text:
Watkins: Kind act fulfills boy's baseball card dream
Billy Watkins
The Clarion-Ledger
I would walk into Mr. Charlie Barrett's grocery store on the corner of Main Street in Shuqualak, head to the candy and gum rack along the building's south wall, and grab one pack of Topps baseball cards.
I would dip into my right front pocket and pull out the only thing in there — a nickel — and hand it to the person behind the counter. Usually, it was Mr. Charlie himself, though I was so young I had a hard time seeing over the counter. I'd have to stand on my tiptoes and stretch my arm as far as I could. My mother had taught me never to lay money on the counter when paying. That was considered rude. So I would wait for a grownup's hand to slide beneath mine.
Then I would run out the door, tear open the pack, stuff the stick of pink bubble gum into my mouth and sift through the cards.
That was a summer ritual for me from 1960 through 1963. My brother bought cards there, too.
One day in 1963, as Mr. Charlie rang up my latest purchase by pushing the .05-cent lever on the old cash register that had the prettiest bell-like ring to it, he asked me: "What are you doing with all these cards you're buying?"
"Me and my brother keep them in shoe boxes in our closet."
"Y'all love baseball cards, huh?"
"So are you trying to get a card of every player in the big leagues?" he asked.
I shook my head. "No, sir,"
"So why do you keep buying them? You must have over 1,000 by now."
"Yes, sir. But I'm just looking for one card."
"One card?"
"Yes, sir. Yogi Berra."
Mr. Charlie looked puzzled. "You mean you've bought all these cards just trying to get one Yogi Berra?"
"And if you had gotten a Yogi Berra card in the first pack, you wouldn't have bought any more?"
"No, sir."
"You must be the biggest Yogi Berra fan in the country," Mr. Charlie said.
I shrugged. I didn't know what to say.
"Well, I hope you get one soon," he said.
A few weeks later, the mail ran. That's what we called it in the country. We "got the weather." We didn't like getting stung by "wost." We dug "eyesh" potatoes. And the mail ran.
I trotted to the highway, opened the mailbox and mixed in with a few other items was a 5-by-7 envelope addressed to me. I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked in the upper left corner of the envelope. It read: "New York Yankees, Bronx N.Y."
The other mail hit the ground as I opened it and pulled out a postcard-sized photo of Yogi Berra.
Signed.
As I typed that just now, I chuckled. I could picture an auctioneer standing in front of my house that day. FIFTY thousand dollars ... FIFTY-FIVE thousand .... a HUNDRED thousand dollars for the Yogi Berra autographed picture." And my little crewcut head shaking no.
No amount of money could've pried that autographed photo from my hands. For weeks, it went everywhere I did. I stared at it like a rock from Pluto. I studied every detail.
No doubt, I was in shock.
And I had no idea how that photo wound up in my mailbox until many years later when somebody told somebody who told me. Mr. Charlie had written the Yankees and informed them of my determination to get a Yogi Berra baseball card.
I was able to thank him before he died Aug. 9, 2009 at the age of 81.
He was mayor of Shuqualak for many years, and he cared about the youth who lived there, or near there. He single-handedly created a "teen center" in a building he owned. It wasn't to keep us out of trouble because there wasn't any trouble to get into around there, unless you consider "borrowing" a few watermelons from a local farmer's patch a sinful act. (Young people, it was wrong. Don't do it.)
The longer I live, the more I am amazed by Mr. Charlie's kindness. For him to take the time to write the New York Yankees on behalf of a little kid ... we can all learn a valuable lesson from that.
Flash forward to April 8, 1986. This newspaper sent me to Houston to cover former Mississippi State star Will Clark's opening game in the Major Leagues. He was the starting first baseman for the San Francisco Giants. I had been the State beat writer the year before when Clark, Rafael Palmeiro, Jeff Brantley and Bobby Thigpen led the Bulldogs to the College World Series.
Clark hit the second Major League pitch he ever saw — thrown by the legendary Nolan Ryan — over the centerfield fence at the old Astrodome. That was the second-biggest thrill I enjoyed that evening.
I was standing near the cage before the game as the Astros took batting practice. My arms were folded, and I was waiting on Clark and the Giants to arrive.
Suddenly, I felt something gently hit my right foot. A baseball. I reached down, picked it up ... and there he stood.
Yogi Berra. My baseball hero. Winner of 10 World Series titles as a catcher and a dang fine hitter for the Yankees. I had no idea Yogi had been hired that season to serve as bench coach of the Astros.
He was looking right at me, his left hand in a catcher's position, a fungo bat resting on his right shoulder. In movie-like slow motion, I underhanded him the ball. He caught it and nodded.
At me.
I wish Mr. Charlie could have seen that.
Contact Billy Watkins at (769) 257-3079 or bwatkins@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @BillyWatkins11 on Twitter.


