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« Diane's Country Music Newsletter — 3 January 2018
Diane's Country Music Newsletter — 17 January 2018
FEATURED ARTIST — JOHNNY BUSH
Johnny Bush is still going strong, as he approaches his 83rd birthday. He records for BGM Records, owns a tour bus, and travels with his 6-piece band, the Bandoleros. "I'm working as much as I ever did," he told me when I called him the other day. "And making a lot more money than I ever did."
His first hit, in 1969, was the Marty Robbins song, "You Gave Me a Mountain." In 1972, under a new contract with RCA Victor, he released his own composition, "Whiskey River." Then his life changed. "It was the pinnacle of my career, when I was really rockin' and rollin', when it happened," he says. "My voice just slammed shut."
No longer able to sing, he lost his recording contract. It took years to identify the problem and more years to find a solution.
Spasmodic dysphonia, a rare disorder that occurs once in 350,000 people, affects a part of the brain responsible for finely coordinated movements. I found this explanation on the Internet: "The main muscle causing adductor spasmodic dysphonia is on the back of the voice box. It is the muscle that widely opens the vocal folds for breathing. It should be basically at rest during speaking. If it contracts during the making of a sound, then the vocal cords open and a breath of air comes out. That is an Adductor spasm."
The solution is injecting Botox into the vocal cords. "Botox is a lethal poison," Johnny explains. "Enough of it will shut down your respiratory system like cobra venom. It renders you unable to breathe. It's a paralyzing agent." The conventional treatment is to inject Botox into the side of the neck. "The conventional treatment doesn't work," states Johnny.
He sings the praises of a young doctor who developed a better method. Dr. Blake Simpson at the UT Voice Center of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio goes down the throat to inject the Botox. "I've got underwear older than he is," Johnny jokes.
"They give me just enough to paralyze the muscles so they don't spasm," Johnny explains. "We experimented to find the proper dosage. It took a while. Three and a half units on each side works for me. As long as I do it every 3-4 weeks. We've been doing that now since the early 2000s." Without the injections, he wouldn't be able to speak or sing. He could only whisper. With the injections, he speaks and sings normally.
"That's my calling now," he told me, "to help people with this. They feel so isolated. When you can't communicate, you become a recluse. You don't go out anymore."
As for music, Johnny plans to continue performing as long as his health stays good. He told me people retire from jobs they hate: "If you've got a job you love, why retire from something you like doing?" His brother, a retired Baptist minister, asked when Johnny plans to retire. He replied, "All I do is play music and play golf. Which do you want me to quit first?"
Whiskey River (Take My Mind) is the title of Johnny's 2007 autobiography. Willie Nelson, who opens and closes his shows with "Whiskey River," wrote the foreword: "Johnny Bush and I go way back, at least fifty years . . . I played in his band, and at one time I was also his personal manager. . . . Later on, Johnny played drums in my band. . . . And then Johnny wrote 'Whiskey River.' He has been exceedingly wealthy ever since."
Johnny reminds my newsletter readers, "If they want to hear my records, they can listen to Willie's Place on XM Sirius Radio." Mainstream radio hasn't played his music in years. Here's his tour schedule: http://johnnybush.com/tour-dates.html
"The main thing, if they're having a voice problem–I've been through thirty years of it–I know the lost feeling they have," Johnny says. "If they will contact me, if it is spasmodic dysphonia, I'll let them know help is on the way. I want them to know there is light at the end of the tunnel." Johnny and his wife, Lynda, invite people to write them at lyndabush210@gmail.com with concerns about spasmodic dysphonia.
Radio trailblazer Tom Perryman, age 90, died on January 11. Tracy Pitcox calls him "one of my radio heroes." He says, "Tom Perryman was a great institution in Country Music. He promoted shows all over the country with virtually every Country Music entertainer in the business. He is in the Nashville Disc Jockey Hall of Fame. He owned radio stations with Jim Reeves and booked Elvis on some of his first shows." Bill Mack says, "Tom was, without a single doubt, one of the most knowledgeable, dedicated radio personalities who ever entered the broadcasting arena. Tom was a personal friend to almost every country music personality. He helped boost the careers of Jim Reeves, The Browns, Ray Price, Johnny Horton, Elvis … just to name a few. He made his home in the Tyler, Texas area — and was active in broadcasting for over 70 years."
Mickey Gilley and son Michael were involved in a vehicle accident on January 3, while driving from Pasadena, Texas, to Mickey's theater in Branson, Missouri. When someone ran a stop sign in Lufkin, Texas, Michael swerved to avoid an accident but clipped the other car. His 2013 Toyota SUV rolled and landed upside-down in a median. Mickey and Michael were rushed to a hospital. Michael escaped serious injury. Mickey wrote on Facebook the next day, "I had an accident yesterday. We rolled a car about three times over. I have a fractured left ankle and a fractured right shoulder. I am having a hard time walking because I have a big boot on my left leg. But other than that, I'm doing pretty good. To be 81 years old and put myself through what I've been through, it's kinda tough sometimes on the old man, but I don't intend to retire. I will be out there on the road and I'll see you real soon."
The Tennessean announces a memorial service for the late Mel Tillis, who died November 19 at age 85. It will be held in Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on January 31 at 10 am. Artists scheduled to perform include Brenda Lee, Alison Krauss, Lorrie Morgan, Ricky Skaggs, Collin Raye, Daryle Singletary, Ira Dean, Ray Stevens, Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers, and Jamey Johnson, along with Mel's children, Pam, Sonny, and Carrie. His band, The Statesiders, will back some of the singers. The service is free and open to the public.
A fiddle believed to be once owned by Roy Acuff was accidentally donated to a Goodwill store in Missouri. The anonymous donation was put up for auction December 27, according to The Kansas City Star. Roy's fiddles were made by his uncle, Evart Acuff, who numbered each one. A sticker inside said the fiddle, No. 19, was handmade in August 1945 in Maryville, Tennessee. Another paper said it was made of applewood from a tree on a family farm. "We have no information on the owner," a spokesman said. "They just donated it and moved on. … The certificate of authenticity and other paperwork are copies but we are confident it's the real thing." After bidding began, and the bid reached $5,002, a member of the family that mistakenly donated the fiddle asked to have it returned. Goodwill granted the wish.
Loretta Lynn is recovering from a broken hip. She fell at home on January 8. Patsy Lynn, Loretta's daughter, told People the fall might have been caused by her mother's new puppy: "We don't really know if she was chasing after the puppy or what, but she slid and fractured her hip."
El Paso Inc. reports that one of its most-read stories of 2017 was titled "Legendary bar takes on TxDOT." The summary said: "Rosa's Cantina, a bar made famous by the classic Marty Robbins song 'El Paso,' took on the Texas Department of Transportation, which wanted a dirt lot the cantina uses for overflow parking. In the end, TxDOT acquired the property by eminent domain for the Border West Expressway project." In actuality, Marty made up the name when he wrote the song. If Rosa's Cantina existed at the time, he hadn't heard of it.
The McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, California, announced that Willie Nelson cut short his performance last weekend, due to illness. Bill Mack explained on Facebook: "There have been many inquiries and statements of concern about my old pal Willie Nelson and his cancellation of some show dates due to illness. Willie couldn't complete a performance Saturday night because of a health condition. In the midst of his first song, 'Whiskey River,' he began coughing, couldn't complete the show. Now, all of Willie's dates throughout the month of January have been cancelled because of what is considered a bad cold or the flu."
CabaRay Showroom is a new supper club in Nashville. It is owned by Ray Stevens, who will perform there regularly. The 35,000-square foot state-of-the-art music venue features dinner service for 500 people on the main floor, with 200 additional people in theatre-style seating on the second floor. "This is a different venue for Nashville as well as just about any community in the United States," Ray told The Tennessean. "I built it mainly because this is what I've done all my life and I enjoy it. I built it first of all to have fun. Secondly, I'd like people to come here to have fun, and I'm hoping we can make that happen." Located at 5724 River Road, it will open this weekend. "People are coming to Nashville because Nashville is the place to come and this will give them another place to come besides the Grand Ole Opry and Lower Broadway," he explained. "And, they can sure park a lot cheaper here." Ray celebrated a private opening with his closest friends and colleagues last week. Jeannie Seely posted this review on Facebook: Beautiful venue, great food and superb entertainment…. Ray just gets better with time… and his backup singers are so good and entertaining as well."
World Choice Investments and Dolly Parton announced last week that they are changing the name of the Dolly Parton Dixie Stampede to Dolly Parton's Stampede. The company operates Dolly's dinner shows in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, Branson, Missouri, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Mayor Tim Burchett of Knox County expressed to KnoxNews.com his disappointment about the name change: "I love Dolly, and I love all she's done for our community, which is her community, and I'm disappointed they're yielding to political correctness. . .. What's next? Are we going to change the name of Dixie cups and the Dixie sugar company?"
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville will open a new exhibit, Outlaws & Armadillos: Country and the Roaring '70s, on May 25. According to Nash Country Daily, the exhibition will focus on the artistic exchange between Nashville, Tennessee, and Austin, Texas, and the musical revolution created by artists such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Jessi Colter, Tompall Glaser, Billy Joe Shaver, and others. The name refers to the Armadillo World Headquarters, an Austin venue where the artists performed. Rolling Stone Country reports there will be a companion book, CD and LP, and educational courses. The exhibit, scheduled to run until February 2021, will include interviews and concert footage.
An upcoming Johnny Cash documentary was announced on the 50th anniversary of Johnny's live-album appearance at Folsom Prison. The Hollywood Reporter says the still-untitled documentary will have the full support of the Cash estate and will explore his music and biography through the prison concert. Thom Zimny, award-winning filmmaker of Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Presley documentaries, will direct the movie. "While the linear narrative of the Folsom Prison performances will anchor our film, each song in the set list will open a door into a nonlinear presentation of Cash's emotional, musical and personal development," he said in a statement. My copy of the 50-year-old concert album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, is held together by tape. Can it possibly be that many years?
An old strip mall that formerly housed a dive bar called the Fun Zone, where Merle Haggard performed professionally for the first time, was damaged in a fire on December 28. The Bakersfield Californian reports the fire started at a nearby muffler shop and damaged Lupita's Floral and Amelia's Fashion, the current occupants of the Fun Zone space. Jeff Benziger of the Ceres Courier described The Hag's first performance: "The bartender saw a guitar slung on Haggard's back and asked if he could sing. Merle strummed and sang, what else, 'Always Late.' He offered Haggard $5 and all the beer he could drink to keep singing."
The Randy Owen Angels Among Us award was presented to Brad Paisley at the 2018 St. Jude Country Cares seminar in Memphis, Tennessee. The honor recognizes individuals who have "made exceptional and lasting contributions" to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Darius Rucker was the honoree in 2017. Country Cares is a fundraising arm of St. Jude started by Randy Owen of Alabama in 1989. "Angels Among Us" is the Alabama hit written by Becky Hobbs. According to Taste of Country, Brad has been a dedicated supporter of St. Jude throughout his career, "including headlining a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Country Cares at the Grand Ole Opry in September 2014, several celebrity fishing tournaments, countless hospital visits and designing a room at the Target House for patients to be able to relax together." Nearly $800 million has been raised in 28 years. Over 260 radio stations are set to participate in this year's fundraiser. They will share stories of St. Jude patients and ask listeners to become partners in hope.
The Bluebird Café has announced the entertainers for its 25th Annual Alive at the Bluebird concert series, which benefits Alive Hospice. There will be at least 27 Bluebird shows, with performances by 130 artists and songwriters, including John Oates, Clint Black, and Kathy Mattea. The final performer will be Garth Brooks. Tickets are $250. An Epiphone FT-100 acoustic guitar, after being autographed by all performers during the Alive at the Bluebird series, will be auctioned on February 1, the final night of the series. It is available for bidding online at bluebirdcafe.com.
Eric Calhoun writes from Los Angeles, "Comments to Glenn Baker, I'm 43, (about ready to turn 44) and love classic country. I'd love to hear your show; where can I find it please? Thanks for the info on George Morgan, Diane. I asked my mom to help me go down to the Los Angeles Air Force Base, because I fell in love with Lorrie Morgan's voice. I've heard Roger Miller's music, including 'Old Toy Trains' and 'King of the Road.' Finally, for anyone who works down at the Grand Ole Opry, are there Braille materials for blind and visually impaired folks? Another source for classic country is Rick Jackson's Country Classics, heard on 103.7 KSON, San Diego, and 98.5 KYGO, Denver, and many other stations."
Dominique "Imperial" ANGLARES writes from France, "First of all get my best country wishes for that new year that start. May that year be filled with love, joys, music and success. As far as I know, Leon Rhodes played his first session for Ernest Tubb on September 21, 1960. Of course, he was not an original Troubadour, but he did play on a version of 'I'm Walking the Floor over You' recorded on January 29, 1963, and issued on Decca 31476. Nice to read about the Nashville's yearly 'Sunday Mornin' Country' Gospel Show. Among the cast is also Shelton Bissell who played sax for Dale Hawkins and Mickey Gilley in his young days. He's my friend and my messenger for Brenda Lee. The last but not the least, Thank you very much to have taking care of my words and to have put in display that cool cartoon about Brenda Lee. She's a lovely Lady like are Wanda Jackson, Margaret Lewis, and Laura Lee Perkins. Once all rockin' teenage females who can challenge with the rock-a-billy cats of the '50s. Warmest regards from your French friend."
Shelton Bissell of the "Gospel Sax Sing-Along" writes from White House, Tennessee, "Dominique Anglares sent your newsletter to me and I LOVE IT. Please add me to your email list. If you visit my website www.sheltonbissell.com I think you might like some of my stuff. All my videos are on YouTube.com."
Robert MacMillan in Arisaig, Scotland, requests, "Would be obliged if you could get Joe Babcock's tribute to Okie Jones to me. Thank you! I enjoy your newsletter very much – keep up the good work!"
Jackie Allen Thomas says, "Thank you so much for this great newsletter, I absolutely love reading it and hearing about many people who I've never heard of before but were so instrumental in the country music field. When the blizzards are blowing in South Dakota remember Arizona and the many classic country music fans down here. We have a group called the West Valley Country Music Association and it's to keep alive the classic country. If you should venture down this way, especially in the winter, we have a guest bedroom and you would be welcome to stay with us. We have musician friends here originally from South Dakota and I and my husband are originally from Minnesota so we know how bad the winters can get!"
Gerald Walton writes from Oklahoma City, "Hope you have a great new year. I enjoyed Wanda Jackson's new book; it is a great read."
Richard L. White, of WHIN Sunday Morning Gospel and Country 101, says, "I have read your newsletter and it is superb as always. May I please get you to send me a copy of the write-up about Okie Jones? I have always been interested in his career since seeing him perform from circa 1955 on the Al Gannaway Country Show Films thirty years ago (I have them on DVD now of course)."
Terry Beene says, "The 2018 Branson Terry Music Awards will be back at the Jim Stafford Theatre on Hwy 76 in Branson, Missouri, Oct 7 2018…..After being in Ft Worth Texas for 35 years in 2014 moved to Branson……. This year marks a milestone it will be our 40th anniversary……. It has become one of the Biggest nights of the Year in Branson for the Shows and Entertainers and Musicians. The public is welcome. Contact All Access Branson for info 417-332-2121 thank you and Happy New Year to you all."
Martin Nemecek sends an update on the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped: "First thank you for the wonderful newsletter. The library has the Faron Young story but no Marty Robbins. I will call them and ask that they correct this oversight. Once again thanks, keep up the good work."
John & Wanda Edmonson in Sun City, Arizona, report; "We've made it to 2018 and it's already looking like this will be another banner year. We'll kick off 2018 on January 18 at Ironworks. Remar Productions had a great 2017; introducing more folks to Marty's legacy and exposing them to traditional country music via our monthly Ironworks/Marty Robbins jam and various other venues in the Salt River Valley. Remar Productions will be hosting the Ironworks/Marty Robbins Jam every month, January thru December; third Thursday of every month."
COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME – 1999
The writer and performer of songs such as "Cimarron," "Ten Little Bottles," and "Hot Rod Lincoln," Johnny Bond was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame 21 years after his death. Born and raised in Oklahoma, Cyrus Whitfield Bond moved to Hollywood in 1939, at age 24, as part of a trio called the Bell Boys. Known as Johnny Bond, he and his partners, Jimmy Wakely and Scotty Harrell, joined Gene Autry's Melody Ranch radio show. For a while, the trio recorded for Decca as the Jimmy Wakely Trio and for Columbia as Johnny Bond & the Cimarron Boys. Johnny played distinctive acoustic guitar runs while backing Gene Autry. He stayed with the Melody Ranch show until it ended in 1956. He and Tex Ritter started a music publishing business together. From 1953-60, the pair hosted a syndicated country music TV show, Town Hall Party, in Los Angeles. Johnny Bond died of a stroke in 1978, at age 63.
"Just because I'm blonde, don't think I'm dumb," sang Dolly Parton in 1967, on her first Billboard-charted recording, "Dumb Blonde." She is now one of the most famous women in the world. And possibly one of the richest. Born in 1946 in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, she always knew she would be a star someday. Her recent TV movies, based on her songs "Coat of Many Colors" and "Jolene," show life as a child in the Appalachian Mountains. Her uncle, Bill Owens, bought her a guitar and landed her a spot on a television variety show in Knoxville when she was ten. In 1959, she made her first guest appearance on the Grand Ole Opry at age thirteen. In 1964, she moved to Nashville immediately after high school graduation. Her first day in town, she met contractor Carl Dean, whom she soon married. In 1967, she joined the Porter Wagoner Show as a replacement for Porter's duet partner, Norma Jean. RCA Records signed her as a solo artist and as Porter's duet partner. As Dolly's career expanded into the pop world and super stardom, she appeared on numerous TV shows and in movies. In 1985, she and other investors opened the Dollywood theme park near Sevierville, Tennessee. The park and its spinoffs are major tourist attractions. Dolly has used her non-profit Dollywood Foundation in innumerable ways to help the local economy. Her Imagination Library has given more than 70 million books to children: https://dollyparton.com/imagination-library. Dolly Parton celebrates her 71st birthday this weekend.
Harold Wayne Jenkins, born in 1933, was the son of a Mississippi ferryboat captain. He was playing and singing on the radio at age twelve. Before being drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he was scouted by the Philadelphia Phillies as a talented baseball player. After his military discharge, he tried recording for Sun Records in Memphis as an Elvis Presley imitation. He then signed with Mercury Records as a rockabilly performer and became Conway Twitty, after combining the names of Conway, Arkansas and Twitty, Texas. With a hit on "It's Only Make Believe," he became a teen idol. But he was a country singer at heart, and he wrote country songs. After Ray Price recorded Conway's "Walk Me To The Door," thanks to help from Harlan Howard, Decca's Owen Bradley signed him to a recording contract in 1965. Forty #1 Billboard country hits followed, including the duets with Loretta Lynn. He opened a $3 million Twitty City tourism complex in Nashville in 1981. Conway Twitty died of a stomach aneurysm at age 59, on June 6, 1993, while returning to Nashville from a show in Branson, Missouri. He was scheduled to perform during the Fan Fair celebration.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 17th, 2018 at 10:06 am	and is filed under Newsletter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.


