Yesterday, I took a beautiful drive to see the colors in the Smokies and to get fresh produce from Carver's Apple Orchard in Cosby–a ritual I observed for years but had lately neglected. I used to go there with my family when my children were young until they began objecting to the long drive. It … More In God's Country?
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BREAKING: Suns acquire superstar Kevin Durant in trade with Nets, reports say. | Tune to 92.3 FM
US, UK hold drone drill in Persian Gulf after Iran seizures
Oct 7, 2022, 2:00 AM | Updated: 2:03 am
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. Navy held a joint drone drill with the United Kingdom on Friday in the Persian Gulf, testing the same unmanned surveillance ships that Iran twice has seized in recent months in the Middle East.
The exercise comes as the U.S. Navy separately told commercial shippers in the wider Mideast that it would continue using drones in the region and warned against interfering with their operations.
The drone drill — and the American pledge to keep sailing them — also comes as tensions between the U.S. and Iran on the seas remain high amid stalled negotiations over its tattered nuclear deal with world powers and as protests sweep the Islamic Republic.
Friday's drill involved two American and two British warships in the Persian Gulf, as well as three Saildrone Explorers, said Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the Navy's Mideast-based 5th Fleet.
The drones searched for a target on the seas, then sent the still images its cameras captured back to both the warships and the 5th Fleet's command center in the island kingdom of Bahrain. There, an artificial intelligence system worked through the photos.
The 5th Fleet launched its unmanned Task Force 59 last year. Drones used by the Navy include ultra-endurance aerial surveillance drones, surface ships like the Sea Hawk and the Sea Hunter and smaller underwater drones that resemble torpedoes.
But of particular interest for the Navy has been the Saildrone Explorer, a commercially available drone that can stay at sea for long periods of time. That's crucial for a region that has some 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) of coastline from the Suez Canal, down the Red Sea to the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz and into the Persian Gulf.
It's a vast territory that stretches the reach of the Navy and its allies and has seen a series of attacks amid the atomic accord's collapse. It also remains crucial to global shipping and energy supplies, as a fifth of all oil traded passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
"No matter what forces you have, you can't cover all that," Hawkins told The Associated Press. "You have to do that in a partnered way and an innovative way."
But Iran, which long has equated America's presence in the region to it patrolling the Gulf of Mexico, views the drones with suspicion. In August and September, Iranian regular and paramilitary forces seized Saildrones in both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, alleging without providing evidence that the drones posed a danger to nearby ships.
Iran ultimately released the drones after the U.S. Navy arrived to the sites. Cameras on the Saildrones involved in the Red Sea incident went missing.
Iranian state-run media did not acknowledge the drill Friday. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"Recent events notwithstanding, we have been operating these systems safely, responsibly and in accordance with international law and will continue to do so," Hawkins said.
The Navy underscored its plan to keep operating the drones in notices sent to shippers and sailors in the region beginning Thursday. It said that the drones would continue to broadcast their location via their Automatic Identification System trackers.
Ships are supposed to keep their AIS trackers on, but Iranian vessels routinely turn theirs off to mask their movements as Tehran faces international sanctions over its nuclear program and human rights abuses.
"U.S. Navy (drones) are U.S. government property and will lawfully operate in international waters and through straits in accordance with internationally recognized rights and freedoms," the Navy said in the notice. "Any interference with U.S. Navy (drones) will be considered a violation of the norms of international maritime law."
Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
TOKYO (AP) — Nissan reported a 55% jump in October-December profit Thursday, as the Japanese automaker seeks to embark on a less bumpy journey with its French alliance partner Renault. Profit for the quarter at Yokohama-based Nissan Motor Co. totaled 50.6 billion yen ($386 million), up from 32.7 billion yen the previous year. Quarterly sales […]
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia has for the first time rejected a coal mining application based on environmental law. The government is under pressure to curb climate change by blocking all new coal and gas extraction projects. Australia is one of the world's largest exporters of both fossil fuels, which are major sources of the […]
EL OBEID, Sudan (AP) — The two Sudanese women thought they had malaria and were taking their medication, but things took a dire turn. Both complained of a splitting headache and fever that didn't respond to the anti-malaria treatment. By the time she was diagnosed with dengue fever, Raqiya Abdsalam was unconscious. "Soon after they […]
Japan, Philippines to sign plans to boost defense ties
TOKYO (AP) — Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. are expected to sign key agreements to boost their defense ties Thursday as Asia sees tensions around China's growing influence. Marcos is visiting Japan soon after he and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reached agreements on allowing the United States […]
Asian shares mixed after Wall St falls on rate hike worries
BANGKOK (AP) — Shares were mixed Thursday in Asia after Wall Street gave back some of its recent gains on persisting uncertainty over interest rates and inflation. Benchmarks declined in Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney but rose in Hong Kong and Shanghai. U.S. futures were higher while oil prices edged up. Wall Street retreated Wednesday following […]
Fiesta Bowl Foundation
Celebrate 50 years of Vrbo Fiesta Bowl Parade magic!
Since its first production in the early 1970s, the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl Parade presented by Lerner & Rowe has been a staple of Valley traditions, bringing family fun and excitement to downtown Phoenix.

