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Review of 'Scripture and Cosmology' by Kyle Greenwood
Kyle Greenwood, Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015). Paperback
The Lord by wisdom founded the earth,
by understanding he established the heavens;
by his knowledge the deeps broke open,
and the clouds drop down the dew.
Proverbs 3:19–20 express the who, what, and how of creation. Who? The Creator is "The Lord," that is, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What? He created "the earth," "the heavens," "the deeps," and the "clouds." And he did so expertly, with "wisdom," "understanding," and "knowledge."
These verses also express an ancient Near Eastern cosmology. Israel shared with its Egyptian, Syrian, and Mesopotamian neighbors a three-storied universe consisting of heaven, earth, and seas. Though there were variations in the details of these culture's cosmologies, the basic three-tiered structure was the same.
Modern people hold a very different cosmology than the ancients. We know, for example, that the earth revolves around the sun, not vice versa as the ancients believed. We know that the sun and the moon are not planets, as the ancients believed, and that there are more planets and planetary moons than the ancients could observe with the naked eye. Moreover, we know that our solar system is one among many in the Milky Way galaxy, which itself is one among many galaxies in an expanding universe.
The differences between ancient Near Eastern and modern cosmologies raise questions in the minds of Christians about "reading the Bible faithfully." Kyle Greenwood outlines both questions and answers in Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science. Greenwood is associate professor of Old Testament and Hebrew language at Colorado Christian University, whose Statement of Faith makes this declaration regarding the Bible: "We Believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God." Though readers of all perspectives will find Greenwood's presentation informative, Christian readers with a high view of Scripture will find it most helpful.
Scripture and Cosmology opens with a chapter about the importance of reading Scripture in context. In it, he states his book's thesis: "a high view of Scripture employs a hermeneutic that accommodates the biblical writers' immersion in their ancient, pre-Enlightenment cultural context. Therefore, as with other cultural matters, such as social customs and language, the biblical texts reflect that worldview in their written communications."
Part One consists of three chapters that outline the similarities (and differences) between the cosmologies of the ancient Near East (specifically Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia) and of Israel. Greenwood argues that both ANE and biblical texts assume a three-tiered universe consisting of the earth, the heavens, and the sea. He also contends that this three-tiered understanding of the cosmos serves as a better "guiding principle" for the Old Testament various creation accounts than does Genesis 1's seven-day formula.
Part Two consists of two chapters that describe how the Christian church dealt with the challenges to this three-tiered biblical cosmology posed by first Aristotelian cosmology and then Copernican cosmology. Whereas ancient Near East cosmology depicted the earth as "small, flat and round"—a disk, in other words, Aristotelian cosmology pictured it as a sphere. And whereas Ptolemaic cosmology put Earth at the center of the universe, with the sun, moon, and heavenly bodies revolving around it; Copernican cosmology put the sun at the center, with the heavenly bodies, including Earth, revolving around it. (Contemporary cosmologies understand that the cosmos is acentric; neither the sun nor the earth is the center.) What Greenwood writes about the Aristotelian challenge might be equally applied to Copernican challenge: "The most notable trait we see among the Aristotelian-era interpreters is the willingness to adapt their interpretation of Scripture in light of new understandings of the physical universe."
Part Three offers a theological rationale for this adaptation. Terming it "the doctrine of divine accommodation," Greenwood explains the rationale this way: "God condescends his language to the language of humanity. This is not to say that God is condescending but that he speaks down to the cognitive ability of his human audience." He offers this example: "Just as a father uses simple vocabulary and analogical language to communicate complex ideas to his children, so the heavenly Father accommodates his language to his children by speaking to his audience's mother tongue and also employing analogical language." Applied to biblical cosmology, accommodation entails that God speaks to Israel and its surrounding culture in terms of a three-tiered universe because that is what it believed. Were God revealing himself to our culture, he would accommodate himself to our cosmological speculations.
Over the centuries, accommodation has proved to be a fruitful line of thinking for Christians wrestling with the issues raised by a better scientific understanding of the physical universe. That doesn't mean it is problem free. One wag has defined accommodation as "the theory which states that God goes along with the commonly accepted story even though he really doesn't believe it." Accommodation assumes that we can neatly distinguish between what culture assumes about a given topic and what Scripture teaches about it. Christians largely agree that accommodation is a good strategy when the Copernican Revolution is on the table, but Christians vehemently disagree when evolution is. Perhaps this indicates that while accommodation is a good interpretive strategy, it doesn't necessarily decide all scientific cases.
Regardless, I commend Scripture and Cosmology for its in-depth look at the specific issue of biblical cosmology. It is well versed in the Bible and the texts of the ancient Near East, as well as cognizant of Scripture-science discussions throughout church history. And it is a thoughtful, irenic presentation of how to navigate the tensions between ancient cosmology and modern science.
P.S. If you found my review helpful, please vote "Yes" on my Amazon.com review page.
Review of 'The Man in the High Castle' by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle (Boston: Mariner Books, 2011). Paperback | Kindle
One night, with nothing better to do, I scrolled through Amazon Instant Video looking for something to watch. I came across The Man in the High Castle (an Amazon Original Series). The premise of the show is that the U.S.A. lost World War II and is now divided between the Germans on the East Coast and the Japanese on the West, with a small neutral zone along the Rocky Mountains. The pilot was well done, but it is the only episode released so far. Learning that the series was based on Philip K. Dick's novel of the same name, I ordered the book (from Amazon, of course) and started watching.
Three things: First, the show is nothing like the book. Second, the book is much better than the show. (In my experience, the book is always better than the movie or TV show, even when the latter is good.) Third, I am embarrassed to confess that it has taken me 46 years to read this author.
For those of you who are similarly uninformed, Philip K. Dick is a Hugo Award-winning science fiction author. (Indeed, he won the Hugo Award—science fiction's most prestigious—for The Man in the High Castle.) Even if you have not read his books or stories, you are probably familiar with them, for several have been turned into blockbuster films: Blade Runner (based on the novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall (based on the story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"), Minority Report (based on the story, "The Minority Report"), and The Adjustment Bureau (based on the story, "Adjustment Team").
But back to The Man in the High Castle. As noted above, the Axis Powers won World War II and divided the world between them. The Nazis completed the Holocaust, pushed the Slavs back into Asia, and perpetrated continent-wide genocide in Africa. They also developed their technological capabilities to such a degree that they are beginning to colonize Mars. Japan, by contrast, took control of the American West and the Latin American South. They have not developed their technological capabilities. Indeed, their culture is suffused with Buddhist mysticism, and—weirdly—a fanatical love for Americana. They are not as extremist as the Nazis, nor as powerful, but they are still clearly in control within their sphere of influence.
The Man in the High Castle centers on the interactions of several German, Japanese, and American characters. Unlike in the TV show, there is no revolution in the offing. There is plenty of intrigue, however, with espionage, assassination, and counterfeiting all playing a role. As I read it, the novel—if its narrative can be reduced to abstract ideas—is about authenticity, choice, and reality.
Who the characters are and who they present themselves to be are not identical. There's a lot of subterfuge and disguise (more emotional than physical). Key points in the novel turn on characters making choices to more closely align their self-presentation with their inward self. And there are moments—especially toward the end—when it's unclear what the reality of the situation is, whether reality itself depends on choices made. One of the subplots involves a character seeking out the author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, an alternate history novel in which the Allies defeat the Axis in World War II, though in a way unlike the historical ending of World War II. In other words, The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history with a subplot about an alternate history. The ending leaves open the question which alternate history is real within the world of the novel.
In some ways, this ambiguity makes for a dissatisfying ending to the book. In other ways, however, it leaves open possibilities for choice and action, which I think was the author's point. If you like neat story lines with clean endings, don't read The Man in the High Castle. If you're okay with thought-provoking ambiguity, however, take and read…
Review of 'The Concrete Blonde: A Harry Bosch Novel' by Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde: A Harry Bosch Novel (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1994). Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle
The Concrete Blonde is the third Michael Connelly novel to feature LAPD homicide detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch. It opens with Bosch shooting a naked, unarmed man named Norman Church. Church was a suspect in the "Dollmaker" serial killings case. After the shooting, forensics tied him to nine of the eleven killings. Nevertheless, Church's widow sought a civil judgment against Bosch and the LAPD and sued them in federal court.
As the trial gets underway, however, the LAPD receives a note written in the style of the Dollmaker which points them to the body of another woman. Her body bears the signature of the murderer's other victims. However, she was killed after Bosch shot Norman Church. This casts Church's guilt into doubt and throws a span into Bosch's legal defense. Connelly weaves these two strands together in a well-paced narrative that is part police procedural, part legal thriller.
I am a huge fan of mystery series, and Connelly is one of my favorite series writers, through both his Harry Bosch and Mickey Heller (aka, "Lincoln Lawyer") novels. The Concrete Blonde can be read independently of the series, but if you want to see Bosch's character develop, start with The Black Echo and work your way through the novels in order.
Review of 'A Christian Guide to the Classics' by Leland Ryken
Leland Ryken, A Christian Guide to the Classics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015). Paperback | Kindle
The more I watch television, the more I like books. The reason is not that there are few good television shows these days. On the contrary, television is experiencing something of a Golden Age, especially if you have cable or a streaming service.
The reason I like books more is because they have depth and require imagination. An actor must communicate in one take what an author can communicate over several pages. And the visual media makes decisions for you. Read Pride and Prejudice, and you can imagine Mr. Darby looking a number of different ways. Watch Pride and Prejudice (the PBS version preferably), and Mr. Darby will always look like Colin Firth.
So, books. But which books? Every reader has a preference, and mine tend to run toward mysteries and thrillers when it comes to pleasure reading. As a religion journalist, my professional reading—which I also enjoy—runs toward theology and ministry.
In A Christian Guide to the Classics, Leland Ryken makes a case for what used to be called "the Western canon." These are the books, essays, stories, and poems that have endured and been considered influential through the ages because of their literary excellence and ability to inspire. They evince different worldviews (pagan, Jewish, Christian, secular) and encompass many genres (history, novels, poems), but they bring people together into a grand, ongoing conversation about life in its manifold variety.
The Classics are, by nature, elitist, but they have a capacious elitism, one that can be entered into by any who take them up and read. Ryken doesn't quote her, but Maya Angelou's comment that "Shakespeare must be a black girl" is apropos. If a dead white man can express universal human longings that a poor black girl can embrace, then he has written a classic.
For Christians, of course, the Bible is the classic to read. As Ryken argues, however, reading the Bible is not an alternative to reading other classics. Rather, it can be read alongside those classics, with the proviso that as Christians, we read the Bible humbly because of its authority over us, whereas we read other classics critically, knowing that they can err and mislead. God's common grace is such that even in pagan texts that err, aspects of our common humanity come to light and find expression.
Ryken's introduction addresses three questions: the nature of the classics, their value, and how to read them. His answers are workmanlike and analytical. His prose is clear and precise, though not necessarily memorable. The book's back page contains a list of "Christian Guides to the Classics" that Ryken has penned on The Odyssey, Paradise Lost, Hamlet, The Scarlet Letter and other works. I have not read them, though I'm sure that they would make for helpful companions as you read those books.
I have this confidence because I took classes from Prof. Ryken when I matriculated at Wheaton College in the late 1980s. His workmanlike, analytical lectures helped me read literature in a different, better, more Christian way. Reading A Christian Guide was like a welcome return to his classroom, one that has encouraged me to get out my mystery/thriller rut and read the classics.
Review of 'The Volunteer Church' and 'Volunteering' by Leith Anderson and Jill Fox
Leith Anderson and Jill Fox, The Volunteer Church: Mobilizing Your Congregation for Growth and Effectiveness (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015). Paperback | Kindle
_____, Volunteering: A Guide to Serving in the Body of Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015). Paperback | Kindle
"At their core churches are volunteer organizations," write Leith Anderson and Jill Fox. The issue, then, is not whether a church has ministry volunteers but how well it mobilizes volunteers for ministry. The Volunteer Church offers guidance that will help church leaders:
effectively recruit and train volunteers;
build sustainable, long-lasting ministries led by volunteers;
encourage and maintain volunteers;
build volunteer teams;
and find the right ministry fit for volunteers.
Anderson and Fox were colleagues at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota—he as pastor, she as director of the Volunteer Development Ministry. In addition to being biblically sound, the advice they offer in this book is undergirded by pastoral experience.
If you are a pastor or church leader looking for help improving your volunteer ministry, this short book is a good place to start. The book's two appendixes—"Volunteer Development Training" and "Your Plan for Volunteer Development"—are especially helpful. They provide bullet points and discussion questions leaders can use to plan an effective volunteer development program.
Anderson and Fox's Volunteering is a companion to The Volunteer Church, written primarily to address the questions volunteers have about signing up for ministry in the local church. Chapter 2, "Finding Your Fit," is especially useful. It helps potential volunteers assess their spiritual gifts and talents and skills to more closely align who they are with what they do.
Review of 'The Great Detective' by Zach Dundas
Zach Dundas, The Great Detective: The Amazing Rise and Immortal Life of Sherlock Holmes (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015). Hardcover | Kindle
Arthur Conan Doyle published A Study in Scarlet in 1887. Nearly 130 years later, Sherlock Holmes and John H. Watson continue to attract followers. But while Conan Doyle's four novels and 56 short stories are canonical, the Sherlockian universe has expanded (with no end in sight) to include stage and screen adaptations, spinoff stories, and fan fiction.
The question is why. "Why have Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and the mysteries Conan Doyle challenged them to solve not only endured, but thrived?" Zach Dundas asks that question at the outset of The Great Detective. A "Sherlockian" since adolescence, Dundas' book-length answer is part memoir, part biography of Conan Doyle and history of his times, part literary criticism of the Holmes canon, and part ethnography of the consulting detective's fan base.
The result is a fascinating read, especially if—perhaps only if—you are a Sherlockian too, which I am. The reason Conan Doyle's stories endure is because he gave readers a memorable character (Holmes), a great relationship (Holmes and Watson), and a world that is at once both Victorian and universal.
A British soldier returns from Afghanistan to a London teeming with international intrigue and low crime and there meets a man who has the skill to navigate them both. That's how A Study in Scarlet begins. That's also how the BBC's Sherlock begins. Plus ça change… But it still works.
And that's why Holmes and Watson thrive.
Review of 'Unburdened: The Christian Leader's Path to Sexual Integrity' by Michael Todd Wilson
Michael Todd Wilson, Unburdened: The Christian Leader's Path to Sexual Integrity (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2015). Paperback
If you are a male Christian leader struggling with sexual temptation, I encourage you to read Unburdened today. It traces a path toward sexual integrity that you can begin to walk immediately. Michael Todd Wilson discusses topics such as
Risk factors that men generally and leaders particularly face when it comes to sexual temptation
The importance of adopting a grace-based rather than performance-driven approach to sexual integrity
Spiritual disciplines that move you toward sexual integrity, including: surrender, radical honesty, non-ministry God time, body maintenance, and intimate relationships
Whether your struggle involves pornography or inappropriate relationships, Unburdened will help you move toward "temptation-resistant transformation." Not temptation-free transformation, mind you. Temptation remains with us all till Christ perfects us. Even so, resisting sexual temptation can become a new normal.
Wilson includes three appendices: "Sexual Integrity Action Steps" (a checklist for the spiritual disciplines listed above), "Mentoring and Leading Other Men Along the Path," and "Additional Resources" (both in print and online). This is a welcome book on a topic that affects many, if not most, male Christian leaders.
Are You on the Wrong Side of History?
Next time you hear someone say, "You're on the wrong side of history," watch this video…
Review of 'Make Me: A Jack Reacher Novel' by Lee Child
Lee Child, Make Me: A Jack Reacher Novel (New York: Delacorte, 2015). Hardcover | Kindle
Reading fiction requires a willing suspension of disbelief. With Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels, this suspension usually comes easily. Child is a talented writer whose narrative pacing grabs your attention and drags you along with it until Reacher gets his man.
Unfortunately, I had a hard time suspending disbelief while reading Make Me, the twentieth novel in the Reacher series. The novel is a page-turner, which I read in its entirety on the day of publication. But unlike previous novels, I found myself increasingly skeptical of elements of the story.
For the story to work, we have to believe that Reacher—in his mid-50s and homeless for nearly two decades—has lost none of his vital powers, whether intellectual, physical, social, or whatever. We have to believe that he is able to roam the country without let or hindrance from law enforcement, despite having racked up a body count in the high two-digits. We have to believe that the violence and stress he has both suffered and inflicted have left no lasting marks on his body or psyche. And finally, we have to believe that Reacher has stumbled—yet again—into an enormity through pure happenstance.
We have to believe, in other words, what no one can believe.
Usually, Child drives the story forward so expertly that we go along with the make-believe. He doesn't do so in Make Me, however…at least not in my opinion. Reacher's reason for being on the scene is thin. The plot takes a while to develop. When it does, there are too many moving parts. In sum, Make Me is not the best of the Reacher novels. Child's formula simply didn't work for me this time.
It saddens me to write a negative review about the latest installment in what is easily one of the best long-running series in contemporary American fiction. I'd like to report a far more positive experience. But I can't.
Still, the good news is this: Reacher survives. He'll be back. And I'll be waiting to turn the pages once again…


