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Lemmings World Tour Remastered [New-Formats Version] [Difficulty: Medium]
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Author Topic: Lemmings World Tour Remastered [New-Formats Version] [Difficulty: Medium] (Read 12299 times)
IchoTolot
Re: Lemmings World Tour Remastered [New-Formats Version]
Had a bit of time today, so I added the first 10 levels of the Professional rank to the replay collection.
LWT New Formats IchoTolot.zip (44.08 kB - downloaded 49 times.)
Everything by IchoTolot: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=3115.0
Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Elfo3E1jTl-SHlOy97kwA
Strato Incendus
The King of Shimmiers (crowned by Flopsy ;D )
#FourMoreSkills ;D
Thanks for the replays, IchoTolot! You've found two backroutes; a major one on "Holy diver" (Professional 07), and a minor one on "Blocking all over the world" (Professional 08). The latter was originally part of Pit Lems, so that pack will also be affected. It has already had several backroute fixes, so I thought it would be proof by now... but apparently not.
Professional 07, "Holy diver": Here you could simply bash across the entire level and thus bypass all the obstacles. A simple wall of steel has fixed that, though.
Professional 08, "Blocking all over the world": You were supposed to bomb where you used the Digger. Upward arrows did the trick.
Apart from those two, I liked how on Professional 01, "I wanna rock!", you placed the Stoner on a staircase, repeatedly digging into the staircase and then resealing it to release further lemmings! The intended solution uses the Fallers that continue to arrive, building from the Stoner used to break the fall, then cutting off the staircase behind the Builder with a Digger. What you did is a transfer of the "Blocker on Staircase" tought by "Pull me under", and it also happens to require exactly all the skills. So more than a valid alternative solution!
And I'm so glad you found the intended solution for "Walk like an Egyptian"! Looks like that level is finally backroute-proof... but I may be just as mistaken about that as I was with "Blocking all over the world"...
You saved a couple of skills on "Vienna" and "Buildy Jean", but those are fine as alternative solutions as well.
I've already fixed the levels, but I haven't updated the pack yet; as announced before, I want to do that together with re-adding all the talismans. Hopefully I can get that done this week.
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels
10 more levels solved today. Attached my replays.
This batch seemed easier than quite a bit of the rank 2 stuff to be honest.
Thanks for playing, IchoTolot! This will give me the opportunity to fix even more stuff in one swoop in the next update.
It seems like a couple of levels in the Professional rank had the Millas sprites without me intending them to have them. For "Auld Lem Syne", they were quite fitting, given that they also have red hair! But I'm going to reset them to the default sprites, now that I know.
Making your mine up and Block around the clock. Both of these are close enough to intended. In order to completely enforce the actual intended solution, we would really need diagonal one-way arrows (which would then be New-Formats-exclusive, of course, i.e. the intended solutions couldn't be enforced completely in the Old-Formats version). The Basher-Blocker-turnaround in the beginning of Block around the clock is indeed intended! I think this is the first time I actually see that as part of someone else's solution to the level. Whatever I did to try and enforce that so far, it didn't work.
Tulpen aus Amsterdam. Intended.
Waka Waka. Close to intended. Digging and fencing at the wall is a nice alternative approach to save the Blocker! My intended solution places the Blocker under the hatch, uses him to turn the Climber around, and then frees the Blocker with a Faller from the hatch, by having him dig + fence (to cancel the Digger). But that's an amount of leeway I consider fine for this rank. How to turn the Climber around after he has removed the one-way wall, that is indeed supposed to be the main challenge here, if you even want to call it that.
Auld Lem Syne. One of many valid approaches to this level. Few of them use all the skills, but most solutions use all except one or so. Acceptable number of degrees of freedom.
Pompeii. This one is open-ended. Your solution is a nice and fresh approach, though, going into the final building from the sides, rather than from the top!
Surfin' bird. Another open-ended one mainly driven by its visuals (the "owl exit" ). You saved a couple of skills here by cleverly steering around the bottom part. Not enough skills unused to be considered a backroute, though.
Sur le pont d'Avignon. Close to intended. The intended solution uses the double-Builder turnaround to isolate the Miner who frees the Swimmers. But I think that's hard to enforce here.
Atte katte nuva. Intended. You simply freed the Blocker with the Fencer at the beginning, rather than at the end, as I did.
Rome. This is the only true backroute from this bunch. I was actually pretty sure I had tested out whether it's possible to build across the gap between the Coliseum and St. Peter's Dome? Then again, on second thought, I probably left the two buildings that close to each other deliberately, to trick the player into try to build across. Because when you actually build all the way on top of the dome, you no longer have the Digger you'd need to get to the exit from there, because you're forced to use it earlier, for crowd control. I hadn't factored in anyone trying to build across and then go to the exit from the side, using the Stoner to get down. I'm going to add one-way-down arrows to each of the pillars to prevent that. This is actually such a quick fix that I can do it manually in both the Old- and New-Formats version, without having to re-convert the level.
I'm trying to upload the next fix as soon as possible; Lemmings Open Air took precedent during the last couple of days, because with that pack still being in development, any backroutes people find there are usually much more glaring, and therefore in more urgent need of fixing.
Yes, this is consistent with the feedback I've received from Colorful Arty and others. The main reason is that there are more open-ended levels here, especially the landscape-y ones. The few specific puzzles with a tight skill restriction, such as "Atte katte nuva", seem to enforce their solution pretty reliably, though.
Also, the tricks taught on the first two ranks are supposed to prepare you for the entire pack. The third rank then requires some of these tricks without prior announcement... (like the one you used on "Block around the clock") - but of course not all of them, right out of the gate.
As such, the sum of the difficulty in the Amateur rank definitely exceeds that of the Professional rank, because there's simply more to learn on Amateur, whereas Professional is the first rank where you're actually "free to play (all by yourself".
And as my preemptive christmas gift, here is the rest of the rank.
Well, if the tutorial is harder than the levels that rely on the lessons learned after that, then those levels fail as tutorials.
The ammount to learn should not matter for the rank if the lessons are easy enough. Some of the lessons are (even with the pretext) simply too hard to count as tutorials.
They are good levels, don't get me wrong, but fail as tutorials.
After the last bit of Professional was quite a cakewalk, levels like 3 26, 3 27 take the difficulty up by several ranks, while 3 40 is very easy again. So even with liking a lot of the levels here I must say the packs difficulty curve can be best described with this:
Maybe the next level is easy or hard the rank is not really a reliable hint at this here.
For the level types:
I must say I like the non-landscape levels a lot more than the landscapes as often the puzzle falls a bit shorter there (that london bridge for example is waaaay too long than it has any right to be ).
Often the style overshadows the solution and takes away from it and I play lemmings for the puzzles first and the style comes second. For me the style should add to the solution and try to not take away from it.
Again I like quite a lot of the solutions, but those landscape levels are currently the weak link here.
In terms of song references, I get about 50% of them.
Also those flagpoles..... I assumed them as solid first, then discovered they are non-solid and then found one in a level that was solid! That pole should get an animation of some sort to make it clearer as an object or maybe move the flagpoles out of the active playing zone where they don't disrupt anything.
Thanks, IchoTolot! I'll have a look at them this weekend, and then I'm simply going to fix the entire rank, along with the talismans.
I think the problem is more rooted within the fact that, once a level gets more complicated, specific tricks that are part of the intended solution become more and more difficult to enforce. For example, "Block around the clock" from the Professional rank is conceptually much more difficult than the levels that teach the tricks you're required to know for this level (namely, "Lemmy I hardly knew ya" and "Wonderwall"). However, due to the fact that all these elements are combined in a single level, more degrees of freedom are added to the solution, so that there is no longer jus one specific sequence of actions that works. I've already tried to enforce the intended solution on this level through the use of pickup skills, as well as toying around with on-terrain fire traps that ended up getting removed again, because they weren't fulfilling their purpose.
After the last bit of Professional was quite a cakewalk, levels like 3 26, 3 27 take the difficulty up by several ranks, while 3 40 is very easy again. So even with liking a lot of the levels here I must say the packs difficulty curve can be best described with this
Interesting to hear! Neither "Budapest" nor "Moskau, Moskau" looked particularly difficult to me when I watched Arty play them.
This is the reason I'm creating Lemmings Open Air! It will be pretty much only abstract level shapes, which are free to be shaped based entirely on the solution, i.e. "top-down" (starting with the solution, then creating the terrain around it).
Lemmings World Tour, in contrast, was designed "bottom-up", for the most part - i.e. starting with the terrain, then coming up with a solution that fits. Regarding the landscape levels as a group, I think I can at least say that each of the solutions for them is rather unique; there is not much repetition of tricks or similar going on between the various landscape levels. But they usually have a little more leeway than smaller, abstract levels where the skills are exactly accounted for.
That's quite a good share! It's set up in a way that everyone should be able to get some of the references; nobody will get all or even just the majority of them.
You might start recognising more and more titles the higher you get, though, because the higher levels are based on more and more famous songs. On the lower ranks, meanwhile, I snuck in the occasional obscure reference that probably just I will understand, given the small size of our community. I was actually surprised anyone got the reference "Na zdorovje Lem" from Pit Lems (someone in the comments section of nin10doadict's LP). But that level is also included in LWT as part of the Encore rank.
The default one used is the L2 Circus flagpole (the white one), which is always an object. As such, whenever something else is used to hoist the flag, it's always solid, and usually so for a reason. Hence, in those cases, the flagpoles can't actually be moved out of the playing area, because they are part of the solution.
I agree that a secondary animation for L2 Circus flagpole would be helpful in general, but I don't see how that's possible with the pole itself? The checkered flags from L2 Circus that are supposed to be attached to them are of course moving.
Thus, a part of me fears namida will at some point just merge the flag and the pole into one object, thereby breaking the flag animation on any LWT level that uses the L2 pole.