That's right, it's that celebratory time of year again. For our ninth annual Men's Grooming Awards, we recruited an expert panel of judges to put the newest formulas, sprays and gadgets through their paces. Over the past year, they, alongside the ShortList grooming team and you – yes you – our hallowed readers, have whittled down thousands of products, services and destinations to a select few. Here's our definitive guide to the grooming kit you need in 2017.
Joe Mills, hairstylist, founder of Joe & Co.
Having launched in November 2016 in London's Seven Dials, Beast immediately set itself apart from other boutique beauty retailers by putting a traditionally online format into a physical space. Rather than arranging the store by brand range, products are instead merchandised under tabs and sub-tabs for different grooming categories, solutions and concerns.
Charising our judging panel, Clark is an award-winning grooming and fashion journalist.
Co-founder and designer at menswear brand Casely-Hayford, Charlie is the quintessential modern gent.
Multi-award winning, Harley Street Dr. Esho is Channel 4's resident cosmetic doctor.
Fashion veteran Gordon is an authority on impeccable design and product and knows exactly what men want and need.
Responsible for curating the men's brand across every House of Fraser store and platform, Ruth is at the forefront of British grooming retail.
Mills' celebrity clients include Martin Freeman, Lewis Hamilton and Ben Affleck.
Model and fitness expert Pietro's Mechanical Engineering PhD affords him a keen eye for superior design.
One of the class of 'original supermodels', Paul's skin and hair has seen it all.
The only classically trained female nose in the UK, Lyn created some of the most iconic British fragrances.
BBC's The One Show's stylist has helped shape some of the biggest haircare businesses on the market.