text:
Home»FeaturedSlide»"Tomorrow Land"- not the savior it wants to be
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"Tomorrow Land"- not the savior it wants to be
ASP_Editor 2015-06-04
ASP_Editor / June 4, 2015 /	0
By Thomas Kika
George Clooney stars in Tomorrowland, a 2015 sci-fi thriller that is unfortunately less shiny and impressive than the robots that inhabit the fictional city.
"Tomorrowland" is the sort of well-intentioned misfire that one feels bad for not liking. Director Brad Bird ("The Incredibles") brings his favored retro-futuristic aesthetic and mines it for all the thematic heft that it is worth, resulting in a sci-fi adventure story that wants to champion the return of Space-Age optimism and celebrate the power of science to save the world. Sadly, this story has the misfortune of being told in-part by co-scripter Damon Lindelof, the singularly bad writer guilty of "Cowboys & Aliens" and "Prometheus." The filmbears more of his weaknesses than Bird's strengths. Bizarrely structured, painfully dull, and thematically muddled, "Tomorrowland" takes a great idea with some rich mythology and squanders it.
The titular land (only ever referred to as Tomorrowland once) is an extradimensional city, founded in the early 20th century by a handful of visionaries as a place where the world's greatest minds can pool their skills to create a utopia built on boundless scientific advancement. The story opens in the present day, decades after plans to make Tomorrowland public were mysteriously scrapped. It follows two unlikely partners: Casey (Britt Robertson), a young girl with a passion for space travel, and Frank (George Clooney), a former boy genius with a past connection to the secret city. Casey receives a mysterious pin that gives her an intoxicating vision of the city. A strange little girl named Athena eventually leads her to the reluctant Frank's doorstep. It seems that all is not well in Tomorrowland, and it is up to Casey and Frank to find out what is going on and how they can fix it.
The downfall of the film lies in the first act because that description sums up about two-thirds of the film: a lot of teasing about what the city is and what is going on in it, while the characters amble through action scenes trying to make sense of things. After an overlong and entirely too revealing look at Frank's childhood, the film jumps to Casey and her attempts to figure out the pin and its mysterious visions. The film stays there for a good while. From there the characters scramble around a bit more before making it to Tomorrowland, where the actual plot of the damn movie is revealed in the same way that an overturned bucket reveals water. The result is a slog, a dull chase movie with bits of a fun-looking sci-fi mythos sprinkled in every so often.
The filmmakers clearly had a much broader history and mythology for the city sketched out, as evidenced by the various pieces of supplemental material released to promote the film, but the actual film is seemingly disinterested in it. Tomorrowland is briefly glimpsed at the start, and the characters return to it in the third act, but by then the place is desolate and in a vague state of disrepair. How did it get to that point? Where are all the people? Were there ever any? The film never really answers those questions definitively. Casey's early vision of the city is revealed to be a sort of commercial, a fake recreation of the real place in a vibrant and bustling state, so in fact we get almost no time in Tomorrowland at its peak. It seems the filmmakers were more interested in the idea of a far-off scientific utopia as a symbol for a brighter future we have to work to save, but without giving the audience more to latch onto, the intended metaphorical resonance falls completely flat.
Such structural deficiencies seem baffling from a seasoned storyteller like Bird. On the flipside, it makes all too much sense coming from screenwriter Damon Lindelof. Lidelof came to prominence as part of J.J. Abrams' inner circle of creative partners, the same group that produced much worse writers like Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, and consequently many of his scripts bare the marks of Abrams' beloved "Mystery Box" approach to storytelling. Everything is built around a mystery, in this case so much so as to be detrimental to the film, and the attempts to use that mystery to create a sense of wonder land with a thud. Another classic Lindelof trope, the whiffed ending, is on full display. The resolution is boiled down to knocking over a few lazy plot devices with explosives, which feels antithetical to the film's intended themes of invention and positivity.
It truly is a shame for all the strong performers involved that "Tomorrowland" falls apart around a shoddy script. While she may not get top-billing, rising-star Britt Robertson is the film's true lead as Casey Newton and she leaves a strong impression. Robertson brings a fantastic energy and likability to a role that demands a lot of enthusiasm, and she even makes it work when Casey's function in the story become face-palm inducing near the end. George Clooney is the big name on display, and his character is a lot of fun. Clooney has specialized in playing the opposite of Frank Walker, a bitter and jaded curmudgeon, so it is a delight to see him go so completely against type and commit to it fully. If only the film got to him sooner than the halfway point. Praise must also be given to Raffey Cassidy, the young actress who impresses as the mysterious Athena. This sort of seemingly wise-beyond-her-years character could have proven too much for the child actor, but Cassidy goes at it with a mature confidence that is on-par with her adult co-stars. It is also fun to see the magnificent Hugh Laurie in a big movie like this, even if his character, the villainous Governor Nix, is a complete waste of his talent, a vaguely evil cypher only around to be knocked over just in case the audience was not able to grasp when the heroes had won.
Also wasted are the exemplary talents on the technical side. Cinematographer Claudio Miranda is well-versed in photography and FX-heavy films, having worked on films like "Life of Pi" and "TRON: Legacy." "Tomorrowland" is another visual stunner. This is also thanks in part to design input from the great Syd Mead ("Blade Runner," "Aliens"). What little we see of the city is always stunning and unique. Composer Michael Giacchino continues to prove himself one of the film industry's most indispensable musical talents with a high-energy score that does more to convey a sense of classic adventure than anything in the script.
Even the film's themes end up cluttered. A big part of the film's message of optimism ends up taking the form of a screed against the recent trend of dystopian science fiction stories in popular culture. The film has its characters monologue explicitly how these stories are fueling a collective cynicism that is making us give up on fixing the world, with the implicit message being that its own brand of positivity will save us. This is a massive misreading of what dystopia stories are actually doing and why people like them. Dystopian fiction is not about a cynical self-fulfilling prophecy, it is about fighting the issues of the present through the lens of the future.
"Tomorrowland" is a tragically great example of a film where everything works except for the one thing that is most important. The weakness of the script drags down the film's earnest attempts at old-fashioned adventure, and the faulty thesis at its core muddles its otherwise righteous call for optimistic futurism. A sad waste all around.
ASP_Editor
Tags:moviesci-fiSummerThrillertomorrowland
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text:
booksbw.com -> Share a book -> Mathematical -> Bolstad M. -> "Introduction to Bayesian statistics "
Introduction to Bayesian statistics - Bolstad M.
Introduction to Bayesian statistics
Author: Bolstad M.
Publishers: Wiley Publishing
Read: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126
Download: introductiontobayesianstatistics2004.pdf
Edited by Foxit PDF Editor
Copyright (c) by Foxit Software Company, 2004
For Evaluation Only.
William M. Bolstad
University of Waikato Hamilton, New Zealand
WILEY-INTERSCIENCE
A JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC., PUBLICATION
Copyright © 2004 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Ill River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993 or fax 317-572-4002.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print, however, may not be available in electronic format.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Bolstad, William М., 1943-
Introduction to Bayesian statistics / William M. Bolstad. p. cm.
Includes bibliographic references and index.
ISBN 0-471-27020-2 (cloth)
1. Bayesian statistical decision theory. I. Title.
QA279.5.B65 2004
519.5'42—dc22	2003057660
Printed in the United States of America.
This book is dedicated to
Sylvie, Ben, Rachel, Mary, and Elizabeth
Preface	xiii
1	Introduction to Statistical Science	1
1.1	The Scientific Method: A Process for Learning	3
1.2	The Role of Statistics in the Scientific Method	4
1.3	Main Approaches to Statistics	5
1.4	Purpose and Organization of This Text	8
2	Scientific Data Gathering	13
2.1	Sampling from a Real Population	14
2.2	Observational Studies and Designed Experiments	17
Monte Carlo Exercises	22
3	Displaying and Summarizing Data	29
3.1	Graphically Displaying a Single Variable	29
3.2	Graphically Comparing Two Samples	37
3.3	Measures of Location	39
viii CONTENTS
3.4	Measures of Spread	42
3.5	Displaying Relationships Between Two or More
Variables	44
3.6	Measures of Association for Two or More Variables	46
Exercises	50
4	Logic, Probability, and Uncertainty	55
4.1	Deductive Logic and Plausible Reasoning	56
4.2	Probability	58
4.3	Axioms of Probability	59
4.4	Joint Probability and Independent Events	60
4.5	Conditional Probability	62
4.6	Bayes ' Theorem	63
4.7	Assigning Probabilities	68
4.8	Odds Ratios and Bayes Factor	69
5	Discrete Random Variables	75
5.1	Discrete Random Variables	76
5.2	Probability Distribution of a Discrete Random
Variable	78
5.3	Binomial Distribution	81
5.4	Hypergeometric Distribution	83
5.5	Joint Random Variables	84
5.6	Conditional Probability for Joint Random Variables	88
6	Bayesian Inference for Discrete Random Variables	95
6.1	Two Equivalent Ways of Using Bayes ' Theorem	100
6.2	Bayes ' Theorem for Binomial with Discrete Prior	102
6.3	Important Consequences of Bayes ' Theorem	105
Exercises	106
Computer Exercises	108
CONTENTS ix
7	Continuous Random Variables	111
7.1	Probability Density Function	113
7.2	Some Continuous Distributions	116
7.3	Joint Continuous Random Variables	122
7.4	Joint Continuous and Discrete Random Variables	123
8	Bayesian Inference for Binomial Proportion	129
8.1	Using a Uniform Prior	130
8.2	Using a Beta Prior	131
8.3	Choosing Your Prior	133
8.4	Summarizing the Posterior Distribution	136
8.5	Estimating the Proportion	139
8.6	Bayesian Credible Interval	140
9	Comparing Bayesian and Frequentist Inferences for Proportion 14 7
9.1	Frequentist Interpretation of Probability and
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text:
YSU's Schmidt, Sumner speak
sports@tribtoday.com
BEAVER TOWNSHIP – The Curbstone Coaches received a double dose of athletic marketing and promotional tips Monday with YSU assistant athletic directors Robb Schmidt and Chris Sumner sharing insight about their duties to the group at Avion Banquet Center.
Schmidt, who has been the radio voice of the Penguins' men's basketball team the past 20 years, is responsible for all marketing and promotions while Sumner is in his fifth year as part of its sales and event management team. A native of Champion, Sumner joined the athletics staff in June 2017 after spending eight years as director of group sales for the Mahoning Valley Scrappers.
"I always wanted to work in college athletics so moving over to YSU from the Scrappers was an opportunity on which I could not pass," Sumner told the group. "I wanted to remain local, assume more responsibilities and YSU provided that opportunity."
From March to August, Sumner pounds the pavement selling signage, advertising and corporate sponsorships, creating revenue for YSU's athletic department.He spends the next six months executing what he has helped sell.
"Advertising for our football and basketball game day programs, as well as for our website is paramount," Sumner added.
"Working on game day entertainment and scripts is also part of the process. Our focus this season was to create a student section for men's and women's basketball games.
"Burgan Real Estate is the sponsor of that section while other promotions to attract students include free pizza, Chick-Fil-A sandwiches and hot dogs for select games. We also have free t-shirts, beanie hats and tumblers for designated games with $2 beer nights every Thursday for men's games and every Friday for women's games.
"Corn hole games take place on the upper deck with chances for YSU students to win a year's free tuition and an opportunity to make a half-court shot at a $5,000 gift at Thom Duma Fine Jewelers are also part of our activities."
Another focus for Sumner is a hospitality area at Beeghly Center.
"We are pushing back one set of upper bleachers for certain games and selling that area to companies as they can host parties," he stated. "Last weekend, a party was hosted both Friday and Saturday with more set over the course of the season. Multiple kid's days are scheduled featuring inflatables on the upper deck with mascot mania nights, kids shooting foul shots after games and autograph sessions also planned.
"The annual teddy bear toss returns for our women's team December 4 and for the men's team on December 8. We have multiple Pack the House nights scheduled which include $5 game tickets and $1 popcorn for all fans.
"The basketball season features entertainment every game, multiple t-shirt tosses, mini-basketball tosses, eight, three or more free Dunkin' for a section if YSU scores 35 or more points in the first half. Free Rise Pies are on tap with on-court contests and continuous entertainment from our pep band and cheerleaders also set."
In addition to all marketing and promotions, Schmidt helps oversee the department's broadcast operations and the licensing of all university trademarks. A native of Warren, Schmidt is in his 14th year with the department after spending nearly two decades in radio and television in the Mahoning Valley.
"We help generate income through marketing, sponsorship, ticket sales and promotions," Schmidt said.
"It's fun to develop strategies for all athletic department broadcasts and to work hand in hand with our Penguin Sports Radio Network, both radio and television coaches shows as well as special radio and television programming and internet broadcasts."
Schmidt continues to enjoy his broadcast duties, noting five games remain most memorable for him.
"The Cam Morse pass to Jordan Kaufman for the game-winning lay-up against Oakland in the Horizon League tournament in 2017 is still quite memorable," Schmidt added. "Beginning the 2012-13 season with wins at George Washington and at Georgia was a great experience while Garrett Covington's game-winning lay-up at the buzzer last year to beat Wright State, our first-round win over Oakland in the College Insider.com (CIT) post-season tournament and calling games from the Bahamas and U.S. Virgin Islands are also very special."
His top five Penguins' players over the past 20 years, which will number 600-plus at season end, include Kendrick Perry, Quin Humphrey, Bobby Hain, Naz Bohannon and Adam Baumann.
Next Monday, Westminster College head basketball coach, Kevin Sioroki, will serve as guest speaker.