But fortunately for me, I think this is not possible - because the flag pole by itself must continue to exist in order to vary the length of the L2 Circus flags, as well. Simply using the "height" parameter for objects, like for water areas, won't work, because in that case, the entire object would just repeat itself, thereby putting a second waving flag under the first one.
My suggestion for a secondary animation for the L2 flag pole would therefore be a shimmer / reflection of some sort? This could go up or down the flag pole, making it look as if it were reflecting the sunlight.
The updated version is attached to the starting post. The last version had 20 downloads (still visible from the strato_generalmd tileset having the same number of downloads), so I take it that comparatively many people are playing this pack at the moment. Thank you all for your continued interest in the pack!
Professional 07, 08, and 20 have had backroutes fixed, a couple other levels have had their sprites and/or backgrounds adapted. The latter changes are exclusive to the New-Formats version, because they were basically just about restoring these levels to the state they were in in the Old-Formats version. Meaning, the Old-Formats version already has these levels with the desired sprites and backgrounds. For example, the stars on the American flag on the level "Bay of Pigs" weren't displaying correctly in New Formats, this has been fixed, as well.
Also, all the talismans that are present in the Old-Formats version (10 in total) are now also included in New Formats!
Solved the first 10 Diva levels. Still need to resolve the fixed ones as over the holidays I completely forgot the update.
LWT New Formats IchoTolot.zip (64 kB - downloaded 42 times.)
Alright, resolved the fixed levels and also solved further ahead to Diva 20. At the current state, the Barcelona level was the hardest for me so far.
LWT New Formats IchoTolot.zip (69.1 kB - downloaded 41 times.)
Thanks again, IchoTolot!
"Holy Diver" and "Blocking all over the world" still seem too easy. But I currently don't have any idea on how to fix that; specifically, on "Blocking all over the world", you created another shortcut with Bombers, and since Bombers don't care about one-way arrows in any direction, those are pretty much impossible to prevent. This is also true regarding your solution to "Don't cry for me, Argentina" on the Diva rank. Steel stops Bombers completely, one-way arrows don't stop them at all. So basically, the only way to prevent Bomber shortcuts is making the Bombers pickup skills. But even that isn't always feasible.
The majority of your solutions to the first 20 Diva levels, however, are either intended (levels 01, 05, 08, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18), or valid alternative solutions (02, 03, 06, 07, 09, 13, 14, 15, 19).
Diva 06, "Diggas in Paris": I remember this trick from your L2 Let's Play, where you repeatedly assigned and cancelled Stompers (which are basically synonymous with Diggers) to move horizontally. But that almost would have deprived you of a way to remove the last bits of the Eiffel Tower, forcing you to spend Builders on that. Pretty clever!
Diva 07, "Born this way": I think you mainly just swapped the use of a Stacker and a Builder here, in comparison to the intended solution.
Also, I noticed that the labels for the pre-assigned-skills on the hatch overlap in New Formats, so I might have to bring back the old style of labelling the hatch with pickup skills, so that the order in which Climbers, Swimmers, Floaters, and Gliders appear becomes apparent again.
Diva 09, "I won't hold you back": You cleverly used the Glider to give the Fencer a head-start in front of the crowd. In the intended solution, you can't prevent the second Lemming released from the hatch from turning around in the Fencer tunnel; that lemming then becomes the Glider instead, bouncing off the dart arrow to land on the lower platform, and then he completes the path from the other side. But since both solutions require all the skills, both are fine!
Diva 13, "Brick house": Totally not intended, but that was pretty darn clever! Especially the tiny piece of terrain you left over on the left side, so that the Climbers don't splat from falling straight into a Digger tunnel. I could prevent this by adding steel to the bottom layer, but I found this pretty amusing.
Diva 14, "Foot of the mountain": I never expected anyone to use the left side of the level - the intended solution basically just creates one long Fencer tunnel. But directing the lemmings back and forth from one side to the other looks very elegant, as well, especially with the way you used the (cancelled) Fencer for crowd control instead.
Diva 15, "If you're going to San Francisco": When I saw the beginning of this solution, I thought it would be another backroute; but you still ended up using all the skills, and there was just as much timing involved as in the intended solution, if not even more. Getting on top of the bridge through the lower part on the left was definitely efficient, but then you needed more skills towards the end. Very clever alternative solution!
Diva 16, "Puff, the Magic Dragon": Ah, yeah, that lightning trap from the ONML Bubble tileset is now joint with the engine that creates it; in Old Formats, it was just a single pixel of a dot that I could hide in the dragon's eye. Now it looks as if he were holding some kind of goblet on top of his head. Is the dragon now guarding the Holy Grail?
Since the trap is somewhat relevant to the solution, I can't simply hide it. And if I make it "no overwrite" again, the lightning would be displayed behind the dragon terrain, I think, rather than on top of it.
Diva 17, "Believe in life after Lemmings": You spared one Builder and one Basher by using timing to isolate the first pioneer; the intended solution re-seals the Basher shaft in the beginning behind the pioneer, with a Builder, which then consequently needs to be cut through with the remaining Basher later on. Apart from that, this is the intended solution.
Diva 19, "Barcelona": That was quite a complex approach, but valid nonetheless! This level still unintentionally featured the Millas sprites, I'm going to swap those out for the next update. I don't have any issue with them per say, far from it; I just don't think they particularly fit to Spain.
Diva 20, "Only time": This was another radiation-based level in the original, so the intended solution can't really be replicated in New Formats anyway. I upped the save requirement to increase the challenge; in the original version, a bunch of lemmings die, because the radiating zombies free them before splatforms can be built. Without those radiating zombies, the 9/11 reference (which Arty correctly identified during his Old-Formats Let's Play) obviously also gets somewhat lost in New Formats.
I uploaded a merely cosmetic update: My dark-skinned Lemmings are finally back! They are now a recolouring scheme that is part of my strato_generalmd tileset.
This is what they look like (example level, not part of any pack):
Three levels have had their sprites changed to these lemmings: "Waka Waka" (Professional rank), "Diggas in Paris" (Diva rank), and "Africa" (Legend rank). I've also changed the sprites on "Barcelona" back to default, because they were accidentally still the Millas sprites.
You will have to re-download both strato_generalmd and the pack to make these changes visible. If you only re-download the styles, your versions of the levels will still point to the default-coloured sprites. If you only re-download the pack, I guess the sprites will fall back to default on those levels that now have strato_generalmd selected as their theme.
The colour of the one-way arrows on "Waka Waka" has also changed as a consequence, plus, the blue background from the Shadow tileset is actually not a background, but merely a picked colour. Hence, "Diggas in Paris", with the theme no longer being L2 Shadow, now has a slightly darker background (egypt sky).
The version of strato_generalmd in the development thread for Lemmings Open Air has also been renewed, so you can use either of these downloads; both will work.
Finally, the zombies have had their skin set to completely white (colour code #ffffff), to make them more distinguishable from the standard zombie skin. This is also based on feedback I got from the first time when I shared these sprites.
Originally, the zombies were supposed to represent mummies, as these sprites were intended to go with the Egyptian style. Hence, their skin is brighter. But of course, they could also be evil colonial landowners... Interpret that as you wish; just know that this change was made mainly for game-mechanical reasons.
I tried it out on one of the levels I'm developing for the L3D-inspired pack Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll - and since Zombie Blockers are only labelled as "Blocker" when hovering your mouse over them, it was really close to impossible to tell normal dark-skinned lemmings apart from zombies. Now, there should no longer be any confusion between the two.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2020, 10:21:23 PM by Strato Incendus »
After playing for LOTY and other stuff I played further on here and solved 10 more Diva levels.
It made me quite angry and frustrated, because you can't see when you actually went over/under trigger areas (or where they are in the first place). I guess you know which level I mean here.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2020, 05:45:33 PM by IchoTolot »
Yes, I know which level you mean . But since this is a rerun, I can assure you everything is exactly in the same place as it was the first time. So I think this criticism is actually more relevant to Noisemaker 15. Sure, in this case it's different because there is no Disarmer, so you have to e.g. build over some traps. But that's what skill shadows are for - you can clearly distinguish a staircase that leads the lemming into a trap from one that goes over it, because the latter should show its full length as a skill shadow, whereas the former is shortened, going only as far as up to the trap trigger.
I'll have a look at your replays soon and see whether anything needs fixing! Thanks for returning to playing this pack!
Finished Diva and as the last time I posted replays was over a month back I also sloved Legend 39&40 on top of it (I have skill left over though).
Thanks for the replays! A couple of leftover skills are no problem if the basic idea is that of the intended solution; this has also happened multiple times on Arty's LP.
Now you've caught up with that LP though, so everything from the Rockstar rank and onwards is uncharted territory! Definitely expect a lot more backroutes on the last two ranks, since I haven't received any replays for those yet...
Your solutions to the last two levels of the Legend rank are compeltely fine, though, and very close to the intended solutions.
In the second half of the Diva rank, there were only two backroutes, and only one major one:
"Wrecking ball": Here you went into the ground and under the obstacles. I've already added steel to the level file to prevent this; I just need to upload the new version, and I have a couple other changes I want to make before that - mostly referring to pre-level texts and sprite choice, nothing about the levels themselves.
"Total eclipse of the builders": I wasn't aware you could chain several destructive skills like that to prevent any lemming from turning around while going through the pillar! At release rate 99, there isn't much I can do about this, aside from making a couple of these skills pickup skills. Pickup skills are usually the last resort to backroute fixing, after one-way arrows. But one-way arrows won't solve anything here, since there is no type of one-way arrow that allows Bashers to pass but prevents Miners from doing so.


