Maryam, the neighbor girl; Aisha's receipt of an offer of marriage before Khadiya's, when their father has decreed that the younger girl will not be married before the older; and Yasin's mother getting married again, which Yasin thinks is obscene, since she has been married several times. In these domestic incidents, the family constantly faces their father's anger and intransigence. Mahfouz frequently tells us of his good points although they are not often demonstrated. In fact, there is a lot of explanation going on about the thinking and characters of the family members, some of it quite repetitive.
As the novel develops, external events become more important, especially the Arab Revolution of 1919 against the protectorate of the British. This more outward view makes the second half of the novel move along more quickly.
Certainly, al-Jawad's actions toward his wife and children are shocking, and Mahfouz makes clear that he is stricter than most others by the comments of al-Jawad's friends. Yet, it is also clear that no one would interfere in his treatment of his family, since it is his right to behave as he wishes. As an example of some of the things he does, Amina, who has only left the house a few times in 23 years of marriage, takes the opportunity of her husband's absence on a business trip to visit a nearby mosque. Because Kamal guides her out of her route so that he can visit a pastry shop, she becomes disoriented and faint and is hit by a car. After she recovers, her husband banishes her from the house for leaving it without asking him (and believe me, he would have said no).
His son Yasin, the leaf not falling far from the tree, thinks later in the book when his wife is not happy with his nights out that it is the husband's right to do anything he wants and the wife's to obey. Nice.
The trilogy is supposed to be about the effect the father's tyranny has on his family. I read it for the 1956 Club, and I suppose I will go ahead and read the other two novels. It certainly provides an intimate look into family life and customs in early 20th century Egypt.
Blood & Sand
Letters from Egypt
#1956 Club, Arab Revolution of 1919, Cairo, Cairo Trilogy, classics, Egypt, literary award winner, Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize for Literature, Palace Walk
Review 1524: Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead
Mrs. Dusczejko lives in a tiny Polish village near the Czech Republic, so remote that they get Polish or Czech police depending upon where in town they call from. In the early morning, her neighbor, whom she calls Oddball, comes to get her, telling her he has found their other neighbor's body. Although she hates this other neighbor, whom she calls Big Foot, because he's a hunter and she believes it's a crime to kill animals, she helps him make the body decent before the police arrive. Later, it's determined that he died from choking on a deer bone.
Mrs. Duszejko is an eccentric old lady who spends her time doing astrological charts, helping an ex-student translate William Blake's writings into Polish, and writing letters to the police complaining about poaching. After a few months, though, her life is disturbed when men in the area begin dying in a series of bizarre killings.
This is an unusual crime story that's not so concerned about the criminal case as it is about the activities of its characters. It is sometimes funny and always atmospheric. I really enjoyed it.
My Darling Detective
With Fire and Sword
Antonia Lloyd-Jones, crime fiction, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, literary award winner, Nobel Prize for Literature, Olga Tokarczuk, Poland, unreliable narrators
Review 1521: The Yellow House
June 23, 2020 whatmeread11 Comments
The Yellow House is not just a memoir. It's more an excavation of self and belonging. Sarah M. Broom centers her explorations around her childhood home in New Orleans East. She begins with what she knows of her grandparents' lives and her parents' before marrying. Then she tells how her mother, Ivory Mae, purchased the yellow house when she was 19, the first house owned by the family.
At the time of the purchase, 1961, New Orleans East was touted as a promising area for expansion of the city. However, this promise never unfolded. The story of the slow crumbling of the neighborhood and house, culminating in Hurricane Katrina, is a symbol of the disenfranchising of all the poor inhabitants of the city, particularly those of color.
Although Broom was living in New York at the time of the hurricane, many of her family members had to be evacuated, and two of her brothers chose to ride the storm out. The storm destroyed the house, but it also rendered the family physically and metaphorically homeless. Almost more excruciating is the catalog of incompetence and obliviousness to the needs of its citizens by the city of New Orleans after the storm.
This is an interesting and eye-opening memoir about the population of the city that is usually ignored, and of course, it has ramifications for all such populations in all such cities.
A Mountain of Crumbs
Hurricane Katrina, literary award winner, Louisiana, memoir, National Book Award winner, New Orleans, Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House
Review 1511: Nocturnes
May 26, 2020 May 26, 2020 whatmeread5 Comments
Nocturnes is a collection of five loosely linked short stories all on the themes of music and night. A few of them are linked a little more closely by repeating characters. All but one feature struggling musicians.
In "Crooner," the unnamed narrator is an Eastern European guitarist eking out a living in Venice when he meets Tony Gardner, a once-famous singer his mother listened to. When Tony invites him to help serenade his wife, Lindy, he learns that Tony is so eager to make a comeback that he is willing to give up something he loves.
In "Come Rain or Come Shine," Ray, a middle-aged English language instructor, is invited to stay with his old school friends, Charlie and Emily. Once there, though, he finds he's been invited to be a negative contrast to Charlie, showing how much more successful Charlie is. He finds common ground with Emily only in their shared taste in music.
In "Malvern Hills," a would-be singer-songwriter is staying with his sister and helping out at her café when he meets two professional musicians, Tibs and Sonja, on holiday. He unwittingly gets involved in the breakup of their marriage.
The narrator of "Nocturne" is a gifted saxophone player whose ex-wife and manager convince him that he would be successful if he wasn't so ugly. Reluctantly, he agrees to have plastic surgery. In a hotel recovering from his procedure, he meets Lindy Gardner, also recovering from plastic surgery.
In "Cellists," it is perhaps the same narrator from the first story who tells the tale of Tibor, a gifted young cellist he and his friends met seven years earlier. Tibor's personality changes once he is taken under the wing of Eloise McCormack, who claims to be a virtuoso cellist.
This is a book that explores the place of music in each character's life, and in some cases, the character's commitments to music or to fame. Although there is a lot going on in these ultimately sad tales, they felt unsatisfying to me in some way. I felt that some of the situations were ridiculously unlikely, as well. This is a book I read for my James Tait Black project.
contemporary fiction, James Tait Black shortlist project, Kazuo Ishiguro, literary award winner, music, Nobel Prize for Literature, Nocturnes, short fiction
Review 1510: The Left Hand of Darkness
May 21, 2020 December 17, 2020 whatmeread2 Comments
Genly Ai, an envoy to Gethen from the Ekumen, a league of other worlds, has been waiting for an audience with King Argaven XV of Karhide for two years. Although he does not trust Lord Estraven, Argaven's prime minister, he has understood the prime minister was supporting his efforts to gain an audience. But during a state parade, Lord Estraven tells him it is not a good time.
Genly's disappointment makes him doubt that Lord Estraven ever had good intentions. When Lord Estraven hints that Genly should leave the capital, Genly ignores him. Soon, he learns that Lord Estraven has been banished from Karhide upon pain of death.
King Argaven encourages Genly to travel around Karhide, and he does so. The planet of Gethen is an ice planet, formerly called Winter by Ekumen, and Genly is constantly cold. He has trouble understanding the Gethenians, who are androgynous; when they are in heat once a month, they take on whichever sex is opposite to that of their partner. Genly has a hard time adjusting to the feminine side of the Gethenians. For their part, they consider him a pervert for always, as they see it, being in heat.
Eventually, Genly decides to leave the more primitive, indirect Karhides for Orgoreyn, an apparently more civilized and direct country, where he is welcomed. This state is much more authoritarian. Whereas in Karhide his presence was known, in Orgoreyn it is being kept secret from all but the government. Soon, the situation takes a turn he doesn't expect.
When I first read The Left Hand of Darkness years ago, I thought it was about the best book I had ever read. Reading it again, I see no reason to change my mind except to say that others stand up there with it.
It is written as a set of documents, Genly's story mixed in with records from other envoys and stories from the myths of various cultures on Gethen. It manages to explore many topics with its theme of light and darkness, including the effects on our lives of different sexual orientations. It's really a masterpiece.
epistolary fiction, Hugo Award winner, literary award winner, literary fiction, Nebula Prize winner, speculative fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness, transexuality, Ursula LeGuin
Review 1454: Milkman
December 30, 2019 January 21, 2020 whatmeread4 Comments
