I don't need many words to describe the day here, just several photos for you.
Taken mid-day on 13 February 2014 during "Pax" – a big bugger of a winter snow/sleet/rain/ice/more-snow storm.
And that, my friends, is the latest storm, called "Pax" apparently, from our perspective here on the east coast of Massachusetts. It's been a wild and windy day here, and that's all I have to say about it.
We did not lose power – which was a very good thing. My thoughts are with those who did lose power because that can't be any fun at all.
Poor Kip! Our pup has ended up looking like that several times this winter too. I actually prefer Squee's coat as when she comes in all you have to do is fluff her short hair for a moment and then it's already dry.
I have family in PA but so far I see a post on FB now and again so assume they still have power. I guess I should thank hubby for deciding to stay in TX when he retired from military.
Love your photos. Glad you can stay inside and did not lose your power. Looks like the puppers liked it.
We have a bunch of that stuff here, way, way far to the south of you–right down to and including dogs who thought it was really fun to come in wet and covered with snow. Our big male Golden was out in it making snow angels!
Excuse me but…UGH! Looks about like it does here but we — fortunately — have not had wind. We did lose our power for two hours the other morning when it was -10 or so but luckily it resumed before anything froze, except us. Dogs seem to enjoy snow, however, so maybe it was a positive for some of your household members.
Glad you still have power and can get your pictures up for us! And of course that you have power for furnace fans, cooking and lights! It sure looks messy, driving conditions must be challenging! Keep safe.
It was sunny here in the bush in Ontario today, and mild, only -2C. I hope we don't catch what you have!
WOW…that first photo shows how big the flakes are…stay safe and stay warm.


text:
Posted inHousing & Development
A lukewarm review for new Berkeley building
by Tracey Taylor June 21, 2010, 2:14 p.m. October 4, 2022
New Californian building on Trader Joe's opening day.
The building which houses Berkeley's newly opened Trader Joe's was given a lukewarm review by the Chronicle's urban design writer John King this weekend.
While King welcomed the five story mixed-use building as an example of the sort of smart growth cities like Berkeley need, he was less than enthusiasic about its design, calling it "more overstuffed than urbane".
The New Californian building, as it is called, comprises 148 apartments as well as Berkeley's first Trader Joe's. In style terms, it is a mixed bag of Craftsman and neo-Spanish references, with a red-brick base and a mustard-yellow stucco facade.
The building was designed by Oakland architect Kirk Peterson, who favors historically influenced design and who has designed several other Berkeley buildings, including the Bachenheimer and Gaia projects, Southside Square, and 1717 Fourth Street. The New Californian Building was developed by Hudson McDonald.
The city of Berkeley appears to deliberately shy away from anything contemporary when commissioning new construction — perhaps a reflection of the taste of its residents. As King put it: "[This is a] city where many people bridle at anything that looks as though it was designed after Julia Morgan retired."
Photo: Keoki Seu.
Tagged: Housing, Hudson McDonald, John King, Kirk Peterson, Trader Joe's, Urban planning

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
NewsCovering Louisiana
Cajun Navy organization helping with tornado relief efforts
In this aerial photo, destruction from a recent tornado is seen in downtown Mayfield, Ky., Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Days after tornadoes tore through several states including Kentucky, Arkansas, and Illinois, relief efforts from southern states are heading north.
The Cajun Navy Ground Force team is currently in Kentucky, where at least 74 people died during the outbreak. They say supplies, food, warm clothes, propane, blankets, and water are just a few of the supplies needed. They are also looking for volunteers to assist in relief efforts.
"We are motivated by the challenges our neighbors are facing to go out and become community caretakers for those that need our help, and to do the work that can't be done alone," said Cajun Navy Ground Force Founder Rob Gaudet. "We are called to stand in the gap to defend what we know in our hearts to be morally correct and essential. Something brought us out here to serve, to meet one another, and inevitably, to become family."
The group has set up a Swift Action Force Emergency Camp in Mayfield, where volunteers will set up base. From there, they'll organize smaller groups to go into communities, assess needs, deliver supplies, provide communication, and more.
Organizers say they'll also need volunteers to deliver meals throughout the region and bring in fuel supplies and cell communication towers.
Find more information at Facebook.com/GoCajunNavy, or sign up to volunteer here.


text:
Home / Press Releases / Israel demolishes Palestinian structures across West Bank
Israel demolishes Palestinian structures across West Bank
in Press Releases November 24, 2010
24 November 2010 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
The Road in the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan was paved in Area C on lands marked for takeover by settlers from the adjacent outpost. Construction of the road was funded by Fayyad who also personally laid the cornerstone during a Land Day demonstration last March. Structures were also demolished today in the Jordan Valley and the Jerusalem area.
Large military forces entered the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan south-west of Nablus this morning to demolish a greenhouse and an agricultural access road paved on privately owned Palestinian lands designated as Area C. The paving of the road was initiated by village residents after settlers from the nearby outpost of Havat Ya'ir tried to take over a water-spring to which the road leads.
Construction work on the road began late last March, during a Land Day protest, in defiance of Israel's policy of preventing Palestinian construction in Area C. The demonstration and the laying of the road's cornerstone were participated by Palestinian Prim Minister, Salam Fayyad, who also provided the funding for the project.
During the demolitions, clashes between local youth and the military developed, in which soldiers used tear-gas and rubber-coated bullets against the villagers. Israeli bulldozers also placed a new roadblock at the entrance to the road.
House demolitions were also carried today under the pretext of illegal construction in the Jordan Valley village of al-Jiftlik, where the army knocked down ten structures in the early morning, and in the village of Hizma near Jerusalem, where seven more structures were demolished – all in Area C.
Over 60 percent of the West Bank is currently classified as Area C, in which, under the Oslo accords, Israel has complete control, over both civil and security issues. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) some 70 percent of Area C, or approximately 44 percent of the West Bank, has been largely designated for the use of Israeli settlements or the Israeli military. The Israeli authorities generally allow Palestinian construction only within the boundaries of an Israeli-approved plan and these cover less than one percent of Area C, much of which is already built-up. As a result, Palestinians are left with no choice but to build "illegally" and risk demolition of their structures and displacement.
According to information released by the Israeli State Attorney's Office in early December 2009, approximately 2,450 Palestinian-owned structures in Area C have been demolished due to lack of permit over the course of the past 12 years.
House Demolition Jiftlik Jordan Valley Qarrawat Bani Hassan	2010-11-24
Tagged with: House Demolition Jiftlik Jordan Valley Qarrawat Bani Hassan
Israeli apartheid in Masafer Yatta: raids, demolitions, arrests and beatings
Statement on "postponement" of Regavim London talk due to activist pressure
Ten people arrested from Beit Kahel: the village targeted with violent night raids and demolition threats


Mississauga, Ontario, July 15, 2013 – Armada Data Corporation's Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Eli Oszlak (TSX.V: ARD) is proud and pleased to announce the official launch of the all new CarCostCanada.com website. The website has been evolved, improved and enhanced from several perspectives including but not limited to ease of use and a clearer message as to the necessity of the company's proprietary Wholesale Price Reports to all new car buyers in Canada. Oszlak reports: "The only thing that didn't change on the website was the division's legacy logo and the navigation bar; everything else was refreshed, redesigned and/or completely changed". Oszlak also indicated that the new site membership sales had spiked over the first 3 business days of the 'old-to-new' website transition; "this could be coincidence but I don't think so since our bounce-rate has decreased significantly and our users are spending more time on the website" said Oszlak when asked about this very encouraging sales trend.
It was revealed by Oszlak that CarCostCanada's members and users should be prepared for more in the coming weeks and months. "Although there's now some competition in the new car Wholesale Price Report industry, CarCostCanada promised change and improvements and my team has started the delivery process" indicated a coy Oszlak when asked what can be expected. The new competition has broadened the awareness-base of this new car buying tool and, as a result, CarCostCanada.com appears to be well positioned to embrace the influx of new car buyers that are now realizing the vital importance of a Wholesale Price Report prior to inking a contract on a brand new vehicle.
Armada Data is a Canadian publicly traded Information & Marketing Services Company providing accurate and real-time data to institutional and retail customers, through developing, owning and operating automotive pricing-related web sites and providing information technology and marketing services to its clients. Armada's information and marketing abilities have enabled the company to leverage that experience into the food and beverage industry by its acquisition of 90% of the issued and outstanding shares of The Big & Easy Bottle Brewing Company Inc. The Big & Easy Bottle Brewing Company Inc. owns 100% of Mister Beer Inc., which invented, produces and markets the unique "microbrewery in a bottle" beer-making kit.
Armada Data shares are listed on the TSX Venture exchange under the trading Symbol ARD. Armada currently has a total of 17, 670,265 shares outstanding.