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David R. Smith, James B. Duke Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Professor of Physics and Director of the Center for Metamaterials and Integrated Plasmonics and Faculty Network Member of The Energy Initiative
Office Location: 2527 CIEMAS Building, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address: drsmith@duke.edu
Web Page: http://www.ee.duke.edu/~drsmith
Metamaterials
Ph.D., University of California at San Diego, 1994
B.S., University of California at San Diego, 1988
Teaching (Spring 2020):
Ece 110l.01, Fund of elec and comp engr Synopsis
Hudson 207, MW 10:05 AM-11:20 AM
Recent Publications (More Publications)
Ruiz, JR; Guttenfelder, W; White, AE; Howard, NT; Candy, J; Ren, Y; Smith, DR; Loureiro, NF; Holland, C; Domier, CW, Validation of gyrokinetic simulations of a National Spherical Torus eXperiment H-mode plasma and comparisons with a high-k scattering synthetic diagnostic, Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, vol. 61 no. 11 (October, 2019) [doi] [abs].
Ren, Y; Smith, DR; Zweben, SJ; Bell, R; Guttenfelder, W; Kaye, SM; Leblanc, BP; Mazzucato, E; Lee, KC; Domier, CW; Sun, PJ; Yuh, H, Experimental observation of electron-scale turbulence evolution across the L-H transition in the National Spherical Torus Experiment, Nuclear Fusion, vol. 59 no. 9 (August, 2019) [doi] [abs].
Kaye, SM; Battaglia, DJ; Baver, D; Belova, E; Berkery, JW; Duarte, VN; Ferraro, N; Fredrickson, E; Gorelenkov, N; Guttenfelder, W; Hao, GZ; Heidbrink, W; Izacard, O; Kim, D; Krebs, I; La Haye, R; Lestz, J; Liu, D; Morton, LA; Myra, J; Pfefferle, D; Podesta, M; Ren, Y; Riquezes, J; Sabbagh, SA; Schneller, M; Scotti, F; Soukhanovskii, V; Zweben, SJ; Ahn, JW; Allain, JP; Barchfeld, R; Bedoya, F; Bell, RE; Bertelli, N; Bhattacharjee, A; Boyer, MD; Brennan, D; Canal, G; Canik, J; Crocker, N; Darrow, D; Delgado-Aparicio, L; Diallo, A; Domier, C; Ebrahimi, F; Evans, T; Fonck, R; Frerichs, H; Gan, K; Gerhardt, S; Gray, T; Jarboe, T; Jardin, S; Jaworski, MA; Kaita, R; Koel, B; Kolemen, E; Kriete, DM; Kubota, S; Leblanc, BP; Levinton, F; Luhmann, N; Lunsford, R; Maingi, R; Maqueda, R; Menard, JE; Mueller, D; Myers, CE; Ono, M; Park, JK; Perkins, R; Poli, F; Raman, R; Reinke, M; Rhodes, T; Rowley, C; Russell, D; Schuster, E; Schmitz, O; Sechrest, Y; Skinner, CH; Smith, DR; Stotzfus-Dueck, T; Stratton, B; Taylor, G; Tritz, K; Wang, W; Wang, Z; Waters, I; Wirth, B, NSTX/NSTX-U theory, modeling and analysis results, Nuclear Fusion, vol. 59 no. 11 (June, 2019) [doi] [abs].
Everitt, HO; Tyler, T; Caraway, BD; Bingham, CM; Llopis, A; Heimbeck, MS; Padilla, WJ; Smith, DR; Jokerst, NM, Strain Sensing with Metamaterial Composites, Advanced Optical Materials, vol. 7 no. 9 (May, 2019) [doi] [abs].
Diebold, AV; Imani, MF; Smith, DR, Phaseless radar coincidence imaging with a MIMO SAR platform, Remote Sensing, vol. 11 no. 5 (March, 2019) [doi] [abs].
Dr. David R. Smith is currently the James B. Duke Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Duke University. He is also Director of the Center for Metamaterials and Integrated Plasmonics at Duke and holds the positions of Adjunct Associate Professor in the Physics Department at the University of California, San Diego, and Visiting Professor of Physics at Imperial College, London. Dr. Smith received his Ph.D. in 1994 in Physics from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Smith's research interests include the theory, simulation and characterization of unique electromagnetic structures, including photonic crystals and metamaterials.
Smith is best known for his theoretical and experimental work on electromagnetic metamaterials. Metamaterials are artificially structured materials, whose electromagnetic properties can be tailored and tuned in ways not easily accomplished with conventional materials. Smith has been at the forefront in the development of numerical methods to design and characterize metamaterials, and has also provided many of the key experiments that have helped to illustrate the potential that metamaterials offer. Smith and his colleagues at UCSD demonstrated the first left-handed (or negative index) metamaterial at microwave frequencies in 2000--a material that had been predicted theoretically more than thirty years prior by Russian physicist Victor Veselago. No naturally occurring material or compound with a negative index-of-refraction had ever been reported until this experiment. In 2001, Smith and colleagues followed up with a second experiment confirming one of Veselago's key conjectures: the 'reversal' of Snell's law. These two papers--the first published in Physical Review Letters and the second in Science--generated enormous interest throughout the community in the possibility of metamaterials to extend and augment the properties of conventional materials. Both papers have now been cited more than 3,000 times each.
Since those first metamaterial experiments, Smith has continued to study the fundamentals and potential applications of negative index media and metamaterials. In 2004, Smith began studying the potential of metamaterials as a means to produce novel gradient index media. By varying the index-of-refraction throughout a material, an entire class of optical elements (such as lenses) can be formed. Smith showed that metamaterials could access a much larger range of design space, since both the magnetic and the electric properties could be graded independently. Smith and colleagues demonstrated several versions of gradient index optics, an activity that continues in his lab today. The introduction of controlled spatial gradients in the electromagnetic properties of a metamaterial flows naturally into the broad concept of transformation optics - a new electromagnetic design approach proposed by Sir John Pendry in 2006. To illustrate of the novelty of this design approach, Pendry, Schurig and Smith suggested in 2006 that an 'invisibility cloak' could be realized by a metamaterial implementation of a transformation optical design. Later that same year, Smith's group at Duke University reported the demonstration of a transformation optical designed 'invisibility cloak' at microwave frequencies. The concept of transformation optics has since attracted the attention of the scientific community, and is now a rapidly emerging sub-discipline in the field.
Smith's work on transformation optics has been featured in nearly every major newspaper, including a cover story in USA Today, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and many more. Smith and his work on cloaking have also been featured on television news programs inlcuding The Today Show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. Smith's work has also been highlighted in documentary programs on The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, the BBC and others.
Please also see Prof. Smith's personal website at http://people.ee.duke.edu/~drsmith for the most frequent updates.
Grad Students
Duke University, Dept. of Physics, Physics Bldg., Science Dr., Box 90305, Durham, NC 27708


text:
Books on fortification, artillery
and military history
Gas Warfare in the First World War
Panzerwrecks 20: Ostfront 3
Skoda Artillery Materiel - 50 mm Mine Thrower
Captured Vehicles and Tanks of the Wehrmacht - Tracked Vehicles
"Go To It!" The Illustrated History of the 6th Airborne Division
"The Rose & The Arrow"
101st Airborne - Market Garden Then & Now
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In accordance with 405 KAR 8:010 notice is hereby given that Alden Resources LLC 332 West Cumberland Gap Parkway, Suite 100, Corbin, Kentucky 40701 intends to transfer permit number 918-0444 to Clay Laurel Mining, Inc. PO Box 25 Avawam, Kentucky 41713. The new permit number will be permit number 918-0498. The operation disturbs 72.7 surface acres. No new acreage is affected by the transfer.
The operation is located 2.0 miles southeast of Siler in Whitley County. The operation is approximately 0.57 miles east from KY 92's junction with Limestone Branch Road and located 0.37 mile south of Poplar Creek on Little Round Mountain. The operation is located on the Frakes U.S.G.S. 7½ minute quadrangle map.
The application has been filed for public inspection at the Department for Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement's Middlesboro Regional Office, 1804 East Cumberland Avenue, Middlesboro, Kentucky 40965-1229. Written comments or objections must be filed with the Director, Division of Mine Permits, 300 Sower Boulevard, Frankfort, Kentucky 40601. All comments or objections must be received within fifteen (15) days of today's date.
The Whitley County Public Library, established under KRS 173.720, provides library services to citizens in Whitley County, Kentucky. In accordance with Chapters 65 and 424 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes, the financial records of the Whitley County Public Library District for the Period of July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017 may be inspected at the Whitley County Public Library, 285 S 3rd St, Williamsburg, Kentucky during administrative office hours: Monday through Friday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Inquiries should be made to the library director.
A Petition to Close a County Road has been presented to the Whitley County Fiscal Court concerning an Unknown Road in the Whetstone Community. Pursuant to KRS 178.050, the hearing for this road closure, open to all interested parties, is scheduled to convene on September 19, 2017 at 6:00 p.m. during the regular scheduled court meeting. A written report from the two Viewers and the Road Department Supervisor will be presented at the meeting. A review of the map pertaining to the road closure is available for viewing at the Whitley County Judge Executive's office during regular business hours.
Richard K. Alward mailing address 205 S Main, Corbin, KY 40701 hereby declares intention(s) to apply for a NQ2 license no later than Aug. 22, 2017. The business to be licensed will be located at 205 S Main St., Corbin, Kentucky 40701 doing business as Basil's Italian Restaurant.
The owner is as follows: Owner, Richard K. Alward, 480 Verne Road, Williamsburg, KY 40769. Any person, association, corporation, or body politic may protest the granting of the license(s) by writing the Dept. of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 1003 Twilight Trail, Frankfort, KY 40601-8400 within 30 days (KRS 243.430) of the date of this legal publication.
G&E Drive In, LLC, mailing address 485 S Hwy 25 W, Williamsburg, KY 40769 hereby declares intention(s) to apply for a NQ2 Restaurant Liquor, Wine, and Malt Beverage by the drink license no later than Sept. 10, 2017. The business to be licensed will be located at 485 S Hwy 25 W, Williamsburg, Kentucky 40769 doing business as G&E.
