The Cité internationale universitaire de Paris and its 34-hectare park will host the Athletes' Village. A boon to these athletes who will be able to walk to the Charléty stadium.
Created in the aftermath of the First World War, every year the Cité internationale universitaire welcomes some 12,000 students, researchers, artists and top-level athletes from nearly 150 nationalities. Consisting of 40 houses, each with a specific identity, it is a place to open to the world and develop social bonds. During the 2020 European Athletics Championships in Paris, part of this historical site will be secured and restricted to the exclusive use of athletes.
The Cité internationale has a unique architectural heritage: five houses and part of the park are protected under Historic Monument regulations; several of these buildings were designed by renowned architects like Le Corbusier or Claude Parent. The campus offers many services that contribute to the comfort of its residents: library, dining areas, sports facilities, co-working space and auditorium. Finally, it ensures peace and quiet within its 34 hectare park, alternating green spaces and walking paths. A secured footpath will also allow athletes to cross the park to reach the Charléty stadium in minutes, a first in the history of the European Championships.
After the First World War, the Cité Internationale project was based on the desire to build peace on a deep and lasting basis, promote community life, exchanges and mutual understanding by bringing together young people from all countries in one place. These values have since guided the evolution of the campus: every house, built by a patron, a country or a school, is a place of cultural expansion. In 2003, the Cité Internationale successfully hosted delegations to 2003 World Athletics Championships in Paris. 2025 will see the end of a modernization phase of its services and construction of 10 new homes, also marked by the extension of the park.