Whether it's GCSE's, AS levels, A levels, or exams at university, the pressure to fulfil certain expectations can be huge. Revising for so many different subjects can be overwhelming, and it takes a lot of determination to keep going, especially when it's sunny outside!
To find out who is doing exams this summer and when, check out the Exam Prayer Diary available on the 'Welcome Desk' or from the Church Office – chat with those taking exams, ask how they are doing, and pray for them!
Moving on from school, whether it's to take some time out, start a job, or go to college or sixth form is a big step. There may be some difficult decisions to make about what courses to take and where to study. Looking for any job at the moment isn't easy and for those leaving school it can be hard to know where and what to look for.
Pray that these guys will have wisdom to know what direction to take and a deep trust that God is always with them whatever things look like.
If you know people who will be starting Uni this September, tell them about Fusion and UCCF, a couple of great organisations who can help with linking in to local church and the CU.
Getting a job & taking on the 'real' world is coming up ahead for some students. The changes keep coming as you adjust to life, whatever that looks like or means, after uni.
Krish Kandiah has written a great book called 'Final' (including a free downloadable study to do with friends) for those graduating from university. Why not buy it for someone who you know is graduating?!
Please be praying for all of those within our family at Ebe who are going through any of these tricky times and transitions over the next few months.
'The Noise 2015' is coming soon and you can find out more about the vision and what is happening across North and East Bristol on the Noise website - www.thenoise.org.uk/weekend. This is just a quick glimpse of what is happening in Horfield, Lockleaze and Manor Farm areas, near to Ebenezer Church.
'The Noise 2015' will be taking place over the May Bank Holiday Weekend (2nd – 4th May).
• FREE Family Fun Afternoons on Saturday 2nd May (Opposite Leisure Centre, Horfield Common) and Sunday 3rd May (Gainsborough Square, Lockleaze). Details below.
• FREE Community projects in schools, community areas and supporting families/individuals who have been referred to The Noise by support workers.
• FREE Football coaching and tournaments on Horfield Common, next to family fun afternoon on Saturday 2nd May.
• FREE Family photos session at Ebenezer Church on Saturday. Please contact Noise Office for details.
For more details, check out www.thenoise.org.uk. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Open the Book is a programme of themed dramatized Bible stories, each around 10 minutes long, that fits comfortably into Collective Worship/Assembly time in schools.
Recently, it was great to watch a full Open the Book story, during our Sunday service and be inspired what the team do in Filton Avenue Junior School. Please contact the Church Office if you are interested in getting involved.
During this week leading up to Easter, we will post reflections to help us think about the history changing moments of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each day, we will post a new creative reflection onto this blog post. Please share on social media or by email with friends and family to help people reflect.
Find out more about our Easter services HERE.


text:
Biografia

Compì gli studi di composizione e direzione d'orchestra a Parma e si perfezionò poi, con il Maestro Hermann Scherchen, a Vienna. Debuttò come direttore d'orchestra con la Bohême al Teatro Municipale di Reggio Emilia nel 1966.
La maggior parte della sua carriera fu consacrata all'Opera che egli diresse nei più grandi teatri delle capitali di tutto il mondo: Metropolitan Opera House, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Bonn, Berlino, Colonia, Monaco, Stoccarda, la Wiener Staatsoper e al Festival di Bregenz; al Teatro Colon Di Buenos-Aires, San Paolo del Brasile, Tokyo, Zurigo, Bruxelles, Parigi, Liegi.
In Italia diresse a Venezia, Napoli, Verona, Trieste, Roma. In Francia al Festival D'Aix-en- Provence, al Festival Radio France Montpellier e nel Principato di Monaco.
Il Maestro Masini nel panorama sinfonico diede una preferenza particolare ai compositori del XIX e XX secolo alla testa di orchestre rinomate, come la Beethoven Halle a Bonn, la Berlin Symphonisches Orchester, Orchestra di Strasbourg, la Monnaie di Bruxelles, L'Orchestra del Teatro Filarmonico di Verona, l'Orchestra Rai di Torino, l'Orchestra Rai di Roma e la NHK di Tokyo.
Dal 1972 al 1978 fu Direttore musicale dell'Opera di Trieste. Dal 1988 al 1989 Direttore musicale all'Arena di Verona e Direttore musicale dell'Orchestra Sinfonica di Berlino. Dal 1991 al 1993 Direttore dell'Orchestra della filarmonica di Montpellier.

Discografia

 Gioachino Rossini Elisabetta Regina d'Inghilterra con Caballé e Carreras (ed. Philips);
 Arie d'Opera con Leo Nucci (ed. Decca);
 Una lettera di Lord Byron di Raffaello De Banfield (ed. Ermitage 1991);
 Le curiose ridicole di Felice Lattuada (ed. Ermitage 1991);
 La straniera di Vincenzo Bellini (Ed. Ricordi Fonit-CETRA 1992);
 Mare nostro di Lorenzo Ferrero (ed. Ricordi);
 Giacomo Meyerbeer Il crociato in Egitto (La voce del padrone 1979);
 di Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart i Concerti K365 e K242 con il duo Pastorino-Pang;
 di Ferruccio Busoni: Indianische Fantasie op. 44, Berceuse Élegiaque, Konzertstück op. 31a .

A queste edizioni si aggiungono una serie di dischi d'Opera dal vivo:
 MRF Barcellona 1972 con Adriana Lecouvreur di Francesco Cilea;
 Rodolphe Parigi 1973 Caterina Cornaro di Gaetano Donizetti,
 MRF Barcellona 1974 con Aida di Giuseppe Verdi;
 Myto Tokyo 1976 Cilea Adriana Lecouvreur di Cilea;
 HRE Buenos Aires 1981 Belisario di Gaetano Donizetti;
 Bregenz 1985 I puritani di Vincenzo Bellini.

Collegamenti esterni

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The shopping trip to the USA is just around the bend. We will be picking passengers up in Port Elgin, Sackville and Moncton. For the revised schedule check the itinerary below. We still have some spaces left for those who might like to join us.


text:
The Macomb County Board of Commissioners serves as the "county commission", or legislative body for Macomb County, Michigan, United States, the third largest county in Michigan with a population of 840,978, according to the 2010 census.

The powers, duties, and responsibilities of the Macomb County Board are established by Michigan law and the county charter approved by voters in 2009, and commissioners are elected to a two-year term every other year. The Board's 13 members represent districts of (approximately) equal population, and members serve on the Finance/Audit/Budget, Government Oversight, Internal Services, Public Safety and Records, Health and Human Services committees.

Previously made up of 26 members with both administrative and legislative control of county departments and budgets, the Board was reduced from 26 to 13 members in January 2011, when a new county charter was enacted and Macomb County's first Executive was elected to oversee administrative functions.

Members
In 2011 the Board appointed its first Republican as Chair, Kathy D. Vosburg  of Chesterfield Township, Michigan. Commissioner Vosburg is the third woman to Chair the Board, preceded by Nancy M. White and Diana J. Kolakowski.

The 2011-12 Board consisted of Commissioners Kathy D. Vosburg (Chair), Don Brown, Phillip A. DiMaria, Marvin E. Sauger (Vice Chair), David Flynn, Kathy Tocco, James L. Carabelli, Toni Moceri, Roland Fraschetti, Ray Gralewski, Fred Miller (Sergeant-at-Arms), Joe Sabatini and Bob Smith.

The Board's longest consecutively serving member as Commissioner is Don Brown (30 years).

The 2021-2022 makeup of the Board is as follows:

 District 1: (D-Warren) Michelle Nard
 District 2: (D-Warren) Mai Xiong
 District 3: (D-Eastpointe) Veronica Klinefelt
 District 4: (R-Sterling Heights) Joseph Romano
 District 5: (R-Sterling Heights) Don VanSyckel
 District 6: (R-Shelby Township) Jeff Farrington
 District 7: (R-Washington Township) Don Brown-- Board Chair
 District 8: (R-Chesterfield Township) Phil Kraft
 District 9: (D-Mount Clemens) Antoinette Wallace
 District 10: (R-Harrison Township) Barbara Zinner --Sergeant-at-Arms
 District 11: (D-Roseville) Harold Haugh-- Vice Chair
 District 12: (D-Clinton Township) Julie Matuzak
 District 13: (R-Macomb Township) Joe Sabatini

