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Tag Archives: World War II
I have spent a good portion of my life avoiding all literature and movies that take place during World War II. I'm an emotional and empathetic person, and I just can't deal with it! I was forced to read Night in middle school, and to watch Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan before I was out of school. I can't take it! It's too much abject and terrible misery happening all at once, all over the world. So I've actively avoided anything set in the period. Until recently. I realized as I began this novel that it was the 4th WWII era novel I've read in as many years. It seems I can tolerate the time period if the war is in the periphery rather than the main event. First, there was Atonement, which pretty much ruined my life while I was reading it. Fuck You, Ian McEwan. You kill me every time you cruel, heartless bastard.
In the last two years, I've read The Book Thief (amazing, amazing book. READ IT!) and the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (also very good), and now this. These books were about women, which might be why the bulk of the violence is on the outskirts of the story.
Code Name Verity is the story of two girls. Maddie and Julie. Maddie is from the North of England, and she starts the war working in her grandfather's motorcycle shop. But she gets the itch to be a pilot, and as war efforts continue to require more and more people, she gets her chance. She ferries broken planes and healthy pilots around the airbases of England in the Air Transport Auxiliary. Her friend Julie is Scottish, well-bred, and is involved in Secret Ops. Forgive me if I get some of these military names wrong; I have no capacity for remembering the difference between Special Forces and Secret Operations, etc.
The girls encounter each other several times throughout their work on airfields. Their first meeting is when Julie and Maddie help an injured German pilot land his plane on their runway–by pretending he's safely made it back to France. Two things are really striking about these characters, given their time and place. 1-They are girls who are capable, skilled, and efficient at jobs almost exclusively reserved for men. Maddie is a mechanic and a pilot; Julie becomes a spy. 2-They are incredibly close and good friends. There are a lot of female friendships represented in literature as catty and jealous. I know a lot of women who feel more comfortable with men than with other women. Consider a character like Bella Swan from Twilight. She has almost zero female friends, and 99% of her life is caught up between two dudes. Of course, there are a lot of problems with Twilight; I won't go into all that. The point is, seeing a strong and loyal female friendship is rarer than you might think.
This book is a little bit of a 'mind game', as the NYT blurb on the cover indicates. The first 1/3 of the book is Julie's narrative. She is writing on borrowed scraps of paper after being caught in occupied France. She has been tortured by the Gestapo, and she is writing her story to delay her upcoming transfer to a concentration camp. It's bleak and manic, describing in detail her ill-treatment and her guilt over giving up information to the Nazi's. She tells the whole story of her relationship with Maddie, from its inception. From Maddie's point of view. Maddie is on her mind constantly, because the Gestapo have showed her pictures of Maddie's crashed plane and the charred body in the cockpit. The UK cover shows a more accurate depiction of the book, but I wonder if I would have read the book if it had had this cover?
But there are twists and turns once we reach the middle of the book. Both girls are so capable and so honest with their written accounts, that you start to believe that things might work out. But this is Nazi-occupied France, and I'm not spoiling anything by telling you that it doesn't all work out. As much as I was hoping for a miracle at the end, there wasn't one. But the bittersweet ending makes you appreciate even more the truly bad-ass nature of these two girls, and of everyone just fighting for survival at that time. People surviving the Blitz, the French resistance living in constant fear, the beleaguered and eternally-ruined souls of everyone who took part in the Nazi party and in the Gestapo. Everyone was just…surviving, if they were lucky. I really am not someone capable of dealing with this level of misery! If I think about it too much, I can't get out of bed in the morning.
Before you have me committed for manic depression, I'll snap myself out of it. I had mixed feelings about the end, because the girls were so honorable and so easy to look up to, but anyone born in that time was just going to experience their fair share of misery. Now that I've calmed down about the ending, I can look back and say that I really enjoyed the book. It was worth dealing with the pain to see such capable, smart, emotional, and brave women as main characters in a story. No man to save the day; they rely on themselves. The book also makes sure to make every character–even the Gestapo interrogator– a real human, with flaws and doubts and pleasures and pains. Books that portray Nazi's as superhuman monsters aren't helping us avoid making the same mistakes in future. I think this book was really successful at taking a totally inhuman, alien concept like being a P.o.W. in a Nazi stronghold, or like hiding with a family in the French Resistance, and makes it seem real and comprehensible. It gives life to an era I (fortunately) didn't see. I really enjoyed it, even though it required a lot of chocolate to recover from.
Tagged Air Transport Auxiliary, atonement, Bella Swan, Code Name Verity, female friendship, female pilot, France, French resistance, Gestapo, ian mcewan, Julie, Maddie, Nazis, Night, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, The Book Thief, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Twilight, World War II
Spies of Warsaw
BBC America aired this 2-part miniseries in April, though it aired in the UK in January. The miniseries was based on a spy novel by Alan Furst, and takes place in Poland (obviously) and throughout central Europe in the late '30s. David Tennant plays Colonel Mercier, a French aristocrat and spy. Janet Montgomery plays Anna Skarbek, an official with the League of Nations and Mercier's love interest.
I can't say I loved it, to be honest. I think there are a number of reasons for this –some my own preferences and some general problems with the miniseries–and I'll run down them briefly.
First, I'm not crazy about the subject matter. Almost all thoughts of World War II make me so upset as to be nauseous. The only thing that terrifies me more than Nazi uniforms are Hitler Youth uniforms. But this is my own personal preference, and doesn't reflect on the quality of the series.
Second, the format left something to be desired. This was two 2-hour episodes; 2 full movies in other words. I think there could have been a lot more tension built around the characters' fates if it was split into maybe 4 parts. I wasn't entertained enough by it to focus solely on it for two entire hours. And this isn't just my attention span that is the problem–each episode of Sherlock is 90 minutes long, and I'm riveted for most every second. I couldn't fathom picking up my iPhone and doing solitaire while watching that. I spent good chunks of my viewing time for Spies of Warsaw playing a geography game on my phone. Hey, anyone need to know where Guinea-Bissau is? Because I'm hoping that knowledge will bring me the big bucks in life. The point is, it was too long and moved too slowly for 2 hour blocks at a time.
I think that the miniseries has something in common with Parade's End, which was on HBO a few months ago. Each dealt with the lead-up to war. Each featured a smart, strong male lead convinced that war was coming. Both protagonists struggled to make their compatriots understand the catastrophe Germany was about to unleash upon Europe. Stylistically, both featured long (long for a modern film audience) shots of not much action, interspersed with more tense and action-filled scenes. Each had good acting and good writing, and yet each suffered from the problem of not quite connecting emotionally with the audience. And I'm not enough of a film student to comprehend what about each fails to really move me. I liked Parade's End a lot at times, but with Spies of Warsaw, I found it difficult to care much about what was happening. I think my apathy came partially from not having a vulnerable or relate-able main character. Mercier sees what his coworkers do not, he's a great spy, he cares about people, he is too good and too capable. It takes away from the tension of what might happen to him, because even in moments of distress and danger it seems impossible that he won't come out of it just fine.
I will say that these two miniseries (plus Casablanca) have utterly convinced me that love affairs are really difficult in situations of World War. Note to self.
David Tennant's acting is great. I've seen him play serious before (Hamlet, for example) and he's really good. The female character, Anna, has almost no personality in it, so they didn't give Janet Montgomery much to work with. In response to finding out her new boyfriend is a spy, she…doesn't say anything, really. I would have liked both characters to be far more flawed, unsure, stumbling along through ridiculous times. It does an audience no good to think of anyone existing at that time as a paragon.
I remember watching a great but horribly violent movie, fittingly titled A History of Violence. Viggo Mortenson plays some sort of ex-mafia criminal who starts a new life in a small town and is completely reformed. When someone tries to rob his restaurant, instinct kicks in and Mortenson's character kills the robbers in self-defense. From that moment, his past starts to come back to haunt him. His wife (Maria Bello) finds out who and what he was, and she has an incredible reaction. Vomiting, shouting, running out of the room, and then they have this crazy, scary, exciting sex scene. It's a real and varied and unnerving response to finding out your beloved is not who or what they said they were. When I think about Anna Skarbek's character, I don't expect the same reaction, but it almost seemed like there wasn't one. She finds out her new beau is a spy and she….just kind of accepts it and moves on. I suppose you could argue that everyone in the series is someone other than who they pretend to be. After all, if you were inclined to disagree with Germany (or Russia, for that matter), you wouldn't be inclined to advertise it. Perhaps Anna is used to it, but I found it off-putting that she had such a monotonous emotional landscape.
To her credit, she does get properly angry with Mercier later when she thinks he ordered the French to turn her defector ex-boyfriend over to Stalin.
Confession: I am not a spy novel aficionado. I don't think I've ever read a spy novel. Maybe that's part of the problem–I don't speak the lingo. On the other hand, I've seen Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, and at least one other Bogart movie. And I followed those just fine. I think they were just better. Also, I really liked Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which falls right in there with great spy films. Spies of Warsaw has the music of a great spy film, and some of the quintessential visuals, but none of the tension. And tension is everything. Have you seen Strangers on a Train? Hitchcock can make a tennis game the most tense and suspenseful thing in the world. This was no Hitchcock, unfortunately.
They did a great job recreating a bleak and terrifying Central European landscape for this miniseries. Security checks and random searches, the Poles sandwiched unhappily between the Gestapo on the west and the Russian NKVD (later, the KGB) on the east. France being still (at this point) a relaxing place nicely separated from all the riff raff on the other side of the Black Forest. Parties in Paris…but still a feeling of the doors closing in, for the Jews particularly. The costuming, the set design, and the cinematography all made the world really believable.
I think the fault must lie in the pacing and the writing (two things that I imagine are closely intertwined when writing a movie/mini-series). There's not enough tension or enough direction in the plot. It feels disconnected at times, and the ending is thoroughly confusing. It tries to make you feel uplifted that they've escaped Poland (which is good, obviously) with a bunch of Polish gold to keep it from the Germans (also good). But they're headed to France, so the modern audience knows that this isn't the end; this isn't a happy ending, even though they almost literally walk off into the sunset.
Also, it is a bit confusing for an American audience to have two Brits with British accents playing a Frenchman and a Polish woman. I kept forgetting Mercier was French. Maybe this wouldn't bother me if the actors were American, because I wouldn't register their accents as something already foreign. I doubt it bothered Brits. Still, when you have David Tennant playing a French man with a British accent meeting an English aristocrat with an English accent, it's difficult to remember they are supposed to be from different countries. Others, like the Russian ex-boyfriend has a proper Russian accent. Tennant explained the action choices in this Joycean quote:
There is actually an internal logic to the concept. Since the main character is French, but the audience is English-speaking, we hear him speak with a sort of a neutral English accent, and anyone else speaking English is actually speaking French, and the other nationalities speak English but with their natural accents, and the Germans speak German with English subtitles – which I suppose makes [the subtitles] French. I can see your eyes glazing over.
I think my brain just glazed over. Sorry David, I love you and I don't blame you, but this just wasn't very good.
Tagged Alfred Hitchcock, Anna Skarbek, BBC America, Casablanca, david tennant, France, Germany, Gestapo, History of Violence, Hitler Youth, Humphrey Bogart, Janet Montgomery, KGB, League of Nations, Mercier, Nazis, Parade's End, Poland, Russia, Sherlock, Spies of Warsaw, Strangers on a Train, The Maltese Falcon, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Viggo Mortenson, World War II
Upcoming TV highlights
There are a whole score of new and returning shows on TV this month and next. I thought it might be a good time to discuss them.
First of all, the end of March marked the return of Doctor Who!
And there's a new outfit, a new TARDIS, and a new companion. If you watched season 7, you already know Oswin. Can I say already that I love her? I love her. She is super smart, she is a conundrum, and she is simultaneously friendly, playful, and not afraid to stand up to the Doctor. Add to the wonderfulness of her character, she is a real enigma. The Doctor doesn't understand her, and he finds anything he doesn't understand really mesmerizing. It's a totally different dynamic than the big brother relationship he had with Amy and Rory. And I really like his new coat. I feel like maybe I'm getting my expectations up too high. Last season was a little disappointing for me, and I don't want to get too excited and then be disappointed again. But…it's probably too late. I've seen the first episode and I really liked it, and I love their dynamic, and I'm really excited for what's coming next. Dr. Who is on BBC America on Saturday nights at 8 Eastern.
Premiering that same night was the new series, Orphan Black. Although this is on BBC America, it doesn't actually seem to be a British show. It is set in Canada, I believe, though it is never explicitly stated. The 'main' character, Sarah, is British, as is her best friend Paul. Only the actors aren't actually British, but whatever. The show seems interesting; I haven't made my mind up about it yet. It begins with Sarah (a woman with questionable morals and a shady background) seeing a woman, Beth, who looks exactly like her, jump in front of a train. She takes over Beth's seemingly swanky life (wasn't this the plot to that Sarah Michelle Gellar show, Ringer?), mostly based on the fact that the woman had money and nice clothes. Remind me to never take over my dead clone's life based on her clothing quality, because it just doesn't turn out well. She has to get to know Beth's boyfriend (including possibly the most graphic sex scene I've ever seen on a non-premium channel), deal with a police inquest over a shooting in the line of duty (oh, Beth was a cop?) and a mysterious safety deposit box full of birth certificates. Sarah proves herself to be pretty stupid in this first episode. Her goal is to get her daughter back from whomever is caring for her, and to start a new life. Her first plan is to steal heroin from her ex and sell it for $20k. Her next plan is to have her best friend identify Beth's mangled body as Sarah, and steal all of Beth's savings. It never occurs to her that her daughter might find out that Sarah has been declared dead, but of course that is what happens. She seems to really lack the ability to think about consequences, but we know very little about her back story, except that she is an orphan.
This show is iffy. Could turn out well, could be implausible and ridiculous. I'm going to give it a few more episodes before I make a verdict. It's on after Doctor Who, Saturdays on BBC America at 9 Eastern.
The last weekend in March was a big one for me! Also premiering, on PBS this time, was Mr. Selfridge, a proper British period drama about Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of the eponymous store on Oxford Street. I had no idea he was American, but apparently he emigrated from Chicago to open the world's best department store in London. It just finished airing in England, so kudos to PBS for getting it over here in less than 6 months. They're getting better!
Jeremy Piven plays a non-douchebag, which I didn't approve of at first. Have they seen Entourage? I haven't, I'll admit, but his suits were too shiny for me to see him as a non-douche. Right? Look at this picture and then argue with me:
So, I'll reiterate that I wasn't sure about all this, but Jeremy Piven is really good! It helps that the character is bombastic and grandiose. He needs to act that way because, as we learn in the very first episode, he is in deep trouble with money. He needs a lot of money, press, and publicity to make his store a hit, so he has to be more confident than he is.
The show follows Mr. Selfridge, obviously, but it is also a Downton-esque ensemble cast of high- and low-class characters. There are: his wife, who meets a (very) handsome artist at the National Gallery; the shopgirl Agnes Towler who works in the accessories department and her struggles with her brother, her father, and her suitor; other employees in the store both friendly and not; Miss Love, the actress and potential mistress for Mr. Selfridge; ruthless investors in the store; and I'm sure there will be more in later episodes.
There were a lot of interesting dynamics between classes, like any British drama worth its name. Add to that, the genuinely interesting concept of the first true department store. Most shops prior to this time period, especially in England, did not have displays as we do now. There were counters, and you would go up and ask to see a specific type of glove or hat, etc. Or, if you were wealthy, you would have a dressmaker, milliner, etc., come to your house for a fitting in your own home. The art and hobby of shopping wasn't the same. Ready-to-wear clothing wasn't the same, either. So seeing this revolution happen in the show is intriguing. I found the first episode really entertaining and cannot wait for the next episode. Hopefully the quality stays the same throughout. My only complaint is that in the intro on PBS, Laura Linney was talking about the show and described it using the following words about Mr. Selfridge: "He was the first person to know what women really want. They want to go shopping."
Oh, Laura Linney. Why? Why would you say that? Who wrote that? Blech.
Attention all Doctor Who fans! David Tennant is returning to our TV screens! For a limited time only! This is a two-part mini-series on BBC America, about a WWII era spy. It begins in 1937, in Poland, France, and Germany. David Tennant stars as Col. Mercier, a French 'military attaché stationed in Poland. He alone sees the war coming, where his comrades don't want to admit what is happening in Europe. I don't know much about the plot yet, but the NY Times called describes it almost as a whodunnit, more like a Christie novel than Casablanca, which it seems to want to be. There is a love triangle, but the upcoming War is the real story of the mini-series. Also according to the Times, despite the weaknesses in Spies of Warsaw, "there is nothing more satisfying than a prewar espionage story that shows, up close and told-you-so, how most of Europe slept through Hitler's rise."
It's playing on BBC America on April 3rd and 10th, but I'm quite certain they will replay it several times over the next month or two.
Although I didn't watch it, I should mention that the second season of Call the Midwife also premiered at the end of March. It airs every Sunday night on PBS, and is also available on their website.
Also coming soon on PBS is something I'm really excited to see: The Bletchley Circle
This aired last year in the UK. Set in 1952, it follows four women who worked as code breakers at Bletchley Park (the main center for decryption/codebreaking in the UK during WWII). If that wasn't bad ass enough, it's also a murder mystery. Police are overlooking a pattern in the killings, but these code-breaking badass ladies in their cardigans are smart enough to see it. It's only a 3 part mini-series, but it sounds awesome. I love to see women in period pieces that have more to do than just swoon and get married. The Bletchley Circle premieres on PBS on April 21st.
Looks like it's going to be a great spring for us anglophiles!
Tagged Agnes Towler, BBC America, Beth, Bletchley Park, Call the Midwife, Casablanca, david tennant, doctor who, Jeremy Piven, Laura Linney, Matt Smith, Mr. Selfridge, Orphan Black, Oswin, PBS, Sarah, Spies of Warsaw, the Bletchley Circle, The New York Times, TV Show, World War II
Book Review: The Evil Empire
This book almost gave me an aneurism. I mean…I don't know that I've ever been so angry at the written word. Of course, I've never read an Ann Coulter book, but I imagine it would have the same effect. So why would an anglophile (like me) read this in the first place?
Well, I got it for free–reason one. But more importantly, I wanted to challenge myself to see a grittier, more realistic book about the UK and it's imperial history, which is filled with just as much shameful activity as our own. I freely criticize the American government and our unsavory history, so I should be equally hard on the U.K. The book seemed like a good way to see things in a different light, and listen to the devil's advocate. And maybe if the book was coherent or logical, it might have shifted my worldview instead of just making me incredibly angry.
Here's the problem with this book. I'm not sure what it's trying to be. Like a boggart who turns into half a slug, it seems to be pandering to two genres and failing at both. If it's trying to be funny, it fails. I'm sure Rush Limbaugh thinks he's funny, and people who think exactly like him perhaps agree. That's the sort of "humor" this book is filled with. I wasn't even tempted to laugh even once. Not even a smirk.
If it's trying to be an honest book, it fails even harder. The worst thing you can do with a humor book is not be funny (check), but if you claim your book is in any way factual, you can apparently fill it with complete and utter lies and errors from cover to cover. You can spread absolute bullshit throughout, and you can also make me not want to live on this planet anymore. Well done Steven A Grasse.
I wrote notes on almost every page. Partially I was making notes for this review, so that I could point out all of the inaccuracies. But I also needed to vent some of my anger. Here's a shot of one particularly offensive and ridiculous page.
Notice that I was particularly irritated by Grasse referring to corsets worn during the time of Shakespeare (1564-1616) as Victorian. For future reference, everyone, Victorian means it took place roughly during the time of the reign of Queen Victoria. Which was some 250 years after Shakespeare died. Presumably he meant Elizabethan, which is more correct. Grasse also goes on to explain that Americans would prefer a Tarantino film to the overrated works of the Bard 'any day of the week'. At this point my head and desk made abrupt contact.
I found a blog dedicated to all of the inaccuracies of this book. The writer seems to have given up halfway through, and I can't say I blame him or her. This book, once you comprehend just how racist and hate-filled it is, even as a joke, is hard to slog through. It's a chore. It's depressing. It makes me hate America and Americans. And I am one. It makes me ashamed of us. Can I say again how much I hate this book?
Back to the inaccuracies, because you need to comprehend just how bad it is. I made notes on almost every page with all of my thoughts on what was wrong about what he was saying–not theoretically or ideologically wrong, but factually wrong. The errors fell into a few categories:
Logical fallacies:
In a chapter explaining how England created global warming, Grasse explains that England 'designed' the Industrial Revolution around engines that ran on coal, which ruined our atmosphere. He says they could have 'just waited a few years until solar power hit the scene'. Were they supposed to jump in their coal-powered time machines so they would know that solar power was on the way? Also, whose to say we would have developed solar technology without the advancements that coal tech brought? I'm not a big fan of coal either, but it's ridiculous to talk about it as if they could have known what would happen or would have stopped doing things like building railroads that brought fresh food to inland areas and allowed for quick transport throughout the country. We certainly haven't stopped using coal or oil.
Apparently, England 'Sliced North America Across the Middle' and are standing in the way of an alliance between Canada and the US by making us dislike each other. I must have missed when this happened. Also, I apparently missed when Mexico ceased to exist, because Grasse doesn't mention it as part of North America. Also, apparently, after we formed NAFTA, the Brits 'formed their own special club–the European Union'. Wrong! NAFTA was signed in 1994. The EU started as the European Economic Community (EEC) after WWII ended (first six countries signed in 1957). Another problem is that the UK was not allowed in the first two times they applied (de Gaulle was a serious douche, in my opinion) and didn't join until 1973. But even that was twenty years before NAFTA.
Out-and-out nonsense:
Apparently, 'They Relish Collecting Taxes' based on the evidence that William the Conqueror created the Domesday book to tax his citizens. Does Grasse know that William was French (Norman, technically)?
Grasse argues that the UK propagated the English measurement system which is, apparently, evil and is ruining the world. No explanation is provided for why we are one of the few countries that still use it. The UK does not use it anymore. Also, he blames the destruction of the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1998 on the UK because some parts were made with metric specs that should have used English measurements.
Grasse spends a page attacking the Rhodes Scholarship. For the record, Cecil Rhodes did some very evil stuff in the name of Queen and Empire. The fact that a few US citizens are paid to go to Oxford does not make up for that fact, but it might do something to mitigate it. It certainly isn't a reason to attack England. Also, Grasse seems to be unaware or to ignore the fact that there are a few awards that try to make up for the misdeeds of their namesakes. Alfred Nobel, anyone? Part of his inspiration for creating his award was being described as 'the merchant of death' after he invented a kind of explosive and sold it to military organizations. Same thing. Where is Grasse's book on the evils of Sweden?
Ridiculous factual errors:
Grasse has an entire chapter about how the Brits worship a 'Giant Clock God' as a symbol of state authority. He calls Big Ben the Great Clock and claims the British worship it as a symbol of the state authority over their lives. One problem. Big Ben is the bell, not the clock. Another problem, you make no sense, Grasse!
Grasse writes that the large stones in Stonehenge represent Scotland, England, and Wales while the small stones represent the rest of the world. These countries did not exist when Stonehenge was created, so I really have no idea where he got this crap.
Grasse writes about WWII that 'We all know the stories of how the British joined the rest of the Allies to fight fascism abroad in the second World War.' Grasse is implying that we (the US) were actually fighting the war already. This is utter bullshit. France and Britain declared war on Germany two days after the invasion of Poland in 1939. We didn't enter the war until we were attacked at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Now, no one had declared war on Japan yet at that point, but we all declared it together as Allies. Britain and France had already suffered a ridiculous amount of casualties and damages in the fight against Germany, while we were trying to ignore what was going on. This really offends me that Grasse implies that Britain was reluctant to fight. He also claims Britain didn't contribute as many soldiers to D-Day as we did, that they 'didn't do their share'. Nevermind that it was a U.S.-led effort and nevermind the fact that their forces were depleted by being in the combat much longer and being a much smaller country. By the way, our troops (my grandfather among them) comprised about 70,000 men and the UK had about 60,000 that day. Given the differences in population between the two countries I would say they did more than their share.
An apparently very different understanding of the word 'evil':
There are so many tiny things that apparently Grasse just doesn't like that he seems to think are reasons that England is evil. Evil is a serious word. You cannot apply it to your dislike of Cricket or Elton John, Oasis or the inability to dance.
On top of all of these errors and this misinformation, there is a pro-Christian, pro-heterosexual vein of thinking that makes me rather ill. This is the real problem with the book. Even if none of what he is talking about is true, he is spilling hate-filled nonsense disguised as humor, and underneath it all is some really obvious intolerance and degradation of women, non-Christians, and homosexuals.
For example, one of the reasons England is evil is because 'They Are Secretly Pagan'. Evidence?: Long after the Middle East was basking in the glow of sane monotheism, Druid priests led early Britons in pagan ceremonies. Another reason is because of 'Harry Potter, Boy Occultist'.
There is a chapter entitled 'British Men are a Little Limp in the Wrist, if you Get my Meaning'. Seriously. It starts with this ridiculous paragraph:
I have nothing against homosexuals, nor have I found homosexuality to be any more prevalent in the UK than it is anywhere else. I do, however, believe that upper class British males exhibit a peculiar chumminess and an aversion to hard work that could be characterized as, shall we say fey.
I see. Nothing against homosexuals, except they have an aversion to hard work. He goes on to blame the Stonewall riots in New York (in the 20th century) on Victorian laws against homosexual behavior. Huh? Sodomy was against the law (a felony, in fact) in the US until 1962, by the way.
I know that most of what is in this book is not intended to be taken seriously. But Grasse spent all of this time writing it down, and you don't spend this much time writing and editing a book filled with stuff you don't believe. I concede that he saved considerable time by not researching any of it or caring if his facts were even remotely correct. But still. He believes this deep down.
In the Introduction, Grasse more or less says that his inspiration for writing the book came from taking business trips to the UK and having people criticize the US to him. Not only did they have the nerve to criticize the Iraq War, but they didn't want to talk about the movie he came to promote. How rude! So in a patriotic and egomaniacal temper tantrum, he wrote this book. Well, now I've read it, so you certainly don't have to.
I'll leave you with one critic's take on the book: It's "as if every bar bore in Philadelphia, where the author hails from, got together one night and wrote down every half-assed insult they could remember about Britain, somewhat handicapped by the fact that none did high school history past sixth grade."
Tagged 101 Ways that England Ruined the World, Alfred Nobel, book review, Cecil Rhodes, de Gaulle, England, errors, European Union, Harry Potter, NAFTA, Steven A Grasse, Steven Grasse, Stonehenge, the Evil Empire, United States, William the Conqueror, World War II
W./E.
Despite some terrible reviews, I decided to give this film a chance because I really find the whole abdication scandal of Edward VIII very interesting, and this did have a very different spin on it than all of those History Channel specials talking about how Edward was a Nazi sympathizer. I think a lot of the terrible reviews come from people who dislike Madonna, or dislike her as a filmmaker. Because while it wasn't a great film, there were parts of it that were nice (the music, the visuals, the costumes). It certainly doesn't deserve the same Rotten Tomatoes rating as Showgirls.
The film follows two similar stories. One is that of Wallis Simpson, an American woman who was married and divorced twice before the King of England decided he wanted to marry her (actually she was still married to the second guy when they really fell in love). The PM, the British people, his family didn't want Edward to be with her, and he ended up giving up the throne so that they could be together.
The other story is of a very wealthy American housewife, Wally (Abbie Cornish), married to a workaholic philandering abusive doctor in Manhattan. She was named after Wallis Simpson, and she jokes that her parents 'wanted her to marry a Prince'. That probably influenced her in marrying her dreadful husband. She is drawn to the story of Wallis and Edward, because of her namesake and her similar situation, so when there is an exhibit and a Sotheby's auction selling many of their personal possessions, she goes every day to …well basically to imagine herself living out Wallis Simpson's life. She meets a security guard there, who is really a Russian intellectual, named Evgeni (Oscar Isaac).
The 1920s half of the story is infinitely more interesting than its modern counterpart. Wallis Simpson's abusive first husband makes you sort of immediately sympathize with her and excuse most of her behavior. I found both actors who portrayed Wallis and Edward (Andrea Riseborough and James D'Arcy) to be really charming and believable. You understand immediately why Wallis is fearless, is a survivor. You also understand why Edward would be drawn to her when he's surrounded by sycophantic socialites.
When the 20th century equivalent Wallis is abused and cheated on, however, you just wonder why she doesn't just leave him. She complains he made her give up her career when they got married, and she does cliché housewife crap like secretly take IVF drugs to try to get pregnant. All I was thinking was why doesn't she just leave him, get her job back (or a job), and have a kid on her own. Or something. Do something. It doesn't make me empathize with her, it makes me dislike her.
As I said before, the film is really visually appealing, particularly the period half of the plot. There were also a few really interesting scenes that made me think about what it is to be a woman. Wallis (the original) talks about how people have never called her beautiful. They've called her attractive, which is the polite way of saying she has done the best she can with what she has. She also says something like…if I couldn't be the most beautiful, at least I could dress better than anyone else in the room. It is so sad and so true that so many women feel that the best they can hope for is to have people notice the effort they put into their appearance, even if they never feel confidence spring out of all that effort. And the really sad thing is that a woman like that is probably better off than most women who don't put in any effort, because they are too busy despising themselves for having chubby ankles or non-photoshopped ab muscles. But I digress!
I did find myself being bothered by some of the glossing over of facts. I mean, Edward and Wallis did meet with Hitler in 1937, and Edward gave a full Nazi salute during the visit.
The film sort of palliated this whole incident as rumor and malicious gossip, but there's …there's a fair bit of evidence that Hitler, at least, thought that Edward was sympathetic to the Nazi cause. I read an article that said the FBI was conducting surveillance on the couple, and that there were suspicions that Wallis had an affair with a Nazi, to whom she passed secrets. Of course the FBI haven't released any of these files, to my knowledge, so it's still all conjecture. Still that puts a rather unpleasant spin on what the film calls an incredible love story.
Not that the movie is trying to paint it as a fairy tale, especially for Wallis. It's very obvious that the abdication crisis meant that neither Wallis nor Edward would be able to be together without giving up a lot of their lives. In fact, they were never allowed back to England again–Wallis came back for Edward's funeral in 1972, but they were never brought back as a couple. They both were sort of miserable (in the film) because though they could now be together, they couldn't really live their lives. Edward's brother, the new king George VI, wouldn't take his calls or allow him to return home. Tabloids (and apparently the FBI) followed them everywhere. And, as the film points out, after such a monumental sacrifice, it was impossible for either of them to end the relationship, even if it soured. They were rather stuck together.
The film also really deifies Edward as a doting, loving husband and a genuinely good man who was forced to choose between his country and the woman he loved. Some of that may be true, but it also makes you wonder about that choice. If you consider that his abdication came in the mid 1930s, when the entire continent could already see that another horrific war was coming. In that same year, Nazi Germany invaded the Rhineland, radical forces took over Japan, Italian forces started to expand into neighboring territories, the Spanish civil war began, Italy, Germany, and Japan became de facto allies–this was all during one year! It was a full 3 years before WWII officially began, but it's as clear as day what was going on. This is the moment that Edward decides to leave his post, his country, his duty. To leave it to his poor brother, George VI, played recently by Colin Firth in The King's Speech. As a younger brother, George (known as Bertie by his family) had never expected to have to be king, and here was the responsibility heaped on his shoulders less than 1 year after his father had died, with a world preparing for an epic disaster. Not to mention his speech impediment and his discomfort in the public arena. In the movie and in real life, Edward doesn't seem to have put much thought into what that meant for his brother, his family, his country. That's not a man that I think I could love. I'm not one for duty, traditionally, but in situations like that your responsibilities are not only to your own happiness. And the film just…glazes over these facts, painting Edward as someone who wants to help in the war and contribute something, but isn't allowed to.
So the film is naive at best. It also seems sort of…self-indulgent. I'm not enough of a film buff to really describe why I got this impression. I don't have pretentious words to describe the choices directors make in setting up shots or whatever. I found the period half of the movie interesting, even if it was unrealistic. The 20th century part of the movie was just …pointless. Predictably, Wally eventually leaves her abusive psychotic husband–though I must point out that she only leaves him when Evgeni comes and takes her away from their apartment to his own. So, really, she gets rescued. And he takes her back to his apartment in Queens or Brooklyn or similar, and he has one of those apartments that is meant to look Spartan and bare, and be the opposite of her posh Upper East Side place with her husband. So there's exposed brick and a grand piano and lots of second-hand paperbacks. But in reality, people pay thousands and thousands of dollars for their apartments to look exactly like that. So it's bullshit. Then the two of them, again, predictably, start dating and she's so much happier that she abandons her Chanel dresses and starts wearing newsboy caps and playing pool at bars. Okay then. Because if you change men, your wardrobe changes immediately too. Or maybe I'm just supposed to believe she was really hip the whole time and now her true self can come out. Either way, I found it nauseating.
I think you could make a really amazing film out of just the period parts of this movie, and that it would be 1000 times better for eliminating the modern equivalent altogether. It's an interesting subject, especially when you consider if he had not abdicated, whether England would have had a Nazi sympathizer for a king and a pacifist for a PM. How would modern Europe look if that had happened? That's a far more interesting topic than one silly housewife and her need to compare her life to the woman she was named after.
Tagged Abbie Cornish, abdication, Adolf Hitler, Andrea Riseborogh, colin firth, Edward VIII, George VI, James D'Arcy, King of England, Madonna, Nazis, The King's Speech, W./E., Wallis Simpson, World War II