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Transcript: Joey Logano – Press Conference
An Interview with:
THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford. We'll go straight to questions.
There was never a doubt in your mind; what was it like during the race? You pretty much dominated.
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, we had a good car, and I told the guys, after we put it on the pit the other day: We got them down; now we put our foot on them.
That's the attitude you've got to have. It's just what it is when it comes to this level. Your feelings are checked at the door, and it's all about winning and nothing less than that.
When you get this far, I said it all week, we weren't satisfied with being in the Championship 4. There was nothing to celebrate for us. We've been here before. We know what it feels like to lose. It's the worst feeling in the world, if I'm being honest, and winning is the best feeling in the world.
It's great to be able to accomplish it. I said that this was revenge for 2020. It certainly was. Something that's going to stick with me for a while.
Just super proud of this race team, super proud of everybody on it, not just the 22 team but everybody that puts a bunch of effort into this. You think of everyone at Team Penske, everyone at Roush Yates, everyone at Shell and Pennzoil and Ford and everybody that really supports us and not just them but their families.
You guys know how it is. You're gone and you're on the road all year long, it's a grind. If you have kids, your spouse is pretty much raising your kids alone. It's hard. It's not just for me that way, it's everybody that's on this whole series all year long, in hopes that you win a championship.
I found out in 2018 — I say it all the time. I found out in 2018 how big the team really is, and I carry that weight with me now, knowing how big it is and the impact it makes on their families.
A lot more gifts under the Christmas tree now, so I'm excited about this.
You're now a two-time champion; there's only one other active multi-time champion. What's the significance of having a second now and chasing more?
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, it's great. I guess I haven't really put much thought into it yet. It's awesome to hear it.
I guess the greed in me feels like I should have four or five at the moment, so I guess the feeling is it's about time. But that's just how I am and how I work, I guess.
This one is special for a lot of reasons, and one thing that I think probably stands out most to me is just the way Paul did it and we all did it together all the way through.
I feel like that's probably one of the most special things. When we won in Vegas, we sat down Monday and started coming up with a meeting agenda, a bunch of meeting agendas that we can go over and reviewing film together as a team, going through pit stops, reviewing, rolling times on pit road, all these little subcategories that happened and making sure the details are all in the right place.
That was the difference maker. We knew we would have a fast race car, and we knew we'd make those decisions and we'd be close because we had plenty of time to really go through all that, and we weren't bad here in the spring.
But we knew details were going to be the difference of winning and losing. We had the advantage this two and a half weeks to really work together and do that.
It's a grind. I'm telling you right now it's a grind the last two and a half weeks. This is all we thought about. You put everything else — any other distraction gets put to the side. And it's tough for everybody. It's tough for everyone's families. But you have to. You can't waste the opportunity that's here in front of us.
All the way through the weekend, when it came to practice and waiting for qualifying, we were in Paul's bus at 6:00 in the morning going through things. That's what we all did as a group together.
We were in there this morning at 7:00 going over stuff to make sure we were prepared for today. We made sure that there was no stone unturned when it came to preparing for this race. When you saw how confident I was and my team was, it's because we were truly ready.
You can't fake confidence. You can maybe show it a little bit, but truly deep down inside, you have to believe that if you're going to be ready for this battle ahead of you.
I never felt more ready, and a lot of credit goes to Paul, for taking the time and the effort and forcing us to do it together as a team.
There's plenty of crew chiefs that are up that early. I get it. But they're not doing it together with their whole team, and I think that's the difference maker for us.
I know you were close with the JGR family prior to 2013. Given the tragedy earlier today, what were your emotions when you found out?
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I mean, I found out before the race, and I still honestly don't know the details of anything. It's such an interesting spot as you sit there preparing to run a championship race and then you hear somebody that has been in your life, known for a while — and I still don't know the details, but it's just sad. I don't have words to explain how that is.
I feel for Ty more than anything. When you take all the championship racing stuff out, it doesn't matter at the end of the day. It's great that we're up here and we won a championship, but something happens to your family, it doesn't matter. Like that's the difference.
For the whole sport, it's a sad day. For me, it's a bittersweet type of thing because here we are winning a championship, and here we are one of the people that's a leader in our sport and someone I've known for a while is gone, and I don't really know how to explain that and how hard that is.
Obviously our prayers and thoughts go to the Gibbs family and everyone over at JGR. When you think they've had a rough run at it, I couldn't imagine how Joe feels right now.
Yeah, I don't really know what else to say. It's hard. I couldn't imagine. I don't know what it's like. But for Ty to lose his dad, that's just hard.
Roger was in here, he said that when Brad was leaving, he told you that you're now the veteran, you're in charge, you've got to step up. What did you do to meet that request of his?
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I wouldn't say it's just me stepping up. I feel like Blaney stepped up a lot, and Austin is a good leader right off the bat, too, with this Next-Gen car.
Yes, my experience is valuable because I've been here a long time and I know how things work and I know how the sport works and all those type of things. That's all well and good. But I had to unlearn a lot of things when it came to the race car itself.
I feel like we — I'm not the type of leader that wants to be on a pedestal above everybody and say, hey, I've been here the longest, listen to me.
It's not how I do it, it's not how Paul does it, it's not what I think is best.
I feel like the best way a lot of times is to really get everyone's opinion and gather it and form your own opinion; and if it's something you feel truly strong about, you fight for it.
And then as a team, that's what I want: I want my teammates as drivers to voice their opinions and put something together. When we feel like something is right, we form one voice together.
Same thing all the way through it, from TC all the way down. That's what we want as a race team.
That means there's hard conversations that just have to happen. That's good to have. As a leader, together, that's okay with me. I'm fine with the tough conversations. I love tough conversations. They're better, if you ask me. That's what you need. That's where growth comes from. It doesn't come from shoving things underneath the rug.
This is great, and that's what — this is where the hard conversations happen, when they come to championships at the end of the day. And when you think of what Penske was able to do this year as a team, winning an INDYCAR championship and a Cup championship in the same year, never been done before, that's a really special thing.
I don't know what they have planned for this one, but I'm sure it's going to be a fun off-season for us.
As you referenced, on a day that Ty loses his father, your son got to walk with you to go get the checkered flag, get in the car, do donuts, ride to Victory Lane and be a part of the celebration. What does it mean to be able to do that with your son and the perspective that it happens on a day like this with fathers and sons?
JOEY LOGANO: That just goes to prove that you've got to cherish every moment in life. You don't know when the next one happens. You don't know when your number is called. You just don't.
We always say God has a plan. I agree with that, but it doesn't make it easier.
So there's definitely — it's challenging for a lot. For me having Hudson with me — we left Jameson and Emilia at home just because this time change was — we tried to make this happen. We really did. Knowing that we won a few weeks ago, we tried to put them on West Coast time.
Turns out Jameson wakes up at 5:00 a.m. no matter what time you put him to sleep. You can put him to bed at 10:00 or 6:30; he wakes up at 5:00 a.m. He's a machine. We said, You know what? You're staying, bud. Love you.
Hudson can sleep in a little bit, so that's good, so we brought him along.
Honestly, ever since Kevin took Keelan in Michigan for a ride in the car, I said, I want to do that. Like I always wanted to do that just because, I don't know, it's cool.
Hudson and I, like he's my oldest and we have a connection there, and he's four. The two-year-old, it's a little harder to get there. As you get older, you get to a point where you see their interest and stuff, and how do you — every night before he goes to bed he wants to talk about race cars and he wants to talk about his go-kart in the backyard, and we have a connection of — shoot, we read car magazines. That's his bedtime story. He wants to go through classic car magazines.
So he's into it. We kind of share — he's just a little me. I see so much of me in him, it's kind of funny.
Like I said, I always dreamed of winning with him here because I always wanted to take him for a ride. We'd go for rides in hotrods all the time together, and it's definitely not the first donuts we've done together.
But the first time in a race car, well — on the racetrack. It's the first time on a racetrack that we got to do donuts together. That's just cool, to see him running up there, grabbing the checkered flag, that's — it's hard to explain.
If you have kids, you understand the love that you have for them. It's truly unconditional love. To see him smiling and celebrate the moment together, it's truly the most awesome feeling.
And the fact that we can talk about it, right. The first time I won it, he was like nine months old. He didn't know which way was up, could barely hold his head up. Now to see him running up there and grabbing the flag and going for a ride with me, couldn't have picked a better race to do that for the first time.
When you were doing the donuts, I'm sure you looked over at him, so what did you see? What was his face reaction, and did it look that much more different than any other donuts? As a father, what was it like to do that with your son, and what did you see?
JOEY LOGANO: Well, the race cars are a little louder than our Fox-body at home. So that's his favorite car. We have a '91 Fox-body Mustang. He loves that car. It's got a big ole supercharged motor in it and it does some great donuts, and that's good.
And exhaust comes out the back, and it's not that loud, everything is okay — it is loud, but it comes out the back, it's okay, the windows are up. This thing is a little louder, and the exhaust is right there. Like, Hold your ears, hang on. So we did some gentle donuts together.
He's so funny because he's so quiet, and then when you get him home, and especially before bedtime when he's trying to stay awake for an extra 30 minutes, that's when he becomes the most talkative.
That's the same as I was. I know I'm long-winded tonight, but I was a shy little kid that always had my head in my dad's leg all the time when I was around people, and same thing with him.
It's been since 1968 and 1969 since Ford has had a two-time Cup Series championship under their brand. I was wondering what that means to you to bring that back to their wheelhouse.
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, like I said, this championship, it takes an army and it's everybody, and Ford is a big player in this and how we all work together.
Like I said, it takes a lot, and Ford's engineers and the design process of designing this Next Gen body and all the things that go along with that, it's been a grueling couple years for them and making sure they do it correctly to where we can go out there and compete for a championship. That's what the hopes are for.
They brought a great Mustang for us. To be able to say we won a couple championships together driving a Ford, yeah, I take pride in that, absolutely. We did it together.
That's why it means so much sitting here today. The relationships that you make over the years in this sport, they mean so much. With you guys or with your team members or with your sponsors, you care about everybody. It's a special group that we all are.
To have a sponsor with Shell and Pennzoil that has been with me over the last 10 years and for many years to come, and Ford with Roger and everyone at Team Penske, I take a lot of pride in that because it means you have to do it correctly.
The short-term deals don't work out for many reasons, and when you can make them work for a long time, it means you're doing business correctly and you're treating people fair, and that's what it's about. It's all about a fair deal.
I feel like everyone is treated fairly and that's why everyone is happy and that's why we can win races together.
I know you had your moment with your son in the car, but how do you celebrate a second Cup championship, and is it different from the first?
JOEY LOGANO: I mean, it's definitely — it feels a little different, if I'm being honest. It definitely feels a little different.
But it still feels really special. What I remember of the first championship was the moment when you get out of the car and you see everybody for the first time. That's the most special moment of the whole thing.
I knew it was going to be this time. Last time it was a surprise. I didn't know, like, oh — now seeing your team, seeing your wife, your kids, your mom, your dad, like just all that stuff for the first time and celebrating together and really taking a moment to really enjoy that, even more so than we did last time, I was conscious about that because it's the best moment.
That first 10 minutes is the best. There's just nothing like it. It's so hard to achieve it, and you just hope to have that feeling again.
Yeah, I took my time. I'm glad I did. Because, like I said, it's just so tough to do.
You came into the Cup Series as a young rookie in 2009 looking for a Cup championship. Now you're a multi-time champion, a father. How has your outlook and life and winning a championship changed and evolved over time?
JOEY LOGANO: I mean, just like everybody else. I'm no different than anybody else. As you get older, your perspective on life changes. When you're a kid, you take all the risk with no consequences. You don't think twice about anything.
As you get older, you start to realize what really matters in life and taking everything a lot more serious in everything you do and more just intentional about everything you do and why you do it and the things you say.
Because, listen, they're watching me. Kids are watching me now. I make sure that they — I'm going to have to have a talk with Hudson and Jameson and Emilia one day about, yeah, dad screwed up a lot, and it's all on TV now. When you're going through YouTube, don't do that. That's not the right way to do it.
But I think being honest with them is important, but it is something that, as you get older, you start to think through things differently, and you become better.
I feel like I've never been a better race car driver than I am today. I've never been more committed about it, even with more — I don't want to call it distractions, but more things going on in my life. I've never had more going on in my life than I do right now with three crazy kids at home and other businesses and just stuff.
To be able to juggle all that and prioritize all that has been the difference for me. And I honestly feel like all of it's made me a better person altogether. Long ways to go, though. I'm not there yet; I can promise you that.
Perfect follow-up to what Jonathan was talking about. The big takeaway from this week has been your confidence, not just your inner confidence but the way that you've had this outward confidence this whole week where you feel like you've never wavered. What has this evolution with confidence been like for you? What was it about this week that kind of spurred that in you? You said you didn't want to play any mind games and said, hey, we're going to win this, and you were really consistent over the course of the last week.
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, it wasn't meant to be mind games. You just asked me how I felt and I was honest, and I really felt like we were in a spot to win this thing.
I truly believe that attitudes are contagious, good or bad. And when you're able to bring that attitude to your race team in a moment like this, as a driver there, that just carries through it.
I believe confident people win. If you don't believe in yourself, who else is ever going to believe in you? How are you ever going to win?
But I also think you can't fake that. I think of my first Championship 4 appearance, was I confident? No, I was a nervous wreck.
Are the nerves still there? Yeah, the nerves are still there. You don't want to screw it up because you got this far. But I truly felt ready as a driver, and I felt like as a race team we went through everything we can possibly go through.
At that point the confidence is real. We've been here before. We knew how to do things. We knew how to prepare. We went out and just did our job. We put it on the pin and then we won the race. Like that was the job at hand, and we nailed it.
Like I said, I couldn't be more proud of everybody doing that together, but we knew we were going to do it. Like that was where we were at. We had the time to think about it and go through things, and we felt truly ready. That's a great feeling going into a battle like this.
Joey, Stage 2 was a little interesting there with the fuel mileage, obviously. Take me through the car and what was going through your mind as who knows if you saved enough fuel or not.
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I was going off the information that they were telling me over the radio of have we saved enough or where are we at. These days with SMT and stuff, they can see what I'm doing inside the car. So they can see how much I'm lifting and shifting or not shifting or short shifting, whatever I was doing in there.
So they have a better way of calculating it, better than the old days, because they can — it's not just, hey, I'm lifting, I don't know, 100 feet or so, something like that, I'm going really fast because 100 feet goes by really quick. I don't know. It's hard to say sometimes.
But they can now see like where I'm actually lifting on the racetrack.
I just did what they told me to do. I wanted to stay in front of the 19, just for track position purposes. I wanted to make sure that we gave ourselves our best foot forward when it came to the next pit stop. Yeah, nothing too crazy throughout it.
In 2018 when you win your first championship, you welcome your son Hudson and then went on to win a championship and went through the emotions of that year. Now this year, right after the Clash, you and your wife give birth again, and once again you go through the whole emotions of winning another championship. What is that like, having to go through an entire season, when you have infants at home, and then maybe could they be good luck charms knowing you've won championships both seasons that you've welcomed new children?
JOEY LOGANO: That says that my hot-ass wife is a true bad-ass. That's what it says. My bad-ass wife is what I should call her. My hot bad-ass wife; how's that sound?
Yeah, it takes — I guess it's hard at home right now. There's a lot of sleepless nights at times. Shoot, I get to sleep at the racetrack, so it's not as bad for me or as hard for me.
I don't know if it's a good luck thing or what it is, but it's interesting that the years that we feel like we're juggling the most and going through a transition at home have been successful years. Even 2020 we made the Championship 4; and like I said, I always feel like that race was the one that got robbed from us. We were in position to do everything correctly, and something not of our own doing cost us the win.
I don't know what that is. I joked with Brittany: If we win, we might have to have another kid. But I don't think so. I don't think so (laughing). We might not do that. I think we're good with three.
A little earlier you said you told your kids, the ones that are home, that you'd be home soon but first we're going to party a little bit. What do you envision that looking like tonight, this week, before you get home?
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I don't know, honestly. It's a lot going through here. I know I'm going to LA, so I guess I'm not going home anytime soon.
I actually don't know the schedule at all, if I'm being honest. I know I'm going to LA. I don't know when I get to go back home. I don't know.
I know there's something we're doing tonight. I don't know where that — I don't know. I don't know. I'm here right now, and at some point I'm going to get this sticky suit off, because there's champagne all over it, and we'll go from there.
I have no idea. I think I'm probably here for another couple hours before I — I think I asked you, how much longer am I here? Okay. At some point we're going to party. I don't know when that is yet or where. Somebody has it figured out.
I shouldn't be the person that ever leads a party; I can tell you that much. I'm like the worst at partying. That might be a good thing. This isn't as entertaining as Ben was last year. I'm sorry.
It's not just your second championship, you just brought Paul Wolfe his second championship. I don't think anybody would have thought it would take this long for Paul to get his second. How does that feel for you as a driver working with Paul and getting him that second championship?
JOEY LOGANO: I'm just happy for him. Paul wants it bad. Like I said, the way he was preparing, what he was doing, he put a lot on him over the last few weeks. I don't know how he handles his pressure. Everyone kind of has their own way of what they do.
And I'm able to shut off when I go home. Paul is a lot quieter person than I am. If I get him to smile or cheer a little bit, I feel like I've really done something. I feel like he holds a lot of things inside, where I vent everything.
It's been, I think, a tough few weeks for Paul and his family. Like I said, it's hard. And the commitment that he put in the last couple weeks, I know his family sacrificed dad time and husband time to do this.
And so obviously I greatly appreciate that. And that's why I'm so happy for him, because it takes a lot to do it, and hey, here we are.
I know how bad he wanted it. Once you win one of these things, you just want to win another one even worse. And he's been close a few times since he won with Brad, so to bring that home with him is special.
A lot is being made about your confidence this week, but I remember actually before the Vegas playoff race you were telling us that you're a favorite every week. It seems like you've had quite a bit of confidence all season long. Now, unfortunately, you haven't won 36 races this year. I was curious about what kind of strategies you use to build your confidence back up after weeks when things maybe don't go the right way.
JOEY LOGANO: That's a great question, and it is — as an athlete, you have to mentally be strong. That's the difference with, I think, an athlete from others is that they're able to control their mind in high-pressure moments.
You only learn that over time your own way. You can't be somebody else. I can't be the next Jimmie Johnson or whoever. I can only be the best Joey.
There's times that I'm so mad at myself from a mistake, and I make them, but you also got to look at mistakes as an opportunity to learn. Without taking risks to make mistakes, you don't grow.
That to me has always been kind of, okay, I made a mistake, I'm stronger now, I'm smarter now, I learned from it, it's over, I'm the best. Now I have another reason to be better. Now I know I am the best, right. I made that mistake, I'm not that bad anymore, so now I've got to be better.
A bit of it is preaching to yourself. A bit of it is using these moments when you're talking to the media that you're kind of preaching to yourself about it a little bit.
I always feel like media day is a day that mentally I click, like I'm in. That's kind of my motivational moment.
So I learned to love media days for that reason, because you really believe the things you're saying, and you're actually thinking about that stuff outside of just the race car details.
I always feel like that's a moment where I click on.
Speaking of media day, I was in the interview room for NBC, and I watched all four of you guys come through, and it was abundantly obvious, like, demeanor, body language, what you said, like you were the overwhelming favorite. No one was more comfortable that day than you. I know we joke about the 32-year-old being the old man of the group here, but did you feel like that was an edge going in, did you sense that, hey, I've got the experience? It felt like you really kind of embraced that. I'm wondering are you embracing that a little bit more being a veteran even though you're still so young, you've been around so long?
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, you try to find any advantage you can, and if experience is that, yeah, I would take that. That's a good thing.
I don't really know how to answer it, but I guess in a way you look at your competitors and you try to figure out, okay, where is there weaknesses.
I look at a lot of them, it was their first time here. I thought some of them were happy to be here. And when I looked at our team, we weren't in that position. That made us different.
I think that was something that set us apart. I thought these guys are happy to be here, and they're trying to minimize the situation and saying that it's just another race. And at that point I really felt like we were in a great spot because I've been here long enough to know it's not another race, and you can't minimize the situation. It's this big. It is huge.
It hurts extra big when you lose, and it feels extra good when you win. There's nothing like it.
I always felt like minimizing it just helps you sleep better at night, but that's not the real way to do it, and I felt like it was just fake. It's not the way I planned on it the whole year.
I love making situations bigger than what they are even bigger, because that pressure to me makes me better. Is it uncomfortable? Yeah. Is it easier for me to think in the way that — to minimize the situation, to feel better about it? Yeah, it definitely makes me more comfortable. Let me tell you, I felt like I had a 10,000-pound gorilla on my shoulders.
It's tough. Like, I felt the pressure. Don't get me wrong. But you've got to learn to love it because it's right around the corner from having a moment like this.
It's been said all season long how people and drivers feel about their car. You won the Clash, and now you end the season as the champion, this current car. How will you look back at the season knowing all the challenges that came with it?
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, I think everyone can probably agree it's the most challenging year and unexpected year from a lot of ways. So many different winners, for one. I didn't see that one coming.
The lack of consistency throughout the field, hard to really click off a bunch of top 5s and a bunch of wins. The teams that were strong weren't strong for super long before someone else would figure something out, and just the unexpected pieces that come along with it, whether it's the pit stops, the strategy, the way the races play out.
Boy, this year was an adventure, to say the least amount.
To think about how many things have changed from Phoenix in the spring to now, boy, we're so much smarter with this race car now. It's just kind of crazy to think about it all.
Yeah, it was a tough grind of a year, and a lot of times you just felt lost. A lot of times. The only thing that helped me is I realized that everyone else was lost with me. That's one way to stay confident is when you know everyone else is lost, too.
And you being from Connecticut, what would be something you would tell those young aspiring competitors from the New England area that want to do this?
JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, it's neat to think about where I came from, at Silver City Quarter Midget Club in Meriden, Connecticut, getting to go up there earlier this year, they have the Grands there, and to see all the kids there and just the memories come rushing back of everything that was there and the fun that it was. Racing with your — I was out there with my dad and just having a good time.
There's just nothing like it. You probably don't appreciate it enough when you're a kid.
I always try to tell the kids that you should never take for granted the moment that you get to drive a car at its absolute limit because you don't know how long you get to do that, and it's special.
I always tell the parents that make sure it's fun at that level because that's what it's about. It's about having fun and competing as a kid. You don't have to add all the pressure and make it a job.
That's one thing I always think about kids racing these days, if you take it too serious, you're going to have your whole life to make it serious. At this level it's a job, and the only thing that's fun is when you win, and that's what it is.
So there's nothing like those moments and the dreams that you have, right? This was my dream. I'm sitting here living my dream. How awesome is that. You think about it, I wanted to be a Cup champion, and sounded kind of funny when I went to school in Connecticut and no one else raced in class, and it was just me. And I brought trophies to show-and-tell, and they're like, What the heck are you doing? Quarter Midget, what the heck does that even mean?
I had that dream. Maybe I was the odd one in the class, but this was it. I loved cars. I loved racing and I loved winning.
I just kept chasing my dream with all the great people around me, teaching me and learning lessons and a lot of commitment from my family, and look at us now. Kinda neat.
Just wanted to ask you about your leadership in the sport. It seems like you've really, especially the last couple years, taken a proactive stance on trying to be a voice within the drivers' group and within NASCAR. You're going on Sirius every week for your time. How do you see that evolving for you now? At least it used to feel like the champion has a bigger platform. I don't know if Larson and Elliott wanted to use it as much, but you have that now for yourself. How do you intend to go with that?
JOEY LOGANO: I have a few thoughts in mind. I don't know if I should share them quite yet, but it is something I think about, to that point. You think of being a champion of the sport, you're representing the sport. That's a huge task at hand.
I don't take it lightly, and I want to make the most of it because I care about us, all of us. This is all of our livelihoods, and it's our job to make it better than it was the last generation.
To me I think of the guys that raced before us and think about what they grew our sport into. It wasn't from just driving in circles all day long and ending in the same place. That's pretty pointless when you think of it that way.
But when you can really grow an industry together and have a part of that — like I don't work for NASCAR, but I have a voice and I have opinions and I care about whether it's the media or the fan experience or the drivers making sure that things are safe and working together with that group, the integrity of competition out there. Those are things I think about.
This is important. We've got to hold true to what put us here but also not be too scared to grow and try new things.
When you think of our sport right now, we're definitely trying new things, new car, new tracks, and you look at the Clash and how big of a success that was. You think of — gee, it's been a long time since we had this championship format. But boy, has it brought some drama. People tune in and watch it because just crazy things happen. You can never call the playoffs now, and that's because a group got together and came up with this awesome system. This stressful system.
There's a lot of things that you do. You get to sit on the board of the Hall of Fame induction group that helps vote and persuade people on who should be in next year. I look forward to that more this time now that I know what's going on there and how it works.
Yeah, there's a few people on my mind that I think deserve to be in there, and I plan to voice my opinion on that when I get there.
Again, you think of things like that, I have the opportunity to take advantage of, and I should. I should. I've been here long enough. I've seen a lot of great things, and we've grown a lot together as a group.
We should celebrate that, for one, but we should always keep looking for better.
THE MODERATOR: Joey, congratulations on winning your second championship, and go enjoy the rest of the night.