Middle sister, the unnamed narrator in a novel where no one has a name, has a stalker. Actually, she has two. She lives in the 1970s in an unnamed city that is clearly Belfast, and at 18 she has no way to explain what is happening to her and no one to tell, anyway. The man she's worried about is known as the Milkman, rumored to be a powerful renouncer-of-the-state. This stalking begins with him driving up next to her and offering her a ride. She knows not to get into his car.
That is all it takes for rumors to begin flying about that middle sister is having an affair with the Milkman. Eldest sister, egged on by her husband, who has been letching after middle sister since she was 11, arrives to berate her for this supposed affair with a middle-aged, married man.
But middle sister's strategy for keeping safe in a dangerous world is to tell nothing about herself. That, and her mother's constant queries about why she isn't married yet, have caused her to keep secret her real relationship with maybe-boyfriend. It is the maybe part of this relationship that decides her not to tell maybe-boyfriend about the stalking either, when it progresses to the Milkman joining her while running and making clear that he knows every aspect of her life.
She does finally tell her Ma the truth, but her Ma is too busy upbraiding her for bringing shame upon the family with the affair and calls her a liar. So, middle sister is left to cope with her fears alone.
This sounds like a grim tale, and at some times it is, but it is told exuberantly, in a torrent of words, ideas, stories, asides, and circumlocutions. To give you an idea, about page 80 middle sister steps into an area called the ten-minute zone because it takes ten minutes to cross it. She describes the ten-minute zone and an explosion within it, then she goes into what she calls "the provenance of the eeriness of the ten-minute area" from which she relates a discussion with Ma about her asking weird questions, tells about her father's history of depression and her Ma's "hierarchy of suffering," discusses her bafflement in "shiny people," those who go around looking happy, finds the head of a dead cat and decides to bury it, compares cats and dogs and tells about an incident where the state killed all the neighborhood dogs, has another encounter with the Milkman and then with one real milkman, and so on until page 139, when she steps out of the ten-minute area. I would include an excerpt, but a short one would seem nonsensical and a long one would be, well, long.
Above all, the novel is funny, dazzling, gleeming. I was absolutely entranced by it. It is about more than middle sister and her adventures, it is about the effects on society of everyday terror, paranoia, gossip, constant attention to the behavior of your neighbors. This is a stunning novel that won the Booker Prize. It deserves it.
History of the Rain
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
Anna Burns, Belfast, contemporary fiction, experimental fiction, literary award winner, literary awards, literary fiction, Man Booker Prize winner, Milkman, Northern Ireland
Review 1377: Lincoln in the Bardo
July 29, 2019 whatmeread4 Comments
The title Lincoln in the Bardo is the first tip-off that this book is unusual, for it refers to a Tibetan concept of immediate life after death. The novel is set in a graveyard after the death of Abraham Lincoln's son, Willy, and is narrated by a host of ghosts who don't know they are dead and are clinging to their worldly concerns. It is also moved along by quotations, some real, some fictitious, by accounts of the time, letters, and historical accounts.
The ghosts in the graveyard are grotesqueries who physically manifest the obsessions they had in life. The two most important ghosts in the novel, for example, are Hans Vollman, who sports an enormous erect penis because he died before he could consummate his marriage; and Roger Bevins III, whose sensual nature is indicated by his multiple eyes, noses, and hands. Okay, this can be comic. It is certainly an amusing idea. But after a while, I began to miss the subtle humor that seems to have deserted us in recent years.
The thrust of the plot is that children aren't meant to linger in the Bardo or terrible things happen to them. However, Lincoln arrives early in the novel to visit his son in his grief, and he says he will return. Vollman, Bevins, and their friend, the Reverend Everly Thomas, become determined to help Willy leave, and to do so they must get Lincoln to return to the tomb and release him.
This novel is wildly original. Aside from the characteristics I've mentioned, it is written more like a screenplay than a novel. It also resonates deeply in its themes of grief, Lincoln's worries about the war, and the concerns of life affecting the afterlife. Still, I was repelled by how crude and crass it is at times. I also felt that the novel was much longer than it needed to be. You get the idea about the ghosts fairly quickly, but the supernatural chatter becomes boring after a while.
I read this for my Booker Prize project.
The Second Mrs. Hockaday
Days Without End
Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, experimental fiction, George Saunders, ghost stories, humor, Lincoln in the Bardo, literary award winner, literary fiction, Man Booker Prize winner
Review 1374: The Sellout
Really? This book won the Booker Prize? I know my sense of humor is getting to be out of date, and when I read on the blurb that the book was "biting satire," I just sighed. There's no subtlety in humor anymore, and this novel is a prime example. Its writing style is broad and hectic, like a really long stand-up comedy routine. I'm guessing you either love it or hate it.
The narrator, a black man whose name is Me, starts out the novel at the Supreme Court, where he is being tried as a slave owner and is getting a lot of hatred because of his race. He proceeds to tell the story of how he got there, spending lots of time getting to the crux of the story.
The beginning of the book, where he satirizes his upbringing as a subject of his father's childhood development experiments, is over the top but amusing. When he introduces the character of Hominy Jenkins, the last surviving Little Rascal, his all-on employment of racial stereotypes (to make fun of them, of course) was too much for me. I quit about halfway, after he reluctantly made Hominy his slave.
Be warned that this novel makes extensive use of the N word. I'm not sure, but Beatty's intent may be to desensitize us to it. If so, it didn't work.
The Finkler Question
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
contemporary fiction, humor, literary award winner, Man Booker Prize winner, Paul Beatty, race relations, The Sellout
Review 1319: The Lesser Bohemians
I found The Lesser Bohemians a difficult book to read, in more ways than one. Still, if you are willing to give it a try, you may find it rewarding. It won Britain's oldest literary prize, the James Tait Black fiction prize, in 2017.
The narrator of the novel, whose name we don't learn until the end, is an 18-year-old Irish girl who comes to London to attend drama school. She is naive and inexperienced, but she plunges right into a life of partying. Still, she has not yet accomplished what she wants to, losing her virginity.
Then she meets an older man in a pub. He is 38 and a well-known actor. They begin an affair that he makes clear is a casual one. Soon, however, she realizes she is in love with him. Darker times await.
One of the difficulties (but also joys) of this book is the writing style. Although the story is told chronologically, McBride writes in sentence fragments, smashes sentences together, shifts pronouns and verb tense, and plays with typography, leaving gaps between words and placing innermost thoughts in smaller type. Here, for example, is a paragraph about her first friendship.
Vaudeville she, drawing all around. Funniest. And good to found a friendship. At least she's a side to go side by with to class. Vault a day then with its procession of self. What's your name? Whereabouts are you from? Live close? I hate the announcing but new futures demand new reckonings so I shuffle around what I have. Not much, not much, only me. Far from exotic when there's Spaniards and Greeks. And here the first Dane I've ever met. Australian girls. Not white or Irish. You mean English up North? I only crossed a sea. Speak French then? Amazing. Fluently? I'd love to slip my homogeneity but. On to the next class. Go.
Like the narrator, none of the characters have names until, toward the end of the novel, the narrator and her lover use their names in the text. This can make it difficult at times to tell which characters are speaking or being referred to. The shift to actual names signals a shift in clarity for the main character.
Another problem for some readers may be the rawness and explicitness of its sexuality and of some other subject matter. For we are dealing with two really damaged individuals. I had to laugh when I realized my library was shelving this novel with the romances. Trust me, this is not a romantic novel.
So, why do I say it is worth reading? For one thing, it has a great deal of energy that carries you along. Also, you come to know these characters, with all their flaws, and care what happens to them.
The novel shifts about 2/3 of the way through, when the man starts being honest about himself. One reviewer thought the novel sags a little here. Certainly, it shifts in style, and perhaps loses some energy, but I was interested in the story.
Perhaps I don't believe the ending of the novel and what it promises after all the characters' volatility. Still, I was touched by this book and thought it was well worth reading.
Dear Thief
All the Birds, Singing
contemporary fiction, Eimear McBride, England, James Tait Black prize, literary award winner, literary fiction, London, The Lesser Bohemians


