text:
Pharmaceutical Companies and Rich Nations Delivering Just One in Seven of the Doses Promised for Developing Countries
October 20, 2021 By Oxfam
Firms and rich nations continue to block moves to share vaccine technology and recipes
Developing countries have been hit with an endless tide of inadequate gestures and broken promises from rich countries and pharmaceutical companies, who are failing to deliver billions of doses they promised while blocking the real solutions to vaccine inequality, according to a new report published today by the People's Vaccine Alliance.
The report, "A Dose of Reality," found that of the 1.8 billion COVID vaccine donations promised by rich nations only 261 million doses – 14 percent – have been delivered to date, while western pharmaceutical companies have delivered only 12 percent of the doses they allocated to COVAX, the initiative designed to help low- and middle-income countries get fair access to COVID vaccines.
At the same time, the EU and other rich nations have refused to support the proposal of over 100 nations to waive patents on vaccines and COVID related technologies while leading pharmaceutical companies have failed to openly share their technology with the World Health Organization to enable developing countries to make their own vaccines and save lives.
"Rich nations and corporations are shamefully failing to deliver on their promises whilst blocking the actual solution; ensuring developing nations have the ability to make their own vaccines," said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS. "It is painfully clear that the developing world cannot rely on the largesse and charity of rich nations and pharmaceutical companies, and hundreds of thousands of people are dying from COVID-19 as a result. This is beyond appalling."
The UK Government, which has been actively blocking calls from countries like South Africa and India to be allowed to make their own vaccines, has only delivered 9.6 million – less than 10 percent - of the 100 million doses it promised to poorer nations. Meanwhile it has itself taken half a million doses from COVAX, despite extreme vaccine shortages in developing countries and having already secured more than enough doses for British people from direct deals with the pharmaceutical companies. Canada has taken over 970,000 doses from COVAX, while delivering only 3.2 million – or 8 percent – of the 40 million doses it promised. Germany, another country blocking the waiver, has delivered 12 percent of the 100 million doses it promised, and France has delivered just 9 percent of the 120 million it promised. The US has delivered the most doses - nearly 177 million doses – however this is just 16 percent of the 1.1 billion promised.
The Alliance said that while COVAX failed to acknowledge that relying on pharmaceutical companies may not deliver doses, the companies have undermined the initiative, first by not allocating it enough doses and second by delivering far less than they agreed. Of the 994 million doses allocated to COVAX by Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Pfizer/BioNTech, only 120 million -12 percent- have actually been delivered, which is fifteen times less than the 1.8 billion doses delivered to rich countries from these companies. Both Johnson & Johnson and Moderna are yet to deliver a single dose they promised to the initiative.
"The failure of rich country donations and the failure of COVAX have the same root cause – we have given over control of vaccine supply to a small number of pharmaceutical companies, who are prioritizing their own profits," said Oxfam's Robbie Silverman. "These companies can't produce enough to vaccinate the world, they are artificially constraining the supply, and they will always put their rich customers at the front of the line. The only way to end the pandemic is to share the technology, and know-how with other qualified manufacturers so that everyone, everywhere can have access to these lifesaving vaccines."
During the UN General Assembly in September, President Biden rallied support for the goal to vaccinate 70 percent of people in every country by September of 2022. While this target is rightly ambitious, the People's Vaccine Alliance says it should be achieved much more quickly, and there is still no plan to achieve it.
The WHO stated that it must be a global priority to get doses to developing countries by the end of this year, but the Alliance says rich countries are not listening and working to a timetable of delivering an inadequate supply of doses by some time in 2022, which is likely to lead to countless unnecessary deaths.
"Across the world health workers are dying and children are losing parents and grandparents. With ninety-nine percent of people in low-income countries still not vaccinated, we have had enough of these too little too late gestures," said Maaza Seyoum, of the African Alliance and People's Vaccine Alliance Africa. "Governments must stop allowing pharmaceutical companies to play god while raking in astronomical profits and start delivering actual action that will save lives."
To deflect growing pressure to share their vaccine technology free of intellectual property restrictions leading western pharmaceutical corporations have consistently over-exaggerated their projected production volumes, claiming there will soon be enough for everyone while delivering the overwhelming majority of their stock to rich nations. Collectively, the four companies claimed they would manufacture an estimated 7.5 billion vaccines in 2021, yet with less than three months until the end of the year, they have only delivered half of these. Forecasts suggest the companies will produce 6.2 billion vaccines by the end of the year, a shortfall on their projections of more than 1.3 billion doses.
With a week to go before leaders meet for the G20 summit in Rome, The People's Vaccine Alliance - which has 77 members including ActionAid, the African Alliance, Global Justice Now, Oxfam and UNAIDS – is calling on them to stop breaking their promises to vaccinate the world and to:
Suspend intellectual property rights for COVID vaccines, tests, treatments, and other medical tools by agreeing to the proposed waiver of the TRIPS Agreement at the World Trade Organization.
Demand, and use all their legal and policy tools to require pharmaceutical companies to share COVID-19 data, know-how, and technology with the WHO's COVID-19 Technology Access Pool and South Africa mRNA Technology Transfer Hub.
Invest in decentralized manufacturing hubs in developing countries to move from a world of vaccine monopolies and scarcity to one of vaccine sufficiency and fairness in which developing countries have direct control over production capacity to meet their needs.
Immediately redistribute existing vaccines equitably across all nations to achieve the WHO target of vaccinating 40 percent of people in all countries by the end of 2021 and 70 percent of people in all countries by mid-2022.
/Ends
The briefing paper is available here.
The headline stats that rich nations have only delivered 14 percent of promised doses refers to doses donated by the G7 and 'Team Europe' which includes the EU, Norway and Iceland. All data on dose deliveries comes from Airfinity and is correct as of October 12, 2021.
So far, COVAX has received directly from pharmaceutical companies:
104 million (14 percent) of the 720 million doses promised by Oxford/AstraZeneca
16 million (40 percent) of the 40 million promised by Pfizer/BioNTech
Zero doses of the 200 million promised by Johnson & Johnson
And zero doses of the 30 million promised by Moderna
Only 1.3 percent of people in Low Income Countries are fully vaccinated.
Airfinity forecasts that Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Pfizer/BioNTech will produce 6.


Kia ora and welcome to The Band School in sunny Gisborne. We specialise in professional 1 to 1 lessons, school music, holiday programmes and band tuition. Professional, holistic, skill based and great fun while you learn. We are student focused, have strong curriculum ties within our classes and embrace modern technology to keep you in the loop with lessons. Students perform regular concerts to gain musicianship skills and these are a highlight of the calendar for family, performers and the wider community. Our Studio is fully equipped with quality instruments, free WiFi and even a ping pong table all encouraging students and families to soak up the music environment while you wait.
Join us for lessons, a holiday programme or join a band.
We're also teaching at rural schools if you'd like us to make a visit out in the wop wops!
— David Long, Composer / Producer. Ex Muttonbirds. Wrote - with Plan 9 Music, 'Misty Mountain' for The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey, and has worked in all Peter Jacksons films for the last 10 years. New Zealand Producer Of The Year (2002) for Fur Patrols 'Pet' album.


