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EU Leader to Hold High-Level Talks in Turkey - 2004-01-14
Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission, is scheduled to arrive in Ankara Thursday in a landmark visit to the EU's sole predominantly Muslim candidate for full membership. Mr. Prodi's visit is the first by any EU commission president since Turkey launched relations with the European organization back in 1963.
During his two day tour that will take him to the Turkish capital, Ankara, and the country's financial center, Istanbul, Mr. Prodi is expected to hold talks with Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other prominent Turkish leaders. He will be accompanied by the EU top official in charge of enlargement, Gunter Verheugen.
Talks are expected to focus on Turkey's bid for full membership of the Union made 17 years ago.
At a news conference on the eve of his visit, Mr. Prodi praised Mr. Erdogan's government for a sweeping set of democratic reforms adopted by the Turkish parliament, where the prime minister's ruling Justice and Development party has a strong majority.
But Mr. Prodi noted that implementation of the reforms is crucial in order for Turkey to qualify for membership. The EU is expected to make a decision in December on whether or not to launch accession talks with Turkey.
The EU has long put off Turkey's request to launch membership talks because of the country's poor human rights record. Recent opinion polls also indicate that some EU countries are wary of having a large Muslim country with a rapidly expanding population of 70 million in their midst.
But the main hurdles to Turkey's accession remain political. EU leaders have made it clear that they will not consider launching membership talks unless Turkey uses its influence over the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, to resume United Nations-sponsored talks aimed at re-uniting the divided island of Cyprus.
EU leaders say that the Greek-controlled south of the island will be admitted as a full member together with nine other candidate countries on May 1, even if a settlement to unite Cyprus is not reached by that date. The island's Turkish Cypriot minority would then be deprived of the benefits of membership enjoyed by their fellow Greek islanders. Turkey's own chances of joining the Union would diminish analysts say.
Hopes that talks can be re-launched between the island's Greek Cypriot majority and the breakaway Turkish republic of northern Cyprus recognized only by Turkey were renewed this week. Mehmet Ali Talat, a Left-wing Turkish Cypriot politician formed a government that backs the U-N's latest re-unification plan. Mr. Talat has expressed hope that under his leadership the Turkish Cypriots will strike a peace deal in time for them to join the EU.
Analysts warn, however, that Mr. Talat cannot resume talks without the firm backing of the Turkish government. Some 35,000 Turkish troops have been stationed in Cyprus ever since Turkey invaded the north of the island in 1974, in response to a coup mounted by Greek Cypriots seeking union with Greece.


M Sports would like to congratulate Moses Akimana for signing a fantastic offer with NCAA D1 IUPU Fort Wayne for the 2018 men's soccer season. Moses has been playing his football at Birkenhead United and recently Auckland City U20's. He will join another kiwi Jamie Lamb for the 2018 season. Good luck fellas.


Physical Description: .1) print - Black and white image of a still-life photograph, "Flint Hills" by Gordon Parks. Below is a quoate by Governor John Carlin. .2) letter - From John Carlin, January 1987.
Dimensions (in cm): H: 20"; W: 24"


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Funding opportunities to make Bucks safer
Home » Funding opportunities to make Bucks safer
By Lauren Taylor
Funding opportunities to make Bucks safer2022-06-092022-06-09https://heartofbucks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/hob-logo-landscape-2021.jpgHeart of Bucks Community Foundationhttps://heartofbucks.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/community-safety-fund-website-banner.png200px200px
Charities and community groups across Buckinghamshire can now apply for grant funding for projects that tackle Buckinghamshire Council's 'Safer Buckinghamshire Plan' priorities through the Community Safety Fund.
Funded by the Council, in partnership with Heart of Bucks, the purpose of the Community Safety Fund is for Buckinghamshire to continue to be one of the safest places to grow up, raise a family, live, work and do business.
Organisations applying for funding must ensure their project tackles at least one of the 'Safer Buckinghamshire Plan' priorities:
Protecting vulnerable adults and children
Addressing the impact of drugs, alcohol, or poor mental health
Tackling violence against women and girls
Dealing with offending
Helping communities become more resilient
Steve Bowles, Buckinghamshire Council's Cabinet Member for Communities, commented:
"I am delighted that our new Community Safety Fund is now available for projects that help to make Buckinghamshire a safer place. The fund is part of our commitment to working closely with community and voluntary groups and local businesses in Bucks to deliver the priorities in our Safer Buckinghamshire Plan."
Grants of up to £15,000 are available and can be used towards capital expenditure, project costs, and/or core costs and overheads associated with the delivery of the project.
Henry Allmand, CEO at Heart of Bucks said:
"We are delighted to be launching a fund dedicated to making Buckinghamshire a safer place to live, work and do business. Together with the council, we are committed to reducing crime and disorder and protecting vulnerable people in our county. The Community Safety Fund will enable us to provide vital funding to community organisations transforming Buckinghamshire for the better."
For more information on Buckinghamshire's Community Safety Fund, please click here.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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With International Men's Day in November, Workscore has analysed data from their unique, rolling online survey to understand the impact of work on the wellbeing of men. More than 3,000 male participants generated over 180,000 data points to provide interesting insights into how men perform at work.
Men fell into three clear groupings – high performing (31%), low performing (31%) and 'middle of the road' (38%). WorkScore measures performance across key criteria of work, body, fuel, fitness and mindset. And high performing men do well across the board.
Suzanne Deeming, co-founder of WorkScore, said "Our data confirmed earlier findings that scoring well in one domain correlates with good scores in others. Like anything, prioritising wellbeing is a habit that translates into all areas of life".
Compared to the lower performing group, high performers get more sleep of higher quality, are active more days per week, do more strength and resistance exercise and eat more serves of fruit and vegetables.
They also take more full lunch breaks as well as regular short breaks through the day, including going outside during work hours.
"Significantly, high performers state that work strongly aligns to their values, they feel a greater sense of belonging and teamwork and feel that their workplace cares about their wellbeing", noted Suzanne Deeming.
With renewed focus on men's mental health, of most concern were the findings that the lowest performing men are 40% more depressed and 33% more anxious than their higher performing peers. And they rate a much lower work/life balance.
The opposite is true of the high performers who are more positive, make their wellbeing a priority and feel more capable of dealing with life's problems. They also receive more recognition and feel a greater sense of achievement at work along with having a strong feeling of positive work/life balance.
"There are a range of initiatives that employers can implement immediately to help improve the mental health and wellbeing of men in theworkplace", suggested Suzanne Deeming. "From simple things such as encouraging teamwork and providing recognition, to something more robust such as investing in a corporate wellbeing program".