text:
Juul trades the bow for the scalpel
By Elizabeth Minkel
From Clute to Nykøbing
Juul, whose name sounds like "yule" rather than "jewel," was born in 1980 in Clute, Tx., a small town near Houston. His mother, Julie, was the daughter of an honorary consulate to Denmark whose job included throwing parties for Danes living abroad. His father, Peter, was a Dane living abroad, working in the Houston mill industry for his apprenticeship to a mercantile company. The two met at one of these parties. "It was interesting growing up in Texas with a father who was Danish," Juul remarked. The family owned three horses, but his father made sure they rode English style rather than Western, the Texas standard. For his 12th birthday, Juul received a 20-gauge Remington pump action shotgun. He was raised by Danish au pairs for most of his childhood because his father wanted a "good Danish influence."
When he was 14, Juul spent a year living in Denmark with his father's sister. He became fluent in Danish within a few months. "I was young enough to blend right in," Juul said. "I was just kind of a part of Denmark." Though the experience was an important one, Juul isn't sure that it changed his outlook that much. "It's still something I try to figure out. I lived in another country for a year. That should have been a drastic change," he said. However, he did add, "If I wasn't independent before then, I was independent after that."
Choosing music
Juul returned to the U.S. for his freshman year of high school. He had never really liked school, which he partially blames on his father's "very strong iconoclastic streak." He inherited his father's distrust of education. "I don't usually believe the things I read. I don't really like reading. I don't like books," he said. Rejecting academics, Juul turned to music.
In sixth grade, Juul chose to play the cello. He was influenced by his older sister Sarah's experiences in orchestra and by a Yo Yo Ma concert he attended with his grandmother. In high school, his teacher saw his great potential and sent him to Meadowmount, a selective summer program. Encouraged by his experiences there, he began to practice a great deal. He tried homeschooling for a semester, practicing four hours a day, but it was "miserably lonely and not academically interesting." He returned to high school and spent his free periods practicing.
"I decided that I would do music [after high school] if I got a good teacher," Juul said. "And then I got a good teacher." He was accepted by renowned Lawrence Lesser at NEC. Even though his experiences with Lesser were extraordinary, he quickly realized that NEC was the wrong choice. "I kept trying to convince myself that I wanted to be a musician," he remarked. Juul decided to stay at NEC for a second year to make sure the school really wasn't the right fit. It wasn't, so he transferred to the University of Texas�Arlington. The transfer was a temporary stop, and he lived at home while he researched schools. "It was like being in high school again," he said. "It really sucked."
A new direction
Juul was two days from leaving for Rice University when Amherst called with a better financial aid package. He applied to the school based on its reputation and the praise it received from some of his NEC professors. He was done with music; his parents had to convince him to bring his cello. He was now eager to take advantage of the unstructured liberal arts education and to pursue an area in which he'd always been interested: medicine.
His interest in medicine dates back to high school. Tracy Kidder's "Mountains Beyond Mountains" encouraged this interest, particularly in the area of public health. Juul wanted to do pre-med with a possible economics major, but there was no way he could complete this in just five semesters. "I thought I could do what I wanted and as long as I kept paying, I could stay," he admitted. He discovered that he had been accepted to Amherst for only two years. Despite his reluctance to get back into music, he became a music major so he could complete the pre-med requirements.
Amherst has changed Juul's mind, at least to some extent, about academics. "This is the first school that I've ever liked," he revealed. "I wish I had been here for all four years."
"It's really a big change from wherever the conservatory was sending me," Juul observed. Amherst has introduced him to a variety of new ideas. He finds that his friends and classmates challenge his conceptions more than any professor. He values the faculty and everything he's learned in pre-med, but "pre-med doesn't teach you much about life." He's come to appreciate books, though he's still wary of intellectualism.
After this Juul made some of his closest friends in an unusual way-he had a lot of living unit value points as a transfer, and a room group latched onto him. "They adopted me. They called me transfer student for at least a year," he joked. He's developed many genuine, valuable friendships in this group, something he really appreciates.
Influential experiences
The College has awarded Juul two Fellowships for Action. The first was for Texas Inmate Services, a non-profit in Fort Worth that helps ex-offenders reintegrate into society. He spent the summer of 2003 with the organization. "I met a lot of really interesting people," he said. "It really changes your perspective on crime when you meet prisoners themselves and work to help them." This was his first social justice experience, and it left a big impact.
The following summer, Juul received a second Fellowship for Action. He spent eight weeks in Soweto, South Africa, near Johannesburg, working at the Baragwanath Hospital. He's always been more interested in hands-on work than books. "I wanted to go to a country and see their problems. I wanted to get whatever training I needed to help," he said. He spent some time traveling around South Africa, "enchanted by the country and the people." His experiences in South Africa remains important to him. "There are so many memories that will never go away because it was such an incredible, poignant experience," he said.
It also sparked a large interest in public health and social justice. He's primarily interested in the developing world and public health, which combines three things that he loves: "going to interesting places, economics and medicine." He plans to go to medical school some time in the future, either two years from now or, if it makes sense to do so, a year from now in Denmark, where education is free. He's following in the footsteps of his sister, who is 27 and currently in medical school. The siblings share the same interest in public health. "It's not like I idolize her," he said. "I just end up being interested in the same things." Until he enters medical school, he hopes to do research and work in public health.
An impact at Amherst
Though he joined the orchestra primarily to meet people, Juul has continued with music. Professor of Music David Schneider said, "His presence on campus has had a profound effect on the musical scene at Amherst and he will be sorely missed."
Juul recently performed the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Amherst College Symphony Orchestra, and Schneider described his performance as "at once elegant and impassioned-a pure pleasure to hear."
His focus isn't music, though, it's medicine, and his professors see him on the path to success. Professor of Physics Kannan Jagannathan described Juul as "obviously a man of many talents." Though Schneider praised Juul's musical abilities, he admitted that medicine was a good choice. "If he practices medicine with as much elegance and understanding as he plays music, his patients will be fortunate indeed," said Schneider.
His friends have also been impressed with both his abilities and his laid-back personality. "Nick was a transfer student to Amherst, but he's fit into a close-knit group that formed freshman year with ease," said Jon Wemette '05
"He's just so easy-going and friendly, with a great sense of humor. I've also always been impressed with the way Nick balances his interests in the arts and science. He's deeply knowledgeable about both."
Amherst has made its impact on Juul as well. He's going to miss "being around thoughtful, intelligent people." He added, "I'm going to miss being in a place where everything's taken care of for me and all I have to worry about is learning." The College has left Juul with the desire to explore the world with an open mind and the urge to help. He wants to leave the senior class with the message "iKeleng ka khotsa ya morena," Zulu for "Go with God." His host doctor in South Africa said this to every patient, a message of good will and hope for the future.


text:
ECHS Boys Varsity Basketball Pauses Season Due to Positive COVID Case
Darren Doyle, story:
Edmonson County High School has announced that the ECHS boys Wildcat varsity basketball team will be pausing their season for now, due to a positive COVID-19 case within the team. The break will begin immediately.
"We've had a positive COVID case within our varsity basketball team," said ECHS Athletic Director Kyle Pierce. "Our last date of exposure was Friday, January 22nd."
Pierce said the team will be required to quarantine for 10 days, which will end on February 1st. That will allow the team to resume regular activities the day after. The boys freshmen and JV teams have been quarantining for several days already, but that action hasn't affected the varsity team.
"This will allow us to come back to practice and play on Tuesday, February 2nd," Pierce added. "Our freshman and JV players will resume practice and play starting Friday."
Games scheduled for tonight against Hart County through February 1st (Caverna) will be put on hold for now. No timetable for rescheduling has been confirmed as of now.


text:
MainWindow::MainWindow(QWidget* parent, Qt::WFlags f) :
	QMainWindow(parent, f),
	collisionScene(),
	viewScene(),
	body(0),
	engine(),
	filename(),
	model(0)
{
	MainWindow::singleton = this;

	SoQt::init(this);
	SoDB::init();

	QStringList engines;
#ifdef RL_SG_HAVE_ODE
	engines.push_back("ode");
	this->engine = "ode";
#endif // RL_SG_HAVE_ODE
#ifdef RL_SG_HAVE_PQP
	engines.push_back("pqp");
	this->engine = "pqp";
#endif // RL_SG_HAVE_PQP
#ifdef RL_SG_HAVE_BULLET
	engines.push_back("bullet");
	this->engine = "bullet";
#endif // RL_SG_HAVE_BULLET
#ifdef RL_SG_HAVE_SOLID
	engines.push_back("solid");
	this->engine = "solid";
#endif // RL_SG_HAVE_SOLID
	engines.sort();

	QRegExp bodyRegExp("--body=(\\d*)");
	QRegExp engineRegExp("--engine=(" + engines.join("|") + ")");
	QRegExp helpRegExp("--help");
	QRegExp modelRegExp("--model=(\\d*)");

	for (int i = 1; i < QApplication::arguments().size(); ++i)
	{
		if (-1 != bodyRegExp.indexIn(QApplication::arguments()[i]))
		{
			this->body = bodyRegExp.cap(1).toInt();
		}
		else if (-1 != engineRegExp.indexIn(QApplication::arguments()[i]))
		{
			this->engine = engineRegExp.cap(1);
		}
		else if (-1 != helpRegExp.indexIn(QApplication::arguments()[i]))
		{
			std::cout << "Usage: rlCollisionDemo [SCENEFILE] [--engine=" << engines.join("|").toStdString() << "] [--help] [--model=MODEL] [--body=BODY]" << std::endl;
		}
		else if (-1 != modelRegExp.indexIn(QApplication::arguments()[i]))
		{
			this->model = modelRegExp.cap(1).toInt();
		}
		else
		{
			this->filename = QApplication::arguments()[i];
		}
	}

	while (this->filename.isEmpty())
	{
		this->filename = QFileDialog::getOpenFileName(this, "", this->filename, "All Formats (*.xml)");
	}

	this->resize(1024, 768);

