text:
LeadersJun 20th 2020 edition
Politics and the pandemic
Britain has the wrong government for the covid crisis
It has played a bad hand badly
THERE WAS a lot going on in Britain in early March. London staged an England-Wales rugby match on March 7th, which the prime minister attended along with a crowd of 81,000; on March 11th Liverpool played Atletico Madrid, in front of a crowd of 52,000 fans, including 3,000 from Spain; 252,000 punters went to the Cheltenham Festival, one of the country's poshest steeplechase meetings, which ended on March 13th.
As Britons were getting together to amuse themselves and infect each other, Europe was shutting down. Borders were closing, public gatherings being banned. Italy went into full lockdown on March 9th, Denmark on March 11th, Spain on March 14th and France on March 17th. Britain followed only on March 23rd.
Putting in place sweeping restrictions on everyday life was a difficult decision, fraught with uncertainty. Yet the delay is just one example of the government's tardiness. Britain has been slow to increase testing, identify a contact-tracing app, stop visits to care homes, ban big public events, provide its health workers with personal protective equipment (PPE), and require people to wear face coverings on public transport. As this wave of the disease ebbs, Britons are wondering how they came to have the highest overall death rate of any country in the rich world, and why leaving lockdown is proving so difficult.
The evidence so far suggests that the British government played a bad hand badly. The country was always going to struggle. The virus took off in London, an international hub. Britain has a high proportion of ethnic-minority people, who are especially vulnerable to the disease. And Britons are somewhat overweight, which exacerbates the impact of the infection.
Britain has got some things right. Its researchers have been in the forefront of the race to find drugs and create vaccines against the disease. On June 16th a trial by Oxford University, the first to identify a life-saving medicine, showed that a cheap steroid can reduce mortality among the sickest patients by a third. A swift reorganisation of the National Health Service put paid to fears that it would be overwhelmed. But the government has wasted the most precious commodity in a crisis: time. In a federal system, like America's, the central government's failings can be mitigated by state and local authorities. In a centralised system, they cannot.
Hindsight is a fine thing, and offers a clarity that is absent in the blizzard of events. Yet it is now plain that Britain's scientists initially argued for the wrong approach: accepting that the disease would spread through the population, while protecting the vulnerable and the health service. Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London, estimates that had Britain locked down a week earlier, at least half of the 50,000-or-so lives that have been lost would have been saved. This is more Britons than have died in any event since the second world war.
In retrospect, the government should have probed the scientists' advice more deeply. Some of it was questionable. The received wisdom that people would tire of social distancing, and that shutting down early would mean loosening early too, was just a hunch. Even after the evidence changed, and it became clear the country was heading for catastrophe, the government was slow to impose the sort of lockdown seen across Europe.
Yet you do not need hindsight to identify other mistakes. Delays in fixing PPE supply chains, promoting face coverings and increasing testing capacity were clearly errors at the time. Despite the urging of the country's scientists and the World Health Organisation, by the middle of April Britain was still carrying out just 12,000 tests a day, compared with 44,000 in Italy and 51,000 in Germany. Because most testing was reserved for hospitals, care homes struggled to find out which of their residents and staff were infected. Competition for PPE was fierce, so they also struggled to get the kit they needed to protect their workers.
The government is not solely to blame. The pandemic made new demands on the system. Some crucial bits of machinery did not work. The publicly owned company which supplies the health service with PPE failed. Public Health England, which was responsible for testing and tracing, failed. But there was a failure of leadership, too. When systems break it is the government's job to mend them; when the evidence argues for drastic measures ministers need to take them.
Britain is still living with the consequences. The spread of the virus and the devastation it has wrought have made leaving lockdown difficult, as shown by the halting return of pupils to school. Only five year-groups have gone back, many parents are choosing to keep their children at home, and the government has abandoned an earlier ambition to get more in. The "world-beating" contact-tracing system still lacks its app, which is not due to arrive until winter. Slow progress at suppressing the virus will have grave economic consequences, too.
These shortcomings have claimed many victims. Among them is public trust. Britain went into this crisis with a powerful sense of unity and goodwill towards the government. Now Britons think worse of their government's performance during the crisis than do the citizens of any of 22 countries polled by YouGov, aside from Mexico. That reflects the government's mistakes and its hypocrisy, after the prime minister's main adviser broke its own rules about when to travel—and kept his job. While the world waits for a vaccine this lack of trust will make managing the disease a lot harder.
The painful conclusion is that Britain has the wrong sort of government for a pandemic—and, in Boris Johnson, the wrong sort of prime minister. Elected in December with the slogan of "Get Brexit Done", he did not pay covid-19 enough attention. Ministers were chosen on ideological grounds; talented candidates with the wrong views were left out in the cold. Mr Johnson got the top job because he is a brilliant campaigner and a charismatic entertainer with whom the Conservative Party fell in love. Beating the coronavirus calls for attention to detail, consistency and implementation, but they are not his forte.
The pandemic has many lessons for the government, which the inevitable public inquiry will surely clarify. Here is one for voters: when choosing a person or party to vote for, do not underestimate the importance of ordinary, decent competence. ■
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Not Britain's finest hour"


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The Michael Cohen hearing delivered on the fireworks and accusations.
The president's former personal attorney and fixer leveled some pretty serious claims Wednesday both about President Trump's alleged crimes and his character.
Cohen brought evidence to back up some of his allegations.
In his opening statement, Cohen told members of Congress the president not only knew about hush money payments to two women accusing him of affairs ahead of time, but he arranged to have Cohen paid back over time for one of them.
He produced a single check signed by the president himself while in office. "This $35,000 check was one of 11 installments that was paid throughout the year while he was president," Cohen explained. Cohen said other checks were signed by Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump Organization's Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg. The president's former lawyer says there are multiple instances of the president lying and inflating his net worth, whether for real estate dealings, to purchase the Buffalo Bills or even his rankings on the Forbes list of richest people.
Cohen produced documentation of the assets then-civilian Donald Trump claimed to have.
He now says they were largely inaccurate.
Cohen also submitted letters he wrote to the various schools then-candidate Trump attended, threatening them not to release his grades or test scores. Michael Cohen told members of Congress the president committed other crimes, too.
He says he can't go into detail because of ongoing SDNY investigations.
But his claims against the president's character, namely that he's a racist and a conman, are based on what Cohen said he witnessed and heard — but he has no hard evidence.
While Cohen said he taped the president, he does not have any of those alleged racist statements recorded.
Still, Cohen looked to reinforce the idea that the president lies to the American people routinely.
He said the president knew about, and even encouraged, business dealings in Moscow during the campaign, something he has consistently denied.
Cohen didn't present evidence to back that up.
Only a portion of Cohen's accusations allege potential criminal wrongdoing by the president.
But Democrats, who are considering impeachment, may look to corroborate those allegations with evidence or reports from either the special counsel or the Southern District of New York.


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Tite, it's a painful farewell: "End of my cycle. Neymar fifth penalty taker because…"
The coach confirmed the end of his tenure at the helm of the Seleçao: "It hurts, but I'm at peace with myself"
He had already announced it before the World Cup, now it's official: Tite will no longer be the coach of Brazil. "It's a painful defeat, but I'm at peace with myself – these are the words of the now ex coach after the defeat against Croatia, which ousted the green and gold from the tournament -. I confirm that it's the end of the cycle, I said so over a year and a half ago."
Tite rejects the criticisms of those who consider Brazil's 1-0 goal more than avoidable: "It's not true that we were disorganized defensively – is his analysis -. We were building an offensive action, then a deep ball after an opponent's recovery he put us in difficulty. We managed to close the central part, but the deflection conditioned the shot".
See also 10 footballers who became the most expensive in history
The most recurring question, however, concerns the order of penalty takers: "Why didn't Neymar take the penalty? He was the last penalty taker, when there is this pressure, he must kick the player with the highest quality and with the most mental strength".
December 9, 2022 (change December 9, 2022 | 20:54)
#Tite #painful #farewell #cycle #Neymar #penalty #taker #because..
Tags: BrazilNeymarTiteworldworld championships
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
#include "../utils.h"

namespace tvm {
namespace meta_schedule {

CostModel CostModel::PyCostModel(PyCostModelNode::FLoad f_load,        //
                                 PyCostModelNode::FSave f_save,        //
                                 PyCostModelNode::FUpdate f_update,    //
                                 PyCostModelNode::FPredict f_predict,  //
                                 PyCostModelNode::FAsString f_as_string) {
  ObjectPtr<PyCostModelNode> n = make_object<PyCostModelNode>();
  n->f_load = std::move(f_load);
  n->f_save = std::move(f_save);
  n->f_update = std::move(f_update);
  n->f_predict = std::move(f_predict);
  n->f_as_string = std::move(f_as_string);
  return CostModel(n);
}

TVM_STATIC_IR_FUNCTOR(ReprPrinter, vtable)
    .set_dispatch<PyCostModelNode>([](const ObjectRef& n, ReprPrinter* p) {
      const auto* self = n.as<PyCostModelNode>();
      ICHECK(self);
      PyCostModelNode::FAsString f_as_string = (*self).f_as_string;
      ICHECK(f_as_string != nullptr) << "PyCostModel's AsString method not implemented!";
      p->stream << f_as_string();
    });