References

External links

Macomb County, Michigan
Local government in Michigan


On March 18, 1848 silent processions marched through Berlin – a city of 450,000 that was over 85 percent working class – collecting their dead and gathering crowds. For the first time in days, the city was quiet as the sun set. There were no gunshots, no barricades, no army, no police; just the revolutionaries and the King.
A years-long crisis precipitated revolt. Failing crops in 1845 doubled, sometimes tripled, the price of bread in the winter of 1846. Household budgets, of which two thirds were already devoted to food, became exclusively caloric. Demand for furniture and clothes evaporated, and with them the jobs that sustained Europe's new industrial cities.
Ribbons of telegraph wire sent news from comrades in one city to newly emboldened radicals in the next. The Parisians were first in February. Days later Vienna fell. News of uprisings in Madrid, Saxony, Bavaria, Naples, Venice, and Prague spread. 1848: it was the Springtime of the Peoples.
As one witness recounted, "In all directions the thoroughfares were soon blocked with barricades. The paving stones seemed to leap from the ground and to form themselves into bulwarks surmounted by black, red, and gold flags and manned by citizens, university students, tradesmen, artists, laborers, professional men, hastily armed with all sorts of weapons, from rifles and shotguns down to pikes, axes, and hammers." Part way through the street battle white banners were unfurled from the palace bearing a single word: Misunderstanding.
The church bells began to ring and did not stop until well after the fighting. The city was bombarded with artillery, gunshots, the sounds of executions and of cries. Over 200 people died. On the third day, the King ordered his troops to leave: the people were not going to be coerced into submission.
How many springs have we known? Over a year ago, people around the world were celebrating the emergence and proliferation of the Arab Spring, feeling as though they had been woken up from many winters of hardship and powerlessness. As with past springs, these events were marked by a sincere hope of revolutionary change – often appearing to emerge spontaneously and without centralized leadership. It is impossible to watch images of Tahrir Square in 2011 and deny that winning seems possible. But often these moments have no staying power: while some uprisings managed to topple long-time dictators, serious questions remain about whether or not systemic change was achieved. As with the rise of Otto von Bismarck after the 1848 Springtime of the Peoples, the revolutionary hopes of the Arab Spring are displaced as the defeat of the dictator gives way to a new ruling class.
"In the beginning is the scream. We scream.
When we write or when we read, it is easy to forget that the beginning is not the word, but the scream. Faced with the mutilation of human lives by capitalism, a scream of sadness, a scream of horror, a scream of anger, a scream of refusal: NO.
The starting point of theoretical reflection is opposition, negativity, struggle. It is from rage that thought is born, not from the pose of reason, not from the reasoned-sitting-back-and-reflecting-on-the-mysteries-of-existence that is the conventional image of the thinker.
For Holloway, this moment of spontaneous refusal is the most naked, pure expression of resistance. But how can the collective "No" sustain itself beyond the first, initial scream?
Our goal in this editorial is twofold: first to complicate and elaborate the Left's understanding of spontaneity and organization and then to turn to the question of strategic implications. The issue has re-asserted itself with urgency in light of recent struggles that have attempted – with varying degrees of success and failure – to distance themselves from centralized party modes of organizing or state-focused methods of movement building towards what have been described as more multitudinous, rhizomatic experiments in organizational movement structure. Much of the 1990s saw an exuberant shift to spontaneous organizing for many radicals and activists – an exuberance which continues to hold tremendous power. But our reliance on spontaneity has produced ephemeral movements: quick to disappear, easy to defeat.
Though there is no shortage of existential strategic questions for the Left to resolve, one of the most pressing in our minds is this: how do we embrace the energy and optimism of spontaneity without allowing it to slip through our fingers or be wrested from our grasp?
Too often spontaneity is thought of without sufficient rigour: it is conceived of as something that appears out of nowhere. To hope for spontaneity is to hope for a miracle, to rely on some phenomena that knows no conventional rules. This, to be sure, is spontaneity's outward appearance; but form should not be confused with content. Spontaneity should be properly understood as a rupture – a moment where the patterns that seemed to be governing everyday life are suddenly understood to have a dramatically attenuated hold, or no hold at all. This kind of thinking allows us to understand that spontaneity is conditioned: beneath the surface, social forces are constantly interacting and reconfiguring life as we know it. Spontaneity occurs at the moment in which those forces break through the rigorously managed veneer of custom and normality. In short, spontaneity is the recognition of a new social ordering.
Last May, in the midst of the Québec student strike, former Minister of Education Michelle Courchesne defended the government's decision to put hard limits on the right to protest with Law 78, saying: "The right to protest is total. What we are saying [with this bill] is that spontaneity can also create excesses."(3) With the implementation of Law 78 came the seemingly spontaneous emergence of casseroles, the pots-and-pans clanging, cacophonous demonstrations that took to the streets each night throughout Québec and in cities across Canada. These demonstrations were filled with rage and discontent, but also celebrated the power of solidarity, community, and spontaneity.
However, while spontaneity makes the state nervous, some leftists are loathe to embrace it, preferring instead to maintain control over protests, crowds, and strategy. During the 2010 G20 protest in Toronto, many activists faced aggressive tactics by volunteer marshals of the labour rally, who physically prevented demonstrators from heading south to the fence that protected the convention site. At times marshals linked arms at intersections to force demonstrators away from the fence. Moments like this reveal the contradictions of centralized planning in mass mobilizations and the mix of excitement and fear that accompany the possibilities of spontaneous moments.
For classical Marxism, spontaneity had to be channeled by external forces in order to ameliorate its inherent limitations and become effective. Trotsky used the analogy of steam when he wrote, in the History of the Russian Revolution, that "without a guiding organization the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston-box. Nevertheless, what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam."5 Similarly, Lenin saw resistance as unconscious and argued that it would remain that way without the aid of already-constituted socialists. Both Trotsky and Lenin saw the need for outside ideas, organizers, and agitators, to intervene in spontaneous struggles and empower the working class.
This understanding of revolution, though, ignores the consciousness that already exists within the working class and the modes of organization inherent in its culture. Further, uprisings led by subjects not generally considered part of the officially sanctioned working class – women, the unemployed, students, and youth - are cynically deemed spontaneous.
Levant argues further that the assumption that consciousness is suddenly and collectively realized – as in Holloway's collective scream – ignores the slow process of radicalization in many communities. Demystifying sudden collective action, he points out that the process of class-consciousness does not happen by way of external forces – it comes through struggle. And in these diverse struggles one cannot think of spontaneity and organization as opposites, but rather as emergent dialectical processes – often informing and influencing each other.
Spontaneity as a tactic captured the imagination of the Civil Rights movement in the US, allowing it to create a narrative around singular, impulsive acts by individuals or small groups that fostered broad-based support. Strategic spontaneity was a movement hallmark: actions that were rigorously organized by movement activists are thought of by many of as unplanned, even today.
One of the most important examples of this type of strategic spontaneity is Rosa Parks' decision in December 1955 to resist segregation. By refusing to give her seat in the coloured section of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white passenger, Parks disobeyed the bus driver and broke the law.
"When Rosa Parks rode on a bus, she had to sit all the way in the back. Her city had a law. It said black people could not sit in the front of a bus.
One day Rosa was tired. She sat in the front. The bus driver told her to move. She did not. He called the police. Rosa was put in jail.
Some citizens tried to help. One of them was Martin Luther King, Jr. The citizens decided to stop riding buses until the law was changed.
This is obviously a simplistic and inaccurate painting of the events account the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In fact, the action was highly planned: Parks was a long-time member of the National Associate for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and had recently completed the Highlander Folk School's activist training in Tennessee.10 The Highlander Folk School (now known as the Highlander Research and Education Center) in New Market, Tennessee was a social justice training centre that played an extremely important role in the Civil Rights movement, training many Civil Rights leaders, including Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Rogers: Well, had there been many times before in your life when you thought that maybe you were going to do just that kind of thing?
Parks: I hadn't thought that I would be the person to do this. It hadn't occurred to me.
Rogers: But don't you suppose you and many others also thought one time or another you were going to do this thing, sooner or later?
Throughout the early 1950s, the Highlander Folk School struggled with failed attempts at direct action. Parks was chosen for her role not only because of her experience in organizing, but also because of her image as a working class woman who nevertheless had more economic stature than other Black women – the idea was to reach out to white, working class Americans. Portraying Parks as a fed up working mother was a deliberate strategic attempt to garner support for the Montgomery Bus Boycott specifically and the Civil Rights movement more generally. That Parks' refusal to give up her seat on the bus seemed impromptu was the whole point; it was a meticulously staged direct action that banked on dominant notions of courage, risk, and power to manufacture a perfectly spontaneous and catalyzing moment.
For SNCC, spontaneity not only demonstrated youthful rage, but autonomy outside of a traditional leadership. Far from hindering the success of the Civil Rights movement, this autonomy contributed to its strength. The success of the lunch counter sit-ins proliferated into wider mainstream gains such as voter registration. The infamy of these actions demonstrates the power of spontaneity not only to energize and proliferate struggle, but to crystallize it in popular history.
Since the 1960s, the spontaneous and autonomous energy of organizations like SNCC has moved and morphed through the student and anti-war movements, to the anti-globalization movement, to the Arab Spring, and was taken up eagerly by the 2011 Occupy movement.
The power of Occupy came in part from its rapid proliferation. There was almost universal surprise at the eruption of Occupy camps globally, growing out of a simple call to "Occupy Wall Street." The idea of spontaneity was tied to the idea of Occupy as a movement where the diverse population of the 99 percent came together to discuss and debate the problems of contemporary capitalism and to contemplate and build a different world. Without a centralized message or set of demands, the various Occupy camps mobilized instead around the slogan "Occupy Everything. Demand Nothing." The slogan itself demonstrates the power of autonomy: without centralized power or a top-down structure, people – regular people – can make their own decisions, be their own leaders, and provide for themselves and each other collectively and democratically.
Though Occupy was successful as a model of organizing insofar as it seized upon contemporary discontent and the zeitgeist of the moment, critics were quick to note the problems with the call to an imagined body of the 99 percent, and the way the newness of Occupy obscured histories of anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles. While Occupy claimed to have an open network of participation, there was often an absence of critical race and feminist analyses in its camps and assemblies. Indeed, the movement generally struggled to confront oppression, given that anti-oppressive and anti-racist policies were difficult to pass or maintain within the amorphous decision-making body of the General Assembly.
This points us to a fundamental contradiction in spontaneity: if a movement or an action is spontaneous, it is assumed to have no history and thus the pre-existing networks and communities that may have given rise to these struggles can easily be ignored. This takes for granted the long and labourious conversations about leadership and participation that have happened in previous incarnations of anti-capitalist struggles and mass movement organizing, not to mention the efforts to engage excluded communities. These issues was addressed in the DeOccupy Oakland formations and in debates around the term "occupy" itself that arose over the encampments' various lifespans, and are reflected upon in the recently published anthology: We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation.
While spontaneous organizing and actions may be inspiring for some, they are sometimes uncritical expressions of privilege – not only around race, but also in terms of access, ability, gender, and sexuality. The process of relationship building, sharing skills, increasing inclusion, and the role of leadership are often glossed over – if not ignored entirely. At best, this is because we hope that these processes will happen naturally; at worst, it's because some of us fear of the transformation that a commitment to these processes might actually bring about.
It cannot be denied that in the moment of unplanned actions, traditional spontaneity feels good. It feels good to cut loose. It feels good to be free, even just for a moment. It feels good to arrive at a city park and camp out with a day's notice, to join thousands of people banging pots and pans in solidarity with the Québec student strike, to rapidly assemble and occupy an intersection for a few hours. It feels good to see a cop car burn, to break through lines of marshals or police, to look at YouTube videos of riots. But all too often, we cling to these memories and images for inspiration as our own momentum slowly fizzles out.
Though spontaneity itself is inevitably fleeting, it cannot be understood outside of organization if we hope to use effectively. The ongoing success of movements relies both on the excitement of spontaneity and tedious labour of organization. The role of spontaneity allows organizations to adapt to different situations, to bend and twist according to the needs of the movement.
Our task is this: to use spontaneity sustainably, and foster the longevity and growth of revolutionary politics. A spontaneous upsurge – without any organizational infrastructure – is ephemeral. How can organizations provide a structure to spontaneity without dampening it or appearing on the scene too late?
Over the course of the Occupy movement, existing Left organizations struggled to engage in a meaningful way with the excitement and possibilities around them. While they showed up and provided money and resources, they were often unable to adopt the principles of Occupy into their own organizations. What has been more common, in the months following the encampments, has been an adoption by Left organizations of the language of Occupy (especially "the 99 percent") without any discussion of how its organizing principles might impact the work of the organization.
Based on our experience in Occupy Toronto, it is difficult to conceive of other ways that Left organizations could have engaged without the fear of co-opting the movement. But this has to do with the predominant structure of these organizations – including bureaucratic trade unions, whose leadership was unwilling to potentially take direction from a more radical base within and outside of the union – and not, we argue, with an inherent inability among these organizations to respond to and grapple with spontaneity.
The task for revolutionary organizations is to both foster spontaneity amongst their members and respond to spontaneous uprisings in society more generally. If the inspiration of spontaneity was better channelled into organizations, that would not mean its end but rather more opportunities for beautiful mischief to confront capital in tangible and sustainable ways. And in non-revolutionary times such as ours, spontaneity can still be used strategically to build alliances, raise consciousness, and signal unrest.
How do we think about the relationship between spontaneity and organizing? How do we organize spontaneity so that it proliferates, and proliferate spontaneity in organization? Despite their predominance in historical left debates, these questions are largely absent at the current moment. Part of the relevance of these discussions historically had to do with the fact that they were seen to really matter. Whether Lenin or Luxemburg won the debate was seen to have an immediate impact on the structure of revolutionary organizations and the development of revolutionary tactics – and thus on the capacity to overthrow capitalism. The absence of these types of debates seems to indicate a feeling that we aren't going to win or that it doesn't really matter how we are organizing – what matters is getting people into the streets.
Whether or not the party form has lapsed, it is certainly true that it is no longer the predominant way that radicals organize. Of course, there have always been non-Leninist forms of organizing alongside Leninist parties: anarchists and councilists in the early 20th century saw the party as a brake rather than a catalyst for social change; student radicals in 1968 France eschewed the politics of parties and the state; the anti-globalization movement – in some ways best exemplified by the Zapatistas in Mexico – saw communities as their own agents of change and demanded the state and parties of all kinds back away.
Doing away with traditional and simplistic understandings of spontaneity and organization that characterize spontaneity as explosive upsurges and organization as ossified and overly disciplined party structures can allow us to examine their relationship in practice more dialectically. Recent movements – Occupy, the Quebec student strike, and others – have experimented with new political forms that permit this dialectical relationship between organization and spontaneity and they have ushered new political subjects into struggle. Perhaps to get beyond the limitations that these recent movements have come up against, an investigation of previous forms of struggle is necessary – including the councils of council communism and the Italian factory council movement, the soviets of the first Russian revolution, and the steward committees of the radical British shop steward movement in the 1910s. These historical formations might tell us something about where we want to go today and how we should get there.
Contemporary experiments should also inform our practice. The assembly model proliferates globally – from Syntagma to Tahrir to Liberty Squares. More structured attempts at assembly politics include the Greater Toronto Workers' Assembly, the Southern Workers' Assembly, the Southern Movement Assembly, and the departmental, faculty-wide, and neighbourhood assemblies that directed, sustained, and breathed life into the months-long student strike in Québec last spring. Some of these projects and experiments will be failures – some already are. But they fail not because they repeat ad infinitum calcified models of political practice; rather they fail because they are experiments, because they attempt something new, and because they must stumble clumsily towards something truthful. We cannot let our failures hold us down; we must commit to ever increasing spontaneous proliferation of organizational experiments and when we fail we must learn to, as Samuel Beckett said, fail again and fail better.
1.	See Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011) and George Katsiaficas, The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968 (Cambridge MA: South End Press, 1987).
2.	John Holloway, Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today (London: Pluto Press 2002), 1.
3.	Andrew Chung, "Massive Public Support for Charest's emergency law," Toronto Star, May 19, 2012, http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1181095—massive-public-support-for-charest-s-emergency-law.
4.	Paul Mattick, "Spontaneity and Organization." Anti-Bolshevik Communism. (Britain: Merlin Press 1978).
5.	Leon Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution, volume I, (London: Sphere Books 1967), 17.
6. Alex Levant, "Rethinking Spontaneity Beyond Classical Marxism: Re-reading Luxemburg through Benjamin, Gramsci, and Thompson," Journal of Socialist Theory, 40.3 (2012), 370.
7.	Levant, "Rethinking Spontaneity," 383.
8.	Alan Sears, "The Left and the end of Harper," Rabble.ca, July 1, 2011, http://rabble.ca/news/2011/07/left-and-end-harper.
9.	Michael Schudson, "Telling Stories about Rosa Parks." Contexts, 11.3 (Summer 2012), http://contexts.org/articles/summer-2012/telling-stories-about-rosa-parks/.
13. Francesca Polletta, "It Was like a Fever ..." Narrative and Identity in Social Protest," Social Problems 45 (May 1998), 146.
14.	Polletta. "It Was Like a Fever," 149.
15.	Polletta. "It Was Like a Fever," 152.
16.	Lester Spence and Mike McGuire, "Occupy and the 99%," in We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation, ed. Kate Khatib et. al. (Oakland: AK Press, 2012), 59.