Thanksgiving is the art of giving thanks and extending a gesture of peace. Dating back to 1621 when English pilgrims celebrated a generous harvest by sharing a feast with a tribe of Native Americans, the habit was reproduced by several states throughout the years until finally it was made national holiday across the country. The primary reason for Thanksgiving was a way for the population to get together and bond over the harvest and the resources of nature, giving thanks to each other, the environment, the weather, and anybody else who helped to prepare the dinner. Ultimately, nowadays, the meaning of Thanksgiving has been diluted by parades, sports and turkey feast – apparently, the first Thanksgiving feasts didn't have turkey on the menu. But there's a ritual has remained: At Thanksgiving families and friends travel to get together. You could break the tradition and travel together instead.
Who says Thanksgiving, says traffic jam. While you use Google to help determine the best time to avoid the holiday rush – although most recommendations start at 6 AM and end around 8 PM to prevent late-night driving. The best time to leave the city is as early as possible, but Google warns that you probably won't be able to avoid traffic altogether. In other words, as you're going to spend most of your Thanksgiving preps in a vehicle, why not turn your holiday into a road trip instead? Wednesday is going to be the heaviest day on the road. So, think ahead and leave as early as Tuesday before the Thanksgiving Thursday, so that you and your family or friends can get ahead of the traffic.
A road trip, and especially in November, requires some planning. As you'll spend plenty of time in a vehicle, you might want to ditch the car for an RV – check Forest River Rockwood for the best vehicles – so that everyone can be comfortable inside. Additionally, as a passenger – and let's be honest, if you're traveling in an RV there will be plenty of passengers – you need to prepare for the long hours on the road. Make sure to pack sickness motion tablets for your folks – nobody likes to feel nauseous before eating the turkey! You can also add books and music devices – from your kindle to packing all your favorite albums on Spotify.
Last, but not least, there's no point heading into big cities as you'll face only traffic. You'll find plenty of small towns that know how to get the Thanksgiving spirit going. Fredericksburg in Texas is a small German-inspired town that is filled with excitement and traditions such as the Thanksgiving dance. If you prefer a peaceful holiday, park your vehicle by the Catskill Mountain where you can still enjoy the last of the fall leaves. Before the ski season. You can even enjoy a picturesque Thanksgiving picnic by the waterfall in Windham!
Thanksgiving cultivates the art of togetherness, which doesn't force you to stay at home. You can be together anywhere, even more on a road trip that lets you engage with the local nature and population.