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Brahima Bakayoko, né le  en Côte d'Ivoire, est un footballeur ivoirien évoluant au poste de défenseur au FAR de Rabat.

Biographie

Il participe à la Ligue des champions d'Afrique avec les clubs de l'AFAD Djékanou et de l'OC Khouribga.

Palmarès
 Vice-champion de Côte d'Ivoire en 2011 et 2012 avec l'AFAD Djékanou
 Vice-champion du Maroc en 2015 avec l'OC Khouribga
 Vainqueur de la Coupe du Trône en 2015 avec l'OC Khouribga

Notes et références

Liens externes

Naissance en Côte d'Ivoire
Naissance en décembre 1991
Footballeur ivoirien
Joueur de l'OC Khouribga
Joueur de l'AS FAR

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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I grew up in rural Herefordshire, entrenched deep in its farming community. So this article strikes a very poignant chord for me as it goes to the heart of one of the hardest conflicts I have being a vegan with my background. How can I be comfortable with and respect my friends and family who make a living doing something I intrinsically believe is cruel and wrong? A lot of my farming friends are sadly turning to this form of factory farming of chickens in order to try and stay financially afloat. I have huge sympathy for how hard farmers are finding it to make a living – especially the potato and dairy farmers, many of whom are going under all over the UK or having to diversify away from what they have done for generations. But does that excuse them turning to such a depraved method of farming? Who am I to think badly of someone trying to keep their family above water? At what point do their immediate needs have to take priority over my ethical ideals?
As a passionate vegan everything about this form of factory farming appalls me – both ethically and environmentally. But whilst famers feel they have no other option, they are going to continue down this route of desperate mass farming which only spells out bad news for us, the animals and the environment. The responsibility ultimately lies with the consumers. When will we wake up to the effects our everyday choices have on the world at large? When will we stop demanding cheaper and cheaper meat and dairy products in greater and greater quantity at the expense of our own personal health, the animals' rights and the health of the environment.
The below article is from George Monbiot's website and was published yesterday in the Guardian:
Fowl Deeds
The astonishing, multiple crises caused by chicken farming.
(By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 20th May 2015)
It's the insouciance that baffles me. To participate in the killing of an animal: this is a significant decision. It spreads like a fungal mycelium into the heartwood of our lives. Yet many people eat meat sometimes two or three times a day, casually and hurriedly, often without even marking the fact.
I don't mean to blame. Billions are spent, through advertising and marketing, to distract and mollify, to trivialise the weighty decisions we make, to ensure we don't connect. Even as we search for meaning and purpose, we want to be told that our actions are inconsequential. We seek reassurance that we are significant, but that what we do is not.
It's not blind spots we suffer from. We have vision spots, tiny illuminated patches of perception, around which everything else is blanked out. How often have I seen environmentalists gather to bemoan the state of the world, then repair to a restaurant in which they gorge on beef or salmon? The Guardian and Observer urge us to go green, then publish recipes for fish whose capture rips apart the life of the sea.
The television chefs who bravely sought to break this spell might have been talking to the furniture. Giant chicken factories are springing up throughout the west of England, the Welsh Marches and the lowlands of the east. I say factories for this is what they are: you would picture something quite different if I said farm; they are hellish places. You might retch if you entered one, yet you eat what they produce without thinking.
Two huge broiler units are now being planned to sit close to where the River Dore rises, at the head of the Golden Valley in Herefordshire, one of the most gorgeous landscapes in Britain. Each shed at Bage Court Farm – warehouses 90 metres long – is likely to house about 40,000 birds, that will be cleared out, killed and replaced every 40 days or so. It remains to be seen how high the standards of welfare, employment and environment will be.
The UK now has some 2,000 of these factories, to meet a demand for chicken that has doubled in 40 years*. Because everything is automated, they employ few people, and those in hideous jobs: picking up and binning the birds that drop dead every day, catching chickens for slaughter in a flurry of shit and feathers, then scraping out the warehouses before the next batch arrives.
The dust such operations raise is an exquisite compound of aerialised faeces, chicken dander, mites, bacteria, fungal spores, mycotoxins, endotoxins, veterinary medicines, pesticides, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide. It is listed as a substance hazardous to health, and helps explain why 15% of poultry workers suffer from chronic bronchitis. Yet, uniquely in Europe, the British government classifies unfiltered roof vents on poultry sheds as the "best available technology". If this were any other industry, it would be obliged to build a factory chimney to disperse the dust and the stink. But farming, as ever, is protected by deference and vested interest, excused from the regulations, planning conditions and taxes other business must observe. Already, Herefordshire County Council has approved chicken factories close to schools, without surveying the likely extent of the dust plumes either before or after the business opens. Bage Court Farm is just upwind of the village of Dorstone.
Inside chicken factories are scenes of cruelty practised on such a scale that they almost lose their ability to shock. Bred to grow at phenomenal speeds, many birds collapse under their own weight, and lie in the ammoniacal litter, acquiring burns on their feet and legs and lesions on their breasts. After slaughter they are graded. Those classified as grade A can be sold whole. The others must have parts of the body removed, as they are disfigured by bruising, burning and necrosis. The remaining sections are cut up and sold as portions. Hungry yet?
Plagues spread fast through such factories, so broiler businesses often dose their birds with antibiotics. These require prescriptions but – amazingly – the government keeps no record of how many are issued. The profligate use of antibiotics on farms endangers human health, as it makes bacterial resistance more likely.
But Herefordshire, like other county councils in the region, scarcely seems to care. How many broiler units has it approved? Who knows? Searches by local people suggest 42 in the past 12 months. But in December the council claimed it has authorised 21 developments since 2000§. This week it told me it has granted permission to 31 since 2010. It admits that it "has not produced any specific strategy for managing broiler unit development"¤. Nor has it assessed the cumulative impact of these factories. At Bage Court Farm, as elsewhere, it has decided that no environmental impact assessment is neededɷ.
So how should chicken be produced? The obvious answer is free range, but this exchanges one set of problems for another. Chicken dung is rich in soluble reactive phosphate. Large outdoor flocks lay down a scorching carpet of droppings, from which phosphate can leach or flash into the nearest stream. Rivers like the Ithon, in Powys, are said to run white with chicken faeces after rainstorms. The River Wye, a special area of conservation, is blighted by algal blooms: manure stimulates the growth of green murks and green slimes that kill fish and insects when they rot. Nor does free range solve the feed problem: the birds are usually fed on soya, for which rainforests and cerrado on the other side of the world are wrecked.
There is no sensible way of producing the amount of chicken we eat. Reducing the impact means eating less meat – much less. I know that most people are not prepared to stop altogether, but is it too much to ask that we should eat meat as our grandparents did, as something rare and special, rather than as something we happen to be stuffing into our faces while reading our emails? To recognise that an animal has been sacrificed to serve our appetites, to observe the fact of its death, is this not the least we owe it?
Knowing what we do and what we induce others to do is a prerequisite for a life that is honest and meaningful. We owe something to ourselves as well: to overcome our disavowal, and connect.
www.monbiot.com
* Total purchases for household consumption (uncooked, pre-cooked and take-aways combined) rose from 126 grammes per person per week in 1974 to 259 grammes in 2013 (see the database marked UK – household purchases).
§ BBC Hereford and Worcester, 15th December 2014
¤ Response to FoI request IAT 7856, 13th August 2014
ɷ Herefordshire County Council, 22nd December 2014. Screening Determination of Bage Court Farm development, P143343/F
Tagged antibiotics, battery hens, broilers, chicken sheds, chickens, compassionate living, conservation, environment, factory farming, faeces, farming, fowl, free range, george monbiot, golden valley, Guardian, herefordshire, layers, meat eating, monbiot, poultry, poultry farming, river wye, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, vegetarianism
Another reason to stop eating fish!
http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/environment.html
Tagged carbon, climate change, co2, cows, Dairy, dairy industry, diet, ecosystem, environment, fish, fisheries, fishing, gas, health, methane, vegan, veganism
Skool of Vegan
Skool of Vegan is a new initiative aimed at trying to get people to look at their eating habits and attitudes towards animals in a more critical way. Their mission statement is: 'Because making the connection is child's play'. It certainly makes for some uncomfortable reading and I admire their original approach. Whether you like the drawings or not its hard to deny the underlying truth and i think they do a good job of highlighting the hypocrisy and inconsistencies of what we teach our kids. I think it's probably a little too heavy handed for most people's taste and therefore I doubt they will reach people in the way they'd like to. Perhaps a less aggressive tone might have spoken to more people…? What do you think? Here a few…
Tagged activism, alkaline, animal abuse, animal cruelty, animal ethics, animal free, animal free food, animal rights, animal slaughter, animal testing, animals, antibiotics, beef, Beyonce, carbon footprint, cartoons, cattle, chicken, children, climate change, compassion, compassionate living, cruelty free, Dairy, deforestation, doodling, environment, greenhouse gases, vegan, veganism, veganuary, vegetarian, vegetarianism
We should be outraged by Europe slaughtering sea life in the name of 'science' by george Monbiot
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2015/feb/09/we-should-be-outraged-by-europe-slaughtering-sea-life-in-the-name-of-science
Tagged animal cruelty, animal slaughter, conservation, environment, environmentalism, Europe, fishing, Guardian, marine ecosystem, marine life, monbiot, science, scientific whaling, trawling
How veganism can help to end world hunger… (video)
Tagged animals, cattle pollution, climate change, crops, deforestation, environment, farming, food waste, hunger, land use, methane emissions, poverty, slurry waste, vegan, veganism, water pollution, water wastage
Go wild for the Wild Food Cafe
I finally made it to the Wild Food Café in Covent Garden today. I've been meaning to go for months and months and it was well worth the wait.
It's tucked away above Neal's Yard. It's cosy (seats about 40 people) but bright and airy. It's a really lovely space with the kitchen in full view bang in the middle and you can either sit at the bar that runs all around the kitchen and watch them cooking or at one of the 4 big tables overlooking Neal's Yard. Today it was absolutely freezing outside but the sun was pouring in through the large bay windows and it felt like a little haven of friendly, cosy, welcoming, warmth on an Arctic London day.
It describes itself as a 'raw-centric food restaurant' and uses 'wild, fresh, colourful gourmet ingredients & plant-based (vegan and vegetarian) cuisine'. The vast majority of the menu is vegan and a lot of it raw. For anyone who is nervous of the phrase 'raw vegan' and presumes they will be faced with a plateful of rabbit food sprinkled with bird feed then fear not – it is astonishing what these guys create and you really don't even notice that it's raw.
I started with their 'Incredible Green' super smoothie – apple, celery, lemon, banana, kale, fresh coconut, fresh aloe vera, fresh irish moss. It's £6 which is pretty expensive but it's almost a meal in itself. A hearty comforting glass of goodness.
Then I ordered THE WILD BURGER – scrumtious shiitake, raw olive & dulse burger with in-house cultured Wild Sauce, tomatillo salsa verde, caramelised onions, baba ganoush & crispy gem lettuce in a wholemeal sprouted organic wheatbread(V)(N)(R) £12. Completely delicious and filling, although not the biggest plate of food for £12.
Ed had the WILD PIZZA SPECIAL – raw, dairy-free young coconut cheeze, wild sea purslane & basil pesto, raw cultured tomato & goji berry marinara, Turkish olives, artichoke hearts, avocado(V)(N)(R) £12.5 This was the star of the show and honestly one of the most delicious meals I have ever had in my life. It made me want to rush out and buy a dehydrator immediately!
The desserts looked amazing but we ran out of time sadly – but now I have an excuse to go back as soon as I possibly can…
Oh and the waiting staff are really knowledgeable and helpful… and exceedingly attractive which is always always a bonus!
Wild Food Café has a real community feeling about it. They offer cooking courses, full moon feasts, meditation sessions, gourmet meals with guest chefs etc… Go check it out!
Tagged alternative living, animal free, compassionate living, cookery courses, covent garden, cruelty free, dairy free, diet, environment, environmentally friendly, global warming, health, healthy eating, healthy living, london, meditation, mindfulness, nutrition, raw cooking, raw food, recipes, restaurant, soho, vegan, vegan cafe, vegan lifestyle, vegan menu, vegan restaurant, veganism, vegetarian, vegetarianism, wellbeing, wild food cafe
And go Fox Mulder! The truth is out there…
http://www.ecorazzi.com/2015/02/02/david-duchovny-tackles-animal-rights-veganism-in-new-book/
Tagged animal welfare, cruelty free, diet, environment, ethics, health, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, wellbeing
If you must eat meat, save it for Christmas
Here's a great article by the wonderfully eloquent and engaging George Monbiot which was published in The Guardian on the 16th Dec 2014.
From chickens pumped with antibiotics to the environmental devastation caused by production, we need to realise we are not fed with happy farm animals.
What can you say about a society whose food production must be hidden from public view? In which the factory farms and slaughterhouses supplying much of our diet must be guarded like arsenals to prevent us from seeing what happens there? We conspire in this concealment: we don't want to know. We deceive ourselves so effectively that much of the time we barely notice that we are eating animals, even during once-rare feasts, such as Christmas, which are now scarcely distinguished from the rest of the year.
It begins with the stories we tell. Many of the books written for very young children are about farms, but these jolly places in which animals wander freely, as if they belong to the farmer's family, bear no relationship to the realities of production. The petting farms to which we take our children are reifications of these fantasies. This is just one instance of the sanitisation of childhood, in which none of the three little pigs gets eaten and Jack makes peace with the giant, but in this case it has consequences.
Labelling reinforces the deception. As Philip Lymbery points out in his book Farmageddon, while the production method must be marked on egg boxes in the EU, there are no such conditions on meat and milk. Meaningless labels such as "natural" and "farm fresh", and worthless symbols such as the little red tractor, distract us from the realities of broiler units and intensive piggeries. Perhaps the most blatant diversion is "corn-fed". Most chickens and turkeys eat corn, and it's a bad thing, not a good one.
The growth rate of broiler chickens has quadrupled in 50 years: they are now killed at seven weeks. By then they are often crippled by their own weight. Animals selected for obesity cause obesity. Bred to bulge, scarcely able to move, overfed, factory-farmed chickens now contain almost three times as much fat as chickens did in 1970, and just two thirds of the protein. Stalled pigs and feedlot cattle have undergone a similar transformation. Meat production? No, this is fat production.
Sustaining unhealthy animals in crowded sheds requires lashings of antibiotics. These drugs also promote growth, a use that remains legal in the United States and widespread in the European Union, under the guise of disease control. In 1953, Lymbery notes, some MPs warned in the House of Commons that this could cause the emergence of disease-resistant pathogens. They were drowned out by laughter. But they were right.
This system is also devastating the land and the sea. Farm animals consume one third of global cereal production, 90% of soya meal and 30% of the fish caught. Were the grain now used to fatten animals reserved instead for people, an extra 1.3 billion could be fed. Meat for the rich means hunger for the poor.
What comes out is as bad as what goes in. The manure from factory farms is spread ostensibly as fertiliser, but often in greater volumes than crops can absorb: arable land is used as a dump. It sluices into rivers and the sea, creating dead zones sometimes hundreds of miles wide. Lymbery reports that beaches in Brittany, where there are 14 million pigs, have been smothered by so much seaweed, whose growth is promoted by manure, that they have had to be closed as a lethal hazard: one worker scraping it off the shore apparently died of hydrogen sulphide poisoning, caused by the weed's decay.
It is madness, and there is no anticipated end to it: the world's livestock population is expected to rise by 70% by 2050.
Four years ago, I softened my position on meat-eating after reading Simon Fairlie's book Meat: A Benign Extravagance. Fairlie pointed out that around half the current global meat supply causes no loss to human nutrition. In fact it delivers a net gain, as it comes from animals eating grass and crop residues that people can't consume.
Since then, two things have persuaded me that I was wrong to have changed my mind. The first is that my article was used by factory farmers as a vindication of their monstrous practices. The subtle distinctions Fairlie and I were trying to make turn out to be vulnerable to misrepresentation.
The second is that while researching my book Feral, I came to see that our perception of free-range meat has also been sanitised. The hills of Britain have been sheepwrecked – stripped of their vegetation, emptied of wildlife, shorn of their capacity to hold water and carbon – all in the cause of minuscule productivity. It is hard to think of any other industry, except scallop dredging, with a higher ratio of destruction to production. As wasteful and destructive as feeding grain to livestock is, ranching could be even worse. Meat is bad news, in almost all circumstances.
So why don't we stop? Because we don't know the facts, and because we find it difficult even if we do. A survey by the US Humane Research Council discovered that only 2% of Americans are vegetarians or vegans, and more than half give up within a year. Eventually, 84% lapse. One of the main reasons, the survey found, is that people want to fit in. We might know it's wrong, but we block our ears and carry on.