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Acquisition Announcement
The Hilb Group Acquires Delaware-Based CNC Insurance Associates, Inc.
The Hilb Group Acquires Delaware-Based CNC Insurance Associates, Inc. https://hilbgroupma.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/aquisition-announcement.png 394 296 Hilb Group - Mid Atlantic Region Hilb Group - Mid Atlantic Region https://hilbgroupma.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/aquisition-announcement.png
Richmond, VA — October 17, 2017 — The Hilb Group, LLC (THG), a leading property & casualty insurance and employee benefits broker, announced today the acquisition of CNC Insurance Associates, Inc. (CNC). The transaction became effective October 1, 2017. CNC is THG's 38th acquisition since it was founded in 2009.
Founded in 1978, CNC provides property & casualty insurance solutions for businesses in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia. With its office location in Dover, Delaware, CNC is the first acquisition in the state for THG. Kevin Nemith, CNC's Managing Director, will continue to lead the agency's associates out of their existing location.
"The addition of CNC continues THG's national expansion and will further strengthen our presence in the Mid-Atlantic region" said Ricky Spiro, CEO of THG. "We are excited to welcome Kevin and his associates to our team."
"Joining THG will allow us to gain additional product and service offerings that will benefit our clients while continuing to deliver the exceptional, local service we are known for," said Kevin Nemith. "We look forward to furthering our success with this new partnership."
About the Hilb Group: The Hilb Group is a Top 50 middle market insurance agency headquartered in Richmond, Virginia and is a portfolio company of Boston-based private equity firm, Abry Partners. The Hilb Group seeks to grow through targeted acquisitions in the middle market insurance brokerage space.
The Hilb Group, LLC Acquires Insurance Solutions
The Hilb Group, LLC Adds Pfister Insurance, Inc.
The Hilb Group, LLC Acquires 360 Corporate Benefit Advisors
The Hilb Group, LLC Expands to Missouri Through Acquisition of The Keane Insurance Group, Inc.
The Hilb Group, LLC Acquires Summit Insurance Services, LLC
The Hilb Group Acquires Massachusetts-Based Mid-State Insurance Agency, Inc.
The Hilb Group Acquires BKC Insurance Agency, Expanding Midwest Operations