TVM_REGISTER_OBJECT_TYPE(CostModelNode);
TVM_REGISTER_NODE_TYPE(PyCostModelNode);

TVM_REGISTER_GLOBAL("meta_schedule.CostModelLoad").set_body_method<CostModel>(&CostModelNode::Load);
TVM_REGISTER_GLOBAL("meta_schedule.CostModelSave").set_body_method<CostModel>(&CostModelNode::Save);
TVM_REGISTER_GLOBAL("meta_schedule.CostModelUpdate")
    .set_body_method<CostModel>(&CostModelNode::Update);
TVM_REGISTER_GLOBAL("meta_schedule.CostModelPredict")
    .set_body_typed([](CostModel model,                     //
                       const TuneContext& context,          //
                       Array<MeasureCandidate> candidates,  //
                       void* p_addr) -> void {
      std::vector<double> result = model->Predict(context, candidates);
      std::copy(result.begin(), result.end(), static_cast<double*>(p_addr));
    });
TVM_REGISTER_GLOBAL("meta_schedule.CostModelPyCostModel").set_body_typed(CostModel::PyCostModel);

}  // namespace meta_schedule
}  // namespace tvm

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Роберт Данкен (; 7 января 1919, Окленд, Калифорния, США — 3 февраля 1988, Сан-Франциско, США) — американский поэт, традиционно причисляемый критиками к битничеству,  и . Одна из ключевых фигур в поэзии послевоенной Северной Америки.

Биография
Роберт Данкен родился 7 января 1919 года в Окленде, штат Калифорния. Его мать умерла родами, а отец не имел средств содержать мальчика. В августе 1919 года Роберта усыновила пара последователей теософии, которая выбрала своего приемного сына после тщательной консультации с гороскопами и астрологическими таблицами. Данкен вырос в атмосфере сеансов, собраний членов «Герметического братства», среди библиотеки, наполненной оккультной литературой.

В 1936 году Данкен поступает в Калифорнийский университет в Беркли. В то же время он сближается с левым движением и начинает писать стихи на социальную тематику. В 1938 году он покидает Беркли, чтобы поступить в Блэк-Маунтинский колледж, но после горячей дискуссии с главой факультета по поводу гражданской войны в Испании, уходит и оттуда.

В это же время, осознав свою гомосексуальность, Данкен поселяется в Филадельфии со своим любовником, а годом позже они перебираются в маленькую коммуну в Вудстоке, штат Нью-Йорк, возглавляемую Джеймсом Куни, через которого Данкен знакомится с Генри Миллером, Анаис Нин и другими представителями богемы. В 1941 году Данкена призывают в армию, откуда вскоре комиссуют по причине гомосексуализма.

В 1943 Данкен пытается порвать с гомосексуальной средой, женившись на Марджори Макки, но несколько месяцев спустя брак терпит крах. В тот же период завязывается переписка между Данкеном и калифорнийским поэтом Кеннетом Рексротом, который знакомит его с лидерами Сан-Францисского поэтического возрождения.

В 1948 Данкен публикует свою первую книгу «Град небесный, град земной» (Heavenly City, Earthly City). В 1951-ом он знакомится с человеком, который становится его любовником на всю жизнь, художником Джессом Коллинзом. Вскоре после этого Данкен начинает играть центральную роль, как в Сан-Франциско, так и в Блэк-Маунтинской поэтической группе. Его поэтическая репутация укрепляется после публикации в 60-х трех сборников «Брешь в поле» (The Opening of the Field, 1960), «Корни и ветви» (Roots and Branches, 1964), и «Натягивая тетиву» (Bending the Bow, 1968). В 1961 году он получает Мемориальную премию Гарри Монро, в 1963 — Гуггенхеймовскую стипендию, в 1964 — Левинсоновскую премию журнала Poetry magazine (1964), а в 1985 — Национальную поэтическую премию.

После публикации «Сгибая тетиву» в 1968, Данкен принимает решение публиковать следующую книгу не раньше, чем через пятнадцать лет и действительно, его новый сборник «Фундаментные работы: перед войной» (Ground Work: Before the War) появляется только 1984 году. Данкен скончался в Сан-Франциско 8 февраля 1988 года после тяжелой длительной болезни.

Вклад и наследие
Не только как поэт, но и в роли общественного деятеля, Данкен внёс неоценимый вклад в различные аспекты популярной культуры США начиная с 1930-х. Имя Роберта Данкена всегда вспоминают одним из первых, когда речь заходит о Стоунволлских бунтах, появлении богемных социалистических общин 1930-х и 40-х годов и культурном и политическом перевороте 1960-х годов.

Награды и премии
Лауреат Гуггенхеймовской стипендии (1963) и Левинсоновской премии журнала «» (1964).

Избранная библиография
  Selected Poems (City Lights Pocket Series, 1959)
  Letters 1953-56 (reprint: Flood Editions, Chicago, 2003)
  The Opening of the Field (Grove Press, 1960/New Directions) PS3507.U629 O6
 Roots and Branches (Scribner's, 1964/New Directions)
 Medea at Kolchis; the maiden head (Berkeley: Oyez, 1965) PS3507.U629 M4
 Of the war: passages 22-27 (Berkeley: Oyez, 1966) PS3507.U629 O42
 Bending the Bow (New Directions, 1968)
 The Years As Catches: First poems (1939—1946) (Berkeley, CA: Oyez, 1966)
 Play time, pseudo stein (S.n. Tenth Muse, 1969) Case / PS3507 .U629 P55
 Caesar's gate: poems 1949-50 with paste-ups by Jess. (s.l. Sand Dollar, 1972) PS3507.U629 C3
 Selected poems by Robert Duncan (San Francisco, City Lights Books. Millwood, NY: Kraus Reprint Co., 1973, 1959) PN6101 .P462 v.2 no.8-14,Suppl.
 An ode and Arcadia (Berkeley: Ark P, 1974) PS3507.U629 O3
 Medieval scenes 1950 and 1959 (Kent, Ohio: The Kent SU Libraries, 1978) Case / PS3507.U629 M43
 The five songs (Glendale, CA: Reagh, 1981) Case / PS3507 .U629 F5
 Fictive Certainties (Essays) (NY:New Directions, 1983)
 Ground Work: Before the War (NY:New Directions, 1984) PS3507 .U629 G7
 Groundwork II: In the Dark (NY:New Directions, 1987) PS3507 .U629 G69
 Selected Poems edited by Robert Bertholf (NY:New Directions, 1993)
 A Selected Prose (NY:New Directions, 1995)
 Copy Book Entries, transcribed by Robert J. Bertholf (Buffalo, NY: Meow Press, 1996)
 The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov (Robert J. Bertholf фтв Albert Gelpi, eds.) (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004)
 Ground Work: Before the War / In the Dark, Introduction by Michael and (NY:New Directions, 2006)
 The H.D. Book (The Collected Writings of Robert Duncan), Edited by Michael Boughn and Victor Coleman (University of California Press, 2011).

Примечания

Литература

Ссылки

Бит-поколение
Выпускники Калифорнийского университета в Беркли
Стипендиаты Гуггенхайма
Лауреаты мемориальной премии Шелли

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Published July 25
'Games of Thrones' final season to air in the 'first half' of 2019, HBO announces
By Leora Arnowitz, | Fox News
'Game of Thrones' star posts emotional farewell to hit show
Emilia Clarke paid tribute to HBO's 'Game of Thrones' in an emotional farewell Instagram post. Clarke, who stars as Daenerys Targaryen on the hit show, shared an image of herself from one of the filming locations for the final season.
LOS ANGELES – The final season of "Game of Thrones" will air in the "first half" of 2019, HBO President of Programming Casey Bloys revealed at the Television Critics Association's Summer Press Tour on Wednesday.
"I'm not going to talk about what to expect [from the final season] although it's pretty great," Bloys said. "I don't think we've announced a date yet so sometime in '19… first half."
Bloys also dished on the first of the five "Thrones" spinoffs that are in the works. He said the network is currently only working on one spinoff, and the others are either "on hold" or no longer in the works.
"We are doing a pilot that Jane Goodman wrote. Out of five, we'd be lucky to get one that we're very excited about it," he said. "We're just starting the search for a director [and] casting director."
"Game of Thrones" first hit the air on HBO in 2011. The series is based on the hit book series by George R.R. Martin. The show's eighth season will be its last.
Goodman's spinoff is said to be about Martin's "Thrones" sequel "Age of Heroes."