I believe that one day artificial meat will become commercially viable, and that it will change social norms. When it becomes possible to eat meat without keeping and slaughtering livestock, live production will soon be perceived as unacceptable. But this is a long way off. Until then, perhaps the best strategy is to encourage people to eat as our ancestors did. Rather than mindlessly consuming meat at every meal, we should think of it as an extraordinary gift: a privilege, not a right. We could reserve meat for a few special occasions, such as Christmas, and otherwise eat it no more than once a month.
All children should be taken by their schools to visit a factory pig or chicken farm, and to an abattoir, where they should be able to witness every stage of slaughter and butchery. Does this suggestion outrage you? If so, ask yourself what you are objecting to: informed choice, or what it reveals? If we cannot bear to see what we eat, it is not the seeing that's wrong, it's the eating.
Tagged animal cruelty, animal ethics, animal free, antibiotics, christmas, christmas dinner, climate change, cruelty free, diet, environment, factory farmed turkeys, factory farming, farmed animals, farming, george monbiot, Guardian, health, meat, meat eating, plant based diet, sustainability, the gurardin, turkey, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, vegetarianism
Leonardo DiCaprio speaks at UN Climate Change summit… watch speech here
Actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio addresses the UN summit meeting on climate change on Tuesday. He was recently named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. 'This disaster has grown beyond the choices that individuals make. This is now about our industries, and governments…' he tells the summit. It's a passionate and eloquent speech and hopefully the fact that it's being delivered by Leo will mean that a lot more people watch it than were it being delivered by a faceless environmentalist. Sadly. Who knows… So far there has been a lot of rhetoric but very little action as far as I can see. People are talking about it and it is temporarily on the agenda but unless China, Russia, the US and numerous other hard hitters commit to some serious reductions then nothing is going to change…
Tagged ban ki moon, climate change, climate march, ecosystem, environment, environmentalism, greenhouse gases, leonardo dicaprio, planet, savetheplanet, UN summit, United nations, vegan, veganism
Slice of Cruelty
Another week, another horrific undercover video revealing the horrific abuse and cruelty that goes on in many dairy farms around the world. This was taken by a mercy for Animals undercover reporter who got a job at a dairy in New Mexico for several weeks. It shows workers punching, kicking and whipping cows and shocking their genitals with electric prods, tossing calves into truck beds, using heaving equipment to force sick animals into confined spots and committing other types of abuse.
It's not easy to watch but I think it's really important that people are made aware of what goes on behind closed doors. People cannot be held accountable for financing these industries if they are not made aware of what it is they are directly supporting. Most people have no idea of the cruel practices that go on in the agricultural sector. I certainly didn't until I undertook my own research and I am convinced that as soon as people are made aware of the horrific acts of animal abuse that are so endemic on factory farms around the world, they will stop consuming their products and lining their pockets. Unfortunately the industry is obviously going to do everything in their powers to keep this out of public view and, such are their lobbying powers, so too are governments. So it is left up to animal rights activists, animal welfare groups and charities to do whatever they can to raise awareness and educate people as to what kind of practices they are unwittingly supporting and therefore responsible for. It is unfortunate that people have to deceitfully pose as employees whilst secretly filming goings on, but there is no other way of showing people the truth. If these kinds of videos don't make people immediately stop eating these dairy products, at least at the restaurant chains that they know these dairy farms supply, then I honestly don't know what will.
Even if you choose to believe what Tim McIntyre, vice president of communications for Domino's, (Leprino Foods biggest client, supplied by this dairy amongst many others), says and believe that this is an 'isolated case of sadistic acts by employees at a single dairy farm in southern New Mexico…' (which endless undercover footage has sadly proven to be untrue – in 2010 another Mercy for Animals undercover investigation gathered similar footage at Willet dairy in New York, also supplying Leprino Foods. They were closed down for a few months and reopened a year later when the bad press died down. Another video was released showing appalling abuse at a beef farm, Bettencourt Farm, in 2012, one of Burger King's biggest suppliers – yet no arrests were made and people still eat at Burger King…) then just the faintest possibility that this might not be the case would surely get anyone questioning whether or not subscribing to this industry is at all ethical or necessary. At the very least this should stop you eating at any of the chains that are supplied by this dairy – Domino's Pizza, Papa John's and Pizza Hut for starters.
Or if you want to tell yourself that these are just a bunch of evil people getting sadistic kicks out of abusing innocent vulnerable animals and this is absolutely not your typical dairy industry employee, then read the book 'Slaughterhouse' by Gail A Eisnitz. Gail interviews dozens and dozens of employees working in dairy farms and slaughterhouses across the US and these personal accounts of what really goes inside those walls will leave you feeling sick to your stomach that you have ever bought and eaten meat that has been processed in factory farms.
or if you tell yourself that you don't buy meat that comes from factory farms then ask yourself where the lamb in your Cornish pasty has come from or where your service station chicken salad sandwich came from, or where your beef stock came from, or the milk in your hot chocolate powder or cadburys flake… There are animal products in so much of what you eat. Way beyond the joint of expensive beef you might buy for your Sunday Roast.
And even if you do tell yourself that this kind of cruelty is limited to factory farms far far away from your table, then look at the zillion other reasons you shouldn't be eating animals. Start with the environment, then look at the ethics of eating an innocent vulnerable animal that you have absolutely no nutritional need for and then look at the enormous health benefits of an animal free diet. The arguments are so obvious, the evidence is so resounding – the only way you can continue to consume and wear animal products is if you choose to deceive yourself. And at the back of your mind, you know you are lying to yourself and you have to live with this niggling nugget of knowledge that you are part of this horrifically cruel, unnecessary and evil practice and you really should have had the balls to do something about it. One day your grandchild will ask you – what did you do when you found out about the abuse and cruelty? You stopped eating animals right and tried to get others to stop too? Yes? Right?
People cannot continue to turn a blind eye any longer. People can no longer ignore the elephant in the room. Even if you believe that there is such a thing as 'humane slaughter', producing meat on the scale that we are today cannot be done ethically or humanely. Commodifying animal products in this way inevitably leads to enormous numbers and tiny profit margins. Every penny is squeezed out of every animal and profits are driven through unethical means – mass scale production with more animals squeezed into smaller spaces, more gallons of milk squeezed out of mastitis engorged udders, animals being stuffed full of unnatural animal feed and dosed up on antibiotics, fattened obscenely quickly, slaughtered at a desperately young age and sold at a cheaper and cheaper price etc etc.
The greater the demand for food the more corners are cut and not only do the animals suffer appallingly but so we do as the cholesterol pours through our veins and blocks our arteries, raises our blood pressure, brings on heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, the list is endless!
If you don't believe me go and do some research. It's like opening Pandora's box. Before you know it you'll be glued to your computer with your jaw on the floor amazed at how something as 'normal' as eating meat, dairy and eggs can make you partly responsible for such horrific acts of violence and cruelty.
Trust me. Do some research and see what you discover.
Tagged animal abuse, animal agriculture, animal cruelty, animal ethics, animal free, animal rights, animal welfare, cafods, cattle, climate change, dairy industry, dairy produce, Dominos, environment, factory farming, factory farms, farming, feed lots, greenhouse gases, mastitis, milk, Papa Johns, slice of cruelty, vegan, veganism, vegetarian
Care about climate change? Go vegan!
This afternoon we joined London's march for climate action.
Some 40,000 people turned out and marched along Embankment to a rally in Parliament Square. The rally comes ahead of a summit on Tuesday for 125 heads of state and government at the United Nations headquarters in New York. This meeting is the first such gathering since the unsuccessful Copenhagen conference in 2009 and will attempt to push forward political momentum towards a new universal agreement on climate to be signed by all nations at the end of 2015.
Climate change is a huge part of why Ed and I became vegan in the first place. Most people associate veganism with animal welfare far more then they associate it with environmentalism but for anyone who cares about the environment then switching to a vegan diet is a really obvious choice to make.
Here's a reminder why:
Global warming has been called humankind's "greatest challenge" and the world's gravest environmental threat. Many conscientious people are trying to help reduce global warming by driving more fuel-efficient cars and using energy-saving light bulbs. Although these measures help, science shows that going vegan is one of the most effective ways to fight global warming. A staggering 51 percent or more of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture, according to a report published by the Worldwatch Institute. Additionally, a recent United Nations report concluded that a global shift toward a vegan diet is extremely important in order to combat the worst effects of climate change. According to the United Nations, raising animals for food is "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." In addition, the official handbook for Live Earth, the anti–climate change concerts that Al Gore helped organize, says that not eating meat is the "single most effective thing you can do" to reduce your climate change impact. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide together cause the vast majority of global warming. Raising animals for food is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous-oxide emissions.
Burning fossil fuels (such as oil and gasoline) releases carbon dioxide, the primary gas responsible for global warming. Producing one calorie from animal protein requires 11 times as much fossil fuel input—releasing 11 times as much carbon dioxide—as does producing a calorie from plant protein. Feeding massive amounts of grain and water to farmed animals and then killing them and processing, transporting, and storing their flesh is extremely energy-intensive. In addition, enormous amounts of carbon dioxide stored in trees are released during the destruction of vast acres of forest to provide pastureland and to grow crops for farmed animals. On top of this, animal manure also releases large quantities of carbon dioxide.
You could exchange your "regular" car for a hybrid Toyota Prius and, by doing so, prevent about 1 ton of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year, but according to the University of Chicago, being vegan is more effective in the fight against global warming; a vegan is responsible for the release of approximately 1.5 fewer tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year than is a meat-eater.
A German study conducted in 2008 concluded that a meat-eater's diet is responsible for more than seven times as much greenhouse gas emissions as a vegan's diet. Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N.'s Nobel Prize–winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (and a vegetarian himself), urges people to "please eat less meat—meat is a very carbon-intensive commodity."
The billions of chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows who are crammed into factory farms each year in the U.S. produce enormous amounts of methane, both during digestion and from the acres of cesspools filled with feces that they excrete. Scientists report that every pound of methane is more than 20 times as effective as carbon dioxide is at trapping heat in our atmosphere. The EPA shows that animal agriculture is the single largest source of methane emissions in the U.S.
Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions.
You Can Help Stop Global Warming!
The most powerful step that we can take as individuals to avert global warming is to stop eating meat, eggs, and dairy products.
Tagged animal feed, carbon dixide, climate action, climate change, dairy industry, environment, environmentalism, fortheloveof, fracking, global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, london march, methane emissions, planet, protest march, toyota prius, vegan, veganism
She's Alive
This is a non-commercial attempt to highlight the fact that world leaders, irresponsible corporates and mindless 'consumers' are combining to destroy life on earth. It is dedicated to all who died fighting for the planet and those whose lives are on the line today. The cut was put together by Vivek Chauhan, a young film maker, together with naturalists working with the Sanctuary Asia network (www.sanctuaryasia.com).
Tagged climate change, consumerism, deforestation, environment, natural disasters, planet, rainforest, seal clubbing, tsunami, vegan, veganism
Shark cull – enough to make you weep!
The shark cull going on in Western Australia this week is enough to make you weep. It's reminiscent of the badger cull we are having here at the moment – an astonishingly incompetent and pointless exercise which serves only to be seen to be trying to solve a problem which is man made in the first place and won't make a damned bit of difference anyhow. The total disregard for the badgers and sharks is arrogant in the extreme and makes my blood boil! What is wrong with people???
Just read this article and you'll se what a staggeringly inhumane and pointless waste of life this is…
More than 170 sharks have been caught on lines under a controversial cull policy in Western Australia.
Drum lines were set up along seven Western Australian beaches as part of a trial between January and April. Fifty of the biggest sharks were destroyed.
Authorities said the cull was necessary after six people were killed in shark attacks.
No great white sharks, to whom most of the attacks were attributed, were caught.
Australia's state government said the cull was successfully restoring confidence among beachgoers.
It is seeking to continue the programme for three more years.
"I think the strategy's gone very well, bearing in mind that it's a very broad strategy, and that's basically to protect those people that swim in those popular areas," Western Australia Fisheries Minister Ken Baston said.
"While of course we will never know if any of the sharks caught would have harmed a person, this government will always place greatest value on human life."
Protesters argue that a shark cull is not the answer and would only damage the sea's delicate ecosystem.
"The policy is very unpopular, it has hardly caught any of the sharks it was destined to catch," said Labor fisheries spokesman Dave Kelly.
"What people want is scientific research to show why the government thinks this policy makes our beaches safer."
Tagged animal welfare, badger cull, environment, shark cull, veganism
Vegan pregnancy!
So I'm 15 weeks pregnant and interested to see how my veganism fares over the next few months. I've heard countless stories of committed vegetarians being overcome with cravings for a big fat juicy bloody steak and diving head first into a bucket of spare ribs… will I follow suit?
So far so good…. no dreams of floating pork chops or mozzarella balls. I've felt no different to my two previous pregnancies in fact. I've had a ravenous appetite and have easily gotten through 2 loaves of bread a week, a bucket of Duchy Organic Damson Jam… a truck load of pasta and a sackful of baked potatoes. So no carb cravings there….
I had the standard 2/3 weeks of narcoleptic levels of tiredness around 8 – 10 weeks and happily crawled into bed at 8pm…
I was looking forward to having my bloods done (which had been meaning to throughout the last year and never got round to) to see if I'm lacking anything having been vegan for over a year and was pleased to see that everything was exactly as it should be so that was reassuring. The only thing was a tiny bit low was my Vitamin D which if you'd seen the winter we've had here in the UK would not come as a great surprise.
Speaking of which, I escaped off to Barbados a couple of weeks back very cheekily at the last minute to visit a friend who's living out there. I do my best not to fly unnecessarily and we stick to UK based holidays as much as we can but this was one occasion where I thought sod it and chose sunshine and friendship over my carbon footprint… Whilst there I had a little bit of fresh line caught fish and this seemed appropriate being that we were on an island in the middle of the Caribbean. As I've always said on this blog, I think your food choices should always be appropriate for where you are and what is available to you – I don't think there are any hard or fast rules. In the same vein, my cousin came to stay with us in London last night and very kindly bought us some freshly laid eggs from her free range chickens she has at her home in Norfolk and even though i haven't bought or had eggs in over a year now, I'm looking forward to scrambled eggs for supper!
Tagged carbon footprint, environment, free range eggs, line caught fish, pregnancy, veganism, vegetarianism
The rise of the part-time vegans (BBC article)
Hoorah!
This article was featured yesterday on the BBC Magazine Online and was written by Vanessa Barford. I've come across so many people who've said "I could easily be vegan, except for cheese…" Or "I'd love to be vegan but I could never give up eggs..". This notion that it has to be all or nothing is really problematic (and another reason why labelling these food choices – vegan – is so dangerous) as it's stopping people from making any changes whatsoever for fear that they can't do it all. We have to invent new labels – part-time vegan, flexi-vegan etc. Why not be vegan at home and eat whatever you want when eating out. Or avoid animal products before 6pm each day and don't worry about it in the evenings. This kind of gentle leaning into veganism should be encouraged. Just think – if everyone in the UK decided to cut their animal product consumption in half, then it would be like half the population were vegan!
Any small steps towards an animal-product free lifestyle is a step in the right direction and whether it's 'Meat Free Mondays', 'Veganuary' , 'Beyoncé & Jay-Z' or peopl's own moral conscience that is inspiring them, it's all good!
Tagged Beyonce, climate change, diet, environment, health, Jay-Z, Meat free Monday, part-time veganism, vegan, vegan diet, vegan food, vegan health, vegan lifestyle, veganism, Veganism article