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Zero Dark Thirty: CIA hagiography, pernicious propaganda
admin 16 December 2012 General 2 Comments Email This Post
by Glenn Greenwald (Guardian)
I've now seen "Zero Dark Thirty". Before getting to that: the controversy triggered this week by my commentary on the debate over that film was one of the most ridiculous in which I've ever been involved. It was astounding to watch critics of what I wrote just pretend that I had simply invented or "guessed at" the only point of the film I discussed – that it falsely depicted torture as valuable in finding bin Laden – all while concealing from their readers the ample factual bases I cited: namely, the fact that countless writers, almost unanimously, categorically stated that the film showed exactly this (see here for a partial list of reviewers and commentators who made this factual statementdefinitively about the film – that it depicts torture as valuable in finding bin Laden – both before and after my column).
Of course it's permissible to comment on reviews that are written.That's why they're written – and why they're published before the film is released, in this case weeks before its release. I discussed the film's depiction of torture as valuable in finding bin Laden because I did not believe that the New York Times' Frank Bruni, the New Yorker's Dexter Filkins, New York's David Edelstein, CNN's Peter Bergen and all sorts of other commentators had simultaneously hallucinated or decided to fabricate on this key factual question.
That it's legitimate to opine on the factual claims (as opposed to the value judgments) of reviewers is not some exotic or idiosyncratic theory that I invented. All kinds of writers who had not seen the filmnonetheless similarly condemned this singular aspect of it based on this evidence, including:Andrew Sullivan, twice ("Bigelow constructs a movie upon a grotesque lie" and torture techniques "were not instrumental in capturing and killing Osama bin Laden – which is the premise of the movie"); Mother Jones' Adam Serwer ("The critical acclaim Zero Dark Thirty is already receiving suggests that it may do what Karl Rove could not have done with all the money in the world: embed in the popular imagination the efficacy, even the necessity, of torture"); NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen ("WTF is Kathryn Bigelow doing inserting torture into her film, Zero Dark Thirty, if it wasn't used to get Bin Laden?"); The Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky ("Can I just say that I am equally bothered, and indeed even more bothered, by the fact that the movie opens with 9-11. . . . According to reports, I haven't seen the film, so maybe it's handled well, that decisions [sic] seems to make the film automatically and definitionally a work of propaganda"), and so on.
None of us was "reviewing" the film but rather rebutting and condemning its false assertion that torture was critical in finding bin Laden. As Sullivan put it in yet another post about the film: "the mere facts about the movie, as reported by many viewers, do not require a review. They demand a rebuttal." Indeed (and all of that's independent of the primary point I examined – regarding critics who simultaneously acknowledge that the film falsely depicts torture as valuable yet still hail it as "great": an abstract discussion on the obligations of filmmakers that obviously is not dependent upon the film's content).
Having now seen the film, it turns out that Bruni, Filkins, Edelstein, Bergen and the others did not in fact hallucinate or fabricate. The film absolutely and unambiguously shows torture as extremely valuable in finding bin Laden – exactly as they said it did – and it does so in multiple ways.
Zero Dark Thirty and the utility and glory of torture
I'll explain why this is so in a moment (and if you don't want "spoilers", don't read this), but first, I want to explain why this point matters so much. In US political culture, there is no event in the last decade that has inspired as much collective pride and pervasive consensus as the killing of Osama bin Laden.
This event has obtained sacred status in American political lore. Nobody can speak ill of it, or even question it, without immediately prompting an avalanche of anger and resentment. The news of his death triggered an outburst of patriotic street chanting and nationalistic glee that continued unabated two years later into the Democratic National Convention. As Wired's Pentagon reporter Spencer Ackerman put it in his defense of the film, the killing of bin Laden makes him (and most others) "very, very proud to be American." Very, very proud.
For that reason, to depict X as valuable in enabling the killing of bin Laden is – by definition – to glorify X. That formula will lead huge numbers of American viewers to regard X as justified and important. In this film: X = torture. That's why it glorifies torture: because it powerfully depicts it as a vital step – the first, indispensable step – in what enabled the US to hunt down and pump bullets into America's most hated public enemy.
The fact that nice liberals who already opposed torture (like Spencer Ackerman) felt squeamish and uncomfortable watching the torture scenes is irrelevant. That does not negate this point at all. People who support torture don't support it because they don't realize it's brutal. They know it's brutal – that's precisely why they think it works – and they believe it's justifiable because of its brutality: because it is helpful in extracting important information, catching terrorists, and keeping them safe. This film repeatedly reinforces that belief by depicting torture exactly as its supporters like to see it: as an ugly though necessary tactic used by brave and patriotic CIA agents in stopping hateful, violent terrorists.
Indeed, here is how Slate's Emily Bazelon, who defends the film even while acknowledging that it "reads as pro-torture", describes her reaction to the torture scenes:
"At the end of the interrogation scenes, I felt shaken but not morally repulsed, because the movie had successfully led me to adopt, if only temporarily, [the CIA agent]'s point of view: This treatment is a legitimate way of securing information vital to US interests."
That's the effect it had on a liberal who proclaims herself to be adamantly opposed to torture and is a professional journalist well-versed in these issues. Imagine how someone less committed to an anti-torture position will regard the message.
If you're a national security journalist who studies and writes about these issues, then you can convince yourself that the film focuses on the part of the bin Laden hunt that you like: all the nice "police work" that ultimately led the CIA to find bin Laden's house. But the film dramatically posits that this is possible only because of the information extracted from detainees who were tortured. The unmistakable and overwhelming impression created is that, as Bruni put it: "no waterboarding, no Bin Laden."
Everything about the film reinforces this message. It immediately goes from its emotionally exploitative start – harrowing audio tapes of 9/11 victims crying for help – into CIA torture sessions of Muslim terrorists that take up a good portion of the film's first forty-five minutes.
The key evidence – the identity of bin Laden's courier – is revealed only after a detainee is brutally and repeatedly abused. Sitting at a table with his CIA torturer, who gives him food as part of a ruse, that detainee reveals this critical information only after the CIA torturer says to him: "I can always go eat with some other guy – and hang you back up to the ceiling." That's when the detainee coughs up the war name of bin Laden's courier – after he's threatened with more torture – and the entire rest of the film is then devoted to tracking that information about the courier, which is what leads them to bin Laden.
But the film touts the value of torture in all sorts of other ways. Other detainees whose arms are shackled to the ceiling are shown confirming the courier's identity. Another detainee, after being threatened with rendition to Israel, pleads: "I have no wish to be tortured again – ask me a question, and I will answer it."
And worst of all, the film's pure, saintly heroine – a dogged CIA agent who sacrifices her entire life and career to find bin Laden – herself presides over multiple torture sessions, including a waterboarding scene and an interrogation session where she repeatedly encourages some US agent to slap the face of the detainee when he refuses to answer. "You do realize, this is not a normal prison: you determine how you are treated", our noble heroine tells an abused detainee.
There is zero opposition expressed to torture. None of the internal objections from the FBI or even CIA is mentioned. The only hint of a debate comes when Obama is shown briefly on television decreeing that torture must not be used, which is later followed by one of the CIA officials – now hot on bin Laden's trail – lamenting in the Situation Room when told to find proof that bin Laden has been found: "You know we lost the ability to prove that when we lost the detainee program – who the hell am I supposed to ask: some guy in GITMO who is all lawyered up?" Nobody ever contests or challenges that view.
This film presents torture as its CIA proponents and administrators see it: as a dirty, ugly business that is necessary to protect America. There is zero doubt, as so many reviewers have said, that the standard viewer will get the message loud and clear: we found and killed bin Laden because we tortured The Terrorists. No matter how you slice it, no matter how upset it makes progressive commentators to watch people being waterboarded, that – whether intended or not – is the film's glorification of torture.
CIA propaganda beyond torture
As it turns out, the most pernicious propagandistic aspect of this film is not its pro-torture message. It is its overarching, suffocating jingoism. This film has only one perspective of the world – the CIA's – and it uncritically presents it for its entire 2 1/2 hour duration.
All agents of the US government – especially in its intelligence and military agencies – are heroic, noble, self-sacrificing crusaders devoted to stopping The Terrorists; their only sin is all-consuming, sometimes excessive devotion to this task. Almost every Muslim and Arab in the film is a villainous, one-dimensional cartoon figure: dark, seedy, violent, shadowy, menacing, and part of a Terrorist network (the sole exception being a high-level Muslim CIA official, who takes a break from praying to authorize the use of funds to bribe a Kuwaiti official for information; the only good Muslim is found at the CIA).
Other than the last scene in which the bin Laden house is raided, all of the hard-core, bloody violence is carried out by Muslims, with Americans as the victims. The CIA heroine dines at the Islamabad Marriott when it is suddenly blown up; she is shot at outside of a US embassy in Pakistan; she sits on the floor, devastated, after hearing that seven CIA agents, including one of her friends, a "mother of three", has been killed by an Al Qaeda double-agent suicide-bomber at a CIA base in Afghanistan.
News footage is gratuitously shown that reports on the arrest of the attempted Times Square bomber, followed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's pronouncement that "there are some people around the world who find our freedom so threatening that they are willing to kill themselves and others to prevent us from enjoying them." One CIA official dramatically reminds us: "They attacked us on land in '98, by sea in 2000, and by air in 2001. They murdered 3000 of our citizens in cold blood." Nobody is ever heard talking about the civilian-destroying violence brought to the world by the US.
The CIA and the US government are the Good Guys, the innocent targets of terrorist violence, the courageous warriors seeking justice for the 9/11 victims. Muslims and Arabs are the dastardly villains, attacking and killing without motive (other than the one provided by Bloomberg) and without scruples. Almost all Hollywood action films end with the good guys vanquishing the big, bad villain – so that the audience can leave feeling good about the world and themselves – and this is exactly the script to which this film adheres.
None of this is surprising. The controversy preceding the film arose from the deep access and secret information given to the filmmakers by the CIA. As is usually the case, this special access was richly rewarded.
In the Atlantic this morning, Peter Maass makes this point perfectly in his piece entitled "Don't Trust 'Zero Dark Thirty'". That, he writes, is because "it represents a troubling new frontier of government-embedded filmmaking." He continues: "An already problematic practice – giving special access to vetted journalists – is now deployed for the larger goal of creating cinematic myths that are favorable to the sponsoring entity (in the case of Zero Dark Thirty, the CIA)."
Indeed, from start to finish, this is the CIA's film: its perspective, its morality, its side of the story, The Agency as the supreme heroes. (That there is ample evidence to suspect that the film's CIA heroine is, at least in composite part, based on the same female CIA agent responsible for the kidnapping, drugging and torture of Khalid El-Masri in 2003, an innocent man just awarded compensation this week by the European Court of Human Rights, just symbolizes the odious aspects of uncritically venerating the CIA in this manner).
It is a true sign of the times that Liberal Hollywood has produced the ultimate hagiography of the most secretive arm of America's National Security State, while liberal film critics lead the parade of praise and line up to bestow it with every imaginable accolade. Like the bin Laden killing itself, this is a film that tells Americans to feel good about themselves, to feel gratitude for the violence done in their name, to perceive the War-on-Terror-era CIA not as lawless criminals but as honorable heroes.
Nothing inspires loyalty and gratitude more than making people feel good about themselves. Few films accomplish that as effectively and powerfully as this one does. That's why critics of the film inspire anger almost as much as critics of the bin Laden killing itself: what is being maligned is a holy chapter in the Gospel of America's Goodness.