This is a specialized blog: "The Final Wager." It (mostly) concerns itself with how a player should bet during Final Jeopardy.
Daily Caller: "Pelosi acts as if she is powerless in disaster 'Daily Show' appearance." To his credit, Stewart keeps trying to press the point that the case for Big Government requires some level of competency on those who would expand the government. Pelosi blames the Republicans (of course) and then actually says things like "It's not my responsibility" and "I don't know" to simple questions.
Extra - From the Free Beacon.
If you're a conservative who loathes everything about NBC, you'll enjoy watching its death spasms. All their semi-popular shows are circling the drain, "Meet the Press" has historically low ratings, and now "MSNBC and Its Subsidiary NBCNews Fall to Bottom of Poll on Public Trust in News Organizations."
Fox News: "California spends $1.37 million on Obamacare web stream featuring Richard Simmons." I just found out that Olivia Wilde was also in this video and I can think of many ways that she could have convinced Californians to sign up for health care.
All aspiring writers should read Slate's Matt Yglesias. There's no better way to stress the importance of not writing like Matt Yglesias.
That doesn't jump off the page, but at least it doesn't appear to be written by a college sophomore on an Adderall jag.
Yglesias' writing is also cluttered like a hoarder's living room with instances of "I think," "in my opinion," "something I find," and other redundant phrases. Readers can discern whose opinion is being presented by the name at the top of the article.
This last one is a pet peeve of mine. I know that this is an opinion piece and I also know you're writing it. You need not worry that I'll mistake your blather for gospel.
More temperate, sophisticated commentary from what used to be the Paper of Record, and is now the Paper of Partisan Hysterics.
It accuses Mr. Peters of lying when he said the law bars cancellations of insurance policies. Mr. Peters happened to be right, as millions of people who once faced losing all insurance after they got sick now appreciate. The 225,000 Michigan residents who the ad said received "cancellation notices" were actually told that they could change to a better policy; they were not told they could no longer have insurance, as the ad implies.
This is a laughable argument, even by the Times's low standards. Millions of Americans, including hundreds of thousands in Michigan, lost their health insurance coverage because their policies were terminated. They were terminated because under Obamacare, it was illegal to sell them. The paper's argument–they weren't cancelled, they were only terminated!–is fatuous. And who could write this line with a straight face?
Has it really come to this, NY Times? At long last, have you left no sense of objectivity?
Trivia about one of my favorite shows: Futurama.
So says that shrimp at the NY Times: "The condescension of Paul Krugman." "Just to get citizens into a suitably docile condition to receive the President's State of the Union address, Paul Krugman reminds them in a recent New York Times column that they aren't bright enough to criticize government policy." A recent column? He's been writing the same column for four years now.
The Economist has their yearly Big Mac Index showing the purchasing power parity between different countries. It's a think piece on the cost of materials, labor, and currency values.
Yay - you voted for the cool guy!
Here's Ben Domenech in the Federalist: "Congratulations, Progressive Millennials: You're the cheapest date in town."
Today, one out of three of Millennials aged 18-31, the young progressives who gave Obama's campaign its inspirational heart and voted for him overwhelmingly, are living at home with their parents. They put their heart and soul into campaign after campaign, believing they could change the country and the planet. And after all their effort, what do they have to show for it? "Free" birth control that you have to pay for in higher premiums to big insurance? Talk about a cheap date.
Don't forget the cheap college loans and soaring student debt. You're welcome kids.
Megan McArdle: "Resolved: Obamacare is now beyond rescue." "The law still lacks the political legitimacy to survive in the long term. And in a bid to increase that legitimacy, the administration has set two very dangerous precedents: It has convinced voters that no unpopular provisions should ever be allowed to take effect, and it has asserted an executive right to rewrite the law, which Republicans can just as easily use to unravel this tangled web altogether."
The newly-hired company Accenture has two months to fix a health care system that couldn't be built over three-and-a-half years.
It's a slow news day so let's go to my old standby topic. WashPost: "Democratic PAC plays an unwarranted 'scare seniors' card on Social Security." The attack ads are starting early in Arizona and we're already up to three Pinocchios.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, both The Fact Checker and FactCheck.org were highly critical of the Obama campaign for asserting that McCain supported a plan that would put Social Security in the stock market. FactCheck.org said the claim was "deceptive" and The Fact Checker (then written by Michael Dobbs) said it was worthy of Three Pinocchios.
Yet here it is, six years later, and Democrats are still using the same old playbook of scaring seniors. Polling must show that such false attacks work.
Yup. The voting seniors go ballistic at every mendacity while younger voters - who will see their benefits cut - keep Twittering for their buddy in the White House. Although maybe that's finally changing.
A little sad. Zero Hedge: "What recovery? Sears and JC Penney are dying."
Damn, this Seattle-San Francisco game is really good. But...Downton Abbey.
This story about pistachio thieves is just...what's the word I'm looking for?
Crazy. Boston Globe: "California nut farmers band together to fight theft, organized crime."
The soaring value of California's nut crops is attracting a new breed of thieves who have been making off with the pricey commodities by the truckload, recalling images of cattle rustlers of bygone days.
This harvest season in the Central Valley, thieves cut through a fence and hauled off $400,000 in walnuts. Another $100,000 in almonds was stolen by a driver with a fake license. And $100,000 in pistachios was taken by a big rig driver who left a farm without filling out any paperwork.
Sounds to me like some kind of shell game. I hope they crack the case.
Instead of "Hail to the Chief" they should play "What's Going On?"
The Corner: "Our perpetually surprised President"
Our president's time in office has been one of wonder and astonishment.
He's shocked...shocked!...at what he saw on the news.
The WashPost Fact Checker announced that he was duped by the Administration's bogus (is there any other kind) Obamacare sign-up numbers. Hot Air: "WaPo gives 3 Pinocchios to Medicaid-enrollment claim … and itself."
It's almost like he wanted to believe it was true and suppressed his journalistic objectivity.
Politico: "'Journalism has died' at New York Times: Graham, McCain slam Benghazi report"
Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain harshly criticized The New York Times on Thursday over a recent report which concluded that Al Qaeda was not involved in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
In remarks on the Senate floor, Graham said "journalism has died at this paper," while McCain called the paper "an ever-reliable surrogate for the Obama administration."
In a fit of insanity, I recently read a NY Times editorial (no link) that tried to explain away December's awful jobs report. It was like reading Pravda on West 43rd Street, as dictated by David Axelrod, and indistinguishable from a White House press release. There was literally no daylight between the two which depends on bringing back jobs by making labor more expensive (raising minimum wage). Don't these midtown clowns have any self-respect at all?
Related - Fiscal Times: "We finally know where the buck stops in Benghazi." Media: "Where's dat?"
Geez, can't Obama just sign an executive order to make it so? Legal Insurrection: "Just like Amazon.com, Obamacare has no idea who has paid for stuff already shipped … oh, wait."
Naturally, I liked the part about how today's young generation is paying for Social Security benefits they'll never see. Hot Air: "Jimmy Kimmel on how Obamacare hoses young adults."
Free speech for all? No! VodkaPundit: "Breaking news: Advocacy group found advocating."
You keep using that word "deadline"
I do not think it means what you think it means. The Hill: "White House delays another Obamacare deadline."
This guy is running an Internet vote to name his daughter with predictable results. I voted for the middle name "Waitfor-it."
Three days into 2014, Miles took his Obamacare out for its maiden drive. His stop at the doctor went fine. At the pharmacy, it crashed.
His medication — which has cost us a co-pay of between $10 and $30 under every other plan he's had since 2004 including one under Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan — would not be covered. At all.
That's $438 out of pocket. Every month. And it won't even go against the plan deductible.
In other words, this nifty $246 Obamacare plan would actually cost $686 a month.
The author spends a few heartbreaking days calling Obamacare and insurance company hotlines trying to find out why his partner's medication was not covered, to no avail.
Sorry, pal, but they lied and they're going to keep on lying.
Extra - Medicaid stats are just made up.
Hot Air: "Report: No federal criminal charges expected in IRS targeting of tea-party groups." "The DOJ lawyer who's heading the investigation is an Obama donor and the FBI, after seven months of supposedly investigating this, only recently contacted tea-party groups targeted by the IRS. But other than that, everything here seems legit."
Investor's Business Daily: "How bad is Obama's jobs record? Let's count the ways."
According to the just released Occupation Outlook Quarterly (OOQ) looking at the period from 2012 to 2022 released by the BLS, in the future the US will be in a significant need of jobs, which is good for all those worried that the economy is grinding to a halt, or those demoralized from not having a job for months on end and unsure if this will ever change.
The bad news is that as in the case of today, the vast majority of future jobs will pay absolutely miserable salaries.
Temp jobs for everybody. I was checking this Forbes list of the top startups in 2013 and they're nearly all tech startups to do fun things on your smartphone like Snapchat and Tinder. In short, we're amusing ourselves to death - and unemployment - on Candy Crush. Instead of big factories full of workers, we have a bunch of kids coding out of a Silicon Valley loft.
Extra - 92 million Americans are checking out.
Nature: "This is the first confirmed record of a freshwater fish preying on birds in flight, the team reports in the Journal of Fish Biology." I subscribe myself and can confirm this.
Despite the treasured right-wing talking points, it's increasingly clear that Obamacare is a success. Moreover, in places where Obamacare is not succeeding, it's also clear that the right wing is to blame.
Natch. This is the classic Obama pronoun shift: when things are a success, it's "I" but when they're a failure it's "we" then later "you" by which he means "Republicans who didn't clap for Tinkerbell."
The "9 million newly insured" has become the new mantra for the Democrats as demonstrated in Nancy Pelosi's churlish "don't call it Obamacare" press conference. It's complete nonsense. The 2.1 million is based on estimates of Americans who have chosen a plan but may or may not have paid for it; it's the "Amazon shopping cart" estimate. Also it doesn't account for the 4.7 million Americans who have lost the health insurance plans they liked but weren't allowed to keep. Some states have reported that the payment rate so far is only around 50% so there's a million people who are not actually and factually insured.
Which brings us back to our number above: 1.9 million total enrollees approved in October or November in states that actually expanded Medicaid. If we are correct in our assumptions above—that is, if 10 percent of these enrollees are due to the Obamacare expansion—then we have an actual estimate for Medicaid enrollment due directly to the ACA's expansion of Medicaid: 190,000.
That's a yawning chasm from 4 million but - as Rachel Maddow shows us - reality is what we choose it to be.
Finally, there's the "Pajama Boy" demographic of hot cocoa, warm government, and delayed maturity.
This brainfart of a "law" was worth the economic disruption and Constitutional crisis to extend coverage to a sliver of Americans who will probably never see a doctor anyway.
Can this possibly be true, after all this time?
It found that eight in 10 uninsured adults were unaware of the need to sign up for insurance by March to avoid a fine, under the so-called individual mandate.
Eighty percent! But wait, there's more: for the uninsured giving a reason why they didn't buy a health plan, more cited the cost than "technical problems." The #1 response was "weighing options" which I'm going to interpret as "hoping the cost will go down." Maybe that's why nobody refers to it as the "Affordable Care Act."
The College Fix: "Under Obama, Youth Misery Index hits all-time high." Mostly due (in this measure) to rising debt which will be paid off by future generations. Throw into the mix rising health care costs due to the wealth transfer scheme of adjusted community rating. And you might as well forget about Social Security.
A couple of thoughts on Chris Christie's apology today. First, I always think it's a cop-out when an executive says "hey, man, I didn't know what was goin' on." It's not like you're writing a book or digging a ditch or something: your job is to govern and control the staff that helps advance your agenda. You didn't know this was going on? That doesn't evince control.
Let's assume you didn't know, big guy. I get the feeling there was a little bit of "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest" going in in Trenton. Christie throws a lot of sharp elbows - his staff followed his lead.
Finally, because leaders of large organizations cannot do everything, it's critical to use judgement to pick the best people. These were not and it doesn't show executive-level acumen.
Politico: "Obamacare ads to hit the Olympic slopes." That's right: HHS is spending taxpayer money on commercials to run during the Winter Olympics.
The agency declined to specify the size of the ad buy.
No word on the images that might be used along with the usual messaging, although high-injury events such as the giant slalom or snowboarding offer immediate visuals to underscore the risk of going without health insurance.
Newsweek: "The fall of France"
For those that remain, things are turning desperate: "Angry French union workers take two bosses hostage" at a Goodyear plant.
In completely unrelated news, people are leaving California for some reason.
In case you missed it, the incoming mayor of New York had 11-year-old Dasani Coates join him on stage during his inauguration, as a potent symbol of the institutionalized inequality that led to the girl's homelessness.
It's worth reading this piece by Kay Hymowitz in City Journal: "Did inequality make Dasani homeless?" Or could it be - just spitballing here - her unemployable parents who spend their days zonked out on methadone? Oh but there I go again with my bend towards parental responsibility and "the politics of blame."
In any case: your move, Mayor. I fully expect after your many reforms take place that those "piles of unwashed clothes" will be clean and Downy-fresh. I'll check back later.
Vince Gilligan has one regret about "Breaking Bad"
Jesse didn't have "meth mouth."
Atlantic: "This guy has a months-long Facebook Conversation With an Applebee's." Geez, get a room, you two.
I can't believe I used to subscribe to this magazine back when, you know, it wrote about music. Some dummy at Rolling Stone has posted "5 economic reforms millennials should be fighting for" which reads like Karl Marx as written by Groucho Marx. Twitchy has already taken aim but for real comedy, read the comments under the article. Even the millennials aren't buying it.
I'm just going to leave this right here for Jesse.
Peter Suderman writes: "No, Obamacare won't reduce emergency room usage". In fact, expanding Medicaid is going to make the most expensive form of primary care more of a burden to hospitals.
But the best evidence has never really supported the hope that the law would reduce emergency room usage. That's because much of the law's expanded coverage comes via Medicaid, the jointly run federal-state program for the low income and disabled. And Medicaid beneficiaries tend to visit the emergency room more often than the uninsured.
A new study of Medicaid beneficiaries in Oregon makes a strong version of this case. The study, published today in the journal Science, finds that adult Medicaid beneficiaries rely on emergency rooms about 40 percent more than similar uninsured adults.
Gosh, if only there was an independent press pointing out similar results in Massachusetts under Romneycare before plunging headlong into this mess.
Extra - From Ace: "Is there a single claim about this program that wasn't a "wrong promise"?"
More - Samefacts: "This talking point was never properly evidence-based or even particularly plausible given prior research." We'll throw that in with "if you like your health plan you can keep it" pile.
Addendum - Or maybe ER visits went down in Massachusetts.
Everybody's home from work/school today: "Massive winter storm wallops Northeast, dumps 22 inches of snow in Massachusetts." That's the count out near Boston. Here in Western Massachusetts it's looks like maybe eight inches of fluffy (easy to shovel) snow.
Finally, there's a backlash against outrageous NFL prices: "NFL should be alarmed that three of four playoff games, including Green Bay's home game, still not sold out."
A quick glance at Ticketmaster on Wednesday afternoon showed the face-value prices for the Packers playoff game ranged from $313 and $102, not counting Ticketmaster fees. If you've attended a NFL game, you know that the cost doesn't end with tickets. Parking is outrageously and insultingly high at most NFL games. Concessions aren't cheap either. NFL teams have gouged and gouged and gouged, and maybe there's a breaking point.
I haven't been to a game in years but my sister still goes to Jets games at Metlife Stadium and she told me that parking requires some kind of permit that runs into the hundreds of dollars - extra if you want to show up early and tailgate. Beers inside the stadium are $12. Twelve dollars!
NASCAR allows spectators to bring in their own drinks but that still hasn't stemmed the tide, which is obvious from all the empty seats in the stands during races.
Here in Western Massachusetts, the story of the year - by far - is the Boston Marathon bombing. This was weird for me because the only vacation I took last year coincided with the Massachusetts school vacation so we would sightsee during the day then watch the news at night. Here's hoping that 2014 will bring solace to everybody.
Big Government: "White House: Seven million Obamacare enrollments 'was never our target.'" And, of course, "enrollments" is whatever phony-baloney definition they decide: "However, even the administration's two million figure is inflated; half of the people who have applied for Obamacare in 17 states have yet to activate their plans by making their first payment, reports the Wall Street Journal."


