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Jan 1, 2011 | 2011 Writings, View All Posts
Since the arrival of tracheal and varroa mites, beekeeping meetings have for the most part reflected the industry's depressed state of mind, and more recently they leave one with the overall impression of individuals or small groups of beleaguered soldiers, digging deeper and deeper into their foxholes– terrified they will run out of ammunition to fight the array of imaginary (or at least microscopic) enemies proliferating all around them. Even when things threatened to move off in a hopeful direction– towards using the organic acids for mite control, and then shifting the focus to bee-breeding– the whole process has been commandeered by a bunch of elites who insist that progress must be as glacially slow as possible– with the maximum amount of money and attention going to "research", and only tiny or non-existent relief going to beekeepers standing in their beeyards waiting, like a bunch of gerbils, for their next meal. The full restorative power of Nature is not allowed to operate, beekeepers are encouraged to follow instead of leading, and everybody suffers as a result.
Still, for people who love bees, and whose expectations are not too high, the meetings are always enlightening. Even the staunchest proponents of doom and gloom or the status quo are interesting to talk to informally; you always meet some great people; and you never know when a ray of hope or a good idea might pop up. I feel honored to be invited to some of these meetings– especially when my views and experience contradict the gospel preached by those who often control the industry dialogue.
Now, I had been warned, but I was still not prepared for the difference in attitude and ambiance I would encounter at the 2nd Annual Treatment-Free Beekeeping Conference in Leominster, Massachusetts in late July 2010. If you are genuinely looking hard for a positive new vision of beekeeping for the future–this is an event you must attend. Most of the 100 or so attendees were hobby beekeepers and some wanna-beekeepers. So there was plenty of naive, positive energy there, to be sure. (We need a certain amount of that sort of energy.) But there was also, among both presenters and attendees, an astonishing variety and depth of practical and successful experience with bees kept without treatments of any kind. Aside from this meeting's overall ambiance, the thing that struck me most was the balance somehow maintained between an overall awareness of the gravity of current beekeeping problems, and the simplicity, ease and elegance of the solutions arrived at in very different locations and circumstances. Almost all of these solutions, however, were only won after a very difficult struggle; and all of them required the cultivation of an open mind and learning how to allow Nature's multifaceted powers of resilience and recovery to function without impediments. All of those who have achieved this with bees are pioneers at this point. Many of them have been ignored, ridiculed, harassed or even worse, as part of their reward for achieving something deemed "impossible" by "experts"; or by those who are always trying to co-opt the end result while other people do the work. (As in all other worthwhile endeavors, it's not possible to have real, long-term success with honeybee health without doing the work.) All of this makes our pioneers all the more determined to share what they know with all honest and genuine comers– making it easier in the future than it was in the past. The completely open nature of all the conversation, the willingness to help and share, and the absence of competitive and proprietary feelings were all very striking at the Leominster meeting.
At the same time, it must be stressed that there were no special recipes or any single, infallible road to success revealed. In fact, some of the presenters have completely opposed views on certain points. The overall message of the conference I would summarize in three statements:
1. There are now both commercial and hobby beekeepers succeeding with untreated bees, in many parts of the world and using an astonishing variety of equipment, stocks and techniques.
2. There are good examples, shared experience and guidance available to help people who want to move toward non-treatment; or to start off that way from the beginning.
3. Many of the non-treatment beekeepers have had similar experiences, but in the end each beekeeper discovers his or her own combination of stock, equipment and management that works for them in their situation. There is no substitute for steady attention and work– applied in your own location.
As the presenters got up to give their talks, one after another spontaneously burst out with what a huge relief and pleasure it was to be at a meeting entirely devoted to a healthy future for bees and beekeeping, with everyone freely sharing whatever they have to contribute. The gravity of beekeeping's current plight was kept always in mind, but the shared convictions about destructive agricultural practices and the correct way to overcome them created a huge sense of relief and shared energy for just about everyone who came to this meeting.
Here's the cast of "characters" who presented at the 2010 Leominster meeting, and a brief description of their work and message:
Dee Lusby's name is known to everyone who has made even a half-hearted search for knowledge about treatment-free or "organic" beekeeping. As far as I know, she has the only commercial apiary in Europe or North AmErika that has been completely free of treatments since before the varroa invasion. Her bees are in Arizona's Sonora Desert, between Tucson and the Mexican border. She and her late husband Ed, (a descendent of one of the oldest beekeeping families in the U.S.) pioneered the use of small-cell sized foundation and combs for control of parasitic mites and overall bee health. Their pioneering work–which was so far ahead of its time– their independence and long-term success, and their outspoken defense of their practices have generated a huge amount of controversy that continues up to the present. Dee's talks are sometimes hard to follow due to the many esotErik references cited, and frequent mentions of the fights she's had to wage with an Establishment with different aims and methods than her own. But if you can separate the "heat" from the "light", what lies beneath is a very broad understanding of honeybee health, and one of the best blueprints so far available for keeping bees healthy in the long run. Her assertion that the solution to our honeybee problems is one third genetic, one third management, and one third environmental is, in my experience, completely bulletproof. Let the detractors say what they want, she still maintains 800 colonies with minimal help and produces several varieties of beautiful desert honey. She helps to organize a treatment-free conference every year in Arizona, and invites the attendees to see for themselves that her bees are healthy and vigorous in a difficult environment. Some of the major equipment manufacturers are now making and selling small-cell foundation, so the cell-size controversy is likely to be resolved as more people try it out and weigh in. I'd been in touch with Dee and Ed off and on by phone for many years, and it was a great pleasure to meet her in person for the first time last summer. My own untreated apiary has evolved into something quite different from Dee's, but she and Ed provided a lot of the initial inspiration and courage necessary for me to pursue this path.
Another presenter, Sam Comfort, is a beekeeping tycoon. Well… he's the biggest top-bar beekeeper in the Northeast. Actually, he's not very tall or heavy, but he does have more top-bar colonies (around 200) than anyone I know of except maybe Wyatt Mangum in Virginia, or Les Crowder in New Mexico. I always thought it would be great to have a top-bar hive or two and see what the bees would do inside; but I shuddered at the thought of trying to make a living from them. But Sam seems to be doing well selling top-bar boxes and top-bar nucs in the Hudson Valley.
Just out of college, Sam cut his teeth working for a couple of Vermont beekeepers, and later learned how to raise queens for them in South Carolina. He worked for another couple of outfits in Florida, before heading to Montana to work for a honey and pollination business based there. As Sam tells it, he worked pretty hard for a couple of years, and also built up a hundred or so colonies of his own– which he was allowed to bring along on the trucks to the almonds, and collect the pollination fee. I guess he always lived in the company trailers, and didn't have much opportunity to spend money. So his back wages built up for quite awhile, and when he left and his employers bought out his bees, they had to pay him in one shot what a new doctor or a tenured professor might make as an annual salary. This allowed Sam to "retire" for awhile, and try to figure out an easier way to live around bees. That's when he came back to his old haunts in the Hudson Valley, reverted to his hippy ways, and started his top-bar apiary (anarchyapiaries.com)– keeping it completely untreated from the beginning. Sam brought some top-bar hives to the conference, and enjoyed manipulating them for us in his shorts and sleeveless T-shirt, without shoes or even a smoker. Some of us think Sam should be a little more responsible, but he does have a very large and entertaining store of beekeeping experience for someone as young as he is… Oh yes, he's also written some great songs about what it's like to be a worker, drone, or queen; and to be honest some of us strongly resent the fact that, no matter how smelly or dirty he is, the young women all cluster around him like flies around molasses…
Corwin Bell, another top-bar beekeeper from the Denver/Boulder Colorado area, has a wonderful and hilarious presentation about how he became a beekeeper, and all the painful lessons he had to endure in order to unlearn his initial training and allow the bees to thrive on their own. He now oversees a huge swarm "rescue" network of volunteers who save unwanted swarms and establish them in top-bar hives. His other career is in computer mapping, so he has a computer map of the location and status of all these semi-feral colonies, now numbering in the hundreds. Many of these hives are continuously occupied for several years, with almost no care or interference. Some of his apprentices are now starting spin-off programs in other western locations. (backyardhive.com)
Erik Osterlund has been one of my earliest, most steadfast and best friends during the years of struggling toward treatment-free beekeeping. Many long phone conversations have occurred between my home in Vermont and his in Sweden. Last summer marked the fourth time I've had the privilege of meeting him in person– each time here in the U.S. Erik works part-time as editor of the Swedish beekeeping magazine (Bitiningen), and part-time as a commercial beekeeper. In both of those capacities he has travelled to many distant countries to observe and report on bees, mites and beekeepers who have managed to live together in harmony. He was a long-time associate and disciple of Brother Adam, and still follows closely the breeding protocols of his mentor. The bees he has now are derived from Buckfast stock (which is quite popular in Sweden) with the addition of apis mellifera monticola, which he obtained on an expedition to Kenya together with other Scandinavian beekeepers.
I've described Erik many times as "the best prepared for the varroa invasion of any beekeeper I know, or can imagine." Varroa didn't reach his part of Sweden until three years ago, so he had to observe, test and select his bees in other mite-infested locations before the parasite reached his home apiary. He also downsized all of his combs to 4.9 size cells before the mite invasion. (More on this next month). Erik's wide experience in both research and practice, his calm demeanor and deep religious faith gave the meeting a wonderful grounded quality, which might have been impossible to achieve by the rest of us AmErikan iconoclasts.
Mike Palmer is a very accomplished honey producer from Vermont who now has a rapidly growing queen and nuc production branch of his apiary as well. He is still using treatments on his bees, but we have hope for Mike, and he has fully embraced the principles of selection and rapid mid-summer propagation of nucleus colonies, which were essential to the success of myself and others who no longer treat. Mike likes nothing better then sharing what he knows, and he gave some great lectures and demonstrations about his methods, as well as his take on the current state of the honey market.
As part of the Vermont contingent, I put in my two cents, but my biggest contribution to the meeting may have been to convince Chris Baldwin to stop fretting over grasshoppers for a few days and join us in Leominster. Chris is a honey producer who raises his queens and nucs in Texas in the spring, and produces honey in S. Dakota during the summer. Aside from the Weavers, he has the largest apiary of untreated bees that I know of–1500-2000 honey producing colonies– and is also my best example of how larger apiaries can move to eliminate treatments. Chris got on board with the Russian bees a couple of years after I did, and just like all of us early converts, he endured some serious losses along the way, including an episode in July 2006 when two-thirds of his bees died in one day in S. Dakota when the temperature reached 124 degrees (F). But, by propagating his best survivors, flooding his mating area with his own drones, and rapidly propagating new colonies, his bees are now not just survivors of mites and virus, but also record high temperatures and even trips to the disease cesspool of California almonds. Unfortunately, despite his great success with breeding and propagating bees, his apiary has been held hostage for several years now by a terrible weather cycle in his part of S. Dakota. In addition to being a great beekeeper, Chris is a great guy who loves to share and help others, and we hope he can come to the meeting again next year. (southbeekota.com)
The cast of presenters was rounded out by Julian Wooten of N. Carolina, who gave an impromptu and entertaining talk about supplying the bees and training the actors for making the film: The Secret Life of Bees. And the last official talk was given by James Fearnley of Nature's Laboratory LTD in England. Just as we were starting to become jaded by too much of a good thing, James roped us all in again with his fascinating accounts of a long career with beehive and botanical pharmaceuticals, and how these things are going to be absolutely essential to maintaining human health in the future. We all hope to see and hear more of him in the future as well.
Now, there's one more show to report on, and I saved the best for last. These great presentations, the wonderful atmosphere and special camaraderie would never have come together in the same place if it wasn't for Dean Stiglitz and Ramona Herboldsheimer. As far as I can tell they did 99% of the event planning and organization; and even with a good sized crew of family and friends helping out, they still managed to do about 60% of the work during the conference– including teaching a two-day beginners course and giving presentations themselves on management and hive microbes.
Dean and Ramona started out as many hobby beekeepers do now, struggling for years to keep their new package colonies alive, despite following all the standard advice. After hearing about, and then working with Dee Lusby, the bee fever really descended on them and took over their lives as they abandoned the "shoot-em-up" defensive school of beekeeping, and embraced a more positive and pro-active approach. Now they are basically trying, with their own bees, to find out how many of Dee's management ideas are suitable for New England. They also have started bottling and selling different honeys from treatment-free apiaries. It's noteworthy that they were sought out by the Penguin Group (of publishers) to write the beekeeping volume for the "Complete Idiot's Guide" series. Penguin, on their own, decided this was the best way to portray beekeeping in general, and this is the only post-varroa book I know of entirely devoted to treatment-free beekeeping. (Other than needing more photos, it's very good.) And then, in their spare time, they organize the conference…
It would be hard to imagine anyone doing a better job of organizing an event than these two did. The venue was beautiful, set in a preserved tract with footpaths thru the surrounding forest and fields. There were nice airy rooms inside and plenty of outdoor tables for eating and visiting. The food was wonderful, and anyone with the nerve to complain about the cost of the meeting should just save their money for a few trips to McDonalds– since the food by itself was worth more than the fee for the entire meeting. The talks were arranged so that a story line emerged and built on itself as the meeting progressed, and every evening people relaxed around the campfire, visiting, singing songs and telling stories into the wee hours…
Earlier I recommended this meeting to everyone searching hard for a more positive vision of beekeeping's future. Dean and Ramona have found a new venue for the 2011 meeting that can accommodate both more people and more bees. So make your reservation soon (at beeuntoothers.com). It's OK to be concerned and upset about the plight of the honeybee, but please bring an open heart and mind, and leave your pessimism and proprietary notions at home.
With EAS (Eastern Apicultural Society conference) coming to Vermont this year, and many inquiries coming in from customers and friends who are members, I've decided it's time for me to post in a public place my own explanation of why I'm not participating in the meeting, and also why I dropped out of the Vermont Beekeepers Association, after being active for many years and attending almost every meeting since I moved here permanently in 1986.
I haven't had much connection with EAS in the past, despite invitations to attend and present over many years. This has nothing to do with any judgement on my part about the organization and was due entirely to the relentless attention required in the apiary during my summer season–especially in the early years–and my own need to do something other than bees in the small amount of free time I have during the warm weather. When the arm twisting finally got the better of me, and I attended the 2009 convention in Ellicottville, N.Y., I found it to be a wonderful meeting with great presentations and non-judgemental appreciation of varied philosophies and methods. I especially enjoyed the mix of beekeepers–hobby, commercial and research– and their relaxed comraderie and desire to share. The atmosphere was much friendlier and non-territorial than I've experienced at some of the state and national meetings. I recommend the EAS conference to all beekeepers, and I have no doubt the Vermont meeting will be at least the equal of those put on in the past.
I'm going to describe my own reasons for not attending EAS in Vermont in three sections. The first is the shortest possible summary that I consider to be accurate and inclusive. Some might want to skip the rest and move on to the following, more positive, essays–and I don't blame you.
The second part is a more detailed description of what has happened over a longer period of time. The aim here is to make my own position–popular or not–as clear as possible; to prevent other hard-working and decent people from being victimized the same way that I was; and to show that these issues are far larger than just my own case.
The third part is my attempt to answer some of the criticisms I've heard through the grapevine, but which have never been brought to me directly; and how they might lead to something positive.