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WSOY increases its holding in Polish e-learning company
Sanoma Group Stock Exchange Releases
SanomaWSOY's publishing sector, Werner Söderström Corporation (WSOY), has increased its holding in the Polish company, Young Digital Poland S.A. (YDP), from 29.07% to 49% (44.6% of voting rights). The parties have also agreed that WSOY will have an option to acquire a majority holding in YDP as of the beginning of 2004.
WSOY's investment will support YDP's further growth and WSOY's digital learning environment and technology development projects, and the potential to extend their reach internationally. The move will also help strengthen cooperation in digital content production process and distribution system development work between WSOY's various e-learning and e-training units (eWSOY, Educational Materials, Docendo Group, and YDP).
Young Digital Poland, based in Gdansk, is Poland's leading producer of learning-related multimedia products and a specialist in digital learning environments, particularly language training CD-ROMs and Internet applications. The company's products have been localised for a number of national markets in Central Europe and the Nordic region. YDP has focused a significant proportion of its development efforts on its iSchool project, to produce digital learning materials on key school subjects. These materials are already in use in grades 3 to 6 in Polish schools.
Founded in 1990, YDP had net sales of FIM 26.8 million (unaudited) in 2000 and employs an average of 120 people. The company is committed to achieving a strong market position in Europe with its products. Within WSOY, YDP forms part of eWSOY, responsible for coordinating WSOY's learning portal, consumer multimedia publishing, and WSOY's 25% holding in Everscreen Mediateam Oy.