Exactly what is the main idea behind training your waist?
The objective of waist training is to make the spot in between the hips and the ribs a smaller size by shaping the frontal and lower abs and obliques. The concept is to enhance these muscles to develop a flatter stomach and more improved waist.
What types results can you expect from waist training?
The concept of waist training is actually to create a traditional hourglass shape. Undoubtedly, you cannot alter the size of your hips however with appropriate training you can eliminate love handles and additional layers of fatty tissue around your waist to develop a desirable curved shape.
I suggest beginning by finding the best waist shaping corsets and preferably pick one which you know will be comfortable so that you can find out if it's even a thing you'll relish in. A good fit is essential here! As soon as you have actually discovered a bodice that you like using, use it regularly, laced to a comfy point. The more frequently you use it, the much better your development will be. Do not jump into the deep end by using it around-the-clock in the beginning. Develop into it gradually. Pay attention to your body, and if you're uneasy, loosen up or eliminate the bodice. It's not a competition. The experience is just as crucial as the objective.
The length of time does it require to see outcomes?
Some bodies work with waist shaping extremely quickly, while others can be a bit more resistant. Among the important things that adds to relieve of bodice wear, is how flexible the muscles within your core are. If you have a heavy amount of side to side versatility (even though you have a really strong core) you'll get results quicker than somebody who is extremely strong. The same opts for the firmness of your body structure. Softer individuals decrease rapidly and compress more quickly than do individuals whose structure is a little bit thicker.
The very best training does not begin in the health club. You will never ever attain a lean, toned body if you are consuming unhealthy food so the first step ought to be to enhance your diet plan and ensure you are consuming lots of nutrient-rich foods.
If you are a larger person you should take some cardio classes prior to starting waist training sessions. It is crucial to eliminate as much excess body weight as conceivable, otherwise, you are just enhancing muscles that are concealed underneath layers of fat.
However, if you frequently go to a health club and are typically healthy and athletic and still cannot see outcomes, it is a good idea that you take a break. Individuals who exercise routinely often discover that their bodies go into a state of tension, leading to the overproduction of a hormone that in turn enables a layer of fat to develop around the waist. Take a yoga exercise class, get a back rub and enable your body to relax and recover its chemical harmony to see some genuine arise from your training.
I love my bank holiday weekends and with another looming, I have been wondering how I can make the very most of it. I am hoping for some good weather and a general good time as many do but many people don't know where bank holidays originate.
In 1871, the day which banks were open and closed was a general mess across the UK. This meant that cheques were often delayed and bills were not processed in due time. Sir John Lubbock had enough of this madness and so introduced an Act of Parliament to get some standardization for these days.
The Act selected four days in the year in the UK. At first these were Easter Monday, Whit Monday, 1st Monday of August and the 26th of December. Five days were opted for in Scotland.
Now, these days were not intended to be national holidays. But when the members of Parliament were discussing the Act, one of their major concerns was whether other organisations plus the public should use these days as holidays also. The Bank Holiday Act was so popular that their was mention that the August Bank Holiday should be renamed to St Lubbock's day and some people did in fact call it that.
The holidays did at one point get a bad reputation for themselves as they became associated with the working class people drinking too much. This was especially true for the August Bank Holiday.
Even thought the Bank Holidays were created by Victorians, they are rooted much further back than the holidays themselves. They come from some days which already existed as celebration. For example, mid-august was traditionally a time for seaside holidays even in the days before the railway. May Day comes from pre-christian days where it was a tradition related to fertility and spring.
The holidays are appointed every year by Royal Proclamation. Actually, a Bank Holiday can be created in an emergency. For example, if the government wishes to cease currency dealings or for other special occasions such as the Queen's Jubilee.
The Act was repealed in in 1971 and changed to the Banking and Financial Dealings Act. This is still in place right now. So the uk bank holidays in 2016 are pretty much the same as they were over 100 years ago but now obviously we don't venture to the UK seaside as much.
Its a CKC exercise. Being a Closed Kinetic Chain exercise (meaning that your body is moved while the hands and feet stay in the same position), it works your opposing muscles and their entire group when lifting and lowering the body. Pull ups are also another great Closed Kinetic Chain exercise.
You can add as much weight as you like. Dips are challenging at first but they will soon become easy. It is really simple to add weights to your dip so that you keep improving your strength and growth. This means that you will have unlimited potential in your dipping routing. You can add weight to your routine with the use of a dipping belt.
Upper body gains. With the ability to continuously add weights to the your dips, you can continuously overload the muscles which are used. If you are always overloading with a good weight gaining diet, your success if guaranteed (and you will be like me :-)).
Better than press ups. Press ups are a good body weight based exercise and is quite similar in terms of CKC to dips. But you are limited to lift only your own body weight. While it is possible to do weight press ups, dips are usually much more convenient.
Better lockouts. A dip isn't complete until you reach the lockout position. Often, the final inches of the movement are the most difficult. By doing dips, you significantly increase lockout strength which goes directly to assist the lockout of other exercises such as bench press or and overhead press.
So, there you have it. I hope that I have successfully convinced you to add dips to your routine.


Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is known as the "cradle of the Renaissance" (la culla del Rinascimento) because of its monuments, churches, and other historic buildings. It has also been called The Athens of the MIddle Ages. The domed cathedral of the city, built by Filippo Brunelleschi and known as The Duomo is the best known site in Florence. The historic center of the city was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982 and Forbes magazine ranks Florence as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Whatever your reason for visiting the Florence area, Villaway.com can help you find the perfect Florence area luxury vacation rental. Our properties range from 3 bedrooms and 3 baths, accommodating 6, up to 10 bedrooms and 10 baths, accommodating up to 20. These luxury Florence area vacation properties are very diverse, so we are able to offer properties in the city or country, apartments to manors, modern to classic. Regardless of location or size, our guests can expect the same caliber of indulgence at any of our luxury Florence area vacation villas. A small sampling of amenities includes expansive views of the surrounding area, the craftsmanship of local artisans and artists, sweeping living rooms, gourmet fully equipped kitchens, extravagant master suites, with separate sittings area and private verandas. Master bath feature dual vanities, large Jacuzzi tubs and separate oversized walk-in showers.
The Santa Maria del Fiore, the domed cathedral often called the Duomo, is known as the world's largest masonry dome. This majestic cathedral features 600 years worth of incredible architecture and works of art. The Ponte Vecchio is one of Florence's most photographed bridges. It spans the Arno River and is noted for its three segmented arches. The bridge was first built by the Etruscans and later rebuilt in the 14th century. The Uffizi Gallery is regarded as one of the world's greatest art museums. The former palace was built in 1560 and later evolved into the gallery. It has been open to the public since 1765.


France Van Stone has been blogging about sketching for ten years and is the author of 'Sketch! The Non-Artist's Guide To Inspiration, Technique And Drawing Daily Life'. She is a fakulty member at Sketchbook Skool. Follow her on Twitter @wagonized or at http://www.wagonized.com.


text:
Wilhelm Jordan may refer to:

 Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan (1819–1904), known as Wilhelm Jordan, German writer and politician
 Wilhelm Jordan (geodesist) (1842–1899), German scientist, noted for the Gauss–Jordan elimination algorithm

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


David Roth is a singer, songwriter, recording artist, and enthusiastic instructor who has taken his songs, experience, and expertise to a wide variety of venues in this and other countries full-time for more than twenty five years. His work has found it's way to Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, several Chicken Soup for the Soul books, the Kennedy Center, Peter, Paul, & Mary and Kingston Trio CDs, the Kerrville and Falcon Ridge Folk Festivals (top honors at both "Emerging Artist" competitions), NASA's Goddard Space Center (his song "Rocket Science" sailed on the space shuttle Atlantis in 2009), the Rise Up Singing and Rise Again (sequel) songbooks, and 13 CDs on the Wind River and Stockfisch (Germany) labels. Winner of four Positive Music Awards (celebrating the best in empowering original music) David was also the 2015 Grace Note recipient for Outstanding Contribution to New Thought Music. The former artist-in-residence at New York's Omega Institute has been on many of Christine Lavin's seminal Rounder Records compilations, and has also taught singing, songwriting, and performance at the Swannanoa Gathering (where he was Coordinator of "Contemporary Folk Week" for 5 years), Augusta Heritage workshops, Common Ground on the Hill, the Woods Dance & Music Camp, WUMB's Summer Acoustic Music Week, Moab Folk Camp, Rowe Center, Pendle Hill, Lamb's Retreat, the National Wellness Institute, and for many other songwriting groups and associations around the country. David is also creator of the Cape Cod Songwriters Retreat and organizer/host of the Cape's "Full Moon Open Mic" which, for the past 10 years has provided a forum for musicians to connect and be heard while at the same time collecting donations (cumulatively over $13,000) for local non-profits to help neighbors in need.
Defying standard categorization, singer/songwriter Sloan Wainwright, consistently demonstrates her easy command of a variety of American musical styles — pop, folk, jazz and blues — held together by the melodious tone of her rich contralto. With the end result being a unique and soulful hybrid.
With a solid and impressive discography of 7 original CD releases to her credit, Sloan continues to write, sing and perform live. In addition, Sloan has written numerous musical compositions for theater and dance and teaches at many of the best-known master songwriter series and workshops. Sloan's open spirit and first- hand experience is welcome –year after year– in the musical classrooms of such prestigious song camps as Richard Thompson's Frets and Refrains, The Swannanoa Gathering, Summersongs, Wintersongs, and WUMB Radio's Summer Acoustic Music Week (SAMW), Winter Acoustic Music Weekend (WAMW) Moab Folk Camp and Cape Cod Songwriters Retreat.
Charlie Hall is a full-time teacher and performer on guitar and mandolin. He's a co-founder and past president of the Black Rose Acoustic Society in Colorado Springs, and co-founder and director of the Colorado Roots Music Camp. He was a finalist in the 2000 National Finger Style Guitar championship, and a nominee for Bluegrass Guitarist of the Year in 1996 by the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society. He's a co-founder and member of The Sister Brothers, Big Honk and Black Rose and has performed with Joe Uveges, Phil Volan, the nearly-famed Trio Reynoso, and the fully-famed Flying W Wranglers.
Cosy Sheridan has been called "one of the era's finest and most thoughtful singer/songwriters." A storyteller as well as a songwriter, she weaves children's fables into tales of modern adulthood. She has written about the stock market crash of 2008 and fall-out from uranium mining in the American southwest. She has re-written greek myths: Persephone runs away with Hades the biker. And then there are her signature parodies on aging and women.
She first caught the attention of national folk audiences in 1992 when she won the songwriting contests at both the Kerrville Folk Festival and The Telluride Bluegrass Festival. She has been touring, writing and recording ever since. Her latest CD, Pretty Bird, was included in Sing Out Magazine's "Great CDs of 2014".
For the past 20 years she has taught classes in songwriting, performance and guitar at workshops and adult music camps across the country including the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, California Coast Music Camp and The Swannanoa Gathering. In 2008 she co-founded the Moab Folk Camp.
Chad's work can be viewed at www.MoabArt.com.
Charlie Koch has trained horses, sailed across the Atlantic more than once, and fronted an R & B band. He skippered a race boat for Buckminster Fuller. He whipped in for a fox hunt in Ireland and saddle broke young horses on a breeding farm in France. He taught tennis, skiing and horseback riding. He trained as a body oriented psychotherapist. These days, he tours as the bass player for his wife, singer/songwriter Cosy Sheridan. In his first CD, Help Me To Believe, Charlie sings of his father - who was also a sailor, and of his longing for a place to call home. His love songs are heartfelt - his melodies influenced by such diverse writers as Otis Redding, Ray Charles and James Taylor. His guitar playing has roots in soulful country blues.