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'High Life' Is Better Felt Than Understood Directed by Claire Denis
Starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, Mia Goth, Lars Eidinger
By Alex Hudson
No, the title isn't a weed joke, and you definitely don't want to see this stoned. High Life is about a futuristic version of death row, where criminals act as the crew on a spaceship bound for a black hole. Their mission is to extract energy from the black hole, although the science of how this is supposed to work isn't exactly clear — and that's just the first of many things in this strange, unsettling movie that don't make much sense and aren't worth thinking too hard about. This is a film that's better felt than understood.
The story begins with Monte (Robert Pattinson) as the ship's sole surviving criminal, who is tending for the mission as well as raising an infant daughter named Willow. That's a lot of work for a single parent; there's even a scene in which Monte performs maintenance work on the outside of the ship while cooing to his daughter over the radio, and her shrill cries cause him to drop his wrench into the black void of space. Never mind that a wrench wouldn't fall in zero gravity — again, don't think about it too hard.
This would be a cryptic movie even if the story happened in chronological order, but celebrated French director Claire Denis (making her English-language debut) doesn't keep things that straightforward. Instead, the drama that plays out amongst the ship's crew is intercut with Monte raising Willow as a baby, her as a teenager, and even a few scenes from Earth.
As you might expect from a spaceship full of criminals, the galactic mission is a hellish nightmare. Dr. Dibs (Juliette Binoche) is a cruel doctor who is obsessed with reproduction, while Boyse (Mia Goth) and Nansen (Lars Eidinger) are volatile and violent. There are two very disturbing rape scenes, and there's a masturbation machine literally called a "fuckbox" that emits a white goo after being used. The only respite from all the unpleasantness is Tcherny (André Benjamin, aka Outkast's André 3000), a calm dude who mostly wants to hang out in the ship's garden.
It's a bleak, lonely vision of space travel that's akin to Sunshine or Moon. There's very little exposition, leaving the audience to piece everything together from the barest scraps of details. For a movie with such a small cast of characters, we learn very little about their backstories and motivations. Is this a parable about the fundamentally destructive nature of humanity? Or just the inevitable chaos that unfolds when a bunch of violent criminals get locked up together in interstellar prison?
High Life's greatest strengths are aesthetic: Tindersticks frontman Stuart A. Staples provides an ominous score, the spaceship's garden is a lush utopia amidst the austere surroundings, and the glimpses of the black hole are vivid and vaguely psychedelic. And damn that baby is cute.
That makes High Life a sufficiently sinister space voyage, but one without all that much to say — either with its characters or its speculative sci-fi.
(A24 Films)
More Claire Denis
More Robert Pattinson
More André 3000
More Juliette Binoche
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De Chileense parlementsverkiezingen van 1997 vonden op 11 december van dat jaar plaats. In de Kamer van Afgevaardigden en de Senaat bleef de centrum-linkse partijencombinatie Concertación de grootste.

Uitslagen

Kamer van Afgevaardigden

Senaat

Zie ook
Verkiezingen in Chili

Parlementsverkiezingen in Chili
Verkiezingen in 1997


The Galactic Center, at 26 degrees Sagittarius, was a big topic a few years ago when Pluto transited through that point for the first time in 244 years, but it's not a subject that receives a great deal of astrological discussion otherwise.
Astrologically, the Galactic Center is the heart of the Universe – the soul of wisdom for our solar system and our species of humanity.
Now there is that maps the Galactic Center, showing where the black hole and surrounding galaxies reside.
If like me this is still ultra-confusing, of the Milky Way Transit Authority which imagines the Galactic Center as Grand Central Station.
Love the MWTA map. We humans can be so clever, can't we?
Need a "you are here" arrow!
I think we are Suburban.
So glad everyone liked these images! I thought they were amazing.
@Xenia, the Super Galactic Center deals with other galaxies than our own and I'm not sure that this would even be relevant to our experience. As science expands our knowledge of the Universe we have to start picking and choosing which archetypes we can incorporate into the astrological pantheon and which we cannot.
Pluto was at there in 1758 when Ben Franklin invented the 3 wheel clock. There must be some super-significant invention in 2007, greater than iPhone.