The biggest enclosed shopping mall Canada from 1986 to 2004 was the 350,000 m2 (3,800,000 sq ft) West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta 30 The biggest mall on the planet is the New South China Mall in Dongguan , China with a gross flooring space of 892,000 m2 (9,600,000 sq ft).
Buying Centre. A profitable marketing program for a procuring centre needs to draw prospects and generate sales. Procuring bag 'stuffers and flyers' from present gross sales are a great idea. Whenever you choose the suitable tenants for the property and help them to commerce by directed advertising and marketing of the property, you're heading down the correct path to progress.


text:
DRINKING + DINING
BROWSE DRINKING + DINING
Chocolate Making In Switzerland
One of the main highlights of my trip to Lausanne was experiencing a chocolate-making masterclass at Durig, one of the city's best-loved chocolatiers, hosted by its founder himself, Dan Durig. Our visit to the chocolatier kicked off with a brief look around the Durig...
Le Pont De La Tour – London
Luxury riverside destination Le Pont De La Tour is located right opposite London's iconic Tower Bridge. Le Pont De La Tour boasts the longest alfresco terrace in London, making it one of the city's premier riverside venues. It's a truly memorable place to dine in...
New Street Grill – London
New Street Grill is hidden away just off of Liverpool Street, in a historic 18th-century warehouse, once used by the East India Company. Its menu features hearty dishes, including Josper-grilled steaks and superior cuts of meat and fish, alongside seasonal British...
Breeze – Frankfurt
Luxury hospitality brand, Lebua, has made its European debut with its new restaurant, Breeze, located in Frankfurt at the Steigenberger Hotel. Lebua's portfolio of venues comprises of hotels and restaurants across the globe, including the world-famous Sirocco Sky...
10 Things To Eat In Cornwall
Cornwall is famed for many things: beautiful beaches, outstanding natural beauty, not to mention its fascinating heritage and history. However, if there's one thing that has really helped to put it well and truly on the map, it's Cornish cuisine. With farming and...
Beer In Biella
The Menabrea brewery is the oldest in Italy. Located in the small city of Biella, it has been operating for five generations, dating back to 1864. The age-old production process remains largely the same to this day - Menabrea is brewed underground in caves, which...
Polo Bar – London
Named as London's Bar of the Year, the Polo Bar at the Westbury Hotel in Mayfair is best described as a "shrine to educated drinking". I had heard great things about it so I couldn't wait to try some of its unapologetically opulent cocktails.We started off with some...
UK's Ultimate Bartender
Last weekend, top bartenders from the length and breadth of the county went head-to-head in the Monkey's Shoulder Ultimate Bartender Championship to win the much-desired title of the Bartender of the Year. A crowd of cocktail enthusiasts (myself included) attended...
Chablis Food Pairing
Last week, I was lucky enough to be invited to a Chablis wine-pairing dinner at The Chancery. The wine-filled evening was an education into the links between the complex flavours of Chablis wine and the geology of the Chablis vineyard region, for which it's...
Chivas Regal Whiskey Tasting
In celebration of the 550th anniversary of the first-ever known batch of whiskey, Chivas Regal is hosting a pop-up Gentleman's Lounge at the Park Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge. The Gentleman's Lounge will be offering exclusive experiences associated with British...
Tredwells – London
West End dining destination, Tredwells, is celebrity chef Marcus Wareing's newest restaurant. Marcus Wareing frequents Masterchef as a judge and also owns The Gilbert Scott at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel and Marcus in Knightsbridge, which has earned a two...
Pret A Diner – London
The entourage of Pret A Diner is back in London to present 'The Bohemians – from Rogues to Royals' at Hotel Cafe Royal. I attended their launch event to get a preview of what the quirky pop-up restaurant has in store for its four-week residency in London. The...


text:
I Photographed an Abandoned French Abbey
France is perhaps one of the first countries people think of when someone mentions Europe. It's a daydream destination due to its culture, arts, food, and uniquely influential aesthetics, which in many ways, have shaped history for centuries. Today, the country holds many hidden and sometimes forgotten remnants of various eras of its past, including the amazing French Beaulieu abbey, which sits abandoned and unattended in the southern Hortes region (Haute Amance).
Piano left behind in the main room
The Beaulieu Abbey dates back to 1166, and it was initially founded by Gauthier of Burgundy, one of the foremost members of the Cistercian Order, which still survives to this day, making it an almost millenarian religious organization. The Cistercians are monks and nuns that initially branched off from the Benedictines, who were looking for a more conservative approach to monastic life, as opposed to the more liberal and at times leisure-filled life of the latter monks, who sheltered themselves in their abbeys throughout Europe, at times enjoying privileges and luxurious that were unattainable for most people The Cistercians considered such lifestyle immoral for monks and nuns, so they decided to focus on promoting austerity. They would do a lot of farming, food production, and manual labor, and they were considered big cultural and technological innovators in medieval Europe. The Beaulieu abbey bears the mark of their monastic Order. For hundreds of years, it continued to thrive and grow, even surviving tragic events like the Black Death.
Small bedroom in the attic
Left behind objects in the attic
Eventually, Europe became a theater of several bloody conflicts throughout the 1500s, so much so that the Beaulieu abbey was completely destroyed in 1568. The building was restored, but it was ultimately ransacked again in 1711 when Germanic soldiers burned significant sections of the monastery to the ground. It is often said that the locals and neighbors were so outraged that they banded together to stop the massacre of the Beaulieu abbey's inhabitants and its near-total destruction. Thankfully, they did succeed, and the abbey was rebuilt in 1731, sporting some features that are still here to this day. Thereafter, the story of the abbey is a little uncertain, but the area went through several "incarnations."
Car covered in dust found in the garage
At first, it was purchased by a relative of Diderot during the French Revolution area, and it was supposedly used as a private retreat. However, the Beaulieu abbey's surroundings became a municipality by the same name in the 19th century. The town of Beaulieu was short-lived and was later split into two new municipalities: Rougeux and Haute-Amance. Architecturally, what's left of the abbey bears the mark of the neo-gothic style that was adopted during the 1700s renovations, but it was previously known for its Romanesque style. Some beautiful stained glass windows dating back to the 19th are still there, although not intact and often found in fragments since some of the glass has been looted throughout the years. In fact, the remnants of the abbey experienced further abuse at the hands of Nazi troops, who had invaded France during WWII. The premises remained abandoned for several decades, up until a local family purchased the abbey in the 80s.
Not much has been done since the new owners took over, and the abbey was largely left to decay, exposed to weathering and occasional acts of vandalism and theft. Recently, a new buzz of interest has been surrounding the Beaulieu abbey, and the owners have made plans to restore the property.
The process should begin in 2022, and the aim is to turn the building into an artistic space, as well as a hub for the production of medicinal plants and other goods.
More photos of the abandoned French Beaulieu abbey can be found below:
Bedroom in the attic
Objects left behind
Car in the garage
Chapel on the property
Abandoned abbey architecture Beaulieu Benedictines black death Burgundy car Cistercian Order Decay derelict destroyed Diderot disrepair europe Exploring former france french French Revolution garage Gauthier Haute-Amance indoor indoors interior monastery monk municipality neo-gothic old photographing piano rebuilt roman robroek Romanesque room Rougeux soldiers stained-glass style travel Urban Urbex
Roman Robroek Administrator
Older Post 15+ Photos of the Tabbal Building in Beirut, Lebanon
Newer Post Photographing The Rose House in Beirut


text:
package lib

import (
	"sync/atomic"
)

var counter = uint64(0)

// IncrementAndReturn will get a value, increment it and return temp.
func IncrementAndReturn() uint64 {
	temp := atomic.LoadUint64(&counter)
	atomic.AddUint64(&counter, 1)
	return temp
}

// Reset clears a counter value
func Reset() {
	atomic.StoreUint64(&counter, 0)
}


Quit Tobacco – Make Everyone Proud is an educational campaign for the U.S. military, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. Launched in February of 2007, the mission of the campaign website is to help U.S. service members quit tobacco—for themselves and for the people they love.
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For more information about Quit Tobacco – Make Everyone Proud or to share your comments, please send an e-mail through our Contact Us page.
SmokefreeVET, a new project announced by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and SmokeFree.gov, provides a mobile text messaging service for military veterans.
The program is designed to provide encouragement, advice, and tips for smoking cessation.
Users of SmokefreeVET receive 1-5 text messages a day over the course of a six to eight week program.


text:
Ibn Battuta – Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354 by IBN BATTUTA
Product code: 9781850770022 darf
Published by Darf in 1983
Translated from Arabic by Sir Hamilton Gibb
Ibn Battuta, the greatest of all the medieval travellers, was in Tangier in 1304. At the age of nineteen he set out on his travels that were eventually to take him over 75,000 miles through all of the Muslim world.
His book, in which he describes the cultural life and beauty of those times, remains one of the most famous of all travel narratives.
The value of the work to historians and students is beyond question, but perhaps its true worth lies in the freshness of its narrative style. Throughout, we are aware of the author's own human and compassionate insights and, even after six centuries, it remains a delight and pleasure to read.
This fine facsimile edition, originally published in 1929, is enhanced by the inclusion of several exquisite prints, with maps of the journeys undertaken during Ibn Battuta's remarkable life.
Product Code 9781850770022 darf
Through Turkish Arabia by HENRY SWAINSON COWPER
Travels in Egypt & Nubia, Syria & Asia Minor DURING THE YEARS 1817 AND 1818 by CHARLES IRBY,
Travels in Egypt Vol. II by VIVANT DENON
Travels in Nubia by JOHANN LUDWIG BURCKHARDT