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Tabasco sauce
Tabasco is a brand of hot sauce made exclusively from tabasco peppers (Capsicum frutescens var. tabasco), vinegar, and salt. It is produced by McIlhenny Company of Avery Island, Louisiana.
McIlhenny Company
Private (family-owned)
Edmund McIlhenny
Avery Island, Louisiana, United States
Anthony Avery "Tony" Simmons, CEO
Hot sauce and other condiments
About 200 (per company web site, August 2014)
2,500 - 5,000 SHU
A Tabasco advertisement from ca. 1905. Note the cork-top bottle and diamond logo label, which are similar to those in use today.
According to company legend, Tabasco was first produced in 1868 by Edmund McIlhenny, a Maryland-born former banker who moved to Louisiana around 1840.
However, as Jeffrey Rothfeder's book McIlhenny's Gold points out, some of the McIlhenny Company's official history[1] is disputed. A book review by Mark Robichaux of The Wall Street Journal quotes Rothfeder's book:
"The story actually begins in the pre-Civil War era with a New Orleans plantation owner named Maunsel White, who was famous for the food served at his sumptuous dinner parties. Mr. White's table no doubt groaned with the region's varied fare — drawing inspiration from European, Caribbean and Cajun sources — but one of his favorite was of his own devising, made from a pepper named for its origins in the Mexican state of Tabasco. White added it to various dishes and bottled it for his guests. Although the McIlhennys have tried to dismiss the possibility,[1] it seems clear now that in 1849, a full two decades before Edmund McIlhenny professed to discover the Tabasco pepper, White was already growing Tabasco chilies on his plantation."[2]
Rothfeder cited a January 26, 1850 letter to the New Orleans Daily Delta newspaper crediting the slave-owning banker-politician Maunsel White as having introduced "Tobasco red pepper" (sic) to the southern United States and asserting that the McIlhenny was at least inspired by White's recipe.[2] Jean Andrews, in her book "Peppers: the Domesticated Capsicums," goes further to declare — citing United States Circuit Court testimony from 1922 — that prior to his death in 1862, "White gave some [pepper] pods, along with his recipe, to his friend Edmund McIlhenny, during a visit to White's Deer Range Plantation."[3]
To distribute his, Edmund McIlhenny initially used discarded cologne bottles sourced from a New Orleans glass supplier. On his death in 1890, McIlhenny was succeeded by his eldest son, John Avery McIlhenny, who expanded and modernized the business, but resigned after only a few years in order to join Theodore Roosevelt's 1st US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders.[4] On John's departure, brother Edward Avery McIlhenny, a self-taught naturalist fresh from an Arctic adventure, assumed control of the company and also focused on expansion and modernization, running the business from 1898 until his death in 1949.
Walter S. McIlhenny in turn succeeded his uncle Edward Avery McIlhenny, serving as president of McIlhenny Company from 1949 until his death in 1985. Edward McIlhenny Simmons then ran the company as president and CEO for several years,remaining as board chairman until his death in 2012.[5] Paul McIlhenny became company president in 1998 and was chairman until his death in 2013.[6] In 2012, McIlhenny cousin Tony Simmons assumed the company's presidency and runs the company today.[7]
McIlhenny is one of just a few U.S. companies to have received a royal warrant of appointment that certifies the company as a supplier to Queen Elizabeth II. McIlhenny is one of the 850 companies around the world that have been officially designated as suppliers to the queen by such warrants. The warrant held is "Supplier of Tabasco HM The Queen – Master of the Household – Granted in 2009".[8]
Tabasco pepper mash aging in barrels on Avery Island, Louisiana
Originally all peppers used in Tabasco were grown on Avery Island. Today peppers grown on the Island are used to produce seed stock, which is then shipped to foreign growers,[9] primarily in Central and South America. More predictable weather and readily available farmland in these locales allow a constant year-round supply. This ensures the availability of peppers should severe weather or other problems occur at a particular growing location.
Following company tradition, peppers are picked by hand. To ensure ripeness, pickers compare peppers to a little red stick (le petit bâton rouge); peppers that match the color of the stick are then introduced into the sauce production process. Peppers are ground into a mash on the day of harvest and placed along with salt in white oak barrels (aging barrels previously used for Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey[10]). To prepare the barrel, the inside of the barrel is de-charred (top layer of wood is removed), torched, and cleaned, to minimize the presence of any residual whiskey. The barrels are then used in warehouses on Avery Island for aging the mash.
After aging for up to three years, the mash is strained to remove skins and seeds. The resulting liquid is then mixed with vinegar, stirred occasionally for a month, and then bottled as finished sauce.[11] Tabasco has released a Tabasco reserve edition with peppers aged for up to eight years, mixed with wine vinegar [12]. Tabasco diamond reserve edition has been released as of 2018. This sauce consists of peppers that have been aged for up to fifteen years, then mixed with sparkling white wine vinegar. It becomes black instead of red.[13]
Much of the salt used in Tabasco production comes from an Avery Island salt mine, one of the largest in the U.S.
In 2005, Avery Island was hit hard by Hurricane Rita. As a result, the family constructed a 17-foot (5.2 m)-high levee[9] around the low side of the factory and invested in back-up generators.
A few of the varieties of Tabasco sauce, with the original on the far right.
Several sauces are produced under the Tabasco brand name, including jalapeño-based green, chipotle-based smoked, habanero, garlic, "sweet and spicy", and "Buffalo style" sauces. The habanero, chipotle, and garlic sauces include the tabasco peppers blended with other peppers, whereas the jalapeño variety does not include tabasco peppers. None of these sauces, however, has the three-year aging process the flagship product uses. The brand also produces a selection of Tabasco Chocolate.
SpicinessEdit
The flagship red variety of Tabasco pepper sauce measures 2,500–5,000 SHU on the Scoville scale. The habanero sauce is considerably hotter, rating above 7,000+ Scoville units. The chipotle sauce adds chipotle pepper to the original sauce, measuring 1,500–2,500. The garlic variety, which blends milder peppers in with the tabasco peppers, rates 1,200–1,400 Scovilles, and the green pepper (jalapeño) sauce is even milder at 600–1,200 Scovilles. The Sweet and Spicy sauce is the mildest of all the sauces at only 100–600 Scoville units. In 2017, Tabasco released a limited edition sauce made with the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper, which can reach up to 2,000,000 scoville units.[14]
PackagingEdit
Original Tabasco red pepper sauce
Tabasco sauce highlighted in an MRE, middle right
Tabasco brand pepper sauce is sold in more than 185 countries and territories and is packaged in 22 languages and dialects.[15] The Tabasco bottle is still modeled after the cologne-style bottles used for the first batch of sauce in 1868.[9] As many as 720,000 two-ounce (57 ml) bottles of Tabasco[16] sauce are produced daily at the Tabasco factory on Avery Island. Bottles range from the common two-ounce and five-ounce (59 ml and 148 ml) bottles, up to a one US gallon-(3.8 liter) jug for food service businesses, and down to a 1/8-ounce (3.7 ml) miniature bottle. There are also 0.11-ounce portion control (PC) packets of Tabasco sauce.
One-eighth-ounce bottles of Tabasco, bearing the presidential seal, are served on Air Force One.[9] The US military has included Tabasco sauce in Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) since the 1980s. The Australian, British and Canadian armies also issue small bottles of Tabasco sauce in their rations.[17]
UsesEdit
McIlhenny Company produces Tabasco brand products that contain pepper seasoning, including popcorn, nuts, olives, mayonnaise, mustard, steak sauce, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, marinating sauce, barbecue sauce, chili sauce, pepper jelly, and Bloody Mary mix. McIlhenny Company also permits other brands to use and advertise Tabasco sauce as an ingredient in their products (a common marketing practice called "co-branding"), including Spam, Hormel chili, Slim Jim beef sticks, Heinz ketchup, A1 steak sauce, Plochman's mustard, Cheez-It crackers, Lawry's salt, Zapp's potato chips, Heluva Good dip, and Vlasic pickles.
The original red Tabasco sauce has a shelf life of five years when stored in a cool and dry place; other Tabasco flavors have shorter shelf lives.[18]
Tabasco appeared on the menu of NASA's space shuttle program and went into orbit on the shuttles.[19] It was on Skylab and on the International Space Station and is popular with astronauts as a means of countering the bland food they frequently are provided in space.
CookbooksEdit
During the Vietnam War, Brigadier General Walter S. McIlhenny issued The Charlie Ration Cookbook.[20] (Charlie ration or "C-Rats" was the name for the field meal then given to troops.) This cookbook came wrapped around a two-ounce bottle of Tabasco sauce in a camouflaged, water-resistant container. It instructed troops how to mix C-rations to make such meals as "Combat Canapés" or "Breast of Chicken under Bullets."[19] Soldiers also requested their families to send them Tabasco sauce in "care packages" from home.
During the 1980s, the U.S. military began to include miniature bottles of Tabasco sauce in its MREs. Eventually, miniature bottles of Tabasco sauce were included in two-thirds of all MRE menus.[21] During the same period, McIlhenny Company issued a new military-oriented cookbook using characters from the comic strip Beetle Bailey. Titled The Unofficial MRE Cookbook, it was offered free of charge to U.S. troops.
ToxicityEdit
In a 1982 article titled "Pepper Sauce Toxicity" Tabasco pepper sauce's toxicity was evaluated based on red peppers and vinegar. Sprague-Dawley rats (lab rats) were tested on. The oral median lethal dose in male lab rats was determined to be 23.58 mL/kg body weight (BW) with an upper limit of 29.75 mL/kg BW and a lower limit of 18.70 mL/kg BW. The median lethal dose in the female lab rats was found to be 19.52 mL/kg BW (15.64 mL/kg BW lower, 24.35 mL/kg BW upper).[22]
In art and cultureEdit
The Tabasco bottle is an original design and has remained almost unchanged up to the present. In 1894 composer George W. Chadwick composed the Burlesque Opera of Tabasco, a musical comedy that conductor Paul Mauffray revived in 2018 with support from McIlhenny Company. Tabasco has appeared in many movies and cartoons, as well as on television. It featured in two James Bond films in the 1970s, The Man with the Golden Gun and The Spy Who Loved Me. Some appearances date as far back as the Our Gang short Birthday Blues in 1932 and Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times in 1936. The bottle also graced the side of Darrell Waltrip's race car for a brief period. In Back to the Future: Part III, the saloon bartender uses Tabasco as an ingredient for an instant hangover cure he calls "wake-up juice". Tabasco sauce was also an important element in the television series Roswell (TV Series) about alien/human hybrid teenagers who craved foods that were sweet and spicy and often carried bottles of Tabasco sauce with them. When the network tried to cancel the series in the first season, thousands of fans mailed bottles of Tabasco to the network to show their support. The series continued for three seasons.
List of hot sauces
List of brand name condiments
Tabasco Road
^ a b "An American Tradition Since 1868", Mclhenny Company website, accessed July 1, 2018.
^ a b Mark Robichaux, "Ingredients of a Family Fortune", Oct. 10, 2007 in Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 1, 2018.
^ Jean Andrews, Peppers: the Domesticated Capsicums, p. 121, 1995. ISBN 0-292-70467-4. Accessed July 1, 2018.
^ The Economist, "Tabasco island: Some like it Avery hot", 26 March 2011, p. 40.
^ "WWLTV Eyewitness News Report". Archived from the original on 28 December 2013.
^ "CNN News Report Paul McIlhenny". Retrieved 24 February 2013.
^ "Lead Changes for Tabasco, McIlhenny Company". KATC.com. Archived from the original on 9 July 2013. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
^ Royal Warrant Holders Association
^ a b c d Belson, Ken. Tabasco's Ties to Football Burn Deep. The New York Times, February 3, 2013
^ Mali Mish – An Airstream Travel Blog. Day 185: Tabasco Factory and Jungle Gardens at Avery Island
^ Shevory 2007, pp. B1–B4
^ Product:Tabasco Reserve Peppers(Grab It While You Can). Thenibble.com,October 11, 2011
^ Wyatt, Megan. This gourmet Tabasco sauce will set tongues and wallets on fire. USA Today, April 23, 2018
^ Scoville Archived 24 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine
^ "Tabasco around the World". Retrieved 2 June 2015.
^ Shevory 2007, p. B1
^ "The eat of Battle - how the worlds armies get fed". Retrieved 1 September 2017.
^ FAQs | McIlhenny Company | TABASCO.com
^ a b Edwards, Bob (29 November 2002). "TABASCO's Hot History". National Public Radio. Retrieved 7 June 2008.
^ The Charlie Ration Cookbook
^ "Tabasco and the war against bland military meals". National Museum of American History. Retrieved 1 April 2017.
^ C. L. Winek, D. C. Markie, and S. P. Shanor (1982). "Pepper Sauce Toxicity". Drug and Chemical Toxicology. 5 (2). CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Shevory, Kristina (31 March 2007), "The Fiery Family", The New York Times, retrieved 7 June 2008 .
Kurlansky, Mark (2002), Salt: A World History, Walker & Company, ISBN 0-8027-1373-4 .
Rothfeder, Jeffrey, McIlhenny's Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire, HarperCollins, Apr 21, 2009
Bernard, Shane K. Tabasco: An Illustrated History. University Press of Mississippi, 2007. ISBN 978-0979780806.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tabasco sauce.
How It's Made episode for Tabasco Sauce
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tabasco_sauce&oldid=906882974"