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HR 1000 -- 04/08/97
Help Site Map
H.R. 1000 - To Require States to Establish a System to Prevent Prisoners from
Being Considered Part of Any Household under the Food Stamp Act
(Goodlatte (R) VA and two others)
The Administration supports the goal of H.R. 1000 -- identifying ineligible Food Stamp recipients and terminating their benefits -- and has no objection to House passage of the bill. The Administration will work in the Senate to amend H.R. 1000 to ensure that the bill achieves its goal in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible.
Pay-As-You-Go Scoring
H.R. 1000 would affect direct spending; therefore, it is subject to the pay-as-you-go requirement of the Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act of 1990. OMB's scoring estimate of the bill is under development.
The Budget | Legislative Information | Management Reform/GPRA | Grants Management
Financial Management | Procurement Policy | Information & Regulatory Policy
Contact the White House Web Master


text:
Memorandum of Understanding concerning Conservation Measures for the Slender-billed Curlew
How to become a Signatory
MoU Text
In early 1996, the CMS Secretariat produced and distributed a status report on this endangered species. The CMS Secretariat and BirdLife International have created a Slender-billed Curlew Working Group jointly, with the participation of many shorebird experts and representatives of all Range States. Birdlife International coordinates the working group and CMS has provided funds to support it.
The CMS Secretariat has also undertaken efforts to encourage support-projects for this species in several of the Range States, and maintains close contact with various organisations, scientific institutions and national authorities already involved in such action, including BirdLife International, the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Science, the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (C.I.C.) and the foundation Euronatur.
Surveys to locate breeding grounds, as well as migration stopover and wintering sites of the Slender-billed curlew are carried out with CMS financial support, the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA), the European Union´s "LIFE Programme" and other sources. Several expeditions were made to West Siberia, Iran and Morocco, however neither nesting sites nor wintering places were discovered.
Conservation activities have already been undertaken or are under way in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Russian Federation, Ukraine and Iran.
According to the data available at present the population status of the Slender-billed curlew may have stabilized at a low level. Monitoring and conservation measures still remain essential however.


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Q: Recompiling the RTL - if possible, then how? I have this craving to do some experiments with modifying the underbelly of the Delphi run time library (RTL), system.pas and the likes... It is possible or not?
I'm very fond of challenges like "yes, but you'll have to provide custom .obj files for some assembler wizardry because they were never distributed with the official Delphi source". Fine with me, I just want to know.
I want to do this experiment with Delphi 7, but inside information on any other version is fine. It is one of the perks of being with a company that worked with Delphi since the Stone Age.
(I always figured this to be one of those RTFM questions, with the answer being a resounding "NO!", but for some reason google won't confirm it.)