#ifdef RL_SG_HAVE_BULLET
	if ("bullet" == this->engine)
	{
		this->collisionScene = boost::make_shared< rl::sg::bullet::Scene >();
	}
#endif // RL_SG_HAVE_BULLET
#ifdef RL_SG_HAVE_ODE
	if ("ode" == this->engine)
	{
		this->collisionScene = boost::make_shared< rl::sg::ode::Scene >();
	}
#endif // RL_SG_HAVE_ODE
#ifdef RL_SG_HAVE_PQP
	if ("pqp" == this->engine)
	{
		this->collisionScene = boost::make_shared< rl::sg::pqp::Scene >();
	}
#endif // RL_SG_HAVE_PQP
#ifdef RL_SG_HAVE_SOLID
	if ("solid" == this->engine)
	{
		this->collisionScene = boost::make_shared< rl::sg::solid::Scene >();
	}
#endif // RL_SG_HAVE_SOLID

	this->viewScene = boost::make_shared< rl::sg::so::Scene >();

	this->viewer = new SoQtExaminerViewer(this, NULL, true, SoQtFullViewer::BUILD_POPUP);
	this->viewer->setFeedbackVisibility(true);
	this->viewer->setSceneGraph(this->viewScene->root);
	this->viewer->setTransparencyType(SoGLRenderAction::SORTED_OBJECT_BLEND);

	this->setCentralWidget(this->viewer->getWidget());
	this->setFocusProxy(this->viewer->getWidget());

	this->setWindowTitle(filename + " - " + this->engine + " - rlCollisionDemo");

	this->collisionScene->load(this->filename.toStdString());
	this->viewScene->load(this->filename.toStdString());

	this->viewer->viewAll();

	TestWidget* testWidget = new TestWidget(
		this->viewScene->getModel(this->model)->getBody(this->body),
		this->collisionScene->getModel(this->model)->getBody(this->body),
		this
	);

	QDockWidget* testDockWidget = new QDockWidget(this);
	testDockWidget->setFeatures(QDockWidget::NoDockWidgetFeatures | QDockWidget::DockWidgetFloatable | QDockWidget::DockWidgetMovable);
	testDockWidget->setFloating(true);
	testDockWidget->setWidget(testWidget);
	testDockWidget->show();

	SoVRMLShape* lineShape = new SoVRMLShape();
	this->lineCoordinate = new SoVRMLCoordinate();
	this->lineSet = new SoVRMLIndexedLineSet();
	SoVRMLAppearance* lineAppearance = new SoVRMLAppearance();
	SoVRMLMaterial* lineMaterial = new SoVRMLMaterial();
	lineMaterial->diffuseColor.setValue(1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f);
	lineAppearance->material = lineMaterial;
	lineShape->appearance = lineAppearance;
	this->lineSet->coord = this->lineCoordinate;
	lineShape->geometry = this->lineSet;
	this->viewScene->root->addChild(lineShape);

	this->test();
}

MainWindow::~MainWindow()
{
	MainWindow::singleton = NULL;
}

MainWindow*
MainWindow::instance()
{
	if (NULL == MainWindow::singleton)
	{
		new MainWindow();
	}

	return MainWindow::singleton;
}

void
MainWindow::test()
{
	if (rl::sg::SimpleScene* simpleScene = dynamic_cast< rl::sg::SimpleScene* >(this->collisionScene.get()))
	{
		bool test = simpleScene->isColliding();

		if (test)
		{
			this->viewer->setBackgroundColor(SbColor(1, 0, 0));
		}
		else
		{
			this->viewer->setBackgroundColor(SbColor(0, 0, 0));
		}
	}

	if (rl::sg::DistanceScene* distanceScene = dynamic_cast< rl::sg::DistanceScene* >(this->collisionScene.get()))
	{
		rl::math::Vector3 point1;
		rl::math::Vector3 point2;

		rl::math::Real distance = distanceScene->distance(
			this->collisionScene->getModel(0)->getBody(0),
			this->collisionScene->getModel(1)->getBody(0),
			point1,
			point2
		);

		this->lineCoordinate->point.setNum(0);
		this->lineSet->coordIndex.setNum(0);
		this->lineCoordinate->point.set1Value(
			this->lineCoordinate->point.getNum(),
			point1.x(), point1.y(), point1.z()
		);
		this->lineSet->coordIndex.set1Value(
			this->lineSet->coordIndex.getNum(),
			this->lineCoordinate->point.getNum() - 1
		);
		this->lineCoordinate->point.set1Value(
			this->lineCoordinate->point.getNum(),
			point2.x(), point2.y(), point2.z()
		);
		this->lineSet->coordIndex.set1Value(
			this->lineSet->coordIndex.getNum(),
			this->lineCoordinate->point.getNum() - 1
		);
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: How can I change the language of a repository on GitHub? GitHub search allows filtering repositories by language. How can I set a repository to a specific language?

A: You can also override certain files
$ cat .gitattributes
*.rb linguist-language=Java

Source

A: It is purely deduced from the code content.
As Pedro mentions:

Please note that we count the total bytes of each language's file (we check the extension) to decide the percentages.
This means that if you see your project reported a JavaScript, but you swear you use Ruby, you probably have a JS lib somewhere that is bigger than your Ruby code

As detailed in "GitHub changes repository to the wrong language", you can add a .gitattributes file in which you can:

*

*ignore part of your project (not considered for language detection)
  static/* linguist-vendored

*consider part of your project as documentation:
  docs/* linguist-documentation

*indicate some files with specific extension (for instance *.rb) should be considered a specific language:
  *.rb linguist-language=Java

A: Create .gitattributes file in the root of your folder.
Suppose you want the language to be Java, just copy-paste
*.java linguist-detectable=true
*.js linguist-detectable=false
*.html linguist-detectable=false
*.xml linguist-detectable=false

in the .gitattributes file and push the file in the repository. Reload your GitHub page to see the language change.
For reference, use this GitHub repository.

A: You can also make some of the files vendor-ed. Just create a .gitattributes file in the main directory. If you want to exclude CSS from the language statistics write into the file something like this.
client/stylesheets/* linguist-vendored
This will hide all files in the client/stylesheets/ from the language statistics. In my case these are the .css files.
This solves your problem partly, because hides the most used language and choose the second one to be prime.

A: A bit brute-force, but I used this .gitattributes file:
* linguist-vendored
*.js linguist-vendored=false

It says to ignore all files except .js, so JavaScript becomes the only possible language. My project, https://github.com/aim12340/jQuery-Before-Ready, was listed as HTML and this changed it to JavaScript.

A: As VonC mentioned in the comments, you can put your libraries under "vendors" or "thirdparty" and the files won't be analysed by linguist, the tool GitHub uses to analyse the language in your code.
# Vendored dependencies
- third[-_]?party/
- 3rd[-_]?party/
- vendors?/
- extern(al)?/

Later, they added more folder names.

A: Rename the name of the code files in your repository with the extension added.
For example:

*

*change abc to abc.py for Python

*abc to abc.java for Java files

*abc to abc.html for HTML

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Welcome to JONN.CO.UK, the UK's best website for all things TV, Gaming and Music.
BBC marks Holocaust Memorial Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau
The BBC is marking Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January 2020) and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau with a special televised Holocaust Memorial Day event, as well as a range of content across TV and radio.
The BBC is producing the national Holocaust Memorial Day event on behalf of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust with the theme of Stand Together. Other programme highlights include a major new drama telling the story of the Windermere Children, child survivors of the Nazi Holocaust; Robert Rinder helping second and third generations of families who experienced the Holocaust retrace their relatives' footstep; David Baddiel investigating the history and modern face of Holocaust denial; a moving documentary exploring the untold story of the infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; a special edition of Words And Music on BBC Radio 3.
Tony Hall, Director-General of the BBC, says: "This is an important moment to stop and reflect on a period in our history which showed both the worst, and the best, of the human spirit. That's why we've invested in drama, documentary and events to mark the 75th anniversary. We'll be telling new stories, as well as sharing first-hand testimonies from those who lived through the horror of the concentration camps.
"It's our responsibility as the nation's public service broadcaster to bring these stories to new generations - and I'd like to thank the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, and our European media partners, for their invaluable support. Together, we're offering everyone the chance to reflect on the consequences of prejudice and hatred, and in doing so we'll ensure that the millions of lives lost in the Holocaust are not forgotten."
Olivia Marks-Woldman, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, says: "We are delighted to be working with the BBC to enable millions of people across the country to learn more about the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and more recent genocides through the broadcast of the national ceremony for Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD), as well as additional factual programming.
"At a time when identity-based prejudice and hostility is worryingly prevalent in the UK and internationally, HMD is an opportunity to learn about the consequences of hatred when it is allowed to exist unchecked. At this important moment, 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we are asking people to Stand Together against prejudice, and in memory of those who were murdered during the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in genocides which have taken place since."
Posted by JD at 12:05
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text:
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
Not for everyone, for sure, QUICHOTTE [pronounced key-shot] fluctuates between satire and magical realism, and within the blueprint of Cervantes' Don Quixote mixed with Moby Dick, Pinocchio and a smattering of mythology. You will enjoy the references and the parody.
Between the Gods and mortal men and women, there hung a veil, and its name was maya. The truth was the fabled world of the gods was the real one, while the supposedly actual world inhabited by human beings was an illusion, and maya, the veil of illusion, was the magic by which the gods persuaded men and women that their illusory world was real.
A lost soul turned dreamer searches for his idealized beloved. A companion, in the form of an imagined child, comes to life. An opportunistic businessman tramples ethics. An adoring wife hopes to secure the family legacy with philanthropy [think Sacklers.] A Bollywood actress turned talk show host struggles under the weight of celebrity [and fentanyl.] And, a high-profile advocate pedals integrity to the apathetic.
She was a privileged woman complaining about small things. A woman whose life was lived on the surface, who had chosen superficiality, had no right to complain about the absence of depth. Human life was lived between two chasms, a Russian writer had said, the one that preceded our birth, "the cradle rocks above an abyss," and the one we were all "heading for, at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour]."
Brown [Indian mostly] confronting white [white supremacists mostly] and all in fear of the "other." Sound familiar?
Yes, it's a mixed-up story, often humorous, sometimes maddening, and with an often confusing set of characters – multiple characters with multiple names on parallel but intersecting paths. Rushdie is also sketching a tale of what-ifs and false narratives. And, for good measure, includes sexually damaged women and sexually mutable men. No stone unturned here.
Rushdie, no stranger to pointing the finger at evil-doers [once subject to a fatwa by Iranian religious leaders] seems to have decided to go after all the quirks of Western civilization, most notably capitalism and pop-culture, aided and abetted by. 24/7 TV. He also cites Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, books favored by wanderers.
It was bewildering at such an advanced age to understand that the narrative of your family which you had carried within you – within which, in a way, you had lived – was false, or, at the very least, that you had been ignorant of its most essential truth, which had been kept from you. Not to be told the whole truth, as Sister with her legal expertise would know perfectly well, was to be told a lie.
Frankly, I loved reading this novel. I looked forward to a block of time to immerse myself in his ingenuity – one must read for prolonged periods of time or get totally lost. I laughed. I cringed at painful truths. I marveled at his command of language and history. On the other hand, Rushdie once too often goes off the rails – rambling beyond a willing suspension of disbelief – and I agree with the critics who suggest he reign in pontification for the sake of storytelling.
Perhaps Rushdie created in this novel his own impossible dream, where fictional characters bring out the best in each other, battle windmills and redeem themselves of their sins, although along the way, they create messes for the unsuspecting, or the opportunistic, to deal with.
Read at your own risk. If nothing else, Quichotte is exquisitely crafted and unforgettable.
The Third Hotel by Laura VanDenBerg
Metaphysical meets magical realism in Cuba.
Van Den Berg's second novel [she's also published two impressive story collections] may be the book to elevate her stature to where she belongs. She is a superb novelist and this wholly original exploration of the nature of time and loss, and recovery, might make you feel as unmoored as I felt at the last page, unmoored as a confrontation with your own fragility.
Clare's husband, a horror film aficionado, has been killed in a freak accident and she attends in his place a horror film festival in Havana, where she sees him on the street. Or does she? Of course, she follows, from a distance, at first.
In THE THIRD HOTEL, little is linear, yet you are not confused. Much is irrational, yet it all makes sense. There is plenty of foreboding, without finality. Nothing is supernatural or frightening, yet if feels like a story by Edgar Allen Poe: vaguely disturbing, a little off-beat and totally fascinating.
Clare is a woman who keeps secrets. She prefers her guard up. Her job is practical and logistical, otherwise disinteresting. Her childhood was a bit odd. Now her father has Alzheimer's. She has lost her compass, and that's the central point. Think of the theory of relativity or black holes. Time is fluid. Lives are fluid. Like the eels that slink around an award-winning film at the festival or the Zombies that frequent that genre – creatures, and people, can be alive but not alive. Here but not here. Past, present and future are entwined.
Of course, marriage had not let her to a sense of completeness. Rather, it introduced different sets of questions, one after another, and ultimately led her to the drastic incompleteness of being married to a man whose death, the exact circumstances, was uncertain. If a death was uncertain, a life in turn was made uncertain – or the uncertainty that had always been there was exposed.
It's a journey, not so much of the clock but of personal discovery. One must let go of preconceptions, obligations or a sense of destination in order to find and face truth, and then move on.
I was spellbound from page one, where the unusual title is explained. Exquisitely crafted. Frequent moments of ah-hah, that's so true! An eclectic set of characters, a striking city, that uniquely vibrant Cuban landscape contrasted with spare elegant prose. I'd call this novel one of the best this year, for me, and well reviewed, although not commercially hot. Highly recommended. Spread the word.
Posted by Randy Kraft at 10:07 AM No comments:
Olive, Again... Wow, Again
Since Elizabeth Strout burst on the literary scene in 1998 with the novel "Amy and Isabelle" she has been revealing less than attractive truths about small town America in extremely attractive prose. Her fictional town of Crosby, where much of her fiction has been set, is a microcosm of the American culture – neighbors whose personal narratives are unfathomable and often astray while their motives can be mysterious despite ostensibly simple in design. In this place we find marriages without passion, angry spouses, false friends, repressed children, misogyny and harassment… And all, once again, under the watchful eye of the irrepressible incorrigible, often intolerable, but nonetheless captivating, Olive Kittredge, the heroine of the eponymous novel that won Strout the Pulitzer Prize. She's back in the aptly named, "Olive, Again."
I confess, when I began reading this book, I wondered, briefly, why the author, and reader, should go back to Olive, to her often warped perception and harsh rules, or why I wanted to return to that town, and those small town people, but, in a matter of pages, it is clear: the cast of characters is not only a fascination, and the prose exquisitely crafted, but we need to go back there to be reminded of all that ails us and what might redeem us.
In the end, to forgive Olive, to understand her and sympathize with her, is what we all need to do for each other.
Olive's second husband says it best: He understood that he was a seventy-four-year-old man who looks back at life and marvels that it unfolded as it did, who feels unbearable regrets for all the mistakes made. And then he thought: How does one live an honest life?
Strout says she took six years to write that first novel, but clearly those characters remained in her heart and on her mind. [And watch for a timely reappearance.] Who knows how many stories of the fictional town residents she has logged over time to resurface at just the right moment in just the right book, most taking place in that same place.
Here, a decade after her first appearance, Olive woos us again with her determination to understand herself, as well as her friends and neighbors and, again, with her surprising compassion for those least understood, those least seen, as if she has a filter through which she observes those who need the most and miss what's right in front of her eyes that matters more. And, we are right there with her as she grapples with age.
It was almost panic that she felt. "Damn man" she said, and she meant the doctor, who was still young and had no idea – he had no idea – what it was like to be old and alone. But other days she felt okay. Not wonderful. But she could drive and get her groceries and she visited her friend Edith at that awful old folks' home she lived in called Maple Tree Apartments. Then when she came home she was glad to be there, although she could not shake the feeling that it was Jack's house. She sat in Jack's chair these days so that she wouldn't have to look at it gapingly empty. And sometimes as she sat there a deep sadness trembled through her…
Olive is as real as it gets. The new novel lives up to its origin story and, as award-winning writer Pico Iyer said recently, Strout may be the most important fiction voice today. In their deceptively simple way, she and Olive speak for us all. As Olive would say, What a thing!
THE WEIGHT OF INK by Rachel Kaddish
Rachel Kaddish
"The Weight of Ink" is in the spirit of "Possession" the great novel by A. S. Byatt, although that was a mind-bending tale of secret passions and this is an understated novel of faith. Both use the literary technique of parallel tales, in this case London in the 1660s and in 2000, and also the discovery of medieval writings of historical significance. Both also feature two scholars – an academic and, and in this case, an arrogant graduate student – both in search of enlightenment as well as connection to repressed passions.
The novel reveals the often overlooked history of the migration of Spanish/Portuguese Jews, post-Inquisition, to Amsterdam and then to England. Known as Marrano Jews, they were previously forced to live as Christians, following their faith in secret, until they were permitted in England to observe Judaism but with few other rights.
Kaddish introduces a fictional Marrano rabbi and his scribe – a young woman with unusual intellect and curiosity. In 2000, the scholars discover her writings and set about to uncover her story.
The novel is a testament to what I fear is the diminishing art of scholarship. In the new millennium we have so much information at our fingertips and a subsequent propensity to come quickly to conclusions. [But I digress.] More to the point, we have here another story of a woman trying to rise above her limitations and her station. She's a terrific character who charts a unique course, and both scholars find in her pursuit the answer to their questions.
The Christians, it seemed to Ester, wished to fathom the mechanism of the soul: by which levers did it pull the body into motion, and by which was it pulled by the divine? Yet the rabbis had little concern for such deliberation. What, they wished to know, were the minute instructions for doing God's will? How most the economy of devotion be paid in laws of kashrut, in decorations of house and body, in the number of repetitions of a prayer… how were laws for behavior to be observed under this and that specific circumstance… the distance between the two manners of thought seemed to hold the key to something she couldn't name. Must the two – the Christian and the Hebrew, the soul and the measurable, tangible world – remain disconnected?
There is a subtle element of mystery and suspense throughout and a powerful narrative arc, with exceptional historic detail and contemplations of faith. Beyond the history, there is the evolution of characters past and present. The great Toni Morrison said it best on the book cover: "A gifted writer, astonishingly adept at nuance, narration, and the politics of passion." Agreed.
A literary journey for those who like to snuggle into a big book with sufficient twists and turns, clarity of prose and compelling characters to keep you cozy.
Along the narrow street, youths hauled sacks of sand, an ink vendor cried his wares, saltpeter men hauled stained sacks through a stable door. A girl leading a milch-ass knocked on a door and, when there was no answer, leaned her forehead to the door with a bleary call for any with babies in need of milk. Above the street, signboards mutely announced their wares – one carved in the shape of a mortar and pestle, another in the shape of a barrel of ale, another painted with a picture of crockery, that the unlettered might know where to enter with their coin. And now the road sloped downward beneath her shoes – first the slightest dip, barely perceptible. Then a steeper slope, as though not only her feet but the whole city were rushing toward the river.
Enjoy the journey.