Badhaai Ho is a 2018 Indian comedy drama film directed by Amit Ravindernath Sharma. The film stars Ayushmann Khurrana and Sanya Malhotra in the lead roles. Badhaai Ho is tipped to be a coming-of-age story with a tinge of romance. The Film is produced by Vineet Jain, Hemant Bhandari and Aleya Sen under the banner of Junglee Pictures and Chrome Pictures. It is written by Shantanu Srivastava.
Plot: A man faces embarrassment in the society when he finds out his mother is pregnant.


My time at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was a very worthwhile experience. The classes were stimulating and challenging. The teachers were great. The classes moved at a fast pace and everyone seemed to have a serious approach to their learning. The size of the class allowed the teachers to provide attention to all of the students; there wasn't one time I felt like I was being ignored.
I met people from across the world and from so many different walks of life. Each day during our lunch break students from all different courses ate in the cafeteria which made meeting people simple and easy. The age of the students ranged from 17-60. There were some really fun activities put on by the Madrichim, who were a very welcoming bunch that made settling in and feeling at home no task at all.


Outboard engine requires a careful attitude and protection. Engine cover is necessary for its easy transportation and storage. It is also provides protection against damage, scratches and dents. The cover is also used to protect the motor from adverse weather conditions. The cover is made from the waterproof material which prevents engine from dampness, moisture and low temperatures. Outboard engine packed into the case can be easily stored in an unheated room – pantry, garage or utility room.
To protect the engine from mechanical impact, falling or blow there is an additional soft protective layer between the fabric layers. This protection helps to transport and unload your boat motor calmly and safely.
The bottom part of the cover where the screw is located is reinforced by durable PVC fabric. Handles are also reinforced from inside. Convenient pocket inside the cover will keep your documents safe.
BASIS cover has 3 months warranty.