When we tally the requirements for entrepreneurship, we love to talk about grit and passion and vision and work ethic. While all of these qualities do help, your business isn't going to go anywhere without funding.
If you're looking to fund your small business (and bootstrapping isn't cutting it for you), there are two main ways to raise outside capital: debt financing and equity investment.
Business owners who aren't ready to relinquish control turn to debt financing. Lenders don't expect to have a say in your business; they just expect you to make your payments. Then, once you've repaid your debt, your liability is over and you get to keep all the profits. This option can be far cheaper in the long run, but it can also be a burden on startups who are burning cash to initiate growth.
Sometimes, however, debt financing isn't an option. Because of the high failure rate of small businesses, some debt investors won't even give you the chance to lose their money.
In this case, equity investment is a viable option—albeit the only option—for startups. There are great advantages to raising capital this way as far as cash flow and potential for growth. However, there are some major downsides as well.
If you are considering bringing in outside capital through equity financing, think about these four losses first.
The most obvious downside of equity financing is the dilution to your ownership.
By definition, equity financing involves raising capital from investors in exchange for ownership rights (or shares). Every time you bring on a new investor, you increase the amount of cash on hand and decrease your financial hold on your business.
While these funds can be critical to daily operations, the cost is diluting your stake in your own business.
At first, this exchange may be well worth it. However, some owners make the mistake of raising and spending so often that their stake in the business approaches negligible. Even if the business itself is growing, this obsessive approach to capital damages your hold on it.
Of course, if the equity you receive allows you to significantly increase your value, you may be better off with 10% than 100%. Just be cautious, and be a competent negotiator. Remember, if you choose to issue "preferred stock" (which you almost certainly will in any standard equity raise), investors get their money out first. That means if you don't end up selling for more than the amount invested in your company, you won't end up with a single penny when your business is acquired.
Dishing out shares means more than just dishing out money—you're also distributing control. By piecing up the decision-making power for your business, you are opening yourself up to potential conflict or being outspoken.
Equity partners almost always gain the right to influence the direction of your business when they invest. This influence could come in the form of board seats, veto rights, or simply a voice in your ear. When you take on investors or venture capital firms, make sure you're compatible. As this is going to be a long-term relationship, look for similar goals, working styles and a shared vision. If you and your financing partners don't see eye-to-eye, there will be stormy waters.
Distributing equity between lots of investors can also make things difficult. With too many captains, decision-making becomes complicated, even stalled. While funding can improve growth, the loss of executive authority could actually impede growth strategies.
In worst case scenarios, small business owners lose control of board seats or are replaced completely.
One thing entrepreneurs and investors tend to agree on is the goal of rapid growth. If you can build a profitable business, quickly and efficiently, everyone will end up happy and the risks of outside capital become moot.
Unfortunately, that's not how it works in practice (at least, not very often). Typically, business owners seek out equity funding because they cannot yet turn a significant profit on their own. They raise capital in order to operate unprofitably for some time—and they need to start hustling to figure out how to make their business profitable and how to scale in order to meet the high demands of return-seeking investors. Then, even when profits come, there's a chance they'll have to pay up first, leaving themselves and their business with nothing.
While outside capital can increase your potential to bring in cash, it's important to remember a basic finance principle: cash in the bank doesn't mean positive cash flow. In other words, just because you have a lot of funding, doesn't mean you're profitable or even that your business is succeeding.
Many entrepreneurs found their company with the goal of creating a lifestyle business—to be their own boss, take a generous salary, run their little kingdom. Unfortunately, in the moment you take on outside capital, you are putting your kingdom at risk.
Once you take on investors, you've got someone (or multiple someones) looking over your shoulder at all times. The freedom you enjoyed in making strategic decisions, personal compensation, or even vacation time, is usually unrecoverable once this additional accountability enters the picture. Your personal feelings of obligation, as well as intense investor oversight, can whisk away the "lifestyle" aspect of your business.
For the most part, while you have equity investors on your capitalization table, your personal goal of providing a great quality of life shifts to a business goal of growing big enough to provide a return to your investors.
Equity financing isn't all bad. In fact, over the last few years, terms have grown more favorable to entrepreneurs and safer investment options have opened up.
Just take your time and think about your decision. Don't follow the herd. Find what's best for you at this stage in your business. Calculate how much money you really need. Weigh the alternatives, like business incubators or working capital solutions. Consult a business lawyer. Make sure you're ready to deliver results to investors.
Almost every business has to bring in outside money at some point. Just don't hand out equity like lollipops.
Guest post by author Jaren Nichols, Chief Operating Officer at ZipBooks, free accounting software for small businesses. Jaren was previously a Product Manager at Google and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.