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The Switch by Joseph Finder
One of the Guardian's Best Crime Books and Thrillers of 2017.
Michael Tanner is heading home from a business trip when he picks up the wrong laptop at airport security. The computer he takes home belongs to US senator Susan Robbins, and it contains top secret files that should never have been on there in the first place. With her career in politics on the line, Senator Robbins is determined to get her laptop back, whatever the cost...
Tanner is now a hunted man. But with the government against him, who can he trust to help him?
Recent reviews for Joseph Finder:
'Stunning... I can't remember when I last read a book so gripping and so satisfying' PETER JAMES.
'Smart, swift and well-informed' SCOTT TUROW.
'Terrific' IAN RANKIN.
'A writer at the top of his game' MARK BILLINGHAM.
'Fantastic... Kept me absolutely on the edge of my seat' MARTINA COLE.
'Timely, twisty and impossible to put down' KARIN SLAUGHTER.
'A masterclass in ratcheting up the tension... A classy, sophisticated thriller' J.P. DELANEY.
Head of Zeus * Thrillers
13 Jun 2017 * 384pp * £18.99 * 9781786693846
Seemingly ripped from recent headlines, Finder's latest is one of his most fiendishly plotted and eerily relevant thrillers... A master of what might be called the "man in over his head" thriller, Finder delivers a tense, uncannily relevant tale about government secrets falling into the wrong hands'
'Finder takes a random mixup that could happen to any of us and spins it into a nail-biting nightmare'
'Fast-moving action, and a clever political background, some of it not entirely unfamiliar these days'
'An enjoyable cat-and-mouse chase, with dark shadows of Snowden and Wikileaks'
The Times, Summer Reads 2017
'An adrenaline-filled cat-and-mouse story that has some of the most amazing chase scenes I've ever read'
KJ Howe, Metro
'The plotting is first class, the characterisation is sublime and the way Finder injects pace into a story about nothing more than an absent-minded mistake is a masterclass'
Crime Squad
'Hitchcock would have admired Joseph Finder's The Switch'
Joseph Finder
Joseph Finder is the New York Times bestselling author of fourteen previous novels including The Switch, Suspicion and The Fixer. Finder's international bestseller Killer Instinct won the International Thriller Writer's Award for Best Novel. He studied Russian at Yale and Harvard, after which he was recruited by the CIA. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts. www.josephfinder.com
ALSO BY Joseph Finder