To a person, former staff critics express a very personal sense of loss--not just of their livelihoods, but of the kind of consistent, informed local arts reporting and reviewing that they fear may not be possible with a patchwork assemblage of freelancers and general assignment reporters. Their concern is echoed by arts organizations that, already acutely aware of competition for review space, now see their potential for coverage dwindling even further. The question, everyone agrees, is not whether classical music needs a critical forum, but what shape that forum might take in a world where traditional print outlets are fading and online sites are only beginning to realize their potential.
The Guardian, hands down home to the most ambitious, interesting arts coverage in an English-language newspaper, has just conducted a competition to find the best young critics. Winners were chosen in eight categories.
There were eight categories, split into two age groups: under 14 and 14-18. Most of you wanted to write about film, music and theatre; fewer tackled architecture, classical music and dance. But we were impressed with how you engaged with every genre, whether telling us why the Canary Wharf tower would never fit into a New York skyline, or finding shades of Andrew Lloyd Webber in a Karl Jenkins composition.
What did we learn? That first and last lines are hard, however old you are. That "incredible" and "amazing" are a dead end when it comes to getting to the heart of what makes something wonderful. That the best reviews aren't always the most polished: wherever you had fun, we had fun, too. All winners receive a £25 National Book Token and a Guardian Young Arts Critics certificate. Choosing an overall winner was tough. In the end, we agreed on Tim Davies, visual art winner, because, said our judge Alan Davey, head of Arts Council England, "he caught perfectly the intriguing weirdness" of the boating lake. Thirteen-year-old Robert Hardy was a close second, for making Davey "want to hear 50s blues-rock zombie music and imagine a dying werewolf's growls".
Amid the gloom about how critics are disappearing from newspapers, when was the last time we've seen somebody celebrate the best of young critics?
Since I read it two weeks ago, I've been trying to think of a respectful way to respond to Martin Bernheimer's cri de coeur in the Financial Times about the extinction of music critics. I admire Martin, and I share his alarm over the disappearance of arts journalism in the traditional media (not "mainstream media or MSM," a term I've always hated, and one which increasingly doesn't describe newspapers' shrinking fortunes).
Historically, the best critics have guarded standards, stimulated debate and, in the complex process, reinforced the importance of art in society. They have been tastemakers, taskmasters and possibly ticket-sellers. Some have even written well. Despite automatic controversy, they played a role in aesthetic checks and balances. If their opinions were important, the reasons behind them were more important.
A primary cause of our imminent extinction must be the internet. An impatient generation is succumbing to the free and easy lure of computer enlightenment. Sure, not all those who cover the arts in old-fashioned print are paragons - still, most do have sufficient education and/or experience to justify their views. On the web, anyone can impersonate an expert. Anyone can blog. Credentials don't count. All views are equal. Some sort of criticism may survive the American media revolution, but professional criticism may not.
Essentially, our civilisation is tilting towards anti-authoritarian contests. Audiences, not judges, select winners. Call it the American Idolisation of culture. On TV, contestants get voted off without explanation. Quality is measured by thumbs, up or down. Scholarly analyses have turned into irrelevant extravagances for snobs.
Many US papers have abandoned thoughtful, detailed reviews altogether. Publishers, editors and, presumably, readers want instant evaluations and newsbites, preferably with flashy pictures. It is Zagat-think, simplicity for the simple-minded.
This is a familiar argument: We have standards. We have credentials. We've had a system to vet quality. If you know the system, it's easy to understand the hierarchy of quality and authority. Critics X's opinion in the New York Times or LA Times is worth more than Critic Y's in the Johnny Falls Daily News. A system of official critics and editors and publications lends authority to judgments of quality. So take away that system and what do you have? Chaos, surely. Remember that famous New Yorker cartoon with the picture of the dog in front of a computer: "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog". Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can get on and express an opinion.
And they do. And how will you know if that opinion is any good or not? And worse - if everyone weighs in and we're so crushed by the volume, how will anyone have the time or interest to read more complicated arguments? If the easy opinion dominates (even if that "opinion" consists of nothing more than texting a vote for Your Next American Idol) will there be anyone left to write those more complicated or informed criticism? Will there be an audience for it? And even if there is, how will readers find the experts?
Martin suggests that this new free-for-all produces a culture of lazy consumers who don't know and/or don't care about quality. The thumbs-up has as much weight as the Financial Times Sunday essay.
This is undoubtedly true for a huge number of people. But perhaps those people weren't paying attention before anyway. And so what if this easy insta-expert business is nothing more than a way to get people paying attention, even at the most basic level? Look at the dance shows on TV right now. Who thought people would watch dance? Yet Dancing with the Stars and So you think you can Dance have been at the top of the ratings. They've occasionally been the most-watched shows on their nights. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but more people than ever have been at least watching some form of dance in the past year. Anything wrong with that?
Anything that encourages people to respond to art (even it's just voting) is a good thing. Too many people (believe it or not) are afraid to express an opinion about that symphony or ballet they've just heard. We elevated the expert opinion about the arts to such a high level that many "regular" people were afraid to express an opinion because they weren't experts.
But I think the larger answer to Martin's concern is that human nature doesn't change that much. The reason critics have been important is because we have a need to find people who can help guide us to the "good" stuff. That need hasn't gone away; to the contrary, we need that kind of help now more than ever. The volume of art available to us now is greater than ever before. Everywhere a wail of complaints has gone up about being overwhelmed by how much there is.
Two final points: First - I think the ocean of creative work out there forces people to become more sophisticated in order to deal with it, not less. Don't mistake quick judgment for short attention spans. With more things competing for our attention, we can afford to be pickier. And we are. We have also expanded our cultural palates, and our tastes and expertise are more wide-ranging than they used to be. Some culture we like we engage with only casually (again the voting), while other culture we devote more of our attentions.
Second - I think the that what's happening here as far as criticism goes is not the disappearance of good critics, but the realignment of critical authority.In a way, we are coming out of the Model T era of criticism. In most cities in this country, the number of arts critics narrowed to less than a handful over the past decade. Our traditional structure of bestowing critical authority in the press had become threadbare. A lot of what has passed for arts journalism has been on auto-pilot. Want proof? We're not seeing significant protests from the arts community as critics are eliminated at local papers.
So where do you find the new critical authority? One answer is that you-the-reader have to work harder. First, because of the internet, we have more access to critics at traditional publications all over the planet. Living in Seattle, I couldn't read the LA Times regularly before the internet came along. Now I can make a daily habit of stories in the Times, The Guardian, The Age, and dozens of other excellent publications. I have to have criteria in this expanded menu for who I want to pay attention to.
Technorati currently tracks 300,000 arts blogs. Many (most) aren't very interesting. But some are. Many are. Slowly the landscape is realigning and signs of where authority lives are becoming more visible. And I think readers are becoming more and more sophisticated about how to find it. For those who aren't? Well, they probably never were.
Chris Page was a theater reviewer for the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Arizona.
Page had worked for "Get Out," the Tribune's entertainment weekly, for more than five years and had been among a reported 11 people laid off about three weeks ago. The Tribune layoff followed an earlier one a couple of months ago in which four people were dismissed, including the editor of the features department, Cheryl Kushner. The Tribune, like many daily newspapers across the country, has been struggling to adjust to a sharp decline in circulation.
Page was also a fellow in the NEA's theatre critic fellowship program at USC in 2005.
Though no study currently exists on the state of theatres of color in comparison to other small, non-profit theatres with financial struggles, the panelists offered anecdotal evidence of marginalization, particularly by the media. Marjorie Moon from the Billie Holliday Theatre said that she continues to beg reviewers to see her shows, even going so far as to send them $25 money orders. According to Moon, she has been refused so many times that the Billie Holiday Theatre does not have valuable press clips to send with grant applications, which results in a lack of funding.
If theatres do receive media coverage, it is biased or obtuse, according to Lorna Hill, artistic director of the 30 year-old Ujima Theatre in Buffalo. "In Buffalo we don't have culturally competent reporters or reviewers," Hill said. "I would give one beautiful leg to not have another white reviewer show up in my theatre and misinterpret my work."
For Emanuel Moran, artistic director of Teatro Sea in Manhattan, Latino theatres face a twofold disadvantage when gaining media coverage: being a low-budget minority theatre, and featuring bilingual and Spanish language productions.
Money for reviews? Really? I can't think of a better way to make sure an ethical critic would give a show a pass. Or am I just being naive?
The ailing news magazine is buying out 111 staffers, including several senior critics. David Gates, who wrote about music and books; movie critic David Ansen; and Cathleen McGuigan, the magazine's senior arts editor, covering architecture, books, theater, design and culture; all are gone.
There was a time when the news magazines at least made a stab at covering culture. But that has dwindled in recent decades.
This is the second major buyout at Newsweek in six years. The first one claimed senior staffers like Lucy Howard, art critic [and NAJP member] Peter Plagens, long time religion editor Ken Woodward, Jean Seligman, Joan Engels, and David Alpern.
Plagens still writes occasionally for the magazine as a contributing editor, and David Ansen (the magazine's senior--and much-loved--movie critic since 1977) and Cathleen McGuigan may also continue to contribute after they cease to be staffers this year.
Just watched Penn Jillette low ball it on "Dancing with the Stars" with Kym. He tried illusion on the judges and it almost worked, sort of. I know that's redundant, but Jillette may be one of the few "from the other side" in the business (no matter how famous he is, his origins --authentic, off-B'way, 99 -seat theater or less -- stick) who would venture into this commercial TV show and retain his hip.
I'm a huge fan of the TV dance shows, especially "So You Think You Can Dance" in part because they teach critical skills through subterfuge. And, in other part, because they seriously promote choreographers. Those judges can be tough and very often they are right. Save for Debbie Allen, who is so loaded with pomposity and 'tude she registers as nothing but false and massively egotistical. She can't judge without plugging her LA studio. There is something to be learned from that about what NOT TO DO. About the separation between advertising and editorial.
But I digress...Penn Jillette and "Dancing with the Stars"...last week The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner held a reunion. Her-Ex theater critic Jack Viertel "discovered" Penn & Teller. I know he did. I remember him returning to the office -- ahhh the days when we critics wrote in the office around communal pillars on computers the size of carry-on luggage, reading our ledes aloud, smoking cigarettes and editing each other's copy in ink on cog-marked, green and white striped printout paper.
But on one of those days, Jack Viertel returned beside himself over Penn & Teller. The rest is history, and Jack got it. Critics meant something then. They still can and do. It just takes guts. By which I mean listening to your gut.
Choreographers on TV and film have always been a big deal inside the circle of Those Who Care, but something is happening right now that is different and monumental and we ought to pay attention. "So You Think You Can Dance" will start up soon (the search for the next Top 20 began on March 1 in NYC).
As a result, it's impossible as a dance-lover not to value them, the choreographers. They give the contestants new works, often in styles that are alien, each week. To see those kids perform -- I mean, think if, on "American Idol," the singers didn't get to choose their songs but had to sing something completely original each week -- is to see budding artists on the line. The choreographers reign.
In acknowledgment of the ascendancy of the on-camera choreographers...If you are one, you may want to submit your work for a Choreography Media Honor. Go to www.dancecamerawest.org for a submission form. The 2nd annual CMHs will be held on June 13 at the Directors Guild of America (DGA in Hollywood). A potentially fabulous opportunity to see a lot of film and/or TV work by choreographic talent known and unknown. For tickets, contact Teresa Taylor at teresa.taylor@mac.com.
The Economist's new Intelligent Life magazine has a go at making a list of the best critics working today. It's an idiosyncratic compilation, at the very least. To start - there are 10 book critics named, but only one dance critic (The NYT's Alastair Macaulay), two visual art critics (Peter Schjeldahl and TJ Clark), one TV critic (Nancy Banks-Smith) and two classical music critics (the New Yorker's Alex Ross and the Evening Standard's Norman Lebrecht). Lebrecht doesn't even consider himself a critic, and he doesn't, for the most part, review concerts.
My first reaction was to quickly compile a but-what-about list of my own that proves the parochialism of The Economist's 24 writers and editors who voted in this exercise. But in making my list, I realized that these things tend to say a lot more about those making the lists than they do about any definitive standard or ranking.
Next thought. How many critics in any field actually belong on a list of bests? My list of best American classical music critics starts to fall off after nine. But that depends on the criteria. There are probably another dozen who are good serious voices - a solid second tier. After that it's not so pretty.
But then when you add in people writing about classical music on the internet, the list suddenly swells. Sure there's a lot of crap on the web, but there's also lots of interesting writing too.
I tend to think that the vitality of an art form is reflected in the quality of the discourse around it. One of the bad things in American culture in the 80s and 90s was the narrowing of public discourse about the arts. When people stop arguing about the quality of the ideas, those ideas get less relevant.
So how many great critics does it take to make a discourse?
Fun though it is as a critic to rifle through these assessments, one has to wonder whether the general public gives a fig for such rankings or whether they don't represent the last gasp of a critical enterprise that has been all but submerged in a welter of PR puffery. What becomes particularly apparent from Intelligent Life's article is the number of magazines that no longer regularly review the live arts, such as Time and Newsweek, whose theatre critics (Ted Kalem and Jack Kroll, respectively) were major names in their own right when I was growing up. I myself spent 21 very happy years reviewing and reporting on theatre out of London for the Associated Press, but when I moved on, so - unsurprisingly - did that job.
Do the usual rules of journalism apply when celebrities are involved?
A Spanish mayor proposes paying kids in his town a Euro for each hour they read. A high school exam board in the UK thinks the reason students don't read is that the books aren't fun. So it proposes letting students pick from the reading list of a popular TV book club. And in Philadelphia, there's a program to give away copies of movies because visual image literacy is low.
"..by its very nature, film tends to elicit a passive attitude in viewers. 'There's far more distance between a reader and a novel, since it takes longer to read and absorb a written story.' Visual media can affect us in a direct, visceral way, which bypasses the intellect and appeals directly to emotions.
Are these stories linked? I'm not sure, but it does seem astonishing to me that in an age in which there is so much art and access to it has never been easier, it's fascinating we still feel the need to bribe people to try it. My head hurts, there's so much to read, see and hear. If there were 20 of me I still couldn't get to all the things I'd love to do. And we need to pay people to read, tart up our reading lists and give away movies?
And while I'm at it, why does so much "education" in the arts seem so evangelical - like the art we're trying to teach you is better than whatever other thing you'd do on your own? Are these attempts at social engineering culture because we want to broaden culture and creativity, or are we stuck on definitions of culture and literacy that are too narrow? I'm no visual art or movie critic, but it seems to me that our visual literacy is higher now than it has ever been.
There are a lot of arts, and arts journalism, in Berlin. Competing newspapers (like London is and New York used to be), and hence competing opinions at the newsstand. Whether German papers cover the little guys (and popular culture) as assiduously as does the NY Times, I don't know, but the London and Paris papers too focus on the big stuff. Had a meeting with Manuel Brug, who is music (and dance) critic of the Berliner Morgenpost AND Die Welt, a national paper. Just laid Barenboim low, an attack that I think appeared in artsjournal or musical america or some such. Bright, conservative, maybe a little bitchy.A distinguished veteran of German and Austrian cultural life had dismissed Brug as "repellent" at lunch just before my appointment with him, tho when I met him, he seemed decent enough. A lot of critics strike artists as repellent; some of them actually are repellent. Which doesn't entirely invalidate the profession. Last night I saw "Die Meistersinger" at the Deutsche Oper; good cast, good old Goetz Friedrich production; evoked the Nazis subtly without beating you over the head with them. Best performance in it was Markus Brueck as Beckmesser. Solid voice, fabulous, Chaplinesque physical comedian. Played him as a critic, not a Jew (character's original name, you'll recall, was Hans Lick). Repellent, maybe, but endearing.
My other thought, surprise surprise, has to do with the Internet. Confronted with the prospect of piling up 25 days worth of New York Timeses on my desk, my wife said: Why not just read it online? I had looked at the NYT online edition before, but never relied on it. Now I see no need to buy the "real" paper ever again, unless to provide our miniature dog a place to pee. As soon as Doug McLennan figures out how to tell the newspaper industry how to make serious money online, and hence to pay its repellent online critics real wages, print is dead. To the extent I feel nostalgic about that (and I don't, now, really), I retired just in time.