The "art" excuse
A common objection to what I wrote about the film is that even if it falsely depicts torture as valuable in finding bin Laden, those kinds of "political objections" do not and should not preclude praise for the film because "art" need not accommodate ideology or political agendas. Time's critic James Poniewozik accused me of having "a simplistic way of looking at art" which, he said, is "not surprising, because Greenwald is a political writer (or at least an ideological public-affairs writer), and this is the political way of looking at art." Salon's critic Andrew O'Hehir, gushing about the film,opines: "I'm not suggesting that the moral and ethical deconstruction doesn't matter, but the movie is much bigger than that."
Contrary to Poniewozik's insinuations, I don't think fictional works must reflect or advance my political beliefs in order to be worthy of praise. As but one example, I've defended the Showtime program "Homeland" – despite some valid criticisms that it promotes some heinous viewpoints – on the ground that (unlike Zero Dark Thirty) it includes a full range of views on those issues and thus avoids endorsing or propagandizing on them (as but one example: a US Marine Sergeant becomes an anti-US "terrorist" after he watches the US government knowingly slaughter dozens of Iraqi children in a drone attack, including one to whom he had become close – the 10-year-old son of a bin Laden-like figure – only to lie about it afterward). I agree with Poniewozik and other film critics who insist that it's perfectly legitimate for works of fiction to depict, without adopting, even the most heinous views.
But the idea that Zero Dark Thirty should be regarded purely as an apolitical "work of art" and not be held accountable for its political implications is, in my view, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual, and ultimately amoral claptrap. That's true for several reasons.
First, this excuse completely contradicts what the filmmakers themselves say about what they are doing. Bigelow has been praising herself for the "journalistic" approach she has taken to depicting these events. The film's first screen assures viewers that it is all "based on first hand accounts of actual events". You can't claim you're doing journalism and then scream "art" to justify radical inaccuracies. Serwer aptly noted the manipulative shell-game driving this: "If you're thinking of giving them an award, Zero Dark Thirty is 'history'; if you're a journalist asking a question about a factual error in the film, it's just a movie."
Second, the very idea that this is some sort of apolitical work of art is ludicrous. The film is about the two most politicized events of the last decade: the 9/11 attack (which it starts with) and the killing of bin Laden (which it ends with). George Bush got re-elected running on the former, while Obama just got re-elected running on the latter. It was made with the close cooperation of the CIA, Pentagon and White House. Everything about this film – its subject, its claims, its mode of production, its implications – are political to its core. It does not have an apolitical bone in its body. Demanding that political considerations be excluded from how this film is judged is nonsensical; it's a political film from start to finish.
Third, to demand that this movie be treated as "art" is to expand that term beyond any real recognition. This film is Hollywood shlock. The brave crusaders slay the Evil Villains, and everyone cheers.
While parts of the film are technically well-executed, it features almost every cliche of Hollywood action/military films. The characters are one-dimensional cartoons: the heroine is a much less interesting and less complex knock-off of Homeland's Carrie: a CIA agent who sacrifices her personal life, disregards bureaucratic and social niceties, her careerist interests, and even her own physical well-being, in monomaniacal pursuit of The Big Terrorist.
Worst of all, it does not challenge, subvert, or even unsettle a single nationalistic orthodoxy. It grapples with no big questions, takes no risks in the political values it promotes, and is even too fearful of letting upsetting views be heard, let alone validated (such as the grievances of Terrorists that lead them to engage in violence, or the equivalence between their methods and "ours").
There's nothing courageous, or impressive, about any of this. As one friend who is a long-time journalist put it to me by email (I'm quoting this because I can't improve on how it's expressed):
"I also feel like there's this tendency of critics to give credit to artists (argh, novelists, too) for simply raising uncomfortable issues, even when they don't bother to coherently think them through, as though just wallowing in the gray areas of the human condition is a noble thing (and sure, it can be, but it can be lazy, too)."
Perhaps film critics are forced to watch so many shoddy Hollywood films that their expectations are very low and they are easily pleased. But if this is high-minded "art", then anything produced by turning on a camera is. As one friend, who works in the film industry, put it:
As that blog you linked to said – it's perfect for people who are so called PC and cool liberal types. Everything about it – how it's framed and branded as some cool Traffic-style movie so people feel as though they're smart by watching it."
But despite all that, this film deserves the debate it is attracting. It matters. Huge numbers of people are going to see it. Critics are swooning for it and it will be lavished with all sorts of awards. Mass entertainment has at least as much of an impact on political perceptions as overtly political writing does – probably more so. It's reckless to insist that a film that will have this big of an impact on matters so consequential – the commission by the US of grave war crimes both in the past and potentially in the future – should be shielded from discussions of its political claims and consequences.
That doesn't mean it has an affirmative responsibility to preach or propagandize. If the torture claims it makes were actually true – that torture played a key role in finding bin Laden – then there would be nothing wrong with depicting that (although opposing perspectives should be included as well).
Emily Bazelon is right when she says that "we opponents of harsh interrogation need to remember that we can make the moral case against torture . . . without resorting to the claim that torture never accomplishes anything." In all the years I've been arguing about torture, I never once claimed it never works – because that claim is, to me, both untrue and irrelevant. Torture – like murder – is categorically wrong no matter what benefits it produces.
The issue here is falsity. The problem isn't that they showed torture working. The problem, as Adam Serwer and Andrew Sullivan amply document, is that the claims it makes are false. Given the likely consequences of this fabrication – making even more Americans more supportive of torture, perhaps even making the use of torture more likely in the future – that this is a so-called "work of art" does not excuse it (notably, Bigelow is not defending the film on the ground that she showed torture as valuable because it was; she's disingenuously denying that the film shows torture as having value).
Ultimately, I really want to know whether the critics who defend this film on the grounds of "art" really believe the principles they are espousing. I raised the Leni Reifenstahl debate in my first piece not to compare Zero Dark Thirty to Triumph of the Will – or to compare Bigelow to the German director – but because this is the debate that has long been at the heart of the controversy over her career.
Do the defenders of this film believe Riefenstahl has also gotten a bad rap on the ground that she was making art, and political objections (ie, her films glorified Nazism) thus have no place in discussions of her films? I've actually always been ambivalent about that debate because, unlike Zero Dark Thirty, Riefenstahl's films only depicted real events and did not rely on fabrications.
But I always perceived myself in the minority on that question due to that ambivalence. It always seemed to me there was a consensus in the west that Riefenstahl was culpable and her defense of "I was just an artist" unacceptable.
Do defenders of Zero Dark Thirty view Riefenstahl critics as overly ideological heathens who demand that art adhere to their ideology? If the KKK next year produces a superbly executed film devoted to touting the virtues of white supremacy, would it be wrong to object if it wins the Best Picture Oscar on the ground that it promotes repellent ideas?
I have a very hard time seeing liberal defenders of Zero Dark Thirty extending their alleged principles about art to films that, unlike this film, are actually unsettling, provocative and controversial. It's quite easy to defend this film because it's ultimately going to be pleasing to the vast majority of US viewers as it bolsters and validates their assumptions. That's why it seems to me that the love this film is inspiring is inseparable from its political content: it's precisely because it makes Americans feel so good – about an event that Ackerman says makes him "very, very proud to be American" – that it is so beloved.
Whatever else is true about it, Zero Dark Thirty is an aggressively political film with a very dubious political message that it embraces and instills in every way it can. David Edelstein, the New York Magazine critic, had it exactly right when he wrote that it "borders on the politically and morally reprehensible", though I think it crosses that border. It's thus not only legitimate, but necessary, to engage it as what it is: a political argument that advances – whether by design or effect – the interests of powerful political factions.
Having seen the film, Andrew Sullivan has now announced that not only does it not depict torture as helpful in finding bin Laden, but also, anyone who thinks it does believes this only "because they want to see that or because they are as dumb as Owen Gleiberman". Click here for the list of writers and commenators who are apparently delusional and/or dumb.
Unfortunately for Andrew, that list now includes The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, probably the foremost journalistic expert on torture (having written the definitive investigative book about it), who published a scathing attack on the film today and writes:
"In [Bigelow's] hands, the hunt for bin Laden is essentially a police procedural, devoid of moral context. If she were making a film about slavery in antebellum America, it seems, the story would focus on whether the cotton crops were successful. . . .
"Yet what is so unsettling about 'Zero Dark Thirty' is not that it tells this difficult history but, rather, that it distorts it. In addition to excising the moral debate that raged over the interrogation program during the Bush years, the film also seems to accept almost without question that the CIA's 'enhanced interrogation techniques' played a key role in enabling the agency to identify the courier who unwittingly led them to bin Laden. But this claim has been debunked, repeatedly, by reliable sources with access to the facts. . . .
"In addition to providing false advertising for waterboarding, 'Zero Dark Thirty' endorses torture in several other subtle ways. . . . .
"If there is an expectation of accuracy, it is set up by the filmmakers themselves. It seems they want it both ways: they want the thrill that comes from revealing what happened behind the scenes as history was being made and the creative license of fiction, which frees them from the responsibility to stick to the truth."
It goes on and on like that. Read it all. Obviously, the mere fact that Jane Mayer says this does not by itself prove that it's true, but it makes it more difficult to claim, as Sullivan would like to, that it takes hallucinations or stupidity to think this is the case. She provides only some of the many examples that prove why this film – just from the torture perspective, to say nothing of the rest of it – is so disturbing and damaging.
Original post: Zero Dark Thirty: CIA hagiography, pernicious propaganda
Posted on 16 December 2012 in General | 2 Comments
Tags: Anti-Muslim, CIA, Glenn Greenwald, Hagiography, Hollywood, Islam, Islamophobia, Kathryn Bigelow, Muslims, Osama bin Laden, Pentagon, Torture, White House, Zero Dark Thirty
Oh no! Now the CIA is Wagging the Dog?
//Edy Lou Benjamin
During Cold-War CIA Stable of Producers had been churning out Various imbecilic Propaganda Films bashing Soviets System & Glorifying USA Freedom,Democracy,Equality of All Races,Religion,Classes….
But CIA Mindset is still living in that Era.Americans only see Hollywood & CIA planted Productions, version of Spy Agency.The real CIA has Top DecisionMaking Hierarchy of 41% hardcore White Protestant Afrikaners,39 % Extremist Jews & Asst
others.Their Profile is RW, Extremely well Financed, Narrow Minded NeoCons.The liberal Core is 15-18%….
More..Maybe..To be Continued…
nazkaz.
//nkaz
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Today was cold and rainy so I wanted something ultra soft and cuddly and this knitted hoodie from B!ASTA filled the bill. The Defrost Knitted Hoodie Cardigan comes in 8 different color choices. I've shown it here in old rose with Skinny Jeans in white from 7Five. The ankle boots from Chrysalis tie it all together in a perfect shade of complementary pink. I stopped by the delightful winter cabin at Done Wiv a Twist. With a Christmas tree, animated train, stockings hung at the chimney place and milk and cookies for Santa, it's a great holiday Sim!
The new year brings us some great new designs. B!ASTA starts us off with the Knowing You Dress in 9 lovely colors. The dress is light and carefree and can be accessorized in a variety of ways. I'm showing it in cyclam below and I've paired it with the January Scarf which comes with a changeable 10 Color Hud. The scarf adds color and interest to any outfit including this one. I love the pattern and texture! The jewelry was a natural match, wired with a twist, a modern design by A&M. Of course, the boots are Verha in Pink by Spirit. A staple I reach for in my closet over and over. The whole look calls for something fresh and modern in the way of hair and this unisex style from Dura serves nicely.