If I have made a small success with honeybees, it was achieved by working steadily and ignoring the advice and perspective of all kinds of modern, certified experts and well established beekeepers. I was guided instead by the bees themselves, by the old-time beekeepers–through their books and by using the same tools and equipment they used–and by studying the work of outstanding farmers who guided the energy of Nature into a harmonious outcome, instead of fighting against it. The other essays on this website are my attempt to document this process so that other people who want to pursue this path can proceed more quickly and easily than I did. All this attracted a fair amount of positive attention from people concerned about the bees' current predicament, the future of agriculture, and our culture's adversarial relationship with Nature. But, as always happens when an existing paradigm is challenged, it caused resentment as well–including among some of Vermont's other commercial beekeepers.
It may have been inevitable that I would eventually come into conflict with at least some of this small group of people–though I tried my best to avoid it. In 1986-1990, I was the last person to establish commercial bees in this state, where the small area of good territory was already crowded with beeyards. Worse than that though, I brought a different perspective, and different aims and methods to Vermont's beekeeping scene. Much of my inspiration, values and methods of working I learned from my mentors. This group included some of the rarest of all people in our society: families that–through independent thinking, attention and steady work–made a really happy and comfortable life for themselves on farms considered tiny by American standards. They taught me how to work and think at the same time, and no one ever received a more valuable gift. This made a very stark contrast with the attitudes dominating Vermont commercial beekeeping at that time. This group's aims, methods and ethics came directly from other businesses—far more harmful and destructive than farming or beekeeping. Different approaches and philosophies co-existed much more easily before the arrival of tracheal and varroa mites–when commercial beekeepers faced escalating levels of challenge and stress which brought out both the best and the worst in individuals and groups.
I understand and even welcome controversy and resentment as part of the process of challenging a paradigm that's not working anymore. But when in this case resentment escalated into theft and–if stalking, tracking, and intimidation at my home constitute violence–then into violence as well, I had to lose any and all trust and respect for some of my beekeeping neighbors and withdraw from the Vermont Beekeeper's Association and any venue where they might be present. It took an enormous amount of attention, physical and mental work, and anxiety to move my apiary, and my only source of income, from the dead end road of continuous treatments to a healthier and more creative system without treatments–at a time when there were no good examples to follow and almost everyone predicted a complete failure. After doing such an exhausting piece of work, and then being confronted by such a situation, I really didn't know how to respond. Stealing someone else's bees is about the most despicable thing one beekeeper can do to another. I'm not a public oriented person, and being stalked, tracked, and staked out at my home by disgusting sociopathic characters, with the sole purpose of intimidating me was extremely upsetting to say the least. What hurt me the most, however, was that beyond the one or two people willing to do this dirty work, there was a larger group who were happy to use this situation as a way of marginalizing me rather than coming to me directly with whatever concerns they may have had. (See Part Three). This all began even before I was convinced that my plan and years of work had any real long term strength or stability; and after I had for several years voluntarily supplied these same beekeepers with many hundreds of queen cells. None of these people lifted a finger to learn to raise their own queen cells during this time, and the same cells that helped move my apiary out of treatments amounted to exactly squat in their apiaries. There was only one Vermont beekeeper who simply came to me and asked if he could learn my system. I gave him every assistance, as I would have done with anyone, and he used my model and a lot of hard work to create a new system of his own, which is now very strong and resilient, and which I'm sure will be on prominent display for EAS. The others have probably had enough time to realize that there is no easy way to obtain a strong and resilient apiary through theft or connivance–it has to be re-created anew by each individual owner, and reflect his or her own unique devotion to steady work and attention.
I don't want to have any misunderstanding about my opinion of, and relationship with, one of the Vermont beekeepers; who is capable of stealing another beekeeper's bees, stalking and tracking other people, making everyone's business his own–whether they approve or not–and moving effortlessly to intimidation if cajolery is not yielding his desired results. I never had to deal with someone even remotely like this before I came to Vermont, and had no desire to do so, but by becoming his target, I was forced to search, and finally learn that this syndrome is actually quite well known, well studied and predictable.
Among the Vermont beekeepers there is one museum-quality sociopath–complete with multiple personalities, delusional self-importance, an endless list of female victims, and no respect for anyone's privacy or property. His mind was ruined long ago by the same drugs he's used to win support from–and diminish the lives of–countless associates over many years. My red flags should have gone up when I first heard of him even before I moved to Vermont. A friend's sister had been involved with him, during which time her inheritance had all somehow managed to disappear. As a testament to his ability to deflect blame from himself, my friend blamed her sister, so I had no suspicions when he began his sucking up and patronizing routine even before I lift Massachusetts. Like so many others, I was fooled and entertained by the mask he put on for my benefit; the constant insistence that what I was doing was just unbelievably wonderful, and the more subtle insistence on my gratitude that he, as some special arbiter of the universe, had approved.
It didn't take long to ascertain that he was not playing with a full deck, and that his beekeeping was just a front for all kinds of other activities. But still it seemed harmless enough–he only appeared occasionally and didn't stay long. Eventually though, he made the mistake of trying to recruit me into his little gang of thieves and delinquents. I must have seemed like an easy target. I had things he wanted (bees, the ability to work, respect and trust in the larger community, and lots of interesting connections), I lived alone, and didn't take part in a lot of public events. Little by little, he began revealing more and more of his other activities. Any tacit acceptance of him on my part ended when he began describing how much fun it is to track people and spy on their personal lives. I decided to have nothing more to do with him when he announced one day that I was going to provide a false alibi for him. I ended all contact with him, and began locking my doors for the first time, when things of interest to him started disappearing from my house–all things I would have given to any honest person who asked for or needed them.
And so began the switch to stalking and intimidation, and the activation of a police file and no-tresspassing orders–which don't amount to much except a public notice that I want nothing to do with this person. Some of his other, more recent tactics have been: 1) to find girlfriends or connections with people who live near my home or where I work, in order to have a legitimate reason for being there; 2) to explain all my "crimes" to others who might be recruited to his cause and; 3) to praise me to the sky in public and where there are people who won't be recruited to the cause. If there's anything actually capable of gagging a maggot, this must be it.
The reason for telling this story with a few more details is to encourage others to protect themselves where I was unable to. I have been more than extremely fortunate with my acquaintances and associates, and I had no conception of the sociopath, how they operate, and how common they are. Now I unfortunately understand the syndrome all too well, and I warn everyone to be very careful with those who are overly eager to "help" you. The sociopath has no fixed identity, and will effortlessly adopt a new set of standards and interests if it will help them to get what they want. They inhabit each identity so completely that they can pass lie detector tests by moving from one to another. The vast majority of sociopaths are men. The constant, enormous energy expended to insist that they are "helping" you, or someone else–or the world–masks their only real agenda and purpose–to manipulate other people and live off of their energy, resources, connections and money. It's interesting that the Amish, who are so wise in the ways of living outside our destructive culture, also use the very best and simplest way of evaluating a new acquaintance among "the English", (which is how they refer to the rest of us). If you're lucky enough to engage them in a real conversation, the first chance they get they will ask: "How do you make a living?" By asking that question, and then finding out whether the answer is accurate or not, you can learn a lot about a person's character right at the outset.
There are laws against theft, stalking, peeping and various kinds of intimidation, and I assume this means that most people consider them despicable and not part of a decent society. Being subject to these things was very upsetting to me, but what hurt me even more was when some of Vermont's other commercial beekeepers would not support me in this case, and actively supported my antagonist. It was only then that I realized how much resentment had built up around what I was doing with bees in Vermont, and that my attempts to have a real friendship with all or most of the Vt. commercial beekeepers had nearly completely failed. Later several messages were sent to me one way or another that I could be part of the community again if I'd go back to being "friends" with my antagonist. Sorry, I don't have any phony friendships and I'm not about to start now. And I would never be part of any community that used or condoned theft, stalking, tracking or other forms of intimidation as a part of the pursuit of beekeeping or anything else.
The use of these tactics in such a vicious and harmful way, instead of simply coming to me directly with any legitimate concerns, made me strongly suspect that the intent was to drive me out of Vermont, and I actually considered leaving for awhile. But I decided to stay here where Nature still has the upper hand; where I have many friends and where the two boys I helped to raise are making really good lives for themselves. Where the community in general is very interested in, and supportive of my work, and where I don't believe I've done anything wrong. My only quarrels are with a very few and who can live anywhere without that? If you like the winter and have a good job, Vermont could be the best place to live in the U.S.,or maybe in the world. But in every paradise, there are always at least a few troubles, and this is no exception.
I want to be perfectly clear on one issue: I reject and condemn the drug culture, with all of its aims, methods, and results. Watching Vermonters over decades convinced me that, except for the few people who really do need it as a medicine, marijuana never really benefits anyone in the long run. Along with America's other two favorite narcotics–electronics and unearned income–we're a long way toward creating a "master" race that knows everything, but has no moral compass, and can't put the pieces together or do anything. Everyone needs to be a parasite on someone else. The exceptional combination of circumstances that shaped the nature and innate abilities of this state's residents sometimes make one feel that Vermont could have succeeded where England failed. But the three favorite narcotics have eaten away much of that potential and often trapped Vermont as a nice place to live, but also a great hotbed of mediocrity.
You don't get pleasure, energy or insight from drugs: rather the drugs allow you to borrow these things from the future. Some people in this business have borrowed heavily and are now deep in debt. The real problem is not the presence of drugs, but the fact that so many people find much of their lives meaningless and without hope for the future. If your everyday life and work don't have meaning, excitement and purpose, then escape and living off of others will always be more attractive than reality and self-reliance. I now consider this whole problem to be the biggest obstacle to solving our current (and future) beekeeping problems, among many others. My first wish is that, when this essay is done, I can return full-time to the problems of making a good life from the wonders of reality, and helping others do the same.
Part Three:
Before closing I would like to respond to some criticisms that have reached me through the grapevine, and bring out some pure speculation as to their real origin:
1. Kirk is not sharing with the community, and keeps his results to himself for his own benefit.
It is necessary to have some separation from the ridiculous, self-important and nature-destructive mindset that dominates our culture in order to solve our current biology problems. And I can see how this could sometimes be interpreted as aloofness or non-cooperation. However, it was always my aim to share everything I learned first with Vermont beekeepers, and then with the larger community. I demonstrated everything I learned–as soon as I was convinced it had any value–first in Vermont, and then tried to describe my methods in detail for the greater community by writing about them. I gave demonstrations every year, first for my customers, and later open to everyone. I only stopped them because they were seen as competition with Vt. Beekeeper Association events. I always love meeting other beekeepers in their home territory, but I'm not a great traveller, and this small apiary–which is my only source of income–requires steady attention almost year-round. For these reasons I've always focused on writing as the way to reach the most beekeepers in the shortest amount of time.
2. Kirk has stolen beeyards from other beekeepers.
There was one beeyard I obtained from my attacker, who asked me during his suck-up phase whether I would like to take over one of his beeyards, and I said well, there is one place near my house that would make a good nuc yard. When I ended my association with him years later, I should have moved out of the yard as a matter of course, but frankly his other beeyards presented from the road the appearance that no one was keeping bees there anymore, and it never even occurred to me that he might stay in the bee business. I moved out of there a couple of years later when I realized my mistake. In another case I relocated a beeyard after a farm changed hands. When in the fall I could see my bees were robbing somewhere close by, I moved the bees out the following spring.
Other than these two cases, I was always very careful and proud that I established a small apiary in a crowded territory without overstocking the nectar resource anywhere and without a single complaint being brought to me or the bee inspector as far as I know.
3. Kirk's bees belong to the other Vt. beekeepers because we "allowed" him to come here and helped him get established.
Kirk did some good things with bees, but he never would have succeeded without charity from others.
These are my favorites. If I was "allowed" to come here by anyone, no one even mentioned it to me for twenty years. And yes, I did have some help moving my bees here from Massachusetts by one of the beekeepers with his truck; and I worked on building his honey house as part of the trade. I also traded work in the spring for honey extraction with another beekeeper. The frames of honey and brood I received (and greatly appreciated) from them on two separate years of heavy losses might have been compensated by the hundreds of queen cells I gave them for years without even counting. And oh yes, another fellow who got hundreds of cells over many years did drop off a package of venison every now and then. And that pretty much covers it.
As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't even sure that what I was doing was working or had lasting merit when I realized that some of my neighbor beekeepers would steal the stock they wanted rather than just ask for some. Up to that point I had given some worthwhile stock to everyone who had asked and was serious about trying and propagating it. I also had a plan in mind to make eggs available to all Vermont or local beekeepers who wanted to raise queens of their own from them, (though this was before many Vermont beekeepers had learned to raise cells). But I was too hurt and disgusted to continue with any of this after queens were stolen from my beeyards. The plain truth is that any good stock can be bought for a tiny fraction of the cost of developing it, and for a tiny fraction of what the bees will be worth when they are propagated up. All decent beekeepers are happy to pay the small price to the people who developed a good stock and raised the queens. Some of the Russian-based apiaries that now function without treatments were originally established and stabilized with literally four (4) queen bees as grafting mothers. Most of the work and expense of maintaining a healthy, untreated apiary lies in propagating up and selecting down each generation–not in obtaining the initial breeding stock. To succeed you must do the whole program, not just part of it. If the energy some beekeepers spend on conniving, theft, and shaking others down was devoted to doing their own problem solving and plain old-fashioned beekeeping, many of our problems would have been solved long ago.
In the end the only real reasons I can come up with for my harassment are: basic human jealousy and self-importance; the stress caused by changing paradigms and the rapid spread of bee pests and diseases; and the effects of the drug culture on the larger community. I have just two responses: 1) If you need and feel you deserve attention above other people, it helps if you actually accomplish something that people need and are having trouble doing themselves; and 2) My entire conviction is that anything I've discovered or recovered about how to harness the restorative power of Nature is only the tiniest tip of the iceberg, and that the rest of it can only be uncovered when many people work on and think about it in the best way.
4. Kirk doesn't come to meetings because he's depressed.
There are only two things in the world that make me depressed. The first is watching the beautiful Creation being destroyed by peoples' greed and ignorance; and second is the presence of a few members of the Vermont beekeeping community.
So, I apologize to EAS and the Vermont beekeepers for not attending their meetings, and for being so small-hearted and small-minded. It has nothing to do with the organizations or the huge majority of the members. As to whether I'm depressed or not, I invite anyone interested to visit my new home and workshop after EAS 2012 and make your own determination. I've set aside Saturday morning, August 18 from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM for EAS members. After being at the conference all week, you must be prepared to be completely underwhelmed. 1437 South St., New Haven, Vt. 05472
I wish you all a great season in 2012.
Here are a few photos of building the new shop and house buildings in 2011:
Audience (photo by Erik Österlund)
Queen_ – Dean Stiglitz meeting attendees and looking for the queen while making up nucleus colonies. (photo by Erik Österlund)
Speakers – (front row l to r) Dean Stiglitz holding Gwen, Ramona Herboldsheimer. (back row l to r) Corwin Bell, Dee Lusby, Chris Baldwin, Mike Palmer, Sam Comfort, Kirk Webster, Erik Österlund, James Fearnley. (photo by Erik Österlund)
Emily and Sam – Sam Comfort and Emily Neustrom playing music by the campfire. (photo by Erik Österlund)
Kirk and Mike – The author and Mike Palmer making nucs. (Julian Wooten in red shirt). (photo by Erik Österlund)
Meal – Food at the conference was great. (photo by Erik Österlund)
Sam – Sam Comfort demonstrating his top bar hives. (photo by Erik Österlund)
Chris Baldwin visiting my apiary in Vermont