If this is not the first time you read me maybe you'll be surprise to see this article written in english. Maybe I should apologize to me usual readers (if I have one at all apart from this guy) because this was one of my goals when getting back the habit of writing. The reason is basically to improve my skills and start making my professional online reputation reach a wider audience. We'll see how it goes but anyway don't expect me to write everything from now on in english. In everything not related to my job I'll be back to spanish (probably).
Since nearly a year now I'm a front end engineer (see this wikipedia article for in depth explanation). For short this means that I work in the IT sector, in a web development company and I'm one of the guys who stand between the "pure coders" and the design agency.
The business analyst department meets with the client and establish a guideline on how the project will be, what they need, how do they need it and when it will be developed and delivered. When both parts agree on what has to be done the design agency works on how it should look and, at some extent, behave. The creative process belongs mainly to the designers. They are able to shape ideas into designs, thanks to Photoshop, inDesing and other tools of that kind. Something that I really envy, creativity is not one of my strengths.
After the BA delivers the specifications and the agency the designs, we start working. The development of a website (an I state development instead of design) has two different sides: back-end part and front-end part. Back end is the part that gets executed in the server and front end in the client (browser). Both are necessary to deliver the final product but the skills and technologies of each one are very different.
In the case of Netcentric, my company, we work with Adobe Experience Manager, a big CMS with Analytics and Campaign modules (among others) included. These are the gears that make the website work. It comes with a default behaviour that the backend developers have to customize, improve and create anew to match the requirements of the project. It's written in Java with its good and bad parts but being backed by Adobe makes it a great solution for big companies.
We could change the backend gears and we would be doing nearly the same. Maybe the file structure, some scripts and mechanics would change but our workflow would be very similar.
I built my first website with Dreamweaver 4 on 2001 hosted, if I recall correctly, in Lycos. At that time there was no difference between front and backend sides as everything was a lot simpler back then. Web developers were called webmasters what nowadays would be called full stack web developer. I wouldn't say I was a pioneer as Web itself started a long time before I joined but I was one of the first guys of my univesity that had a real contact with website development. My first job at Verio was related to website development for a hosting company, the maintenance of the spanish website. After that I joined a web project for developing a project knowledge management tool coded in php.
Now it's hard for me to understand why I didn't push harder in that direction. I din't realize that after two years of getting my degree I was already an expert on the field with what nowadays we would say as one year on front end development and another one and a half in backend development. Maybe I didn't believe that the sector was a truly and proper future option, how mistaken I was.
After some trial an error works and some disappointments I decided to go back to school and get a degree on architecture as it seemed a truly and proper future option citing myself, how mistaken I was citing myself again. After seven years of university I had more work experience in freelance website projects than in architecture or construction. I was very tired: it was a great investment in energy, money and hope and when I finished a deep crisis was set in the construction sector… but I give it a try anyway. I decided to invest in myself thinking that maybe I could be one of that entrepreneurs that are able to build their own emporium from scratch. But it was not the case. After two years of trying I was even more tired and disappointed, sad and frustrated than before, really hopeless and lost.
On December 2013 I got the chance to go back to IT thanks to a close friend who cared and believed in me enough to ask his bosses for an opportunity for me, a guy who had spend the last 8 years of his life trying to build a future in the construction sector and with his IT skills slightly forgotten. After a not so good interview I got the opportunity and I knew I would make it count.
I joined for a minor project, a migration from the old system of the client to our Adobe platform. For the end of the first month I was already leading the team. It was not very demanding for the tech skills but it was demanding in wok ethics as it was very repetitive and boring at times. After the first two months I already knew all the tricks, options and I was able to teach the new guys who were joining the migration team.
On my quarterly review I was given the option to choose the department I would like to join when the migration project finished. After a weeks of talking and thinking the decision was made: front end. I got the chance to sit with one of the guys of the department and I was able to realize how much the tools and the technology had changed since I left. What I remembered of that was quite painful and now we have even embedded developer tools in the browser. When I started web development JS was used for form validation and for showing and hiding menus, now it was hard to believe how powerful it had become.
I was really willing to end the migration project. I was enjoying the time with my colleagues but I was really looking forward to start coding. I got a subscription on Treehouse to update my skills out of office hours and I really enjoyed it. The day finally came on late august with a new project, a new customer and a new version of the Adobe tool. A new team was formed for engaging it and I was the junior guy eager to show my skills and improve every day. I deeply needed to show everyone that I was good enough for that opportunity but overall everyone else, myself.
The beginning was really hard, no one had time to teach me, a lot of things had to be done and there was no time for mistakes. After two months of hard work and a lot of trial and error I went three weeks on my honeymoon and had the time to put everything in context and really enjoy my success until then. I was (and still am) really happy for my accomplishments but I wanted more. I knew I was a junior but my age and previous experience had to really show up eventually.
When I came back my buddy, mate, colleague, teacher, tutor and friend had the time to teach me what I needed to really start being productive. He showed me the tricks, the ways, the best practices and then he let me do my own mistakes. After that and using his own words "I exploded like a rocket". I had the confidence, the skills, the experience, the expertise and the attitude to start growing in the project, the department, the company and the sector.
We finished the first major and public release of the project last week. The set live is scheduled for march so luckily we'll be able to see our project online soon. It's been a really hard last week but totally worth it. I couldn't remember that feeling of accomplishment after almost 9 months of work, battling everyday against trivial, minor, major, critical and blocker bugs. In a few weeks the work of my last year and a half will be available for everyone to see. My talent with all the talent of the people I'm surrounded with will be displayed to the world. It's true that the final product is the result of the work of a lot of people and mine is only a small part of it, but an essential part. All of us have been irreplaceable and without each one of us this wouldn't have been possible. I wouldn't change this feeling of team work and team success for anything else. Being an important part of a talented team is one of that things that makes me go to work really happy for the challenges we face everyday and I couldn't be happier about it.
Count me on as one of your usual readers!
Bravo David! I never had doubts that you would explode like a rocket! You deserve all the success!