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Celebs Hansard, Hozier, Ronan, lead "illegal" homeless uprising in Dublin
Home Sweet Home led by celebrities is fighting for the record number of homeless people in Dublin and have illegally taken over a large office building to house them.
Walter Ryan Purcell
Home Sweet Home - Director Jim Sheridan (center) among Irish stars to lend their fame to Dublin revolution against rampant homelessness. Act of "civil disobedience" highlights plight of growning number of homeless in Ireland.
Ireland is ending 2016 with not just a 1916 anniversary but the beginning of the next real people's protest. An organization, "Home Sweet Home," led by celebrities is fighting for the record number of homeless people in Dublin and have illegally taken over a large office building to house them. 31 families have already moved in.
With big entertainment names such as Glen Hansard, Andrew Hozier, Saoirse Ronan, Francis Black, Christy Moore and film director Jim Sheridan leading the charge the organization has quickly developed a very large following.
They are contactable at www.homesweethome.irish.
Appearing on Ireland's top-rated TV program, singer Glen Hansard won massive applause and support by outlining the dreadful homeless crisis in Dublin and throughout Ireland (worst since the famine, he stated) and what his group are doing about it,
Hansard admitted live on the hugely popular "The Late Late Show" that they were partaking in an act of 'civil disobedience.'The country cheered and the news went viral.
A NAMA property, Apollo House in Dublin has been taken over by the group and is now home to many who were sleeping in the streets. The building is on Tara Street near the Liffey on Dublin's south side.
NAMA (the 'National Asset Management Agency') confiscated many financially distressed buildings in Ireland, and mostly sells them off to foreign property companies popularly known as vulture funds. It is a de facto government organization. Nama took the building over from Garrett Kelleher, an Irish developer who once had plans to build the largest skyscraper in America but went broke.
The protesters broke into Apollo House, an office block, rallied very willing volunteers, got electricity and water connected, found beds, bedclothes, bedroom furniture, food, and set up a kitchen and washing facilities, mostly donated by like-minded people nearby.
The spirit seems to be back in The Irish. These are not just the regular protestors, but a group now led by the famous, the good, and everybody with a social conscience.
NAMA lawyers are scrambling to evict the 'trespassers.' The Minister for Housing, Simon Coveney, condemns the occupation. Lawyers for the receivers have warned that the protestors are trespassing and are acting against the law.
But already major renovations have been carried out, free of charge, by skilled tradesmen. They have installed showers, proper accommodation and cooking facilities.
Thousands of decent people have lost their homes over the past decade. The Government agreed to pay €70 billion to bailout the banks, the developers, and bondholders, thereby inflicting austerity on this generation and the next.
As a result many thousands of Irish families are in serious mortgage arrears and struggling hugely in silence. Hotel rooms are full of evicted families, living in spaces last seen by their ancestors in the 1800's.
An era of peaceful civil disobedience has begun. Some famous Irish people have had enough and they say 'no more' to our fellow countrymen and women sleeping rough, cold and hungry in Ireland's doorways.
Saoirse Ronan, Hozier and other Irish stars tackle homelessness in Ireland https://t.co/WTa6aTm3hZ pic.twitter.com/JgdZQ8b4FU
— Goss.ie (@goss_ie) December 17, 2016
They say 'No' to government buildings lying empty, 'No' to the idle chit-chat of weak government achieving nothing, and pandering to the EU and the Troika. 'No' to the hundreds of families facing eviction every week.
They say enough is enough. These people are our flesh and blood.There are 6,500 officially homeless people including 2,400 children. Home Sweet Home estimates 70 families a month are losing their homes.
Ireland Christmas 2016, a homeless revolution has started.
* Walter Ryan-Purcell, Goleen, West Cork.
Related: Irish Politics, Christmas