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Guadalajara 2011 Panamerican Medalist as new Tequila Ambassador
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Tequila exports keeps growing
Tequila started 2012 with more exports
GUADALAJARA, Jalisco (22/FEB/2012 at Informador news paper) – The tequila industry started this year 2012 with a 4% increase in exports, although the production there was a slight decrease.
According to the Tequila Regulatory Council (CRT), the closure of production last January led to 18.4 million liters, which means a decrease of 1.1%, according to data from January 2011.
As for exports, sales in January that totaled 12.6 million liters. The agency reports that it exported 8.7 million liters of tequila mixed in addition to 3.9 million product made ??from 100% agave and seven million liters in bulk shipments.
Posted in Guadalajara Tequila Tour, Jose Cuervo Tequila, Tequila History, tequila tour, Tours to Tequila, tradition and art of tequila	| Tagged ambiente tequilero, History of Tequila, Mexico, ruta del Tequila, Tequila, Tequila Export, Tequila Guide, tequila travel, visiting tequila
Guadalajara Tequila Tour
Guadalajara Tequila Tour is a wonderful destination, it is the cradle of Mexico's famous drink, tequila tour it has become a tourist attraction for all those who visit Guadalajara. The endless rows of agaves give the people an ethereal look, which contrasts with the joy that permeates the streets and tequila fields.
* Our transport passes by you to your hotel or private residence within Guadalajara Metro Area
* Visit agave fields
* Admission to Mundo Cuervo
* Complimentary beverages during the trip
* Visit the magical town of Tequila Jalisco
Departures at 9:00 am –
5:00 pm Return to GDL
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The online payment or Bank deposit. You pay securely online, get a receipt (print), send us information on when and where you want to go through gusmelor@gdltours.com
and you will enjoy this unforgettable experience in Tequila.
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Tequila the story of passion
¿Betray your own family to stay with the love of your life? This is the situation we are facing "Tequila: A Story of Passion" film directed by Mexican director Sergio Sánchez Suarez.
Tequila is a town in Mexico, where honor is everything. Antonio (Unax Ugalde), a young chieftain respected by all, has an affair with Lola (Daniela Schmidt), the wife of his uncle Vincent (Salvador Sanchez), who is loved and revered by people.
With each lie, Antonio is increasingly involved in a web of suspicion, obsession and jealousy threatening everything in his life.
Overall, the story is not new. Is typical about two young people living an impossible love. However, the plot can be attractive to the Mexican public that tends to be attracted to this type of situation on the small screen, we know that viewers like the melodrama.
However, the film not only focuses on so addressed and love story, because to some extent reflects the prevailing machismo in society in the 40's.
One of its defects is not completely in depth history of each character, which would have helped to make the plot more attractive and have even led to the connection with them was greater.
But the great merit of this film is in production design. The setting and costume design, made by the director's brother, Rodrigo Sanchez Suarez, were cared for in great detail and get to make the viewer actually transport the time after the fact.
The cinematography, by Andronicus Gonzalez, is another very welcomed in this film, it is very attractive and catches the audience from the start by its visual perfection.
In addition, actions are another factor that helps this film. Ugalde, Sanchez and Angelica Aragon (although the latter with less screen time than the previous ones), they get fully reflect their characters.
It's a film that is worth giving a try, it is a sign of how Mexican cinema has begun to improve as far as production is concerned. In addition, as an added, the film manages to remind us of the golden age of Mexican cinema.
Alejandra Alarcón Cervantes / Lunes, 07 de Noviembre de 2011 09:46 enlabutaca.com
Posted in fun things to do Guadalajara, Tequila film, Tequila History, tequila tour, tradition and art of tequila	| Tagged films, Mexico, Movie, Tequila, Tequila culture, Tequila Experience, Tequila Guide, tequila travel
Panamerican Games Medalist is New Ambassador of Tequila
Queen of the Pan American Games Guadalajara 2011, Cynthia Valdez, was named Ambassador of Tequila.
In a ceremony at the Government Palace of Jalisco, Guadalajara gymnast who won two golds and three silvers at the last Pan American Games, was named as the representative image of the drink of Mexico, Tequila.
Valdez received recognition accompanied by her beautiful mother, as well as Government Secretary Fernando Guzman and the directors of the Tequila Regulatory Council, and then have breakfast with personalities from the government of Jalisco. The governor, Emilio González Márquez, was not present at the event.
"It makes me proud to be an ambassador of Tequila, because if you talk about the Tequila Mexico comes to mind is the representative of our country drink and Jalisco," Ochoa said.
Regarding the invitation from the International Gymnastics Federation to participate in the 2012 London Olympics, the Jalisco does not hurry, yet expected to confirm this situation as a dream in his career.
"It depends on Mexico, depends on the International Olympic Committee and the Federation, will be waiting (Wild Card). It really is a dream I've always had, for two past Olympic cycles, which was Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, so if today gives me the opportunity of London 2012, obviously is an additional motivation I have, but if there is no no matter, I have reason enough to feel happy, "he said.
Of the ankle injury that caused so much controversy, the beautiful gymnast announced that the recovery is going well and appears to be operated, as was said a few days ago.
"I'm much better, right now I'm resting and I'm not forcing my foot, do not enter the same, me being conducted to see how the recovery process and most importantly it is the safest thing is that no operation I was told, "said Pan American medalist.
Posted in Tequila History, tequila tour	| Tagged Cynthia Valdez, Panamerican Games Guadalajara 2011, tequila ambassador, Tequila culture
Tequila Distilleries soon to go Green
Tequila companies will focus their investments in this and next year to preserve the environment.
Currently the Casa Cuervo company exports on an annual 10 million liters of tequila to over 120 countries, many of which begin to require companies producing their carbon footprint before closing purchase contracts.
"The investments will focus on the care of the environment with new stillage treatment plants to other plants, in addition to which was put into operation last year Camichines production center," he told the director of The Economist Cuervo Tequila Institutional Relations, John Married Arregoitia.
The company tequila distilleries and six others are working with the National Chamber of Tequila Industry to build in the Los Altos region of the first floor or stillage treatment of liquid waste resulting from the distillation process.
The project, also involving Cazadores Bacardi, Pernod Ricard, Tequila Patron, Don Julio and San Matías, requires an investment of $ 10 million, for which the camera tequila distilleries and work involved in obtaining funds government both federal and international agencies, which will complement the contributions of companies. The plant will have capacity to treat at least 1,000 cubic meters of vinasse.
The production houses are ready the project, technology and design of the plant, so plan to break ground in the first half of 2012.
Posted in Tequila History, tradition and art of tequila	| Tagged green tequila, Tequila, Tequila Export
Despite problems, Mexico tourism remains strong
Mariano Castillo, CNN
July 26, 2011 8:29 p.m. EDT
https://goo.gl/oy44Q
(CNN) — Mexico's international image may be taking hits because of the violence produced by drug cartels, but it hasn't hurt its tourism industry, officials say. International tourism to Mexico has increased 2.1% in the first five months of 2011 compared to 2010, and it remains the top destination for Americans traveling abroad.
Statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce show that fewer Americans are traveling abroad, but a bigger percentage of those who do are going to Mexico. Mexico also reported double-digit increases in the percentage of visitors from Russia, Brazil and China, among others.
"The data doesn't lie," Mexico's deputy secretary for tourism, Ricardo Anaya, told CNN. "Tourists keep choosing Mexico."
The unrelenting battles between rival drug cartels and police and cartels have provided nearly unlimited fodder for those who write off Mexico as a dangerous destination.
The truth, Anaya said, is that the violence is limited to certain geographic areas that can be avoided by tourists.
The border area, for example, where much violence has been recorded, is 1,200 miles from the resort town of Cancun — that's like avoiding travel to Houston because of problems in New York, he said.
According to surveys by Mexican tourism authorities, 98% of those who do visit Mexico say they will come back, and 99% recommend it to others.
Opinion: Why you should go to Mexico
Much of the growth has been fueled by new programs to incentivize tourists from emerging economies, such as the so-called BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China.
For starters, Mexico began allowing holders of U.S. visas to enter Mexico, opening up the possibility of tourists to the United States extending their trips south of the border.
Also, Brazilians, Russians and Ukrainian visitors can gain travel permission to Mexico on the Internet, with no need for a visa.
Finally, for travelers from other countries, visas to Mexico in many cases can be obtained through a travel agent, erasing the need for trips to embassies.
In 2011 to date, Mexico has seen a 40.9% increase in Brazilian tourists, a 58.1% increase from Russia and 32.8% increase from China, according to Mexico's tourism ministry.
For U.S. travelers specifically, the Commerce Department's most recent data — for 2009 — shows that 31.7% of all U.S. international tourists go to Mexico. From 2002 to 2009, while U.S. tourism to Canada fell by more than 27%, tourism to Mexico from the U.S. increased by 5.1%. This happened even though the overall number of Americans traveling abroad decreased, from a peak of 64 million in 2007 to 61.4 million in 2009.
When Kendra Young, a high school teacher in Texas, told her friends that she and her husband's family were going to Cozumel for a yearly retreat, she was met with skepticism. Are you worried, they would ask? Are you still going?
"I think people see all of Mexico as one entity," she told CNN.
It was the third straight year that she traveled to the same resort, and security was not a concern for her. Young is pregnant, and she was more worried about food-borne or water-borne illness.
She was aware of several State Department travel warnings to Mexico's cartel hot spots, but she also knew that the area she was traveling to was not affected. Her group planned to stay on the resort, where they felt safest, but on the advice of resort staff they trusted from the previous trips, they ventured into the city without worries.
"Unfortunately, there are the headline-grabbing things — the drugs, the violence — but I don't think that's indicative of what's happening in the entire country," Young said.
Anaya pointed out that Americans are not unaware of the violence — 80% of Americans who travel to Mexico go to six places, none of which have had travel alerts. The destinations are Cozumel, Riviera Maya, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta/Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico City and Los Cabos, he said.
Some beach destinations, like Acapulco, have been the scene of some of the drug cartel bloodshed, but still managed to increase its tourism 3% in the first five months of 2011 compared to last year, thanks to national, rather than international, tourism.
But some pitfalls of tourism in Mexico persist.
Tucson, Arizona, resident Denise Hermosillo and a couple of friends made the six-hour trek last week from her home to Bahia de Kino in the state of Sonora, Mexico. This area is not under a travel warning, but is not among the top destinations for American tourists.
"I was scared out of my mind to go there," Hermosillo said. Friends of hers who are in the military are not allowed to cross the border and urged her not to do the same. But she wanted to go to the beach to write for a book she is working on, and Bahia de Kino is the closest one.
On the first day of her vacation, her group was pulled over by a police officer, who promptly asked for $100 in exchange to letting them go. In the moment she was frightened, all those stories about bloody ends in Mexico rushing to her mind. But she negotiated the bribe down to $20 and her group was allowed to continue on their journey.
"It was pretty pathetic, I thought. What are you going to do with 20 bucks?" she said. Still, she was unable to relax during her vacation.
Would she go back? She doesn't know.
Would she recommend Mexico to a friend? Maybe, but only if you are traveling with someone who could act as a guide.
Posted in fun things to do Guadalajara, tequila tour, tradition and art of tequila	| Tagged Arts and Crafts, ruta del Tequila, Tequila Experience, Tequila Trail Tour
FIFA U-17 is measured in millions – Brasil in Guadalajara
Mexico to receive for World Cup 2.500 billion pesos in economic flow through three areas: housing, transportation and meals. It is an opportunity to once again position our country as a tourist option, able to organize world class events, especially the blow meant influenza crisis and then the issue of violence.
Since the 1986 World Cup has not held a FIFA tournament with high impact. The latter was the nascent Confederations Cup in 1999, far from what we now mean for the world and the highest governing body of soccer. Today, after the title in 2005 in Peru, interest has grown to the Federation, the media and, of course, for fans.
Today I can inform you that city of Guadalajara revenues are nearly 300 million pesos on average, some more, some less. For example, Querétaro receive 400 million pesos and the city of Mexico, which receive only the final and third and fourth place will get 94 million.
These figures are broken down into the concepts of accommodation, transportation, tours and meals. Without the ability to swell the figure to the 1.2 million tickets offered for sale, which could mean 351 million pesos.
The box office, a great challenge
Fill stadiums is perhaps the biggest challenge, apart from the difficulties of the organization.
The most important commitment of the Organizing Committee is to have a Mexico 2011 World U-17 with full stadiums, where a group stage match will always arrive at least half a stadium and after the second round, more than three quarters of the stadium.
The ceiling at this point is in the first edition of the tournament. The first FIFA U-17 occurred in China in 1985. There, according to figures from FIFA, the average fans per game was 38, 468 spectators.
Succer fans will enjoy Brasilian team in Guadalajara at the Jalisco stadium. This event will over shadow the poor organization of the Panamerican Games 2011 to be held three months after this world cup.
Posted in fun things to do Guadalajara	| Tagged Brasil in Guadalajara 2011, sub 17 Guadalajara, world cup in Guadalajara 2011	| Leave a reply