Actress Alyssa Milano is seen arriving at Marchesa fashion show during New York Fashion Week: The Shows at The Dock, Skylight at Moynihan Station on September 14, 2016 in New York City.
"If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet," the actress known for starring on Melrose Place, Charmed and for hosting Project Runway All Stars wrote alongside a statement.
The groping incident occurred during a 2003 episode of 'TRL' when the 'Lethal Weapon' star was a host on the MTV program.
"Me too. Suggested by a friend. 'If all the woman who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote Me too as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem,'" the statement read.
Milano notably co-starred alongside actress Rose McGowan on Charmed whom is among the several woman named in a New York Times report that first reported on Weinstein's behavior. Since then, a number of women in Hollywood have come forward saying that the producer sexually assaulted them.
Milano is friends with Weinstein's wife Georgina Chapman who announced she was leaving the film mogul after 10 years of marriage.
The "me too" hashtag began gaining steam on social media where women and men shared their stores and experiences of being sexually assaulted. On Twitter, more than 200,000 tweets were sent out using the phrase while nearly 80,000 people were talking about the movement on Facebook by Monday, The Washington Post reported.
A second male actor has also come forward.
A number of celebrities including Anna Paquin and Debra Messing also tweeted out "Me too" in response to help spread the movement.
The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences voted to expel Harvey Weinstein on Saturday due to the mounting sexual assault allegations.