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text:
Q: Jquery Connected Lists - Updated Serialized list value in input fields Guyz, I am trying to solve a problem.
I have two lists that are sortable with connectWith in jQuery. I am trying to make a process that updates every time an item is moved from one list to another that updates two hidden input fields with the serialized list of id's from each list.
$(function() {
    $( "#sortable1, #sortable2" ).sortable({
        connectWith: ".connectedSortable"

    }).disableSelection();
});

I would like to do this:
    var list = '';
    $('#sortable1 *').each(function() {
        list += $(this).attr('id') + ',';
    });
    alert('list = ' + list);

but on every change it would update two input fields instead of doing an alert with the list.

A: You should be able to do something like:
$(function() {
    var lists = $( "#sortable1, #sortable2" ).sortable({
        connectWith: ".connectedSortable",
        update: function() {
            var list = [];
            lists.each(function(){
                $.merge( list, $(this).sortable("toArray"));
            });
            $("#out").text( list.join( "," ) );
        }
    }).disableSelection();
});

Working example: http://jsfiddle.net/petersendidit/eTwzF/

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Investment Industry Standards
Pension Trustee Code of Conduct
Establishing an ethical framework for governing board members
Read the Pension Trustee Code of Conduct
View the Code (PDF)
CFA Institute encourages pension plans to adopt the voluntary Code of Conduct for Members of a Pension Scheme Governing Body. By adopting the Code, you are establishing an ethical framework for governing board members and showing your commitment to the best interests of pension participants and beneficiaries.
View the Pension Trustee Code of Conduct Fact Sheet (PDF)
Who Should Adopt?
Pension schemes administrators
Plan participants and beneficiaries should ask their pension scheme managers to comply with the Code.
The Code outlines 10 fundamental ethical principles, which are universally applicable regardless of fund type, for pension fund trustees:
Act in good faith and in the best interests of the scheme participants and beneficiaries
Act with prudence and reasonable care
Act with skill, competence, and diligence
Maintain independence and objectivity by, among other actions, avoiding conflicts of interest, refraining from self-dealing, and refusing any gift that could reasonably be expected to affect their loyalty
Abide by all applicable laws, rules, and regulations, including the terms of the scheme documents
Deal fairly, objectively, and impartially with all participants and beneficiaries
Take actions that are consistent with the established mission of the scheme and the policies that support that mission
Review on a regular basis the efficiency and effectiveness of the scheme's success in meeting its goals, including assessing the performance and actions of scheme service providers, such as investment managers, consultants, and actuaries
Maintain confidentiality of scheme, participant, and beneficiary information
Communicate with participants, beneficiaries, and supervisory authorities in a timely, accurate, and transparent manner.
How Can I Comply?
Complying with our Pension Trustee Code is voluntary. We believe that effective self-regulation goes beyond the minimum requirements of the law. It is the most effective and efficient form of market regulation.
Acknowledge your compliance with the Pension Trustee Code (PDF)
CFA Institute developed the Pension Trustee Code with a multinational coalition that includes:
Council of Institutional Investors (United States)
National Association of Pension Funds (United Kingdom)
Swiss Association of Pension Funds
Hong Kong Retirement Schemes Association
Dutch Association of Industry-wide Pension Funds
We also asked for public comments from all major global financial markets and stakeholders.
Translations of the Pension Trustee Code
Dutch: Gedragscode voor leden van het bestuur van een pensioenfonds
German: Verhaltenskodex für Mitglieder eines Leitungsorgans eines Rentensystems
Pension Fund Governance


Quality can be studied objectively (see w:Quality for a clear explanation of this approach) but for best results here we better understand it as what the consumer perceives subjectively of a product.
In this approach the value contained in a brand name or attractive logo is included in the perception of quality, which is a very important consideration for the consumer when s/he has to buy a product of the same product group to replenish her/his stock.
This page was last edited on 28 November 2003, at 22:06.