text:
Why former baseball commissioner Bud Selig dropped f-bomb at the White House
Selig recounts an exchange with Al Gore in his book, "For the Good of the Game"
Sruthi Palaniappan
Bud Selig on the Best Baseball Team in HistoryThe MLB commissioner emeritus goes through our Lightning Round with ABC's Jonathan Karl.Alex Trautwig/MLB via Getty Images, FILE
Bud Selig presided over Major League Baseball as commissioner for 22 years -- a tenure that included a canceled World Series, the steroids era, its aftermath, a dramatic expansion of the league and of the economics of the game.
In all that time, Selig, who admits to frequently using expletives, said he only once dropped an F-bomb on a sitting vice president. He recounted getting into heated discussion with then-Vice President Al Gore in his new book, "For the Good of the Game," after he felt that Gore was taking the players' union's side during a tense meeting at the White House.
"I know I can on occasion drop a lot of F-bombs and do a lot of other things," Selig told ABC Political Director Rick Klein on the "Powerhouse Politics" podcast, in a special edition recorded the week of the MLB All-Star Game. "It was pretty wild because you know it was the future of the game. We worked our way around it -- went through a lot of torture though."
(MORE: Bud Selig: 'Maybe I should have said more' about steroids)
The players' strike that sparked that exchange resulted in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and extended into the 1995 season. But there hasn't been another work stoppage in baseball in the quarter century since, prompting Selig to view that as a step necessary to help fuel the game's growth over the next generation.
"Sometimes you have to go through some agony to get to where you want to get," he said. "Losing the '94 World Series was absolutely heartbreaking. But the system was broken. The clubs wanted a [salary] cap. Every other sport had a cap. We have worked our way around it to this day without one, but I guess I think future historians will really view that as something you had to go through to get to where we wanted to go."
In this file photo, Al Gore speaks at Afternoon of Conversation during the 2014 Aspen Ideas Festival at the Aspen Institute on June 30, 2014, in Aspen, Colorado.
In this file photo, Al Gore speaks at Afternoon of Conversation during the 2014 Aspen Ideas Festival at the Aspen Institute on June 30, 2014, in Aspen, Colorado.Leigh Vogel/Getty Images, FILE
(MORE: Baseball great Cal Ripken shares his advice with Bryce Harper: Powerhouse Politics)
Selig said that working with politicians, whom he frequently encountered as the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and later as commissioner, was a "mixed bag."
He fondly recalled working with former President George W. Bush, once an owner of the Texas Rangers, in the aftermath of 9/11. All baseball games were canceled the week after the terrorist attacks, and during the World Series that followed, Bush threw out the first pitch at Game 1 at Yankee Stadium. Selig called this moment where political leadership came together as "one of the great moments to me in American history" and said he has "high regard" for the former president.
In this file photo, former President George W. Bush walks out onto the field prior to Game 5 of the 2017 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park, October 29, 2017 in Houston.
In this file photo, former President George W. Bush walks out onto the field prior to Game 5 of the 2017 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park, October 29, 2017 in Houston.Alex Trautwig/MLB via Getty Images, FILE
On the other hand, he did not mince words describing his working relationship with former Gov. Tommy Thompson, R-Wis., with whom he sparred with on funding for a publicly financed stadium for the Brewers.
(MORE: Bud Selig: Retirement '100 percent')
When asked a hypothetical question about what Selig would change about baseball if he could, he responded saying "ways to speed the game up."
"Games have taken longer. They play it differently today. Relief pitchers are used from the fifth and sixth inning on now," Selig added.
In this file photo, Bud Selig speaks to the crowd during a ceremony honoring the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers team before the game against the Philadelphia Phillies on July 15, 2017, in Milwaukee.
In this file photo, Bud Selig speaks to the crowd during a ceremony honoring the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers team before the game against the Philadelphia Phillies on July 15, 2017, in Milwaukee.Dylan Buell/Getty Images, FILE
The role of commissioner of baseball can be a lonely job, Selig said, but he added that he "was pretty close to a lot of owners" whether or not they agreed.
One individual Selig mentioned was the late George Steinbrenner, who owned the New York Yankees.
"We never agreed on much of anything. After all, he ran the Yankees, and I was running the Brewers then of course," Selig said. "But yet, we were very close friends."
Powerhouse Politics podcast is a weekly program that posts every Wednesday, and includes headliner interviews and in-depth looks at the people and events shaping U.S. politics. Powerhouse Politics podcast is hosted by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl and ABC News Political Director Rick Klein.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Robyn Flans
Special to The Star
Many of the classrooms at Simi Valley's Big Springs School correspond with troops overseas, but few of the students ever get to actually meet the person they wrote to over the course of the school year.
So it was a treat for 22 students who are now in third grade to meet Black Hawk helicopter pilot Kyle Brantner on Friday.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Brantner is the son-in-law of second-grade teacher Patsy Miller, and she invited the 33-year-old California Army National Guardsman to her school to meet the students who'd sent him letters during the last school year.
While Brantner was deployed to Iraq, the students wrote to him between November of 2015 and May of this year. On Friday, they got to see him in his uniform and try on his helmet and his aviation life support equipment vest.
Brantner first told the students that it took him awhile to accomplish his dream of becoming a helicopter pilot. He got his master's degree, became a police officer and still felt the need to serve his country. In 2013, he became qualified to fly the UH-60 Black Hawk.
"I feel like I've been given so much and I have to give back to our country," Brantner said.
He showed them his equipment and explained that his bulletproof vest has pouches for tools such as a knife and a communications radio in case pilots find themselves stranded on the ground. His helmet has clear and shaded visors, plus night vision goggles.
Brantner detailed his day-to-day life in Iraq, explaining that he went on night missions, so he slept until 1 p.m. and stayed awake until 5 a.m. He'd eat when he woke up, then study his upcoming mission. He'd meet with the crew, then they'd go to the helicopter and head out. When they returned, he'd eat again, then head to the gym at 2 in the morning.
At first, Miller said, the students wrote letters to Brantner, but soon realized the mail was taking a long time to reach Iraq. They decided email would be more expedient, and they began composing class emails.
Kayla Carroll, 8, said Friday she was worried that Brantner would be injured and was relieved to see he hadn't been. She enjoyed seeing the coin that Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter gave Brantner after he flew him around Iraq.
Chloe Sigler, 8, tried on Brantner's gear and said the helmet was tight and the vest was heavy. She liked the fact that Brantner wrote back to the classroom, knowing he had a lot of important things to do.
"He was someone who served our country and put his life in grave danger," Chloe said. "I was super excited when our teacher said we were going to meet him."
Brantner said he shared the students' letters with the other soldiers.
"The kids would ask if I was scared, and I would say yes, it can be scary at times, but I had a sense of duty to the people I was there with," Brantner said. "I always tried to stay positive though, and I would end it with, 'You can do anything you want to do in life, but it takes hard work.'"
Which is what he told the kids in person.
"Don't listen to people when they say, 'Naw, you can't do that.'" Brantner said. "You can do anything you want. That's one of the great things about living in the United States. You have the freedom to do anything you want to do."


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Bill Proposed To Extend School Hours Into Early Evening
Jetta Productions
Working parents with young children may soon have an option other than day care for their kids. The proposed Family Friendly Schools Act aims to keep some schools open until 6 p.m. on school days so that kids have a safe and mentally stimulating option for after school activities while parents are still at work. When I first read about this story, the comments showed a real problem with how we react to stories online. The majority of the comments on the CBS 2 Boise Facebook post were clearly from people who had only read the article title and figured that contained all the info they needed. These adults were angry that politicians would want to force our kids to stay at school even longer than they already do. But, that isn't what this act is trying to do.
With a Facebook article title saying they want to 'extend the school day' I can see the confusion to those not willing to read the story. But, the bill actually only wants to have some schools stay open later as an option for kids to stay in a safe and educational environment with adult supervision while parents are at work. This would also benefit working parents who struggle to find babysitters or an affordable child watch center. The FFSA would align school schedules with the average adult work schedule. The initial plan is for this act to be established in 500 low-income areas and use the success or failure as a model for future areas. According to the government website, the program would:
Collaborate with community partners to develop high-quality, culturally relevant, linguistically accessible, developmentally appropriate academic, athletic, or enrichment opportunities for students from at least 8 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday throughout the school year, with no closures except for Federal holidays, weekends, and emergencies
Family Friendly Schools Act would also make schools be open during the summer when it is especially hard on working parents during work hours. Also worth noting is that the bill would not require teachers to stay at school longer but the extra hours would be used for extracurricular activities for the kids. Is this something we need in Idaho or you would like to see implemented?
Categories: Back to School, Idaho News