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Jan 23, 2023 | by Laura Patriquin | Category: Economic Development | Tags: Distribution, manufacturing, food, food & beverage, food and beverage, food & bev, food and bev, Industrial
Multinational Lifestyle Retail Corporation URBN to Locate Nuuly Fulfillment Center in KC Region
Congratulations to our partners in Raymore on URBN's planned investment in a $60 million fulfillment center for its clothing rental brand, Nuuly. The 604,000-sq.-ft. facility is expected to create 750 jobs within five years.
Jan 17, 2023 | by Kansas City Area Development Council | Category: KC SmartPort | Tags: Urban Outfitters, Missouri, KC region, SmartPort, Fulfillment, Distribution, ecommerce, e-commerce, Industrial
January 2023 PULSE eNewsletter | KC SmartPort
Jan 13, 2023 | by Mary Rooney | Category: KC SmartPort
Investor Profile | Fischer Weiler Industrial
Fischer Weiler Industrial is a real estate company focused on solutions for the industrial market.
Supply Chain Trends To Watch in 2023
Companies will need to be agile as ongoing inventory and labor shortages persist, while preparing for trends around sustainability and reverse logistics.
2022: KC's Record-Breaking Year for Industrial Growth
More than 11 million sq. ft. was absorbed.12.6 million+ sq. ft. was under construction at the end of the year. Panasonic Energy selected the region for its $4 billion EV battery manufacturing facility.
December 2022 PULSE eNewsletter | KC SmartPort
Dec 08, 2022 | by Mary Rooney | Category: KC SmartPort
Investor Profile | KeyBank
KeyBank is one of the nation's largest financial services companies, with nearly $200 billion in assets.
National Industrial Development Pipeline Nears 714 Million Sq. Ft.
The new industrial development pipeline continued to expand in the third quarter, signaling strong ongoing demand for warehouse and manufacturing space.
Kansas City Ranks as a Top City on Multiple Industry Lists
The Kansas City region was recently recognized as a top 25 large U.S. metro where manufacturing is thriving and a top 10 U.S. city for foreign businesses.