text:
Pagasa denies claims of UP Noah head on 'Usman' 'wrong forecasts'
By: Consuelo Marquez - Reporter / @CMarquezINQ
INQUIRER.net / 05:37 PM January 16, 2019
MANILA, Philippines — The state weather bureau has denied the claims of an official from the University of the Philippines Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (UP Noah) that the agency allegedly issued "wrong forecasts and late warnings" on Tropical Depression "Usman."
UP Noah Executive Director Mahar Lagmay said the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services (Pagasa)'s forecast on "Usman" caused a number of deaths due to landslides and flooding specifically in the Bicol region.
UP Noah was formed at the University of the Philippines to conduct research, development and extension services on natural hazards, disaster risk reduction and climate change actions.
Lagmay added that Pagasa reported a moderate to heavy rainfall forecast in Bicol last Dec. 28 and 29, 2018 instead of intense and torrential rainfall.
Pagasa Administrator Vicente Malano, however, said the weather bureau defined moderate to heavy rainfall in its Severe Weather Bulletins as "24-hour daily accumulated rainfall of 6- to 180 mm and more than 180, respectively."
Malano clarified that the Dec. 28 to 29 Pagasa weather forecasters "sufficiently warned" that the "24-hour accumulated rainfall of moderate to heavy could trigger massive flooding and landslides."
Further, Malano said Pagasa provided "localized rainfall and thunderstorm warning in near-real time" through its Southern Luzon Pagasa Regional Services Division (SLPRSD).
The SLPRSD in Legazpi City issued "separate color-coded Heavy Rainfall Warnings (HRWs) which stressed that there was an immediate threat of floods and landslides indicative of emergency actions."
Malano also explained that although the weather bureau downgraded TD "Usman" into a Low-Pressure Area (LPA) upon landfall, Pagasa and the SLPRSD reiterated their warnings of flooding and landslides due to moderate to heavy rainfall.
Malano then advised concerned sectors to be more careful in the issuance of statements that may damage the credibility of Pagasa. /muf
N. Korea officials book flight to Washington—reports
TAGS: Bicol Region, Flooding, Pagasa, TD Usman, UP NOAH, weather forecast

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Indian para-commando assault in Myanmar on Wednesday seems to be a reprisal against the NSCN (K)–ULFA joint ambush of an Assam Rifles patrol in which three soldiers were killed and as many injured on June 18.
As reported earlier by Northeast Now, 'at least five' NSCN (K) rebels were killed when Indian para-commandos on Wednesday attacked a transit camp of the NSCN (K) inside Myanmar. The special forces unit crossed the international border at pillar no 151 in Nagaland's Mon district around 2 pm and struck the rebel camp around Shwelo inside Myanmar.
But the Indian army is not beating the publicity drum on the issue to avoid adverse reactions from Myanmar.
The last time Indian para-commandos struck rebel bases inside Myanmar and then defence minister Manohar Parikkar bragged loud about the operation, Myanmar protested against the transgressions quite strongly.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Foreign secretary S Jaishanker had to rush to Myanmar for damage control.
Myanmar's pro-democracy icon and now de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi raised her voice against the Indian commando raids and said violation of Myanmar's sovereignty was not acceptable.
Myanmar's northwest army commander Maj Gen Phon Myat gave this assurance during a visit to Shillong last year where he was hosted by the Indian army.
But Indian army and para-military forces are not amused by the current spate of rebel attacks along the border with Myanmar. They say the Myanmar army has done little to dislodge the K group and other rebel groups from northeast India from their strongholds in Sagaing Division.
Military intelligence reports indicate that not only are these rebels well entrenched in their bases around Taga but they are also maintaining a string of transit camps on the border.
Burmese forces on the border have done little to hit out even at these border camps which have limited strength and don't need a huge force to attack.
Indian military intelligence officials say these transit camps are used by rebel units to lay themselves into Indian territory for offensive action.
That explains the reprisal attacks this week. A top military commander in Nagaland told this writer this week that trans-border attacks on rebel bases have always been an option and will be used as and when needed to deter rebels from attacking security forces.
"It is part of a pro active counter-insurgency doctrine," he said.
Efforts to bring back the NSCN (K) to the table seem to have come a cropper, despite concerted efforts last year.
The K group, now led by China-trained Khonga Konyak who took charge after death of Burmese Naga rebel leader S S Khaplang last year, seems unwilling to return to negotiations with India because it feels Delhi is giving primacy to the Muivah group.
Their position seems to have hardened after reports surfaced in the Indian media that Delhi is close to signing a deal with the Muivah group.


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text:
Lest We Forget...
Debuts 1930 to 1934
From the Grampians, Vic
Games Breakdown: 501 to 600
Guernsey 25
Players requiring Images
Servicemen
Stat Shot: H Thomson
Players by Player Number
Player Birthdays
Henry Thomson
Career : 1930
Debut and Only Game : Round 7, 1930 vs North Melbourne, aged 23 years, 251 days
Carlton Player No. 470
Goals : 0
Guernsey No. 25
Height : ?
Weight : ?
DOB : 6 October 1906
On the afternoon of Saturday, June 14, 1930, Carlton played North Melbourne at the Arden St oval. Two young men made their debut that day; Bill Flynn (a forward from Fitzroy Reserves) and Griffith Henry Thomson; a defender from Ararat. Flynn put in an eye-catching effort with three goals from a half-forward flank in the Blues comfortable victory by 50 points, while Thomson was hardly sighted. In that same month Thomson was granted a permit to Melbourne from Carlton.
For both, that game was to be their one and only appearance for the Navy Blues, because in the midst of the Great Depression, even three goals in a first-up effort couldn't guarantee a place in the team for the next game. Thomson drifted back to his home town, and little is known of his circumstances until Australia was plunged into turmoil with the outbreak of World War II in September 1939.
Within days of Australia's declaration of war against Germany, Thompson volunteered for overseas service. By then he was 33 years old, unmarried, and working as a stock clerk. The Army obviously valued his office skills over his potential as a front line soldier, because after basic training he was posted to 6th Division Headquarters in the Middle East.
Soon after Japan bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbour in December 1941, and the Pacific Ocean became the theatre of war closest to the Australian mainland, Thomson took up a new posting with the Australian Army Pay Corps at Batavia, on the Indonesian island of Java. Only a few months later, in February 1942, the Japanese army flooded south to conquer Singapore, Malaya, Hong Kong and Java in quick succession.
More than 2,800 Australians were captured on Java, and most of them were destined for the horrors of the Burma Railway – a 420 kilometre track through thick jungle that the Japanese High Command ordered to be built by Allied prisoners. On the railroad there was little food, clothing or shelter, no medical supplies, and only basic tools. Work started at dawn and ended at dusk. Worse still, squads of Japanese and Korean guards constantly brutalised the weakened prisoners, who were literally worked to death.
Some 13,000 Australian prisoners of war worked on the Burma 'Railway of Death', and almost 2,700 died of disease, malnutrition or were simply murdered by their captors. One of them was Carlton footballer Griffith Henry Thompson, who died beside the line in May 1943 - thirteen months after his capture on Java.
Articles: The Blues at War
Blueseum: Summary of playing statistics for Henry Thomson | Thomson's Blueseum Image Gallery
Contributors to this page: Jarusa , molsey , PatsFitztrick , tmd1 , p(12)terg and admin .
Page last modified on Wednesday 20 of February, 2019 21:00:28 AEDT by Jarusa.
1939 cartoon
Giuseppe Lumicisi
Jim Clapton
1979 Under 19's team list
Phil McShane
Guernsey 3


Welcome to the Bangladesh Livestock Society (BLS). The Society was structurally formed on 9th June 2012 at Rajshahi University Veterinary Clinic and Artificial Insemination (AI) center seminar hall in presence of Livestock-Poultry stakeholders. The purpose of the society is to maintain contacts with the livestock stake holder, home and abroad, and to exchange ideas and information through communications and congregations; to advise and help the members in their problems and to provide financial, social and moral assistance among the members; to monitor and help promote the standard of education and research in livestock sector with special attention to the livestock crisis moment public influences and arrange a programs and quality of publications; to help foster a global perspective in research activities about climatic changes and prepare farmer for challenging this crisis; to seek collaborations works and exchange knowledge with the institutions/organizations, home and abroad; to arrange workshops for refreshing/updating knowledge and information for the Livestock farmer and awarded ideal person and institution about livestock sector, to provide assistance for short-term training of the young researchers abroad; to provide accommodation to the Alumni when they visit Rajshahi and to arrange seminar talks to be delivered or workshops to be conducted by them; to honor the members for their outstanding contribution; to publish regularly the activities of BLS and communicate the members, home and abroad, in the form of a newsletter, magazine and in website, to coordinate/integrate different advisory and award selection Committees of (Institution/Locality); to orient the executive committee for effective representation in different bodies and organizations, home and abroad.
Now we have built a solid framework for professional growth and are incorporated as a about 650 general members and 13 life members and uncountable will wishers. Membership has grown steadily and we continue to explore new ways to realize our vision for sustained growth.