text:
César Miguel Rondón
También Sucede
El espacio de mis amigos
Desde el exterior
Navegando por mi música
Sorpresas de mi música
Micros de la Salsa
Sobre CMR
Libros de CMR
Designated Bad Guys: The New Portrayal of Venezuela in Fiction – Victor Drax
Por Michelle Rodríguez 12 octubre, 2019 12 octubre, 2019 0
Cortesía:
Publicado en: Caracas Chronicles
Por: Victor Drax
Cortesía: Sofia Jaimes Borges
I was wasting time the other day on Twitter when a headline caught my attention: "Did Not Know It Was Possible for a Show to Be This Stupid." Clickbait aside, what drew me in was the picture, John Krasinski as Jack Ryan, the protagonist of Amazon's eponymous show inspired by Tom Clancy's thrillers, entering now its second season set in a nuclear-threatening Venezuela.
Let me go at it again: Jack Ryan is fighting a Venezuela that threatens the world with nuclear weapons. It's preposterous, absolutely outside the realm of possibility, and it looks like a hell of a nice time, you bet I'll be watching. And I won't be alone.
Because no one here, in Venezuela, takes that premise seriously. I mean, sure, chavista figureheads shout the predictable speech on how this is the way the Empire prepares the planet for their invasion, but normal folks on the street like you or me see this the same way you'd see another action movie, with the added bonus that this one is set in our backyard. It's as realistic as a fairy tale, and another window for you to peek in and get away from this exhausting reality.
But after going deeper into the article (the author basically says that the Maduro administration is more of a threat to itself than it can possibly be against the rest of the planet, which is a fair assessment), I realized that, holy crap, we're in fashion. We're the designated bad guys now.
You remember in the 90s, when every drug dealer on TV was Colombian? Well, now every guerrilla-terrorist prick in modern fiction has ties to this country of ours, and its "revolution." Back in the day, Venezuela was nonexistent in popular fiction —I think Jaws 3 happens in Venezuela, and James Bond visits us at the start of Goldfinger (the book, not the movie)—now we have more of a presence, but save for some notorious examples, like Pixar's Up, it's all antagonistic.
The first time I noticed it wasn't even with movies. I was in college and all my friends were all excited because a new video game was coming out, "and it's set in Venezuela," as a fantasy version of the country, not an accurate recreation of our streets. The game, Mercenaries 2, was archetypical in what would be this new wave of our popularity: A strongman builds connections with mercenaries to throw a coup and get control of the nation. He then betrays the aforementioned gunmen, gets really popular with the people and now rules a once great nation turned full-blown banana republic. Players go in, explosions ensue.
The game itself is nothing to write home about, and chavismo reacted the same way they're reacting now. In 2013, another videogame had Venezuela as a guest-star, this time from a digital powerhouse: Call of Duty: Ghosts has the U.S. break down and threatened by the rise of the third world. The good old boys must defeat the evil Federation, and one of the Federation's leaders is a certain Diego Almagro (that's really his name), ruling from that lawless land that is Caracas. If you take this basic plot, change the main characters for Rambo and my compatriots for Iranian terrorists, you have an 80's action movie. Same archetype.
Other portrayals are more sophisticated in their approach. Showtime's Homeland had its main character, Brody, hurt and taken to the infamous Tower of David, also in 2013. For context, the Tower of David is our version of the Kowloon Walled City, a place built with huge architectonic ambitions that fell short and was now inhabited by all sorts of squatters. Unlike the examples from Mercenaries and CoD, this looked more like us and it took to the forefront one of the major symbols of our social decay. The Tower, decommissioned by chavismo in 2014 (perhaps because of the attention it was getting in the media), stood back then as a monument to anarchy, one of the places in Caracas that you wanted to avoid, and the depiction from Homeland is accurate. It was interesting to see our reality on a major American show but, watching it, you had to squint a bit. It was like a neighbor airing your dirty laundry. It was all true, and truth hurts.
There's a Chuck Norris movie, Invasion U.S.A., where a nice peaceful American town is invaded by evil Russians. When you're consuming this, you don't think much about it, but when it's about your people, you wonder what type of influence this can have, particularly when there's so many of us trying to gain a foothold in foreign lands. I doubt the guys at Immigration in Spain or in Arizona are going to give you an attitude if you show up with all your papers okay, but your potential landlord? I once met a guy in Jacksonville who asked me where I was from. When I said "Caracas," he asked "Where is that?"
I had never met anyone so utterly ignorant about Venezuela, and as much as it hurts our little patriotic ego, that's the unequivocal reality: There are people out there who have never heard about us and their contact with our culture comes only from the media.
Venezuela is featured in True Detective's second season—I imagine the set they used is called "Whatever City, Latin America" —, and House of Card's Doug Samper travelled to Caracas and Puerto La Cruz to find a hacker with valuable intel for Frank Underwood, because if Venezuelans aren't the villains themselves, then the land is portrayed as this lawless spot on Earth where people go to when they don't want to be found.
Maybe the most accurate depiction of modern Venezuela comes from that time when Leslie Knope (portrayed by the delightful Amy Poehler) receives a delegation from the fictional Boraqua, Venezuela, for a little cultural exchange, on the second season of NBC's Parks and Recreation. If you had any experience with 2009's Venezuelan bureaucrats, this thing might as well be a documentary: The Venezuelan delegates, led by the Executive Vice-Director of the Parks Department's Deputy, are raging, insufferable douches. Spoiled by too much power and money, they treat the rest of the world as second-class, hand out huge tips in cash, and are generally confused about the workings of democracy. When a photo opportunity comes later in the episode, the Execute Vice-Director of so-and-so asks Leslie to shout "Viva Chávez" in exchange for the funds to build a new park. The true star of the episode is SNL's veteran Fred Armisen, who makes a perfect portrayal of chavista contempt against… anyone who's not them.
But my favorite fictional Venezuelan out there is Sofia Mantega, better known as Wind Dancer and Renascence, in Marvel's comic book New Mutants. A born and raised caraqueña, she had to move to the US with her dad after her mom is killed in a demonstration. The girl must now learn English on the run, struggle with a parent she doesn't know and, after losing her powers (a metaphor for losing everything you hold dear), she must find a job to make ends meet, a Green Card and a new surrogate family in her fellow mutants. The Venezuelan experience to a T, Sofía is one of us and an honest drawing of what we've become.
The spotlight is on us more than it has ever been, and it isn't always in the best of lights. As a Venezuelan, this exposition is what's for dinner, this is how modern media works and there's no point in getting worked up about it. Just as it happened to our Colombian brothers (who arguably broke out of the stereotype as their nation's condition improved), we're bound to rebuild our reputation by using the same trait that makes Sofía strong, resilience. In the meantime, we'll sit back and enjoy the show. Because there's not much we can do about it anyway.
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2021: entre la esperanza y el cinismo – Andrés Hoyos
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¿Es Trump responsable de incitar a la violencia?
El asedio autoritario – Mibelis Acevedo Donís
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Africa Vera
Brian MacGarry
Gesuita dello Zimbabwe
The Comoro Islands
I got a letter from one of the Mother Teresa Sisters who used to work here in Harare. She is now in the Comoro islands, where the contrast with life here emphasises the diversity of Africa.
The Comoros are a group of four inhabited islands, with a few outlying rocks and reefs, in the Mozambique channel, between the African mainland and Madagascar. They were a French colony and came late to independence because France wanted to keep a military base in that part of the Indian Ocean.
When the islands did get independence, one, Mayotte (Maore in the local language), chose to remain French and is now the 101st /departement/ of France. This is cheaper for the French as they only need to raise this one of the four islands to near the economic level of metropolitan France in order to keep their base on the island.
Mayotte is in the process of changing its laws and governance system from traditional Islamic to secular French. The other three islands remain a poor and isolated Islamic state, so poor that there are no passenger ships between the islands. People wanting to travel from one island to another must fly, which rather restricts the nunbers able to make such a trip. Propagating other religions than Islam is forbidden.
France's relations with its former colonies around the world is an issue that needs expanding in another blog.


Building a dog house yourself can save you money while keeping your dogs (or cats and other critters you want to protect) out of the weather.
However, if you're short on time, it may be just as effective to buy one.
Whether you build a dog house, or buy one, there are many opportunities for adding your own creative touch - you can make it as plain or fancy as you like!
Preparation includes measuring your dog and finding a suitable space to put the dog house.
Reading up or watching videos on how to build a dog house before you begin is likely to result in a more satisfactory product.
If you don't know where to start, see below for some of the good plans available.
We've tried to organize them so you can quickly compare which one(s) may work for you.
Here are some ideas regarding insulating a dog house.
In an unshaded yard, your dog may appreciate a covered porch attached to his or her dog house.
A dog house is set up off the ground to keep the bottom dry and keep crawly critters and dirt out.
You may wish to cover the floor of the dog house to make it more comfortable for your dog. An old quilt, foam pad covered with vinyl, rubber matting from a car salvage yard, old carpet, or straw are some possibilities.
A ramp can be added if your dog is older and cannot climb steps anymore.