A: You can recompile the RTL like any other unit.
For System.pas you must use the command line compiler.
For instance, here is a working batch file content (there is some not well documented command line switches):
del *.dcu /s
"c:\program files\borland\delphi7\bin\dcc32.exe" -O+ -Q -M -Y -Z -$D+ System.pas

This will recompile System.pas and SysInit.pas (both lowest level RTL files).
But in order to use your recreated dcu files, you'll have to put the folder containing the updated dcu files into the first position of your IDE: for instance, in Delphi 7 it's Option / Environment Options / Library, then put your folder FIRST in both "Libary path" and "Browsing path" field.
And it's perhaps worth deleting the original .dcu files in your Delphi installation directory.
But be sure you won't change the "interface" part of the unit, or you'll have troubles with compiling with other not modified units of the RTL (or third-party components). You can change the "implementation" part, apply fixes or rewrite some part for speed or such, but don't change the "interface" part to avoid any linking error.
Always make a backup of the original .pas and .dcu files which you are changing. And it's a good idea to make some automated compilation test, so that you could be sure that your modifications of the RTL won't add any regression.
We made such a RTL recompilation for our Enhanced Run Time Library for better speed of low-level RTL functions (mostly System.pas and SysUtils.pas). Designed for Delphi 7 and 2007. For more recent Delphi version, you still can use the same principle.

A: You can only recompile the RTL from the command-line. There should be a makefile in the RTL source directory of your installation. It is designed to be used with the make.exe command-line utility which should be in the "bin" folder of your installation. I would recommend you copy the relevant sources to a separate location for experimentation. I must caution you that the System unit is tightly coupled with the compiler which expects many functions to have a specific name and have particular parameter lists, if any are even declared. Many RTL "helper" functions don't have any formally declared parameters, yet expect parameters to be passed in a certain fashion.
Another bit of caution is changing the interface declarations of certain classes, functions or types. Doing so may cause serious incompatibilities with existing DCU files and components. For this reason you must be very careful when intermixing DCU files from the included RTL or third-party components with your custom modified versions. I would suggest you start by only making implementation section changes only before venturing into the mine-field of interface breaking changes.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Prof. PhDr. Peter ŽEŇUCH, DrSc. (1971)
Leading Research Fellow
peter.zenuch@savba.sk
Peter Žeňuch deals with the research of the linguistic, cultural and historical development of Cyrillic monuments in Slovak linguistic and cultural milieu, the application of Church Slavic and the Byzantine-Slavic tradition, culture and rite in Slovakia and in Carpathian area; the linguistic and historical-religious relations between Slavic East and West and also Slovak-Ukrainian and Slovak-Ruthenian cutural-historical and linguistic relations.
In 2003-2005 and 2010, he acquired the science scholarship of Alexander von Humboldt in Germany (Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung). During these two research stays in Patristic Commission of Westphalian Academy of Sciences (Patristische Kommission der Akademie der Wissenschaft von NRW) in Bonn also worked on projects Katalog der kyrillischen paraliturgischen Lieder unde ihre Varianten and Kyrillische Quellen der byzantinisch-slawischen Tradition im Karpatenraum.
P. Žeňuch has been a member of the Slovak Committee of Slavists since 1997. In 2001-2006, he functioned as a Secretary of the Slovak Committee of Slavists. He has been chairman of the Slovak Committee of Slavists since February 2, 2006 and also a member of the International Committee of Slavists and the Presidium of the International Committee of Slavists.
In 2003-2006, Peter Žeňuch functioned at Jan Stanislav Institute of Slavistics SAS as a deputy director and he has been a director of the Institute since July 1, 2006. Since 2012, he has been an editor-in-chief of the journal Slavica Slovaca and he is also founder and member of an editorial board of the international scientific edition Monumenta byzantino-slavica et latina Slovaciae that has been publishing in collaboration with the Pontifical Oriental Institute (Pontificio Istituto Orientale) in Rome since 2003. Since 2015, Peter Žeňuch has been a member of an editorial board of two foreign periodical publications Krakowsko-Wileńskie Studia Slawistyczne and Славянский альманах.
In 2002-2008, P. Žeňuch worked as a member of VEGA Commission for sciences of arts, aesthetics and linguistics. He is a member of Scientific Board of the Faculty of Arts, Constantine the Phiosopher University in Nitra and a member of Attestation Commission for periodical attestations of scientists of FF UKF in Nitra. In 2001-2010, functioned as a member of common departmental commission of doctoral studies in the discipline 73-0-9 Slavistics - Slavic languages. Since 2009, he has been a member of common departmental commission of doctoral studies in the discipline 2.1.23 Theory of literature and History of specific national literatures and since 2010, in the discipline 2.1.27 Slovak language and literature at the Faculty of Arts of Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. Since July 1, 2010,he has been working as a chairman of Commission for doctoral dissertatins defense (DrSc.) "ad hoc" for Arts - philological arts in the discipline 060207 - Slavic languages; he is also a member of standing committee for doctoral dissertations defense (DrSc.) in the discipline Literary science - 060406; Theory and History of the Slovak literature - 060407; Slavistics - Slavic literatures - 060408 and Theory and History of specific national literatures - 060409. Since 2009, he has been a member of Board for science, education and culture at the Conference of Slovak Bishops, a member of Central Language Board, consultative body of minister of culture SR in the field of national language and since 2013, also a member of Committee for Art of Council of the Government of the Slovak Republic for culture.
P. Žeňuch from winter semester of school year 2007/2008 till the year 2012, functioned as an external member of the Department of Culturology of the Faculty of Arts, Constantine the Philosopher in Nitra. He lectured and led the seminars in the cycle of Bilingual culture of Ethnicies. From September 1, 2006 till August 31, 2011, was also a full member of the Institute of Slavistics of the Faculty of Arts of the Masaryk University in Brno and also functioned as a chairman of the Department of Paleoslavistics and Old Church Slavic. At the Faculty of Arts of the Masaryk university in Brno lectured seminars of universal basis in Slavistics for Bachelor and Master study: Slavic languages from a diachronic perspective and Old Church Slavic and led the series of lectures on Byzantine culture and interconfessional and interethnic processes in the Carpathian area. He was also an internal member of Board Commission for a doctoral studies in Paleoslovenistics and Slavic languages at the Masaryk University in Brno and he is also a chairman of the Commission for the defense of a rigorous thesis in the field of study Slovak language and literature.
He has been a member of the Executive Board of the authors of scientific literature since 2000 and a member of the International hymnologic society Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Hymnologie e. V. In 2007, he has become a member of cultural and scientific community Gli amici del PIO that is established at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. He has functioned also as an eternal member of the Historical Institute of the Catholic University in Ruzomberok since 2008.
The prize of Slovak Academy of Sciences in valuation of young researches for scientific research work (2003).
The prize of SAS Presidium for the 1st place in the competition of young researches for the best publication on the 50th anniversary of SAS (2003).
Honourable mention in prizegiving Researcher of the Year SR 2006 for publication Cyrillic paraliturgical songs - Kyrillische paraliturgische Lieder (2007).
Golden Medal on the occasion of 60th anniversary of Slovak Academy of Sciences (2013).
Prize of the Ministry of Culture of Bulgarian Republic awarded by Vladimir Penev, the Culture Minister of Bulgarian Republic on the occasion of Admission Day of Bulgarian Republic – May 24, Day of Bulgarian Edification, Culture and Slavic Literature for the contribution to the development and popularization of Bulgarian Culture (2013).
Commemorative medal of the Faculty of Theology of Trnava University on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Theological Institute of Saint Aloysius of Society of Jesus in Slovakia was awarded by Vice-Chancellor together with Dean of the Faculty of Theology of Trnava University (2016).
Bibliography is available in Slovak version.


SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, Apr. 5 (Korea Bizwire) – Cambridge Global Payments, a leading provider of integrated cross-border payment services and risk management solutions, today announced a partnership with Spotcap, an innovative business lender which provides online credit lines and business loans to micro, small, and medium sized businesses. The partnership is a unique fintech collaboration in Australia and will significantly increase both companies' market position to competitively deliver new financing and payments solutions.
"As the business landscape continues to evolve and market volatility heightens, more companies are looking for new financing options as well as trusted solutions to mitigate FX exposures," said Tim Connors, Managing Director – APAC, Cambridge Global Payments. "By partnering with Spotcap, we are providing a new and holistic approach that solves each company's unique business needs — from managing cash flow to executing payments. Leveraging our innovative technologies means that more companies can focus on accelerating their core business, without worrying about financing and complex transactions," said Connors.
According to the Australian Bureau Statistics, access to finance is the number one barrier to innovation for Australian businesses and the third largest barrier to general business activity. Spotcap's credit scoring technology provides fast and flexible finance to small and medium sized businesses to stimulate growth. However, subsequent hurdles such as navigating cross-border payments still exist. Cambridge's award-winning technology provides a seamless and integrated process that eliminates the intricacies of such payments.
"While access to finance is a key obstacle to growth for small and medium sized businesses we know that challenges exist even after financing is made available," said Lachlan Heussler, Managing Director, Spotcap Australia. "We are proud to partner with Cambridge to provide a full service financial offering to small and medium sized businesses," said Heussler.
Spotcap enables small business owners to grow their business by providing fast and flexible financing. The company has developed a sophisticated and dynamic decision process assessing the real-time performance of businesses to grant short term credit lines and loans. Lachlan Heussler heads the Australian operations. The global team — currently consisting of 75 credit and online experts — is expanding its operations geographically. Read more about Spotcap: www.spotcap.com.au.