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"The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying."
Of all the illustrations that I've done for Lifeway's Explore the Bible series, (I've done over 60) this one is my favorite. I like it because I think I successfully pulled off an early morning feel.
If you're not familiar with this scene, you heathen, this is when two of Jesus' followers come to his tomb to...wait, what were they doing? Embalming his body or something? Does that make sense? Shoot, this is embarrassing. All those years of Sunday School. I'm sorry I called you a heathen.
Anyway, the two women came to Jesus' tomb to find it open and empty, and two angels standing nearby. Yes, those are angels - Lifeway specifically requested that they not have wings and halos. Still, I felt like there had to be some signifier that the men were angels, so I put them in all-white outfits.
For the figures, my husband helped me take some photo references.
LOL. Yes, that's essentially why the women would've been there early on Sunday morning. The body would've been wrapped, but with the restrictions of Passover, they would not have been able to anoint the body with the customary spices and mourn properly. Incidentally, I love the color choices, especially on the rock above the opening.


To be a source of support, comfort and information for those in the military who are choosing to resist.
To provide timely information to the chapter and its members about how they can support GIs who resist wars or who take a stand against physical, psychological and sexual abuse within the military.
The War Resisters Support Action Team will coordinate with other chapters and war resister advocacy groups in campaigns to support war resisters and will initiate campaigns on behalf of the chapter.
We will encourage participation in these campaigns by publicizing them, including in the military communities, by taking political action, and by raising funds to help GI resisters with legal defense and survival needs.
We will seek to create a positive image of GI resisters and to influence public opinion in favor of these courageous men and women.


plumber - Turn your R code into a web API.
Plumber allows you to create a web API by merely decorating your existing R source code with special comments. Take a look at an example. These comments allow plumber to make your R functions available as API endpoints. You can use either #* as the prefix or #', but we recommend the former since #' will collide with Roxygen.
up is the Ultimate Plumber, a tool for writing Linux pipes in a terminal-based UI interactively, with instant live preview of command results. The main goal of the Ultimate Plumber is to help interactively and incrementally explore textual data in Linux, by making it easier to quickly build complex pipelines, thanks to a fast feedback loop. This is achieved by boosting any typical Linux text-processing utils such as grep, sort, cut, paste, awk, wc, perl, etc., etc., by providing a quick, interactive, scrollable preview of their results.
TensorFlow™ is an open source software library for numerical computation using data flow graphs. Nodes in the graph represent mathematical operations, while the graph edges represent the multidimensional data arrays (tensors) communicated between them. The flexible architecture allows you to deploy computation to one or more CPUs or GPUs in a desktop, server, or mobile device with a single API. The TensorFlow API is composed of a set of Python modules that enable constructing and executing TensorFlow graphs. The tensorflow package provides access to the complete TensorFlow API from within R.
A little software to manage a Plumber activity. The most interesting part is the little framework to manage data, and users.
R client for accessing Twitter's REST and stream APIs. Check out the rtweet package documentation website. All users must be authorized to interact with Twitter's APIs. To become authorized, follow the instructions below to (1) make a Twitter app and (2) create and save your access token (using one of the two authorization methods described below).
bigrquery - An interface to Google's bigquery from R.
The low-level API provides thin wrappers over the underlying REST API. All the low-level functions start with bq_, and mostly have the form bq_noun_verb(). This level of abstraction is most appropriate if you're familiar with the REST API and you want do something not supported in the higher-level APIs. The DBI interface wraps the low-level API and makes working with BigQuery like working with any other database system. This is most convenient layer if you want to execute SQL queries in BigQuery or upload smaller amounts (i.e. <100 MB) of data.
This project is no longer under active development and we're looking for a new maintainer (or owner). Please open an issue if you are interested in helping out. API-Mock is a node.js npm module that generates a mock server (express) from your API specification. Document your API in the API blueprint format, and API-Mock mocks your routes and sends the responses defined in the api spec.
twitteR is an R package which provides access to the Twitter API. Most functionality of the API is supported, with a bias towards API calls that are more useful in data analysis as opposed to daily interaction.
Apache Juneau is a single cohesive Java ecosystem consisting of the following parts juneau-marshall, juneau-dto, juneau-svl, juneau-config, juneau-rest-server, juneau-rest-client, juneau-microservice.
The official project documentation is available on the API Platform website. API Platform embraces open web standards (Swagger, JSON-LD, GraphQL, Hydra, HAL, JWT, OAuth, HTTP...) and the Linked Data movement. Your API will automatically expose structured data in Schema.org/JSON-LD. It means that your API Platform application is usable out of the box with technologies of the semantic web.
Access and manage Google spreadsheets from R with googlesheets. googlesheets is inspired by gspread, a Google Spreadsheets Python API.
Redisson - distributed Java objects and services (Set, Multimap, SortedSet, Map, List, Queue, BlockingQueue, Deque, BlockingDeque, Semaphore, Lock, AtomicLong, Map Reduce, Publish / Subscribe, Bloom filter, Spring Cache, Executor service, Tomcat Session Manager, Scheduler service, JCache API) on top of Redis server. Rich Redis client.
This project have option to use YouTube API easily into your asp.net application using the simple dll file. Also you can display YouTube Videos in your website using Server Control simply.
A REST API server for getting the info for videos from different sites, powered by youtube-dl. The installation instructions and the documentation are available at Read the Docs. youtube-dl-api-server is released to the public domain, read the license for more info.
Generate API middleware from a RAML definition, which can be used locally or globally for validating API requests and responses. Osprey can be used as a validation proxy with any other API server. Just install the module globally and use the CLI to set up the application endpoint(s) to proxy, as well as the RAML definition to use. Invalid API requests will be blocked before they reach your application server.
SQL Server Database Maintenance API in versions 2000, 2005, 2008 and 2008R2.
gorush - A push notification server written in Go (Golang).
A push notification micro server using Gin framework written in Go (Golang).
The Gardener implements the automated management and operation of Kubernetes clusters as a service and aims to support that service on multiple Cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure, OpenStack). Its main principle is to use Kubernetes itself as base for its tasks. In essence, the Gardener is an extension API server along with a bundle of Kubernetes controllers which introduces new API objects in an existing Kubernetes cluster (which is called Garden cluster) in order to use them for the management of further Kubernetes clusters (which are called Shoot clusters). To do that reliably and to offer a certain quality of service, it requires to control the main components of a Kubernetes cluster (etcd, API server, controller manager, scheduler). These so-called control plane components are hosted in Kubernetes clusters themselves (which are called Seed clusters).
The Akka HTTP modules implement a full server- and client-side HTTP stack on top of akka-actor and akka-stream. It's not a web-framework but rather a more general toolkit for providing and consuming HTTP-based services. While interaction with a browser is of course also in scope it is not the primary focus of Akka HTTP.
thingler - The amazingly simple-to-use, real-time, collaborative todo list!