Martin Venezky is the mastermind behind Appetite Engineers, a small, internationally recognized design firm. His interest in intricacy, complexity, ornament and handwork has caused many wary employees to nervously inch their way toward the exit. But before taking flight, they have helped him create some wonderfully entertaining work for the Sundance Film Festival, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Chronicle Books, Princeton Architectural Press, and Blue Note Records, among others. Martin Venezky's work has been featured in Eye, How, émigré and Graphis.
Having done my graduate research on McCoy-era Cranbrook, and as a current student in the Cranbrook 2D department, I have always found Martin's work to be extraordinarily intriguing in both its historical influence, and contemporary resonance.
Thank you for the fantastic listen –– I very much enjoyed the bit on what it truly means to experiment with form making.
How lucky one would be to have this intelligent and sensitive man as a teacher. Martin speaks to experimentation and innovation in his work, and he has lived his life true to this philosophy. Martin is the playful inventor, and had he stayed in mathematics I have no doubt he would have broken new ground there while inspiring students to take the path less traveled. This was a wonderful interview. It is the Martin I am so fortunate to know.
Terrific interview. Martin designed all three of my books: Snapshot Chronicles:Inventing The American Photo Album, Around The World: The Grand Tour in Photo Albums and Finding Frida Kahlo. I cannot say enough good things about his work and the process of connecting content and design. Martin's ability to use design (as he says in the interview) "to bring the old & new together to create something that comes alive" is unparalleled.
I really enjoyed this inspiring interview. I would share the similar experience : my mother was pushing me to get into arts and drawing classes ,but I did not listen to her at that time and earned a degree in accounting. NOW, I realized my interest in more into designing and trying to get into MFA in graphic design program. (hats off to my Mom;).
Thank you for this great interview, I can relate myself here. LOVE IT !!
I wish there were more people like Martin Venezky teaching at SVA. Graphic Design is art first, business second. School teaches us to meet deadlines and fulfill client demands, but so little emphasis is placed on design process and experimentation. Martin expels the concepts of fear and hesitation in design. He is one of few who proves that an artistic, experimental, and intuitive approach to design can still communicate effectively and have mass commercial appeal.


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Home » Jennifer Varbalow
Jennifer Varbalow
Most of the humor is at the expense of the Mesquite City Council and its steely-eyed mayor Linda Hadley (Liz Amberly) who could be accurately described as a Margaret Thatcher wannabe, if she had any idea who Margaret Thatcher was. With rapacious resolve, she has set her sights on doing something no other mayor has ever done in the entire history of Mesquite: win a second term. She is assisted in this quest by her right-hand toady (Jeff Paul), the financial backing of a shady resort magnate (Jed Dickson), and an underwhelming pool of potential challengers, led by Will Brown (the wonderful Joe Burby) whose hapless sincerity is seemingly no match for the mayor's small-town realpolitik. [more]
Villainous Company
Asking us to stoop down to the level of three women willing to do many ethically reprehensible acts in the pursuit of wealth, Cahn challenges the notions of playing fair and working hard. Who would you throw under the proverbial bus in order to protect your livelihood? Is it ever justifiable to fight crime with more crime? Villainous Company raises these questions and more in the form of a short, fun play that is worth a watch but ultimately not worth too much thought. [more]
Daughters of the Sexual Revolution
n suburban Westchester, 1976, we meet three couples. Lively, free spirited and just turned 40, Joyce Horowitz is married to the older, cantankerous W.W. II veteran Ed. They have a rebellious 18-year-old daughter Staciawho has recently become involved with her earnest, good-natured, 18 year-old college boyfriend, Simon Davies. There is also the Horowitzes' new neighbors in their 30's, the Prescotts, anxiety ridden Judy and her pompous psychiatrist husband, Liam. [more]


CLERMONT, Fla. – Senior Nina Murray (Saugus, Mass.) had two hits but the Plymouth State University softball team fell to #14 Babson College, 11-3, in five innings in a non-conference game at Hancock Park on Sunday.
The Panthers, who faced #7 Amherst College yesterday, fell to 2-4, while Babson improved to 7-3 on the year.
PSU took advantage of a pair of Beavers' miscues to plate three runs in the top of the first. Murray opened the inning with a single down the leftfield line. Junior Hannah Seidner (Pembroke, N.H.) reached when the Babson pitcher made a throwing error on her bunt attempt, and the runners were able to advance. Junior Ashley Deyo (Dover, N.H.) followed with a single to center to score both runners.
Senior Abrie Davis (Amherst, N.H.) singled up the middle to extend the rally. After an infield lineout, senior Taylor Wood (Londonderry, N.H.) worked a walk to load the bases and chase starter Katie Gademsky (Hillsborough, N.J.). Sophomore Brooke Stock (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) relieved and got a key strikeout, but the runners advanced after a throw got away from the Beavers' catcher to score Deyo and make it 3-0. Stock avoided further damage with a strikeout to end the inning.
Babson answered with a pair of runs in the bottom of the first. After a single and walk by the first two batters, a sacrifice advanced them to second and third. Sophomore Jacqueline Paul (Burlington, N.J.) drove them both home with a single up the middle.
The Beavers scratched together another run in the second to tie the game at three-apiece. Sophomore Kayla Schinik (Watchung, N.J.) reached on a bunt single, then stole second and scored on a two-out base hit from Stock.
Plymouth got two runners on in the third, but Stock worked out of trouble with a foul out and a fly ball to keep the game tied. Babson struck for three runs in the bottom of the inning to take the lead for good. A leadoff single, stolen base and single up the middle made it 4-3. After a fly out to right, another single and passed ball put runners on second and third with one away. Sophomore Caitlyn Miller (Lee, N.H.) nearly worked out of the jam, getting an infield lineout for the second out, but a wild pitch and Panther error scored two more runs to make it 6-3.
PSU had a base runner in both the fourth and fifth innings but were unable to score. Babson put the game away in the bottom half of the fifth. The Beavers loaded the bases with one out and sophomore Victoria Casey (Emerson, N.J.) drove all three runners in with a double to left center to chase Miller. Stock followed with a single and a wild pitch put runners on second and third. After a lineout, senior Samantha Smith (Hillsborough, N.J.) ended the game with a two-run single.
Miller worked 4.1 innings, allowing 10 runs (nine earned) to fall to 1-3. Stock (2-2) earned the win for the Beavers, surrendering just two hits and three walks in 4.2 innings after Gademsky recorded just one out.
Murray (two singles), Wood (two walks) and junior Mel Goss (Templeton, Mass.), a single and a walk, all reached base twice for the Panthers.
Plymouth State is back at it with two more games on Monday. The Panthers will face Western New England University at 9:00 a.m. and Fredonia State at 11:30 a.m. before an off-day on Tuesday.


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Der FC Moutier ist ein Schweizer Fussballverein aus der Stadt Moutier im Kanton Bern. Er spielt zurzeit in der zweiten Liga interregional. Seine Spielstätte ist das Novimmob Stadium. Der FC Moutier wurde 1921 gegründet. Grösster Erfolg des FC Moutiers war der Aufstieg in die Nationalliga 1966. Allerdings stieg er schon in der darauffolgenden Saison wieder ab. Einen entscheidenden Beitrag am Aufstieg leistete der damalige Spieler bei Moutier und spätere Trainer von den Grasshoppers und der Schweizer Fussballnationalmannschaft, Miroslav Blažević.