I'm wondering if with all the new focus on Legacies whether the Guild Mail will have an optional functionality to send a message only to the designated Mains of each Legacy (or to all characters from a Legacy which has no Main selected).
That little star could really benefit from some 'proper' functionality in all this.
That's an interesting idea! Not sure it would see much use though. I mean, even considering that I myself wouldn't want to receive twenty copies of the same mail, I'd probably still send it to every character when given the choice, simply because too many people haven't even bothered to designate a main and would then be left out.
You haven't missed much by not doing all companion return missions. It can be a little disappointing waiting for your favorite wife/husband/friend to find their way back to you... through a simple and often silly 3-4 minutes long static conversation scene.
Well, I already got that disappointment out of the way with the missions I did do; I know not to expect too much now. Also, most of my characters haven't married anyone, so expectations for a merely friendly reunion aren't that high anyway. I just want to see them all come back (and merely watching a video on YouTube isn't the same).
Interesting stuff. I've been wondering about how much they can do given that most of Bioware is working on Anthem, but I suppose that Anthem must be coming along pretty well if Bioware is committing enough dev resources to SWTOR to handle all of this stuff.


> of my e-mails about text/xml and application/xml.
> the root element type) sounds very interesting.
be a 'standalone' URI in the same fashion of the namespace URI.
appropriate, in other cases a uuid.
appropriate, and would easily fit into RFC 2376.


The way I've been looking at offence recently is to break it into three elements; Movement, Structure, and Technique.
This decision tree is a guideline for how to sustain and generate movement of the disc. The left side pertains to movement of the disc, and the right side is more focused on players who are off-disc.
If you have the disc in your hands then you have three questions; Is someone open in front of you?, Is the previous thrower open?, and Can you continue the path of the disc? If the answer is Yes to any of these three questions then you take the open pass, and look for the return pass, before returning to the start of the decision tree. If the return pass is successful then you enter a loop on the top left of the tree, which is where give-go / dribbling moves thrive.
If the answer to any of the three 'open' questions is Maybe, then you fake. The answer could be 'maybe' because you're not confident with the distance or type of throw the option is asking of you, or because the defender is half-covering the throw, or for any reason you're not happy with the option – in this case, fake, and return to asking "Is someone open in front of you?" – which may be the player you just faked an option to.
In some situations it's better to look to continue the path of the disc before looking back to the previous thrower. Looking back to previous thrower lends itself to a more dribbling-style of Hex, but looking first to continue the path of the disc fits in quite nicely with techniques players have learnt from conventional offences.
If all then 'open' answers are 'No', then you should face the centre of the space. In Hex, this means you face where the Hat position is (the central player), and you should have all your team mates within your field of view. At this point you return to asking yourself if anyone is open in front of you.
Let's say you go for the return pass and don't get the disc back into your hands. The first question to ask yourself is 'Am I in good hex shape?'. The details about hex shape / structure are defined in another video, but if you decide you are not in good hex shape then you should reposition – with urgency. Repositioning moves are like cuts, and simply repositioning may well provide the thrower with a viable passing option.
If you are in good hex shape, ask yourself if you are open. If you are, communicate with the thrower by gesticulation or vocalisation, to let the thrower know you are a potential option for them to hit or fake to.
If you aren't open, see if the thrower is looking at you. If they are, you should try to generate an option for them to either hit or fake to – by moving, or by gesticulating towards space. This will create further options for your team mates.
If you're in good hex shape, not open, and the thrower is not looking at you, then you should see whether you can create useful space for a team mate. This means looking around to take note of your team mates positions and their defenders relative positions, and working out whether you moving in any direction could create a space, or occupy another defender, which would be useful for your team mate. If you can, then you should generate this option.
If none of these things are the case, then you should chill – don't stress or feel pressure to create an option, because if everyone on your team is going through the same decision process then the thrower will be faking to half-options, looking at players to generate options, and so on, and the options will come. Continue monitoring the situation to see if you can create useful space for a team mate, to make sure you're in good hex shape (as a team), and to see if you're free or if the thrower is looking at you, but aim to become comfortable being in the position of sustaining offensive possession as a team.


We're The Design Hive, a creative graphic design, branding and website design company, based in Highbridge, Somerset and founded in 2005.
We create great – brands, logos, printed collateral, websites and everything in between. Visit our website thedesignhive.co.uk to discover our full range of services.
We'll explore your business to understand what makes you tick, by discovering, defining, designing and delivering. On budget. On time.
If you're looking for creative ideas that inspires action and design that just won't let you look away, then you've come to the right place. Our focus is to create memorable communications that will enable your business to stand out and help turn your ideas into successful end products.
Whether you require branding, logo design, business stationery, brochures, flyers, signage or website design, we can help. Great design gets you noticed, great design sells, great design lets your customers make conscious decisions about your products and services.
The Design Hive is perfectly situated inside a company called Quicksign, which means ours clients can fulfil all their branding, design and signage requirements all in one place.
The studio is led by Melanie Downing and made up of handpicked creatives and web developers to provide our clients with a full range of design services. Our team is driven and passionate about creating perfection no matter how small or large your project. Whether you have a quick ten minute job or a project requiring a range of skills, we are happy to help. Building strong brands and applying this brand throughout your print design material is what we do best. We are inspired and motivated by seeing a clients face light up with pride when they view their new design concept for the first time.
The Design Hive is situated inside a company called Quicksign in Highbridge, which is opposite a company called CRS.


The resort boasts reef-ringed sandy shores, coconut palms lean towards the inviting blue of its lagoon; palm-thatched roofs of hidden Villas peep from lush foliage. Whether by the beach or overwater, gracious sandstone and timber Villas welcome guests with tranquil refinement - stress melts, bliss results, as the spirit of Baros gradually seduces the senses.
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The Police Every Breath You Take Download
Backstreet Boys I Want It That Way Download
Sir Rod Stewart on North Norfolk Radio
This Sunday at 6pm, Steve Priestley will be in conversation with Sir Rod Stewart.
Stewart is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 100 million records worldwide. He has had six consecutive number one albums in the UK and his tally of 62 UK hit singles includes 31 that reached the top ten, six of which gained the number 1 position.
In this one hour special, Rod will be revealing all about his incredible life in music and we'll play all his number one songs and his number one song as voted for by you.