The manager is as follows: manager, Julie McCullah of 39 Edgewood Dr., Williamsburg, KY 40769. Any person, association, corporation, or body politic may protest the granting of the license(s) by writing the Dept. of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 1003 Twilight Trail, Frankfort, KY 40601-8400 within 30 days (KRS 243.430) of the date of this legal publication.


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Q: Irregular scaling of axis in R I have computed values for several categories for three networks. I'd like to create a bar plot in R to show the differences between these parameters for the networks. So far I plotted this with the barplot R function with the categories on the x-axis, their values on the y-axis and to each category three bars (one for each network).
But now I have one value which is much higher than all the others. Therefore the differences for the rest cannot be seen since they're represented only by a thin line because of that one large bar which almost fills the whole plot.
My idea was now to plot the values on the y-axis on an irregular scale, meaning for example, that one half represents the values from 0 to 300, and the other half from 300 to 3000. Is there any way to do this? Or a good alternative approach to handle this problem? I also thought of plotting the logarithm but unfortunatly I have also negative values.

A: I would suggest that an irregular scale isn't a good plan - I think it confuses viewers of the chart. Instead, you could use the layout() function to plot three separate barplots in a horizontal layout. Thus, each category could have it's own plot, with it's own scale.
If, however, you still have a single bar at 3000, while everything else is at 300, that won't really help. In that case, you could manually set your y-axis limits with ylim=c(min,max). To keep the bar from stretching off the screen, you can just use simple logic to define anything > 300 as 300, or something similar. Then, put a text point there stating the actual value (using text, maybe with arrow).
With those ideas out there, I would suggest that a graph where one value is 10x the other values might not really be worth presenting, or if it is, the main takeaway from it isn't going to be "how do values 2 and 3 compare to each other", it's going to be "holy moley look how much bigger 1 is than 2 and 3". So, it might not be a big deal if one bar is giant and two are small, as long as you aren't doing all 9 on a single plot (which would screw up other, relevant comparisons). So, if you split them using layout(), then it wouldn't be as big of a deal.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Spotify had its two most successful country launches ever in Australia and New Zealand, according to Kate Vale, Spotify managing director of Australia and New Zealand. The ad-based music streaming app opened for business in the two countries last May.
At an Innovation Bay breakfast today, Vale declined to disclose the exact number of customers Spotify has in Australia or New Zealand. But she said take up in terms of the percentage of population on Spotify in each country and the number of users paying for premium memberships are the highest the company has ever had so soon after launch.
Vale said the popularity of Facebook—a Spotify partner—and the high penetration of smartphones in Australia are likely drivers of Spotify adoption by consumers Down Under, Vale said. Also, Australia is the fifth largest music market in the world by overall revenue, she said.
"When those three things go together in a market, Spotify seems to do very well," she said.
One audience member asked if the higher price of songs in the Australian Apple iTunes store compared to the US iTunes store could also contribute to Spotify's popularity. For example, the Apple iTunes store in the US sells most albums between $9.99 and $12.99, while in Australia albums are frequently sold for $16.99 and higher.
"Normally when people do use Spotify, they tend to not use iTunes," she said.
Spotify is not the only music streaming service to open for business recently in Australia. Telstra launched a similar service called MOG in June, one month after the Spotify launch. Pandora launched Down Under in December and Guvera relaunched at the end of January.
Vale said Spotify has tried to embrace both the music labels and the artists they represent, two parties that in recent years have often been at odds on royalty issues.
The music labels "own part of our business, and 70 per cent of everything we make goes back to the labels, who then in turn remunerate the artists," she said.
Since its inception five years ago, Spotify has paid record labels $500 million, Vale said. Spotify paid $250 million to record labels in the last 12 months and expects it will pay another $500 million to the labels in 2013 alone, she said.
Artists also benefit from data and analytics on Spotify customer demographics, she added.
"We had an artist in our Stockholm office just recently who sat down with our CEO, Daniel Ek, and we basically showed them a heat map of everywhere in the world that people on Spotify are listening to their recent album," she said.
Vale said the success of Spotify's ad-based free service may be lowering the amount of illegal music downloading worldwide.
In Sweden, where Spotify was created, music piracy has decreased by 25 per cent in the five years since launch, she said.
She estimated that 3 million Australians download illegal music every month and Australians illegally download about 1 billion songs every year.
Spotify is currently available on desktop computers and mobile smartphones and tablets. The company is negotiating to get its app on more platforms, including automobile dashboards of "a number of car manufacturers," Vale said.
However, some of these discussions with car companies have been "really long," she said. One ongoing negotiation has so far taken five years, she said.
While the Spotify interface currently relies on users searching for the music they want to hear, Vale said Spotify will soon add more music discovery features, customised to each user's listening preferences. Also, users will be able to follow specific bands and receive recommendations directly from the musicians, she said.
While Spotify is strengthening music recommendation features, Vale stressed that the company's business model is not converging with Pandora, another popular music streaming app.
Pandora and Spotify are "quite different," Vale said. Pandora customers say what type of music they listen to and the service streams similar music.


To tackle youth unemployment, students and their families need to know more about all educational opportunities, not just four-year universities and colleges, write Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, joining Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., in a USA TODAY op-ed.
Economists project that by 2020, more than 60% of jobs will require more than a high school diploma. However, only about half of those jobs will require a four-year degree — the other half will not.
Dimon is a member of Business Roundtable, and the Roundtable is working with the CCSSO and the education consortium, as well, on a variety of projects. Business Roundtable's focus goes beyond youth, starting with the youngest children just learning to read, to the K-12 students mastering facts and gaining knowledge, embracing improved college education, and all the way to the millions now on the job looking to better their prospects.
Dane Linn, BRT's vice president who works on all these issues, details the many efforts in a recent column in the Hechinger Report, "CEOs tackle skills gap in schools, workplaces and beyond." Business Roundtable supported a renewed Elementary and Secondary Education Act that returned K-12 education authority to the states while maintaining accountability; the challenge becomes making sure the law proves effective. CEOs are now calling for a modernized Higher Education Act and a Perkins Act that aligns career and technical education with employers' needs.
Along with the Business-Higher Education Forum, we're bringing together leaders who can help transform undergraduate education in growing fields such as data analytics and cybersecurity. And the National Network of Business and Industry Associations, an innovative partnership between Business Roundtable and ACT Foundation, joins 25 organizations focused on better connecting learning and work.
Linn concludes: "Yes, the plate is full, but the work to close the skills gap is too important to delay. Just as the gap did not develop overnight, the solutions will take time to come to fruition."
As the "New Skills for Youth" program demonstrates, people are diligently pursuing those solutions and full intend to make them a reality.


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New Apartment Buildings Adds More to North Fifth Street Corridor in South Kensington
South Kensington is perhaps the fastest developing neighborhood in Philadelphia. Dozens of new developments are being built, with a mix of apartments, condominiums, and townhouses and some retail and creative office space. North Fifth Street is seeing some of the most of that development in the neighborhood, including many new apartments. The apartment development is starting to move further north into the neighborhood. A new group of apartment buildings are planned at 1825 North Fifth Street, at the intersection of North Fifth and Berks Streets. These new buildings are being built by Gladwell Properties and designed by Harman Deutsch Architects. The site was once a vacant industrial building. The development will have two phases, the first of which will start soon.
The first phase of this development will have four buildings, each with eight rental units, for a total of thirty-two units. There will be sixteen one-bedroom units, each about 1,050 square feet, and sixteen two-bedroom units, each about 1,500 square feet. The two-bedroom units will have terraces or rooftop decks. Brick party walls will extend to the sidewalk between each building. The exterior will, also, have bay windows with metal panels. The buildings will have bicycle parking and could have artwork added. The future phase would have an apartment building with likely ninety-eight apartment units.
As South Kensington continues to develop, eventually the neighborhood will run out of large vacant sites available for this development. On North Fifth Street alone, there are similar apartment developments on the 1500, 1600, and 1700 blocks about to be built soon. Development on the 1800 block continues that redevelopment of the corridor and the South Kensington neighborhood.
New Apartment Building Planned on Cedar Street in Port Richmond
Brewerytown Continues to Develop with New Apartment Building


"The Native Americans have an expression that I like," says New Mexico-based artist Tom Perkinson. "'Keep the top of your head open.'" It's an invitation to be alive to experience every moment, and to be open to new possibilities and novel solutions.
It perfectly describes the outlook that Perkinson brings to his own work. Painting the ravishing landscape of New Mexico, he pushes the color to almost-otherworldly realms of saturated violets, vivid yellows and resplendent oranges. The resulting paintings revel in the transformative power of light.
Saturated washes of watercolor are enriched with delicate applications of pastel to create active, broken color in Twilight, New Mexico by Tom Perkinson (mixed media on paper, 20×20).
Tom Perkinson has devoted his life and career to painting. Here's what decades of that kind of devotion have yielded in terms of his unique ways of working.
Perkinson is careful to create a variety of edges, from soft to hard, in Autumn, New Mexico (mixed media on paper, 16×28).
Inspired by a climate that can present everything from the limpid clarity of high-altitude air to sudden squalls that race across the desert floor, to the delicate magic of winter snowfalls, Perkinson's work seems to be the ultimate appreciation of one of the most visually spectacular regions in the U.S. It comes as a surprise, then, that almost all of his paintings are done from his imagination and memory.
"My color combinations aren't in the realm of the natural world, because I don't paint reality; I'm a painter of fiction," he says. "I try to paint a sense of place, as though this scene really does exist.
The deciding is the most difficult part of the process according to the artist, so he always tries to leave himself open to changes.
Ribbon of Light by Tom Perkinson (mixed media on paper, 16×16) pushes color to fantastic realms of blues, red-violets and oranges.
After establishing the painting in watercolor, Perkinson lets it dry overnight and then works over it in colored pencil and pastel the next day. "The watercolor seeps into the paper while the pastel sits on the surface, which adds to the illusion of depth and space," he says.