This passage is very powerful to me. I have a BIG arrow pointing to it in my Step book and many works highlighted. I think today the word that is speaking to me is "unshakable." Lets face it, like most people, I have been shaken enough in my life time, so to find something unshakable = GOOD.
For me, the first part is always the willingness. I ask myself, am I willing to continuously practice self-examination? Yes, I personally am. I am a BIG lover of Step Ten. I don't always do it perfectly but the practice is ingrained in me. In the early years of my recovery I would call my sponsor going on and on about this or that. Mostly everyday life stuff that would really rattle me. She would listen briefly and then say "Gwen, go read Step 10 and call me back." Oh I hated when I got to the words... "every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us." Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions page 90. But by continuously being brought back to that line the self-examination became a way of life.
Am I willing to continuously practice meditation? Yes, I personally am. But now it was a question of HOW? So in hindsight I can tell you I started doing this in the earliest days of my recovery unknowingly. See I could not sleep in early recovery. I was so used to the alcohol pass out I had no idea how to settle my mind and go to sleep without it. There were many many nights I only dozed off here and there. People in the rooms told me "no one ever died from lack of sleep." My friends mother, not recovery related at all, gave me a meditation cassette. I used it every night. I wore that cassette OUT! It was a guided meditation. I just popped it in and laid in bed. It was amazing how it worked.
Am I willing to continuously practice prayer? Yes, I personally am. Again I was doing this from my earliest days in recovery. My prayers started out something like this... "God please help me stay sober for the next five minutes." I clung to the lines I heard old timers say, "I never saw someone get drunk who HONESTLY got on his hands and knees and asked God to keep him sober." I put a ton of faith in that from day one. Guess what? It worked. Time and again, over and over, one day at a time, I stayed sober. In my worst moments I would hit my knees and BEG God to keep me sober till I could get to that next meeting. Slowly the begging was not necessary as the obsession to drink faded away. But life continued and I learned to STAY sober I still needed Gods help. Life was happening all around me and I had no clue how to deal with it. I blindly asked God for acceptance of _____________, for willingness, to slow down, for help. I used the Serenity Prayer, the Third Step prayer, the Seventh Step prayer, the Prayer of St. Francis. People gave me prayer cards. One I remember was Slow Me Down Lord.
It has taken many years to interweave these practices in my life. Please don't think I am in any way on a kneeler every morning with lit candles then sitting for hours in a meditative pose. I am a human being, soberly living in a high paced world. I have days when I can do a very formal practice and days when it is done quickly. The point is I am willing to continue building my unshakable foundation and it just gets stronger every day.


Do you have a question about planning your holiday or attending one of our KUltura events? Would you like to book accommodation in Kufsteinerland? Are you interested in one of the offers on our website? Or perhaps you have a suggestion for improving our website or services?
Please send your enquires via the contact form or directly via e-mail to info@kufstein.com. You can also call us on +43 5372 62207.


Get started with Unity by making classic games and improve your 2D game development skills.
This video will help you build 2D games in Unity using the engine's 2D technologies based on Version 5.x.
You will be shown how to get up-and-running with Unity 5.4.1, including the basic steps to choose the appropriate edition and install the software. You will also be shown how to find older versions of Unity and learn about the key differences compared to previous versions.
To start with, you will learn the introductory information needed to work in Unity 2D game development. The video describes the process of setting up a project in 2D mode, covers the use of 2D sprites, discusses ways to access 2D objects via code, and explains the basics of the User Interface. It then covers the very first game genre—text adventure—and you will go on to create an example of this with the various elements discussed earlier in the chapter.
Once you reach the end and have produced a text adventure game, you can go back to the challenges included in each chapter and use them to improve the game and your 2D game development skills!
This video takes a step-by-step, practical, tutorial-style approach. The steps are accompanied by examples, and all the intermediate steps are clearly explained. The focus of this video is on advanced topics so that your game looks awesome and performs efficiently.
Ashley Godbold is a programmer, game designer, artist, mathematician, and teacher. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, a Master of Science in Mathematics, a Bachelor of Science in Game Art and Design, and a Doctor of Computer Science in Emerging Media where her dissertation research focused on educational video game design. She also authored Mastering Unity 2D Game Development: Second Edition (Packt Publishing). She enjoys playing video games and watching anime with her husband, daughter, and two cats.


We are currently hiring for our 2019 season! We are looking for reliable, hard working and customer-service driven individuals to join our team. We have a variety of positions available for our season that starts in May and goes through the beginning of November. Staff must be available for the entire duration of this time. Weekend availability is important. Please contact us with any questions.
To Apply: You can print an application by clicking here: Spring Valley Inn Employment Application or you may come to our location to pick one up. You may submit your application in person, via email or Facebook. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.


Liverpool midfielder Naby Keita has admitted that the 'Premier League is tough'.
Having played in France, Austria and Germany, Keita opines that playing in the English top-flight is a difficult and different challenge.
"I think it's fair to say that the Premier League is a tough league," Keita told club website.
"I'm very motivated to be playing in it - it's an attractive proposition - but I've been told by many people that a lot of overseas players come into the Premier League and they take time to integrate, depending on the circumstances.
"So playing in the Premier League can be difficult, but I am very motivated to play here, not just for myself and my teammates, but for the club.
"Everybody around me has been very supportive towards me so I am certainly giving everything I can to get settled into the team quickly."
On Saturday, Keita will hope to be restored to the starting lineup as Liverpool take on Tottenham Hotspur in their next league game at Wembley Stadium on Saturday .


The Red Cliff Wellness School Curriculum is a substance abuse prevention intervention based in Native American tradition and culture. Designed for grades K-12, the curriculum aims to reduce risk factors and enhance protective factors related to substance use, including school bonding, success in school, increased perception of risk from substances, and identification and internalization of culturally based values and norms. The Red Cliff program is taught by teachers who have been trained in interactive, cooperative learning techniques and facilitation. The manualized curriculum has separate components for grades K-3, 4-6, and 7-12. Each component includes 20-30 developmentally appropriate lessons and activities designed to enhance the values of sharing, respect, honesty, and kindness and to assist students in understanding their emotions. Small-group discussions (described as "talking circles" in Native American terms) are extensively used, along with small-group process activities, independent workbook activities, and collaborative projects for older students.
The school curriculum was created by the First American Prevention Center, an arm of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The curriculum is part of a broader wellness initiative that includes a community curriculum and home wellness kit. The research reviewed in this summary involved only the elementary school component (grades 4-6) of the K-12 program.


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16 Sep 2017 Ezdehar Egypt Mid-Cap Fund's Investor Base Expands
Ezdehar Egypt Mid-Cap Fund acquires a strategic stake in Rich Food
Ezdehar Management ("Ezdehar") announces that it has invested and acquired a 30% stake in Family Group ("Family Group") and will be joining the company's Board of Directors.
Ekuity acquires 30% stake in AluNile from Ezdehar Egypt Mid-Cap Fund
Ezdehar Management acquires 30% of Family Group
Algebra Ventures, Ezdehar Management partner to invest in Dsquares
Ezdehar Management ("Ezdehar"), an Egypt-based Investment Management firm, announces that its inaugural Ezdehar Egypt Mid-Cap Fund has reached USD 84 million in commitments.
The European Investment Bank ("EIB"), The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development ("EBRD"), and the Sawiris Family are the fund's cornerstone investors together with the CDC Group PLC, the Dutch Development Bank ("FMO"), and several Egyptian High Net-worth Individuals.
The Egypt Mid-Cap Fund is a USD 100 million investment vehicle mandated to invest in mid-cap enterprises in the fast moving consumer goods, consumer retail, healthcare, education, basic materials, and industrial manufacturing. The Fund is launched and managed by Ezdehar Management, a Cairo-based investment management firm led by Dr. Emad Barsoum, a seasoned executive and private equity professional along with a number of highly qualified professionals with international and local experience.
Pyramids Heights Business Park Building C7 – 2nd Floor Km 22 Cairo-Alex Desert Road
Email: info@ezdehar.com
Landline: +20-2-3536 2919
© Copyright – EZDEHAR
© Designed by: [34]ML