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Joker; One Year Later
Published on October 4, 2020 by Sam Stashower
Joaquin Phoenix as Joker in Joker. Image provided by Uproxx
By Sam Stashower '22
Alright, so, Joker. Bit of a throwback, right? It only came out a year ago, but what even is a year ago in these quarantine times? Feels like at least a decade's come and gone since Todd Phillips' Oscar-winning comic book film graced our cinema screens (it also feels like at least a decade since any movie graced our cinema screens, but that's neither here nor there). Remember when Joker was a thing? Remember when it was the thing? There are few benefits to the 2020 pandemic — okay, there are no "real" benefits, but bear with me — but one thing you can say is that all the shit we're going through right now really puts the nonsense of last year in perspective. Or maybe not; I'm really grasping for good things here.
It seems almost quaint, given our present circumstances, to look back at 2019 and remember how, for what seemed like a significant amount of time, just about everyone on the interwebz were super up in arms about this comic book movie where a clown went around, laughing and killing people (occasionally at the same time). But it's actually true; ridiculous as it may seem with the benefit of distance, there was a legit energy surrounding this film when it came out. This film, against all odds, seemed to premiere at just the right time to completely encapsulate the tenor of the nation.
Whether you came down on the side of it being "good, actually" or "bad, actually" The legacy of Joker isn't so much about how it was as a movie than about how it was received. Which, I mean, there was precedent for that. Even before the movie came out, it was more interesting and exciting as a conceptual thing than as an actual movie we'd maybe get to watch. Tracking this movie from inception to completion was a fucking trip, let me tell you. Cast your mind back to 2017, in the blissfully innocent days where the DCEU —- DC Comics' answer to the recent MCU success —- hadn't been totally consumed by the release of a new cut of a movie that had already come out. It was actually quite the contrary; the recent success of Wonder Woman had apparently convinced the higher-ups at DC to de-emphasize the "extended universe" side of their film output, and start focusing on smaller, more interesting projects. That's how we got Shazam! and Aquaman, two very solid DCEU movies with nary a mention of the "extended universe" stuff between them.
But that's getting ahead of ourselves. I'm specifically remembering when, in August of that year, we got this announcement: that Warner Bros. and DC Films were developing a standalone Joker film —- completely separate from the Jared Leto incarnation, who at that time was also getting a solo film, I think? —- with Hangover mastermind Todd Phillips directing the thing, and co-writing it with Scott Silver. Oh, and Martin Scorsese was attached as co-producer.
Just…re-read that for a second. Bask in the fittingly Joker-like insanity of it all. The director of The Hangover trilogy was going to helm an apparently super-serious take on the most famous villain in comic book history. He was going to write it with a man whose only previous foray into the superhero genre was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a movie best remembered for having Deadpool in it, except not really. And Martin Scorcesse —- THAT Martin Scorsese, who at the time had just released his religious epic Silence, and had never had anything to do with superheroes one way or another (boy howdy, would that change) —- was going to produce the thing with him.
I gotta be honest: for a while there, I kind of doubted that this thing would ever even come out. I remembered all those weird Spider-Man spinoffs Sony was desperately trying to get off the ground a while back —- remember the insane "Aunt May as a young, sexy spy" idea they were actually considering at one point? —- and just assumed the "Martin Scorsese-produced standalone Joker movie from the Hangover guy" (seriously, just look at that sentence) would go the way of those. Everything about this movie's pre-production fed into that idea; I seem to remember it looked like this would actually get made in tandem with that aforementioned solo Jared Leto Joker movie…which, Jesus, what an idea, huh? Whatever you may feel about this film, be thankful we dodged that fucking bullet.
Instead, as you know, the crazy bastards actually made it, and then at some point between them wrapping the shoot and the thing actually coming out, everyone on the internet I guess unanimously decided to get really invested in the film. And I gotta be honest; even now, one year later, I still don't get it. My response coming out of that opening weekend theater could be summed up as such: "Huh, so I guess it's Ghostbusters 2016 all over again."
Mind you, I don't mean in terms of quality. I didn't love Joker, and my opinion of it has only gone down in the months (and now year) following its release, but if nothing else, it's better than Ghostbusters 2016 (which somehow became "Answer The Call" when no one was looking). What I'm talking about is more the way the cultural conversation warped around them, turning them into these kind of barometer tests for where you stood, or what you stood for. Choosing to see – or not to see – these movies was suddenly a political act. And then the movies actually came out, and everything kind of fizzled out. My guess is that everyone who got real riled up online, who bought a ticket determined to have a "take" on these two culturally important movies, saw them in their opening weekend, and left the theaters with a general sense of embarrassment that they'd gotten so worked up over something so fundamentally milquetoast.
It's very well known by now, but it bears repeating: Todd Phillips is a huge Martin Scorsese fanboy, and Joker is packed to the brim with overt references to his films Taxi Driver and King of Comedy. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this; directors "borrow" from their predecessors all the damn time (Star Wars is a high-profile example of this paying off, and it could be argued that Quentin Tarantino has based his whole filmography on this very practice), and the fact of the matter is, if you're trying to get inspiration for your gritty, grimy psychological character study, as Phillips clearly was, you can't really do better than Taxi Driver and King of Comedy.
But there's a fine line between "homage" and "ripoff," and what I think happened here was that Phillips went for the former, and then stumbled headfirst into the latter. References to other movies are meant to enhance your experience of watching a new film; think of it as a fun little easter egg, a reward for paying attention. Again, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, provided you can find a proper balance between referencing other things and finding your own voice. And for the life of me, I never got the sense that Joker ever found its own voice.
Let me try to give an example of the difference. Y'all remember Event Horizon? If not, this is the month for it; it's a really fun little cult horror movie about astronauts in space. It's super camp, super gory, and very Halloween. It's also a movie that, within the first couple of minutes, seems to go out of its way to remind you of another, much more famous, and generally regarded as "better" movie. Right away while watching the film, you almost can't help but notice parallels between Event Horizon and the Ridley Scott masterpiece Alien. The spaceships they're on have almost identical aesthetics to the Nostromo and the planet LV-428, the way the working-class crewmembers banter with each other is very similar; hell, there are a handful of shot setups in Event Horizon that are just straight-up lifted from Alien.
And yet, I would never call Event Horizon an Alien ripoff, for one fairly significant reason; it's a completely different movie experience. Event Horizon is a gonzo, campy bloodbath, a movie more akin to a haunted house ride than something that's actually trying to scare you, whereas Alien is almost painfully protracted and suspenseful. Event Horizon borrows the aesthetics (and a lot of the setup) from Alien, but it uses those aesthetics as a springboard to tell its own story.
Joker, as mentioned, also borrows a lot from Taxi Driver and King of Comedy. The plot of Joker is basically just those two movies put in a blender, with a clown slapped on; it's a movie about a mentally ill loner, slowly being driven mad by isolation and social degradation (Taxi Driver), who also aspires to be a stand-up comic, but keeps getting rebuffed, which doesn't help much with his deteriorating mental state (King of Comedy). And I want to repeat: there's nothing inherently wrong with this approach. Honestly, if you'd put me in charge of the "Joker origin story project," I'd probably come up with something similar. Telling the Joker's origin by way of a Scorsese riff is a legit inspired idea.
The problem is, Joker doesn't use the aesthetics of those other, classic movies, as a way to spin off into its own thing; it re-appropriates them basically in service of the same kind of experience. Both Taxi Driver and King of Comedy tackled pressing social issues (albeit different ones, and in different ways) in a way that was aggressively un-sensationalized and down-to-earth. They featured characters that were mentally ill, and presented a world as seen through their eyes. That's…I mean, that's basically Joker, to a T.
And if that were the end of it? Alright. But when watching Joker, I couldn't ever really shake the feeling that Todd Phillips, in spite of his obvious love of those Scorsese classics, and especially in spite of his obvious (and, given where his career had gone with those Hangover sequels, surprising) technical skills, didn't really get the point of what he was doing.
I want to emphasize something, before we really get into this; Joker is an exceptionally well-made movie. It won the Oscar for Best Original Score and was nominated for cinematography, and the fact of the matter is, it deserved both (not to denigrate the other nominees in each category; I'm just saying that both nominations were very deserving). It has a terrifically expressive visual palette, managing to evoke a nonspecific era of the past without ever lathering it on too thick. And the music to the film is simply magnificent; the same year that Joker came out, Hildur Guðnadóttir also lent her talents to the HBO show Chernobyl. Now, the score for Joker only has a tenth of the power that the Chernobyl score had, but in all honesty, that's all it needed.
So it looks great, sounds great, and the acting, as I'm sure you all know, is excellent across the board. The problem, then, is intention and depth. What makes Taxi Driver and King of Comedy such enduring masterpieces, to the point where they're still widely seen and discussed to this day, isn't their technical skills, or the acting, or any of that. That helps, no question, but what really gives those movies their power is their themes and the power of the story they're really telling.
Taxi Driver and King of Comedy are movies where the main characters are mentally ill, and prone to extreme violence. The films are told from their point of view, and at several points, we're invited to feel pity for them. But —- crucially —- we're never on their side. At all times, Scorsese is careful to keep us at enough of an arm's length away from them so that, whenever they do something reprehensible, we have distance to recognize it as such.
Joker has no such distance, and for a lot of the movie, accidentally seems to revel in his acts of wanton murder and cruelty. It takes moments that should be chilling, or sobering, and accidentally repurposes them as badass or kewl. At the same time that Rupert Pupkin was sweatily kidnapping talk-show host Jerry Langford, Arthur Fleck was dancing down the stone steps like the awesome rebel the movie seems to think he is. The song's change – from "Rock and and Roll Part 2" to a more quietly bombastic, ominous track from Guðnadóttir – doesn't actually do much to alter the impression that we're watching someone formidable, and not pathetic, which is the understanding Scorsese had when making those movies.
That understanding is totally lacking from this movie, as evidenced by Todd Phillips' whole post-movie demeanor, which was frankly baffling. I'm not just talking about his now infamous answer as to why he was making a movie like this now: that "woke culture has killed comedy" quote, the kind of statement that'll give you a hemorrhage from eye-rolling too hard. No, I'm actually talking about his even more idiotic comparison to John Wick, where he openly questioned why audiences "hooted and hollered" to that character killing 300 people while his movie was held to scrutiny.
I'm just…wow, right? It's been a straight-up year, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around how someone could think those two things are equatable. An escapist fantasy about a guy who goes on a killing spree against the mob to avenge the death of his dog, vs. a movie that, in every single scene, goes out of its way to insist on its own importance, to the point of actively stealing its best bits from two of the most highly-regarded movies ever made.
He made that movie, and yet his whole demeanor after-the-fact screamed, "Why are you even asking these questions?" Dude, you made the film that way. The same goes for Phoenix, who made some waves when he just up and left an interview when asked if the Joker might incite violence. He came back later, claiming that he just needed to "compose himself" and "think about the answer," and I've got to ask: did any of these people ever stop to think about the kind of movie they were actually making?
I really don't think so. In the cold light of day, with a year removed since its release, Joker reads more and more like a movie made by a guy who wanted more than anything else to have that "serious movie" cred, so instead of actually sitting down and developing the point he wanted to make, he took two of his favorite movies, grabbed around for some hot-button social issues of the day, then threw everything at the wall, in order to see what stuck. Is Joker about mental illness? Yes! Is it about society? You bet! Is it about the media? Totally! Is it about class struggle? You'd better believe it! Does it have the focus or the narrative clarity to actually develop any of these ideas beyond the most basic surface-level texture?
…'cause the Scorsese movies did.
Sam Stashower
Unpregnant and Ammonite; living in the shadow of better movies
Rundown of every HBO/Cinema release planned for 2021
Knives Out and The Irishman; One Year Later
On the Rocks, and the pain of waiting for uncertain news
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Beautiful flowers grow all over the world. Nearly every country has distinctive flowers growing from their soil. Spain is no exception. The flowers that grow in Spain are quite gorgeous, unique and fitting to Spain's alluring culture. The flowers of Spain come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours.
The pomegranate flower is the national flower of Spain. The pomegranate plant is famous for its healthy, antioxidant-filled fruit, but its flower is quite lovely. Pomegranate flowers grow alone or in groups of two or three flowers at the end of branches. The petals are coloured orange, bright crimson or white. Each blossom has five to eight crumpled-looking petals. Pomegranate flowers self-pollinate as well as receive cross-pollination from insects.
Carnations have a round flower with several petals intricately weaving around each other. Carnations grow in every colour and in many places around the world. Every colour of carnation can be found in Spain, too, but Spain is most famous for its red carnations. Red carnations are used as a symbol of passionate love, and boyfriends give them to girlfriends to express this. Red carnations are also worn in women's hair in Spain sometimes.
Spanish bluebells are gorgeous flowers that are very popular in Spain. Their name is quite fitting of their description. Each individual flower is shaped like a tiny bell and hangs from its stem as a bell hangs. The "bells" are light violet with a bluish tint. About twelve "bells" hang from one sturdy stem. They start about halfway up the stem and finish at the tip of the stem.
Lantana plants are characterised by colourful ball-shaped flower clusters. Each individual flower grows in a vibrant red, orange, yellow, pink or white. The clusters consist of several individual flowers. The ball-shaped clusters may be all one colour or they may be multicoloured. Once the flowers wither, poisonous black berries grow in their place.
The Valencia is quite similar to a regular rose in appearance. Its petal arrangement and bush look like a regular rose. They are usually red, but they are sometimes pale orange or yellow. Like the red carnation, the Valencia rose is a symbol of love and is given as a gift to express love. The climate of Spain is excellent for the growth of the Valencia rose. Unfortunately for the Valencia rose, it is very prone to disease when it is grown.