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Kabeir And The Marids
Master Moses & The Saudadi Spirits
Master Moses' Homecoming
Yaron's Lyre
Lilith & Agaliarept
The Release of the Anatel
Author's News
Anton's Stories
Black Women's Voices
Apollo Meets The Deep State
A Fabrication of Racism
Never Underestimate The Predictability Of Stupidity
Why I May Never Vote Democrat
White Privilege & American Exceptionalism: Under Construction
DNC Harassment
Naïve Westerners
Balfour Declaration
Graham Central: Guns, Students & Lies
Graham Central High (Dr. Golden)
Men Djinn & Angels Theory
Men, Djinn, & Angel Theory: In the beginning
Amatrix Angels: Men, Djinn & Angels Theory
Men, Djinn & Angel Theory: Human Energy
The Paranormal Genre
The Power of Symbolism
Occult Science
What Truths are Hidden in Myths?
Abraham, Ishmael & Isaac
I was just barely twenty-years old when I caught the paranormal fever. It started with a movie; I don't remember the title, but it dealt with an Angel that came to earth for some mission and fell in love with a woman. Sense then, I've been drawn to similar books and movies until perhaps five years ago when they started to boar and annoy me. It may have been the Twilight series that did it for me as the story line seemed to get out of hand. I did like the beginning of the series, as it was intriguing and different: Vampires trying to co-exist with people. True Blood, the HBO series, was equally intriguing for a while. But then, the stories all seemed to have the same basic story lines that I broke down into two categories.
The Love story: These stories, mostly written by female authors, seem to lose an interesting story line in an abrupt or slowly materializing romance. The innocent, beautiful girl causes the powerful vampire or angel to throw everything to the wind in order to obtain her love. If not that, the powerful supernatural being is on a quest to find his lost love. These stories usually have nice action that kept me interested, but then, often became sappy. An example of this is Fallen, by Lauren Kate. I was caught up in it for half of the story until – you guested it – it became sappy. Here is a description of the story from Good Reads.
17-year-old Lucinda falls in love with a gorgeous, intelligent boy, Daniel, at her new school, the grim, foreboding Sword & Cross . . . only to find out that Daniel is a fallen angel, and that they have spent lifetimes finding and losing one another as good & evil forces plot to keep them apart.
The Demons of Doom. These story lines are usually written by male authors. They involve Biblical angelic or demonic characters by name and not so much by theological personality descriptions. These stories usually fail to take into consideration the idea that in theology, various demons are believed to have been bound or imprisoned until the end of time. Demons like Azazel and Asmodeus, according to religious texts and dogma, have been taken away from our world forever. Yet Azazel, is a very popular character that authors seem to always pull out of his eternal prison. In addition to the creative and theological contradictions, many writers paint Hell as a living quarter for demons. Hell is where they live? I thought it was a place for punishment, but many authors like to give these demons power that allow them to come from the fiery pit, and in some cases, they are sent to earth by the devil himself – who, according to theology and religious dogma, won't see Hell's fire until the end of time. Still, these writers like to make the devil the ruler of Hell as Hades rules the underworld in Greek mythology. In the end, just as the love story plot lines become sappy, the Demons of Doom plot lines become too simplistic. The demons have come to destroy mankind and wreak unprecedented havoc on the universe simply because they are evil. These story lines often lack complexity in the demonic characters and if I'm watching the movie, I'm only waiting for the next fight scene. Take for example the film NEPHILIM. Here is a description from IMDb
<strong>NEPHILIM begins with the first signs of warfare evolving between good and evil. Set in modern times, two archangels, an atypical priest, an ex-homicide detective and a resurrected spirit form an unlikely alliance to unite against an insurgence of fallen angels and the termination of free will. It is written that the final battle is destined when the seeds for the race of Nephilim were planted by Beshwa, the first fallen angel to mate with humans during the ancient days on earth. Now, Father Markus must lead the battle against Azazel, a fallen angel who plans to create a new race of Nephilim. If born, the new race will prevail over all mortals and wreak unmitigated havoc and unstoppable evil. Indeed, with the birth of the Nephilim, a final battle between good and evil is set to begin.
What both types of paranormal stories have in common is an over-humanization of the supernatural. I believe the paranormal genre tends to put too much human emotion into the supernatural characters without answering some basic questions. Why would an angel love a mortal so much that he gives up everything? How does an immortal throw away all reasoning and logic to blindly pursue a selfish goal? Why does evil exist? Are demons out to destroy mankind just for the sake of doing so with no other reason aside from their evil nature?
When I write my paranormal fictions – usually based on angels and demons (djinn), I try to find an original angle that answers the above questions. What my goal is with the Men Djinn and Angels series is to connect theology, science, history and creativity in a thought provoking way that tells an interesting and entertaining story. In future books,I hope to show that demons and angels are different from people by de-humanizing them and present a less visited view of mankind through the eyes of the supernatural. I don't know if it works, but so far, I like what I have done.