text:
Q: Java - RegEx is failing to accept previous expressions First of all, sorry for possible mistakes, English is not my first language.
I use RegEx in Java to receive files on a server, today I use this expression ^.*VRMP.FAT.*$ to receive files with names like these (and it works fine)
083.080523.VRMP.FAT.VLP.ELBT.04.1908

083.080514.VRMP.FAT.ATT.ELMT.01.2208

I needed to change the expression because now I'm receiving files that have a difference at the end of the name and these MUST NOT be received.
The new files have names like these:
083.080523.VRMP.FAT.VLP.ELBT.04.1908_FALLBACK_D2.zip

083.080523.VRMP.FAT.VLP.ELBT.04.1908_FALLBACK_D4.zip

So, my new expression looks like this:
^.*VRMP.FAT.*[^(?!\_FALLBACK_(D2|D4).zip)]$

This new expression worked perfectly to reject the new files, but it's not working to receive the files that were already received before (the first two examples, which do not contain _FALLBACK_D2.zip at the end).
I'm using Pattern and Matcher objects to validate expressions and filenames:
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex.toLowerCase());
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(fileName.toLowerCase());
The method matcher.matches() is returning false for both the old and new filenames, and I need it to return false only for the new names that contain the FALLBACK ending.
Why it stopped working for the previous files? Any guesses?
And what do I need to fix to meet both conditions?
Thanks!

A: Your pattern uses a negated character class at the end, that matches a single character other than one of [^(?!\_FALLBACK_(D2|D4).zip)] so if your line ends with 4 is does not match.
If you remove the square brackets and the ^ it would still match all lines, as the .* would first match until the end of the string and the negative lookahead asserting will always be true.
What you could do is use the negative lookahead at the position right after FAT to check that the string from that point on does not end with the FALLBACK part.
^.*?VRMP\.FAT(?!.*_FALLBACK_D[24]\.zip$).*

See a regex demo.
Or you can match the more precise pattern without a lookahead assertion at all:
^\d+\.\d+\.VRMP\.FAT\.[A-Z]+\.[A-Z]+\.\d+\.\d+$

See another regex demo

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Situated at Hazratbal, Srinagar, University of Kashmir is among the renowned universities of the state. The University of Kashmir came into existence with the Government Gazette issued on 10 November 1969, when the University of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into two separate and full-fledged Universities. Presently, the University offers quality higher education in a wide range of disciplines via its numerous affiliated colleges.


text:
set -euo pipefail
IFS=$'\n\t'

# Move folder from the tool installation pod to artefacts
#
# This is the stable interface that all build scripts should call.
#
# See start-pod.bash for longer explanation.

source $(dirname "$0")/vm-utils.bash

source="$1"
JOB_NAME="$2"
BUILD_NUMBER="$3"

name="$(get_name $JOB_NAME $BUILD_NUMBER)"

ssh $K3S_BUILD_HOST "\
    TOOLS_PATH="$TOOLS_PATH" \
    TMPDIR_PATH="$TMPDIR_PATH" \
    bash tmp/$name/move-to-artefacts.bash \"$source\" \"$JOB_NAME\" \"$BUILD_NUMBER\""