text:
What Happened to Obama? Absolutely Nothing. [incl. Rashid Khalidi]
He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president.
by Norman Podhoretz
https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/19357/what-happened-to-obama-absolutely-nothing-incl
It's open season on President Obama. Which is to say that the usual suspects on the right (among whom I include myself) are increasingly being joined in attacking him by erstwhile worshipers on the left. Even before the S&P downgrade, there were reports of Democrats lamenting that Hillary Clinton had lost to him in 2008. Some were comparing him not, as most of them originally had, to Lincoln and Roosevelt but to the hapless Jimmy Carter. There was even talk of finding a candidate to stage a primary run against him. But since the downgrade, more and more liberal pundits have been deserting what they clearly fear is a sinking ship.
Here, for example, from the Washington Post, is Richard Cohen: "He is the very personification of cognitive dissonance—the gap between what we (especially liberals) expected of the first serious African American presidential candidate and the man he in fact is." More amazingly yet Mr. Cohen goes on to say of Mr. Obama, who not long ago was almost universally hailed as the greatest orator since Pericles, that he lacks even "the rhetorical qualities of the old-time black politicians." And to compound the amazement, Mr. Cohen tells us that he cannot even "recall a soaring passage from a speech."
Overseas it is the same refrain. Everywhere in the world, we read in Germany's Der Spiegel, not only are the hopes ignited by Mr. Obama being dashed, but his "weakness is a problem for the entire global economy."
In short, the spell that Mr. Obama once cast—a spell so powerful that instead of ridiculing him when he boasted that he would cause "the oceans to stop rising and the planet to heal," all of liberaldom fell into a delirious swoon—has now been broken by its traumatic realization that he is neither the "god" Newsweek in all seriousness declared him to be nor even a messianic deliverer.
Hence the question on every lip is—as the title of a much quoted article in the New York Times by Drew Westen of Emory University puts it— "What Happened to Obama?" Attacking from the left, Mr. Westin charges that President Obama has been conciliatory when he should have been aggressively pounding away at all the evildoers on the right.
Of course, unlike Mr. Westen, we villainous conservatives do not see Mr. Obama as conciliatory or as "a president who either does not know what he believes or is willing to take whatever position he thinks will lead to his re-election." On the contrary, we see him as a president who knows all too well what he believes. Furthermore, what Mr. Westen regards as an opportunistic appeal to the center we interpret as a tactic calculated to obfuscate his unshakable strategic objective, which is to turn this country into a European-style social democracy while diminishing the leading role it has played in the world since the end of World War II. The Democrats have persistently denied that these are Mr. Obama's goals, but they have only been able to do so by ignoring or dismissing what Mr. Obama himself, in a rare moment of candor, promised at the tail end of his run for the presidency: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."
This statement, coming on top of his association with radicals like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Rashid Khalidi, definitively revealed to all who were not wilfully blinding themselves that Mr. Obama was a genuine product of the political culture that had its birth among a marginal group of leftists in the early 1960s and that by the end of the decade had spread metastatically to the universities, the mainstream media, the mainline churches, and the entertainment industry. Like their communist ancestors of the 1930s, the leftist radicals of the '60s were convinced that the United States was so rotten that only a revolution could save it.
But whereas the communists had in their delusional vision of the Soviet Union a model of the kind of society that would replace the one they were bent on destroying, the new leftists only knew what they were against: America, or Amerika as they spelled it to suggest its kinship to Nazi Germany. Thanks, however, to the unmasking of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian nightmare, they did not know what they were for. Yet once they had pulled off the incredible feat of taking over the Democratic Party behind the presidential candidacy of George McGovern in 1972, they dropped the vain hope of a revolution, and in the social-democratic system most fully developed in Sweden they found an alternative to American capitalism that had a realistic possibility of being achieved through gradual political reform.
Despite Mr. McGovern's defeat by Richard Nixon in a landslide, the leftists remained a powerful force within the Democratic Party, but for the next three decades the electoral exigencies within which they had chosen to operate prevented them from getting their own man nominated. Thus, not one of the six Democratic presidential candidates who followed Mr. McGovern came out of the party's left wing, and when Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (the only two of the six who won) tried each in his own way to govern in its spirit, their policies were rejected by the American immune system. It was only with the advent of Barack Obama that the leftists at long last succeeded in nominating one of their own.
To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?
And so it came about that a faithful scion of the political culture of the '60s left is now sitting in the White House and doing everything in his power to effect the fundamental transformation of America to which that culture was dedicated and to which he has pledged his own personal allegiance.
I disagree with those of my fellow conservatives who maintain that Mr. Obama is indifferent to "the best interests of the United States" (Thomas Sowell) and is "purposely" out to harm America (Rush Limbaugh). In my opinion, he imagines that he is helping America to repent of its many sins and to become a different and better country.
But I emphatically agree with Messrs. Limbaugh and Sowell about this president's attitude toward America as it exists and as the Founding Fathers intended it. That is why my own answer to the question, "What Happened to Obama?" is that nothing happened to him. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly deserved failure both at home and abroad of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind.
Mr. Podhoretz was the editor of Commentary from 1960 to 1995. His most recent book is "Why Are Jews Liberals?" (Doubleday, 2009).
Related Topics: Rashid Khalidi receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free mef mailing list


Nicks Body Shop's Girl is the beautiful Rebecca Glam!
I like cooking, shopping, kayaking, hiking, and more!
I personally like looking at classic american muscle cars.
Summit Racing "Night Under Fire"
Expanding said company across the US owning a winter house in Florida and married!


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But will this trajectory continue? Here we'll explore the future of solar and what trends will likely shape the industry.
The answer is promising. While the idea of turning sun rays into a reliable energy source for households and industries seemed far-fetched in the recent past, it is becoming increasingly feasible today. And it's not just the industrial players that have driven the change, but everyone, including governments, businesses, and individuals.
The solar industry has seen a flurry of activity in the past few years due to government incentives, the falling cost of solar technology, and consumers' growing environmental awareness. All this has given the adoption of Photovoltaics (PV) technology a significant boost.
The future of solar looks bright even if the US government has since reduced its incentives.
We can predict…
Increased Reliance On Solar Energy
The past few years have seen a significant increase in solar energy usage.
According to energy.gov, the production of solar energy increased from 1,121 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in the year 2010 to 90,891 GWh as of 2020. This positive trend continued in 2021, giving more and more people access to solar energy.
In fact, 39% of all new electricity power added to US general consumption in 2021 was from solar energy. That's pretty impressive!
While the electricity generated from solar energy remains low at 3% as of 2022, the trend toward increased reliance on solar is certain. Some studies suggest that those figures could go up to 90% using clean energy from wind and solar.
According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), it's projected that solar energy alone could power up to 45% of the US electricity needs by 2050. It's possible!
Lower Overall Costs For Solar Technology
Solar technology is perhaps the biggest contributor to the high cost of PV panels. This sophisticated technology involves converting solar energy to usable electricity and storage systems.
In the past, the cost of these photovoltaic systems was high, but this trend is quickly changing with advances in solar technology. Although the current tech is functional, the industry constantly innovates and advances to create more cost-effective and efficient ways to generate solar energy.
With the large influx of government funding, the solar industry has continuously lined up projects to reduce this technology's overall cost. If the huge investments achieve the intended effect, you can expect the current price to be cut by half by 2030. It will make it easier for more households and businesses to harness energy from the sun.
More Affordable Solar Panels
The biggest hindrance to the widespread adoption of solar technology has been its high initial cost. Currently, most households installing a 10kW PV panel can expect to pay an average of $20,000.
In the last decade, this cost has significantly reduced. According to the SEIA (Solar Energy Industries Association), in 2010, the average price of a residential system would go for $40,000. The difference is enormous.
With continuous investment and innovation, you can only expect this cost to dip even further.
More Jobs In Solar Energy
In 2021, there were over 10,000 companies in the solar industry, employing more than 255,000 Americans across all fifty states. It's no surprise that a growing sector attracts more people interested in making a difference.
With growing demand and easy access to solar energy, the industry can expect more jobs in the coming years. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) forecast that between 2021 and 2031, panel installation jobs will grow by 27%. Of course, other jobs related to the sector, such as sales and administration, will be available. (1)
Don't be left out. Invest in solar energy and get ready to benefit from the cost savings, environmental benefits, and job opportunities that come with it.
At Wayne Solar, we provide quality and affordable solar products so you can take advantage of the future of solar. Contact us today for more information! We are privileged to serve Ormond Beach, Palm Coast, Daytona Beach, Port Orange, New Smyrna Beach, and Daytona Beach Shores, as well as the nearby communities.
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text:
RPAI Redevelops Plaza del Lago Apartments
OAK BROOK, Ill., April 15, 2019
OAK BROOK, Ill., April 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Retail Properties of America, Inc. (NYSE: RPAI) today announced it has completed the redevelopment of 18 apartment units at the historic Plaza del Lago mixed-use shopping center in Wilmette, Illinois. The Company also announced that the newly redeveloped portion of the center, known as "The Residences at Plaza del Lago," will be available for occupancy this summer.
The 18 units at The Residences at Plaza del Lago feature brand new stainless steel appliances, modern finishes, Corian countertops, dual heating and air conditioning units, and onsite parking. Plaza del Lago provides residents with premier access to Chicago's lakefront, walking trails, beaches, Northwestern University, public transportation and a diverse retail offering including boutique shops, restaurants and grocery.
"We are excited to deliver a modern living experience that is complemented by the center's unique retail amenities as well as the charming community of Wilmette," stated Stacy Short, vice president, leasing director – western division. "The completion of this project demonstrates our commitment to enhance this historic center, and we look forward to continuing to increase the overall center experience."
RPAI will host an open house to the general public on Wednesday, May 1st from 3:30 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. The open house will provide guests with the opportunity to preview the new apartments and discuss leasing opportunities with RPAI and its rental consultant, Farnsworth-Hill, Inc.
For more information about The Residences at Plaza del Lago and to view available spaces for rent, visit www.TheResidencesAtPlazaDelLago.com.
ABOUT RPAI
Retail Properties of America, Inc. is a REIT that owns and operates high quality, strategically located open-air shopping centers, including properties with a mixed-use component. As of December 31, 2018, the Company owned 105 retail operating properties in the United States representing 20.1 million square feet. The Company is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol RPAI. Additional information about the Company is available at www.rpai.com.
RPAI Media Contact:
Tim O'Connell
VP, Corporate Communications
TOConnell@rpai.com
View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rpai-redevelops-plaza-del-lago-apartments-300832113.html
SOURCE Retail Properties of America, Inc.
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DGAP-News: UniDevice AG: Sales growth and profit growth in first half year of 2019
DGAP-News: CO.DON AG: Negotiations with Xintela on creation of joint venture to be discontinued
CANCELS AND REPLACES - HALF-YEAR LIQUIDITY CONTRACT STATEMENT AT JUNE 30, 2019
DGAP-Adhoc: CO.DON AG: Negotiations with Xintela on joint venture discontinued
IC Markets review by FX Empire
Executive interview – Tinexta
Major Bitcoin Support Broken. My Buy Order Is Set At $8,600.