Although the color in Two Riders Along the River by Tom Perkinson (mixed media on paper, 5×10) is exaggerated, it's modulated in a very subtle manner.
To create a variety of effects, Perkinson sometimes uses a can of compressed air that he directs through a fine tube; the air blows the pastel around or completely off the surface.
Perkinson also uses cardboard rolls, or stumps, both to blend and to lift pastel from one area to repeat the color in another. "It's a really effective technique in terms of the subtlety that I can achieve," he says.
Perkinson seamlessly marries watercolor, pastel, colored pencil and drawing ink to create a landscape rich with color and mood.
Using watercolor, I quickly applied the fundamental washes and abstract structure. I then used walnut ink in the foreground.
I added the rain cloud and the mountains in the background. I then darkened certain areas to push them back into space.
I added cloud details and more color to the sky.
I created more details using watercolor, pastel and colored pencils, adding more vibrant color to the sky, the trees, and the background and foreground.
I added the two geese by the water and the red-winged blackbirds in the foreground. I worked on the large rocks under the trees on the left.
I added one more goose near the water and painted in the flying geese in Geese in November (mixed media on paper, 10×10).
For more exciting instruction on another crucial aspect of landscape — where light and land meet in the reflections on water and from water — participate in Johannes Vloothuis' Paint Along 45 — Master Water Reflections.
You can watch all three sessions live alongside Johannes as he paints or at your convenience (the sessions are recorded for you!). It's 12 hours of creative fun on one of the most popular themes in landscape painting. Enjoy!
This is an excerpt from an article written by John A. Parks and first featured in Watercolor Artist magazine. Get your subscription to Watercolor Artist now. And learn more about Tom Perkinson by visiting his website.


Indie Manga publishers GEN Manga have sent us details of their newest releases. Plus an all new season of their manga collection has just launched. All their titles are available to download from their website and are DRM free.
The good folks from GEN Manga have sent us details of their latest release. They're back with volume 3 of Let's Eat Ramen. Their GEN Manga monthly indie manga has also returned.
We caught up with GEN Manga a few years ago to hear their thoughts on seinen and indie manga.
We've just added support for iCal Feeds to the Otaku Calendar. What does this mean? It means that you can now set up your calendar software, including Google Calendar and the calendar on your phone (including iPhone and Android) to get updates from the Otaku Calendar. It even works with MS Outlook. This way you can keep to to date with what's going on without visiting the site.
The good folks from new anime streaming site Daisuki.net have sent us details about their latest upcoming streams. They'll be simulcasting Monogatari Series Second Season and offering streams of the previous series - Bakemonogatari, Nisemonogatari and Nekomonogatari (Black).
Monogatari Series Second Season and Nekomonogatari (Black) will be avaiable for simulcast in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. While Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari will be available in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland and South Africa.
They've also got 1,000 prizes to give away to anyone who registers on the site and applies for their give away.
A while ago, we posted an article about the crazy world of Neon Genesis Evangelion Merchandise. It proved to be very popular with our readers. Checking now, we find that they still do make crazy merchandise. There's even a physical Evangelion store you can to in Harajuku in Tokyo-01 (in Eva speak).
The good folks from GEN Manga have sent us details of their latest publication. They've just released their seinen title Alive into a single Tankobon - Alive - The Complete Series. Priced at $2.99 (USD) for a DRM free PDF download.
The good folks Gen Manga have sent us details of their latest publication. The publisher bringing us Indie Manga from the Tokyo Underground has branched out to Korean Manhwa, releasing Gen Manhwa featuring a title called Stone Collector.
Gen also tell us they intend to branch out to monthly one shot tankobon type titles. That and they've just released Sorako as a complete digital collection and intend to publish it as a printed edition with some help from a Kick Starter campaign.
October 2012's London MCM expo was the most successful ever. It included a stall by influential and controversial manga artists Toshio Maeda. Creator of the the renowned Urotsukidoji and La Blue Girl. We caught with the manga artist and were lucky enough to interview him at the Expo.
NSFW Content Warning. This article contains content that is not safe for work. This article contains an interview with the creator of a certain tentacle based genre of manga.
In the Otaku News labs we are always thinking about the best way to spread the latest news to people who love Japan.
"I'm new to fandom, what can I do in my area this month?"
Otaku Calendar is designed to be a sister site to Otaku News. We'll still cover all the stuff we normally do here, but the events will be organised differently on the Otaku Calendar.
Our ultimate (and somewhat impossible) goal is to list every event and release date of interest to otaku. In order to so we'll need volunteers to populate the calendar with events from around the world! If you're interested in helping out please get in touch by e-mail webmaster@otakunews.com.
If you've got any feedback or suggestions too, please feel free to let us know.
The good folks from GEN Manga have just release their latest Issue GEN 13.
They continue the titles Android Angels, One Is Enough, Stones Of Power, Anomal, and Alive, plus issue 13 introduces a new title - Psycho.
GEN will be giving away a short preview version of GEN 13 for free this month.
GEN have also just released Wolf as a single tankobon for $4.99 (USD).


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A$AP Rocky's Swedish Lawyer Wounded in Stockholm Shooting
Isabel Togoh Forbes Staff
I cover breaking news.
Henrik Olsson Lilja was shot in Stockholm on Friday morning.
Topline: A prominent Swedish lawyer who represented rapper A$AP Rocky was shot in the Swedish capital Stockholm on Friday morning. Police are treating it as an isolated incident and "several people" have been arrested for questioning, officers said.
Henrik Olssen Lilja was shot in the head and chest and reportedly called the police himself, with emergency services responding at 8:59 local time, Swedish newspaper Expressen reported. He was taken to hospital in an ambulance. A spokeswoman for the Swedish Bar Association confirmed to Forbes that Lilja was the victim of the shooting.
Police are investigating the matter as an "isolated incident." It is not known whether the lawyer was targeted because of his work. Witnesses say they saw a person wrestle with the lawyer in a stairwell in central Stockholm before he was shot and used a neighbor's phone to contact police.
Police have arrested a woman, reportedly also a senior lawyer, who had previously been banned from contacting Lilja, Expressen reported. The shooter has been identified as a man, while a black SUV that was spotted at the scene sped away and is being chased by officers.
He was conscious when police were contacted, but his current condition is unknown.
Crucial quote: "The police have arrested several people for questioning. The investigation is at an intense stage and the police are working on several different fronts to make progress," the Swedish Police Authority wrote on its website.
Key background: The lawyer recently gained worldwide attention after representing U.S. rapper A$AP Rocky, who was convicted of assault in the Swedish capital following a brawl with a 19-year-old man in June. Rocky, born Rakim Mayers, received a two-year suspended sentence. Among other high-profile clients Lilja represents Qiao Jianjun, one of China's most wanted fugitives accused by Beijing of embezzling millions of dollars.
Follow me on Twitter. Send me a secure tip.
Isabel Togoh
I am a breaking news reporter for Forbes in London, covering Europe and the U.S. Previously I was a news reporter for HuffPost UK, the Press Association and a night rep


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Chad le Clos Wins 2 Events in First 2 Days of German Championships
Chad le Clos is swimming in his first domestic meet since joining coach Dirk Lange in Frankfurt, while 13-year old Alina Baievych won her first German title. Archive photo via Mike Lewis/Ola Vista Photography
For the second year in a row, the Yale women took down their Ivy League foes, Princeton and Harvard, in the annual double-dual meet known as HYP.
The Harvard men won the annual HYP meet against its ivy foes, Princeton and Yale, for the fifth consecutive time on Saturday.
Reigning NCAA champion in the 100 back Kacper Stokowski threw down in Austin this weekend, taking wins in the 200 back (1:41.3) and 100 back (45.6)
Richard Blanc and Michael Rose Win 2021-2022 NFHS Coaches of The Year
Richard Blanc (pictured far left), the co-head coach of Santa Margarita Catholic's girls and boys teams, has been honored as an NFHS Coach of the Year.
by Braden Keith 5
November 19th, 2022 Africa, Europe, International, News
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2022 German Short Course Swmming Championships
Wuppertal, Germany
25 meters (short course meters), prelims/finals
Meet Site
Day 1 Finals
13-year old Alina Baievych won two individual finals and swimmers from the SG Neukolln club were the dominant forces through the first two days at the 2022 German Short Course Championships. South African Chad le Clos, who has been training in Germany recently, also made an appearance at the meet.
Baievych won the 200 fly in 2:11.29 on day 1 of the meet. That not only gave the 13-year old from TB 1888 her first national championship at such a young age, but it shattered her own age group record. That mark previously stood at 2:13.56, which she swam in prelims, which in turn broke Rosalie Kleyboldt's 2016 time of 2:15.95.
Meanwhile, swimmers representing the club SG Neukolln won three titles in the first day of competition. Angeline Kohler (53.66 in the women's 100 free), Nele Schulze (1:06.68 in the women's 100 breast), and Luca Armbruster (48.05 in the men's 100 free) all picked up day 1 titles.
Schulze and Kohler are both new trainees this year at the Berlin National base, where they swim under coach Lasse Frank.
"We had just returned from altitude training on Monday and now we want to do something to improve the toughness of the competition with a view to the short course World Championships in December. I'm already very satisfied with this start," Frank said after the first day of competition.
Kohler went on to win the 50 fly on day 2 in 26.20. She was 4th at the European Championships in the long course version of that event over the summer.
Chad le Clos, the South African Olympic gold medalist, also made an appearance at the meet, his first domestic test since beginning training with Dirk Lange in Frankfurt. After swimming 1:49s in each of the three World Cup legs, he swam 1:51.00 to win the 200 fly on day 1 of German Nationals.
On day 2, he won the 50 fly in 22.66 ahead of Moritz Schaller (23.20).