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Q: Prove that $(x−2y+z)^2 \geq 4xz−8y$ Let $x,y,z$ be nonnegative real numbers such that $x+z\leq2$
Prove that, and determine when equality holds.
$(x−2y+z)^2 \geq 4xz−8y$
Please correct me if my methods are incorrect or would lead nowhere.
I tried expanding the LHS of the inequality getting
$x^2+4y^2+z^2-4xy-4yz+2xz \geq 4xz-8y$
And got lost as to how I should manipulate the inequality to find something true through rough work.
After I tried manipulating
$x+z\leq2$   subtract 2
$x+z-2\leq0$ since $y\ge 0$
$x+z-2\le y$
subtract 2y and add 2 to both sides
$x-2y+z\le 2-y$
And again lost sight of how I could manipulate the inequalities.

A: Note that $y\geq 0$ and $x+z\leq 2$ imply
$$(x-2y+z)^2+8y\geq  (x-2y+z)^2+4(x+z)y=x^2+4y^2+z^2+2xz\,.$$
Thus,
$$(x-2y+z)^2+8y\geq (x-z)^2+4y^2+4xz\geq 4xz\,,$$
whence
$$(x-2y+z)^2\geq 4xz-8y\,.$$
The equality holds if and only if $(x,y,z)=(t,0,t)$ for some $t\in[0,1]$.

A: Because $$(x-2y+z)^2+8y-4xz\geq(x-2y+z)^2+4y(x+z)-4xz=$$
$$=x^2+4y^2+z^2-2xz=(x-z)^2+4y^2\geq0.$$
The equality occurs for $y=0$,$x=z\geq0$ and $x+z\leq2$.

A: consider,
$(x-2y+z)^2-4xz+8y=x^2+4y^2+z^2-4xy-4yz+2xz-4xz+8y$
$=x^2+4y^2+z^2-4xy-4yz-2xz+8y=x^2+4y^2+z^2-4y(x+z)-2xz+8y$
$=(x-z)^2+4y^2+4y(2-(x+z))\geq 0$
because $y$ is non negative and $x+z\leq 2$.
Hence that inequality holds.


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Home»MLB»MLB Pipeline projects Yankees' breakout prospect, and it's not Anthony Volpe
MLB Pipeline projects Yankees' breakout prospect, and it's not Anthony Volpe
When the New York Yankees open spring training next month, all eyes will be on shortstop Anthony Volpe. And with good reason.
After all, the former first-round draft pick and N.J. native is the Yankees' top-ranked prospect and No. 5 overall, according to MLB Pipeline.
BUY YANKEES TICKETS: STUBHUB, VIVID SEATS, TICKETSMARTER, TICKETMASTER
However, when projecting prospects poised to break out in the upcoming season, MLB Pipeline opted for outfielder Everson Pereira, who is the Yankees' No. 5 prospect.
Signed for $1.5 million out of Venezuela as one of the best all-around talents in the 2017 international class, Pereira didn't play 100 games in a season until 2022 because of injuries and the pandemic. Coming off a .277/.350/.469 season with 15 homers and 21 steals between High-A and Double-A, he's still just 21, offers a solid power/speed combo and has the tools to play anywhere in the outfield.
Want to bet on MLB?
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As for Volpe, he and No. 3 prospect Oswald Peraza are the club's middle infielders of the future. While both are shortstops by trade, Volpe projects as a second baseman. With Gleyber Torres possibly on the trade block and Isiah Kiner-Falefa playing this year under a one-year, $6 million contract, it's entirely possible both prospects open the 2023 season in the Bronx.
MORE MLB:
– 'Undignified' ex-Yankees ace takes huge pay cut for 2023
– Ex-Yankees slugger challenges Aaron Judge to hitting contest
– Yankees among 5 teams interested in trading for Pirates' Bryan Reynolds, MLB insider says
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting us with a subscription.
Mike Rosenstein may be reached at mrosenstein@njadvancemedia.com.


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Karen Cooper Speaks Out
by Brooks D. Simpson
People who have followed the saga of the Virginia Flaggers movement have noted that among their activists is Karen Cooper. She's often present at various Flagging activities in Virginia. Recently Cooper was interviewed about why she's interested in Flagging and in southern heritage.
I found what Cooper had to say to be very interesting and revealing. For example, when she declares that if she was a southerner in 1860, she would have supported secession, I wondered what sort of southerner she would have imagined herself to be in that year. She explicitly links her interest in a state rights interpretation of the coming of the Civil War with her interest in the Tea Party, suggesting that her interest in the past was shaped by present concerns. Of course, secessionists saw state rights as a means to an end, but on that issue Cooper's silent. She's also silent on evidence that white southerners were not always so interested in state rights when it came to protecting their own interests, especially slavery. Nor does she allude to the mixed record of the Confederacy when it came to state rights. Finally, she doesn't seem to understand that "the South" did not speak with one voice … far from it. But she's not alone in those beliefs.
Cooper also shares her understanding of what the Founders believed: "If I don't like what is happening in my state, I must work to change it, or I vote with my feet by moving. This is what our Founders wanted us to do to keep our State Sovereignty." This displays a curious understanding of the Founders. I know of no Founder who said that the way to defend state sovereignty was by moving out of state. Nor do I know which Founders she references. Surely Washington, Hamilton, Madison, and Adams would not have embraced her explanation, and both Washington and Madison were Virginians. Nor does this explanation address the issue of secession. Oddly enough, I do know of an American who said that if white southerners did not like to stay in the United States, they could secede by moving elsewhere. That man was William T. Sherman.
In short, Cooper's grasp of history is unsure and incomplete. She's rather selective in her understanding of the past, picking (and warping) only that which supports her political philosophy.
Cooper is a proud southerner. "What I love about the Southern way of living is that we don't care what you do up North, but you will not change how we do things down here. Things like God, family, our Statehood and capitalism." I'm unaware of any efforts by northerners to change God or family in the South; if anything, while issues of family and religious values sometimes divide Americans, they do not do so along a neat North/South axis (I have no idea where the transMississippi West, Alaska, and Hawaii fit in this scheme). The term "statehood" remains undefined; "capitalism" is one of those words often invoked and rarely understood, and for years there was a vigorous debate over whether the Old South was capitalist, with that icon of southern heritage defenders, Eugene Genovese, arguing against that notion. Perhaps Cooper needs to take this up with Genovese. She clearly disagrees. "I don't have much hope for the American people today – and that includes Southerner's because of how reconstructed they have become," she says (is that an attack on Rainbow Confederates?). "In order for Southerner's to live peacefully together, they must understand the principles that the South fought for. Things like States Rights, Capitalism, Christianity and simply the Southern way of living."
On The Web: http://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/karen-cooper-speaks-out/
By rhett.barber@gmail.com|2012-08-28T17:56:58+00:00August 28th, 2012|News|Comments Off on News 2714


Don't miss out on this great opportunity! This ranch style home offers 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, approximately 1341 square feet of living space, a lot size of approximately .26 acres (11,326 sq. ft.), covered front porch, high/ vaulted ceiling and fireplace in the living room and it's conveniently located near all the needed amenities. Come view and make an offer!


Parents often ask us about how to continue language learning outside of our eight-week programs, or what to do if they are unable to attend our programs. While we recommend attending our classes to establish a foundation in whichever language your child chooses to learn, I've compiled a list of resources that will certainly help your child embark on his or her step to fluency.
1) Conjugation Nation (Spanish, French): This is one of my favorite apps for practicing conjugating verb tenses, and the more you drill exercises, the quicker learning these tenses will become second nature (this is a great resource to use during our classes, too).
2) Yabla (Spanish, French): Yabla is an excellent website for practicing listening skills! It shows videos of native speakers in various environments and helps you better understand what these individuals are saying and their accents, which is tricky to get unless in the real world.
3) T.V. Shows, Music (Spanish, Hindi, French): It's absolutely true that increased exposure to a language improves both speaking and listening. Whether it's creating a playlist of Spanish songs to listen to in the car, or setting aside time to watch a T.V. show in Hindi each week, this is a vital step towards gaining proficiency. It will be a hard at first, and I recommend English subtitles to get started, and eventually removing them after having some practice. (The more you take advantage of this last step, the quicker you will embark on your journey towards fluency).