If you're using Windows 7 or Windows Vista speech recognition, you might find the following program indispensable: Voice Finger. It was developed by speech recognition user Robson Cozendey in response to the limited range of the Mouse Grid and multiple syllables required for keypress commands. Instead of a broad 9 square grid that must be progressively narrowed, Voice Finger uses a 44×44 grid that appears to cover the entire screen, so as to reach the click target immediately. You can reduce the syllables of keypress commands by saying A, B, C and so forth, rather than using the "press" command. You can likely do other things, but since I'm using XP I couldn't install the program to review it fully. I can, however, say that I would prefer Voice Finger to Dragon's Mouse Grid any day.
I do want to say, though, that this program is an example of what assistive tech users need: empathy. Cozendey wrote this program entirely by voice, knowing what it's like not to have a mouse or keyboard at the ready. All I can do is contrast this with the Nuance employee who seriously said how hard it was to test an issue without a mouse connected, or the proposed solution to Dragon's occasionally clicking the wrong number flag in multiple Firefox choices: just use the mouse. We're going to need programmers with disabilities to design, to consult, if we want programs that truly meet our needs without cutting corners. People who use assistive technology every day are going to have a more intimate knowledge of it, and an attention to details and inconveniences that programmers without disabilities might overlook because they don't need to use such and such a feature.
This entry was posted in Disability, Technology and tagged assistive technology, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, programming by voice, speech recognition, voice recognition, Windows Speech Recognition. Bookmark the permalink.
It would help if once in a while you told us of the limitations under which you work. It would help answer the question "Would this be helpful for … ? An alternative would be for you to say for whom it would be helpful and list the disabilities it overcomes — or doesn't. It is not always clear.
Understandable. That's always difficult for me to answer, because the sheer range and combination of disabilities is so broad, but I can see why you would be asking that. So, for example, Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Windows Speech Recognition would assist people who have no use of or limited use of their hands (or hand). Therefore, an add-on like Voice Finger or Vocola would help provide even more hands-free control of their computer. However, speech recognition is also used by people with dyslexia or other learning disabilities that make writing difficult. So the concern there would be more dictation than command, and so some of the command utilities or tweaks I review wouldn't apply in that case. But in that case, the users would likely realize they didn't need the commands and bypass the suggestions. Dyslexia also raises Dragon's possible incompatibility with screen readers, etc.
With speech recognition, I concentrate more on total hands free control — both dictation and command — because that's what I need Dragon for. That kind of disability is what I experience, being one-handed and having lost some function in that hand. I'm perhaps a bit too cautious about mentioning other disabilities because I haven't experienced them, and so I'm uncertain sometimes whether something will work or not. I appreciate the feedback; I'm always looking for ways to improve what I do here. And if I review something and you think it might work for another disability (or not work), by all means feel free to comment on it. Anything that makes the post more helpful.


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Construction worker killed after accident at Naugatuck High School
Dec. 16, 2015 Updated: July 24, 2017 7:10 p.m.
NAUGATUCK >> A worker has died in a construction accident at a high school in Connecticut.
The accident happened at Naugatuck High School Wednesday afternoon at around 1:30 p.m. Workers there had been removing trees around the parking lot of the school.
Police tell WSFB-TV the worker, who has not been identified but was in his 30s, appears to have been working an excavator when he was somehow crushed.
The victim was removed from the vehicle and rushed to the hospital, where he later died.
Police say no other workers were injured and no school staff or students were involved. Police, fire officials and representatives from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were on scene investigating.


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Pteranisomorpha nigrolineata är en insektsart som beskrevs av Oliver Zompro 2004. Pteranisomorpha nigrolineata ingår i släktet Pteranisomorpha och familjen Pseudophasmatidae. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Spökskräckor
nigrolineata

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Q: Include certain escapement symbols into ANTLR Lexer rules I'm creating a parser in Antlr4 and Python. Below is the Lexer rules I created in Antlr.
VARIABLE_ID :   [$][a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_]*;
ARRAY_ID    :   [*][a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_]*;
STRINGCONST :   ["][/|:.a-zA-Z0-9 ]+["];
WS          :   [ \r\t\f\n]+ -> skip;

I am looking at the STRINGCONST rule and I'm trying to add symbols such as - and ~, however, since they are escapement characters, Antlr is just throwing errors for me. I've tried escaping them with themselves and I haven't been able to get that to work.
Is there a way to include them in the STRINGCONST rule? The basic idea is that I want a string to be identified as any character between two " " marks however I'm happy to limit it to what's currently in the rule as long as I can get - and ~ in there as well.