There was a big upset on day 1 of the meet, when 22-year old Luca Matzerath beat Marco Koch in the 100 breaststroke. The two Frankfurt teammates swam times of 58.51 and 58.90, respectively.
Koch did pick up a win on day 2 in the 400 IM in 4:13.84. That's far from his best time of 4:01, but is far better than his only other swim in the event in the last three years: a 4:30 from October.
Other Notable Results:
Cornelius Jahn won the men's 200 backstroke in 1:54.77. 17-year old Oskar Schildknecht was 3rd in that race in a time of 1:55.03, which broke the German Age Record. The previous mark was set by Ramon Klenz in this same pool in 2015 when he swam 1:55.69.
« Neue DSV Führungsspitze: Wolfgang Rupieper und Kai Morgenroth
Olympia 2024 in Paris: Maskottchen wurde vorgestellt »
Chad le Clos
Deutsch Gang
I wouldn't call Matzerath beating Koch a big upset…..he did just final at worlds in the 50 and 100 last summer.
Lpman
Jonathan Charbroiled Steak
Reply to Lpman
Man chill
Your mom cares, she messaged me before my original post.
Reply to Deutsch Gang
Now thats just inappropriate. Im telling my mom
About Braden Keith
Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …
More from Braden Keith
Sarah Sjostrom, Lars Frolander Will Appear in Sweden's "Superstars" Reality TV Show
Texas Women Shatter Big 12 Record in 400 Medley Relay
Ryan Hoffer, the #2 Pick in the 2021 ISL Rookie Draft, Retires from Swimming
Matthew Cao Breaks 11-12 Canadian Age Record in the 200 IM
Halle West Breaks Canadian National Age Group Record in 100 Breast (13-14)


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Tag: #BlackLivesMatter
December 6, 2021 3:59 pm December 6, 2021 5:26 pm HershbloggerLeave a comment
This is a public service update.
The first Umoja (Unity) candle was lit by Kwanzaa's inventor in a lightly attended celebration (family and close comrades) on December 26, 1966.
This time of year there's always an uptick in searches for information about Kwanzaa. I know this simply from observing the search engine hits on this TOC post: Nguzo Saba The 7 Principles of Blackness
Noting a few of those hits today, I reread that 2008 post. I wasn't surprised that links have rotted. Most notably the Lansing State Journal article which prompted it, and a reference to The Dartmouth Review. The relevant portions of the LSJ piece are quoted in my post, but the Dartmouth article was the source of much of the Kwanzaa founder's (Ron Karenga) biographical content.
My Nguzo Saba post hasn't attracted a comment in a long while, but there are some interesting ones from earlier times should you wish to read it. One of those comments:
So, what the commentor [sic] above me is implying is that, we, as a community or race, need to rely on the white community to survive? You are suggesting that the white community is superior, that they "feed" us, and in todays society that is just wrong, no matter who you are. Nobody is above another just because of the circumstances of their birth.
How times have changed. That commenter had the concept right. But, now it's a few very vocal, white, snake oil barkers convincing a few black people that unless 'Black' is capitalized (and white is NOT) everyone should riot, loot, burn.
And, it should be noted, Ron Karenga thought some people were more admirable than others because of the circumstances of their birth.
IAC there still seems to be Kwanzaa interest, so for latter day internet searchers I unearthed an archive of the Dartmouth article. You should read the whole thing. It's not long.
I saw a number of things in it that register differently now than they did in 2008. The atavistic tribalism that is BLM has its 'Roots' here, and you'll see predicates for CRT and racialist apologists such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin D'Angelo.
The 7 Principles, Nguzo Saba, of Ron Karenga's contrivance are noted in my earlier post. But there are 7 other principles listed in his book The Quotable Karenga. "The sevenfold path of blackness is think black, talk black, act black, create black, buy black, vote black, and live black."
OK. But define "black." Right now it's being done mostly by white people.
That was the challenge to Kendi and, especially, D'Angelo. How can we make more money off this and achieve more privilege than Karenga did?
IAC, here are 2 snippets from that Dartmouth piece:
Initially, Kwanzaa proceeded from Karenga's hostility toward Western religion, which, he wrote in his 1980 book, Kawaida Theory, "denies and diminishes human worth, capacity, potential and achievement. In Christian and Jewish mythology, humans are born in sin, cursed with mythical ancestors who've sinned and brought the wrath of an angry God on every generation's head." He similarly opposed belief in God and other "spooks who threaten us if we don't worship them and demand we turn over our destiny and daily lives."
In Critical Race Theology, white "humans are born in sin, cursed with mythical ancestors who've sinned and brought the wrath of an angry God on every generation's head." You might object that the slave owning ancestors are not mythical. Well, for the vast majority of non-black people and at least a large plurality of black people, they are entirely mythical. And those "spooks?" They're white Progressives.
James Coleman, a former Black Panther, argues, "By only stressing the unity of black people, Kwanzaa separates black people from the rest of Americans. Americans must unify on whatever principles ensure we live in a safe, prosperous, God-loving country, with the race and ethnicity of any American seeking to abide by those principles being of no consequence."
Yeah. That's a passé MLK thingy. On his journey to anathema (statue destruction) MLK is now solidly in the objectionable phase. Because to say "All Lives Matter" is racist.
Will Karenga's fanciful 1960s inventiveness see a revival among the newly faithful? In 2008 it was seen to be in decline.
Does anyone remember that back in the early 1990s, AT&T ran television ads suggesting that blacks call their families during Kwanzaa using their telephone service? That stores stocked Kwanzaa candles and kente clothes? That student unions were festooned with Marcus Garvey's pan-African flag? In 1995, a local activist triumphantly told The Boston Globe, "We're at the point now where Kwanzaa has gotten so big that we feel like Santa Claus is really on the way out."
That short 2008 post from Reason is also worth a read. How has the "culture war is over" prediciton turned out?
I guess we'll be able to tell based on the number of Kwanzaa candles sold. If anyone can tell.
A Kranzaa resurgence would be a mixed blessing for the black isolationists. By numbers most of the Kwanzaa forelock tuggers to this intensely African theme park are Progressive white women, or Jamaican/East Indian politicians.
Posted in cultureTagged #BlackLivesMatter, Critical Race Theory, kwanzaa, racism
I was invited,
July 9, 2021 1:20 pm July 9, 2021 2:49 pm HershbloggerLeave a comment
… via my junk mail folder, to take a test to see if I am racist.
I didn't see why. Since I'm white, it's a given that I'm racist. Should have been the first question.
Still, I was curious about the questions. There were only 5.
1. Name three Black journalists you read or three Black websites you follow.
Journalists: John McWhorter, Larry Elder, Glenn Loury, Candace Owens, Charles Payne, Thomas Sowell, Jason L. Riley, Walter Williams, Star Parker, and more. Do I get extra credit?
Websites: Black Man with a Gun, Loury, McWhorter, Ayan Hirsi Ali have their name (or skin tone) on sites. These are integrated websites, though, so white people also appear and many are referenced. Does that still count? I've got more, if needed.
2. Name three Black authors whose books have influenced your life – and while you're at it, three people you've shared those books with.
Authors: Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, Ayan Hirsi Ali, Shelby Steele, Octavia Butler, Frederick Douglass, Jason L. Riley, Clarence Thomas, John McWhorter, Herman Cain, Allen West, Ben Carson, Alan Keyes, Booker T. Washington, Samuel R. Delany.
Shared: Way too many to count. I didn't just talk about or lend the books (for one definition of 'shared'), quite a few were given away.
3. Name three tenets of the Black Lives Matter movement.
1-'All lives matter' is a racist statement.
2-'White lives matter' is a racist, Nazi, colonialist, patriarchal, homophobic, climate change denier statement.
3-All funding for police should be stopped.
4-Individualism is racist.
5-As is over acheivement in answering these questions.
4. Name three aspects of Black culture that you have had to learn and adapt to in order to succeed at your job.
For the (missing) definition of black culture, I'm excluding music, cuisine, arts, and sports since those are not directly related to any job I've, or most people, ever held.
In a water cooler gathering I could express an opinion on the cultural value of Billie Holiday's rendition of Summertime vs Cardi B's Wet Ass Pussy. I could declare collard greens are less objectionable than kale because greens are less bitter. I know Clementine Hunter's first name is pronounced 'Clementeen.' I could say whether I'd prefer to have a beer with Herschel Walker or LeBron James.
I could decribe my favorite Harriet Tubman $20 bill design:
None of this has much to do with career success. Oh, maybe a bit of team building, but these days such conversations are least as likely to trigger some charge of microagression as to promote camaraderie. What if someone said Colin Kaepernick should become head coach at your Alma Mater?
Perhaps a job relevant definition of black culture could be found at some 'acceptable' authority. Say the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Alas, I skimmed 124 blog posts containing 'black culture,' and couldn't find a chart comparable to their critique of white culture. Here's their summary of white cultural characteristics.
Among many other 'white' characteristics, the SNMAAHC thinks these behaviors typify "white privilege, and anti-blackness" "woven into the very fabric of American society":
1-Objective, rational, linear thinking
2-Delayed gratification
3-Self reliance
4-Time imposing its own objective rigidity (For example, show up on time. And see 2.)
Rejecting those those ideas never helped anyone succeed in a job outside of university _________ Studies programs, BLM organizing, Soros funded arson and looting claques, or Presidential Press Secretary.
My general adaptation to those who didn't display those 'white' characteristics was to explain the benefits of logical thinking, being on time, saving money, and personal responsibility no matter the melanin content of the person who seemed unaware.
Let me anticipate the objection that I have abused the Smithsonian definition. One of the intellectuals I listed earlier, Thomas Sowell, is in apparent agreement with me:
In his collection of essays, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Sowell applied these ideas for understanding various groups. He showed, for instance, that what often passes for "black culture" in the United States, with its particular language, customs, behavioral characteristics, and attitudes toward work and leisure, is in fact a collection of traits adopted from earlier white southern culture.