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Former Mayor John Clyde Eulogized As Fearless And Caring Man
Added by Bill Bowman on January 30, 2019.
Saved under Religion
Mourners gathered at St. Matthias Catholic Church Jan. 29 to say goodbye to former Mayor John Clyde.
More than 100 mourners gathered at St. Matthias Catholic Church Jan. 29 to say goodbye to former township Mayor John Clyde.
Clyde, 63, died Jan. 24 at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia.
A two-time heart transplant survivor, Clyde battled a variety of health issues. Eulogists celebrated what they called his fearlessness in dealing with those issues.
In addition to his time as mayor, Clyde served on the Township Council for nearly 20 years. He was also a longtime member of the township Environmental Commission – winning that committee's "Environmental Stewardship" award last year – and served on the Library Board of Trustees.
A Democrat, Clyde was known for working with members of both parties.
"His death is not a failure," Clyde's daughter, BethAnn Mayer, told the mourners. "He did not lose any battles. His life really is a story of defeating the odds. The bottom line is, death is inevitable, and this time God decided my Dad's best, his fearlessness, his joy, his singing voice, were simply needed somewhere else."
"My father's life was a full one; he summited mountains, watched three children grow, coached our soccer teams and never missed a single one of my games, home or away," she said. "He raised three dogs … was the mayor of our town and spent nearly two decades on the town council."
"He made many friends who lit up his world, traveled the globe to places like Columbia, Paris and Prince Edward Island," she said. "He did more in 63 years than many of us could do in a lifetime, and he did it was such love, passion and joy."
"He believed in miracles and magic, rainbows and sunshine," Mayer said.
Mayer, who was married in April of 2018, said that when she and Clyde were doing the father-daughter dance, Clyde told her that he had been dreaming of that moment since the 1990s, when he had his first heart transplant.
Mayer also took time out to thank her father's heart donors.
"I want to take an important moment to thank the two individuals who passed away and gave my father his second and third chance at life," she said. "Let us remember them today, for without them, we never would have had my father these 63 magnificent years. I had my father at my wedding, my brother and I had birthdays and holidays we never would have had with him without their gift of life."
"We did not know you, we never met you, but you and your families will forever hold a special place in our family and in our hearts," she said.
Clyde's son, Michael, said his father "lived a rich, full life, surrounded by love."
"My father was an uncommonly kind man," he said. "Giving was at the core of everything he did."
"As the mayor of Franklin, he gave a town leadership in trying times, as a member of an organization such as the Environmental Commission or the library board, he gave his time and energy to make sure people had places to gather, to learn an experience all the wonderful things this world has to offer," he said.
"As a father, he gave all his love and so much more," Clyde said. "He was always there when we needed him, always ready to help. He gave us the tools we need … his words were a comfort in times of darkness."
Also eulogizing Clyde were his friends, Pat Dillon and Philip Beachem.
"What can you say about a man who was so caring and loving, that he literally wore out three hearts?" Dillon said. "I cannot tell you about how wonderful a man John Clyde was, or what he meant to me as a friend, in five minutes. It just is not possible, and I will not try."
Dillon said that he first met Clyde in 2001, during a Township Council meeting about proposed develpoment of Catalpa Farms.
"John met with us after that meeting and talked with us at length about his thoughts for the proposed development and patiently answered all of our questions," he said. "I walked away from that session and thought to myself, our mayor is a guy who is genuinely concerned about his community."
"I had a sense of pride about our town and confidence that Mayor Clyde had out best interests at heart," he said. "This was true about John for as long as I knew him; he had a deep love for our town, our state, our country, but most importantly, he had a deep love for its individual citizens."
Dillon said he and Clyde became close friends through their participation in church groups and through volunteering for Boy Scout Troop 113.
Dillon said he spoke to Clyde in the days before his death, during which Clyde "talked about how much he loved his children."
"He felt he lived a rich and full life," Dillon said. "He was proud of the things he accomplished. He was tired and weary of the pain, but John was at peace with his situation, he was prepared to meet his Lord, he was ready to go home."
"There was one thing I used to say to him all the time, and he admitted to me that those words meant the world to him," Dillon said. "I used to say to him all the time, you're a good man, Mr. Clyde. You're a good man, Mr. Clyde."
Beachem told the mourners that he'd first met Clyde in 1978 when, as a graduate student at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers, Clyde applied for an internship with a state Assemblyman.
"It was also during that time that I learned several things about John," Beachem said. "He was honest to a fault, and his view of government service was rooted in the concept of helping people, not for personal enhancement. Of course I hired john, and over the next 41 years, we became close friends and colleagues."
"He never strayed from his view of what government service was about, and he never stopped helping people whenever it was necessary," he said. "He never lost his penchant for honesty and frankness, and he had little patience for those who put personal gain above service to the public."
"John faced it all, yet I never once heard him complain, never once heard him say, why me, never once heard him feel sorry for himself," Beachem said. "He was always seeing the good in a not-so-good situation."
"So I think we must look at this solemn occasion as John would have looked at it," he said. "We can do good things in our lives by emulating the character of our good friend. Be kind, be humble, be selfless and be blessed for what we have."
Fr. Nicholas Gengaro, the homilist for Clyde's funeral, said he and Clyde first met more than 28 years ago when Gengaro first moved to the township.
"He and I have had countless conversations over the years," Fr. Gengaro said. "No matter the topic, or the length or brevity of the encounter, I always came away feeling that I had just been with an exceptional human being."
"Intellect, insight, compassion, kindness, eloquence, all these and more John possessed richly," he said. "But the word I most associate with him is humility."
"Humility is to walk in the truth," Fr. Gengaro said. "The humble man is exactly who he is. No more, but no less. No pretense, but no false modesty, either. John did not hesitate to share who he was with me, but always with a quiet confidence that left me better off."
"His quiet example induced others to do the same," he said. "I'm here to say that John did precisely that in my life. His mere presence in a room reminded me to focus less on what was going wrong and more on what was all right."
"John was poor in spirit, that is to say, humble," he said. "He was compassionate, mourning in solidarity with those who mourned. Meek, that is to say, unpretentious, not coercing, but persuading. Passionate for justice, merciful toward all. Honest and sincere, a genuine peace maker."
Clyde's casket passed through a church honor guard on its way out of the church after the service.


text:
package org.ovirt.engine.core.bll.scheduling.policyunits;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

import org.ovirt.engine.core.bll.scheduling.PolicyUnitImpl;
import org.ovirt.engine.core.bll.scheduling.pending.PendingResourceManager;
import org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.VDS;
import org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.VDSGroup;
import org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.VM;
import org.ovirt.engine.core.common.scheduling.PerHostMessages;
import org.ovirt.engine.core.common.scheduling.PolicyUnit;
import org.ovirt.engine.core.common.utils.Pair;
import org.ovirt.engine.core.compat.Guid;

public class VmAffinityWeightPolicyUnit extends PolicyUnitImpl {
    public VmAffinityWeightPolicyUnit(PolicyUnit policyUnit,
            PendingResourceManager pendingResourceManager) {
        super(policyUnit, pendingResourceManager);
    }

    @Override
    public List<Pair<Guid, Integer>> score(VDSGroup cluster, List<VDS> hosts, VM vm, Map<String, String> parameters) {
        // reuse filter functionality with soft constraint
        List<VDS> acceptableHostsList =
                VmAffinityFilterPolicyUnit.getAcceptableHosts(false,
                        hosts,
                        vm,
                        new PerHostMessages(),
                        getPendingResourceManager());
        Map<Guid, VDS> acceptableHostsMap = new HashMap<>();
        if (acceptableHostsList != null) {
            for (VDS acceptableHost : acceptableHostsList) {
                acceptableHostsMap.put(acceptableHost.getId(), acceptableHost);
            }
        }

        List<Pair<Guid, Integer>> retList = new ArrayList<>();
        int score;
        for (VDS host : hosts) {
            score = 1;
            if (!acceptableHostsMap.containsKey(host.getId())) {
                score = MaxSchedulerWeight;
            }
            retList.add(new Pair<>(host.getId(), score));
        }

        return retList;
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Microsoft has announced the alignment of their games with Gold September program which offers four games (two Xbox One and two Xbox 360, retrocompatibles with the new console) free of charge to subscribers of Xbox Live Gold, Xbox, that premium service to me is I finished this morning.
In Xbox One touches, throughout the month of September, Earthlock, an independent RPG that got funded through Kickstarter and leaving exactly 1 month coming, after a few years in development: it came on Steam thanks to Greenlight at the end of 2013, and the idea was to launch it in early 2015 on PC and a little later in consoles. We will see if the time extra has deserved the penalty; here below is a trailer.
The subscribers of Xbox Live Gold (I not am, from this same tomorrow, one of them) also may download in One the first delivery of Assassin's Creed Chronicles, it set in Chinese. He spin-off to it Prince of Persia not is especially memorable, but it is a good game that deserves the penalty try. You can download of the 16 of September to the 15 of October.
The Xbox 360 are incontestable this month, as they were the previous. During the first two weeks will have (will have!, what say: will have, because to me is I finished the Gold this same tomorrow) Forza Horizon, the extraordinary arcade of racing of Playground Games. The series of Turn 10 is recycle here taking advantage of the muscle to make things different: driving to all speed by roads but also by fields and embankments, all with such of flee with it greater alacrity of the festival of music more fucked of it history. Perfect to make hunger of face to the third part, that leaves the day 27: by there van them shots, and not me seems wrong.
The second half will be available the first Mirror's Edge, which is still as good as the day that came out. Of the second part is can speak making winks to a limp unthinkable in the original, exemplary and very in advance to your time. Can that says never can return to make a game thus: take advantage of which can (I, and sorry that you talk of my life private, not can: not have Gold from this tomorrow) and discover why is will continue to speaking of Faith, the protagonist of Mirror's Edge, during many years while its history is very thin and very ridiculous.
Right now, my former comrades, subscribers to Xbox Live Gold, who I miss you sincerely, can download the essential Beyond Good & Evil HD, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate and WWE 2 K 16; There is little August but it is still possible to take advantage of it.