A: You can escape chars by adding a \ in front of them:
STRINGCONST :   ["] [/|:.a-zA-Z0-9 \-~]+ ["];

And note that ~  has no  special meaning inside a char class (only outside of them), so ~ doesn't need to be escaped.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


We own an agricultural estate of 410 hectares (1,014 acres). The properties comprises of 24 holdings of between 4.31 acres and 90.01 acres.
The current policy relating to the farm estate was set in 2005 when the former Shropshire County Council, as the forerunner authority to Shropshire Council, took a decision to retain the remaining smallholding estate, but allow the individual smallholdings to be sold as they became vacant or were sold to the existing tenants.
Given the present pressures on public sector funding and spending, we're having to review all activities we undertake in order to prioritise our expenditure. There is reduced funding available to us than in previous years and we need to ensure that the funds are used in a way that has the most positive impact for our community.
Shall make it their general aim to offer opportunities for persons to be farmers on their own account.
Advice from the Ministry's Legal Department to officials and to Ministers has been clear over many years: Section 39 does not impose the specific duty that smallholdings must be maintained at a particular level. Neither the policy nor object of Part III of the Act was to do so.
The express duty imposed by section 47(I) of the Agricultural Act 1947 on Local Authorities to provide statutory smallholdings was repealed by the 1970 Act and replaced by the general aim provision.
The aim of this consultation is to gather opinion on the options available to us with respect to the estate. We'll consider the responses to the consultation and take its outcome into account before making a final decision. Following the consultation, we will prepare a paper to be presented to full council with a recommendation on the future direction of the estate.
This consultation sets out a number of options available. They have been drawn up after much deliberation. Below, we've sought to outline the options we are considering, and identify the key advantages, disadvantages and potential impact of each option. You may be able to identify other factors which we have not identified below, and we would welcome views on what those additional factors are.
The consultation will run from 12 September until 31 October, and the paper will be considered at a council meeting on 18 December 2014.
Continue our current policy of retaining the remaining smallholding estate, but allow the individual smallholdings to be sold as they became vacant, or to be sold to the existing tenants on request.
Option 1 allows the current tenants to acquire the smallholdings, giving security of ownership to them and their families if they wish to continue farming in the future.
Our current policy has to date seen a steady erosion of the estate and is restricting access to the next generation of farmers.
Our funding allocations and spending pressures are increasingly resulting in a lack of investment in the estate, resulting in a backlog of repairs.
The tenants' position will remain the same.
Option 2 would be to sell the estate on the open market to the highest bidder as a whole or in lots.
Option 2 is likely to generate the highest amount of revenue for the council.
The purchaser(s) could go further than we have been able to in recent times, due to reductions in funding, to address business critical maintenance.
The tenants will have a level of protection under their tenancy agreements.
As the sale of the estate under Option 2 will be to the highest bidder we're likely to have only limited control over who the estate is sold to.
A commercial landlord is likely to have a different focus for the estate. This could, for example, result in more or less investment into the estate and more or less support for tenants.
Any new landlord may impose changes to the lease arrangements which are not in the best interests of agricultural farming.
Option 2 provides no guarantee that the stock will be safeguarded for the future.
The current tenants may not be able to acquire the smallholdings, removing security of ownership for them and their families if they wish to continue farming in the future.
Tenants will have a new landlord and, while their tenancies provide a level of protection, we'll have no means of guaranteeing the future of the farming estate.
Option 3 would be to dispose of the estate to a preferred organisation who wishes to maintain it and to secure access to farming for future generations.
Our strong desire is to protect farming in the future. Our overriding aims are to provide opportunities for new agricultural or land-based 'entrepreneurs', together with ensuring long-term viability.
A potential to transfer the estate to an organisation which would not only maintain our existing philosophy on smallholdings, but could build on this principle and extend into the original concept of encouraging young people into farming.
An organisation could go further than we've been able to in recent times, due to reductions in funding, to address business critical maintenance and provide more support to existing tenants to safeguard their own future and that of the holding.
The organisation would be able to provide more support to existing tenants to safeguard their own future and that of the holding.
The potential transfer could create opportunities for the future which could be delivered more effectively by another organisation.
The current tenants may not be able to acquire the smallholdings, removing the potential for security of ownership for them and their families.
The future of farming in the county will be secured. The tenancy position will remain the same as we have the ability to agree the terms of the agreement with the preferred landlord based on the consultation feedback.
While we haven't yet made a decision, of the available options Option 3 is currently our preference as it is considered that this represents an innovative approach to the future of the estate, and one which would allow farming in Shropshire to grow to the benefit of existing farmers and the next generation. However, we are still at the stage of considering all options with an open mind and keen to hear your views.
Click on the 'Get involved' tab above to share your views.
To comment on any or all of the options proposed, click on the green button which will then direct you to our online consultation.
If you have any queries about this consultation, please contact us using the details on this page.