text:
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A lion on the loose: how an unregulated Nanaimo zoo resulted in tragedy
Big cats and small children played together at Hertel's zoo. Escapes were commonplace. Then the inevitable happened
By Jolene Rudisuela
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This story has been narrated by the author, Jolene Rudisuela. Listen here:
In June 1957, Nanaimo was abuzz with excitement as a new zoo prepared to open its gates.
Paul Hertel was moving his Port Alberni zoo, and his vast array of animals, to a 20-acre plot six miles north of the city on Rutherford Road. Bears, cougars, wolves, and even African lions would be housed at Hertel's Zoo, and tourists were expected to come from all over the Island and the mainland to see the attraction that boasted of an up-close experience with the animals.
Back then, zoos had no regulations. Children would have the chance to take a ride on Hertel's two cougars, or pet the yearling brown bears, read an article in The Province ahead of the zoo's opening. Visitors could even go into the lion cage and take a picture with the big cats.
Hertel told a reporter that his secret to taming wild animals was "kindness and being unafraid."
But less than a year after the zoo reopened in Nanaimo, tragedy struck.
One evening in May 1958, a two-year-old, 350-pound lioness named Fury slipped out of her enclosure and away from the zoo.
Hear the story behind this story—and the voices of people who experienced it firsthand—on the Capital Daily podcast.
Paul Hertel, a German immigrant, had bought his four lions from a circus two years prior when the zoo was still located in Port Alberni. They were a big draw, and hundreds of visitors had had their pictures taken with the big cats from inside the enclosure.
Fury was considered the tamest and was a favourite with children and tourists, according to a Canadian Press article from 1958.
The zoo was built in a time when a frontier mentality still dominated north of Victoria's tame lawns and stone walls. The Island's natural resources drove population growth as industries like mining and forestry took hold. The logging industry, especially, prized a certain ruggedness and self-determination needed when working this physically demanding job in the Island wilderness.
As a logger in Port Alberni, Hertel spent countless hours amongst the trees; walking through the territories of a multitude of wild species. It was in these trees that his love of animals grew and his collection began.
A postcard sold in the Hertel's Zoo gift shop shows Paul Hertel crouching in a cage with two of his four lions at the Port Alberni zoo.
Dozens of animals lived enclosed behind wire fences by the time Hertel's Zoo officially opened more than a decade later, in 1955. The attraction featured cougars and bald eagles, but also bobcats, lynx, spider monkeys, and a variety of small animals and birds. A family of four could spend an afternoon at the zoo for 70 cents—and it was a popular attraction—but as the zoo grew, Hertel needed more space and more help.
In 1957, Hertel asked Port Alberni council for financial aid. During the winter months when there were fewer tourists in town, Hertel was bleeding money trying to keep the animals fed. But once it was clear council wasn't going to give him any funding, Hertel settled on Nanaimo as a good place to move the venture.
Throughout its first year in Nanaimo, the zoo grew to house more than 200 animals, including an eight-year-old elephant named Susie. Diane Bennett went to the zoo a handful of times with her family as a kid and remembers seeing Susie roaming around the property.
There were no zoo regulations then.
"I suppose [the elephant] was in a cage part of the time, but I remember being there when it was just walking around the property," she told Capital Daily. "You could go and pat her and give her carrots."
Linda Pineo Lawry, who was around nine when the zoo moved to Nanaimo, says she visited every weekend. Her father had known Hertel from when the two families had lived in Port Alberni, so Hertel let her go into the cages to pet and feed the animals. She particularly remembers two cougars, Hans and Fritz.
The cougars, which Hertel had raised from kittens, were very affectionate towards the zoo keeper and were known to purr in his presence and lick his hair. Hertel performed with the cats, shocking crowds of spectators by putting his head in between a cougar's open jaws. When Lawry's father opened a service station in the region, Lawry recalls Hertel bringing one of the cougars and taking it out of the cage for the guests to pet.
A postcard sold in the Hertel's Zoo gift shop in Port Alberni shows Paul Hertel playing with one of his cougars.
"I used to go and visit [the cougars] all the time at the zoo and, you know, go into the cage and play with them," she told Capital Daily. "I didn't go in for very long—five to 10 minutes a day sort of thing—and I helped clean out some of the pens and things like that. I was having a great time. When you're that age and working around animals, it's great. Working around wild animals is even more fun."
She said Hertel was always a nice man and always made sure she was safe.
Later, Hertel asked Lawry's parents if she could pose with the lions for a postcard that would be sold in the zoo gift shop. Her mother agreed, so Lawry walked into the lion cage wearing her nicest dress for the photo, with Hertel standing by. Lawry knelt down between a lion and lioness, while the zoo owner held another cat, Fury, on the opposite side of the enclosure.
"I was never afraid. I remember I was quite confident going into the cages with any of the animals," said Lawry. "That's something Mr. Hertel had passed onto me I guess and gave me the confidence."
Lawry didn't find out one of the lions had escaped and killed a little girl around her age until days after it had happened.
"As far as I can remember, I was basically in shock in a sense," she said. "I had just been playing with them a few days before."
Nine-year-old Linda Pineo Lawry poses with two lions at Hertel's Zoo in Nanaimo. The photo was used on postcards sold at the zoo gift shop.
In a pride, the female lions are the primary hunters.
While males use their size and strength to corner and attack their prey, the smaller females often hunt in groups, using their additional speed to their advantage.
A lioness will stay hidden, stalking her target until she is close enough to pounce. Once the prey is within her grasp, the lioness will use her powerful bite to strangle it or break its neck. She will then carry her kill back to her pride.
In the wild, lions eat anything from birds to antelopes and wildebeests. In Nanaimo, Hertel often put advertisements in the paper for horse meat to feed his four big cats.
On May 3, 1958, the families that lived near the zoo didn't know that Fury had escaped the night before—or that she was still on the loose. It was a Saturday, so the neighbourhood children went outside to play as usual.
Shortly before 11am, eight-year-old Maureen Vanstone and her five-year-old sister Patricia were walking along a road near their house when they saw two friends approaching on their bikes, Lee Butcher, 11, and her sister Janet, 7.
Maureen and Patricia jumped to the bushes at the side of the road at the approach of their friends, as if to start a game of hide-and-seek. But soon, realizing they had already been spotted, Maureen stepped back out towards the Butchers. Unbeknownst to her, she was also stepping out in front of Fury.
"Then I saw an animal in the middle of the road," Lee told the Canadian Press days after the attack. "Maureen looked back over her shoulder just as it jumped. She called out something, but I couldn't understand what she said."
Janet told reporters, "I saw the lion. It didn't run away. It just stayed on top of Maureen."
The two girls grabbed Patricia and ran screaming to the nearest house, leaving their bikes on the road. The home owner alerted the RCMP and the Butchers' father who rushed to the scene.
Walter Butcher later testified in court that he was first confronted with several pieces of torn clothing lying on the road and soon found the body of a little girl. He picked her up and moved her onto the grass before spotting Fury in the distance and firing his gun at her, scaring her off.
The lioness had been standing on the road about 100 feet away with something in her mouth: a child's red coat.
Dr. R. T. H. Nixon, who did the autopsy on Maureen, testified that she had bite marks on her neck, and her jugular vein was severed. Dr. Nixon said the cause of death was likely damage to her spine and spinal cord. Death would have been immediate.
Vancouver Sun, May 5, 1958
The story of the escaped lion and Maureen Vanstone's death isn't the only zoo-related tragedy in BC. And it took these tragedies for the BC government to regulate zoos and animals kept in captivity.
All across North America in the 1950s, there were very few regulations controlling zoos. In BC—until Fury escaped—there were none.
The Nanaimo attack motivated government officials to move quickly to create a committee and pass regulations and licensing requirements for private zoos. The requirements, announced in June 1958, would force all zoos to apply for licences to keep animals, pass an inspection, and pay the $100 permit fee.
"It is something I've wanted for a long time," Hertel told the Times Colonist after the provincial announcement. "In the past there were no regulations."
The Game Act (now called the Wildlife Act) authorized the "destruction" of any animal that had escaped from a zoo. It also gave the Game Commission the power to revoke the licence of any zoo they felt no longer met the vague safety requirements.
The act did not specifically spell out regulations for enclosures, either from an animal welfare or safety perspective, because few standards had yet been set in Canada and the US. Therefore, in the beginning, issuing (or revoking) a licence was largely up to the inspecting officer's discretion.
Nearly two decades later, Canada's Accredited Zoos & Aquariums (CAZA) was created, and eventually, BC began requiring zoos to adhere to CAZA standards. But there was still a gap in the regulations when it came to private ownership of exotic animals.
In 2007, a 32-year-old woman was mauled to death by a Bengal tiger near 100 Mile House. The tiger had grabbed her leg through its cage and fatally severed an artery. Multiple people witnessed the attack, including two of her children. The private zoo, Siberian Magic, was owned by the woman's fiancé, Kim Carlton.
In 2009, the provincial government again stepped in to reactively prevent similar tragedies. The Wildlife Act Controlled Alien Species Regulation was enacted, banning the private ownership, breeding, and sale of 1,200 species of exotic animals, including tigers and lions, that pose a potential threat to people, property, or wildlife. Only zoos that meet the CAZA standards can receive permits.
A year later, Carlton received a $500 fine for possessing two lion cubs without the permit that was only required because of what had happened at his zoo.
According to the BC SPCA, the province has some of Canada's most restrictive legislation on keeping exotic animals. But even still, the current regulations may not be enough, animal rights advocates say.
In 2015, a cheetah imported from South Africa was photographed walking on a highway in the Kootenays, causing a school to go into lockdown. The cheetah was never found and charges were dropped against the suspected owners. In 2019, a monkey was spotted walking down a road in Campbell River and was also never seen again.
Jordan Reichert, the West Coast director of the Animal Alliance of Canada, told Capital Daily in September that when exotic species are kept in unnatural habitats, we shouldn't be surprised when they escape. His comments came after a ball python, kept by its owner in a backpack in Victoria, escaped and died last summer.
"This is an ongoing issue," he said. "It takes place all over BC."
Like the Vanstones, Walter Butcher didn't know a lion had escaped, despite living near Hertel's Zoo. In fact, a police constable investigating the tragedy later found that none of the neighbours knew.
Many of those neighbours, along with parents of Maureen's playmates, packed a small church days later for her funeral. Hertel was also in attendance, but he collapsed half-way through and left the church before the service had finished.
After the attack, Hertel was arrested and charged with criminal negligence leading to death. He was later acquitted of the charge, but the contemporaneous Nanaimo Daily Free Press account of the court proceedings pieces together how the lion escaped and why no one knew about it.
On May 2, 1958, zoo worker Waldmar Jungenkruegar went into the lion enclosure to fill Fury's watering trough. Junkenkruegar, who had worked with Hertel on and off for five years, testified that he remembered closing and latching the gate, but when he looked around from his chore, he saw the lion passing through the open door.
He told the court he grabbed for her tail, but she "just took off." Fury didn't heed his and Hertel's attempts to round her up and instead ran into the bush.
The pair weren't too concerned initially because they were expecting her to come back soon enough to feed; the lion had been out of its cage before and had always returned on her own accord.
Even earlier that day, a different lion had briefly escaped, Jungenkrueger testified in court. Three visitors had just had their picture taken with the caged lions, and as they were being escorted out, one of the cats pushed past them through the open door. It jumped on a goat tethered nearby and Jungenkrueger fought it off and back into the enclosure with a piece of two-by-four and Hertel's help. "He gave me a bawling out for being so careless," Jungenkrueger told the court.
Hertel and Jungenkrueger's Headshots in the Vancouver Sun, May 5, 1958
The Daily Free Press reported that when Hertel was asked if lions had escaped before, he replied: "That is not the exact word. They would walk out at feeding time but come right back in again. I have often taken a cougar into the woods with me and it would follow like a dog."
So, when the lion escaped, Hertel and Jungenkrueger didn't feel the need to inform the authorities and instead spent the night tracking her as best they could. But by morning, with the lion still loose, Hertel knew it was time to alert families living nearby.
Jungenkrueger was directed to call the Vanstones with the expectation that they would pass the information on to the rest of the neighbours. Unfortunately, the phone number the zoo had next to the family's name was instead the number for a woman who lived at the Somerset Hotel, Irene Dunbar.
Jungenkrueger testified that he thought Dunbar was one of the Vanstone's children. Dunbar, confused that the man on the line had asked if her parents were around, did not pass the message on to others—she said she didn't know she was supposed to.
It was because of this that the Vanstone girls—and many other neighbouring children—were outside playing that day.
As soon as the RCMP was notified of the attack, hundreds of offers of assistance came in as police quickly worked to organize a search for the lion. A big group of RCMP officers, Fish and Game Association members, and volunteers searched in sections around the Vanstone's farm as two airplanes circled above.
Bennett said she lived quite far away from the zoo, but her mother gathered her and her four siblings inside after hearing the news.
"My mother called us all into the house because it was on the radio that there was a lion that had escaped and people should keep their kids inside," said Bennett. "So, we were all very nervous and fearful about that whole thing. I think by the time it was on the radio, the Vanstone girl was already killed."
Wilma Smith-Veillette was 10 at the time and remembers having piano lessons that day. She had ridden her bike to the lesson and was too afraid to ride home after hearing about the attack. Her dad had to pick her up. "Obviously I had nightmares about this," she said.
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Two hours into the search for the lion, Fury was spotted and shot in the paw—but she fled once again. Another half-hour later, a father and his 19-year-old son, both Fish and Game members, spotted the lion about a mile from the zoo.
"It was just sitting on its haunches in a little bit of a rocky depression," remembered the son, who spoke with Capital Daily on condition that his name not be used. "And it paid us not really any heed, but my father saw it first and he fired a shot at it."
The lion began snarling at them and got to its feet, at which point, the father realized his gun was jammed. His son, standing a few paces behind, fired his own gun at the lioness twice, killing it.
"After, when we walked down to it and realized what it was, what we had done, it was kind of an unsettling feeling," he recalled. All these years later, he said it's a memory he would rather forget.
Since before the zoo even arrived in Nanaimo, the SPCA had spoken out against it. Days after the attack, calls for its closure grew.
"Regardless of anything that is done to secure the animals, mothers are going to live in fear of another escape. Nothing's going to take that fear away," a Wellington resident who started a petition against the zoo told the Daily Free Press.
But the zoo stayed open, and two months after the attack, Hertel told the paper that the tragic incident hadn't caused business to drop.
Nanaimo Daily Free Press, May 10, 1958
It would ultimately be another three years until the zoo would close for good.
Hertel's Zoo had made safety improvements days after the incident, which were noted in an inspection by BC game department officials. Padlocks had been added to the lion, cougar, and bear pens, and additional fencing with another locked gate had been constructed in front of the lion pen's door. Hertel's Zoo was ruled "adequate" with some room for improvement, while Rudy Bauersach's zoo near Victoria was termed "absolutely foolproof." Hertel's Zoo was given permission to operate as long as it was brought up to the necessary standard. He later received a newly introduced zoo licence.
Hertel immediately set about working on ways to improve the zoo and bring it back into the tourist limelight. He announced he was founding the Vancouver Island Zoological Society and planned on expanding to fill the rest of the 90-acre property with a "zoological garden" filled with native Canadian animals. The expansion would take about five years at a cost of $100,000.
Hertel was confident zoological society membership fees and fundraising would pay for the expansion costs, but by September 1959, the zoo needed more money. Operating on a shoestring budget, conditions at the zoo had begun to deteriorate, and early the next year, the game department's zoo committee made the decision to revoke its licence after an inspection turned up poor results.
"The general condition of the animals is reflected in the lack of proper housing and care given by the zoo officials," said Tom Hughes, then-president of the BC SPCA.
On May 14, 1960, the zoo was put under the charge of Sheriff Frank Hodgson, who began attempting to sell off the various animals, but Hertel was still hopeful he could raise enough money to pay off his $3,200 in fines and save the zoo. "If I could sell Susie [the elephant] for what I think she is worth, I could be back into business again," he said.
Nanaimo Daily Free Press, June 3, 1960
Susie did not sell, but help came at the last minute in the form of Vancouver electrical contractor Daniel Dettwiler. Dettwiler put forward money to bail the operation out and the pair formed a partnership to give the venture one last go.
But just four months later, Hertel walked out on the zoo for good, leaving it in Dettwiler's hands after disagreeing with his business partner on zoo policy and management.
"I have no plans for the immediate future, and I'm flat broke, the same as I was 30 years ago when I first came to Canada," he told the Daily Free Press.
After quitting the zoo for good, Hertel had packed up his family and moved them back to the town with the hope of leaving the zoo and the tragedy behind.
He returned to the forests as a logger, venturing back into the wilderness where decades earlier he had discovered his love of animals. Hertel died in Port Alberni in 1981 at the age of 71.
Dettwiler struggled with the pressures of decreasing visitors for another several months until the game department once again threatened to revoke the zoo's licence if improvements weren't made. But by this point, there was just no more money left, and a deadline of Sept. 5, 1961, was given to sell the animals or they would be destroyed.
After the City of Nanaimo declined Dettwiler's offer of taking charge of the zoo for $1, he gave some of the animals away for free to local residents and sold the rest to a traveling carnival based out of Kelowna, owned by Jim Greenaway.
But just before the animals were moved to their new home, Dettwiler received a $100 fine for keeping the animals without a licence—just one more nail in the coffin.
Neither Hertel's nor Dettwiler's obituaries mention anything about the zoo they both owned.
Today, where the zoo once stood off Rutherford Road and behind Long Lake, there is little left to show of what used to be. The city has long-since encroached on its artificial habitat, and housing developments have taken the place of the chain-link cages.
contact@capitaldaily.ca
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text:
'use strict';
var _ = require('lodash'),
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Nationally, Connecticut slipped from 12th place to 13th for percentage of water quality tests that exceeded national standards, according to the National Resources Defense Council's 20th annual water quality report, The Hartford Courant reported.
Factoring out a wildlife anomaly in 2008, Connecticut beaches have been closed or carried posted advisories for 108 days for the past three years in a row, demonstrating that the state has been unable to make significant progress in reducing the health threat facing the swimmers and boaters who want to enjoy the state's waterways, according to a news release from Save the Sound.
The great majority, 81 percent, of beach closures and posted advisories reported in 2009 were due to stormwater contamination, a condition that can be mitigated through investment in sewer infrastructure upgrades and stormwater management techniques like green infrastructure and landscaping. Other unknown sources of contamination account for the remaining 19 percent of beach closures and advisory days.
Polluted stormwater runoff is also a contributing factor in the Sound's "dead zone," a growing area in the western portion of the Sound where oxygen deprivation is stressing marine animals and flora. Long Island Sound is an eight-billion-dollar regional economy in which the marine trades play a major role—for businesses that depend upon a thriving and healthy waterway, hypoxia is a key concern as it signals an inability of the marine environment to sustain life.
NRDC analyzed Connecticut Department of Health data for 65 beaches monitored by the state and municipalities. Connecticut slipped from its 12th place ranking last year to 13th in the nation for the percentage of tests that exceeded national standards, with five percent of those tests failing to meet standards set for bacteria.
The full NRDC report can be found at www.nrdc.org.
Read the Courant report here: State Slips To 13th Place In Water Quality According To Annual Report – Courant.com.
via Mixed results on annual beach report card (documents)- The New Haven Register – Serving New Haven, Connecticut.