Sowell traces this culture to several generations of mostly Scotsmen and northern Englishmen who migrated to many of the southern American colonies in the 18th century. The outstanding features of this redneck culture, or "cracker" culture as it was called in Great Britain at that time, included "an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship, reckless searches for excitement, lively music and dance, and a style of religious oratory marked by rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and abeyant imagery." It also included "touchy pride, vanity, and boastful self-dramatization."
Any commercial industriousness and innovation introduced in the southern states in the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries, Sowell demonstrated, primarily came from businessmen, merchants, and educators who moved there from the northern and especially the New England states. The north generally had a different culture of work, savings, personal responsibility, and forethought – that resulted in the southern United States lagging far behind much of the rest of the country – a contrast often highlighted by 19th century European visitors.
The great tragedy for much of the black population, concentrated as it was in the southern states, was that it absorbed a good deal of this white southern redneck culture, and retained it longer than the descendants of those Scottish and English immigrants. Sowell explains that in the decades following the Civil War, black schools and colleges in the south were mostly manned by white administrators and teachers from New England who, with noticeable success, worked to instill "Yankee" virtues of hard work, discipline, education, and self-reliance.
In spite of racial prejudice and legal discrimination, especially in the southern states, by the middle decades of the 20th century a growing number of black Americans were slowly but surely catching up with white Americans in terms of education, skills, and income. One of the great perversities of the second part of the 20th century, Sowell showed, is that this advancement decelerated following the enactment of the civil-rights laws of the 1960s, with the accompanying affirmative action and emphasis on respecting the "diversity" of black culture. This has delayed the movement of more black Americans into the mainstream under the false belief that "black culture" is somehow distinct and unique, when in reality it is the residue of an earlier failed white culture that retarded the south for almost 200 years.
That's an unfortunate cultural appropriation. It can be blamed partly on whites, though. So there's that.
And, seriously, were I to have actually adapted to that 'black culture,' would that not have been cultural appropriation? Would I not have had to show up late for the meeting I called with my subordinates to set an example for all the white people racists? Yeah, I know 'subordinate' is badspeak. That programmer trainee should have had an equal vote – three votes if xir identified as black. I can see my 40 years of experience was 'privilege.'
5. Name three racist remarks that you remember hearing, challenging, and you corrected.
1-'All white people are racists.'
Robin D'Angelo can't write more than one paragraph without mentioning it.
2-'New York is Hymietown'.
-Jesse Jackson. Who may have been an inspiration for:
3-Ilhan Omar – "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel."
I have thoroughly castigated them all.
I'm looking forward to my score.
Posted in culture, politicsTagged #BlackLivesMatter, Critical Race Theory, racism
The content of CDC's character
May 7, 2021 12:53 pm HershbloggerLeave a comment
I shared this article regarding CDC vaccine distribution decisions with some friends:
Why I'm Losing Trust in the Institutions – Persuasion
RTWT, but here's the key:
[There are] some bedrock principles on which virtually all moral philosophers have long agreed.
The first is that we should avoid "leveling down" everyone's quality of life for the purpose of achieving equality… The second is that we should not use ascriptive characteristics like race or ethnicity to allocate medical resources… The Centers for Disease Control have just thrown both of these principles overboard in the name of social justice.
In one of the most shocking moral misjudgments by a public body I have ever seen, the CDC invoked considerations of "social justice" to recommend providing vaccinations to essential workers before older Americans even though this would, according to its own models, lead to a much greater death toll. After a massive public outcry, the agency has adopted revised recommendations. But though these are a clear improvement, they still violate the two bedrock principles of allocative justice—and are likely to cause unnecessary suffering on a significant scale…
On November 23rd, Kathleen Dooling, a public health official at the CDC, gave a presentation to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices … on who should first get access to the vaccine against Covid… Dooling recommended that 87 million essential workers—a very broad category including bankers and movie crews as well as teachers or supermarket cashiers—should get the vaccine before older Americans, even though the elderly are much more likely to die from the disease. The committee unanimously accepted the recommendations.
Dooling's presentation laid out three different metrics for evaluating whether 87 million "essential workers" or Americans over the age of 65 should be next in line: feasibility, science, and ethics…
According to the CDC's model, prioritizing essential workers over the elderly would … likely result in the preventable deaths of thousands of Americans.
And yet, the presentation concluded that science does not provide a reason to prioritize the elderly. For, as Kathleen Dooling wrote in one of the most jaw-dropping sentences I have ever seen in a document written by a public official, differences in expected consequences that could amount to thousands of additional deaths are "minimal."
This allowed Dooling to focus on "ethical" principles in selecting the best course of action. Highlighting the most important consideration in red, Dooling emphasized that "racial and ethnic minority groups are underrepresented among adults > 65." In other words, America's elderly are too white to be considered a top priority for the distribution of the vaccine against Covid.
My emailed comment was:
Whatever your opinion of the politicization of CCP virus treatments, Hydroxychloroquine for example, the CDC decision outlined in the link is an example of callous disregard for human life in the service of Critical Race Theory. Unlike HCQ, where reasonable people could a raise cautionary hand, this was a conscious decision to increase the death toll from the CCP virus. A decision based on skin color and, probably, pressure from unions – especially the American Federation of Teachers. It is disgusting that institutions we set up and pay for have so little regard for anything beyond woke virtue signaling.
The policy undoubtedly led to more black deaths, more elderly deaths, and more black elderly deaths.
One of the email recipients asked this:
Is murder too strong a word? Worse, perhaps, than Benghazi.
To which I replied:
Benghazi was amoral indifference followed by cynical coverup. You could argue that bold faced lies told over the caskets of the people she put in harm's way was merely another demonstration of Hillary's horrible character. What did they expect, after all? But she had left the deaths to chance. The deaths were possible, a vile betrayal, would be embarrassing, but were not assured. A reasonable gamble for the soulless if you can get away with it.
On the other hand, CDC's decision to withhold vaccines from the most vulnerable on the basis of race was contrary to their charter, a moral perversion of their own knowledge, but also premeditated. Excess deaths were what they approved. They thought wokeness would not only let them get away with it, but that it was a praiseworthy moral principle.
Worse than Benghazi.
Murder is not too strong a word. More specifically, geronticide.
Posted in politics, ScienceTagged #BlackLivesMatter, Critical Race Theory, race
Agency: Haves and have nots
May 6, 2021 3:55 pm HershbloggerLeave a comment
Oxford University Scholarship Online defines human agency:
Our self‐understanding as human agents includes commitment to three crucial claims about human agency: That agents must be active, that actions are part of the natural order, and that intentional actions can be explained by the agent's reasons for acting.
I've written about agency in a couple of recent posts, related to the Ma'Khia Bryant tragedy, because it seems to me her most ardent defenders want to strip her of it for political gain. Oh, they grant her agency when it suits them; with implausable claims that she called 911, but they insist that all her other, documented actions are to be excused because of her age and "the system." Many went so far as to contend teenage knife 'fights' are a rite of passage so common that police should ignore them. Ma'Khia lacked agency. Teenagers in general lack agency.
I came across an essay on this conveniently ambiguous attitude at the Manhattan Institute. A short time later I came across a post at Askblog. I strongly urge you to read both, and I'll try to give you a little incentive below. They shed some light on SJW motivations and reasoning in playing the agency card.
First, a slice from Askblog reader Roger Sweeny in: The mind and moral categories
I recently read Daniel M. Wegner' and Kurt Gray's The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters (Viking, 2016), a book that has nothing explicitly to do with politics or wokeness. They ask the question, "Who (and what) do people believe has a mind?" A fetus? A dog? A robot? Google? God? They crunch some numbers and find that people seem to have two groups of characteristics of mindness. One is the ability to experience sensations and emotions. The other is the ability to act, to decide and do.
They tell us that entities that can feel but can't act turn on our moral senses. Outrage at a man beating a dog. Pity for those in the hospital dying. Moreover, something in us wants to believe that those who are suffering are blameless. But we also want to find moral causes. We want to find something to blame. Best if it is something with a large capacity to act and a small capacity to suffer. Almost always, they say, there is a moral dyad. In fact, whenever there is something with a large capacity to act and a small capacity to suffer, we want to find the other half of the dyad, something relatively powerless and suffering.
Many opponents of wokeness have argued that it "denies agency" to the designated victims, that it treats them as powerless children. So far at least, that charge has not weakened the support for wokeness…
The less there is overt racial discrimination, the more there is a need to believe in a malevolent system. That may seem counter-intuitive, but so is the reality that revolutions do not occur when things are getting worse but when things are (generally) getting better.
Now we'll turn to a long article at The Manhattan Institute: The Social Construction of Racism in the United States
This paper uses survey data to make the case that racism in America lies, in significant measure, in the eyes of the beholder. This not only concerns people's perceptions of the prevalence of racism in society but even of their personal experience.
The quality of racism is inversely proportional to the SJW declaimed quantity. Think Jussie Smollett, he was just trying to fulfill the demand.
Tocqueville identified the reasons early on:
The hatred that men bear to privilege increases in proportion as privileges become fewer and less considerable, so that
democratic passions would seem to burn most fiercely just when
they have least fuel. . . . When all conditions are unequal,
no inequality is so great as to offend the eye, whereas the
slightest dissimilarity is odious in the midst of general
uniformity; the more complete this uniformity is, the more
insupportable the sight of such a difference becomes. Hence
it is natural that the love of equality should constantly
increase together with equality itself, and that it should
grow by what it feeds on.
– Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
In a similar vein, Coleman Hughes, in a pathbreaking 2018 essay,
remarks on Tocqueville's paradox as it concerns racial liberalism
in America: "It seems as if every reduction in racist behavior is
met with a commensurate expansion in our definition of the concept.
Thus, racism has become a conserved quantity akin to mass or energy:
transformable but irreducible."
This is part of an explanation for Critical Race Theory: Systemic racism is necessary, because it can be winnowed out of every object or human interaction, no matter how benign. Just move the goalposts.