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Egypt's media reacts to Erdogan's 'offensive' offensive
Abdallah Schleifer
Published: 03 September ,2013: 12:00 AM GST Updated: 20 May ,2020: 02:51 PM GST
It is easy to understand, but not agree with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's strongly worded criticism of the ouster of former Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi and why he said what he did. However, the Egyptian media, as well as the transitional government was furious.
Prime Minister Erdogan must go to sleep every night worrying about the Turkish Army, given its past propensity to staging coups after all, on two occasions a coup has taken place when the elected Turkish government challenged the army's militant secularism.
What's more, Erdogan must be concerned about ill-feeling towards him within the ranks of the officer corps after a Turkish court recently sentenced a number of generals to prison for plotting to stage a coup against his government.
However, the two countries political and military histories are not the same. Turkey's armed forces were moulded by Kamal Atatürk after World War I with the central institution committed to militant secularism.
Complete opposites
This is not the case with the Egyptian armed forces. Gamal Abdul Nasser's Free Officer coup d'état, that overthrew the monarchy, was in a tactical alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood during the first two years of the Revolution. When the alliance collapsed and Nasser denounced and repressed the MB, it did not move against traditional Islamic institutions.
Egyptian media cannot help but ask: what has happened to Erdogan?
Immediately after a humiliating defeat in the 1967 War with Israel, Nasser approved the addition of Islamic content in the army's morale building program. Nasser's successor, fellow Free Officer Anwar Sadat, described himself as "the Believer President" whose program was shaped "by science and faith."
Then Erdogan took it a step further by saying that Israel had instigated the July 3rd coup against Mursi. This was an insult, not just to the armed forces but to the many millions of Egyptians who have no love for Israel and turned out on June 30th to demand that Mursi step down. Indeed Tamarod, the extraordinary youth movement that stimulated the massive demonstrations with its grass roots appeal, accused Mursi of being an Israeli and an American puppet (which is as outlandish as Erdogon's counter-accusation).
But when Erdogan lashed out at Egypt's Sheikh al Azhar Ahmed al-Tayyeb he used even stronger language than the MB, which had tried to undermine the Grand Sheikh during Mursi's year in office in a veiled manner due to the stature of al-Azhar.
Speaking bluntly
However, Erdogan was brutally direct. Referring to the televised appearance of Sheikh Ahmed (along with the Coptic Patriarch and the leader of the most important Salifi party) alongside General al Sisi when he announced that Mursi had been deposed and his constitution suspended, he said he was devastated. "How can you (Sheikh al-Azhar) ever do it?" he asked. "That scholar (the Grand Sheikh) is finished! History will curse men like him."
The attack was particularly shocking, not least because al-Azhar is the leading institution of Sunni Islam, training future imams from everywhere in the world but also because Sheikh Ahmed has walked a narrow but moral path. He attempted to mediate between Mursi and his opposition months before the coup and, lending legitimacy both to the army and to the new transitional government that has replaced Mursi, yet he disowned the brutality with which the pro-Mursi sit ins were dispersed by the Egyptian security forces. However, he eventually called upon all parties, including the MB to enter into reconciliation talks which the MB refused unless Mursi was reinstated.
There is popular anger, echoed by dozens of political as well as religious leaders. It has been headlined by the Egyptian media which has published statements by the transitional President and the Prime Minister, by the Foreign Minister, Amb. Nabil Fahmy, by former Grand Mufti Sheikh Ali Gouma and the present Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam, by both the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Coptic Catholic Church as well as other Christian clergy. Al Azhar, describing itself as "indignant," denounced this "sacrilege" against the Imam.
Along with repeating, for the third time, that Israel was behind the coup against Mursi, Erodogan asked, in the same speech: "Can a coup be democratic?" without any reference to the authoritarian and violent sectarian direction employed by Mursi and the MB when they were leading the country.
European comparisons
Hitler finished off German democracy less than a year after his party won a free and fair election. However, there are many differences that separate the two men: Hitler was the absolute leader of his party, Mursi was not; Hitler was a brilliant public speaker, Mursi was not; attacks on Jewish houses of worship and Jewish-owned shops began as soon as Hitler assumed power, in Mursi's case Muslim Brotherhood attacks against the Copts began immediately after he lost power. Most importantly of all Hitler had the tolerant if not necessarily enthusiastic support on the path to dictatorship of his country's armed forces, Mursi did not.
It is difficult to remember now that several years ago Erdogan would insist that his party was not Islamist, that it resembled the German Christian Democrats, whose goal was not to create a Christian theocratic state, thereby implying that his model was not the Muslim Brotherhood.
Abdallah Schleifer is Professor Emeritus of Journalism at the American University in Cairo, where he founded and served as first director of the Kamal Adham Center for Television Journalism. He also founded and served as Senior Editor of the journal Transnational Broadcasting Studies, now known as Arab Media & Society. Before joining the AUC faculty Schleifer served for nine years as NBC News Cairo bureau chief and Middle East producer- reporter; as Middle East correspondent for Jeune Afrique based in Beirut and as a special correspondent for the New York Times based in Amman. After retiring from teaching at AUC Schleifer served for just over a year as Al Arabiya's Washington D.C. bureau chief. He is associated with the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C. as an Adjunct Scholar. He was executive producer of the award winning documentary "Control Room" and the 100 episode Reality- TV documentary "Sleepless in Gaza...and Jerusalem."
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Al Arabiya English's point-of-view.
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Oh my gaww, Crazie -- I was just freaking out because I could've sworn I had submitted 3 memes today, and when I got back from a prolonged grocery shopping excursion, I could only see two that had been featured.
Frantically, I tried to remember what the missing meme was... Did imgflip disappear it? Had it been downvoted out of existence? No, that wouldn't make sense, since I would still be able to see it in images, and when I scanned back a couple of pages in My Images, I didn't see it! Was I going to have to try to remember what I had created and remake it?
Suddenly I remembered that I sometimes create a meme late at night, and instead of submitting it at a time when my memes garner little more than 20 views and 1 upvote, I decide to submit them the following day.
Thinking this might be the case with the missing meme, I searched back extra far in My Images, and found the f**ker! imgflip.com/i/1tearq It says it's been submitted, but the G-D mods are probably going to hold it back and feature it in the bum-f**k middle of the night. I figure I may have pissed them off when I snuck ol' Grandpa in Speedos by their watchful eye without getting flagged NSFW. Incidentally, the new meme also features an older gentleman wearing nothing but gym shorts (and I didn't tag it NSFW), so maybe the mods thought that this would be the most apropos moment to give me my comeuppance.
looks like I got my comeuppance after all -- imgflip managed to limit a meme featuring both a hyena AND a genuine Russian oligarch to a mere 43 views over a span of 18 hours.
Where Are You Heading? The Savannah, And Why Are We Still Here Slowpoke?