text:
Can we support SME growth by increasing demand for their products?
Serene Ho
Photo: Lightlook | Shutterstock.com
Featuring research by David Atkin, Adam Osman, Claudio Ferraz, Frederico Finan, Wyatt Brooks, Kevin Donovan, Asim Khwaja, Antoinette Schoar, Amit Khandelwal, Dimitri Szerman, Victor Couture, Benjamin Faber, Yizhen Gu, Lizhi Liu, Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das, Raj Kamal Iyer, and Sandya Kumar.
Differences in the size and wealth of economies between countries have long been the subject of much debate and discussion. While there are many theories of the sources of these differences, economists have long argued that productivity gaps between firms in the private sector are a major contributor.
As such, rigorous research and experimental approaches have sought to close this productivity gap by focusing on identifying and dismantling barriers that may restrict firm productivity and growth.
However, many of these approaches have tended to be supply-driven; that is, they focus on helping firms overcome problems that prevent them from producing goods or services. Some researchers argue that more emphasis should be placed on demand-driven growth: In other words, by connecting firms to more buyers.
The power of the customer
Imagine a small-scale garment producer with the equipment to produce 100 pink shirts a day. However, due to some barriers—perhaps difficulty procuring cotton or dye, or finding workers with the right skills—our garment producer is only able to produce 50 shirts a day, much less than the amount she has the potential to produce. This limits her ability to make more sales, greater profits, and grow her firm.
Many approaches (and much of the literature) have focused on alleviating supply-driven barriers. But what if an intervention designed to support our garment producer instead focused on increasing demand for pink shirts?
If interest in pink shirts suddenly took off as a result of a marketing campaign, for example, this would increase the volume of orders, and our garment producer would be incentivized to invest in faster pink-shirt-making equipment, looking to replace inefficient processes with more efficient ones. The firm would become more productive in its operations and may even seek to expand its operations and hire more workers.
There are far fewer experimental studies on demand-side interventions relative to supply-side constraints.
More specifically, there isn't enough rigorous evidence to help us clearly understand the channels through which connecting to new buyers can lead to firm improvements, and understanding these channels are critical for policymakers who are designing programs to facilitate and promote greater market access.
But designing and evaluating programs to answer these questions is much easier said than done, as there are significant challenges and limitations to rigorous evaluation. Some may view randomized evaluations of trade policies, for example, as impractical, because they are often large-scale policies that reach an entire population (and hence difficult to randomly assign).
However, in recent years, a growing number of randomized and quasi-experimental evaluations have overcome these constraints in creative ways and have made important contributions to our understanding of demand-side issues. In light of this, we review a selected few of these studies here and discuss some key takeaways.
Exploring new markets and new businesses
J-PAL affiliates David Atkin and Adam Osman, with Amit Khandelwal, published a study in 2017 in which they were able to identify the causal effect of enhancing access to foreign markets. In their study, in collaboration with implementing partners, researchers secured export orders through trade fairs and direct marketing channels and randomly offered small-scale rug manufacturers the opportunity to fill these orders.
They found that discussions and learning between buyers and firms helped to improve the technical ability of firms to produce higher-quality rugs. This subsequently allowed them to sell rugs at a higher price, leading to increases in monthly profits of up to 26 percent.
Similarly, in a quasi-experimental study, J-PAL affiliates Claudio Ferraz and Frederico Finan, with Dimitri Szerman, compared winner and runner-up bids for government procurement contracts in Brazil and found that winning at least one contract increased the likelihood of firms getting more business in the future. Firms were also more likely to enter new auctions, and increase the variety of products they sell to appeal to a wider set of customers. This subsequently led to firm growth and an increase in the number of employees hired by a firm by 2.2 percentage points over one quarter.
Although we mention just two studies here, they are already incredibly informative in helping us understand how markets provide firms with a higher incentive to upgrade efficiency and quality.
But reaching new markets can be challenging
Despite the potential good that can come from trade, firms can be shut out from new or larger markets for many reasons.
1. Unreliable transport networks: It's a long way to the shop
Our garment producer may be efficiently producing hundreds of pink shirts, but getting the merchandise to the customer requires hours of driving on poorly paved roads and offloading onto a freight train that may not arrive. While there is a rich body of non-experimental literature here that shows how improvements in transportation infrastructure have been associated with improved labor and firm outcomes, experimental and quasi-experimental studies are few and far between.
For example, in a 2017 quasi-experimental study, J-PAL affiliates Wyatt Brooks and Kevin Donovan found that new footbridges in Nicaragua incentivized farmers to invest more in intermediate inputs, such as fertilizer and pesticides, and farm profits increased by 75 percent. Yet Victor Couture and co-authors found in a 2018 study that investment in transport logistics as part of the rollout for an e-commerce platform in rural China did not have any effects on income, labor, sourcing of inputs, or entrepreneurship (although there were sizable effects on household wellbeing).
Of course, the intervention and contexts differed dramatically between these two cases, but the studies illustrate that the connection between infrastructure and firm growth may not be as clear as one would think.
2. Lack of information: Knowledge is half the battle
Firms also face non-physical barriers to trade. Fashionistas who advocate for more pink clothing may simply be unaware of our garment producer and the high quality pink shirts that she produces. Providing information or raising awareness about high-quality firms could increase competition within the pink shirt industry and allow high performers to grow and expand.
For instance, J-PAL affiliate Asim Khwaja, with Tahir Andrabi and Jishnu Das, found in a 2017 study that parents who were provided information about the quality of their children's private schools in Pakistan exerted greater pressure on the schools to perform, leading to increased test scores of 0.11 standard deviations.
3. Matching difficulties: Hello, is it my firm you're looking for?
And finally, as one last example, there may simply be existing tensions in certain contexts that make it difficult to engage in trade. Our garment producer may want to sell 100 pink shirts to a high-end boutique, but in the absence of strong legal structures or third party enforcement, the boutique could easily default, refuse to pay, or simply walk away.
As such, our producer may have to rely on other characteristics to determine if a business relationship is viable, perhaps only preferring to do business with people that were referred or recommended. This limits the pool of customers that firm owners want to engage with.
It is unclear to what extent such frictions are an important barrier to trade, but one study provides suggestive evidence that firms do engage in different business strategies depending on the customers' observable characteristics. In a 2008 study, J-PAL affiliate Antoinette Schoar, with Raj Kamal Iyer and Sandya Kumar, found that pen wholesalers in India preferred to give better deals to buyers who come from the same ethnic group, suggesting that ethnicity of parties played an important role in determining the interaction between buyers and sellers.
Small steps today, big leaps tomorrow
While we have highlighted a growing number of experimental and quasi-experimental studies that speak to demand-side interventions for firms, there is still much we do not know about how demand drives firm growth, and the effective strategies to foster demand. Indeed, many of the studies we have highlighted here raise more questions!
Fortunately, identifying these open questions and acknowledging the gaps in the evidence base are concrete first steps towards filling them. This is an area that J-PAL's Firms sector is actively working on, and we hope to encourage more researchers to experiment and improve our collective understanding of what works to help firms grow.
Learn more about J-PAL's Firms sector >>
Introducing J-PAL's Firms sector