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Association of Accredited Certification Bodies
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Menu HomeAbout UsMissionWhy deal with a AACB Member?Current MembersCommittee RepresentativesStandards Australia CommitteesJAS-ANZ CommitteesOther CommitteesOffice HoldersService Charter – General MembersService Charter – Associate MembersMembershipAssociation RulesBenefits of AccreditationBecome a MemberUseful LinksFAQContactMembers ContentHelloworld Travel BookingsMember ContactsAACB Committees and Working GroupsGeneral Meeting Document LibraryAACB Documents
The name of the incorporated association is the Association of Accredited Certification Bodies, referred to herein as 'AACB' or 'the Association'.
'Executive Committee' means the committee of management of the Association.
'General Meeting' means a general meeting of members of the Association convened in accordance with these Rules.
'Member' means a member of the Association.
'Month' means a calendar month.
'Rules' means these Association Rules.
The 'Act' means the Associations Incorporation Act 1985.
Objects of the Association
The objects of the Association are:
To provide confidence to business that, when engaging a member of the AACB, business will receive a credible and valued based service that will facilitate improvement in business performance and the reduction of risk.
To set membership criteria acceptable to industry, government and related organisations.
To advocate the benefits of accredited certification and related management systems to industry, government, organisations and to the wider community.
To set and monitor ethical standards for members.
To produce/access relevant information and publications designed to advance knowledge in the field of management system, product and personnel certification, and related fields.
To develop/access resources to archive, reference and reproduce articles, papers, publications, videos, software and any other materials in any form relating to foremost management systems, product and personnel certification, and related fields' learning and experience.
To ensure that members have equal access to the benefits of the Association and that potential members are assessed on an equitable basis.
To ensure that all members undertake their professional duties in a manner which is consistent with the standards of the Association.
To raise the image of the Certification Industry and related professions.
To ensure that the Association is managed using sound business management principles and practices and the appropriate legal and financial requirements.
To exchange and share information and knowledge with other organisations.
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For the purpose of carrying out its objects, an Incorporated Association may, subject to the Act and its Rules:
acquire, hold, deal with, and dispose of, any real or personal property; and
administer any property on trust; and
open and operate ADI accounts; and
invest its monies:
in any security in which trust monies may, by Act of Parliament, be invested; or
in any other manner authorised by the Association Rules; and
borrow money upon such terms and conditions as the Association thinks fit; and
give such security for the discharge of liabilities incurred by the Association as the Association thinks fit; and
appoint agents to transact any business of the Association on its behalf; and
enter into any other contract it considers necessary or desirable.
5.1 General Members
Any certification body accredited by an accreditation body who is a member of the International Accreditation Forum, who supports the objects of the Association and agrees to be bound by its Rules may complete an Application Form. Upon acceptance of the application by the Executive and upon payment of the application fee, the applicant certification body shall be a member of the Association.
Each member is to nominate a primary contact person to represent them. Normally, that person is expected to be the principal of the respective certification body and, in any case, must be able to act on behalf of the certification body without the need for further referral.
Each member may also nominate an alternative contact person who may represent them in the primary contact person's absence.
Both persons may attend meetings but only one may vote. Both persons are to receive relevant Association correspondence.
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Any affiliated or interested body (association, industry body, interested person), who supports the objects of the Association may complete an Application Form. Upon acceptance of the application by the Executive and upon payment of the application fee, the applicant shall be an Associate Member of the Association.
Each Associate Member is to nominate a primary contact person to represent them.
Each Associate Member may also nominate an alternative contact person who may represent them in the primary contact person's absence.
Associate Members may attend the open section of Association meetings but are excluded from closed General Member meetings.
Associate Members are excluded from voting on Association issues.
5.3 Membership fee
The annual membership fee shall be such sum as the members shall determine from time to time in General Meeting.
The annual membership fee shall be payable on 1 January or at a time that the Executive Committee determines.
Any member whose membership fee is outstanding for more than six months after the due date for payment shall cease to be a member of the Association and is not entitled to access information provided by other agencies or organisations to the Association for its members, nor to receive minutes of the Association's meetings or to participate in the Association's related events.
5.4 Resignations
A member may resign from membership of the Association by giving written or email notice to the Chairperson of the Association. Any resigning member shall be liable for any outstanding membership fees which may be recovered as a debt due to the Association.
5.5 Expulsion of a member
Subject to giving a member an opportunity to be heard or to make a written submission, the Executive may resolve to expel a member upon a charge of misconduct detrimental to the interests of the Association or if a member fails to attend more than four meetings in succession.
Particulars of the charge shall be communicated to the member at least one month before the next General Meeting of the Association at which the matter will be determined.
The determination of the General Meeting shall be communicated to the member, and in the event of an adverse determination the member shall (subject to 5.4d below) cease to be a member 14 days after the Association has communicated its determination to the member.
It shall be open to a member to appeal the expulsion from the Association at a subsequent General Meeting. The intention to appeal shall be communicated to the Chairperson of the Association within 14 days after the determination of the Association has been communicated to the member.
In the event of an appeal under 5.4d above, the appellant's membership of the Association shall not be terminated unless the determination to expel the member is upheld by the members of the Association at a subsequent General Meeting after the appellant has been heard by the members of the Association, and, in such event, membership will be terminated at the date of the General Meeting at which the determination is upheld.
5.6 Register of members
A register of members must be retained by the Secretary and contain:
the name and address of each member,
the date on which each member was admitted to the association, and
if applicable, the date of and reason(s) for termination of membership.
6.1 Powers and duties
The affairs of the Association shall be managed and controlled by an Executive Committee which, in addition to any powers and authorities conferred by these Rules, may exercise all such powers and do all such things as are within the objects of the Association, and are not by the Act or by these Rules required to be done by the Association in General Meeting.
The Executive Committee has the management and control of the funds and other property of the Association.
The Executive Committee shall have authority to interpret the meaning of these Rules and any other matter relating to the affairs of the Association on which these Rules are silent.
The Secretary shall retain a document containing 'AACB Policies' determined by members at General Meetings and interpretations by the Executive Committee. This document shall be available to members at General Meetings and through the members' area of the AACB website.
The Executive Committee shall appoint a public officer as required by the Act.
6.2 Appointment
The Executive Committee shall be comprised of no more than four members.
Members of the Executive Committee will be elected to hold the following roles: Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson, Secretary, and Treasurer.
An Executive Committee member shall be a natural person.
The term of appointment for each Executive Committee member is to be three years, after which the position must be put up for re-election at the next General Meeting. Previous incumbents of positions may nominate for re-election.
The appointment of an Executive Committee member shall be determined by a majority of members' votes at a General Meeting of the Association.
The role of Secretary and Treasurer may be held by a person other than a member, including a contractor to the Association, but they will not then be a member of the Executive Committee and not have any voting rights.
An Associate Member may not be nominated or elected to the Executive Committee, but may be invited to participate in relevant meetings and discussions with the Executive Committee where the Associate Member's expertise or opinion is sought.
6.3 Proceedings of Executive Committee
The Executive Committee shall normally communicate through email or telephone but also meet in person at least every six months.
Executive Committee Meetings shall be called by the Chairperson.
Questions arising at any meeting of the Executive Committee shall be decided by a majority of votes, and in the event of equality of votes the Chairperson shall have a casting vote in addition to a deliberative vote.
A member of the Executive Committee having a direct or indirect pecuniary interest in a contract or proposed contract with the Association must disclose the nature and extent of that interest to the Executive Committee as required by the Act, and shall not vote with respect to that contract or proposed contract.
6.4 Disqualification of Executive Committee members
The office of an Executive Committee member shall become vacant if an Executive Committee member is:
disqualified from being an Executive Committee member by the Act,
expelled as an Executive Member under these Rules,
permanently incapacitated by ill health, or
absent from more than two meetings in succession.
6.5 Other Committees
The Executive Committee may, from time to time, appoint members to other committees which may be standing committees or committees nominated for a particular project.
There is no limit to the number of committees or the number of members on any particular committee.
Each committee is to have a Chairperson who is to report to the Executive Committee as required and at each General Meeting.
7.1 General Meetings
The Chairperson shall call a General Meeting in accordance with the Act and these Rules.
The first General Meeting shall be held within 18 months after the incorporation of the Association, and thereafter at least six monthly.
The order of the business at the meeting shall be:
the confirmation of the minutes of the previous General Meeting and of any special General Meetings held since that meeting
the consideration of the accounts and reports of the Executive Committee
iii. the election of Executive Committee members, where required
reports by Committees
any other business requiring consideration by the Association in General Meeting.
7.2 Special General Meeting
The Chairperson may call a Special General Meeting of the Association at any time.
Upon a requisition in writing or email of not less than 25% of the total number of members of the Association, the Chairperson shall, within one month of the receipt of the requisition, convene a Special General Meeting for the purpose specified in the requisition.
Every requisition for a Special General Meeting shall be signed by the relevant members and shall state the purpose of the meeting.
If a Special General Meeting is not convened within one month, as required by 8.2b above, the requisitionists, or at least 50% of their number, may convene a special General Meeting. Such a meeting shall be convened in the same manner as nearly as practical as a meeting convened by the Executive Committee, and for this purpose the Executive Committee shall ensure that the requisitionists are supplied free of charge with particulars of the members entitled to receive a notice of meeting. The reasonable expenses of convening and conducting such a meeting shall be borne by the Association.
7.3 Notice of General Meetings
Subject to 7.3b, at least 14 days notice of any General Meeting shall be given to members. The notice shall set out where and when the meeting will be held, and particulars of the nature and order of the business to be transacted at the meeting.
Notice of a meeting at which a special resolution is to be proposed shall be given at least 21 days prior to the date of the meeting.
A notice may be given by the Association to any member by serving the member with the notice personally, or by sending it by post or email to the address appearing in the register of members.
Where a notice is sent by post:
the service is effected by properly addressing, prepaying and posting a letter or packet containing the notice, and
unless the contrary is proved, service will be taken to have been effected at the time at which the letter or packet would be delivered in the ordinary course of post.
Where a notice is sent by email:
the service is effected by properly addressing an email packet containing the notice, and
unless the contrary is proved, service will be taken to have been effected at the time at which the email was dispatched.
7.4 Proceedings at General Meetings
50% of members present personally or by proxy shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business at any General Meeting.
If within 30 minutes after the time appointed for the meeting a quorum of members is not present, a meeting convened upon the requisition of members shall lapse. In any other case, the meeting shall stand adjourned at the Chairperson's pleasure for rescheduling.
Subject to 7.4d, the Chairperson shall preside as Chairperson at a General Meeting of the Association.
If the Chairperson is not present within 30 minutes after the time appointed for holding the meeting, or he or she is present but declines to take or retires from the chair, the members may choose an Executive Committee member or one of their own number to be the Chairperson of that meeting.
7.5 Voting at General Meetings
Subject to these Rules, every member of the Association has only one vote at a meeting of the Association.
Subject to these Rules, a question for decision at a General Meeting, other than a special resolution, must be determined by a majority of members who vote in person or, where proxies are allowed, by proxy, at that meeting. In the event of equality of votes, the Chairperson shall have a casting vote in addition to a deliberative vote.
Unless a poll is demanded by at least five members, a question for decision at a General Meeting must be determined by a show of hands.
A member being a certification body shall be entitled to appoint one person, to represent it at a particular General Meeting or at all General Meetings of the Association. Such a person shall be deemed to be a member of the Association for all purposes until the authority to represent the certification body is revoked.
7.6 Poll at General Meetings
If a poll is demanded by at least five members, it must be conducted in a manner specified by the person presiding and the result of the poll is the resolution of the meeting on that question.
A poll demanded for the election of a person presiding or on a question of adjournment must be taken immediately, but any other poll may be conducted at any time before the close of the meeting.
7.7 Special and ordinary resolutions
A special resolution is defined in the Act.
An ordinary resolution is a resolution passed by a simple majority at a General Meeting.
7.8 Proxies
A member shall be entitled to appoint in writing or by email a natural person who is also a member of the Association to be their proxy, and attend and vote at any General Meeting of the Association.
Proper minutes of all proceedings of General Meetings of the Association and of meetings of the Executive Committee shall be recorded by the Secretary within one month after the relevant meeting in minutes retained on the AACB website.
The minutes kept pursuant to this Rule must be confirmed by the members of the Association or the members of the Committee (as relevant) at a subsequent meeting.
The minutes kept pursuant to this Rule shall be signed by the Chairperson of the meeting at which the proceedings took place or by the Chairperson of the next succeeding meeting at which the minutes are confirmed.
Where minutes are entered and signed they shall, until the contrary is proved, be evidence that the meeting was convened and duly held, that all proceedings held at the meeting shall be deemed to have been duly held, and that all appointments made at a meeting shall be deemed to be valid.
9.1 Financial year
The first financial year of the Association shall be the period ending on the next 30 June following incorporation, and thereafter a period of 12 months commencing on 1 July and ending on 30 June of each year.
9.2 Accounts to be kept
The Association shall keep and retain such accounting records as are necessary to correctly record and explain the financial transactions and financial position of the Association in accordance with the Act.
9.3 Accounts to be reviewed
The Association is not a prescribed association.
However, the Association's accounts shall be reviewed for accuracy by a nominated person once every three years. This nominated person must be a member of the Association but independent from the Executive Committee.
Prohibition against securing profits for members
The income and capital of the Association shall be applied exclusively to the promotion of its objects and no portion shall be paid or distributed directly or indirectly to members or their associates except as bona fide remuneration of a member for services rendered or expenses incurred on behalf of the Association.
The Association may be wound up in the manner provided for in the Act.
Application of surplus assets
If after the winding up of the Association there remains "surplus assets'' as defined in the Act, such surplus assets shall be distributed to any organisation which has similar objects and has rules which prohibit the distribution of its assets and income to its members.
Such organisation or organisations shall be identified and determined by a resolution of members in General Meeting.
These Rules may be altered (including an alteration to the Association's name) by special resolution of the members of the Association. This includes recision or replacement by substitute rules.
The alteration shall be registered with the Office of Consumer and Business Affairs, Corporate Affairs Commission, as required by the Act. The registered rules shall bind the Association and every member to the same extent as if they have respectively signed and sealed them, and agreed to be bound by all of the provisions thereof.
JAS-ANZ
Email: info@aacb.com.au
Copyright © 2019 Association of Accredited Certification Bodies


Our model centers on traditional community organizing, where our leaders focus on creating change in their schools, communities, and the school system as a whole. We build teams of families, developing their skills along the way. Leaders work on local, city, district, and statewide issues, including supporting proven policies and people that improve outcomes for kids. Our model is based on research from the ABCD Institute, as well as the approaches of Marshall Ganz and PICO.