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Roosevelt, Theodore
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See also Theodore Roosevelt on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
3796201911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 23 — Roosevelt, Theodore
ROOSEVELT, THEODORE (1858- ), twenty-sixth president of the United States, was born in New York City on the 27th of October 1858. The Roosevelt family[1] has been prominent in the life of New York for many generations, and is of Dutch origin. Mr Roosevelt's mother, Martha Bullock, came from a family of Scotch-Irish and Huguenot origin equally prominent in Georgia. Each family may lay just claims to a history of more than ordinary social and political distinction. Although born in New York, Mr Roosevelt spent much of his boyhood at Oyster Bay, the country home of his father, on Long Island Sound, where he began with a distinct purpose, unusual among boys of his age, to build up a naturally frail physique by rowing and swimming in the waters of Long Island Sound, and by riding over the hills and tramping through the woods of Long Island. That his early outdoor life furnished a definite training for his after career is indicated by the fact that when he was about fourteen years of age he went with his father on a tour up the Nile as far as Luxor, and on this journey he made a collection of Egyptian birds found in the Nile valley, which is now in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, B.C. Mr Roosevelt was educated at Harvard University, where he graduated in the class of 1880;[2] his record for scholarship was creditable, and his interest in sports and athletics was especially manifest in his skill as a boxer. On leaving college he made a short visit to Europe, was elected to the London Alpine Club for climbing the Jungfrau and the Matterhorn, and returning to New York studied law for a brief period in the Law School of Columbia University and in the office of his uncle Robert B. Roosevelt. Determining to enter active politics, he gave up his legal studies without qualifying for the bar, and in 1881 was elected to the New York legislature as a regular Republican, although in opposition to the "boss" of the assembly district for which he was a candidate. He was elected again in 1882 and in 1883, and at the age of twenty-four was his party's candidate for Speaker of the Assembly. In 1884 he was a delegate of the Republican party to the convention in Chicago which nominated James G. Blaine for president. In the convention he opposed the nomination of Mr Blaine, and in a speech which attracted considerable attention for its vigour and courage advocated the nomination of Senator George F. Edmunds. After Mr Blaine's nomination, however, he supported him in the campaign as the chosen candidate of the party, in spite of the fact that an important wing of the Republican party "bolted" the nomination and espoused the candidacy of Grover Cleveland, who was elected president. In 1884, partly because his political life seemed at least for the immediate present to be at an end, partly on account of the freedom and activity of out-of-door life, he bought two cattle ranches near Medora on the Little Missouri river in North Dakota, where he lived for two years, becoming intimately associated with the life and spirit of the western portion of the United States.
In 1886 he was the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City, but was defeated by Abram F. Hewitt, the Tammany candidate, and received a smaller vote than Henry George, the candidate of the United Labor party. Mr Roosevelt, however, received a larger proportion of the total vote cast than any mayoralty candidate of the Republican party had previously received in New York City. In April 1889, on the accession to the presidency of Benjamin Harrison, Mr Roosevelt, then closely identified with the work of Civil Service reform, was appointed a member of the United States Civil Service Commission. In this office, until then one of minor importance, he served for six years. He made it not only nationally prominent, but instrumental in shaping the course of legislative and executive action by introducing into the work of the Commission an entirely new spirit and new methods. The annual reports, of which he was the chief author, became controversial pamphlets; he published bold replies to criticisms upon the work of the Commission; he explained its purposes to newspaper correspondents; when Congress refused to appropriate the amount which he believed essential for the work, he made the necessary economies by abandoning examinations of candidates for the Civil Service in those districts whose representatives in Congress had voted to reduce the appropriation, thus very shrewdly bringing their adverse vote into disfavour among their own constituents; and during the six years of his commissionership more than twenty thousand positions for government employés were taken out of the realm of merely political appointment and added to the classified service to be obtained and retained for merit only. In 1895 he resigned from the Civil Service Commission and became President of the Board of Police Commissioners for the City of New York. After a strenuous two years in this office, he was appointed by President McKinley in 1897 assistant-secretary of the navy. He was certain that war with Spain was inevitable, and he did much to prepare the navy for hostilities, framing an important personnel bill, collecting ammunition, getting large appropriations for powder and ammunition used in improving the marksmanship of the navy by gunnery practice, buying transports and securing the distribution of ships and supplies (especially in the Pacific) in such a way that, when hostilities were declared, American naval victories would be assured. He urged upon the administration the bold policy of protesting against the sailing of Cervera's fleet, on the ground that it would be regarded as a warlike measure not against the Cuban revolutionaries, who had no navy, but against the United States; and he advised that, if Cervera sailed, an American squadron be sent to meet him and to prevent his approach to America. At the outbreak of the war with Spain he resigned from the Navy Department and raised the first volunteer regiment of cavalry, popularly known as the "Rough Riders," because many of its members were Western cowboys and ranchmen expert in the handling of the rough and often unbroken horses of the Western frontier. The regiment also included college athletes, city clubmen and members of the New York police force, every man possessing some special qualification for the work in view. Mr Roosevelt declined the colonelcy of the regiment, preferring to take the post of lieutenant-colonel under his intimate friend Dr Leonard Wood, who, while a surgeon in the United States army, had served in action with gallantry and skill against the Indians. On the promotion of Colonel Wood to the command of the brigade, Mr Roosevelt became colonel of the regiment, which took an especially prominent part in the storming of San Juan Hill. In this battle Colonel Roosevelt became the ranking officer and, abandoning his horse, led the charge up the hill on foot under severe fire at the head of his troops. This charge, in which many of the "Rough Riders" were killed or wounded, drove the Spaniards from the trenches and opened the way to the surrender of Santiago. At the conclusion of the war, while the troops were still in camp in the South, Mr Roosevelt joined in a "round robin" of protest against the mismanagement in the War Department, which had resulted in widespread suffering among the troops from wretched food and bad sanitary arrangements. This "round robin" created a sensation which aroused public opinion and was instrumental in bringing about some desirable reforms in the War Department.
When his regiment was mustered out of service in September 1898, Mr Roosevelt was nominated by the Republican party for the governorship of New York State and was elected in November by a substantial plurality. He was governor for two years. He reformed the administration of the state canals, making the Canal Commission non-partisan; he introduced the merit system into many of the subordinate offices of the state; and he vigorously urged the passage of and signed the Ford Franchise Act (1899), taxing corporation franchises. In various contests, in which he was almost uniformly victorious, he showed himself to be independent of "boss" control. In 1900, although he wished to serve another term as governor in order to complete and establish certain policies within the state, he was nominated for the vice-presidency of the United States on the ticket with President McKinley by the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in spite of his protest. It was very commonly believed at the time that this nomination for the vice-presidency was participated in and heartily approved of by the machine politicians or "bosses" of the State of New York in their belief that it would result in his elimination from active political life. The office of vice-president of the United States had so far in the history of the country been almost purely a perfunctory one, and has rarely, if ever, led to political promotion. The vice-president is ex officio president of the Senate, but has little voice or part in shaping either legislation or the affairs of the party. Mr Roosevelt never, however, presided over the deliberations of the Senate, because before the session following his inauguration convened he had ceased to be vice-president.
Upon the assassination of McKinley, on the 14th of September 1901, he succeeded to the presidency. No previous president had entered the office at so early an age as forty-three. It was his frankly expressed wish to be nominated and elected president in 1904, and he was nominated unanimously by the Republican National Convention at Chicago, and was elected in November of that year by the largest popular majority ever given to any candidate in any presidential election. He received 7,623,486 popular votes and 336 electoral votes to 5,077,971 popular votes and 140 electoral votes cast for Judge Alton B. Parker, the nominee of the Democratic party. Immediately after his election he publicly declared that he would not accept the nomination for the presidency in 1908, and he adhered to that pledge in spite of great popular pressure brought to bear upon him to accept the nomination of the party for another term. The nomination and election of President Taft, who had been a member of Mr Roosevelt's cabinet, was very largely due to the latter's great influence in the party. On March 23rd, two weeks after he ceased to be president, Mr Roosevelt sailed for Africa, to carry out a long-cherished plan of conducting an expedition for the purpose of making a scientific collection of the fauna and flora of the tropical regions of that continent. Expert naturalists accompanied the party, which did not emerge from the wilderness until the middle of the following March, bringing with it a collection which scientists pronounce of unusual value for students of natural history. Most of the specimens were sent to the National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. The experiences of his African journey were recorded by Mr Roosevelt in a volume entitled African Game Trails: The Wanderings of an American Hunter Naturalist. The spring and early summer of 1910 were spent by Mr Roosevelt in travelling through Egypt, the continent of Europe, and England, in acceptance of invitations which he had received to make various public speeches in these countries. Honorary academic degrees were conferred upon him by the universities of Cairo, Christiania, Berlin, Cambridge and Oxford, and he was given both popular and official ovations of almost royal distinction — ovations which were repeated by his own countrymen on his return to America.
It may be said without exaggeration that no American public man in the history of the country has achieved such extraordinary popularity during his lifetime as Mr Roosevelt had attained at fifty years of age, both at home and abroad. Great popularity necessarily brings with it bitter enmity and genuine criticism. To understand clearly his career as a public man, and to appreciate the forces at work which caused both the popularity and the enmity, two facts must be kept distinctly in mind: first, that at twenty-two years of age he deliberately decided to make politics his life-work at a time when in the United States the word "politics" had a sinister sound in the ears of almost all of the so-called cultivated classes; and secondly, that in making this deliberate choice he recognized that the government of the United States is primarily a party government. He therefore allied himself with the Republican party, to which by tradition, by family association, and by political principles he was naturally drawn.
In the history of the United States the politician has been too often the man who, in connexion with some other trade or profession, has taken up politics as a tool to carve out some personal ambition or manufacture a financial profit. Mr Roosevelt from the beginning apparently believed with the lexicographers that politics is the science and practice of government. He has himself told the story of an early experience that illustrates his point of view. When in 1881 he decided to join the Republican Association of his assembly district in New York City, members of his family were shocked. "You will find at the meetings," they said, "nobody but grooms, liquor dealers and low politicians." "Well," said Mr Roosevelt in reply, "if that is so, they belong to the governing class, and you do not. I mean if I can to be one of the governing class." He forthwith became an active member of the political organization of his district. He also early determined to work with his party as being the only way in which a legislator can work. A free lance, an independent, a journalist, or a preacher, without definite political affiliations, may create public opinion, but a legislator or an administrator must belong to a party. Mr Roosevelt was severely criticized by many "independent Republicans" for having supported the presidential candidacy of James G. Blaine in 1884, when he had vigorously opposed his nomination in the convention on moral grounds. The reply to this criticism is that Mr Blaine was the choice of the majority of the party, and that while Mr Roosevelt felt free to fight within the party vigorously for reform, he did not feel that the nomination justified a schism like that which occurred in the Democratic party over the free silver issue in 1896 a schism which remained afterwards a hopeless weakness in that party. His position in the Blaine campaign, his attitude in tariff discussions and legislation, his relations with United States senators, congressional representatives, and other party leaders, his methods in making official appointments, were entirely consistent with his constantly reiterated conviction that in politics permanent good is achieved not by guerilla warfare, but by working through and within the party. He was so often accused by political purists for associating politically with men of discredited reputation that his own picturesque statement of his conversion to a belief that in legislative or administrative politics one must work with all sorts and conditions of men is illuminating. This statement is related by his intimate friend Jacob A. Riis,[3] to whom Mr Roosevelt made it in commenting upon his first political success in the New York legislature.