Honesty, integrity and unparalleled standards are just some of the words that could be used to describe working with Gabriel Bedoya. His knowledge of the Manhattan and Southern Florida real estate markets has consistently earned him the highest honor and recognition bestowed by the Corcoran Group. He is also a proud member of Corcoran's Top Multi-Million Dollar Club and is recognized as one of Corcoran's top 25 brokers and was Manhattan's Rookie of the year.
When it comes to real estate and real estate management and investing, Gabriel possesses unstoppable energy, drive and determination. These qualities, coupled with a sound understanding of the meaning of customer service, make him an invaluable resource to buyers, sellers and investors. He takes the time to gain a thorough understanding of a client's objectives.
By gaining this understanding, clients can be assured that they will have a positive experience and that every effort will be made by Gabriel and his team to have the deal go swiftly and smoothly. When selling a property, a client can expect a cohesive sales strategy that includes proper pricing, advertising, creative target marketing, and open houses for brokers and the public. This customized strategy takes into account their property's unique features, an analysis of the current market conditions, and market timing.
Gabriel possesses extensive knowledge in the sale of both pre-construction and existing properties and can provide advice and insight that both first-time or seasoned buyers and investors often seek out from their real estate professional. Gabriel has called Manhattan home for over twenty years and serves all areas of the city. He has lived in different countries in Europe and the Americas and is fluent in French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. He is accustomed to working with people in every culture and income bracket. Gabriel's superb marketing and sales skills were gained when he held a position as V.P. of Sales and Marketing and Sales in the Airline and Duty Free industries. Prior to that, he was Directeur de l'Hebergement at the very posh Hotel Plaza Athenne in Manhattan. This prior professional experience has made him a leader in the real estate industry and a valued and sought after resource. He believes that all of these things - marketing, pricing, management, strong interpersonal skills, customer focus coupled with area expertise - are the keys to success in real estate.
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3 Beds / 5 Baths / 3,445 Sq. Ft.
We can't thank you enough for all your patience, know how and professionalism. You helped make a very arduous experience a pleasureable one. We always felt we were in good hands and trusted your good advice implicitly. We would not hesitate for a minute to recommend you and hope the opportunity arises.
Once again Gabriel, I am so impressed by you! The only thing I wish at this point is that I had more properties to pass your way! Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for everything! I can't thank you enough!
Heather and I are very, very grateful that you worked as hard as you did on showing and selling our unit, and got us what was really a fantastic price all things considered. So, that's it: thank you very much. Your dedication did not go unnoticed, and we are thrilled with the result.
Thank you and your team for your tireless effort and for dealing with my crazy personality and work schedule. Everything you did is extremely appreciated. We could not have done this with out you.
Thank you Gabriel, you sure are a class act, I will refer any business I can your way.
We are deeply grateful for all of your help over the past months, your expert advice, ready response, and unfailing graciousness. You have been a happy part of this important decision in our lives and we will always remember you warmly. Many Many Thanks.