text:
No Evil Shall Escape My Sight :
The First Green Lantern
Brace yourselves; this is a painful little anecdote.... I was about seven years old when I first saw comics' original Green Lantern. I was about to leave my grandparents' apartment and, as it was a particularly frigid winter's day, was going through the tedious business of donning the many layers of garments little boys habitually wear to guard themselves against the elements. As I pulled on my second sweater and fumbled with latches of my galoshes, I couldn't help noticing a bundle of brightly colored magazines sitting by the door. They had all belonged to my uncle, grandma told me: would I care to take any?
I idly thumbed through a few as I dressed. One of them featured a blond man clad in a red tunic, green pants, and red boots. On his scarlet chest was a little green lantern icon. I liked the drawing, but as far as I was concerned the only comics really worth owning were the likes of Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers. Besides, I much preferred the funnies. I finished dressing and ran out to my parents' car. The comics were left behind. They were sitting at the door to remind my grandfather to take them out with the trash. (I told you it was a painful little anecdote! Hey, I was only seven years old!)
What I had been looking at, all those years ago, was a copy of All-American Comics. I doubt if I'll ever have enough spare money to buy an original copy. I now know, of course, that the gaudily-clad superhero was the first Green Lantern,one of the most popular of DC's Golden Age super heroes.
Strictly speaking, Green Lantern didn't debut at DC, however. All-American Comics was owned by the publishing company of the same name, founded by William (EC) Gaines' father, Max. Gaines senior had been hired by National/DC executive Harry Donefeld to start a new comics line under the All-American imprint. Both companies would share ad revenues and distribution. It was an arrangement born out of necessity inasmuch as Gaines had the considerable advantage, during this wartime period, of owning important contracts for paper supplies. Thanks to Gaines' contracts and his editor Sheldon (Sugar and Spike) Mayer, the line would also launch two other of DC's stars, Wonder Woman and The Flash.
By 1944 Max had grown tired of his arrangement with DC and opted for a buy-out, selling his part of the business, paper contracts and all, for a sum in excess of half a million dollars. Gaines used the money to start a new company, Educational Comics. His timing was excellent, but must've caused Donefeld some pain later; in the next few months the war ended and acquiring paper simply became a problem of the past.
The early, first Green Lantern was the creation of a young artist named Mart Nodell. Nodell, so the story goes, simply walked in off the street to present editor Mayer with his idea for the character. Mayer wasn't impressed with Nodell's art, but "What he did have, crude as he was apt to be in his drawing, was an effective first page. He had taken the lead from the Superman motif and applied the Aladdin formula to that. I don't know if he included the ring, but he did have the hero with the magic lantern. I didn't want to take it."
Still, DC was looking for new material and Mayer fortunately changed his mind, bringing in writer Bill (Batman) Finger to flesh out the character. Artist Irwin Hansen (who would later draw Dondi) handled the artwork, at first under the pseudonym "Mart Dellon." Under the two, Green Lantern made his first appearance in All-American Comics #16, 1940, with an eight-page origin story that detailed how construction engineer Alan Scott had discovered a mysterious lantern made of glowing green metal. By fashioning a ring from the metal and touching it to the lantern every 24 hours, Scott would gain extraterrestrial superpowers, including the ability to fly. Immune to all weapons, save those of wood, Scott went on to fight crime in his purple cape, black domino mask, red tunic and boots, and green tights.
Quite a difference from the second Green Lantern's black and green body suit, but the gaudy outfit had a purpose,
according to Finger's script: "I must make myself a dreaded figure! I must have a costume that is so bizarre that once I am seen I will never be forgotten!"
Scott originally had a different oath for the ring recharging ritual: "And I will shed my light over dark evil, for dark thingscannot stand the light...the light of...THE GREEN LANTERN!"
By 1945 the oath was thankfully changed to the less awkward "In brightest day...in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight! Let those who worship evil's mightbeware my power, GREEN LANTERN'S LIGHT!"
Green Lantern proved to be a popular addition to the new super hero field, helped along by the talents of Irwin Hansen, who proved to have the right touch for the character. In issue #27 Hansen and Finger introduced a character to the series-- GL's comedy sidekick Doiby Dickles and his anthropomorphic taxicab. Doiby was an excitable little guy, inspired editor Mayer once said, by 1940s comedian Lou Costello. Another notable character was the Lantern's foe Harlequin, oddly enough Alan Scott's secretary. Harlequin fought GL in several battles but eventually repented her evil ways and became a federal agent.
(In the last few years the character has been revived in an animated tv series and revised in print in Batman: Harley Quinn, a Prestige Format title written by Paul Dini. She also had a 38 issue run in her own title.)
Hansen continued doing the art for Green Lantern until All-American Comics #51 (July 1943). Other artists and writers contributed material for the title. Scripts, containing elements of mystery, science fiction and comedy, were written by science fiction greats Henry Kuttner and Alfred Bester (who recommended Julius Schwartz for an editing job at DC), as well as National staffers Bob Kanigher and John Broome. In addition to Hansen, dozens of artists handled penciling chores, including Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, and, most notably, Alex Toth, who drew the series from 1947 to 1949.
In 1941 Green Lantern got his own comic title, which was to run for 38 issues before calling it quits in 1949. All-American continued to star Alan Scott until #102, when GL was bumped from the book in 1948, replaced by a western hero, Johnny Thunder. Green Lantern's last appearance was in the pages of All Star Comics, where he had regularly costarred with Dr. Fate, Hawkman, The Spectre, and others, until finally the title ceased publication in 1951. The first era of super heroes had ended.
It would be eight years before Green Lantern would be brought back to life in the pages of Showcase #22, illustrated by Gil Kane. His Silver Age rebirth would do much to uphold the DC line, and would have a considerable influence on the sixties revival of the super hero genre.


Challenge yourself to climb the highest peak in North Africa in 2 or 3 days. The tour starts and finishes in the vibrant city of Marrakech, and includes transport to and from Imlil . We will trek with a local English speaking guide , a local cook and mules to carry our luggage. It's a challenging walk rather than a climb, and anybody in good physical condition can reach the top. Make sure you bring your camera; the views from the summit are spectacular. Mount Toubkal 4167m is the highest peak in North Africa, and is a trekking peak involving no climbing two days involve walking in crampons holding an ice axe for security (Nov to April ) . The itinerary has been designed for keen walkers, as the ascent is non-technical, but involves some easy scrambling and snow slopes.
Day 1 MARRAKECH – IMLIL 1700M –AROUND 1940M.
Transfer from Marrakech to Imlil, the starting point of your hike, meet with our assistance, a steady climb takes you to the village of Around a good Tea came face to mountains Toubkal, overnight in mount Riad Armed.
Day 2AROUND 1940M – TOUBKAL REFUGE 3207M.
You start your first day trek, a steady climb takes you to the Marabout Sidi Chamharouch a place for all the pilgrims from across regions of Morocco, to heal the sick bewitched by the evil spirit, a pose tea will come Bienne then you will continue your trip south to the Toubkal Refuge, lunch, installation of luggage, overnight, 4-5 hours walking.
Day 3TOUBKAL REFUGE 3207M – TOUBKAL ASCENT 4167M – IMLIL 1700M -MARRAKECH.
Very early in the morning, you will start to climb this beautiful peak is Toubkal, the highest in North Africa (4167m), a panorama of the southern part lies or the massive Siroua the only massive Morocco culture with saffron, westward M (goun in case the brightness is very clear, all the plain of Haouz and then back to Refuge after lunch you have 3h back to Imlil all vertices around, then down to Imlil, then transfer back to Marrakech. 9-10 hours walking.


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text:
IDC: SaaS momentum skyrocketing
Revenues are projected to grow from $13.1 billion in 2009 to more than $40 billion in 2014
By Chris Kanaracus
U.S. Correspondent, IDG News Service |
Interest in the SaaS (software as a service) delivery model is growing to the point that by 2012, almost 85 percent of new vendors will be focused on SaaS services, according to new research from analyst firm IDC.
Also by 2012, some two-thirds of new offerings from established vendors will be sold as SaaS, IDC said.
[ Get the no-nonsense explanations and advice you need to take real advantage of cloud computing in InfoWorld editors' 21-page Cloud Computing Deep Dive PDF special report. | Stay up on the cloud with InfoWorld's Cloud Computing Report newsletter. ]
SaaS revenue numbers will jump up accordingly in the next few years, rising from $13.1 billion in 2009 to $40.5 billion by 2014, according to the analyst firm.
License revenues for traditional on-premises applications will drop roughly $7 billion this year and are likely in permanent decline, since SaaS is generally sold via subscription, the report adds.
IDC's estimate includes applications, application development, deployment and infrastructure software delivered in SaaS form. Over the next several years, the latter two categories will gain more market share, according to IDC.
The Americas accounted for about 74 percent of the overall SaaS market in 2009, but by 2014 their share will drop to 54 percent. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa will account for 34 percent; and Asia-Pacific about 12 percent, IDC said.
Companies are apparently turning to SaaS for faster deployments, the lack of a need to purchase and maintain hardware, and easier upgrades.
But there are certain pitfalls to avoid as well, analyst firm Altimeter Group warned in its SaaS "bill of rights" released last year.
For one, customers should make sure they own and have unfettered access to their data, the firm said.
Unforeseen additional costs regarding data storage present another danger, that report said. "SaaS clients often find out after the fact that the storage allocations do not meet actual usage requirements. Once hooked into the product, ongoing storage costs could prove to be the largest expense item."
Other Altimeter recommendations, such as customer indemnification from intellectual-property suits filed against their vendor, and access to multiple tiers of support, are carryovers from the world of on-premises software.
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris's email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for the IDG News Service.