The most crucial attribute of any house or room is surfaces. The walls of a room have great impact on the structure of your building and how the style of the room is laid. You will discover plethora of ways in which you can decorate your walls. One particular way is to purchase the unique style of walls.
These kinds of are the walls that look nice and are also practical. The flexibility can be adjusted in line with the amount of space you are experiencing. This wall structure is quite helpful when you need to move furniture you can simply move your walls and allow space to move. Here are a few other benefits associated with moving walls.
– These walls are completely usable and are a sustainable product. This means it is practical in conditions of cost and environment.
– They are also cleaner as in comparison to drywall and provide an improved quality of air inside your house. You can even utilize them in commercial areas as your works can feel better and this will enhance productivity.
– These walls are visually pleasing and also help with daylighting.
– It is unitized and you will eliminate all the extra expense of vendors and manufacturers.
There are many other advantages that you are heading to get with this kind of wall. These days and nights there are the bulk of the homeowners are adopting for it due to convenience and affordability. These kinds of walls are also better as compared to the dry walls. Here are few reasons why you should install them.
– It is cost effective if you happen to include double glazed, hardware, doors, vinyl and many others.
– These walls are incredibly easy and less costly when it comes to assembly.
– There is no disposable cost in simple fact it is reusable as well.
– It is also super easy to maintain them as compared to the dry walls.
– It can be depreciated as furniture not building, therefore, it justifies the cost.
These are some of the advantages that you are going to get with movable wall surfaces as compared with dry walls. Generally there are several vendors and manufacturers available online. You can travel to them and choose accordingly.
There are numerous advantages that you are heading to get if you will shop online. You can certainly find vendors online near by places. This is also going to save you numerous of time. It is a smart investment and also provide you till you need it to serve. That they also offer discounts making good deals and purchase affordable for everyone. You are definitely going to increase your productivity and enhance the look of your workplace. It is also very easy to buy them in both off-line as well as.


ET Agriculture is premium unique WordPress theme that targets for crop farms, cattle farms, farmers' markets and produce sales as well as agricultural services, fertilizing and farming companies, etc. The Agriculture WordPress Theme builds with Genesis Framework, shopping cart support by WooCommerce. It is easily customized to appeal to any farm related audience. All the text will be supported by Google fonts, so they will always stand out of the design, making it easy to read. You'll also be treated to an entire collection of high quality photos for whatever use you might have for them. There are also features that allow for different kinds of content, such as audio and video integration. Also, Agriculture WordPress Theme is 100% responsive by nature, so they render well across all platforms – mobile and desktop ones likewise. Manage your agriculture website with ease, using these Agriculture WordPress Theme.
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The purpose of this study was to 2016 annual the participants' participation motivation and happiness of the marathon. In this study, the self of the marathon participants inscape of participation motivation and the scale of sense of happiness as the research tool; In 2016 annual Taiwan marathon participants for the study, for sample using the internet sampling survey methods, Researcher send out 500 questionnaires, here were 370 valid questionnaires and valid response rate of 74%. Statistics analysis method included descriptive statistics, factor analysis, item analysis, correlation analysis, reliability analysis, validity analysis, partial least squares and other statistics method were analyzed the questionnaires, after statistics analysis of the resulting data, the study found: The marathon participants' participated motivations for happiness were highly influential.


text:
Q: Different resx for different deployments c# I'm using an embedded resource generated by 'PublicResXFileGenerator' which generates my ResourceManager class.
I'm trying to find a way to support multiple resx files for the same language or in some way being able to modify it from a deployed application but this doesnt seem possbible.
For example client 'x' is using the en-US translation:

*

*Flat

and the other client 'y' are using the en-US translation:

*

*Appartment

Maybe the above example is stupid but I hope you get my point.
Different users are using different namings for the same thing and I'd like to support this.
Is it possible?
Note:
My code is written in C#.

A: The strings in your default resource file (probably Resources.resx) are embedded in your executable file.
If you define a language specific resource file (e.g. Resources.en-US.resx) then Visual Studio will automatically generate a satellite DLL containing the localized resources.
The same applies if you add localized resources to a WinForms form, as shown here for Form1.

The satellite DLL is generated in a sub-directory of the bin directory.
The DLL must be deployed on the target machine in a sub-directory with exactly the same name.

This works for localized strings in any language, but it works exactly the same for strings in the current default language.
If the current default is en-US, and there is a satellite DLL for en-US, and it contains the required resources, then the .NET Framework will automatically use resources from the satellite DLL.
If you don't want the resources from the satellite DLL, no problem. Don't deploy it to the target machine. Then the .NET framework will use the default resources which are embedded in the executable.
If you only have two variations, then it is easy to manage in Visual Studio using the default resource file and an en-US resource file. If you have more than two variations, you are going to need a strategy to generate the resources. The simplest way would probably be to misuse another language.
Alternatively, you could use some other tool. Winres might do the job, but I'm not 100% sure.
Technically, you can define custom cultures, e.g. en-US-medical, or en-US-legal, but in my experience that is more bother than it is worth. I don't think (just my opinion) that Microsoft is strongly committed the concept.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Ellen and Janis Real Estate Team was crucial part of our home buying and first home selling experience. Needless to say doing both at once requires great coordination and skill.
With their knowledge of our selling neighborhood in Jamaica Plain and equally so of our target buying area of West Roxbury, they were thorough and thoughtful in explaining our options so we could make the best, most informed decision for our family.
Looking back to our plans when we started working with Ellen and Janis Real Estate Team, we could have only dreamed of living in the home and neighborhood that we are now – and we owe a lot of that to them.


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Born in Richmond, Virginia, Aida Overton grew up in New York City, where she gained an education and considerable musical training. At the age of fifteen, she joined John Isham's Octoroons, a Black touring group of the 1890s, and the following year she became a member of The Black Patti Troubadours. Although these shows consisted of dozens of performers, Overton emerged as one of the most promising "soubrettes" of her day. In 1898, she joined the company of the famous comedy team Bert Williams and George Walker, appearing in all of their extravaganzas—The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1903), Abyssinia (1905), and Bandanna Land (1907). Within about a year of their meeting, George Walker and Overton had married and before long became the most admired of African-American couples on stage.
While George Walker supplied most of the ideas for the musical comedies and Bert Williams enjoyed fame as the "funniest man in America," it was Aida who became the indispensable member of the Williams and Walker Company. In The Sons of Ham, for example, her rendition of Hannah from Savannah won praise for combining superb vocal control with acting skill that together presented a strong image of Black womanhood. Indeed, onstage Aida refused to comply with the "Plantation image" of Black women as plump Mammies, happy to serve; like her husband, she viewed the representation of refined African-American types on the stage as important political work. A talented dancer, Aida improvised original routines that her husband eagerly introduced in their shows; when In Dahomey played in England, Aida proved to be its strongest attraction. Society women invited her to their homes for private lessons in the exotic Cake Walk that the Walkers had included in the show. After two seasons in England, the company returned to the United States in 1904, and Aida was featured in a New York Herald interview about their tour. At times Walker asked his wife to interpret dances made famous by other performers—one example being the "Salome" dance that took Broadway by storm in the early 1900s.
After a decade of nearly continuous success with the Williams and Walker Company, Aida's career took an unexpected turn when her husband collapsed on tour with Bandanna Land. Initially Walker returned to his boyhood home of Lawrence, Kansas, where his mother cared for him. In his absence, Aida took over many of his songs and dances to keep the company together. In early 1909, however, Bandanna Land was forced to close, and Aida temporarily retired from stage work to care for her husband, now seriously ill. No doubt recognizing that he would not recover and that she alone must support the family, she returned to the stage in Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson's Red Moon in the autumn of 1909, and she joined the Smart Set Company in 1910. Aida also began touring the Vaudeville circuit as a solo act. Less than two weeks after Walker's death in January 1911, she signed a two-year contract to appear as a co-star with S. H. Dudley in another all-Black traveling show.
Although still a relatively young woman in the early 1910s, Aida began to develop medical problems that limited her capacity for constant touring and stage performance. As early as 1908, she had organized benefits to aid such institutions as the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls, and after her contract with S. H. Dudley expired, she devoted more of her energy to such projects, which allowed her to remain in New York City. She also took an interest in developing the talents of younger women in the profession, hoping to pass along her vision of Black performance as refined and elegant. She produced shows for two such female groups in 1913 and 1914—the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls. She encouraged them to "work up" original dance numbers and insisted that they don stylish costumes on stage.
When Aida Overton Walker died suddenly of kidney failure on October 11, 1914, the African–American entertainment community in New York went into deep mourning. The New York Age featured a lengthy obituary on its front page, and hundreds of people descended on her residence to confirm a story they hoped was untrue. Walker left behind a legacy of polished performances and model professionalism. Her demand for respect – and her generosity – made her a belovéd figure in African-American theater circles.