Weblinks
 Website des FC Moutier

Einzelnachweise

Moutier, FC
Fc Moutier
Gegründet 1921


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The Campus Left: Opposing Free Speech by Force
by Asaf Romirowsky and Jonathan Calt Harris
https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/8702/the-campus-left-opposing-free-speech-by-force
The university exists for the free exchange of ideas, right? Then why is it that representatives of one half the argument – the conservative half – need bodyguards and metal detectors when they speak on North American campuses, and their leftist counterparts almost never do?
Consider three suggestive parallels of how the Right needs security and the Left is welcomed.
Government officials. In September 2002, Benjamin Netanyahu, a former Likud (conservative) prime minister of Israel was to speak at Concordia University in Montreal, but he never made it. Nearly a thousand anti-Israel protestors rioted prior to the event,[1] smashing windows and hurling furniture at police, kicking and spitting on people going to the event. "By lunchtime," notes the Globe & Mail daily, "the vestibule of Concordia's main downtown building was littered with paper, upturned chairs, broken furniture and the choking aftereffects of pepper spray."[2]
In contrast, Hanan Ashrawi, a well-known Palestinian politician and activist, never faces such opposition. As she makes the rounds of American universities (such as the University of Colorado, Beloit, and Yeshiva), she speaks without interference, and what protests take place are completely non-violent. At Colorado College, students held small signs and a rebuttal was offered after the speech.[3] At the University of Pennsylvania, protesting students were so respectful, Tarek Jallad, president of the Penn Arab Student Society which sponsored her visit, commented: "I was very happy with the way the crowd showed her a lot of respect."[4]
1960s activists. David Horowitz, a founder of the New Left movement in the 1960s and now a high-profile conservative, speaks often at campuses and often faces problems. Protestors at the University of Chicago shouted at him and disrupted his talk before he uttered a word.[5] At the University of Michigan, "the university administration assigned 12 armed guards and a German Shepherd to protect the safety" of those who came to hear him speak. [6]
By comparison, Angela Davis, a former Black Panther and still today a far-leftist, enjoys the highest of esteem when visiting campuses. As she tours American colleges, she meets no protests, requires no excessive security, and is dutifully acclaimed by campus newspapers for her "wise presence."[7]
Middle East specialists. Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, a Harvard University Ph.D., author of twelve books, and a recent Bush appointee to U.S. Institute for Peace, needs security precautions at more than half his campus appearances. At York University in Toronto, for example, security provisions included "a 24-hour lockdown on the building beforehand, metal detectors for the audience, identification checks."[8] Multiple bodyguards escorted Pipes through a back entrance and kept him in a holding room until just before his talk. More than a hundred police, including ten mounted on horses, stood by to ensure the speaker's safety and the event not being disrupted.[9]
In contrast, John Esposito, head of Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, a Temple University Ph.D., the author of more than twenty books,[10] and key advisor to the Clinton State Department,[11] enjoys honor and praise at the campuses. He recently served as keynote speaker for the inauguration of Stanford University's new Islamic Studies program,[12] for example, with no hint of special security.
A clear pattern emerges. Speakers on the left are welcomed, conservatives require strict security measures.
This contravenes a post-9/11 statement by the American Association of University Professors that "specific attention should be given to the freedom to invite and hear controversial speakers."[13] Some "controversial" positions – vilifying the United States and its president – are just fine on the campus, whereas those who support the president, the war on terror, Israel, the free market, or personal freedom must summon (and sometimes pay for) a small army.
The incipient threat of violence on the university makes it unique in North American life. Minority views can be espoused without intimidation in the media, in political forums and even in corporations. Far from being the institution where ideas are freely exchanged, intolerance that would never be permitted elsewhere has become the norm on campuses.
The message is clear; if visiting conservatives require police protection to speak for an hour or two, local conservatives and others who support causes unpopular on the campus must tread even more carefully. And that message is indeed received. One visiting conservative reports hearing from a Harvard student "that her open identification could cost her, damaging her grades and her academic future. That her professors, who control her final grades, were likely to view such activism unkindly, and that the risk was too great."[14]
This environment – so one-sided that students censor themselves for fear of harassment or retribution – is exactly what parents, donors, and taxpayers do not expect to receive for their education dollars. They need to do something about the crisis that afflicts North American universities.
[1] Peritz, Ingrid and Ha, Tu Thanh, "Concordia: A campus in conflict," Toronto Globe and Mail, Saturday, September 14, 2002. Pg. A1.
[2] Peritz, Ingrid. "Israel's Netanyahu greeted with violence in Montréal," Toronto Globe and Mail, Tuesday, September 10, 2002. Page A1
[3] Pipes, Daniel, The War on Campus, New York Post, September 17, 2002.
[4] http://www.campaigntoendthesanctions.org/ashwari.htm
[5] Horowitz, David. "Little Totalitarians," FrontPage Magazine, May 14, 2001
[6] Horowitz, David. "Ad Censored By Emory Left," FrontPage Magazine, October 22, 2002.
[7] Stevens, Jeff, "Schools Not Jails," Ruckus, March, 2001.
[8] Brean, Joseph. "Pro-Israel scholar wins bid to speak," National Post, January 29, 2003.
[9] Pipes, Daniel. "The Rot in Our [Canadian] Universities," National Post, January 30, 2003.
[10] Trei, Lisa. "A hard look at the future of Islam: Overflow crowd attends inaugural lecture," Stanford Report, November 19, 2003.
[11] King, Ruth. "Reflections on Recent Events," January, 2002.
[12] Rashed, Dina "ISNA Convention Honors Esposito." August 31, 2003
[13] http://www.aaup.org/statements/REPORTS/911report.htm
[14] Sharansky, Natan. "Tour of U.S. Schools Reveals Why Zionism Is Flunking on Campus," Forward, October 24, 2003.
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Share this Story: Warren Buffett's Suncor stake may be 'turning point' for oil sands stocks
Warren Buffett's Suncor stake may be 'turning point' for oil sands stocks
Warren Buffett's massive stake in Suncor Energy Inc. could spark investor interest in the battered stocks of Canadian oil sands' companies, according to analysts
Warren Buffett's massive stake in Suncor Energy Inc. could spark investor interest in the battered stocks of Canadian oil sands' companies, according to analysts.
[np_storybar title="Suncor stock rises as Warren Buffett reveals he has taken hefty stake" link="http://financialpost.com/2013/08/15/warren-buffett-reveals-hefty-stake-in-suncor-energy-inc/?__lsa=f55c-cb6d"]World's most famous investor takes $500-million stake in Canada's largest integrated oil company. Read more
Warren Buffett's Suncor stake may be 'turning point' for oil sands stocks Back to video
Mr. Buffett had acquired 17.7 million shares of Suncor by June 30, according to a U.S. regulatory filing by his company Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Since the last trading day of June, Suncor shares in New York have risen US$4.45, closing at US$33.94 on Thursday, netting the world's third-richest man an estimated US$79-million on his oil sands' investment on paper.
Analysts believe Mr. Buffett's foray into the Alberta oil sands may prove to be a major fillip for the wider industry.
"This may be a turning point, possibly," said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist at Arc Financial Corp. "Mr. Buffett is obviously recognized as a value investor, and the oil sands sector represents significant value."
Oil sands operators have been ramping up production over the years, but lower Canadian crude price and concerns regarding market access have deflated investor sentiment.
"The market returns have been flat for two years, but in the meantime we have seen significant improvements — the whole area is attracting $20-billion a year in investment," Mr, Tertzakian said.
While crude price discounts have eased somewhat over the past few months, investors remain fixated on lack of new pipeline capacity that has clouded the industry's prospects.
TransCanada Corp.'s southbound Keystone XL and Enbridge Inc.'s westbound Northern Gateway are facing regulatory scrutiny and the ire of environmentalists.
The pipeline uncertainty has soured investor sentiment. An RBC Capital Markets analyst recently reported that Wall Street and other major U.S. investors have been lukewarm on Canadian oil companies for quite some time.
"No question that the underperformance of Canadian large cap energy has weighed upon the morale of these investors," Greg Pardy, RBC Dominion Securities Inc. analyst, said in a July note after meeting six clients including five hedge fund managers in New York.
Robert Bedin, director of energy research at ITG Investment Research, also noticed that investors evinced little interest in oil sands during his trip to New York two weeks ago.
"So, clearly an alarm clock went off as Warren Buffett took a position like that," Mr. Bedin said.
While Mr. Buffett has beaten fund managers to the punch once again, Wall Street remains divided on Suncor's stock price. About 47% of the analysts tracking the stock have a buy rating on the company, while another 47% recommend holding the stock, according to Bloomberg data.
But improved company guidance and movement on TransCanada's Energy East pipeline has buoyed sentiment in recent weeks.
In July, Suncor produced a record 390,000 barrels per day, and the company's 'new normal' would see output shoot up to the 420,000-bpd range, estimates Michael Dunn, vice-president of institutional research, at First Energy Capital Corp.
"It's been one of our more favoured names over the last while and a big part of our thesis was that operations are set to improve significantly. We felt that may be the market wasn't going to believe it until it saw it. Now we have seen one of the first evidence with the July results," according to Mr. Dunn, who has a $40 price target for the stock.
The company is trading at some of the lowest cash flow multiples and has one of the longest reserve life of 80 years in its peer group.
"Even on other typical metrics, it's at kind of an all-time low," Mr. Dunn said.
Mr. Buffett's history of taking a long-term macroeconomic and sector view also bodes well for the wider industry.
"We think it is a positive for the sector," Mr Bedin said. "Suncor is probably a pretty good proxy for Canadian oil price and if Mr. Buffett is bullish on the oil price, it's good across-the-board for Canadian names."
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Cenovus Energy Inc. and Imperial Oil Ltd. may get a second look from investors as Wall Street reviews oil and gas plays beyond prolific shale plays in their own backyard.
"These companies have scale and access to market and cost discipline — those are the companies that get a second look," Mr. Tertzakian said.
Another strategic piece of the puzzle is Mr. Buffett's ownership of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway company, which has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the crude-by-rail phenomenon.
The Oracle of Omaha also has a stake in Union Tank Car, which is among the few companies in North American building oil tank cars.
With the Suncor stake, Mr. Buffett wins if Keystone XL is approved, and he may still be on to a winner if his railway company fills in Keystone's void.
"He might win more with all the new rail capacity being installed, including his own," Mr. Tertzakian said. "When oil prices are rising, they are no bigger plays of scale in the free world other than the oil sands. Mr. Buffett as usual just recognized that there is value that may be is overlooked and neglected — and it fits with his greater strategic purposes."