text:
UK Now Has More Electric Vehicle Charging Points Than Petrol Stations
As the world weans off its dependence on fossil fuels, things around us will begin to change. One of those things is cars. Vehicles that run off petroleum and diesel will eventually all be replaced by ones that run off electricity. Along with that, petrol stations will disappear and be replaced by charging points. All of this has already been happening and the transition has reached a turning point in the UK. There are now more public electric vehicle (EV) charging sites than petrol stations.
According to data from Zap-Map, as of 22 May 2019, there were 8,471 public EV charging stations across the UK with a total of 13,613 chargers. Meanwhile, data from the Experian Catalist Market Summary Report shows there were 8,400 fuel stations at the end of April.
Zap-Map says that in the last 12 months the number of public EV charging sites has increased by 57%. This increase has occurred to support the growth in the number of EVs on the road from 3,500 six years ago to 210,000 now.
Ben Lane, co-founder and CTO at Zap-Map said:
The public and private sectors are now investing heavily in the UK's EV charging infrastructure to ensure that there are sufficient charging points to support the growing electric fleet. This month's milestone reveals of the rapid pace of change already underway as the age of the combustion engine gives way to an all-electric era with vehicles offering both zero-emissions and a better driving experience.
It is expected that there will be at least one million EVs in the UK by the end of 2022. That number will only continue to rise since the UK Government has planned to ban the sale of new, conventional petrol and diesel cars by 2040.
It is also becoming more convenient to use an EV. They are becoming quicker to charge and their range of mileage is growing year by year. The current EV rapid chargers can be expected to offer a 50kW charging rate, which can fully recharge a standard EV in around 40 minutes. The next generation of public EV chargers (which have already made their debut in the UK) offers charging rates of up to 350kW that will allow the electric cars of the future to fully recharge in as little as 10 minutes. Regarding range, there is a battery that can power a car for up to 600 miles currently being developed in Germany.
Daniel Brown, EV Lead at the UK's Renewable Energy Association, said:
On top of a growing number of on-street and destination charge points across the country, several new companies developing rapid charge points and charging 'hubs' have recently been founded or entered the UK market which will give further confidence to both consumers and fleets who wish to go electric.
With so many public charging stations available charging at super high speeds and EVs able to drive hundreds of miles in one charge, the transition away from fossil fuel dependent cars will be a piece of cake!
Lane said:
The fact EV charging sites now outnumber fuel stations in the UK reveals the rapid pace of change already underway as the age of the combustion engine gives way to an all-electric era.


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text:
En bande dessinée, le lettreur est la personne qui écrit les textes dans les phylactères, et parfois dessine les onomatopées ou le logo d'une série.

Lettrage manuel

Le lettrage est effectué avec les outils adéquats, qui peuvent varier selon le lettreur, le format. Il est généralement effectué à la plume. Le lettreur trace au crayon des portées qui délimitent le haut et le bas des lettres, de manière à obtenir un espacement régulier du texte. Dans la majorité des cas le lettrage se fait en capitales, ce qui élimine les ascendantes et descendantes et permet un interlignage resserré, les lettres ayant alors une chasse (largeur) suffisante pour permettre une bonne lecture. Toutes les lettres sont accentuées et le plus souvent, contrairement à la règle typographique, on met des points sur les I capitales. D'autres auteurs préfèrent utiliser un lettrage avec majuscules et bas de casse.