Introducing compromised devices into an otherwise well secured network is simply setting up a breach from the inside out.
The Cyber Supply Chain includes those integrated set of components (hardware, firmware, software, and processes) that comprise an information or communications system, including the environments in which it is developed or manufactured, tested, deployed, maintained, and retired/decommissioned.
Activities that introduce Cyber Supply Chain risk include insertion of counterfeit components, tampering or altering components, insertion of malicious software, as well as risky system or software development practices. Such risks may lead to information or system compromise.
BorderHawk has developed an Information Risk evaluation process of Information Communication Technology (ICT) vendors or suppliers. Our assessment process forms a meaningful way to establish confidence that an ICT supplier is responsive to your information security requirements. Where there is moderate, low, or no confidence that a supplier is delivering a product that will introduce an unacceptable information risk to the acquirer, that product should always be tested for information risk.
The FACET process stresses product authenticity, supply chain accountability, and device integrity.
Sampling techniques are used to determine a reasonable testing pool of devices or systems destined for integration into a client's environment. At the conclusion of testing, or upon discovery of critical situations, findings are reported directly to the client's cybersecurity or project management teams as desired. Where test findings reveal vulnerabilities that may be immediately remedied by manufacturer's actions, the BorderHawk FACET Team may work directly with the manufacturer's engineering staff for mitigation solutions (but only with client's prior agreement).
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Developing a trusted relationship with a technical expert in Computer Security – Information Security – Cyber Security is imperative for today's attorney. More and more cases hinge on facts involving people, processes, and technology used to process, store, or transmit information. Choices made early in case development are crucial, we want you to be aware of every aspect of the technical facts surrounding your case.