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How Israeli police solved a case of suspected 'terrorism' in record time
An initial police report on an attempted stabbing in the West Bank uses the word 'terrorist' to describe the suspect. Only when it transpires that the would-be attacker is Jewish does the word 'terrorist' vanish. It's amazing to watch terminology change in realtime. At 4.19 p.m. on Tuesday, the Israel Police released a statement saying…
By Haggai Matar May 3, 2017
Two months on, still no evidence of a 'fire intifada' in Israel
The Israeli media and politicians' narrative of a Palestinian 'arson intifada' remains in place, despite there not being even a shred of evidence to support their story. Over the last couple of days several people have sent me an article by Kalman Liebskind from last Friday's Ma'ariv newspaper, which cited statistics from Israel's Fire and Rescue Services on…
By Haggai Matar January 15, 2017
Israel media survey: Iran deal, not so bad after all?
A number of senior columnists and reporters say that Israel should be pleasantly surprised by the deal struck between the P5+1 and Iran over the latter's nuclear program. Netanyahu — and his mouthpiece — digs in his heels. Although the pushback from the Prime Minister's Office was immediate and unchanged, many senior figures in the…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man April 3, 2015
For Israeli media, even the memory of the Nakba poses a threat
A new study reveals that although Israeli newspapers present an array of views on the Nakba, the most common one sees it as nothing less than a threat that seeks to delegitimize Israel. By Oren Persico / 'The 7th Eye' A new study reveals that Israel's mainstream media maintains the state's official stance toward the Nakba, and…
By The Seventh Eye December 18, 2014
Who is really fanning the flames in Jerusalem?
By publishing false news stories that perfectly align with the government's agenda, the Israeli media is guilty of sowing violence in a city already on the edge. By Yael Arava "Trying to fan the flames? The Palestinian prime minister went to visit the grave of the terrorist from the [Jerusalem light rail] attack, and then…
By +972 Magazine November 1, 2014
How the Israeli media covers massacres: Lessons from 1953
The killing was justified, the terrorists hid among the civilian population, the West is anti-Semitic, and on second thought, perhaps the whole thing never actually happened. From the 1953 Qibya massacre to Operation Protective Edge, the Israeli media is the same media, and the lies the same lies. By John Brown At 9:30 p.m. on…
By +972 Magazine October 18, 2014
How does SodaStream treat its Palestinian workers when the media isn't looking?
According to Palestinian workers at the West Bank factory, they were provided with meager and unsuitable food at the end of a day of fasting; those who complained were fired immediately. SodaStream: 'The termination process was done legally' By Niv Hachlili / Ha-Makom Wednesday, July 2, was especially tense. The funerals for the three murdered Israeli teenagers,…
By +972 Magazine July 24, 2014
Beitunia killings and the media's incredibly high bar for Palestinian stories
Faced with the most striking evidence, the Israeli media continues to treat the Palestinian version of the killings as a fabrication, demanding more and more evidence of wrongdoing; that is how the public is taught, day by day, that the reality of occupation isn't worthy of its attention. Ever since I left working on the…
By Noam Sheizaf May 21, 2014
Report: Israel to let Palestinians use some of their own land
Israeli officials reveal plans to allocate nearly 5,000 acres of privately owned Palestinian land so as not to stand in the way of a PA-USAID economic development program. Israel is pushing through a plan to allocate nearly 5,000 acres of land in Area C of the West Bank (under full Israeli military and administrative control)…
By Mairav Zonszein December 4, 2013
Between admiration and cynicism: Mixed opinions of the Egyptian revolution in Israel
While many Israeli media reports praise the crowds who led (to) the overthrow of Mohammed Morsi, conservative writers continue to view the Arab Spring with skepticism | The common view is that the regional turmoil relieves some of the pressure on Israel over the Palestinian issue. In the morning following the overthrow of Egypt's Mohammed…
By Noam Sheizaf July 4, 2013
Israeli daily: We let reporter go because he isn't a Zionist
Did Haggai Matar lose his job at 'Maariv' because of his political views, or was it his involvement in the paper's union that led management to order his dismissal? Israeli daily Maariv filed a statement to the Tel Aviv District Labor Court claiming that the paper chose not to rehire Tel Aviv municipal reporter Haggai…
By Noam Sheizaf June 9, 2013
IDF soldiers to West Bank children: 'We are the army, be careful if we see you'
IDF soldiers posted leaflets in the West Bank village of Qadum warning children to refrain from attending demonstrations. The leaflet, photographed yesterday at the weekly protest in the village by activist Lior Ben-Eliyahu (the children's eyes have been hidden by +972), show photographs of four children from the village, probably taken by soldiers at previous…
By Haggai Matar June 1, 2013
May Day: The revival of Israeli organized labor in the post-J14 era
Although many critics claim the J14 movement failed by not challenging the occupation or achieving sufficient results for Israeli workers and the middle class, a wave of revived labor organizing indicates new potential for worker power — a May Day update. One thing is certain: personally, it's been a hell of a ride. About 18…


Gordon Law Group, LLP | Klinghoffer Finally Rejected!
Home The LawBlog Klinghoffer Finally Rejected!
All hours worked are important hours, and no employer shall fail to pay employees the minimum wage. But, what happens when an employer decides not to pay employees for certain working hours? Some courts have found that so long as an employee received at least the minimum wage, averaged out over all hours worked in a workweek, that would be sufficient. But that rule virtually ensures that employers never have to pay their agreed hourly rate – a rule known as the Klinghoffer rule.
Finally, the Federal District Court in Massachusetts rejected this nonsense. Every hour is important. Finding that Congress sought to ensure that employees receive "a fair days pay for a fair day's work," the Federal Court in Massachusetts invalidated efforts by employers to avoid the minimum wage. So that where an employer chooses to skip paying for certain hours, those hours will be evaluated individually, and the minimum wage will be due for each unpaid hour. Employers can no longer hide behind the "averaging" rule that allowed them to average all hours paid over the entire workweek.
If your employer requires you to work off-the-clock, or simply refuses to pay for certain time, call us..


A few years ago, one of my former colleagues came into work excited about how he had recently handed a picture book to his four-year-old daughter. Instead of turning the pages, she tapped and swiped at them as if she was holding an iPad or iPhone. We laughed nervously as the future predicted in the pop-culture of our childhood had become a present reality.
Today, the television-phone on The Jetsons (and even me referencing the TV show) seems outdated, Marty McFly's hover board may soon be as well, and all the while, a Biff-like Monopoly man emerges as president-elect. Eighties pop-culture references aside, art and literature have a legacy of positing sci-fi fantasies of the world to come, which often contain parallels to the uncertainties of our current social and political climate. Humble's latest exhibition: Future Isms approaches these present day futurisms with a similarly uncertain gaze. Some photographers offer optimistic, utopian angles, others look at the present-future with a dystopian pessimism, and many offer a blurry hybrid.
In his series Testament, Kris Graves makes portraits of Black American men and women, but gives them full control over their likeness by providing the agency to control the lighting aspects of their portraits, often with blue and magenta hues. The series gives hope to a reclaimed representation by popular media in spite of historical bias. Mark Dorf and Anastasia Samoylova create fantastical images that look at visual media's role in shaping how we experience the world. Samoylova creates layered sculptures from stock images of landscapes and outer-space tropes, while Dorf looks specifically at the role that inter-connectedness plays on our personal lives. Taking a more traditional photographic approach, Niv Rozenberg makes straightforward, typological photographs of rapidly transforming, and constant fluctuation of urban developments in Tel Aviv. Having moved to the United States from Israel several years ago, he views this territory with a conflicted gaze: half native/ half outsider to a landscape that gradually becomes unfamiliar. Flipping the timeline, Jade Doskow looks to how the utopian future was perceived in the past. Her series Lost Utopias, captures the surreal, dreamlike structures of former World's Fair sites as they exist today, often abandoned, or repurposed into the contemporary world.
Like many of our previous exhibitions, Future Isms hinges on the ambiguity of its curation of nearly 80 images from photographers around the world. The future is murky, it's unsettling, and our attempts to represent it, continue to shift shape and get closer to expiration.


I have suggested in the recent past that this blog's triggering event involved the time that my cat engaged in cut-up poetry, but further reflection suggests I oversimplified things a bit. The VoodooPad document I mentioned in my last post, the one that holds all my loose project ideas, also acts as a personal journal. Every month I add a new page to the file, naming it according to the non-ISO-compliant pattern YYYYMM. Within it, for the whole of that month, I note thoughts that seem worth saving somewhere, but don't seem appropriate for a more specific location, nor deserving of an audience beyond myself.
Getting alarmed about mortality in new ways. This evening: realized the origin and the meaning of the term "sea-change" in a flash. No sooner did I think "Oh, how lovely," than I was struck with how little time I had left to make wonderful discoveries like this, and how they would mean absolutely nothing after I am dead. I doubt I would have thought this ten years ago, even though I was preoccupied with thoughts of immortality and such. But now I'm just starting to have glimpses of worry.
First balm that occurs to me is simply: write more, man.
Early November 2014 saw me quite busy. I still had the IFComp to wrap up, while I also lead a small team shipping a major project for one of my most important consulting clients. So, it doesn't surprise me that these worries, as striking as they seemed at the time, apparently sunk below my active memory in short order. Before the next month had ended, though, I had relaunched this blog, one that I've managed to keep current with at least one post per week in the months since — a feat I'd attempted many times but not succeeded at in several years. It seems reasonable to suspect that my morbid November thoughts exerted useful pressure towards this success, even without my consciously recalling them.
When I first encountered this quote, not long ago, I wanted to reject it. Read literally, it seems to suggest that all personal creative originality ceases at age 40, after which one's focus permanently shifts to navel-gazing until one's springs finally wind down. Looking around the web reveals those who have found room for more lateral interpretations of this adage. Blogger KC King saw it specifically as a reflection on becoming a grandparent. Stack Exchange user "medica" sees a more general description not of a strict modal shift from only-creation to only-explanation, but of the point in life where one begins to feel a greater responsibility to analyze and document their own, ongoing experiences, as opposed to a youthful powering forward through time, seldom pausing to look back or take stock. She links this observation to the much better known (and, for me, rather more palatable) Socrates quote regarding the questionable value of the unexamined life.
Written out that way, I find it easy to apply medica's interpretation to my own rekindled impetus to write regularly in public. I have thought out loud recently that blogging serves as both the record of and the fuel for my rejuvenated desire for deeper cultural exploration. I wrote a couple of months ago about wishing to rebalance my social media use, but in truth I've shifted the weight of my attention beyond that: I spend far less time playing video games than I did last fall, investing that time instead into reading books and lingering in libraries — and then writing about what I read, right here.
I still enjoy games when I do play them, but today I act on my recognition that 1,000 hours of Skyrim doesn't offer a much higher personal payoff than 10 hours of it does, or that appreciation of the powerful message of a game like Papers, Please does not require obsessively finding every possible detail through days of repetitive play. Compared to video games' often indeterminately long experiences, books begin to feel like more reliably efficient ways to broaden the mind, what with their beginnings and endings fitting together comfortably in the hand.
The first dreadful premonitions of a distant but approaching deadline start to encourage me to look at the whole body of human creative work — whether by Shakespeare or Bethesda Softworks — as less a set of backgrounded cultural touchstones and more something to actively explore, now, while I still can. By writing about it — and doing so in public, forcing me to put more care and thoroughness into my thinking than I would were I to keep my thoughts to mere marginalia — I hope to cement this spent time into something even a little bit more permanent and larger than myself. And that feels like something worth doing.
I didn't mean to operate exactly according to Schopenhauer's schedule when I launched this blog, and I still find certain implications of the quote's latter half distasteful (slash terrifying). But, I cannot deny my embrace of its more optimistic interpretation. I only hope that I manage to continue authoring both my text and my commentary for a long time to come, and that either might occasionally prove interesting to anyone other than myself.