Suhi Choi received a BA in Korean History from Korea University in Seoul, MFA in TV Production from Brooklyn College in New York. She is a doctoral student of Mass Media and Communication Program, Temple University in Philadelphia. Her documentary, Two Aliens, dealing with conflicts between Korean grocery owners and Mexican workers in New York City, was presented both in the Brooklyn Museum of Art and Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan.


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SACRED SOUNDS
A new musical partnership between Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills and Temple Beth Am.
Musical Innovation Across Denominations
ELANA ARIAN
CHAVA MIREL & YOSEF GOLDMAN
TEMPLE BETH AM
JOSH WARSHAWSKY
SUNDAY, MARCH 29, 2020*
(*DATE AND LOCATION CHANGE)
Join us for an outstanding line up of diverse jewish spiritual artists in our 2019-2020 sacred sounds unbound series.
Elana Arian - Details
Elana Arian is a busy multi-instrumentalist, composer, and recording artist. She studied conducting and violin, jazz guitar, and songwriting at Yale and has performed at some of the most celebrated concert halls in the country, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Tanglewood, and perhaps most memorably, five different performances at the (Obama) White House.
Elana inspires communities across the country with her soulful music, and has collaborated with some of the leading voices in contemporary Jewish music, including Dan Nichols, Josh Nelson, Noah Aronson, and Debbie Friedman, z"l. Elana has served on the faculty of both Shirei Chagiga and Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, teaching guitar at the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music. In addition to her work as a guest Artist in Residence for congregations and communities across the United States, Elana has been in residence in the Friday worship ensemble at Central Synagogue for the past 11 years.
Visit elanaarian.com to learn more and to hear her music.
Chava Mirel and Yosef Goldman - Details
Chava mirel and yosef goldman
Chava Mirel
Seattle-based Chava Mirel is a nationally touring singer, guitarist, composer, prayer leader and recording artist. A highly sought-after vocal recording artist, Chava is known for her rich, luxurious vocals, lush harmonies and rhythmic phrasing. From electrifying concerts to engaging educational sessions to transcendent prayer experiences, she connects with communities with an inclusive message of love and compassion.
Chava exhibits ease and fluency in an astonishing array of musical styles. She has toured and recorded with a spectrum of artists including Reggie Watts and punk icon Ari Up. Chava is also a celebrated jazz and world music artist.
An award-winning Jewish music composer, Chava provides outstanding artist-in-residence services at congregations from coast to coast. Chava recently released her 3rd full length album, "Into The Light", a dreamy, heart-wrenching and deeply personal reinterpretation of the Great American Songbook. Her first single, a cover of Alice-In-Chains' "Would?" has received critical acclaim and international radio play.
In between touring synagogues across the country and singing in jazz clubs, Chava enjoys nature in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband and son.
For more information on Chava, please visit https://www.chavamirel.com/
Yosef Goldman
Yosef Goldman is Rabbi & Director of Sacred Music at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel in Philadelphia and incoming Co-Director—with Joey Weisenberg—of Hadar's Rising Song Institute. Raised Orthodox in a mixed Ashkenazi and Mizrachi home, Yosef has facilitated prayer in communities throughout the Jewish denominational spectrum. He was a founding member of Romemu's prayer team and the first cantorial intern at B'nai Jeshurun in Manhattan. Yosef's songs are sung in synagogues and camps across the country. His debut album, Open My Heart, will be out in the fall of 2019.
This summer Yosef will join Joey Weisenberg as Co-Director of Hadar's Rising Song Institute. Rising Song Institute cultivates Jewish spiritual life through song. It is a meeting place and incubator for creative musicians and prayer leaders who hope to reinvent the future of music as a communal Jewish spiritual practice. Based in Philadelphia, we engage people throughout North America and around the world through communal singing, immersive study, leadership development, and experimental music-making.
Yosef received rabbinic ordination in 2013 from the Jewish Theological Seminary with a concentration in pastoral care and counseling and earned a Masters in Sacred Music. Yosef has trained in spiritual direction with Lev Shomea, and in community organizing with JOIN for Justice's Seminary Leadership Project. His writing has appeared in Sh'ma Journal, Jewschool.com, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
In his free time, Rabbi Goldman likes to take walks in the Wissahickon woods with his wife, Rabbi Annie Lewis, and their children, Zohar and Shir.
https://www.risingsong.org/
Josh Warshawsky - Details
Rabbi Josh Warshawsky is a nationally touring Jewish musician, songleader, composer, and teacher of Torah. Josh seeks to build intentional praying communities, and travels to synagogues and Jewish communities across the country sharing his music and teachings on prayer. He has released three albums of Jewish music, filled with melodies written intentionally to express the deep meaning of the words of our tradition.
Josh was ordained as a rabbi in May 2019 from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles. He is on the faculty of Songleader Boot Camp and leads the Ramah Shabbaton and the Ramah Chavurah. Josh has spent the past 19 summers at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, and the last six summers teaching and performing at Ramah camps across the country including Ramah in Wisconsin, Ramah Nyack, Ramah in Northern California, Ramah California in Ojai, Ramah Poconos, and Ramah in the Berkshires.
Josh is originally from Deerfield, and, after a decade in New York, Los Angeles, and Israel, Josh is proud to once again call Chicago his home.
Visit his website https://joshwarshawsky.com/ and check out his latest album "Chaverai Nevarech,"
Suggested donation $18 per concert
or $32 for a 2-concert pass
purchase your tickets
Are You A Temple Member?*
CHAVA MIREL & YOSEF GOLDMAN - Saturday, February 1 | 7:00 pm | Temple Beth Am
JOSH WARSHAWSKY - Sunday, March 29 | 7:00 pm | Temple Beth Am
Please note the date change. Previous materials indicated a Saturday, March 28 date. On January 16 we were informed the concert changed to Sunday, March 29.
2-concert Entry Pass
Love music? With this Pass you get 2 concerts at a special rate!
Name of Guests
Please provide the names of all your guests so we can put them on the list in case they do not have their ticket.


The top of the headboard of this luxurious, handcrafted, Western style bed has a classic, crown molding, and below the molding are spectacular, hand carved, floral and scroll designs. The front of the rectangular headboard is adorned with three, geometric cut panels with arched details, and each panel is accented with a hand carved, circular design in each corner. The top of the footboard has a staggered, top molding, and below the molding are elegant, hand carved, floral and scroll designs. Following the floral designs is an additional, solid wood molding. The front of the footboard has three, large, square cut panels, with arched, geometric shaped designs inside each panel. Each panel is garnished with a hand carved, circular design in each corner. The bed has a solid wood, structural base, and it rest on hand turned legs. It is made with the best, sustainable, solid wood available, and it is 100% customizable.


I don't know about you, but sometimes the only time I have to finish up projects is late in the evening…which means all my photos are either quite dark, or washed out with flashes. I really must work on that! Of course the fact that it starts getting dark here now at 3.30 in the afternoon doesn't help! Long summer days mean short winter days in Sweden.
Back to the glam. As different bits of my 1970s home get renovated, I'm ready to start adding my own touch of funkiness here and there. Our kitchen has been done for a while, but I got a sudden burst of DIY inspiration to splash a bit of personality on our run-of-the-mill spotlight lamp from IKEA.
OK…I'm starting to feel the forest glam love…but it's still missing something. Of course! Antique crystal bits!
I got these at a thrift-style market in Copenhagen, Denmark, when we 'went abroad' (all of a 3-hour drive from where we live) to visit Tivoli at Halloween. They are old crystal bits from chandeliers…when they had candles instead of lights. The round cup area catches dripping wax…and the little wire rings usually held little crystal drops – like the one in the photo. I originally bought them thinking I would use them in a mosaic wall hanging that is starting to form in my mind, because those little cups look like flowers when you hold them upwards. But alas, they find a new home now as the showstoppers in a forest glam lamp dressing.
I have some round glass baubles that match Lulu (our dining room chandelier) that I'm thinking about adding as well. But honestly, by the time I got these up and some photos taken, I was just too tired to think about it more, let alone get out a tripod so that my night photos wouldn't be so blurry. Something for me to contemplate. To bauble, or not to bauble, that is the question.
For now I'll just be happy with my little touch of forest glam.
oh wow – this is amazing!!!
looking pretty glam…but I think it needs more baubles! fab idea!