If you aren't one of the lucky few who's caught a ride on the Shafi Express (the nickname that socialite Shafi Roepers gave to the private Gulfstream IV jet that she flies her friends around on), you might still be able to catch a glimpse of what we imagine is at least a close second—her thirteen-room Fifth Avenue pad, which she has recently put on the market.
Ms. Roepers is the ex-wife of Alexander J. Roepers, the Dutch founder of hedge-fund firm Atlantic Investment Management. When the couple of twenty years divorced, she retained their five-bedroom, eight-bath residence in 2013 (for $15.75 million) at 4 East 66th Street, according to public record.
Alas, Ms. Roepers has decided she no longer has need for the sprawling third-floor pad in the J.E.R. Carpenter-designed building, though we can't really imagine the glamorous socialite to be the kind of person who is looking to downsize.
Architect and interior designer Peter Marino created the home—he also designed the Shafi Express—and per the listing, it was recently renovated, with a master suite that included his-and-hers bookended-matched marble baths, "amazing" closet, and dressing room. Other highlights include a windowed gallery, playroom, white marble kitchen, and a "cheery" breakfast room. But who could feel anything less than cheerful in a massive, Peter Marino-designed co-op.
Sotheby's Serena Boardman has the $65 million listing for the apartment, which notes that "the functionality of the space is superb." It certainly will take a specific type of person to make three entertaining rooms functional (each with 12-foot ceilings and wood-burning fireplaces), but then again, where else would one find the wall space that must be necessary to hang multiple Basquiats?