Malgré la prédominance du lettrage par ordinateur, certains auteurs continuent à préférer un lettrage manuel, principalement pour des raisons d'harmonie graphique. Les variations et même les imperfections formelles de l'écriture participent à la personnalité globale de la page.

Lettrage par ordinateur

Le lettrage est aujourd'hui principalement effectué par ordinateur, en utilisant généralement des polices type comic qui conservent l'aspect de l'écriture manuscrite, parfois des polices spécifiquement créées à partir de l'écriture du dessinateur. Le procédé a l'avantage d'une plus grande régularité visuelle, de permettre plus facilement les retouches et corrections, le bon calage du texte, et les traductions en d'autres langues, sans intervenir sur la planche originale.

En Europe, le lettreur est le plus souvent le dessinateur de l'album. Certains auteurs ou éditeurs grands publics travaillent cependant avec un lettreur : Christophe Arleston et Guy Mathias, Dupuis et Philippe Glogowski, Cornélius et le typographe Jean-François Rey, etc. Dans les comics, le lettrage fait le plus souvent l'objet d'un traitement spécifique, par un spécialiste, et les plus grands prix américains, comme les Eisner ou Harvey Awards possèdent un prix du « meilleur lettreur ».

Annexes

Bibliographie
 Laurent Gerbier, « Le trait et la lettre. Apologie subjective du lettrage manuel », Comicalités. Études de culture graphique, .
 .

Article connexe
 Lettrage

Métier de la bande dessinée

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This entry was posted on June 20, 2016, 10:06 pm and is filed under Multidisciplinarians, Philosophy of Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Thanks for another insightful commentary on this perplexing issue. I wonder if you could please comment some time about why Helge Kraghe is so entirely ignored by all 'sides' here. He appears to be rarely read even though he has churned out so many careful, knowledgeable books.
Definitely agree. Kragh is terribly underrepresented. I've never known anyone who's read him to have disliked his work, yet he is ignored here.


text:
Q: RegEx for excluding repeating single characters I'm trying to create a regex that matches a repeating pattern or two or more characters (excluding a single repeating character) three or more times.
(.)\1{3,} will match a single repeated character e.g. matches aaaa but not ababab or abcde
(.+)\1{3,} will match a repeated patern e.g. aaa, ababab, ab ab ab but not abcde
I want to match only ababab, ab ab ab  etc
but not aaaa or abcde
How do I solve this problem?

A: As you want to discard matching if all the characters are same, you can use negative lookahead for rejecting that. In otherwise case, you can change + to {2,} in the quantifier where you are capturing the first part and then use {2,} so your matched first part repeats three or more times. You can use this regex,
^(?!(.)\1+$)(.{2,})\2{2,}$

Explanation:

*

*^ - Start of string

*(?!(.)\1+$) - This negative look ahead ensures if the string consists of only one character till end of string, then it rejects the match.

*(.{2,}) - Match two or more any character and capture it in group2

*\2{2,} - Repeat what was captured in group2 two or more times

*$ - End of string

Regex Demo 1
Also, from your post, as you said you don't want to match aaaa since it has aa pattern repeated only two times and not three or more times, so if I am correct and you consider aaaaaa as a successful match, because now it has aa repeating three times, in that case you can get rid of negative lookahead from my above regex and use this regex which will not match aaaa but will match aaaaaa like I explained above.
^(.{2,})\1{2,}$

Regex Demo 2
Let me know if this is indeed what you wanted. In case of any queries, feel free to drop your comment.

A: You can use this regex:
^((.)\2*?(?!\2).+?)\1{2,}$

The first part ((.)\2*?(?!\2).+?) matches a string that has at least 2 different characters in it, then it repeats it at least 2 more times \1{2,}.
Breaking the first part down, we first match the first character, put it in group 2. Then we allow this character to repeat a few times, or not (\2*). Then we assert that there must be something else other than this character (?!\2). And then we lazily match the rest .+?.
Demo

A: Maybe you could check the length of what you're matching:
(.{2,})\1{3,}

Demo
Regulex graph

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Office of Rail Transport Trains running on hydrogen - News -
Trains running on hydrogen
Recently there has been a meeting held at the Office of Rail Transport (Pol. Urząd Transportu Kolejowego, UTK), which concentrated on the possibilities of using hydrogen as a fuel with regard to railway vehicles. Representatives of science, rolling stock manufacturers and railway carriers have discussed possible use of this ecological fuel in the railway system.
The meeting provided a relevant opportunity to hold an exchange of experiences in the sphere of research and introduction of solutions based on hydrogen, which are of use in other branches of transport as well as other countries. Participants of the meeting have also listed barriers, which influence the (low) level of hydrogen's popularity as a fuel type. Hydrogen is a very energy-efficient fuel, and its burning does not create any greenhouse effect, what means that it can be treated as an ecological one.
- I am of opinion that we should introduce a pilot study, which will encompass at least three subjects: a hydrogen producer, a rolling stock manufacturer as well as a railway carrier, who will in the future use a railway vehicle running on hydrogen. Such project would enable the complete testing of such a propulsion in practice and in turn cause the popularisation of modern and ecological solutions in that sphere – mentioned Mr. Ignacy Góra, Sc. D., the President of the Office of Rail Transport, at the outset of the meeting.
The meeting's participants have approved UTK's initiative, which should lead to the preparation of a strategy of introduction of hydrogen propulsion in Poland, as well as the revision of the Strategy On Sustainable Development of Transport with regard to such a solution.
- Shortly we will analyse this matter and prepare proposals to revise government acts, which will encompass hydrogen propulsion. These analyses will be sent to relevant ministries, which manage such strategies and programmes – said the President of UTK, summarizing the meeting.
Participants of the meeting were the representatives of science, coming from the Warsaw University of Technology and the Institute of Motor Transport, rolling stock manufacturers – Rolling Stock Factory H. Cegielski and Alstom Konstal, railway carrier PKP Cargo S.A., hydrogen producer JSW Innowacje S.A. as well as representatives of public administration from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Solidarity Transport Hub (new central airport in Poland).
Railway remains the most ecological means of transport in the European Union and in 2018 only 0,5% of greenhouse gas emission generated by the transport sector was the result of railway operations.
This meeting was another example of the activities of UTK, which aim at connecting academic experience with the needs of the railway market participants.