text:
Die Wuppertalsperre liegt im Städtedreieck Remscheid, Radevormwald und Hückeswagen. Sie ist eine Brauchwassertalsperre. Sie dient der Niedrigwasseraufhöhung, dem Hochwasserschutz der Wupper und der Wasserkrafterzeugung.

Geschichte und allgemeine Fakten

Die grundlegenden Planungsarbeiten wurden 1957 abgeschlossen. 1962 begannen die vorbereitenden Arbeiten wie die Verlegung von Straßen und einer Trinkwasserleitung. Der Bau des Hauptdammes erfolgte von 1982 bis 1987. Die Inbetriebnahme bzw. Fertigstellung der Talsperre fand 1989 statt. Das Absperrbauwerk, der 320 m lange und 40 m hohe Damm der Talsperre, besteht aus einer Steinschüttung mit Asphaltbetoninnendichtung. Das maximale Stauvolumen der Talsperre beträgt 25,9 Mio. m³ bei einem jährlichen Zufluss von etwa 138 Mio. m³. Für die Talsperre wurden 440 Hektar Land angekauft. Die Gesamtkosten der Talsperre betrugen nach damaligem Stand 235 Mio. Mark.

Es gibt insgesamt fünf Vorsperren der Wupper-Talsperre:
 Wupper-Vorsperre
 Wiebach-Vorsperre
 Dörpe-Vorsperre
 Feldbach-Vorsperre
 Lenneper Bach-Vorsperre

Weitere Zuflüsse in die Wuppertalsperre sind:
 Kretzer Bach

Versunkene Ortschaften, Industrieanlagen und Sehenswürdigkeiten

Die Wupperbrücke in Kräwinklerbrücke ist die älteste noch erhaltene – aber versunkene – Brücke über die Wupper. Sie wurde "wenige Jahrzehnte" vor der 1775 fertiggestellten Wupperbrücke in Barmen-Heckinghausen errichtet.

Vor dem Bau der Talsperre in den Jahren 1982–1987 wurden folgende Ortschaften bzw. Anlagen abgerissen und schließlich vom aufgestauten Wasser überspült:

 Carolinengrube
 Cöens Mühle
 Dörpe (mit Jung-Stilling-Haus)
 Stahlwerk Enneper in Dörpe
 Hammersteinsöge
 Alte Filzfabrik
 Hof Hammerstein (alter Adelssitz, nicht zu verwechseln mit Haus Hammerstein, das es heute als einziges Gebäude noch gibt)
 Kapelle Maria zur Mühlen (Kräwinklerbrücke)
 Kräwinklerbrücke (große Teile der Ortschaft)
 Krebsöge (Teile der Ortschaft, war ein Eisenbahnknotenpunkt)
 Stahlwerk Urbach & Co. (Kräwinklerbrücke)
 Nieder- und Oberkretze
 Hummeltenberger Mühle
 Löbbeckes Mühle
 Oege
 Wiebachtal (siehe auch Wiebach und Wiebach-Vorsperre)
 Himmelswiese (Ausflugsziel)
 Hütte der Naturfreunde, später SGV-Heim
 Mondstein (Schrittsteine, die Grundlage einer bergischen Sage waren)

Im Zuge des Talsperrenbaus wurde 1980 die Bahnstrecke Wuppertal – Radevormwald – Brügge (Wuppertal-Bahn, Streckennummer 2704) zwischen Wilhelmstal und Radevormwald stillgelegt. Der Bahnhof Krebsöge (Strecken Remscheid-Lennep – Krebsöge und Wuppertal – Brügge) befand sich an der Stelle des Dammes. Der Bahnhof Kräwinklerbrücke wurde, wie auch die gesamten Bahnanlagen im Staubereich, abgerissen.

Freizeit

Die Wuppertalsperre ist mit ihren Möglichkeiten zur Freizeitgestaltung ein Anziehungspunkt für Besucher aus der gesamten Region. Zum Freizeitangebot zählen zahlreiche Wander- und Radwanderwege, Rastplätze, Ferienhaussiedlungen und ein Bootshafen für Segel- und Ruderboote.

An der Wuppertalsperre liegt die mittelalterliche Ringwallanlage Am Bilstein. Das Bodendenkmal ist über eine Abzweigung vom Wanderweg A 7 zu erreichen.

Tauchen

Obwohl nicht ungefährlich für Hobby-Taucher ist die Wuppertalsperre zwischen Radevormwald, Remscheid und Hückeswagen zu einem Dorado für Sporttaucher geworden.

15 Jahre lang, von 1995 bis 2010, lagen die Rechte für die wassersportliche Nutzung der Wuppertalsperre in der Hand der Wassersport und Freizeitanlage Kräwinklerbrücke GmbH.
2010, nach einem langen Rechtsstreit mit der Gesellschaft und der Stadt Remscheid, gingen die Rechte an die GABE gGmbH über; einer gemeinnützigen Gesellschaft, die es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht hat, Jugendliche und (Langzeit-)Arbeitslose zu beschäftigen, zu qualifizieren und auszubilden, um deren Chancen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt zu verbessern.

Sehenswürdigkeiten (unter Wasser):
 Vollerhaltenes Viadukt mit drei durchtauchbaren Brückenbögen
 Holzwehr
 Verschütteter Brückenbogen
 Bruchsteinmauer-Einfassung der Brücke
 Fabrikfassade
 Felswände

Literatur

 Manfred Heymann: Krebsöge original. Der kleine Ort vor dem Bau der Wupper-Talsperre. Eine Nostalgie. Jungdruck, Radevormwald 2007.
 Heinz-Dieter Dörner: Historisches aus der Wupper-Talsperre. Bildband mit Chroniken und Beschreibungen über Kräwinklerbrücke und Krebsöge. WFT Verlag. Wermelskirchen 2005, ISBN 3-929095-21-1.