The Great North Museum: Hancock, brings together the North East's premier collections of archaeology, natural history, geology and world cultures under one roof. It incorporates collections from the original Hancock Museum together with Newcastle University's former Museum of Antiquities and the Shefton Museum.
Following a period of planning, an ambitious expansion and renovation of the Hancock Museum (as it was formerly known) was fixed on by the museum's management team. To support this they applied for and gained the largest ever Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £8.75m in late 2005.
In addition, generous funding was received from a wide range of supporters, including the European Regional Development Fund, One North East, the North East's regional development authority, Newcastle University, Newcastle City Council, TyneWear partnership, Northern Rock Foundation, Department for Culture Media and Sport, Garfield Weston Foundation, Clore Duffield Foundation and the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund.
With this backing, the total £26m project involving the redevelopment of the Hancock Museum, the management of the Hatton Gallery and the development of an off‐site storage and resource centre began in earnest in April 2006 and took just over three years to complete. Transforming this little known outside the North East museum into one of the UK's premier visitor attractions was an understandably massive project.
The museum building itself nearly doubled in size and work included comprehensive renovation and modernisation as little had been done to the building since it originally opened in 1884 with the backing of the natural historians John and Albany Hancock. In preparation for the work, over 500,000 objects were moved out of the Hancock Museum building to temporary storage while the renovations were carried out and a new off‐site storage facility, the Great North Museum: Resource Centre, was developed in the Discovery Museum to the south of Newcastle.
Once the build and fit out was completed, some 3,500 hand‐picked objects from the collections were brought in. The rebranded Great North Museum: Hancock was opened to the public on 23rd May 2009 and officially opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh in November 2009.
The transformation has proved a great success. Visitor numbers in 2005, its final year before work began, were 75,000 compared to the first 18‐months of operation, the new museum saw over 1.1m visitors and 850,553 in the first 12‐months of opening. Today it is recognised as one of the top 20 free visitor attractions in Britain and the top attraction in the North East.
Like most state‐of‐the‐art museums today the Great North Museum: Hancock is built to a very open plan design, encouraging maximum interactivity and learning opportunities. Many of the artefacts are not in cases and there are no barriers preventing visitors getting close to exhibits. With the significant increase of visitors, targets of at least 30,000 educational contacts per year, and the total value of the permanent exhibits and equipment in the new museum exceeding £30m, the new CCTV system needed to be designed for people management, visitor safety as well as for security of high value exhibits.
With this in mind the Great North Museum Project Manager and Senior Manager for the Great North Museum and Discovery Museum, Steve McLean, worked closely with the Security Manager of Newcastle University, George Westwater and the University's preferred CCTV systems designer and installer 2020 Vision, to design an appropriate solution. The team also took advice from both the British Museum and Natural History Museum's security advisers in order to ensure that the entire museum was designed with safety and security in mind.
It was important to meet the very highest security stipulations so that the new museum would also be able to house high value visiting exhibitions including objects from the British Museum and other National Museums and Galleries.
To this end, the building was designed to be able to lock down and secure specific zones and galleries relevant to the building's usage through a series of highly secure ceiling‐to‐floor metal shutters. For example, delivery of visiting exhibitions is conducted at the rear of the building where there are multiple layers of security from retractable bollards to code and key‐locked doors, all covered by CCTV cameras.
It is important that the building remains fully secure even in potentially vulnerable scenarios like visiting‐exhibition movement or evening corporate events. One major advantage of securing the site to the highest specification is that little upgrade work is likely in the near future and there is a significant potential to reduce insurance premiums because it is specified to such a high level. Data Protection Act 1998 requirements prevent museum staff from viewing recorded CCTV images therefore all proactive monitoring and analysis of recorded images is to be carried out centrally at Newcastle University's 24‐hour manned CCTV Security Control Room some 300 metres away on the University's main campus. This is already registered with the Data Protection Commissioner to monitor the University's main campus on which the museum sits. This means that the museum's security system was required to integrate tightly with the University's existing security infrastructure.
On the museum site itself, the CCTV system was to be used principally for access control purposes in order, for example, museum staff to visually verify a school party before allowing entry at the dedicated schools entrance at the rear of the building.
Cameras were positioned sympathetically so they fail to draw unnecessary attention. It is possible to view live images via three different dedicated CCTV monitors displaying four cameras in quad view, placed at the reception desk of the museum and towards the rear in an administration office. Museum staff are able to request recorded images from the central CCTV Security Control Room if there is a suspected security or safety breach.
Although the museum has no dedicated security staff on duty during the hours of opening, it has a guaranteed team of nine staff in the building who all are trained to carry out security checks. They also carry radios with silent panic alarm buttons linked to the University's security team. A further six fixed silent panic alarms send alerts through to Northumbria Police in case of a threat. In addition, extra staff deployed for visiting exhibitions are issued with radios and personal panic alarms, that also route directly to the police. A RFID tag system is used on the books in the museum library, which holds several hundred very valuable books, ensuring that this rare collection of books can be viewed and studied on the premises by the general public.
"Before the project there was no public access to areas such as the museum's library of rare books. The great thing about our new security system is that it enables us to make the museum collections much more accessible to our visitors than ever before.
As part of the ambitious renovation of Great North Museum: Hancock, 2020 Vision were commissioned to install all CCTV cameras and a dedicated collector point or 'node' for the museums' CCTV surveillance images. The node consists of a 48‐channel Honeywell Max1000 camera control matrix for switching between cameras and controlling their movement. This is networked with Instek DVRs, video processors, a video distribution amplifier along with a fibre optic patch panel and fibre optic transmission equipment, all housed in a 19 inch 42U 600×800 lockable equipment rack.
This node collects images from one newly installed JVC TK‐C1460BE PTZ Camera fixed onto an eight metre tubular steel column and seven Computar HG2Z4516FCS fixed cameras to cover the entrances, exits and car parking space outside the building; and a further 36 Honeywell HCGC48X fixed dome cameras were also deployed internally to cover all key exhibits – a total of 44 new cameras in all were now connected to the new system.
All cameras were fitted with powerful half inch format lenses with variable focal length of 12‐240mm providing a zoom ratio of 20:1, that is capable of identifying a person with total accuracy at a distance of up to 177 metres and detect movement up to 800 metres from the camera. To supplement existing white lighting fitted by the M&E contractor, 2020 Vision also fitted twin infrared illuminators to shed additional light on areas of shadow. All cameras were housed in IP65‐rated enclosures complete with sunshield and anti‐condensation heaters. All housings were fitted with anti‐tamper devices.
All CCTV cameras are fed into three Instek DVR‐16F‐3U Digital Video Recorders (DVRs), providing video recording and management for 16‐channels at up to 25 frames per second (fps), each at 4CIF resolution. Instek Command Center Lite software was installed on a local PC, then networked to all the DVRs. This software ensures that the University's Control Room can select and control cameras from there in case of suspected incidents or in order to track suspicious individuals around the grounds of the museum.
2020 Vision supplied a total of six high‐capacity Hard Disk Drives (HDD) to store all images for a maximum of 31 days. A Veracity TIMENET GPS‐based NTP Time Server is installed to ensure all recordings are accurately time‐stamped for evidential purposes. TIMENET integrates GPS receiver and master NTP (Network Time Protocol) clock server into a single device, which is directly connected to the network. Live images from four cameras can be viewed simultaneously on Honeywell HMLCD17E 17 inch monitors using American Dynamics ADQUD87‐1 multi‐picture colour quad software.
The node is linked back to the control room via an eight‐core fibre optic backbone. Two fibres provide a 10‐base 10/100 LAN network for retrieval of recorded images from the node and is required for access control and intruder alarm signals, voice over IP for help points and public address. Each of the other pairs of fibres is used to create up to five real‐time peer‐to‐peer video channels and an RS232 data channel for control of the collector point slave control system for the master matrix. Coaxial cabling is used to all internal and external cameras and then fibre optics from the new node which is set up to deliver real‐time and recorded images at 25 fps and 4CIF resolution back to the central control room.
2020 Vision, as Newcastle University's security contractor for more than 10 years, was the natural choice for the CCTV system implementation at Great North Museum: Hancock that is based at the edge of the University's City campus. The CCTV system recommended by 2020 Vision was fully compliant with the University Security Department standard CCTV system requirements and was 'hard‐wired' into the University's existing CCTV infrastructure and back to the 24‐hour manned CCTV Security Control Room on the main City campus.
Great North Museum: Hancock engaged 2020 Vision to provide a comprehensive CCTV solution linked into Newcastle University's already mature security infrastructure to optimise the use of the University's control room and security team. By adopting this approach the museum avoided having to employ its own dedicated security guards that in turn helped justify funding for the comprehensive security system required to enable it to offer optimal accessibility and interactivity to visitors.
2020 Vision extended its node or distributed 'collector point' approach already used to secure the large city centre campus of Newcastle University. This made good sense due to the location of the museum within 300 metres of the University's CCTV Control Room. 2020 Vision worked with its partner Veracity UK, a development partner of Instek Digital, the manufacturer of high‐performance hybrid DVRs used to record surveillance images on this site. CCTV is used externally to monitor the car park and entrances to the museum.
This is important because of its location within the university campus and to ensure that there is no unauthorised entry or exit from the building. All five entrances are covered by fixed CCTV cameras so that there is a visual record of all entry and exit. This CCTV is also able to identify specific individuals. It has already been used to identify and monitor a known offender who came through the museum. In this kind of instance, recordings can be burnt onto DVD or CD‐Rom by the central CCTV Security Control Room and sent onto the police as required. All windows were fitted with contact alarms linked to a building‐wide intruder alarm system. The entire CCTV system fitted by 2020 Vision cost £108,800 to purchase and install.
"The new surveillance system has performed beyond expectation. This investment has been an important enabler of modernisation of this museum. It simply would not have been possible to give total accessibility to many priceless artefacts and books without the security coverage that 2020 Vision's CCTV system provided.
2020 Vision has been able to design a system, which although CCTV‐based today is designed for migration to IP over time. The Instek Digital DVRs, supplied by 2020 Vision's valued partner Veracity, are designed to take 16‐analogue channels and 16 IP‐channels in parallel.
"Deployment of Instek's hybrid DVRs here has created a system that is right for the museum today but is also future‐proof – ready to exploit the benefits offered by the latest IP‐based technologies as and when they become appropriate at the museum.
For example, Veracity and 2020 Vision together created a fully integrated surveillance and access control system at the new Bede Academy school in 2009. This installation won the highest accolade in the UK professional security installation world: the Security Excellence Awards' 'Best Integrated Security Solution of the Year'.
Revolutionary use of HD video surveillance offers chance of 'normal life' for loving family.
2020 Vision, the multi award-winning security integrator, has broken new industry ground with the development of a fully-integrated monitoring system for a severely disabled boy.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Écrit par MixCorner le 22 octobre 2018, dans - Audio - Dossier - Technique. | 647 visites pour cet article.
The M/S technique sounds a little bit more complex. Originally and mainly dedicated for the Movie and broadcasts, it is also used in the context of « singing vocals » since it offers some dramatic advantages over standard coincident miking.
The M/S technique requires the use of 2 microphones with different characteristics. One has to be cardioid ; the second figure-of-8 (bi-directional).
The figure-of-8 capsule captures everything that is on-axis in its front but also every signal that is on its back side.
However, every signal coming from the side is not captured.
Consequently, the settings are as follow. Cardioid microphone will record pointed directly toward the instrument or signal and therefore be considered and called the M microphone (M for middle). The M microphone will be used together with a S microphone figure-of-Eight that will record the sides (S for Sides).
Concrètement, les 2 micros sont disposés l'un au dessus de l'autre, le bi-directionnel étant généralement en retrait par rapport au cardioïde.
The main advantage about MS recording is the fact that the stereo width may be adjusted after a recording session has been made (or even during). Such « stereo adjustment » is possible by increasing the « Side » signal level with respect to the « Middle » during the mixing stage.
Moreover, would a « Mono Version » of the sound signal needed, the cardioid recorded track will be the only one selected, the bi-directional one being muted and left over.
But keep in mind that MS recording is mainly use in the cinema industry. For music recording, you have plenty to do with the two techniques we talked about in part 1 and part 2 of the series of articles.
This article is no finished thanks for reading it and see you soon for more articles.