There's a reason that everything is now viewed through a racial lens. Every day in every way you are bombarded with "evidence" of racism in everything. Over time, this sways minds. Much to our detriment.
Reading a passage from critical race theory author Ta-Nehisi Coates results in a significant 15-point drop in black respondents' belief that they have control over their lives…
Surveys showed that liberal whites are more supportive of punitive CRT postulates than blacks, who are more likely to aspire to agency and resilience. Moreover, CRT appeared to have a detrimental effect on African- Americans' feeling of being in control of their lives. This makes CRT a poor choice for policymakers seeking to improve outcomes in the black community.
Finally, my survey results indicate that as much as half of reported racism may be ideologically or psychologically conditioned, and the rise in the proportion of Americans claiming racism to be an important problem is largely socially constructed.
Whites are more affected by social justice/social media conditioning. Blacks are more sensible. I'll bet there is a correlation with who has read Ta-Nehisi Coates or attended a D'Angelo brainmash session.
Posted in culture, languageTagged #BlackLivesMatter, agency card, SJWs
Vox culturati
Not even a broken link to Vox. You can look for it yourself, but I've tried to save you the anguish. The Vox author is the aptly first-named Fabiola Cineas. Note to her parents: Fabulosa would have been perfect.
I try to keep a finger in the ground and an ear to the wind to measure the mutterings of the sinister fringe, and I just found a bit at Vox that tells me they continue to be serious about ginning up the "Ma'Khia called 911" victim-shifting nano-story. It really matters to them.
I took a look at why this hypothetical is quite improbable here, on April 28.
Fabulosa writes:
Even after it was discovered that Bryant was living in foster care, that she was in the middle of a fight with older women when police arrived, and that she was allegedly the one who summoned the police for help, people — some of the same people who called for justice in Floyd's case — used police talking points to justify the four bullets that Reardon unloaded into Bryant's chest. She was brandishing a knife, many pointed out, which meant the other Black women needed to be protected.
Crisis response experts noted, however, that deescalation tactics — like commanding Bryant to drop the weapon, physically getting between the women, or simply communicating with her — could have kept everyone alive. In many recorded encounters between the police and white people carrying weapons, for instance, officers didn't shoot first or even reach for their guns — they successfully managed to peacefully apprehend the suspect.
"Even after it was discovered that Bryant was living in foster care"
"Even after…" – was the cop supposed to factor this into his decision before preventing a murder? … 'Oh, maybe she's a foster child about to knife someone? That's different!'
"it was discovered"? Someone was trying to hide it? Foster care is an excuse for being murderously out of control? If so, her father's arrests for nonsupport would be relevant.
"she was in the middle of a fight with older women when police arrived"
There was no physical fight at the time the police arrived. No danger to Ma'Khia until she charged down the driveway and initiated one. The older women were barely out of their teens, and the one she was shot in the process of stabbing was half Ma'Khia's size.
"she was allegedly the one who summoned the police for help"
Did Ma'Khia call 911 because she thought the police would be accomplices in a stabbing?
'Alleged' by a couple of twitter loons and Joy Reid, among other deranged fringe journalists. Who made that call is pure speculation. NO INFORMATION has been released, and would probably depend on voice print comparison to resolve. This is just the SJWs quoting each other as sources.
What we do know points entirely against the idea Ma'Khia called the cops just in time watch her attempted murder.
"She was brandishing a knife, many pointed out, which meant the other Black women needed to be protected."
You disagree? Black women being attacked by black girls twice their size are not to be protected?
"deescalation tactics — like commanding Bryant to drop the weapon"
Shouting "Get down! Get down!… Get down! Get down!" wasn't good enough. He had to say "Drop the knife," or it doesn't count.
"physically getting between the women"
The cop tried to get between the first woman attacked and Ma'Kihia. Ma'Khia instantly went after the second woman. While Ma'Khia's father was kicking the first.
"simply communicating with her"
Somehow there is a different, simpler, communication method than shouting "Get down!," multiple times. A calm, cool thinking solution would be preferred. Yes, but you wouldn't write such tripe if you had watched the video. Since I'm sure Ms Fabulosa did watch it, I call her screed "racism as a service."
"In many recorded encounters between the police and white people carrying weapons, for instance, officers didn't shoot first or even reach for their guns"
Who can doubt it? It's also true that "in many recorded encounters" between the police and black people carrying weapons… officers didn't "shoot first." Whatever the hell "shoot first" means in this case. In 9 seconds shooting after 5 wouldn't be "first."
It's even true that in encounters between black police and black subjects, at least as many unarmed black subjects are shot as by white police. This link is NPR, and it goes out of its way to make a case that the US is nonetheless a racist country. They report. You decide if that conclusion is reached by reasoning backwards from it. Like the Vox story.
Fabulosa is pretty good at her avocation. Whenever I see her name going forward I will think of Leni Riefenstahl.
Posted in culture, MediaTagged #BlackLivesMatter, Maim Scream Media™
President Biden's FDA is preparing to ban menthol cigarettes.
According to NBC, 85% of black smokers use menthol cigarettes. The public health nannies are going to make sure that blacks can't make that mistake any longer. Or, they'll have to do it illegally.
It's for their own good: Properly Conducted Black Lives Enforcement Matters. And it's not like over-regulation of cigarettes can bring people into unfortunate interaction with police.
Nobody is going to figure out some home based method of flavoring cigarettes, and selling untaxed cigarettes is already against the law. Eric Garner is a perfect example. You may recall, he died when a cop used a choke hold while arresting him for selling single cigarettes, depriving the State of New York of badly need tax revenue.
Garner said "I can't breathe," long before George Floyd, probably as a result of selling menthol cigarettes.
Posted in lawTagged #BlackLivesMatter, FDA, Joe Biden
Monetizing black deaths
Does it matter if Ma'Khia Bryant was the person who called 911 just before she was shot by a police officer in Columbus, Ohio?
I'll say no.
She would have been shot anyway because of her behavior after the police arrived. And she still would have been shot multiple times because her extreme physical and verbal aggressiveness, and failure to stand down when ordered, could only be distinguished from a murder in progress by God.
The question of who called 911 arises only because some of those urging us to just let children fight with knives also strongly insist that Ma'Khia Bryant is that person.
Why? I suppose it's an effort to reinforce Joy Reid's trial balloon that "…what scared a 16-year-old girl enough that she felt that she had to grab a kitchen knife facing two adult women… No one's asking what would've scared a kid who's in a foster situation so much that she felt that she needed to defend herself or pick up a knife." If she was scared she would have been better off staying that way.
If Ma'Khia is cast as a frightened child, defending herself from adults, and as a victim of her own good intent, it's easier to blame the shooting on systemic racism than on her bad decisions. She had no choice, she isn't well equipped to make choices anyway, and the system killed her even though she tried to do the right thing.
As noted yesterday, this is in line with stripping her of agency. As a black child she had little, and what little she mustered – calling 911 – resulted in her destruction. The system is murderously biased in its core.
But if Ma'Khia was afraid (indicated if she called 911) you'd expect she would be relieved to see a police officer 10 minutes later. Maybe even put him between herself and the people she feared? You might expect she'd have stood with a wall at her back saying, "Don't come near me!," rather than charging, knife in hand, at a smaller person shouting "I'm Going to Stab F**k Out of You, Bitch!".
She didn't welcome the police, and she acted the opposite of defensive. She not only wasn't relieved to see the officer, but she practically ran him over in her urgency to attack "the girl in pink."
There's more that Joy Reid failed to consider. Perhaps because she felt her message was more important than mere facts.
The 911 caller says "This girl trying to stab us and our grandma." It could be that Ma'Khia said that, but since she was a foster child her grandma likely didn't live there. And who would "us" be?
There is a remote possibility of an "us."
If you've seen the police body-cam video you know that a tall black man in a gray hoodie followed Ma'Khia down the driveway as she knocks a heavy set female in blue to the ground, swinging her right hand toward the woman. It's not clear from the video if Ma'Khia is holding a knife at this point (though 5 seconds later it's clearly in her hand).
The officer, who has just arrived, turns to his right – toward the ensuing melee taking place no more than 3 feet away.
The cop draws his gun, shouting "Get down! Get down!". Because by now he's seen the knife in Ma'Khia's right hand? Everybody should be digging a foxhole at this point.
Ma'Khia jumps up and charges a girl in a pink tracksuit. Simultaneously, the man in the gray hoodie kicks the woman on the ground twice. He makes no attempt to deter Ma'Khia. He is Ma'Khia's ally. He kicks women lying on the ground. In front of a cop.
The cop turns to his left to track Ma'Khia – she has the knife – and shouts again. Ma'Khia pins the girl in pink against a car while bringing her arm into a striking position. The cop fires 4 rounds, fatally wounding Ma'Khia.
The man in the grey hoodie cries, "You shot my baby!". The man in the gray hoodie is Ma'Khia's father.
He's had a warrant out for his arrest since January, and has been arrested numerous times, including for non-support and domestic violence. He's entitled to benefit of the doubt, but non-support and domestic violence are directly relevant here. His daughter is in foster care and he kicks supine women.
He also doesn't live at that house. So, how did he come to be involved? Probably because Ma'Khia called him as reinforcement. If she knew he had an outstanding warrant, Ma'Khia might well have been hesitant to call 911. In any case, he knew, and he came to the scene prepared to commit assault – in front of a cop – anyway. I haven't heard Joy Reid wondering if that was the first time he set such an example for his daughter.
None of this proves Ma'Khia was not the 911 caller, but that has nothing to do with why she died. The only reason it matters is to bolster BLM donations: She was a frightened child, and a victim of systemic racism. We will probably eventually find out who made the call, but the urgent need to embellish the neo-racist narrative supersedes the need for fact.
Posted in cultureTagged #BlackLivesMatter, agency card, police, racism