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text:
Tea Leaves and Opal Necklaces
Match Twenty-Eight: Acacia:
Alfred walked up to Florence and Lydia's door and knocked. He held a bouquet of red roses. He didn't care if they were as cliched as hell. The American man thought the color would look great with Florence's hair. Alfred couldn't wait to see her again today. He straightened up his shirt as the door opened.
"Alfred!" Florence said. "It's so nice to see me again." She raced forward and hugged him. The American man smiled.
"I'm sorry I haven't over to visit more often," he said. "I've just been so busy. Arthur's been acting strange lately. Can I come in?"
"Sure," Florence said.
"Thanks," the American man said. Alfred followed the tree spirit into the house.
Lydia sat on the couch with her cell phone out. She glanced up when she heard the door close.
"Yo!" Alfred said. Lydia pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes.
"Nice to see you too," the American man said. He sat down on the couch with her. "How have you both been?"
"Good," Lydia mumbled.
"A bit tired," Florence said. Alfred gave her an odd look.
"How tired?" he asked.
"I find myself falling asleep in the middle of the day," she said. Lydia froze over her phone.
"Why didn't you tell me about this?" she asked.
"I didn't want you to wait," her sister said. "You've just graduated and you'll getting to get into your new school."
"That's not the point!" the younger girl yelled. "You have to tell me these things so that I can get you to the doctor."
"What good will that do?" Florence asked. Lydia and Alfred peered at her.
"What?" they asked. The tree spirit's emotionless face didn't change.
"I already know," she admitted. "Your hushed tone over the phone told me everything." Lydia shut her eyes and cursed herself.
"How long have you known?" she asked.
"Since last month," Florence said. Lydia pushed her brown bangs from her forehead.
"Damn it," she muttered. Alfred looked between both girls.
"Uh… is there something wrong?" he asked. Lydia groaned and rolled her eyes.
"Nothing," she lied. "Why do you have to here again?"
"Lydia!" Florence said. "Enough!" Her sister stared at her with big eyes.
"Florence?" she asked.
"I actually like Alfred," the tree spirit with her pale wrists shaking. "I know, you're trying to keep him from getting hurt when I die, but can you try and get along with him." The younger sister's face became bright red.
"What?!" she cried. "I never said that!"
"I know you didn't," Florence said. "I saw it in your intent."
"No, I…!" Lydia started to shout. Her older sister eyed her, waiting. Lydia sat there with her mouth open. After a good three minutes, she finally closed her mouth. She folded her arms across her chest and puffed up her cheeks. Alfred sat there the whole time, looking at both sisters.
"Uh… Everyone cool?" he asked. Neither sister answered him. Alfred directed his eyes away from them.
"Okay then…" he muttered.
Lunch was awkward. Neither sister spoke. Lydia stared down at her plate. Alfred glanced over at Florence.
"Is she going to be okay?" he whispered. The younger glared at him and snorted. The American man shrugged his shoulders.
"Let her be," Florence said. "She'll be fine."
"But…" Alfred said.
"She'll be fine," she said again. The American man closed his mouth.
"Okay," he said. Lydia rolled her eyes and shoved food into her mouth.
"So… What's everyone doing after this?" Alfred asked. No answer. He pressed his lips together.
"This is killing me," he muttered. He looked over at Florence's plate and tilted his head.
"Hm?" the American asked. "You're not going to eat?" Lydia looked up when he asked that question. Florence looked at her plate.
"Oh," she said. "I guess I'm not hungry." Lydia trembled and put down her fork.
"Alfred," she said. "Can I talk to you in private?"
"Huh?" he asked.
"Now!" the younger sister shouted. The American man turned to the tree spirit.
"It's okay," she said. "I'll wait."
"You sure?" he asked. Lydia cleared her throat loudly. Alfred threw back his head and groaned.
"Fine," he said. "I'll be right back." Lydia gets up and walks down the hall. The American followed behind. Florence started to play with her food.
Lydia sighed and put her hands on her head.
"It's getting worse," she said.
"Huh?" Alfred asked. Lydia dropped her hands. She took a deep breath.
"She doesn't have long to live," she said. "It's worse than I thought."
"How long does she have?" Alfred asked.
"I don't know," the teenaged girl said. "I have been talking to the doctors for weeks now. They can't really do anything now." She clenched her fists by her slides.
"Damn it," the girl muttered. "Damn it. Damn it!" Alfred stared at her silently. Lydia glanced over at him.
"It's not that I hate you," she said. "It's just…" Lydia grabbed onto her arm. "I can see where this is already headed!"
"What do you mean?" Alfred asked.
"You'll fall in love with her," she said. "You'll get close and become sad when she dies." The girl put her hands on her head.
"I just don't see the point," she said.
"Well, what does she want?" Florence asked. The girl gave him a blank stare.
"Huh?" she asked.
"You're trying to protect her, but that's not what she wants, dude," he said. Lydia glared at him.
"What do you know?" she asked. Alfred shrugged.
"I like her," he said. "I'm not sure if she likes me in the same way I do."
"I'm trying to say is that I want to be by her."
"Because I want to."
"But why? Why are you so infatuated with my sister for? What makes her so special? Why? Why?! I don't get it!"
"Does there have to be a reason?"
"Yes!" Lydia started to see red.
"Is everything okay?" Florence asked from the dining room.
"Yes!" Alfred and Lydia were quick to say. The younger sister turned back to the American man.
"What I want to know is why do you care so much about why I love her?" Alfred asked. She raised her eyebrow.
"Isn't it obvious?" she asked.
"No, it's not," he said. "Flo's not as naïve as you think she is. She knew that she was dying."
"I know that!" Lydia said with her nose wrinkled.
"I don't think you do." Alfred tilted his head. "Wait… Are you trying to say…?"
"What?" she asked. The American man smirked as he chuckled.
"You have a thing for me too," he said. "I think you're jealous and you have a crush on me too." Lydia's nostrils flared as she glared at him.
"No!" she snapped.
"You sure?" he asked with a grin.
"Shut up!" the younger girl yelled. Lydia pushed him aside and stormed down the hall to the dining room. Alfred shrugged to himself and followed behind.
Florence looked up when Lydia and Alfred returned to the table.
"Everything okay?" she asked.
"Yes," her younger sister and her suitor said in unison.
"Everything is fine," Lydia lied. She flopped down into her chair. Florence turned her attention to Alfred.
"What she said," he said. He pulled out his chair and sat down. "Hey, you've actually eaten a little bit." Lydia looked over at her sister's plate. Florence looked down at the fork in her hand.
"Oh, so I did," she said. The tree spirit took another bite of her food. Alfred and Lydia looked at each other. Silently they decided to watch her as she ate. The younger sister's hand trembled as she picked up her own fork. If she was going to give her sister some peace in her final days, maybe she would have to tolerate Alfred in their lives a little bit longer. Lydia puffed up her cheeks as she lowered her fork.
"Something matter?" Florence asked. Her younger sister shook her head.
"I'm not really hungry anymore," she said. "Thanks for lunch." The young girl got up and left the table.
"Lydia?" Florence asked. Alfred gently touched her wrist. The tree spirit turned her head.
"I'm sure she's cool," he said. Florence didn't answer at first.
"Yeah, I guess you're right," she said. The tree spirit looked down at her plate and took another bite of her meal. She and him spent the rest of lunch eating in silence.
28. Acacia
1 Babies, Secrets, and Signs
2 Jōmon Sugi
3 Dark Faerie
4 Eindringlich
5 Reproduce, Tips, and Friends
6 Centaur
7 Ame Onna
8 Brother
9 Confessional
10 Cryptomeria
11 Failure, Pressure, and Biao
12 Great Beast
13 Apokalipsis
14 Therapy
15 Uncle, Precautions, and Tina's Boyfriend
16 Aceldama
17 Vozrozhdeniye
18 Hauntings
19 Struggle, Trying, and Fire
20 Donkey Boy Meets Butterfly Girl
21 Oiwa
22 Puppet Masters
23 Twins
24 Tina's Party, Flashbacks, and Failure
25 Dads
26 Barren Lands
27 Celibate, Visions, and Pregnant
28 Acacia
29 Good News
30 Raining Blood
31 Dinner Celebration, Announcements, and Foreboding
Mature Romane Books
Books Similar to 'Fangirl'
Star Wars Fanfiction
Captain America Fanfiction
Books Similar to 'Batman'
Books Similar to 'Star Trek'
Thriller Books for High School Students
Books About Space Travel