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Hemiolas, Parallel Fourths, Extended Harmonies, and More -- all in a tiny snippet from Newsies
Disney music can be SO USEFUL for theory teachers!
Even a tiny snippet, like this one from Newsies (name that tune?), can help us teach our students so much:
- simple/compound meter
- hemiola
- transposition
- extended harmony / added dissonance
- parallel intervals
- blue notes
- motifs
- syncopation
Personally, I'm excited to have an alternative to Bernstein's "America" (from West Side Story) when teaching about hemiola effects! And that's just scratching the surface of what Disney music can do for our teaching.
p.s. If you'd like to support my blog, I invite you to buy me a "cup of tea" over at http://Ko-Fi.com/DisneyMusicTheory…. I'm currently raising money to buy more songbooks (Frozen, Moana, Brave). This will help me help you find even more useful ways of using Disney music to teach music theory!
Let's Talk About Modal Harmony - Disney Style! (Days 4-5)
Well, well, well. I had SO many ideas yesterday, that I didn't get around to posting ANY of them!
So I guess I'll just have to do a double post today. :-)
And since the last few posts have mostly discussed the Lydian mode, I figured I'd spend today writing about two other modes, which are rarely discussed in music theory classes: the major blues and the Mixolydian b6.
The Major Blues in "Carryin' the Banner" (Newsies)
One of the modes that rarely gets discussed in music theory classrooms (because racism) is the blues mode. As the name suggests, it originated with the blues genre in African-American music and then later entered the jazz repertoire along with all the other modes we've been discussing (plus even more - jazz is a galaxy of modes).
Alan Menken's score for the 1992 film Newsies uses the blues mode extensively, setting the scene in early 1900s New York City and characterizing the newspaper-selling orphans as poor, emotionally broken, and transgressive. By contrast, he used the major mode for more "innocent" characters, like mothers and nuns. It's important to acknowledge the racist underpinnings of Western musical culture, which associates a "white" mode like major with innocence and a "black" mode like the blues with transgression, even if this blog isn't the space to dive into that discussion at length. That's why modal contrasts like this are used by film composers, and it's why audiences pick up on them, even if neither the composer nor the audience is necessarily aware of the racist undercurrent driving their musical experience.
Anyway, there are two primary blues scales: the major blues and the minor blues. Since Menken used the major blues in Newsies, that's the one I'll focus on in this blog post.
The major blues scale is constructed like this:
1. Start with a major scale.
2. Grab five of those notes - 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 - to create a "major pentatonic scale."
3. Then add a sixth note - the "blue note" - which is a half-step lower than scale degree 3.
In Newsies, the opening song's verses use a D major blues scale, with a jazzy accompaniment that breaks all the rules of classical music theory. Here's the melody, with the scale degrees labeled and the "blue notes" color-coded:
Things get really interesting, though, in the bridge section. After several verses and choruses featuring the rambunctious newsies singing their energetic, syncopated blues, we suddenly hear a group of nuns solemnly singing in major about Jesus. (Hollywood is as Christian-centric as it is white-centric, but again, that's another discussion.) Then one of the kids' mothers sings the same major-mode melody about how terrible it is that her son ran away to join the newsies, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME the newsies sing their syncopated blues tunes. This contrast is especially poignant in the 2nd measure of the sheet music excerpt below, where the mother is singing F# (scale degree 3 in D Major) at exactly the same moment that the kids sing an F-natural (the "blue" note in D Major Blues):
This is an interesting moment of "polymodality" – having two different modes going simultaneously. But it's also a dramatic moment: the polymodal effect here is not just a stylistic thing, but even more so a way of dramatizing the split between a God-fearing mother and her rebellious, runaway child.
If you'd like to hear an alternate interpretation of the modal harmony in this song, check out Hunter Farris's podcast episode about it. It's also an interesting, if very different, take on both the harmony and its dramatic implications.
Mixolydian b6 (aka "the Wonder Mode")
in Hunchback of Notre Dame
I've gotten so many requests to analyze music from Hunchback of Notre Dame, especially from a Twitter follower of mine named Jeff Wilcox. So.... this one's for you, Jeff! ;-)
Legendary music theory YouTuber Jake Lizzio has called the Mixolydian b6 scale "the wonder scale," because it's often used in popular music and film music to evoke feelings of, well, wonder. It's exactly the same as the standard Mixolydian mode, but with scale degree 6 lowered by a half step:
But what makes this "Wonder Scale" so... wondrous?
How is this scale different from all other scales?
As Lizzio explains in his YouTube video, the first half of the Mixolydian b6 scale is exactly the same as major, while the second half is exactly the same as minor. It's like if the happy major mode and the sad minor mode had a baby and exactly half of each parent mode's genes ended up in the baby. That baby would be the bittersweet Mixolydian b6 - "The Wonder Scale."
What's cool about this mode is that it has a major I chord but a minor IV chord. None of the other modes we've looked at are like this. Not the major or the minor; not the Lydian, the Phrygian, or the regular Mixolydian. Not Aeolian, not Ionian, not Dorian, not Locrian, and not the Major Blues.
The Mixolydian b6 is totally unique among all of these modes by having a major I and minor IV.
Alan Menken takes advantage of this unique characteristic in Quasimodo's dreamy I-want song, "Out There." Cooped up in the bell tower for most of his life, his physical deformations hidden from the ablist public, Quasimodo dreams of what it would be like to move from his shadowy hiding place to the bright, sunny village square, even if just for a single day. And he sings this in the bittersweet "wonder" mode, rocking back and forth between major I and minor IV, evoking both the uniqueness of this mode and the swinging of his bells:
So this concludes Modal Harmony Week over here at Disney Music Theory! I hope you enjoyed it, learned a bit, and are as excited as I am to continue diving into the magical world of Disney. :-)
History of Disney Music in 14 Minutes
To pass the time during my cancer treatment, I did a live stream on Twitter about the history of Disney music. Why not, right? :-)
Alan Menken Loves 3rds!
Pop quiz! What's Alan Menken's favorite interval?
Answer: I don't know, but 3rds show up ALL over his Disney soundtracks!
He uses them in ostinatos, sequences, free-flowing melodies, emphatic gestures... have a listen to the examples in this video, and then read on to learn more!
Ostinatos establish a mood and anticipate motion.
Menken uses 3rds-based ostinatos to establish moods and anticipate motion. Ostinatos, in case you don't know, are musical patterns that repeat themselves over and over and over. For this reason, they both ground us in a particular sound-world and build up suspense over when, and how, the music will change.
In Newsies, the syncopations and brass orchestration of a 3rds-based ostinato set the movie in jazzy NYC, in a bustling orphanage where the newsies long for adventure.
In The Little Mermaid, a 3rds-based ostinato is played smoothly and evenly by sweet violins, creating an aura of peace and satisfaction as Ariel lies down to sleep. What will tomorrow bring? We'll find out tomorrow; in the meantime, she basks in her happiness.
In Aladdin, the end-of-bar accents, abrupt rests, and flurries of sixteenth notes in this 3rds-based ostinato create anxiety. Trapped by the guards, unable to escape, he prepares himself to jump for his life, colorfully depicted by a falling glissando.
Here are those same examples in sheet music format:
Sequences create movement and anticipate arrival.
Menken uses 3rds-based sequences to create motion and anticipate arrival. Sequences are like ostinatos, but each time the pattern repeats it's a little bit higher or lower than the time before... like climbing on rungs in a ladder.
In Hunchback of Notre Dame, for example, the villainous Frollo sings a descending sequence of 3rds as his soul descends into Hell.
In The Little Mermaid, by contrast, Ariel sings an ascending sequence of 3rds as the sea witch, Ursula, rips her voice up and out of her throat.
Isn't Disney just lovely for children? Here are those same examples in sheet music format:
Free-flowing melodies are more flexible than ostinatos and sequences.
The challenge with ostinatos and sequences is that they're structurally very rigid. But that's precisely where they get their power: they're incredible at establishing moods and carrying the music in clear directions.
But Alan Menken also often uses thirds to create his own, free-flowing melodies, such as the following gruesome duet from Hunchback and snazzy, finger-snapping bridge from Newsies.
In the Hunchback duo, Frollo and Quasimodo sing short phrases based almost exclusively on thirds. Thirds are useful in duets, because they are very consonant, and they form the most basic building blocks of tonal chords. For these reasons, they're relatively easy to harmonize, which is a load off the shoulders when trying to blend two simultaneous melodies.
This snazzy bit from Newsies uses open thirds, omitting the middle note of each interval. Leaping around from syncopated note to syncopated note, this use of open thirds creates a feeling of lightness, joy, and happy-go-luckiness:
Of course, the happy-go-luckiness of these open thirds can be snuffed in a puff, when used for a rigid, choppy, ostinato such as that in Randy Newman's song "Friends on the Other Side" from Disney's The Princess and the Frog.
Good stuff. Here's the sheet music:
Emphatic gestures add "punch and pizzazz" (quoth the Genie...)
A lot of folks think that music is just about long, flowing melodies and longer, nerdier chord progressions. But that's missing the trees for the forest. Just as hand gestures and facial gestures add extra meaning to vocal speech, so, too, do itty-bitty musical gestures contribute to the flavor and meaning of a song.
Alan Menken is a MASTER of musical gestures, and one of these days I'll write about the multitude of juicy, delectable instrumental gestures in his background music for Aladdin. It's part of what makes the Aladdin soundtrack so expressive and engaging.
But for now, let's have a listen and look at a few 3rds-based gestures in his vocal melodies.
The choruses to "I See The Light" (Tangled) and "Go the Distance" (Hercules) are loud and exciting and triumphant and heroic... but if you want to know why that is, you have to look at the first three notes. Like a musical fist pump, each of these choruses begins with a sweeping gesture from scale degree 6 up to scale degree 1. They don't just break out into song; they leap into song.
In "Friend Like Me" (Aladdin), the Genie doesn't just sing; he laughs, he make funny sounds, he throws around little exclamations... and all these "extra" details are performed via charming musical gestures. Here are just a couple of them, which are based on the interval of a 3rd:
And here's the sheet music:
Putting it all together: "The Mob Song" from Beauty and the Beast
Ready to see something awesome? "The Mob Song" from Beauty and the Beast combines 3rds-based ostinatos, sequences, free-flowing melodies, and rhetorical gestures, all in a single verse!
- It begins with an emphatic gesture (a rising minor 3rd from scale degree 1 to 3), which immediately sets a dark and hurried tone.
- This gesture is then turned into an ostinato that wavers between two minor 3rds, one between scale degrees 1-3 and the other between scale degrees 2-4.
- The entire first phrase (emphatic gestures + ostinato) is then repeated a step higher, initiating a sequence.
- Then the same 3rds-based emphatic gesture is used as the basis for a free-flowing melody.
- The verse concludes with an ascending sequence based, again, on that same 3rds-based emphatic gesture.
Sooooooo cool!!
Putting it all together again: "Arabian Nights" from Aladdin
The opening song from "Aladdin" also combines 3rds-based ostinatos, sequences, free-flowing melodies, and rhetorical gestures. My analysis below only covers the first half of the song, but I should warn you that the second half is also heavily based on 3rds as well. My gosh, does Alan Menken LOVE to use 3rds, or what?!
Did you like this blog post? Help spread the word!
Disney Music Theory is a brand-new project, and I need YOUR help to spread the word about it! If you liked this blog post, please share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter using the "like" and "tweet" buttons below. If you're a teacher, please share it with your students (and vice-versa!)
In fact, here's a direct link to this entire essay on Twitter - why not just retweet it? :-)
I expanded this thread about @AIMenken's love of 3rds into a full-blown blog post. It's pretty epic! And I can't wait to hear what y'all think of it. □ ❤ □
Here's the link:https://t.co/F1uVUF5mhX#DisneyMusicTheory #musictheory #AlanMenken @Lyrikris10 @Lin_Manuel https://t.co/A3YvSfYQ4h
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) January 9, 2019
Rising and falling gestures
[THREAD] Everyone talks about chords, but music is also made of gestures. Just as hand gestures express ideas, so, too, do musical gestures. Here's a thread of examples from @Disney music!
#1: small, rising gestures often indicate confidence and excitement.#DisneyMusicTheory pic.twitter.com/1d7rKZaDIS
— Disney Music Theory (@DisneyMusTheory) November 28, 2018
#2: big, leaping gestures often express hopes and dreams. pic.twitter.com/avKyrAPYGA
#3: falling gestures often communicate loss, fear, and hopelessness. These examples are downward scales, decorated a bit for emotional punch. But you can have shorter gestures, too, like the drops on "Savages, savages!" in #Pocahontas and "What is wrong with me?" in #Moana. pic.twitter.com/FDON8iER9S
[4] Musical gestures don't just work in isolation, though. Later this week, I'll post another thread with examples of how musical gestures combine to tell stories and express emotional journeys in music from @Disney's #Frozen and #Tangled. Can't wait! This stuff is so cool! □
Composer: Alan Menken
Composer: Danny Elfman
Composer: Elton John
Composer: Frank Churchill
Composer: Kristen Anderson Lopez And Robert Lopez
Composer: Leigh Harline
Composer: Lin Manuel Miranda
Composer: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Composer: Mack David And Al Hoffman And Jerry Livingston
Composer: Matthew Wilder
Composer: Mel Leven
Composer: Michael Giacchino
Composer: Randy Newman
Movie: 101 Dalmatians
Movie: Aladdin
Movie: Beauty And The Beast
Movie: Cinderella
Movie: Coco
Movie: Dumbo
Movie: Frozen
Movie: Frozen 2
Movie: Hercules
Movie: Hunchback Of Notre Dame
Movie: Inside Out
Movie: Lion King
Movie: Little Mermaid
Movie: Moana
Movie: Mulan
Movie: Newsies
Movie: Nightmare Before Christmas
Movie: Pinocchio
Movie: Princess And The Frog
Movie: Snow White
Movie: Tangled
Movie: Toy Story 2
Show: PJ Masks
Song: It's A Small World After All
Theme: Anti-Semitism
Theme: Parks
Theme: Requests
Theme: Survey Analysis
Theme: Villains
Theory: Absolute Music
Theory: Chromaticism
Theory: Counterpoint
Theory: Foreshortening
Theory: Gestures
Theory: Harmony
Theory: Intervals
Theory: Meter
Theory: Modal Mixture
Theory: Modes
Theory: Modulation
Theory: Motifs
Theory: Neapolitan
Theory: Notation
Theory: Orchestration
Theory: Ostinatos
Theory: Performance Technique
Theory: Polymodality
Theory: Polyphonic Melodies
Theory: Production
Theory: Rhythm
Theory: Sequences
Theory: Silence
Theory: Timbre
Samantha Zerin has a PhD in historical musicology from New York University, and has taught music theory at NYU, Brown University, and the Borough of Manhattan Community College. She is also a composer and poet, and teaches private students. To learn more about Dr. Zerin and her work, you can visit her main website, www.CreativeShuli.com