"I suppose that my head was swelled. It would not be strange
if it was. I stood out for my own opinion alone. I took the best 'mugwump' stand — my own conscience, my own judgment were to decide in all things. I would listen to no argument, no advice. I took the isolated peak on every issue, and my associates left me. When I looked around, before the session was well under way, I found myself alone. I was absolutely deserted. The people didn't understand. The men from Erie, from Suffolk, from anywhere, would not work with me. 'He won't listen to anybody,' they said, and I would not. My isolated peak had become a valley; every bit of influence I had was gone. The things I wanted to do I was powerless to accomplish. I looked the ground over, and made up my mind that there were several other excellent people there, with honest opinions of the right, even though they differed from me. I turned in to help them, and they turned to and gave me a hand. And so we were able to get things done. We did not agree in all things, but we did in some, and those we pulled at together. That was my first lesson in real politics. It is just this: if you are cast on a desert island with only a screw-driver, a hatchet and a chisel to make a boat with, why, go make the best one you can. It would be better if you had a saw, but you haven't. So with men. Here is my friend in Congress who is a good man, a strong man, but cannot be made to believe in some things in which I trust. It is too bad that he doesn't look at it as I do, but he does not, and we have to work together as we can. There is a point, of course, where a man must take the isolated peak and break with all his associates for clear principle: but until that time comes he must work, if he would be of use, with men as they are. As long as the good in them overbalances the evil, let him work with them for
the best that can be obtained."
In his successive offices Mr Roosevelt not merely exerted a strong influence upon the immediate community, whose official representative he was at the time being, but by reason both of his forceful personality and of the often unconventional, although always effective, methods of work which he employed he achieved a national prominence out of ordinary proportion to the importance of his official position. His record in the Assembly was such that his party nominated him for the mayoralty of the city of New York when he was absent on his ranch in Dakota. Although defeated in the mayoralty election, his work on behalf of the merit system, as opposed to the spoils system of politics, was such that he was made a Civil Service commissioner — probably the last office a politician would wish to hold who desired further promotion, for the conflict which a Civil Service commissioner must have with members of Congress and other party leaders on questions of patronage is usually, or, at any rate, has been in the past history of American politics, inevitably detrimental to further official advancement. He was taken from the Federal service in Washington to New York City by a reform mayor and put in charge of the police, because he had shown both physical and moral courage in fighting corruption of all sorts; and the New York police force at that time was thoroughly tainted with corruption, not in its rank and file, but among its superior officers, who used the power in their hands to extort money bribes chiefly from saloon-keepers, liquor-dealers, gamblers and prostitutes. As police commissioner Mr Roosevelt brought to his side every honest man on the force. By personal detective work, that is, by visiting police stations at unexpected times and by making the rounds at night of disorderly places which were suspected of violating the law, he not only displayed personal courage in positions of some danger, but aroused public opinion. The very sensation created by the novelty of his methods set standards and started reforms which have greatly improved the morale of the entire force. The hopelessly vicious policemen hated him, but no man ever had a stronger personal hold upon the great body of the honest officers — a hold which existed long after he left the police department, and was frequently expressed by members of the force as he passed through the city streets. When he became assistant-secretary of the navy, his work was not so publicly conspicuous, but in this office he gained an experience which was of great value in his administration of naval affairs during his presidency. It is doubtful if, without the experience of this secretaryship, he could have successfully originated and carried out the plan of sending the United States navy around the world in 1907. He went to the Spanish War as a volunteer against the urgent wishes of his political advisers, and in spite of the protests of some of his best and most intimate friends. The conditions in Cuba had long convinced him that war with Spain was inevitable, and that, for humane reasons alone, it was both right and necessary to drive the Spanish power out from the Carribean Sea. Having urged this view upon the country, when war was declared he felt that it would be inconsistent for him not to share personally in the perils of a conflict which he believed to be a just one, and which he had done as much as he could to bring about. His record in the war for efficiency and personal gallantry no doubt contributed largely to his nomination and election as governor of the state of New York; but he attained the governorship not on this ground alone. There are many instances in American politics of nominations made solely on a war record which have led to hopeless defeat in election. His work in the governorship brought him still more into prominence as a national leader. His uncompromising antagonism to political blackmail and bribery, and his determination to pursue the right, as he saw the right, only in a common-sense fashion, made bitter enemies on the one hand among the corrupt politicians, and, on the other hand, among theoretical reformers, and discussions raged in the newspapers about his executive acts, his speeches, and his official messages much as they raged during his seven years in the White House. If he had never reached the presidency he would probably have been a figure long remembered in American political life. But it was his course in the presidency that gave him his international reputation, and it is as President Roosevelt that future historians of American political life must chiefly discuss him.
Mr Roosevelt entered the presidency definitely committed to two principles which profoundly affected his course as chief executive of the United States. He had a well wrought-out belief in centralized authority in government and a passionate hatred of political and commercial corruption. He believed the United States to be a unified republic, a sovereign nation, and not a federation of independent states united only for mutual benefit and protection. He not only hated corruption per se, but he clearly saw that as efficiency has a greater power for good, so corruption has a greater power for evil in a strongly centralized government. He understood that political materialism, selfishness and corruption in federal administration afford the strongest possible argument for those who advocate strengthening the independent power of the separate states at the expense of nationalism. At the very outset of his administration he therefore set himself to work, not only to improve the personnel of the government service, but by exhortations in his messages and public speeches to arouse a sense of civic responsibility both among office-holders and among all the citizens. His official messages to Congress, probably more frequent, certainly much longer than those of any of his predecessors, were quite as often treatises on the moral principles of government as they were recommendations of specific legislative or administrative policies. The effect of his exhortations, as well as of his personal character and public acts, upon the standards and spirit of official life in the United States, was a pronounced one in attracting to the federal service a group of men who took up their work of public office with the same spirit of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice that actuates the military volunteer in time of war. No American president has done so much to discredit and destroy the old Jacksonian theory of party government that "to the victors belong the spoils," and to create confidence in the practical success as well as the moral desirability of a system of appointments to office which rests upon efficiency and merit only. Mr Roosevelt not only attacked dishonesty in public affairs but in private business as well, asserting that "malefactors of great wealth" endeavour to control legislation so as to increase the profits of monopolies or "trusts," and that to prevent such control it is necessary to extend the powers of the federal government. In carrying out this policy of government regulation and supervision of corporations he became involved in a great struggle with the powerful financial interests whose profits were threatened, and with those legislators who sincerely believed that government should solely concern itself with protecting life and property, and should leave questions of individual and social relations in trade and finance to be settled by the operation of so-called natural economic laws. In the struggle, although he was bitterly accused of violating the written constitution, of arresting and destroying business prosperity and of attempting a radical departure from the accepted social system of the country, he was remarkably successful. By his speeches and messages, and by his frank use of one of the greatest of modern social engines — the newspaper press — he created a public opinion which heartily supported him. Under his effective influence laws were framed which were not merely in themselves measures of stringent regulation of business and the accumulation of wealth, but which established precedents, that as time goes on will inevitably make the doctrine of federal control permanent and of wider application. The struggle against some of the most powerful financial and political influences of the time not unnaturally gave rise to the idea that his work as president was destructive — perhaps the necessarily destructive work of the reformer — but not essentially constructive. Even those friendly to him sometimes felt it necessary to defend his political course by saying that he was compelled to raze the old buildings and prepare the ground on which his successors might build new and better structures. A brief consideration of some of the constructive achievements of his administration will show that the "destructive" theory of his political activities is not sustained by the facts.
Civil Service Reform. —
Some reference has already been made to the fact that in every office which Mr Roosevelt held he constantly dwelt upon the truism, often forgotten or ignored, that no government can accomplish any permanent good unless its administrative and legislative officers are chosen and maintained for merit only. As assemblyman, as police commissioner, as naval secretary and as president, he advocated this fundamental doctrine. When Federal Civil Service commissioner he did more than any other single public man in the United States has had either the ability or the opportunity to do, to promote the doctrine of service for merit only out of the realm of theory into the realm of governmental practice. While he was criticized by the friends of Civil Service Reform for not going far enough during his presidency to protect the encroachments of those who desire to have the offices distributed as political rewards or for partisan ends, such specific acts as his transference to the classified service of all fourth-class postmasters east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio rivers, his insistence upon a thorough investigation of the scandals in the Post Office department, and his order forbidding federal employés use their offices for political purposes in the campaign of 1908 are typical of his vigorous
support of the merit system.
Conservation of National Resources. —
If Mr Roosevelt did not invent this term he literally created as well as led the movement which made Conservation in 1910 the foremost political and social question in the United States. The old theory was that the general prosperity of the country depends upon the development of its natural resources — a development which can best be achieved by private capital, acting under the natural incentive of financial profits. Upon this theory public land was either given away or sold for a trifle by the nation to individual holders. While it is true that the building of railways, the opening of mines, the growth of the lumber industry and the settlement of frontier lands by hardy pioneers was rapidly promoted by this policy, it also resulted naturally in the accumulation of great wealth in the hands of a comparatively few men who were controlling lumber, coal, oil and railway transportation in a way that was believed to be a menace to the public welfare. Nor was the concentration of wealth the only danger of this policy; it led to the destruction of forests, the exhaustion of farming soils and the wasteful mining of coal and minerals, since the desire for quick profits, even when they entail risk to permanency of capital, is always a powerful human motive. Mr Roosevelt not only framed legislation to regulate this concentration of wealth and to preserve forests, water power, mines and arable soil, but organized departments in his administration for carrying his legislation into effect (see Irrigation: United States). His official acts and the influence of his speeches and messages led to the adoption by both citizens and government of a new theory regarding natural resources. It is that the government acting for the people, who are the real owners of all public property, shall permanently retain the fee in public lands, leaving their products to be developed by private capital under leases which are limited in their duration and which give the government complete
power to regulate the industrial operations of the lessees.
Government Regulation of Corporations. —