text:
The Resurrection of Chris Hawkins
A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post eulogising Chris Hawkins, a character I created when I was fifteen who went on to feature in about eight angsty teen drama stories of minimal quality. Despite the generally awful nature of those stories, writing about Chris Hawkins was the first time I wrote something actually personal, something that used my own experiences and feelings to build a story. And as embarrassing as that stuff seems now, it doesn't change how important Chris was to my development as a writer. But I had to accept that I was done with him.
Except I wasn't.
I had always wanted to revisit Chris, but I'd decided that as his stories were very much a product of my being a teenager when I wrote them, he no longer had any real relevance in my life. But, nine years on from when I first wrote about him, I couldn't seem to get him out of my head. Maybe it was the fact that I had recently been seeing a lot of the people who inspired his stories in the first place, maybe it was the fact that it had been nearly a decade, but it was starting to feel more and more like it was time to see Chris again.
Revisiting characters isn't rare for me. Rob Ryan, the protagonist of my first play One Year Ago recently turned up in a six-part TV show I wrote called We Are Adults, while Boone Shepard originated as a high school story too. But while Boone Shepard the novel was a reworking of the old story and Rob Ryan always existed more as a surrogate version of me than a character in his own right, picking Chris' story up canonically from the last time I wrote about him was bloody weird. The last time I saw him in 2008 everything was wrapped up extremely neatly. Telling a new story about him meant either unravelling all the development he went through or writing about him as a boring adult without any of the terrible flaws that made him interesting. The ideas of a Chris who either hadn't actually changed or had settled down were respectively sad and boring, and so for a while it seemed like I wouldn't be going back.
But I couldn't shake the thoughts of where he might be now. And finally it occurred to me; something had to happen to him, something big that shook him to his foundations and changed the life I had left him with. It would mean that the lessons he learnt when I was a teenager could be relevant, but the happy ending I had trapped him in no longer had to be. Very quickly a story started to take shape, and almost as quickly the doubts crept in. I love my characters; destroying Chris' happiness for the sake of a story that nobody except me really wanted just seemed kind of horrible. And with the story taking shape in my head possibly the darkest I had ever come up with, dragging Chris out of retirement started looking more and more unpalatable.
So I went back to the original teenage dramas and read them through from start to finish. And man, that was an experience and a half. There were moments where I groaned out loud, there were moments where I was surprised by how good what I was reading was and, most surprisingly of all there were moments that made the new story I wanted to tell seem not only worthwhile, but inevitable. It almost seemed like this new idea I had come up with in 2016 was clearly set up by material I wrote in 2008. Which was really, really weird.
So I wrote it, a play called Chris Hawkins that takes the shape of a very dark drama. It lacks the operatic scope or Machiavellian string pulling of Windmills or the tenderness of something like Hometown or Regression. It's a bleak story about flawed, damaged people and the terrible mistakes they have to live with. As a narrative, it's completely standalone; hardly any of the backstory that is important to the events was drawn from the original Chris stories, and the supporting characters who do return aren't the ones who were central back in the old material. Basically it walks a fine line between being a logical sequel to a bunch of old writing that will never again see the light of day, and its own story. To me it's exciting because it's unlike anything else I've written before, a chance to delve into a different kind of darkness to the glorified bloodshed of the Babylon trilogy or the Shakespearean drama of Windmills. Even though the character who underpins the story might be old news, the material is very fresh for me.
Going forward, it promises a pretty varied slate of plays. Next up is Regression, the dramedy about a guy dealing with his fifteen-year-old self, followed by The Critic, a comedy about a high profile theatre critic who is forced to review a friend's terrible play, then this, a story that is highly personal to me because it represents the return of the character who signified the real beginning of my life as a writer, revisited through a very different perspective. Personally? I think it might be a bit alright.


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Canadian university forces locked-out faculty to vote on "final offer"
Our reporter
St. Thomas University has invoked an anti-worker provision of New Brunswick's labor code to force 160 full- and part-time faculty, now in their fifth week of a strike-lockout, to vote on its "final contract offer."
The vote, which is to be conducted by the province's labor relations board, will be held today and Tuesday.
The forced vote is the latest step in an aggressive campaign led by the Board of Governor's of St. Thomas University—a publicly-funded, liberal arts college located in Fredericton—to cripple, if not outright break, the faculty union, which is affiliated with the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT).
In mid-December, the university announced that contract negotiations could only continue if its contract proposals were accepted as the framework of a settlement. After the faculty refused to be cowed, the administration announced it would ask the labor relations board to hold a "final offer vote" on January 3rd, and, in the event of a rejection, immediately lock out the faculty.
After the union raised logistical concerns about holding a contract vote when many faculty might still be away, the administration withdrew its call for a provincial government-supervised final-offer vote. Instead it locked out the faculty, beginning on December 27.
The administration continued to brandish the threat of a forced vote in the subsequent weeks and ultimately carried through with it, after a special, government-appointed mediator withdrew from contract talks late on the night of Sunday, January 20.
The prerogative of an employer to force a government-supervised vote on its "final offer" was introduced into the provincial labor code in 1994, by the right-wing provincial Liberal government of Frank McKenna. McKenna sought to make New Brunswick a "magnet for" investment, particularly in the call-center sector, by slashing corporate taxes and public services.
According to a labor department representative, employers "rarely" make use of the "final offer" provision. This is because it is so blunt an anti-union weapon. Should workers accept a contract in an employer-forced "final offer" vote, they are legally compelled to return to work under conditions where they do not have a negotiated back-to-work agreement, making them much more vulnerable to employer reprisals.
The university began the contract negotiations with demands for concessions that threatened academic freedom by, among other things, making support for the university's historical "Catholic identity" a criterion in hiring and promotion. Although the Board of Governors was ultimately forced to drop these demands, it clearly sees a goring of the union as important in pushing forward with a right-wing agenda for the university, that includes tying its curriculum more closely to big business demands and adopting the Vatican's Ex Corde Ecclesiae, (an "apostolic constitution for Catholic universities promulgated by the late Pope John Paul II).
The university's "final offer" falls far short of the faculty's demands. Part-time faculty — who give 36 percent of the university's classes for meager stipends of less, and in some cases substantially less, than $5000 per course — are to be given wage increases of just 5 percent per year in a three-year contract. Smaller percentage wage increases, for the admittedly much better paid, full-time faculty are tied to their assuming full responsibility for funding the long-term disability program.
The university has agreed that tenured and tenure-track faculty will only have to teach five courses per academic year, the Canadian-norm. But its contract offer contains language that would enable the administration to circumvent the 60-student per class cap on enrollment won in the last contract. The university also wants to suspend for the life of the coming contract, clauses that mandate a review of whether additional full-time faculty need to be hired when limits on the percentage of courses being taught by non-tenured/non-tenure track faculty are exceeded.
The corporate media has strongly supported the university in its attempt to incite students against the faculty by claiming that their contract demands will result in higher tuition.
CAUT, for its part, has restricted the strike to the narrowest collective-bargaining framework. It has refused to aggressively challenge the claims of the administration and press, by linking the faculty contract struggle to a broader movement in defense of public education and public services.
As part of its propaganda war against the faculty, the administration announced last week that it was lifting the lockout, but faculty continued to be denied use of their e-mail, the university web-server, and their offices. In other words, the lockout continues in all but name.
The university has told students via its website that it has a "plan" in the event its "final offers" are rejected respectively by the full and part-time faculty units, but it has refused to divulge what that plan is.
The Board of Governors may well be planning to appeal to the provincial Liberal government of Sean Graham to legislate the faculty back-to-work. While the Liberal government has said nothing of substance about the labor dispute at St. Thomas, it is taking a hard line against a strike launched on January 10 by five hundred provincial government employees, including community college custodians, jail guards, prison cooks, and human service counselors.
CanadaNorth America


I want to go on the record here.
This is what I just did this afternoon.
Ok, that pic above not me, but it was Bananas and I and I think today we looked just like that!
Ok, Coffeedoc said we were only going about 16 mph when I was on it, but I think he wasn't paying attention. We musta hit 75 easy….
So, I know, I haven't been on the tube all summer.
I don't know why. I forget how much fun it is to just be out there and watch the kids. I get caught up in the hassle of chores and such instead. Or, maybe it has been so smothering hot that I knew I would be crazy sick if I did go out there.
But I promised and so today was the day, my daughter declared.
It was really terrifying..um, exciting!
But it was baby Gabe's first time on the boat. And my first time on the tube w/ Banana girl.
And yeah, feeling a bit more cool…kinda, or not, I think they are still in awe..ok, laughing at me.
But anyhow, I think we both are feeling pretty good about it.
This entry was posted in family fun, family life by coffeemom. Bookmark the permalink.
>Looks FUN!!! Yes you are cool :).