Explícito A Conviction Podcast Review! And An (Informed) Maura Murray Case Update!
The panel reviews "Conviction" from Gimlet Media. It's a profile of a brash, self-assured private investigator who will go to any length to prove his client was set up by a crooked cop. Is he a champion of justice or a ... Más informaciones detrimental showboat?


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Home » Pierre Sikivie wins APS Sakurai Prize
Pierre Sikivie wins APS Sakurai Prize
Distinguished Professor Pierre Sikivie has been awarded the American Physical Society's (APS) 2020 J.J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Physics.
The Sakurai Prize has been awarded annually since 1984, usually for theoretical contributions made at an early stage in the recipient's research career. Pierre's prize citation reads "For seminal work recognizing the potential visibility of the invisible axion, devising novel methods to detect it, and for theoretical investigations of its cosmological implications."
The axion is an elementary particle whose existence was proposed in 1977 by Roberto Peccei and Helen Quinn (joint winners of the 2013 Sakurai Prize). It is postulated to have a very low mass and be extremely hard to detect using any of the fundamental forces of nature.
Pierre Sikivie's influential contributions to axion research began shortly after he joined UF as an Assistant Professor in 1981, and continue to this day. His work has brought much attention to axions as candidate constituents of the cold dark matter that is estimated to make up roughly 85% of the matter and 27% of the total energy in the universe. More than 20 experiments worldwide have sought, or are currently seeking, to detect axions using methods proposed by Pierre.
Congratulations Pierre!
Professor Pierre Sikivie receives a University of Florida research award from President Kent Fuchs and Provost Joe Glover.
Professor Pierre Sikivie pictured with his wife and Sakurai Prize Celebration Colloquium speaker, Michael Turner (University of Chicago).
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There are a lot of cat lovers who frequently say not to installing an over the door cat tree in their house. However, there are still others who prefer to have them anyways. If you are thinking of getting one yourself, then here are some facts that you should be aware of about having an over the door cat tree.
Having an over the door cat tree is probably the best solution if you have space related issues. If you are finding it hard to find a cat tree that can fit snuggly in your home, you don´t have to throw away any of your large furniture or do a massive spring cleaning just to create some space. An over the door cat tree allows you to create a space for your cat without having to ruin the space that you already have for yourself and your things.
Aside from not taking that much space, an over the door cat tree can be transferred to any doors in your house. Unlike the conventional cat tree, an over the door cat tree can be moved anywhere you like. Not only does it make things more convenient for you, it also makes it more convenient for your cat. If you decided that you installed the cat tree at the wrong door, then you can move it somewhere else.
Even though having an over the door cat tree sounds like a good idea overall, it still has its cons. One of the biggest cons is that you have to be very careful about using the door where the cat tree is installed. Aside from opening it the wrong way or installing the cat tree at the wrong side, you might also end up making your cats uncomfortable rather than relaxed if the door is used a lot.
This is why when it comes to installing an over the door cat tree, you have to be very cautious. You have to strategize everything carefully and you have to think of the worst thing that could happen to your cats and your door.


On October 19, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 5:08 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 011-139 of the White House Tapes.
Request for call to Lewis F. Powell, Jr.


Smartphone ownership has now reached 94 million – that's equal to 40% of the population.
59% of phone devices sold are smart phones, and that number is growing.
Android's market share has increased from 8% in September 2010 to 26.2%, while iPhone ownership has stayed at around 20%.
Meanwhile, RIM's share of the smartphone market plummeted between September 2010 and September 2011, from 81.8% to 33.9%.
The games market will grow from $50 billion to $115 billion by 2017. Mobile and social games will make up $100 billion of that, with console gaming shrinking from $35 billion to $15 billion, said Rob Unsworth of Digital Chocolate, citing the Evercore/Gartner Forecast.
Tequila's ARPPU is around £4-5, with a conversion rate of 8%.
Some of Papaya's Android games are seeing an ARPPU of $10 and a conversion rate of 15-20%.


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Srinagar, March 31: The court martial proceedings against Army Major Leetul Gogoi have been completed and he is likely to face reduction in seniority for fraternising with a local woman, Army sources said on Sunday.
Major Gogoi was in the centre of a controversy in 2017 when he created a human shield by tying a Kashmiri youth to the bonnet of his jeep to avoid attacks by stone pelting mobs during the discharge of duties in the Badgam district of Jammu and Kashmir.
Major Gogoi's driver, Sameer Malla, who facilitated the major's relationship with a local woman, also faced the court martial proceedings along with the officer.
"He is likely to be given a serious reprimand," sources said.
After completion of summary of evidence against Major Gogoi and his driver in February, followed by the initiation of court martial proceedings, the two men have been held guilty on two counts, "fraternising with a local woman in spite of instructions to the contrary and being away from the place of duty while in operational area".
Major Gogoi was posted with Rashtriya Rifles battalion to fight insurgency in J&K.
Police had detained the Major along with his driver and a local woman in 2018 when they came to a local hotel where the manager refused to give them a room to stay for the night.


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Q: Italic, bold and similar font types stopped working with CJKutf8 package I regularly have to type documents with a mix of English for the main body of the text and Chinese characters for headers, footnotes and similar parts of the document. Until a few days ago this was never a problem, but now I am trying to run latex on the following example:
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{CJKutf8}

\begin{document}

\begin{CJK*}{UTF8}{zhkai}
代数几何

\textbf{Latin text}
\clearpage
\end{CJK*}
\end{document}

and the text in latin characters always shows up as normal text. The same happens when I switch to italic, small caps or anything similar.

A: I am experiencing the same issue since I upgraded my Ubuntu. I build the following code with "pdflatex example.tex"
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{CJKutf8}

\begin{document}

\begin{CJK*}{UTF8}{min}
代数几何

\textbf{Bold text}
\clearpage
\end{CJK*}
\end{document}

And the text does not appear in bold. If I remove the CJK stuff,
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\textbf{Bold text}
\clearpage
\end{document}

And build again, then the text is bold.
EDIT: I fixed the issue by uninstalling and re-installing texlive, following these steps.