The Instructor's Manual, available for download by clicking on the links on the left, contains chapter summaries that are useful in-class guides. It also contains. Simple Logic is a comprehensive introduction to logic. It introduces students to informal logic, concerned with language, communication, and fallacies; formal. Simple Logic has 3 ratings and 0 reviews. Written by an accomplished teacher, scholar, and writer, Simple Logic is unique in its sensitivity to.
Rules of Implication II: Simple Logic succeeds in conveying the standard topics in introductory logic with easy-to-understand explanations of rules and methods, bonefac featuring a multitude of interesting and relevant examples drawn from both literary texts and contemporary culture. Negation, Conjunction, and Disjunction 7.
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Confirmation and Auxiliary Assumptions eimple Validity and Strength 1. Simple Logic succeeds in conveying the standard topics in introductory logic with easy-to-understand explanations of rules and methods, while concentrating the discussion on fundamental topics taught by the majority of logic instructors. See details for description of any imperfections. People who bought this also bought. The Conditional and Biconditional 7.
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Universal Generalization Part IV: Introducing Exclusion Logic as a Deontic Logic.


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Author Brandon Barr joins us to chat about his upcoming series in the Age of Magic universe, about his Song of the Worlds trilogy (a bit of magic and fantasy), and writing while dealing with cancer.
It's an inspiring episode, so check it out!
Also, if you want to be notified of all Age of Magic books (never miss one!), signup here.