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Superintendent wants schooling that emphasizes effort over inna
By Edie Grossfield
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN
In his efforts to close persisting achievement gaps between students in Rochester public schools, Superintendent Romain Dallemand has set in motion a process to change the way teachers and parents think about education.
He hopes the community will embrace a different model of education that emphasizes effort over innate ability. The model comes from the Efficacy Institute in Waltham, Mass., a nonprofit agency founded in 1985 that promotes education reform.
Dallemand says research supports the model, and it has proven successful in closing achievement gaps -- what he calls the "opportunity gap" — in other districts.
The Efficacy Institute training is one part of Dallemand's evolving five-year plan for raising student achievement. Also to be incorporated in the plan are recommendations from the Education Development Center, of Newton, Mass., presented Tuesday night.
The district has spent $90,000 since September to train six staff members and four community members — including two school board members — to be Efficacy Institute trainers. The first teachers to be trained work in the seven schools with the highest number of students who need math and reading interventions: Century and John Marshall high schools; John Adams Middle School; and Bamber Valley, Franklin, Gage and Riverside Central elementary schools.
Eventually, all of the district's 1,100 teachers will receive the training. In addition, 50 parents are signed up for two Efficacy Institute classes on Thursday. The classes are free and will show parents how to reinforce the model at home — basically, how to support and positively motivate their children to progress in school. Four more parent classes are scheduled for April 17-18.
'Paradigm shift' for teachers
Lenoch-Craft jokes with colleagues that she's in the midst of a "mid-life paradigm shift," causing her to rethink her own 36 years of teaching methods.
Lenoch-Craft recently learned the Efficacy Institute model of education and she's now a believer.
"What you learn in this efficacy training is that there are two ways of working with students, or two belief systems," Lenoch-Craft said. "One is that we all are born with an innate ability. So, some of us have it, some of us don't."
On the other hand, the Efficacy Institute model assumes that all children who can learn to speak by age 3 or 4 have the ability to achieve at high levels. They just need to be positively motivated to work hard and they need to know how to get help, Lenoch-Craft said.
She described a cycle in which students receive motivation to put forth effort. When they improve their grades, they become more confident, which in turn, makes them want to put forth even more effort. And so on.
Teachers using the Efficacy model know their students' proficiency levels. They give assessments throughout their course period and carefully study the results.
"And from that data ... you really get in and start peeling the onion back," Lenoch-Craft said. "Why is the data showing us what it's showing us? Once you have your feedback, you look at what strategies you can use to address the needs of students."
Lenoch-Craft also said that teachers using the Efficacy model encourage their students to develop their own strategies for improvement.
"Part of it is teaching kids that 'OK, you don't understand this part of your algebra assignment. I'm not going to go home with you tonight. What could you do or who could you ask or where could you go if you get stuck?'" she said.
Once strategies are developed and executed, the cycle for teachers and students begins again.
However, Lenoch-Craft cautioned that for the Efficacy model to work, teachers must have the time to study and discuss assessment data. She said she's not sure whether the district currently provides enough staff development time to make that work.
Other districts benefited from model
Jeff Howard, who founded the Efficacy Institute, says that "smart is not something that you just are; smart is something you can get."
In a 1997 interview, he said he always wondered why some kids who were smart on the playground were dumb in school.
"The same kids who were terrible students, even objects of ridicule, in the classroom could be articulate, witty, and intellectually dangerous outside of school — I mean, they could really go after you with mind games," he said. "That didn't add up, and it always troubled me."
He realized that the students who were falling behind weren't serious about academics while others were making a real commitment, he said.
The Efficacy Institute has helped districts in other parts of the country close achievement gaps, Dallemand and other Rochester public schools officials say.
For example, in the district of Palm Beach County in Florida, schools using the Efficacy model between 2000 and 2003 saw an average 25-point gain in the percentage of students achieving proficiency in math, according to the Efficacy Institute's Web site. The district overall, however, saw only a 3-point gain.
The institute discourages the traditional model of education, which tends to group students according to ability and assumes that children are either smart or not, said Christina Streiff, the district's staff development coordinator and an Efficacy Institute trainer.
"We're all raised to think some kids have it and some kids don't," she said. "You hear parents say all the time, 'this is my smart one, and this is my athletic one.' ... But we want kids to know that smart is something you get, it's not something you are. And, we have to teach kids that when something is difficult, it just means you need to apply more effort."
Efficacy Institute
Nonprofit education consulting agency based in Waltham, Mass.
Founded in 1985 by Jeff Howard, a social psychologist who earned his doctorate degree at Harvard University.
The institute has trained more 30,000 educators, parents and community leaders in more than 50 school districts around the country, according to information on its Web site.
Key elements of the Efficacy model
The mission: proficiency for all students
The belief that all students can learn
Data-driven continuous improvement in the classroom
Motivate students to put forth the effort