Colorado 4x4 Rescue and Recovery pulled this Jeep Cherokee off of a 60 degree incline above Vail, keeping the road open for a wedding at Piney Lake.
Colorado 4x4 Rescue and Recovery is a statewide nonprofit staffed by volunteers to help recover vehicles in the backcountry. They accept donations, support and volunteers, and their 24-hour hotline is 720-722-1204. Go to www.co4x4rnr.org.
VAIL — Good news first: The wedding at Piney Lake went off without a hitch.
Partly because the guy who rolled his Jeep Cherokee off of Red Sandstone Road had the good manners to roll it about 30 feet down a 60-degree incline, and not block wedding traffic. He wasn't seriously injured, and the bride and groom are reportedly on their way to living happily ever after.
Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery pulled the Jeep out. It's a nonprofit that pulls four-wheel-drive vehicles out of some pretty darned amazing locations.
The spot where the guy who flipped his Jeep Cherokee off of Red Sandstone Road above Vail, for example.
And Thursday, a guy rolled his truck off of a trail near Keystone. It tumbled 430 feet down Radical Hill near Montezuma.
The gentleman was driving along and two of his tires went over the shelf, taking the rest of the truck with it. It took 10 hours to get it out of there, said Todd Bunger with Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery.
The driver escaped with a broken rib and some cuts and bruises. His dog is also fine, Bunger said.
Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery was founded as an informal group three years ago. It became an official nonprofit 15 months ago.
The idea is to help take care of the backcountry, Bunger said.
"When you have something that's an absolute mess after you wrecked it, it may cost $10,000 for a tow company to go get it. Sometimes people leave them behind," Bunger said.
So far, the group does about 100 missions a year, Bunger said. Most are simple things, such as trucks that get high centered, or two wheels off the edge of a shelf and you're stuck.
"Skilled people go into the backcountry who have a bad day. But more likely, it's people who are not prepared and skilled and find themselves in precarious positions," Bunger said.
People with better equipment than judgment sometimes find themselves stuck in the backcountry with children, but without food and water.
"We want to help people in the four-wheel community," Bunger said.
The group only work on U.S. Forest Service and other public land and four-wheel-drive roads.
"We're not a bonded towing company, and we don't want to be," Bunger said.
It's a volunteer organization and doesn't have a home base. Many of the 300 members and volunteers live on the Front Range, but they work all around the state, Bunger said.


text:
Investing in infrastructure for aquaculture development
Created: Monday, 13 December 2021 07:05
The Department of Agriculture (DA), Philippines, has announced investments towards aquaculture related infrastructure worth approximately US$450,000 at the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Centre (SEAFDEC) in Iloilo city
The investments are poised to boost aquaculture activities in the country through new broodstock and hatchery facilities at the SEAFDEC in Tigbauan, Iloilo. New facilities will include a multi-species marine hatchery, multi-species freshwater hatchery and milkfish broodstock tanks and were inaugurated by agriculture secretary William D Dar.
SEAFDEC chief Dan D Baliao said the structures would serve as model facilities for the multi-species hatcheries that will be built in the future under the "Fry Sufficiency Program" which they will undertake together with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).
"These facilities were built to intensify demonstration and technology transfer programmes of SEAFDEC/AQD, as well as to help address the aquaculture seed shortage in the country. This will surely help in fry production now that SEAFDEC has unlocked continuous milkfish spawning even during colder months with simply using water heaters," he added.
According to the DA, the milkfish broodstock tanks have a rearing capacity of 2,000 tonnes and can hold 400 milkfish breeders. Production is expected to be at 320 million eggs for one year and is said to be distributed to at least six satellite hatcheries across the region. The multi-species marine fish hatchery targets species of milkfish, pompano, mangrove crab and shrimp with a total rearing capacity of 160 tonnes.
Annually, the hatchery is expected to produce 20 million milkfish fries, 5.5 million pompano fries, 14.4 million shrimp postlarvae and 2.5 million crab instars. The multi-species marine hatchery, on the other hand, is built for freshwater species, Baliao noted. "The multi-species freshwater hatchery, which has a rearing capacity of 40 tonnes will be able to produce the seeds of the tilapia, catfish and the commodity that we are advocating for, the giant freshwater prawn," he said.


In the blockbuster 1999 movie The Matrix, released on the eve of the new millennium, Morpheus, the leader of a band of "freedom fighters" against an invisible totalitarian mind control system, offers the film's young hero Neo a fateful choice.
Neo can swallow a red pill which will take him "down the rabbit hole" into seeing with his own eyes what actually lies behind the everyday reality of the brave, new digitized postmodern era. Or he can consume a blue one, which will leave him forever oblivious of the truth that our everyday experience of things is but a vicious scam and a fraud.
Neo of course chooses the red pill, and after undergoing what seems like a strange and surreal transformation he finds himself at the bottom of the "rabbit hole" where evil and vengeful machines are no longer the output of human intelligence, but instead are the designers, controllers, and merciless enforcers of our blissful social illusions, which mask the dark, dreadful, and desiccated world where even time itself has been altered.
With all the press revelations and exploding scandals in the past two weeks concerning IRS political targeting, deliberate government rewriting of historical facts in the case of last fall's Benghazi terrorist attacks, secret US Justice Department stalking of journalists, and now massive and incalculable spying by intelligence agencies on all and every aspect of the life of both American and British citizens, one can hear Morpheus' voice in the background each time one turns on the television news.
What has been most damaged of course in this sudden "EF5 tornado" of news disclosures is the long and fondly held belief on the part of the Western intelligentsia that the current US administration, which railed throughout two election cycles about government abuse of power and promised to be different, has all along been pulling the wool over our eyes and turns out to be most likely an even much bigger abuser of civil liberties.
Conservatives of course are gloating over these most recent revelations. But they hardly play into any particular partisan sympathies in the long run, since the trend was started during previous regimes with contrary ideologies, and it is progressives as much as, and to a certain extent more than, right-wingers who are angrily denouncing the betrayal of trust and the outright deception that news about the massive government program of spying is bringing to light.
One of the basic lessons of The Matrix series is that it is not the evil controlling "machines" running our lives that are ultimately at fault, but we ourselves who happily prefer to be deluded. That has been the underlying theme of all "dystopian" literature since the publication of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four 64 years ago this month.
The dystopia itself rises from the plain of a derelict epistemology, a theory of knowledge and ethical response that, as Foucault long ago recognized, is propelled by the "nobler" impulses of a society accompanying the mobilization of all forms of capital – technological as well as financial and human capital – that marked the industrial revolution.
Huxley's dystopia was envisioned in the early 1930s and in an eerie manner becomes the guiding theme for so many similar artistic nightmares to follow, including not only the Wlliam Gibson novel Neuromancer (ironically released in 1984) which inspired The Matrix. Today we find that art seems to have become larger than life.
The "neuromancers" – those who know how to engineer politically avatars of what Nietzsche called our "highest values", conjuring up vast virtual cloud cuckoo lands with vacuous slogans like "hope and change" replicated many times over and infected with a sense of stark indomitability in the narcissistic mirror play of so much social media – have become indistinguishable from our celebrities, academic and social role models, and of course our political "messiahs" about whom we no longer have any doubt whatsoever remaining.
Every now and then we experience a shock to the neuromantic system, as occurred of course almost twelve years ago with the events of September 11, 2001. We instantly project on to this la-la-like silver screen of hyperreality a new hero. George W. Bush actually fitted the bill for a while. He was simple and straightforward. He pledged to do battle like Batman with the new hypervillains, the Osamas, the Saddams, and other baddies from the Axis of Evil.
When news reaches NFL fans during a game that Bush has ordered a wholesale military invasion of Afghanistan in response to the attacks on the Wordl Trade Center, the entire stadium erupts in cheers, as if their team had just scored a touchdown in the final minutes.
Fast forward seven years later. Two endless and seemingly inconsequential wars as well as a sputtering national economy have shattered the mirror temporarily. The desert stretches out before our gaze. The big question: where is Superman?
Of course he's changing in the phonebooth, waiting to step out and manufacture an entire Nickelodean of collective fantasies one more time. The millennials are now grown up. No more Barney the Purple Dinosaur. Change is no longer in the air. It's blowin' in the wind, and the wind is blowin' hard.
The Voice calls to the best of us in all of us. We are pumped up. On Facebook we've all friended a future where terrorist threats and wars can be ended once and for all with soaring rhetoric that reaches global audiences, where "investing" in the economy with invented money can pull us out of an intractable recession, where Guantanamo can be closed down and our civil liberties, wrested from our proud heritage by the new, darksome, ballooning specter of the security state and handed over to the so-called "military industrial complex" can finally be restored.
This time it is not a latter day patriot named Paul Revere, but an enraged "redcoat" writing for the British newspaper The Guardian who wakes us from our familiar, self-satisfied, touchy-feely, "that can't be true" type of slumber to warn us that Big Brother, the Matrix, the Evil Empire almost has us for good. Spells are hard to break unfortunately.
"We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom," Slavoj Zizek wrote in his reflections on the destruction of the twin towers. We also feel hopeful, even in a time when all the indicators are negative, because we as postmodern intellectuals have lost any language to articulate our sense of desperation and hopelessness. What ever happened to Angst? It went the way of sin.
That is why we live in the age of political correctness. That is why we long for the "messianic," even while we never learn the lesson Derrida told us that the "democracy to comes" depends vitally on our willingness, or even an enthusiasm, to embrace the Real.
There is a profound lesson for us "political theologians" in everything that has happened the past few weeks. The lesson comes down to the tragic realization that our postmodern infatuation with "impossibility" (that is, our tendency to believe, like the Mad Hatter, that the impossible can actually be thought as possible, if only we dream enough) has fueled our rage against "the exception," the singular.
No one is mediocre, for example, these days. That is what Helicopter Parents tell their children daily. Everyone is empowered and capable of everything, as everyone is happy in Brave New World.
But, as Paul Kahn reminds us, "a free order…is one in which the exception is possible. The exception represents the possibility of free choice, and choice requires a subject – the sovereign – who decides." (Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, Columbia University Press, 2011, Kindle edition, loc. 463). If one follows the logic of the exception, particularly in Lacan and Zizek, it comes down to the real, not the hyperreal, which allows anything imaginable.
Nineteen Eighty-Four? We're more sophisticated than that.
Welcome to the Desert of the Real…once more.