text:
About Stevie
The Brontë Society
A class of her own
BARBARA PRYS-WILLIAMS meditates on the work of Stevie Davies and her return to Swansea
Sometimes words simply will not do the job. I struggle to give a sense of the simultaneity of the impact of a range of experiences and can only palely do so by relating sequentially 'first this' then 'that'. In May, just after the onset of his sudden, serious illness, our editor Robin Reeves asked me to write this piece to accompany the review of Stevie Davies's new book The Element of Water, knowing how much pleasure and profit I had found in her work when reviewing The Web of Belonging and Impassioned Clay (NWR 47). In the intervening period, I had sought out several of her earlier books. Now I had to catch up on Arms and the Girl. Through a sunny May afternoon on Caldey Island, seated on a window seat of a tiny chapel fashioned from a twelfth-century watch tower overlooking the straits to Tenby, I read with painful fascination this bleak and imaginatively gripping tale of how child abuse comes about. That night, I felt drawn to attend the monks' Vigils service at 3.30 am., and, a Quaker participating in a Catholic rite, had a powerful sense of the monks regularly beaming out light and love at this deep time of night, when the sick sink into death, near-suicides despair and all manner of crime is committed. Later, as I reached the end of Stevie Davies's novel, I pondered on the insight she had given me — that she always seems to give me — into the human condition. She has imaginatively inhabited the characters of her tale so tellingly and with so much compassion that the reader comes to understand the life circumstances which cause such abuse, the consequences of it from generation to generation and the possible reparation within one's grasp in small acts of love. The monks create swelling points of light in darkness; Stevie Davies had made what had initially felt deeply threatening and likely to evoke horror in the reader into something that was, however bleakly, contained and understood and thus could be confronted.
Insight, imaginative depth, the capacity to put within the reader's grasp what can normally only be glimpsed out of the corner of an eye — these are some of the qualities I treasure in Stevie Davies's work. I am delighted to record that she is not, uniquely, my discovery. Some broadsheet accolades have been notable. Thus from the Times: 'this highly original writer ... has an extraordinary insight into the working of the human mind and emotions', and the Guardian: 'She is one of our most interesting as well as most shamefully neglected writers'. Finally, the Independent: 'There are good writers, there are very good writers. And there is Stevie Davies, who is in a class on her own'.
Her extraordinary versatility is one of the most impressive aspects of her achievement. Her new novel is her eighth and, a former university lecturer who is now a full-time writer, she has written thirteen further books of literary criticism, history and biography, many of which have won warm praise from specialists in their relevant fields. Her ability to do different takes on the same subject can reveal, at one level, an endearing playfulness and, at another, can seem a lively enactment of the provisional and constructed nature of 'truth'. Consider, for example, where she has been with Emily Brontë.
Her Emily Brontë, Heretic is what my late-come-to theoretical-perspectives mind clearly categorises as A Hard Book. It is a critical study of Emily Brontë's poems, novels and essays in which Davies places the author in intellectual traditions from which she is commonly excluded, as a woman and vaguely mystical 'natural genius'. Davies focuses, in particular, on German Romantic philosophy, an enthusiasm for which, could, she believes, have been picked up by Brontë during her stay in Brussels, and explores her hypothesis through a close reading of Wuthering Heights. She further sees Brontë's analysis of a strife-torn creation in terms of a proto-Darwinian apprehension of the predatory universe she suspected as being 'a vast machine constructed solely to produce evil'. This ferociously intelligent book is the brain-child of Dr. Davies, the academic; two years later Stevie Davies, novelist, surfaces with her poignant, funny novel Four Dreamers and Emily.
Here she makes gentle fun of the Brontë industry and the academic claim-staking, including her own, that builds on it: the minutiae-obsessives like the semi-colon experts; the deconstructionists; the militant feminists from opposing schools of thought. There are ordinary readers, too, for whom an 'Emily' fabricated from their own need plays a vital role. In her four dreamers who assemble at Howarth for an academic conference, she delineates compensatory fantasies which have become central to bleak lives, lives often lived with courage. Eileen Nussey James, an ageing virgin, bane of conference organisers because of her strident insistence on the centrality of Passion, is appalled and sickened on a trek across the moor when she comes upon Passion-in-the-Flesh — two of the conference theorists, 'two naked bodies, copulating' — and all her defences crumble:
A passage had been forced to her sanctuary, blinkers had been ripped from her eyes.[ ... ] How to live with the dismaying world when you stripped it of illusion?
Later, accidentally locked in the Brontë home overnight with the elderly and sick Timothy Whitty, she briefly finds with him a consoling companionship of a sort never before experienced by her. For each of the four dreamers, attendance at the catastrophic conference brings a shift to a different and richer pattern of being.
Cumulatively from Stevie Davies's writing one gets a sense of an intensely curious and empathetic personality whose lightness of touch and saving humour guard against any trace of earnestness. Her fascination with particular periods — the seventeenth century for example — produces writing in several different genres which has won the highest praise.
She is currently writing a book for Channel 4 on the seventeenth century. Her excellent biography of Henry Vaughan most rewardingly draws on her scholarly knowledge of the Civil War period; on her novelist's intuitive understanding of the psychology of bereavement and loss; and on her high level of critical acumen in teasing out every nuance of form and feeling communicated through the poetry. For most of my adult life the poetry of George Herbert and Henry Vaughan has meant a great deal to me: in an inner private sanctum where such complacency is not easily detected I had rated myself as something of an expert. I felt moved beyond measure as Stevie Davies's book helped me understand, with what I can only describe as tenderness, the important ways Herbert's poetry had proved a saving grace, 'no debt but a gift received', for Henry Vaughan struck to the heart by the death of his younger brother, and, a year later, the execution of his king and the foundering of the Royalist cause for which he had fought. Davies's biography of Vaughan was the last book I read in preparation for this piece. As I took in yet another area of consummate mastery — immensely sensitive close reading of poetry — I realised that the writing task that lay ahead for me would be as much celebration as critical evaluation.
The extraordinary narrative power of her work of straight history Unbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution 1640-1660 reveals to what a degree Stevie Davies was gripped, moved and entertained by her reading in the period. An impressive research effort into the printed pamphlet literature of that period, it delivers a spirited account of a world where the breakdown of public order during the 1640s and 1650s created conditions in which it was possible for a small but significant number of turbulent women to express their grievances and take radical action in the male-dominated spheres of politics and religion. Davies's account of this anarchic and cruel period takes full cognisance of the courage of those who dared to step out of line in a world where traditionally 'Women did not think, rule, advise, debate, except in a few atypical instances: they deferred'. The ducking stool and scold's bridle have remained misogynistic jokes, fun ways of controlling unruly women. Davies emphatically and convincingly categorises the bridle as an instrument of torture: routinely it would shatter teeth, break jaws and the fearsome barrage of spikes on some versions inflicted cruel oral wounds. From her own account, Margaret Drabble was so impressed and fascinated by the book that she immediately recruited Stevie Davies to help in selecting women writers of the seventeenth century for the revision of the Oxford Companion to English Literature then under way. Unbridled Spirits continued to inhabit Stevie Davies well beyond its publication. The following year her novel Impassioned Clay came out. Its heroine, fifteen-year-old Olivia, on digging a grave for her mother who had stipulated a green burial, comes upon what turns out to be a seventeenth-century skeleton with a broken neck and a scold's bridle. Her determination to discover why this woman was silenced leads her, as the years pass and her own grief remains unresolved, more and more deeply into withdrawal from the real world and into researches in the history of dissenting women. One feels that the imaginative identification involved in writing Impassioned Clay might have been a necessary step in releasing Stevie Davies herself from the grip these times exerted over her mind and heart.
Davies has a truly inspirational capacity to explain people to themselves, to look human situations that we most fear and dread boldly in the eye, to show us what they consist of and how they may be lived through. How can Closing the Book which deals with the pain of dying, the torment of bereavement and all manner of other lacks be, at times, so enheartening? The most affecting recurring theme in Davies's novels is the deep human need to love and be loved. Bridie, near death from cancer, in her rage and grief at all that she is prematurely leaving behind, behaves appallingly to her lover Ruth who has left her husband and lost custody of her children for love of her. Finally purged of her anger, through huge effort Bridie is able to show her love for Ruth through caressing her head:
And it came over her to think...that it was probably the first time she'd given anything to anyone, really given, rather than been at the receiving end, for months and months. And this was truly living — the profound caring that restored you to yourself and the person you needed to be.
So often Davies portrays people as needy and aching, yearning for the unconditional love of a good parent (which, she shows, can be supplied in all sorts of substitute ways later life). In Closing the Book Davies delicately traces the failures in mother love in Ruth's nurture that have made her feel permanently teetering on the edge of a precipice until 'Bridie drew her to safety'. Her departure from the marital home created problems for her children, both from their desolation at the loss of their mother and their difficulties in accepting their parents' new partners. The elder, Lizzie, takes the course of obnoxious defiance, the more florid expressions of which are the comic highlights of the book; the younger, Sarah, seems docile, but her compliance masks areas of disturbance which include pilfering, hair-raising swearing in private and 'although outwardly so clean and neat', cultivating 'patches of waste ground in her life in which circumscribed filthy messes blossomed and fructified'.
The main focus and excellence of the novel is its awe-inspiringly sensitive portrayal of the many manifestations of the pain of letting go: Bridie's intolerable sense early in the book of all that she is unwillingly leaving in dying and Ruth's searing grief after her death. Davies is very good at imagining the channels which such violent feeling might take. As we have seen, Bridie moves on from anger and our last view of Ruth is of her experiencing the powerful catharsis of a particularly passionate interpretation of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The last words of the novel are, however, devoted to damaged Lizzie's fire-bombing of a meat-packing warehouse for the Animal Liberation Front. Davies does not go in for facile answers.
A particular merit of the book is the framing of the suffering depicted in Bridie's and Ruth's lives by world events — the Gulf War and the persecution of the Kurds — brought into every home by television and viewed as entertainment. As founder of a very successful Third World Trust, Bridie had campaigned to change structures which are deeply unjust to poorer nations. Lizzie's defence against the excoriating pain of her intensely sensitive nature is to use her father's new partner, shallow, pretty Val, as whipping boy for all the suffering to which she sees the world turning a blind eye. Lizzie is appalled by the Marvel-comic-type depictions of the war on television — fearsome technology slickly zooming to target Pow! Wham! You're dead — and the hideous Us and Them, Cowboys and Indians division of human beings. While Val watches the news and wonders how Kate Adie, reporting from a moving tank in Saudi Arabia, keeps her hair so nice, Lizzie erupts into the room 'wreathed in uncivil smiles':
'Watching the sport?' No it's the news actually — the war in the Gulf'. That's what I mean. Sport. Blood sports... So how are you enjoying the war so far?'
Later Lizzie reflects:
The woman was a creep in a nation of creeps. She thought no lives had been lost because only about eight Brits had died; she could look at the thousands of cremated bodies of fleeing Iraqi conscripts stretching mile after mile up the Basra road and not see human beings. The 'turkey shoot' the pilots called it.
Although the callous indifference of industrially developed nations to the suffering of those who live at and below subsistence level is something that clearly angers Davies, this never develops into overt sermonising. The narrative viewpoint that comments on this is so often quirky, expostulating Lizzie, full of adolescent angst and youthful reforming zeal.
In this broad sweep across the varied landscape of Stevie Davies's output, two further novels must be mentioned for the qualities they reveal in the vision and accomplishment of her mature fiction. The Web of Belonging, with wonderful humour, enacts the almost predatory nature of a seemingly saintly carer's relating to her dependent relatives. The Element of Water, just published, is born of long-mulled experience. As a forces child, Stevie Davies lived in Germany for six years and was taken to Dachau by her father when she was 13. Her first novel, Boy Blue, gives a vivid account of her adult heroine, at a moment of grief, painfully recalling such a visit she made as a child:
Some deeply-buried memory was being stirred and dragged to the surface. What was it? She tried to name it, this obscenity seen once and packed down into the quicklime of the unconscious. It was Germany — Dachau, the museum of the Holocaust — and her father's obsessive insistence that she be taken to view it, as a representative of her generation, to be educated in the horrors committed by her species so as to avoid repeating them in the future. And Christina said to him, 'She's morbidly sensitive already, Jim, she doesn't need that kind of knowing'. ... But Jim did not seem convinced that the child of the war could claim exemption on the grounds of temperamental disaffinity with mass murder. [They visit Dachau] 'Not nice for you, girlie, but it's best you should know, don't you think so?' She refused to reply. She was angry. She remembered the hands flat on the driving wheel as they came out of the camp, the anxiety in his voice. She wondered if he had ever killed anyone in the war as she considered those hands, and whether it was his own bloodstain that induced him both to appease and implicate herself.
One comes to see that the degree of overload Lizzie experiences in confronting the cruelties of the world in Closing the Book may have resembled Davies's own adolescent experience. Further, in imaginatively recreating the horrors of the holocaust in The Element Of Water, Davies pre-empts any possible attempt by her readers to distance themselves from what they might perceive as acts of uniquely German wickedness by locating the 1958 part of her plot in a British forces boarding school of the sort she herself had attended. She depicts, in that closed, British world, indifference to suffering and active cruelty on the part of authority and savage, herd-instinct bullying and scapegoating by pupils — similar social and human forces acted out in the small, post-war community as in the large scale wartime one. One of the most impressive aspects of Davies's earlier novel Arms and the Girl had been the persuasive way it traced the capacity of the human mind for denial and scapegoating, particularly when your very survival depended on it, as in the family of a child who is being sexually abused. She helps a reader understand manifestations of evil so that it is not out there, to be scorned, vilified and only attributed to others, monsters, but potentially discernible in oneself.
Stevie Davies is a distinguished contributor to New Welsh Review. Although she has lived most of her adult life in or near Manchester, her sense of who she is is firmly predicated on her Welsh identity. In a growing up that took her to sixteen different schools from Egypt to Germany, the Swansea area — and Mumbles in particular — has always been perceived as home, her secure base in a nomadic life, where she returned for half-terms and holidays. When her father retired from the RAF, he and his family settled in Mumbles and the final four years of his life, before his early death from cancer, were spent as a lab technician in the Physics Department at the then University College, Swansea where he was idyllically happy. Stevie herself is about to become Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of Wales, Swansea. She comments:
Going back to work on the Swansea campus has deep emotional meaning for me because of its connection with my father. Returning to Swansea feels like a homecoming, being where I belong. There's a sense of uncanniness in the prospect of being where I have always been except in body. I am delighted at being taken seriously as a writer in my own country and at the gentle genuine welcome I have received. My father would have been so proud.
Thanks be for schemes which honour our writers and give them the space to create. Some continually live with an imaginative perception of pain and evil, and, most valuably, reveal to us the accommodation we all make to blind ourselves to their reality. Our writers, too, help us recognise and celebrate joy. I know of no contemporary author who does more to sound the human heart and educate it than Stevie Davies.
B. P-W. New Welsh Review No. 53 Vol XIV/I (Summer '01)