The growth of the corporation as an industrial machine had in recent years been very rapid in the United States. The industrial and financial corporations had grown so powerful as to venture to contend for the first place with the authority of the government itself. As Mr Roosevelt often pointed out, no nation will live long in which the authority of government — especially in a democracy — is supplanted by the private interest of a real money power. Early in his political career, Mr Roosevelt foresaw this conflict, and as president he aroused public opinion so that the people understood it, and threw his effective influence into the framing of legislation under which the Federal government is now successfully combating the illegal acts of the powerful trusts. He established the Federal Department of Commerce and Labor, the secretary of which has a seat in the cabinet, and in which there exists a bureau of corporations possessing the specific function of inspecting and supervising interstate corporations an entirely new feature in American government. He strengthened the interstate commission for the regulation of railroads, inaugurated successful suits against monopolies — notably the Standard Oil Company and the so-called Sugar Trust, — and achieved distinct practical results in favour of a system of "industrial democracy" where all men shall have equal rights under the law and where there shall be no privileged interests exempt from the operation of the law. Both his friends and his enemies agree that he did more than any other public man to effect these changed relations of government and industry. There is, however, a violent disagreement regarding the desirability and the results of his course. His critics assert that he simply interrupted the orderly course of business, inspired panic and dangerously arrested prosperity. Mr Roosevelt and his supporters were convinced that his policy was necessary to save the country from the social and political dangers of plutocracy, and that in establishing a definite system of government regulation not only were popular rights preserved and justice promoted but industrialism and finance were placed upon a basis of regularity and honesty that paved the way for an era of general prosperity in the United States, unhampered by feverish speculation and shrewd scheming, such as the
country had so far in its history been unable to enjoy.
The Army and Navy. —
Mr Roosevelt was a pronounced advocate of international peace but also an advocate of law and order. He believed that international controversies would ultimately be settled by judicial procedure, and in the Russo-Japanese War and the establishment of the Hague Court he took an active part in promoting the judicial settlement of disputes between nations. For his efforts leading to the settlement of the Russo-Japanese War he received the Nobel Peace Prize, and in May 1910 he delivered an address on "International Peace" before the Nobel committee in Christiania. But, with this advocacy of international peace, he also advocated the maintenance by the United States of an efficient and thoroughly equipped army and navy. To some of his critics these two positions seem inconsistent. Mr Roosevelt argued not only that they were consistent but that the one logically followed the other. In his Nobel address he said: "In any community of any size the authority of the courts rests upon actual potential force; on the existence of a police or on the knowledge that the able-bodied men of the country are both ready and willing to see that the decrees of judicial and legislative bodies are put into effect;" and he expressed the opinion that until a recognized international supreme court was firmly established, every nation must be prepared to defend itself, and when it was established all the nations must be prepared to maintain its decrees against any recalcitrant nation. On this ground during his presidential administration Mr Roosevelt was deeply concerned in many measures for improving the administrative side of the War Department and educating, training and strengthening the army. Although he himself served in the army during the Spanish War his special interest was in the navy, springing probably from his relationship with the navy during his brief term as assistant secretary. The successful and dramatic voyage of the American fleet around the world, undertaken in spite of predictions of disaster made by naval experts in Europe and the United States, was conceived and inspired by him, and this single feat would alone justify the statement that no American public man had done so much since the Civil War as he to strengthen the
physical power and the moral character of the United States navy.
The Panama Canal. —
The greatest single material achievement of Mr Roosevelt's presidency was the taking over by the United States of the project to build a Panama Canal. The project itself is nearly four centuries old; for a century Great Britain and the United States had been sometimes in friendly, sometimes in acrimonious dispute as to how this was to be accomplished; the French undertook the work and failed. Mr Roosevelt recognized the new republic of Panama, and obtained from it for the United States, in return for a commercial and military protection advantageous to Panama, the right to build a canal and control it in perpetuity. His critics said that his course in this matter was unconstitutional, although the question of constitutionality has never been raised before any national or international tribunal. The fact remains that the construction of the Panama Canal was undertaken to the practical satisfaction to the civilized world. But for Mr Roosevelt's vigorous official action and his characteristic ability to inspire associates with enthusiasm the canal would still be a subject of diplomatic discussion instead of
a physical actuality.
Colonial Policy. —
Strictly speaking, the United States has no colonial policy, for the Philippine Islands and Porto Rico can scarcely be called colonies. It has, however, a policy of territorial expansion. Although this policy was entered upon at the conclusion of the Spanish War under the presidency of Mr McKinley it has been very largely shaped by Mr Roosevelt. He determined that Cuba should not be taken over by the United States, as all Europe expected it would be, and an influential section of his own party hoped it would be, but should be given every opportunity to govern itself as an independent republic; by assuming supervision of the finances of San Domingo, he put an end to controversies in that unstable republic, which threatened to disturb the peace of Europe; and he personally inspired the body of administrative officials in the Philippines, in Porto Rico and (during American occupancy) in Cuba, who for efficiency and unselfish devotion to duty compare favourably with any similar body in the world. In numerous speeches and addresses he expressed his belief in a strong colonial government, but a government administered for the benefit of the people under its control and not for the profit of the people at home. In this respect, for the seven years of his administration at Washington, he developed a policy of statesmanship quite new in the history
of the United States.
No account of Mr Roosevelt's career is complete without a reference to his literary work, which has been somewhat overshadowed by his reputation as a man of public affairs. He was all his life an omnivorous reader of the best books in very varied fields of literature, and he developed to an unusual degree the faculty of digesting and remembering what he has read. His history of the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain, written when he was twenty-four years old, is still the standard history of that conflict, and his Winning of the West is probably the best work which has been written on American frontier life of the 19th century, a life that developed certain fundamental and distinctive American social and political traits. His African Game Trails, the record of his scientific hunting expedition in Africa in 1909-10, is much more than a narrative of adventures on a wild continent. It is a study of social and ethnological conditions, and contains many passages of literary charm, describing bird life, animal life and natural scenery. An appendix that gives some account of the "Pigskin Library" which he carried with him for daily reading in the heart of Africa is a surprising exposition of the wide range of his reading. As a public speaker his style was incisive, forceful and often eloquent, although he made no effort to practise oratory as an art. The volume of his African and European addresses, published in the autumn of 1910, not only presents an epitome of his political philosophy, but discloses the wide range of his interest in life and the methods by which he had striven to bring public opinion to his point of view.
Personally of great physical and mental vigour, his work was done at high pressure and he had the faculty of inspiring his colleagues or his subordinates with his own enthusiasm for doing things. The volume of his letters and his writings in books, articles for the press and speeches and official messages, is enormous, and yet this work was done in the midst of the executive labours of a long political career. Besides being famous as a hunter of big game, he was a skilful horseman and a good tennis player. Regular physical exercise in the open air contributed much to his abounding vitality. A man of decisive action when his mind was made up on any given question, his very decisiveness sometimes gave the impression that his judgments were hasty. On the contrary, few men were more deliberate in considering all sides of an important problem. His long experience, his wide reading and his thorough knowledge of all sorts and conditions of men, enabled him to act quickly at a time of crisis, but his important speeches, or a course of political action that might be far-reaching in its effect, were not cast into their final form without careful consultation with the best advisers he could obtain. The first form of his written speeches was always painstakingly edited and revised, and not infrequently entirely rewritten. He expressed his own judgment of his success as a public man by saying that it was not due to any special gifts or genius, but to the fact that by patience and laborious persistence he had developed ordinary qualities to a more than ordinary degree.
(L. F. A.)
The following is a list of his principal works: — The Naval Operations
of the War between Great Britain and the United States — 1812-1815 (1882), written to correct the history of James; Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888), both in the American Statesmen Series; New York City (1891; revised 1895) in the Historic Towns Series; Hero Tales, from American History (1895) with H. C. Lodge; Winning of the West (4 vols., 1889-96); a part of the sixth volume of the History of the Royal Navy of England (1898) by W. L. Clowes; The Rough Riders (1899); Oliver Cromwell (1901); the following works on hunting and natural history, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1886), Ranch Life and Hunting Trail (1888), The Wilderness Hunter (1893), Big Game Hunting in the Rockies and on the Plains (1899; a republication of Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and The Wilderness Hunter), The Deer Family (1902), with other authors, and African Game Trails (1910); and the essays, American Ideals (2 vols., 1897) and The Strenuous Life (1900); and State Papers and Addresses (1905) and African and European Addresses (1910). Several of his works have been translated into French and German. Uniform editions were published in 1900 and 1903.
Early in 1909 he became a "contributing editor" of the Outlook.
The biographical sketches by Jacob A. Riis (New York, 1904),
F. E. Leupp (ibid., 1904), G. W. Douglas (ibid., 1907), James Morgan (ibid., 1907), and Murat Halstead (Akron, 1902) are personal or political eulogies. John Burroughs's Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt (Boston, 1907) is an appreciation of Roosevelt as a naturalist. J. W. Bennett, Roosevelt and the Republic (New York, 1908), is bitterly hostile. There is a sketch by F. V. Greene in
Roosevelt's American Ideals.
↑ Claas Martenszen van Roosevelt (or Rosenvelt) settled in New Amsterdam in 1649; his son Claas (or Nicholas) in 1700-1 was a New York alderman of the Leislerian party; in the next three generations, Johannes, Cornelius and Jacobus (James) were merchants and (in 1748-67, 1785-1801 and 1797-99 an d 1809, respectively) aldermen of New York; in the third generation the family became allied with the Schuylers. Isaac Roosevelt was a member of the Provincial Congress in 1775-77 and of the state Senate in 1777-86 and in 1788-92; in the state Assembly were James Roosevelt (1796-97), Cornelius C. Roosevelt (1803), James I. Roosevelt, jun. (1835-40), and Clinton Roosevelt (1837-40). James I. Roosevelt, jun. (1795-1875), was a Democratic member of the national House of Representatives in 1841-43, and a justice of the state Supreme Court in 1851-59. Nicholas J. Roosevelt (1767-1854), with John Stevens, Robert R. Livingstone and Robert Fulton, was prominent in the development of steam navigation. His brother, Cornelius van Schaik Roosevelt (1794-1871), was a founder of the Chemical National Bank of New York, and the grandfather of the president. The president's uncle, Robert Barnwell Roosevelt (1829-1906), was a New York lawyer, New York state fish commissioner in 1866-68, a member of the Committee of Seventy which exposed the corruption of Tammany in New York City, a Democratic member of the national House of Representatives in 1871-73, U.S. minister to the Netherlands in 1888, and author of works on American game birds and fish. R. B. Roosevelt's brother, the president's father, Theodore Roosevelt (1831-1878), was a glass importer, prominent in city charities, an organizer of the Union League Club, and the founder of the Orthopaedic Hospital. A cousin, James Henry Roosevelt (1800-1863), was founder of the Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. The president's mother, Martha Bullock, was of an old Georgia family of Scotch-Irish and Huguenot extraction; her grandfather was Archibald Bullock (1730-1777), first president (1776-77) of Georgia; and her brother, James Dunwoody Bullock, often compared by Theodore Roosevelt to Colonel Newcome, was in the Confederate navy, and equipped in England vessels (including the "Alabama") as Confederate cruisers.
↑ In the same year he married Alice Hathaway Lee of Boston, who died in 1884 leaving one daughter. Later (in 1886) he married Edith Kermit Carow of New York City, and by this marriage had four sons and one daughter.
↑ In a volume entitled Roosevelt the Citizen, which, while it is frankly written as the enthusiastic tribute of a personal admirer, may be relied upon for accuracy in its statement of historical or biographical facts.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica/Roosevelt,_Theodore&oldid=4203205"