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text:
A Dozen Thoughts I Had While Watching Mamma Mia!
...wayyyy after everyone else has already seen it.
01 Meryl Streep is a national treasure. She ought to be on postal stamps, American legal tender and carved into Mount Rushmore... even if that means dynamiting one of the presidents. She's done so much for us. Watching her lift Mamma Mia! up on her preternaturally gifted shoulders is a bit like seeing Charles Atlas lift the world... only with less sweating. Even the most ungainly movie can feel light and buoyant in her care. For a good time call Meryl.
02 Charles Darwin believed that Mary Louise Streep was actually descended from Suidae. Oh sweet succulent HAM! She's always delicious.
03 ABBA are pop geniuses... as gifted as the Beatles even if they aren't as respected.
04 Pierce Brosnan singlehandedly strengthens every argument I've ever made about actual musical talent being necessary to star in a musical. For this I thank him, though my ears will never forgive.
05 This movie is more fun than ABBA: The Movie (my review) but it's just as shoddily put together. On the downside: Agnetha, Frida, Benny and Björn don't appear. So maybe it's less fun.
06 Jukebox musicals are destroying the world... or at least the Aristotelian Unities.
07 I'm really glad Michelle Pfeiffer didn't make this movie (she was an early rumored lead) even though I'd love to see her and Amanda Seyfried paired as mother/daughter. La Pfeiffer can do silly (see: Married to the Mob) but Meryl more thoroughly enjoys doing silly. And if you're not having a ball acting in this type of "movie"...
08 I owe Susan Stroman an apology. When she made The Producers movie I thought 'oh god. she has no clue what to do behind the movie camera. Someone get her out of there!' but then I met her Broadway-to-Hollywood successor Phyllida Lloyd. I believe that genealogy would prove Phyllida Lloyd a descendant of Ed Wood himself.
09 Why is nearly every number staged like an early 80s music videos or deleted fantasy karaoke sequences from Young @ Heart?
10 Ting Huan, Charles Emile Reynaud, and the Lumiere Brothers never meant it to be this way.
11 This might be an impossible film to grade because it's not really a film at all but a crazy quilt of songs shot with dadaist music video sensibility. There are so many things to consider: ABBA the music: (A+), these particular interpretations of ABBA songs (A- to F depending on who is singing), the plot (F) the overall dumbness (C-), the choreography (D), the energy level of the movie (B+), the direction and editing (D), Meryl (B+), Amanda's voice (B), Amanda (B-), Meryl's semen donors (C), Meryl's sidekicks (C+), the (literal) Greek chorus (D), the weirdly kinky sexuality (A- to D+ depending on which particular kink we're talking about), the bipolar characterizations -- someone please write a dissertation on the "Dancing Queen" sequence. Explain to me what the hell was going on there (C-)
Overall: ABCDEFGHIJKlmnopQR.... crap I have no idea.
12 Did I have fun watching it? Sure.
Labels: ABBA, Amanda Seyfried, Meryl Streep, musicals, reviews, Thoughts I Had...
u summed it up so perfectly
i just saw and was wondering how to grade it
and realised this ghetto bollywood musical was truly A(meryl) to D(direction)
and seriously dada camp surreal bergman-esque
the other spot on review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61UolzFTVPI
by mark kermorde, BBC
perfect movie for these surreal times we live in when a vice presidential candidate has NEVER met any other heads of state and has only visited canada and mexico
I agree on everything except Mount Rushmore. She deserves a Mount Streep of her own. :p I also think she has gone beyond the point of National. She is International Treasure.
Dame James said...
I'm sorry, Lord knows I love Meryl Streep, but this was the most atrocious performance of hers I've ever seen. She overacts everything (that atrocious scene at the dock when she greets Baranski and Walters sticks out in my head) and doesn't do anything to make this character even remotely interesting (although the play itself has a MAJOR part in that as well).
The Jaded Armchair Reviewer said...
I had that same reaction in regards to your "Overall" grade that I just had to leave in my notes "Meryl, stop twisting my arm for a better grade! You can be the top of the class but you can't bring the class to the top!"
Still, I must be thankful for this movie's effective brainwashing capability: my dad loved it so much that I get to go to Broadway for the very first time! (Where I will leave him for whatever the hell Patti LuPone might be doing at the time...)
JS -- smart boy.
the movie was an easy sit (aside from realizing that it may have killed cinema) but OH MY GOD i would have have cut someone if i paid broadway prices to see it. yikes.
dames james henry --yes she was terrible in that scene ...and her rapid moodswings in dancing queen make no sense and her emotional reading of the winner takes it all (my favorite song in the movie) makes no sense at all --though that's more a book problem... these songs were not meant to make THIS godawful story)
BUT the reason i think the performance is delicious is that Meryl is FULLY aware of how atrocious the movie is so she's just gonna hike up her overalls and PLAY the hell out of it to insure that we have at least one takeaway: fun.
but christ the movie is bad otherwise.
adam k. said...
Exactly. The movie's a total mindf*ck, like in the total opposite way to, say, Mulholland Dr.. But you still leave it thinking "what the f*ck was THAT??"
And to compound it, I personally saw it in the VERY first row of the theater with my mom and sister (she uncharacteristically insisted on sneaking us in when it was sold out, even though we'd bought tickets to WALL-E... apparently the first row of seats don't count when they decide movies are sold out).
I especially loved the credit sequence, with Meryl spitting out "DO you WANT anOTHer ONE!?" like she was on drugs. Genius.
My directing teacher HATED the movie and actually hated Meryl in it, too, which took me aback. I see how Meryl overacted a lot, but I think she just made a judgment call that that was the best thing she could given the situation. Or else the directress was forcing her to overact it, so she just did the best she could.
But I loved her in it. And her singing was fab. I mentioned in my review that there's something about seeing the woman from Sophie's Choice dancing around to ABBA that just gives me goosebumps. God bless Meryl Streep.
Haha I also loved her on that British talk show trying to defend Pierce Brosnan's singing. Like, "NO, he's so SEXY! He's like a cross between Tom Waits and Eddie Vedder." Oh Meryl. Loyal to your castmates, to a fault.
Anyway I covered myself and gave the movie a C+.
"I especially loved the credit sequence, with Meryl spitting out "DO you WANT anOTHer ONE!?" like she was on drugs. Genius." Hahaha. Exactly! That part was genuinely frightening.
I saw this the day it opened in Ireland, so I've almost recovered. Mark Kermode's review, however, I'm still giggling about.
My thoughts from the movie were:
1) I loved the Greek Chorus.
2) Meryl and Amanda were very very good.
3) I will never ever ever forget Pierce Brosnan singing S.O.S.
4) Why did they cut "Thank You for the Music?"
5) Thank god they cut "The Name of the Game."
6) The Greek isles would be a great place to visit (or live).
7) Damn that music is catchy.
peter i was so happy that THE NAME OF THE GAME wasn't in the movie so that now my favorite ABBA song is still untarnished!
I just hope that the millions of dollars this movie has made, don't serve to let anyone put Phyllida Lloyd behind a movie camera ever again!
The direction and editing were a JOKE!
Meryl absolutely carried this one.
Also, what!? Comparing ABBA to the Beatles...are you mad?! You must not know much about the Beatles music and you certainly are no musician.
Their music is extremely complicated with key changes, unusual chord progressions, sharps and flats and stretched octaves. Oy!
ABBA is easy to listen to , easy to sing, easy to play....I guess that's why it is so popular. We can
almost do it ourselves and we can certainly sing along!
Sean Knight said...
The worst film of the year hands down. When Meryl Streep makes you cringe every time she's on screen you know you're in trouble.
RJ said...
You forgot #13:
"Dominic Cooper is a fox."
Nathaniel, how do you rate Meryl's chances for the golden globe for best actress in a comedy/musical?
I really agree what most you said about Mama Mia ... especially the fact that if Meryl were not the star, no one could have pulled it off.
I do have to say again and again. If a movie makes one feel happy and joyously free, it has done its intended job .. it does not need critics to use a magnifying glass on it.
It surely seems to me that it has done this job for millions of people all over the world ... at a time we need it the most!
By the way, Meryl won the Best Actress Award from the NAtional MOvie Awards. In her speech she took a definite swipe at critics.
"as gifted as the Beatles".
I didn't read that.
- cal roth
cal Yay! You're actually reading! i worry these days about blogging and the "skim" factor. making sure you're all paying attention
rick i never take anything actors say about critics seriously. an actors job is to act. a critics is to critique ;) actors aren't very good at critique'ing... just notice all the terrible performances that get nominated for awards and the great ones that don't make a ripple.
and a perfect example adam k letting us know that Meryl defended Pierce's "singing" YIKES.
rj hey! these are my thoughts not yours. although I concur. but there was something really creepy about that big musical number erupting around his girlfriend in a bathing suit and all his guy friends cheering him on. or whatever it is they were doing. what the hell was going on in these musical numbers?!
"what the hell was going on in these musical numbers?!"
I have no idea. I couldn't see any of them with all the cutting.
Nat, I think everyone is able to judge. Meryl just said (the way i see it) that she is glad people liked it whereas critics didn't. As for Brosnan's voice, come on, politeness before pointless admission of the obvious. Wow :p
Thank you, Jim , let's put thhis to rest.
Cluster Funk said...
I actually thought Amanda's acting and singing were (slightly) better than Meryl's in this movie. But both of them single- (or double-) handedly made it tolerable.
Really can't blame Meryl for defending Pierce. It's part of the job. Actors can't go around saying "yeah that part of my movie's crap" and then expect people to like you. Even Meryl Streep.
I mean, look what happened with Katherine Heigl.
Plus, Meryl's just a nice person and doesn't like to say mean things about people. Especially her fellow actors. It's just putting the best spin on things, it's like politics.
I'm sure she realizes he's not a good singer, but she probably had fun working with him, and I'm sure he's a nice person, and she just puts the best face on it that she can. You can tell watching her say it that she didn't really mean it, and was just playing the game (it was very amusing).
And yes, it's not the actors' job to critique. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Directors, though, that's a different story...