Siehe auch
Liste der Seen in Nordrhein-Westfalen
Liste von Talsperren in Deutschland

Weblinks

 Die Internetseite des Wupperverbands

 Stauanlagenverzeichnis NRW (PDF; 122 kB)

Einzelnachweise

Stausee in Europa
Stausee in Nordrhein-Westfalen
Staudamm in Nordrhein-Westfalen
SWuppertalsperre
Gewässer in Remscheid
Betauchter See
Wasserbauwerk in Remscheid
Wasserbauwerk in Hückeswagen
Gewässer in Radevormwald
Gewässer in Hückeswagen
Erbaut in den 1980er Jahren
Wasserbauwerk in Radevormwald
Talsperre im Wupperverband


text:
A Brief History of the Death Penalty in America
Maurice Chammah on the Country's Ambivalence Toward Democratized Killing
By Maurice Chammah
In every death penalty case, before Charlie Brooks and since, you will find the family members, the lawyers, the journalists, the prison workers—each of them touched, in ways large and small, observable and invisible, by the moment a person takes a life, the moment the state takes a life, and the many moments in between.
To everyone else, the death penalty can feel like an abstraction, a source of dinner table quarrels that reemerge when a major case hits the news and we marshal the arguments we've heard before, citing the Bible or statistics or anecdote to make our case for or against. Capital punishment is a long-standing tradition, close to a cultural universal over the long span of the human experience, but Americans have always viewed it with some ambivalence, and our history is accordingly erratic. Before the Civil War, the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the "mildness" of American punishment (for those who weren't enslaved, that is), and Michigan, Maine, and Wisconsin abolished the death penalty for good. Nebraska, meanwhile, kept carrying out executions until 1959, then stopped, then carried out three in the mid-1990s, then stopped again, then formally abolished the punishment in 2015, then voted to bring it back, and finally resumed executions in 2018.
There was no clearer policy expression of the idea that some people were irredeemable.
Even amid this turmoil, there was a moment, roughly half a century ago, when it seemed the death penalty would disappear from American society forever. Executions had fallen out of fashion by 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the American system of capital punishment as a whole violated the Constitution. Instead of marking the death penalty's end, however, this decision spurred its resurgence. States crafted a new system, and executions resumed and trended upward and the country reached a peak—nearly a hundred executions—in 1999.
This embrace of capital punishment coincided with a historic rise in violent crime that began in the 1960s and trailed off in the 1990s. Seeking to explain this trend, scholars have looked in many directions. Crime is often the product of impulsive decision-making, and young adults with less-developed brains are more likely to act impulsively; as the baby boomer generation came of age, the population of young adults ballooned. The closing of asylums and failure to improve public mental health systems meant that jails often took on the care of those suffering from mental illness. In the 1960s, American society also experienced sweeping transformations in its cultural and sexual mores, which produced new conditions—more unmarried young men, more children without parental stability, more cultural celebrations of violence—that help explain, if only partially, the rise in crime.
There was a moment, roughly half a century ago, when it seemed the death penalty would disappear from American society forever.
But cause and effect, action and reaction, also began to blur in myriad ways. An epidemic of crack cocaine use swept Black communities, but political choices criminalized the sale and use of the drug and turned prisons into places where those convicted of nonviolent crimes were acclimated by trauma to violence. The American creed of personal reinvention, which at times had inspired prison officials to focus on rehabilitation and redemption, was shelved as a naive indulgence. (The word "corrections" lingered in the names of state prison agencies, an aspiration for the future or a phantom limb from the past.) As lawmakers made it easier to get sent to prison and harder to get out, the number of incarcerated Americans ballooned from half a million to more than two million. Even at the death penalty's height, it played a role in only a tiny fraction of murder cases, but executions were the ultimate symbol of a national culture that favored retribution, and they rendered sentences of twenty, forty, or sixty years in prison less extreme by comparison. There was no clearer policy expression of the idea that some people were irredeemable.
One state stood at the center of this history. Of the roughly 1,500 executions that Americans have carried out since the 1970s, Texas has been responsible for more than 500. Oklahoma actually executed more people per capita during this time, while other states sent more to death row, but when Saturday Night Live sat a smarmy politician atop a stack of prisoners' coffins, he was a fictional Texas governor, and when a character on The Simpsons played an arcade game called "Escape from Death Row," she knew she had lost when the machine spouted "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and an executioner, dressed as a cowboy, danced onto the screen.
Texans have relished their reputation for dispensing harsh and efficient justice, amplifying it to guide the country as a whole. Two different Texas governors, running for president in 2000 and 2012, used their death penalty records to appeal to voters in the rest of the country, and the rhetoric trickled down. "If you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back," said the comedian Ron White. When anthropologist Robin Conley interviewed members of Houston juries for a 2011 dissertation, one told her, "Down in parts of Texas where I work, we would have a room full of eye-for-an-eye people just wanting to hang this guy."
The death penalty is the product of democracy.
The criminologist Franklin Zimring drew upon this vision when he wanted to explain a seeming contradiction: How could Americans, especially those with conservative views, profess so much distrust for government, but also support the government's efforts to execute people? Zimring's answer was the "mythology of local control." For many Americans, he explained, executions are "expressions of the will of the community rather than the power of a distant and alien government." The death penalty, in other words, is the product of democracy: American voters choose the lawmakers who make the death penalty available, they choose the prosecutors who seek the death penalty in individual cases, and then, as jurors, they choose to actually hand out the death sentences. This sense of ownership is what separates us from other countries that frequently impose the punishment, countries that critics like to bring up, like Saudi Arabia, China, and Iran. Their citizens don't necessarily get to choose whether to have the death penalty, or decide when it should be imposed; we do.
To make such arguments, however, you have to keep one eye closed. Open it and you see a parallel history of American punishment, as present in Texas as anywhere else. Before executions looked like quiet medical procedures, they looked like charred and dismembered corpses, usually of Black men, surrounded by throngs of smiling white faces in the courthouse square. Before the days of seemingly endless appeals, there were the days of no trials at all. A community coming together to exercise its collective will can also look like the powerful violently suppressing the weak. Outside the prison cell where Charlie Brooks waited out his appeals, other Black prisoners were picking cotton just as their enslaved ancestors had done.
From Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty by Maurice Chammah. Used with the permission of Crown. Copyright © 2021 by Maurice Chammah.
capital punishmentCrown Publishingdeath penaltyLet the Lord Sort ThemMaurice Chammah
Maurice Chammah
Maurice Chammah is a journalist and staff writer for The Marshall Project. His reporting on the criminal justice system has been published by The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, and Mother Jones. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he and his wife Emily Chammah co-organize The Insider Prize, a fiction and essay contest for incarcerated writers sponsored by American Short Fiction.
22 Books That Helped Me Write the Story of My Transition
Joan Didion: Why I Write
As a trans person, I spent most of my life with my head in a book imagining other lives, other bodies, and other histories....


text:
Lance Robert
Changes at The Robert Group
It is with great excitement that I write this letter. As a company, we have been on an epic adventure of growth from three family members striking out on their own to an established wealth manager that manages close on 2 billion rands' worth of client assets.
For every single family member, friend, colleague, and client that has joined us along the way, we are grateful for the trust that has been placed in us and for the special bonds that we have formed over the years. The joy that we get from doing what we love and making an impact in the lives of people we care about is humbling. This is why we get up every morning and do what we do. That will never change.
There are other things, however, that need to be left behind in order for us to move forward. One of those is our branding.
HOW WE GOT HERE...
When The Robert Group was first formed, Claude, Jean, and Francois Robert were all consultants at Liberty Life who came together to form a group. Our logo depicted this - a square with three circles inside it being the three Roberts coming together.
In 2009, we left the Liberty Life group and started our own Independent Financial Services group. In 2010, TRG Insurance Brokers t/a The Robert Group was officially registered. We already had offices, a client base, and a brand so while it may have seemed a technicality to our clients, for us it was a major move. It meant that we would now fully represent our clients' interests and never again those of an insurance company.
Looking back over the years, we have achieved so much. We now have 10 professional advisers and hope to have our second CFP soon. We have partnered with TMJ Attorneys to create a specialist Fiduciary Services (Wills and Trusts) division called The Robert Group Fiduciary. We have been granted a Discretionary Asset Management license by the FSB which allows active management of our clients' investments, the results of which are already bearing fruit for our clients. And we have grown our Assets Under Management (AUM) from just under R1 billion to just under R2 billion.
WHY CHANGE OUR BRANDING NOW?
The brand that we have used to represent us has served us particularly well over the last 15 years. It has represented honesty, integrity, and trust in an industry where those traits are so often lacking. However, that brand also represents three individuals. In contrast, our family-orientated company has now grown to be more about how we, as a team, can best serve you, our clients. We wanted a logo and a brand that represented that.
It is with much pride that we launch the new and improved brand that will take us into the future. A brand that is true to the roots of who we are and where we come from but that also represents our goals for your wealth. What does it stand for? The TRG icon represents The Robert Group while the ascending arrow in the "G" represents our commitment to the growth of your wealth. Our tagline has also changed to "Private Wealth" as this more accurately reflects our service offering and clients.
Thank you for everything that you mean to us and our company. We look forward to working with you for many more prosperous years.
Yours in wealth,
Newer PostLooking for a financial adviser? This is what you need to know.