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Lawsuit vs Pret A Manger on Racism
July 3, 2020 September 17, 2020 I Survived Pret A Manger
At the bottom of this page I highlight a few things that I also experienced in Pret's bullying environment. I link to the full 19 page court document of this lawsuit.
In light of the police violence and the death of George Floyd, sparking worldwide anti-racism protests, some former Pret staff speak out on social media on Pret's Black Lives Matter posts. The below Tweets are only those they care to post, not having checked Facebook, Instagram etc. The problem is bigger than meets the eye.
Former Employee Tweets:
Customer Tweets:
Employee Reviews Glassoor / Indeed:
Link > Birmingham, UK
An Italian review on racism:
A USA review on racism:
etc. etc. etc.
There are countless more reviews and complaints on various platforms along the lines of racism, slavery, favouritism, discrimination etc., not just on Glassdoor and Indeed. But I just stumbled across a 2012 article by The Voice of two black employees who are very specific in describing their experience. And their experience sounds very familiar of the systemic bullying environment in Pret A Manger. The claim that Pret treated them as "slaves" is a very common complaint on Review sites and YouTube etc.
Link to The Voice article in 2012.
There's a reason why Pret and its leadership have such poor scores on Glassdoor & Co, and why Cliver Schlee, former CEO, left with this legacy:
Glassdoor scores.
NOTE: If the slide show does not run automatically, please delete amp/ from above URL and reload in order to view. Or click HERE
JavaScript required to view slideshow. May not work on mobile devices without Wifi.
Slideshow can be paused
The above slideshow is just a selection, the list goes on in → Pret Staff Complaints, including at Head Office and Management complaints, please scroll down to the screenshots in this article:
>> Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret A Manger.
>>> LINK to the Court document of the lawsuit
BATTLE v Pret A Manger.
I'm aware that these are alleged accounts of Ms Battle. But I want to highlight a few things from my own experience with Pret and what I witnessed with colleagues. Please take the time to read the above 19 page court document. It really shows the systemic culture and hostile work environment which includes subtle bullying. Ms Battle's experience though shows how hostile shops in the U.S. are, and many U.S. reviews keep saying the same thing over the years of favouritism, racism, bullying.
I want to highlight as well, that in the shops where I worked I never heard the N-Word, but I witnessed subtle racism and backbiting. As a Team Leader I always immediately spoke out against any form of discrimination against race, gender, sexual orientation etc. My colleagues knew that I won't tolerate any form of discrimination. But there was always the subtle type of racism where a colleague for example complained about another Team Member and always felt the need to mention that they were Black. My response was "Why do you need to mention that they're Black?" With that I never heard any more subtle comments from those who made mentioned like this. My Teams knew that I would not tolerate ANY form of discrimination.
I also was contacted a few months ago by a then current Pret employee from the U.S. who complained to me about their shop mainly employing Hispanic workers. I immediately spoke up that I won't accept racism. In hindsight as well, this may have been a mention of the 60 Broad St New York shop that Ms Battle from the lawsuit here worked at. But I don't know this. And as the person kept ranting about Hispanic staff, I blocked them. Unfortunately I didn't do a screenshot of the complaint, even though that complaint may still be there as it was made publicly on MY Facebook feed. But for the life of me, I can't find it due to having blocked and can't remember the Facebook account of the person! Oh well …
Page 6 of PDF document, point # 20:
"[Manager] Ramos also accepted and normalized the use of the N-word by Team Members."
My comment: That's why this became so aggressively rampant in several shops.
Page7 , point 23:
"Despite her complaint to Ramos, Plaintiff's coworkers and supervisors continued to use racial slurs in her presence on a regular basis."
Very typical Pret A Manger that complaints fall on deaf ears.
Page 8, point 25:
"After Plaintiff explained to her coworkers that she was offended by their use of racial slurs, they began to use it even more frequently in her presence."
Yep, also typical in Pret. You raise an issue, and they do it even more.
"Ramos [Manager] did not discipline the Team Member for her use of racial slurs."
Again, very typical Pret.
"Ramos initially cut Plaintiff's hours below 30 per week in or around January 2018. When Plaintiff complained to Ramos that he had cut her hours below full time, he told her it was just for that week. Then it happened again the next week and the week after that."
This is a CLASSICAL bullying tactic. Cutting hours down, no matter if the contracted hours are higher, and initially just saying that this would be temporary. I had that many, many times in Pret. One Manager even cut a whole week to ZERO, and that DURING the Christmas period in 2017 shortly after my dad came out of his coma! It is a classical attempt to make employees resign in desperation to leave this toxic environment.
"Plaintiff was also harassed and discriminated against in many smaller ways that cumulatively degraded the conditions of her employment. Another African American coworker named Destiny suffered many of these same indignities. By way of example, Plaintiff and Destiny were ordered by supervisors, usually Ramos, to take out the garbage a disproportionate number of times. This was especially remarkable because female workers at 60 Broad were not usually tasked with dragging the heavy trash bags to the garbage dump. Seeing Plaintiff dragging these bags to the garbage dump, the garbage man asked her, "What are you doing back here? I never heard of them sending a female to do garbage pickup.""
Bullying takes on many different forms including subtle harassment and unfavourable treatment being sent to do menial or degrading tasks repeatedly. I was ordered by a Manager once when I was the Team Leader IN FRONT of a 16 year old apprentice to stock up bananas!
Now I stocked up bananas, I cleaned the toilets and got my hands dirty as a Team Leader like everyone else. My colleagues knew that I didn't shy away from menial tasks and that it was important to me that we worked as a Team and that if I as the Team Leader can clean the toilets, they can after some tried to talk themselves out of certain jobs. SO, doing these "menial" tasks wasn't an issue for me whatsoever. But what this GM did was to systematically bully in very subtle ways, in front of others, in this case a 16 year old apprentice. It's a classical bullying strategy as well, especially since this GM knew how hard I worked and how well I lead the Team for us to work together like clockwork and as a strong Team where no-one is more important than the other.
This Manager would do that with anyone he disliked or was upset with for whatever reason, not just with me. He would order us to do menial tasks and ordered this in front of staff. These were very subtle and passive aggressive bullying tactics, just to humiliate especially staff who were in position of leadership.
Page 9, points 33 & 34:
"On orders from Rosario and Ramos, Plaintiff and Destiny also made a disproportionate amount of deliveries during the winter when the weather was cold and it was snowing. … With reference to the menial tasks given to Plaintiff, a Team Member named Jasmine asked Plaintiff, "Why are they asking one person to do everything?""
Self-explanatory!
Page 10, point 37:
"The N -word was used pervasively by employees at those other Pret locations, as well."
Systemic.
Pages 10 & 11 , points 38 & 39:
"… Burke [HR] said she was just there to deal with the hours issue, and that if Plaintiff had a different issue Plaintiff should call a hotline dedicated to dealing with complaints. 39.In or around early April, Plaintiff called the hotline to which the human resources representative had referred her. The call went to voicemail. Plaintiff left a voicemail during which she complained about her hours being cut and that her shop was "a hostile work environment.""
HR ignored Ms Battle's complaint about racist slurs and did the typical thing Pret HR does, sending people away to call some hotline which goes to an automated voice mail only.
"Gregorio [HR] sent Plaintiff an email write-up that mischaracterized and/or omitted many of the issues Plaintiff raised. Notably absent from the write-up was any mention of racial slurs, including the incident Plaintiff told Gregorio about."
Yep, typical Pret HR behaviour, leaving vital issues out and/or distracting from the main issues raised.
Page 14, point 55 & 56:
"On July 12, 2018 Plaintiff sent Gregorio an email in which she cited, among other concerns, her coworkers' use of racial slurs and the lack of action taken in response to her prior complaints. She also mentioned that she had sent Ramos a text about her concerns and that he had not responded and refused to discuss her concerns. Faced with these explicit, written complaints, Pret lurched into action, albeit a kind both belated and insufficient."
Once Ms Battle put her complaint in writing in an email, Pret suddenly responded, but insufficient of course.
In a lawsuit in 2010 in the UK a Judge ruled in favour of a former Pret worker who sued Pret for unfair dismissal. The Judge mentioned Pret's HR hearings being quote, "fundamentally flawed". The Judge further mentioned that the appeal's hearings also were "fundamentally flawed". This is a systemic problem in Pret since years as I have experienced and won't change unless Pret is hit more seriously with high penalties. The peanuts Pret is always ordered to pay is a joke and doesn't make them change the toxic foundation of this company.
Link to Tribunal Judge's ruling on Pret's flawed HR hearings, page 10 top check mark.
"In or around August 4, 2018 Gregorio sent Plaintiff a follow up email in which she shared the results of her investigation. Under the heading "Inappropriate Language" she confirmed that she was able to substantiate Plaintiff's allegations that racial slurs are used in the shop. Under the heading "Hostile Work Environment" she confirmed that she was able to substantiate Plaintiff's concerns…"
But only AFTER Plaintiff put her complaints in WRITING via email!
"Despite these findings, Pret did not terminate Ramos's employment."
Why should Pret fire him, they would have to fire the majority of the company!
Well done for Ms Battle with the cool name reflecting her fighting spirit to go all the way to court! In the U.S. it's much easier to go to court than in the UK and Europe. Pret had to pay 4000 workers back TWICE after being sued in NY for not paying correct wages.
I explain in my interview in below audio player why I withdrew my court case against Pret. But I will never be silent about Pret A Manger's toxic and corrupt work ethics behind their smiley PR facade!
I worked at Pret A Manger and survived systemic workplace bullying during bereavement that involved HR, the top leadership, HQ and even the now "retired" former CEO Clive Schlee. I declined 4 settlement offers if I am silent about my ordeal. But I rather speak out to help others. For an overview of important blog entries of my experience with Pret, please visit "My Ordeal with Pret A Manger". The little arrow to the right next to each heading will lead directly to the post.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret's bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
https://poetrasblok.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/workplace-bullying-an-intervie-683101e6895da.m4a
©2020 expret.org
Unless otherwise stated or linked to, this website and all writings within this site are the property of expret.org, poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission is prohibited.
©2017 – Present: expret.org, poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org unless otherwise stated. All Rights reserved. Disclaimer.
Posted in Pret A Manger, Pret A Manger RacismTagged Clare Clough, Clive Schlee, Lawsuit vs Pret A Manger on Racism Bullying, Pano Christou, Pret A Manger, Pret A Manger Lawsuit, Racism in Pret A Manger
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Swimming & Diving News
NA Girls Win Record 14th WPIAL Title, Boys Claim WPIAL Bronze
Posted on: March 4th, 2022 by Randy Gore
The North Allegheny girls' swimming and diving team won a record 14th WPIAL title on Friday at the WPIAL Class AAA championships at Trees Pool at the University of Pittsburgh. It's the most consecutive WPIAL championships by any girls' team in any sport. The Lady Tigers took the title with a team score of 344, which was 30 points better than second-place Fox Chapel. The North Allegheny boys' team took third place with a team score of 241. Seneca Valley won the WPIAL Class AAA boys' crown.
In day two of the WPIAL Class AAA championship, the Lady Tigers were spurred on by two gold medal finishes and a new team record. In the 100 Breaststroke, sophomore Natalie Sens took first place and set a new school record with a time of 1:03.15. Junior Lexi Sundgren also won WPIAL gold in the 500 Free, clocking in at 4:51.89.
Winning silver in the 400 Free Relay was the quartet of Sundgren, sophomore Greta Mott, senior Isabella Dietz and junior Delaney Kennedy with a time of 3:30.14. Mott also took sixth place in the 100 Backstroke and junior Rebecca Melanson gave the NA point total a boost with a fouth-place showing in the 100 Free. For a look at all scores from day two of the WPIAL Class AAA girls' competition, click here.
The North Allegheny boys' squad was also impressive with a third-place performance. In day two, the Tigers were paced by sophomore William Gao, who won WPIAL bronze in the 100 Backstroke with a time of 50.69.
Other strong performances were provided by senior Stewart Messer in the 100 Breaststroke and junior Ben Gavran in the 100 Free, earning sixth and seventh-place showings, respectively. The combo of junior Zachary Jubeck, Gavran, junior David Shi and junior Eliot Maravich took seventh place in the 400 Free Relay. For a look at all scores from day two of the WPIAL Class AAA boys' competition, click here.
Up next for North Allegheny is the PIAA swimming and diving championships at Bucknell University on March 16 and 17.
Swimming & Diving Links
Swimming & Diving Home
NA Pool Records
Past Rosters
Next Broadcast - Wed, Feb 1 @ 6:00pm
Swimming & Diving: NA vs. Seneca Valley


text:
Rotherham Child Sex Abuse: Only One South Yorkshire Police Grooming Investigation Led to Convictions
Report on child sex exploitation in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, reveals few abusers were convicted
By Lydia Smith
Rotherham town hall: A report reveals around 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation Wiki Commons
The Rotherham child sex abuse report has revealed that out of six investigations into sex offences against children between 2007 and 2013, only one resulted in prosecution and subsequent conviction.
Around 1,400 children were subjected to "appalling" abuse in the South Yorkshire town over a 16-year-period between 1997 and 2013, the report has found.
The inquiry, carried out by Professor Alexis Jay, a former chief inspector of social work in Scotland, said there had been a "collective failure" by both South Yorkshire police and the local council to stop the abuse.
The majority of the victims identified in the report were girls, some as young as 11 years old. In more than a third of these cases, the victims were known to child protection agencies.
Failure to convict
Between 2007 and 2013, the South Yorkshire police undertook a series of operations to investigate cases of suspected child sexual exploitation. Yet only the first inquiry led to convictions.
In 2008, Operation Central investigated groups of men believed to be involved in the abuse of children. It ended in 2010 with five convictions.
Both Operation Czar and Operation Chard, which commenced in 2009 and 2011 respectively, led to the issuing of abduction notices - legal notices instructing adults to cease contact with specified children. However neither investigation yielded a conviction.
In the summer of 2012, Operations K-Alphabet and Kappa began. These were joint investigations run by the South Yorkshire police along with children's services. And later that year, Operation Carrington investigated the risks posed to young people in Rotherham. None of these operations led to convictions.
In 2013, a final police operation into historic cases of organised sex abuse in Rotherham was announced.
Children witnessed 'brutally violent rapes'
Jay's independent inquiry, which examined how Rotherham's social services dealt with allegations of child sex abuse between 1997 and 2013, found girls as young as 11 were gang-raped and taken to other towns and cities in the north of England to be abused, beaten, and doused in petrol.
"They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated," she said in a summary of her findings.
"There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made witness to brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone."
Roger Stone, the leader of Rotherham's Labour council, announced his resignation shortly after the details of the report were announced.
"Having considered the report, I believe it is only right that I, as leader, take responsibility on behalf of the council for the historic failings that are described so clearly in the report and it is my intention to do so," he said.
"For this reason, I have today agreed with my Labour group colleagues that I will be stepping down as leader with immediate effect."
Stone was appointed leader of the council in 2003, and had served in the council for more than 25 years. In 2009 he was awarded an OBE "in recognition for his services to local government".
Rotherham Grooming Gangs Report Damns Council and South Yorkshire Police
Rotherham Child Abuse Inquiry: Over 1,400 Children Raped and Trafficked by Men of \'Pakistani-Heritage\'