Oh, and Benny and Bjorn were in it. Benny in a Greek fisherman's cap playing the piano on the jetty during 'Dancing Queen' and Bjorn dressed up with the 'Greek chorus' at the start of the end credits.
Stephen just beat me to the punch! I noticed Bjorn especially.
But, Nat, I completely agree with you about pretty much all of it. The women I liked, the music itself I liked, Meryl made it fun and it was easy watch, but the direction and choreography and the design and the CGI and all those random slow motion shots mid-number and why did every musical number have to include running?
Chris Na Taraja said...
I agree, Meryl Streep is a national treasure. usually I'm suspicious of people and things so well loved by the public. I'm wary of fads. but She is truly a great actress.
i had the pleasure of seeing her in "Mother Courage" in Central Park, and she was phenominal. I'm surprised they haven't yet optioned it for a film.
I haven't seen Mama Mia yet.
Pfangirl said...
I finally got around to watching this one this weekend as well. My thoughts:
A) Amanda was my fave performer in the film (yes, I preferred her even to Meryl). Appealing performance and the best singer by far.
B) Why couldn't they have swapped Colin for Pierce? Easily the best of the "Daddies" when it came to singing.
C) My favourite part of the whole thing was that weird "encore" at the end. It was the only part of the surprisingly unfunny film that made me laugh.
D) The music was fantastic; the storyline NOT.
D) The cinema was packed with 40-50 something women and they seemed to be infected by the silliness - one woman behind me even yelled out a response to Meryl's question at the end.
Aristotelian Unities.
/sigh
I love Wednesday Addams.
MAMMA MIA! the film.
Flawed? Yes?
Lots of fun? Yes!!
I'm still heartbroken that they never cast, nor considered (to the best of my knowledge) Hilary Duff for the role of Sophie. She's the right age, can sing, yadda yadda yadda. No one in Hollywood ever asks me about anything. :P~
So many of my favorite movie memories this year stem from this film. Listening to audience members singing along. People clapping at the end. People coming in social groups to have a fun night out at the movies. And then there was that lady who laughed at so hard at the sight of Stellan Skarsgard's naked butt she laughed for 15 minutes afterwards. Her joy was contagious.
Not every movie has to be the best movie ever made. Sometimes it's just fun to go out and have fun with your friends.
Regarding 05: While the ABBA ladies weren't in the film, the ABBA men were. Benny can be seen for about two seconds playing the piano on the dock towards the end of the "Dancing Queen" segment. Bjorn can be seen for about five seconds as part of the Greek Gods/Chorus at the end of the film. So maybe now it was a little more fun for you?
Regarding 03: BTW, The Beatles? Never liked them. Their music hurts my ears. I'm not joking; I had to walk out of the film I AM SAM because Beatles music was pretty much the entire soundtrack and I didn't know that going into it. Eeeerf.
Worst big Hollywood production of the year, even thought I can't be hard on any of the actors, at all. But razzie galore, please.
great critique, really made me laugh! just to add my opinion, and i agree with everything you said, but i quite liked Pierce Brosnan's tone-deafness, it gave a noticable imperfection and a dose of reality to the film, sort of, true friendship value, "we are not superficial and even though you can't sing, we accept you". Amanda, ok, not too bad but i can think of at least 3 actresses who would be much better for the role. Meryl is a goddess and she is a pure joy to watch. all in all, oldies pull this movie off, young ones let it down, somewhat. maybe it's the connection to the music or just some poor casting choices, it's hard to tell as I don't know any of the young ones, maybe they'll be better in their next movie...
Mackenzie said...
I don't understand all your thoughts. I mean Mamma Mia was supposed to be a movie you watch and simply feel good. It is NOT a movie where you have to take a look behinde every single sequence. To be honest, I tried and ended up with: Just sit there and enjoy the movie.
I loved it from the first to the last moment. There are other movies that can be run through an "autopsy". But this one... on a scale from 1 to 10: It gets a 10 from me. It made me feel good, jump up from my seat and sing & dance along.
As for the director: Phyllida Lloyd did a great job. And it was the best possible thing to have her direct it. She directed the original musical in London and the Broadway version in NYC. She deserved to do this together with Catherine Johnson and Judy Cramer. They brought up their kid to a worlds success. And now to a success at the box office.
So sit back, relax and simply enjoy MAMMA MIA!
And ABBA can take it up with the Beatles. No other band from the 70s sells more CDs than ABBA still does every day.
I don't find it fun. I've been watching it on my computer and I keep shutting off because it's unbearable. It's visually ugly in spite of an incredibly beautiful location. I like the songs when ABBA sings them but they hurt my ears and rattle my brain when this cast "sings" them. The chronology (they're in the 2000s but the affair was 20 years ago in the 1960s and the actors are in their 50s and 60s and look it), which adds to the Kafka-esque, alternate-world Twilight Zonish feeling. The actors seem to be on uppers. Should have been called "Mamma's Little Helper."
On a positive note, watching Mamma Mia is better than being waterboarded.
Why is Brosnan's singing voice always critized in this film? Didn't anyone stay till the end to see Colin Firth dance (dance?)?
He can't dance, he can't even walk gracefully.
Why is Pierce Brosnan's singing voice (in this movie) always being brought up for being so awful? Didn't anybody stay to see the end of this movie to see Colin Firth dance? Dance? He can't dance - he doesn't even walk gracefully.
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Latina Lista: News from the Latinx perspective > Culture > Books > Top national book award goes to Richard Valencia, national authority on "deficit thinking"
Top national book award goes to Richard Valencia, national authority on "deficit thinking"
inBooks, Culture, Education, Local News, South
La Voz de Austin
AUSTIN, TX — Educational psychologist Richard Valencia's newest book, "Dismantling Contemporary Deficit Thinking," has garnered the 2011 Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA), with the awards committee describing the book as a "superlative treatment" of the topic of deficit thinking.
The AERA is the world's largest and most prominent professional organization for scholars of the education process and educational evaluation, and its Outstanding Book Award is deemed by many to be the top honor for authors of education-related publications.
Valencia, a professor in The University of Texas at Austin College of Education's Department of Educational Psychology, is one of the leading national authorities on "deficit thinking," an approach to academic failure that is based on racial and class bias.
"Deficit thinking blames the student, who is actually the 'victim' in this instance," said Valencia, "rather than looking at ways in which schools and education policies systematically impede the learning and success of poor students and students of color."
In his landmark book, he examines three current deficit-based approaches to student academic failure – the genetic pathology model, the culture of poverty model and the "at-risk" model, in which poor and ethnic minority students are pathologized and marginalized.
The book offers critiques and alternative explanations for the academic failure of so many of the nation's children as well as comprehensive critiques and anti-deficit thinking alternatives to the pseudoscience of deficit thinking.
Valencia also examines several promising, research-based anti-deficit thinking suggestions from the areas of teacher education, educational ethnological and educational leadership.
"Richard Valencia has unquestionably become the expert on critiquing deficit thinking in education and educational research," said Dr. James Joseph Scheurich, a professor in Texas A&M University's College of Education and Human Development. "While I highly prized his prior book on this subject, this new one will quickly take the prior one's favored place on my closest bookshelf and in the minds of my students."
Valencia's first book on the subject, "The Evolution of Deficit Thinking: Educational Thought and Practice" (1997), has attracted considerable interest from scholars around the world over the past decade and is considered a "classic" on the topic.
The AERA's Outstanding Book Award is given annually to acknowledge the year's best book-length publication in the area of education research and development – this year there were 25 nominations. To be considered for the award, a book must address research-based ways in which the education process can be improved.
Only two University of Texas at Austin faculty members have won the Outstanding Book Award since it was established in 1983 and both are in the College of Education.
In addition to Valencia, Dr. Angela Valenzuela, a professor in the Departments of Curriculum and Instruction as well as Educational Administration, was an award recipient.
"Dismantling Contemporary Deficit Thinking" also was nominated for the American Educational Studies Association Critics Book Award and University Co-operative Society Robert W. Hamilton Book Award.
Valencia's book "Chicano Students and the Courts: The Mexican American Legal Struggle for Educational Equality" won a 2010 University Co-operative Robert W. Hamilton Book Award and in early 2011, the third edition of his book "Chicano School Failure and Success: Past, Present and Future" was released.
Over the past 20 years since its initial release, "Chicano School Failure and Success" has become a foundation text in the area of Mexican American education.
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text:
Елена Андреевна Панченко (род. 1915, село Камышеваха, теперь Попаснянского района Луганской области — ?) — советская деятельница сельского хозяйства, бригадир свиноводческой фермы совхоза «Забойщик» Попаснянского района Ворошиловградской области, новатор сельскохозяйственного производства, Герой Социалистического Труда (22.10.1949). Депутат Верховного Совета УССР 3-го созыва.

Биография
Родилась в крестьянской семье.

Трудовую деятельность начала в 1930-х годах в свиноводческом совхозе «Забойщик» поселка Камышеваха Попаснянского района Ворошиловградской области, где проработала свинаркой, бригадиром свиноводческой фермы много лет.

В 1948 году вырастила за год от 42-х свиноматок по 25 поросят в среднем на свиноматку, при среднем живом весе поросенка в 2-х месячном возрасте 15,2 килограмма. За достигнутые успехи в получении высокой продуктивности животноводства была удостоена звания Героя Социалистического Труда.

Потом — на пенсии в поселке Камышеваха Попаснянского района Луганской области.

Награды
 Герой Социалистического Труда (22.10.1949)
 два ордена Ленина (1948, 22.10.1949)
 медали

Источники
 Газета «Знамя победы» (Ворошиловград) — январь 1951 года.

Герои Социалистического Труда
Кавалеры ордена Ленина
Родившиеся в 1915 году
Родившиеся в Попаснянском районе
Депутаты Верховного Совета Украинской ССР 3-го созыва


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