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Brazil All Set to Kicks Off world cup 2014 - Nepalee.Com
Brazil All Set to Kicks Off world cup 2014
Brazil is trying to become the second nation to win the World Cup at home since France did it in 1998.
It's almost time. The day Brazilians have been anxiously waiting for is finally arriving.
Brazil plays Croatia on Thursday to get the home World Cup underway, beginning its quest for a sixth world title almost seven years after the nation was picked as host.
Rio De Janerio -Brazil ready to Kicks of the world cup 2014 in Less than 48 Hrs from Now.
11 JUNE 2014 – Rio De Janerio – Brazil Football association and Fifa World cup Organizing committee said that The venues for the all matches of this year's World cup are ready to welcome fans, players and official which is totally all well managed and secured in various sections.
Brazilians are cheering up with their full efforts to win the fifa world cup for 7th time in the history and second time win (if they win) at the home ground match.
After so much talk about delays, protests and problems, fans at last are getting a chance to cheer for the national team on home soil in football's showcase tournament.
If Brazil wins the opening game, the fact that the stadium in Sao Paulo isn't even fully finished yet will quickly be forgotten. A loss, quite simply, is unthinkable for a nation whose identity is so closely linked to its football team.
Brazil hasn't hosted the World Cup since 1950, when it endured a heart breaking loss to Uruguay in the last title-deciding game. This time, everybody knows that only the title will be enough to please the home crowd.
"We are all eager to get started, we are just counting the days," Brazil midfielder Ramirez said on Tuesday. "We know that the fans have confidence in our team and they are behind us. We have to do everything possible to try to win this World Cup. We know everybody is expecting us to do it."
Brazilian Captain Neymar and his team ready to Kicks off the world cup opening match on June 12, 2014.
Boosted by the home crowd, Brazil is one of the main favorites to recapture the trophy won by Spain four years ago in South Africa. But the other usual World Cup contenders will be trying to spoil the party in the land of football, including Germany, Italy, Argentina and the Netherlands, runner-up in 2010.
Brazil is trying to become the first nation to win the World Cup at home since France did it in 1998. The Brazilians were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the last two tournaments, to France in 2006 and the Netherlands in 2010.
A festive World Cup atmosphere has taken over Brazil in the run-up to the tournament despite the country's preparation problems and the threats of protests. Brazilians had been slow to get into the World Cup mood, but now streets are being painted with the green and yellow colors and local flags are being displayed on windows of homes across the country.
The crowd support is one of the biggest reasons coach Luiz Felipe Scolari has been saying loud and clear that Brazil is obligated to win the World Cup at home. Players also don't hide that they believe Brazil is the main title favorite.
"We know that we will have the fans behind us, and together I think we have a great chance of reaching our final goal, which is to win the World Cup," Brazil starting midfielder Luiz Gustavo said.
Brazilian fans had been questioning the national team before last year's Confederations Cup, but the title in the warm-up tournament was enough to bring the fans back on board. That tournament also helped show that Brazil has a team capable of competing against the top football nations today. The victory came in a final against world champion Spain.
"The Confederations Cup allowed us to regain our confidence," said Scolari, the coach when Brazil won its last world title in 2002. "Now we have to repeat that during the World Cup."
Brazil begins the tournament having won 15 of its last 16 matches, the only loss a 1-0 result at Switzerland in the first match after the Confederations Cup.
Brazil will start the World Cup with the same lineup that won the Confederations Cup, with 22-year-old Barcelona striker Neymar leading the team.
Croatia, led by Real Madrid play-maker Luka Modric, will hope to pull off a monumental upset, but the team won't be at full strength against the hosts. Coach Niko Kovac won't have forward Mario Mandzukic, who was red-carded in the team's final qualifier, and experienced midfielder Niko Kranjcar, who had to be dropped from the squad because of a late hamstring injury. Novac was already without defender Josip Simunic, who was banned for 10 games by Fifa for leading fans in a pro-Nazi chant after a qualifying match.
The high-profile opening match will be played at the troubled Itaquerao, the construction of which was delayed so badly that the roof won't even be fully finished until after the tournament. A crowd of more than 61,000 people is expected at the Itaquerao, including many heads of states.
The other Group A match will be played between Mexico and Cameroon on Friday in the northeastern city of Natal.
We will be updating all the match highlights, scores and some match live here in this site as well. Stay tuned.
#Brazil #brazilian girls #FIFA World Cup #football fever #football live stream #rio de janerio #sports news #world cup live #world cup stadium in brazil
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