text:
<?php

namespace Oro\Bundle\ApiBundle\Tests\Unit\Util;

use Oro\Bundle\ApiBundle\Util\EntityInstantiator;

class EntityInstantiatorForObjectTest extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    const OBJECT_NAMESPACE = 'Oro\Bundle\ApiBundle\Tests\Unit\Fixtures\Entity\\';

    /** @var EntityInstantiator */
    protected $entityInstantiator;

    protected function setUp()
    {
        $doctrineHelper = $this
            ->getMockBuilder('Oro\Bundle\ApiBundle\Util\DoctrineHelper')
            ->disableOriginalConstructor()
            ->getMock();
        $doctrineHelper->expects($this->any())
            ->method('getEntityMetadataForClass')
            ->with($this->isType('string'), false)
            ->willReturn(null);

        $this->entityInstantiator = new EntityInstantiator($doctrineHelper);
    }

    public function testInstantiateObjectWithoutConstructor()
    {
        $this->assertInstanceOf(
            self::OBJECT_NAMESPACE . 'Group',
            $this->entityInstantiator->instantiate(self::OBJECT_NAMESPACE . 'Group')
        );
    }

    public function testInstantiateObjectWithConstructorWithRequiredArguments()
    {
        $this->assertInstanceOf(
            self::OBJECT_NAMESPACE . 'Category',
            $this->entityInstantiator->instantiate(self::OBJECT_NAMESPACE . 'Category')
        );
    }

    public function testInstantiateObjectWithConstructorWithoutRequiredArgumentsAndWithToMany()
    {
        $object = $this->entityInstantiator->instantiate(self::OBJECT_NAMESPACE . 'User');
        $this->assertInstanceOf(
            self::OBJECT_NAMESPACE . 'User',
            $object
        );
        $this->assertInstanceOf(
            'Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection',
            $object->getGroups()
        );
    }

    public function testInstantiateObjectWithConstructorWithRequiredArgumentsAndWithToMany()
    {
        $object = $this->entityInstantiator->instantiate(self::OBJECT_NAMESPACE . 'Company');
        $this->assertInstanceOf(
            self::OBJECT_NAMESPACE . 'Company',
            $object
        );
        $this->assertNull(
            $object->getGroups()
        );
    }
}


New year, new tech. With 2018 upon us, technology continues to evolve, giving us cool gadgets that will make our lives easier. In the months to come, we'll see these six electronic trends taking over.
Imagine charging your phone without plugging it in or resting it on a charging pad? Real wireless charging will debut at some point in 2018. By transmitting electricity via radio waves, we'll soon be able to charge our phones without the use of USBs, docks and power chords.
We already have our Fitbits and smart watches but now the health sector is going to benefit greatly from wearable tech. We'll see diabetes monitors, heart monitors and other health devices come in the form of wearable tech.
Virtual reality isn't a new invention, but 2018 will see it evolve into a shopping tool. More companies will employ VR technology to give customers a chance to 'tour' their retail stores and factories, and entice them to make more purchases. People will be more likely to make an online purchase if they can see the item through a VR lense.
Move over 4G because 5G is taking over! With higher wireless speeds and lower latency, 5G will result in fewer delays. Plus, 5G is fast. How fast? A download of a two-hour movie takes six minutes on 4G, whereas on 5G it takes as little as four seconds. Look for 5G to power everything from our phones to self-driving cars.
The iPhone X already comes with face recognition software (Face ID) and we'll soon see other devices following suit. For instance, smart vehicles and devices will eventually come with facial recognition capabilities so we can unlock doors and turn on gadgets with a simple scan of our faces.


"I'm totally having deja vu right now.
Oh, I have it all the time.
It's supposed to mean like someone's thinking about you while they're masturbating.
You can't really say "Happy death day" is original. You'll immediately think of films as "Groundhog day" and recently "Before I fall" when watching this time loop/slasher movie. The same principle with one crucial difference. The person trapped in an apparently infinite time loop is being murdered each time by an unknown person wearing an idiotic mask. Are you expecting a humorous "Friday the 13th" flick? You'll be pretty disappointed at the end of the film. It's never as exciting as the infamous slasherfilms from the 80's. And you can't call it funny either. Besides the clumsy attempt at the end when a link is made with Bill Murray and the mother of all "time loop" films. Unfortunately my final conclusion was already made. I'm still wondering what the fuzz was all about.
It's kind of my life. The same daily routine over and over again.
"Happy death day" was kind of a success in the US. Probably because of the release date (on Friday the 13th) and the overall design. A university campus with Tree (Jessica Rothe) as the central figure, who wakes up every morning in the room of Carter (Israel Broussard) after she got brutally killed the night before. I'm assuming she's sort of a "Miss Popularity" based on her arrogant attitude. Time and again she experiences the same daily routine. First awaking bewildered. Then returning to the dorm in a daze. Absently attending class. Paying a surprise visit to the attractive teacher (you never guess why). Going to a party that same evening. And subsequently, to round of the day, she's being successfully murdered. A simple storyline which is easy to follow and gradually turns into a kind of whodunit story.
So, this movie is suitable for pubescent teenage girls who are balancing between childish teen films and the more serious stuff. "Happy death day" provides a short-lived relaxation without too many creepy elements, so that members of this age group aren't overwhelmed by outright fear. On the other hand, there's a bit of that sugary and airy mood, teen girls can identify themselves with. Tree is such a girl figure others might look up to and who they would love to have as best friend. A fairly snobbish type with also a rebellious side. Her walking around naked is a shining example of that. And last but not least, one can safely eat a maxi-pack of popcorn or a full load of nachos during this film, because you won't see really nauseating or bloody scenes. Pros enough to lure a complete teen audience into the cinema.
Just a mediocre Halloween-night movie.
The funniest (and most predictable) part of this film is of course the moment when the victim can predict future incidents as a true Nostradamus. The one who's witnessing this, stares at it in slack-Jawed amazement. The makers succeeded in giving it an original twist. After every rebirth, Tree suffers more and more from sustained injuries. But apart from that, this is just a mediocre film. A kind of a Columbus case which needs to be solved after several time loops. It was not easy to point out the ultimate perpetrator. To be honest, I thought that was rather far-fetched. Really a film to watch with a few friends on a Halloween night. No more, no less.


text:
Home > News > Covid 19 outbreak at S&A – update 14 May
Published 6 May 2021 by Alison Sutton
Covid 19 outbreak at S&A – update 14 May
Please see the following statement just received from Herefordshire Council. The PC is grateful for S&A's effective handling of the outbreak.
The outbreak situation at S&A Produce, Brook Farm, Marden has been managed through a joint approach from the Herefordshire Council Outbreak Management Team, Public Health England (PHE), and the S&A senior management team. This has included repeat testing of the exposed individuals working in the soft fruit packhouse with testing extended to include the asparagus packhouse as a precaution. Anyone testing positive on daily lateral flow testing or weekly PCR testing has been supported to isolate, along with their close work/household contacts who are also being tested prior to leaving isolation to reduce the risk of passing on latent infection.
Testing early in the outbreak identified asymptomatic cases which led to a significant spike in the case rate reported for the surrounding area of Lugwardine, Withington & Moreton on Lugg, which includes the village of Marden. During the last two rounds of weekly testing there has been a dramatic reduction in cases as a result of the proactive focus of the senior team in S&A, who have provided an exemplary response with additional assertive measures and controls in the pack house environment and support to their workforce to isolate effectively. The results from the two most recent rounds of testing provides evidence that the chain of ongoing transmission has been broken in the exposed group and this is reflected in a halving of the local case rate over the 7 days to 11 May, with a further significant decline expected over the next 7 days.
The Outbreak Management Team will reconvene on Friday to review the situation with a view to commencing de -escalation. Throughout the outbreak data shared by S&A Produce has been used to track the outbreak on the farm and enhanced levels of surveillance of cases in the community continues to be deployed to ensure that the outbreak has been contained.
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Alison Sutton


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