NordMendes new American style Fridge Freezer will take your breath away. A top of the range appliance with the added benefit of all the important key features. A stunning contemporary Fridge you will not want to live without.


family – With Every Good Wish!
Dec 5, 2018 .Reading time 2 minutes.
The game is one of my favourite to play with my family because it is so easy to play so family members of all ages are able to play it. This game has come out every year over the last few years and even my nans enjoy playing it.
Monopoly is the ultimate family game and it always get the competitiveness out in my siblings and I. This year I have even bought the cheater version of monopoly for a family member this year so I am really excited to play this.
3- What do you Meme?
My boyfriend is obsessed with Memes so this was the ideal game to play with him. There are various images from memes and you have to match it with the best captions.
Which are you favourite games to play at Christmas?
Dec 2, 2018 .Reading time 2 minutes.
This weekend I have been lucky enough to be able to enjoy four days off work. I had a couple of annual leave days to use so I decided to have a long weekend so that I could have a nice break from work before the busy Christmas period begins. I have thoroughly enjoyed having the extra time of work because it has allowed me to focus on jobs that I have been wanting to do for ages but I haven't yet had the chance to do them. For example returning to my blog. I haven't blogged in quite a while because I have been focussing more on other areas of my life but I have missed being able to blog regularly so I am hoping to get back into a more regular blogging schedule.
Sometimes when you are at work you forget about the things that you like doing the most and once you stop doing those things for a while it feels harder to be able to get back to doing them. So having a break away from the office allows me to think freely and be able to do the things I really enjoy. I think also because a lot of my time is spent in an office with people who have completely different interests to me, my interest somewhat get lost in the busyness of day to day life.
There is another Christmas market on today quite near to where I live so I am hoping to go and have a little look around and see if I can find any Christmas gifts. I am still struggling with a gift for my mom so I am hoping I will see something she would like. I may even treat myself to a Christmas film tonight to get myself even more in the Christmas mood.
Sep 1, 2018 .Reading time 2 minutes.
I haven't blogged in the last week mainly because I have been trying to focus on other areas of my life and just haven't really had the time to blog or I just haven't really been feeling it. However I am back in full flow now and will be continuing to blog more regularly.
It has been quite a busy week this week at work as we have new managers in so there is a lot of change going on. I have still been looking for new jobs but I am still waiting for an interview to be arranged for a job that would be my dream. I did receive a email last night last to say it will be organised within the next 3 weeks so that made me feel a little more positive with the situation as I was quite worried that I hadn't heard anything for the last month and a half. I am really hoping to have a new job in the next couple of months as even though I do enjoy my current job I do feel that I need to progress and set myself a new challenge.
This weekend is a fairly chilled one, I have spent quite a bit of time with my sister and we enjoyed a nice walk earlier with her dog. I am off out for a meal with my family tomorrow as it is my parents 30th wedding Anniversary. I then plan to hang out with my boyfriend and have some chilled time before going back to work on Monday. Tonight I am just catching up on bit and bobs that I didn't get round to doing in the week so a fairly uneventful night planned but it is one that needs to be done so that I can empty my brain of a few jobs that I need to do.
Time to think of some blogs for the week ahead!
Aug 7, 2018 .Reading time 2 minutes.
When I was younger we used to always go stay on a farm in Aberdaron in Wales. We went most years and I have the best memories from it. My Nan and Grandad used to come as well and sometimes other family members would come to visit while we were there too.
Aberdaron is only a small village surrounded by the most idyllic beaches. There is a similar vibe to Devon with the beaches being quite similar. We used to enjoy exploring the nearby towns and chilling on the beach followed by an evening BBQ.
None of my family had been there for quite a few years but we all have so many great memories. Not so long ago I was staying about an hour away and I decided to go and revisit to see if it was how I remembered it or to see if it had changed. As we started to get closer everything just felt more and more familiar. We arrived in the village and it was really surreal because all of these memories were coming back to me. The village is exactly the same as it was back all of those years ago.
I walked along the beach and I fell back in love with this place and I really would like to go back this summer and take my family with me. I sent them a picture asking them to guess where I was and the instantly knew because I had the picture taken on a wall that we always sat on in the village. My nan even has a painting of the town in her house.
Aberdaron will always be a special place for my family and I and I do hope we continue to visit there in the future.


text:
Tag: performance vulnerability
Cold Play
Posted on February 4, 2013 by Frank J. Oteri - Columns
North Watch, a public sculpture on Main Street by Manitoban artist Ivan Eyre, just about sums up my initial thoughts about Winnipeg
I've finally returned to my desk at New Music USA after travelling to Paris, Nice, Cannes, and finally Winnipeg, Manitoba to attend the second half of the 2013 Winnipeg New Music Festival whose featured composer this year was Steve Reich. I'd long wanted to attend this festival and had never been able to sort out the logistics. But this time the lure of live performances of Tehillim (one of my all-time favorite pieces of music) and The Desert Music (which I had not heard live since attending the American premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music back in 1984) was enough to convince me to board yet another airplane (less than 12 hours after I returned home from France) and brave the weather in Winnipeg. (During the time I was there, the temperature dropped to -34°C, which equals -29°F.)
Decked out in a corduroy suit, a vest, a lined coat, tall boots (purchased specifically for this trip), gloves, earmuffs, and a hat (the first I've worn in more than 30 years), I exited the Winnipeg Airport together with my wife Trudy, who was dressed similarly, and faced the elements for less than a minute to hail a cab, returning outside for an additional minute to get our luggage from the trunk and into the hotel. Despite all the layers and less than two minutes of exposure in total, my eyes (which weren't covered) felt somewhat pulverized, my nose and my throat felt swollen, and my already doubly covered ears felt numb. Trudy fared no better. It was COOOOLD! Much as I was eager to roam the town in the hours not spent attending rehearsals, concerts, pre-concert talks, and post-concert receptions, I was prepared to give in to the completely out-of-character impulse to remain indoors in our heated hotel room during any free time. And indeed, on our first day in Winnipeg (Friday, January 31), we cabbed it from the hotel to Centennial Hall (a distance of approximately six blocks) to attend rehearsals for the all-Reich chamber music concert that evening—Different Trains, Clapping Music, New York Counterpoint (featuring a soprano saxophone soloist rather than the usual clarinet), and Double Sextet (performed along with choreography by Peter Quanz). Following the rehearsal, Winnipeg Symphony composer-in-residence Vincent Ho drove us to a Latin American restaurant (perhaps to provide the allusion of a warmer climate) located between Centennial Hall and our hotel. Trudy and I stayed there pretty much until it was time for the concert. After a full meal we ventured back to the concert hall by foot, but asked to be driven back to the hotel following the post-concert reception since it was even colder at that point.
The performances were exemplary and the large audience was extremely enthusiastic—it was a new music dream come true. Not only did so many people of all ages come out for this concert, they actually came out in, ahem, -34°C/-29°F! As for the repertoire, though for many it might have been a brand new experience, I felt like a standard repertoire aficionado attending a typical classical music program because I know all of those pieces quite well. Since I usually find myself at premieres, it's a pleasure I don't get to have all that often. The only new thing for me was Peter Quanz's choreography for six dancers (entitled In Tandem) which turned Reich's double sextet into a triple sextet—every phrase in the music was accompanied by a corresponding visual gesture. Sometimes, I must confess (not being the most movement-savvy person), dance can be lost on me. I was particularly worried since the day before I had woken up in a time zone seven hours earlier than Winnipeg and few things are worse for jet lag than sitting in a dimly lit concert hall. But I was completely riveted. Quanz made Double Sextet come alive for me in an extremely direct and visceral way. During a Q&A with CBC radio host Bill Richardson, Quanz claimed that "most dancers can memorize music more easily than musicians." After hearing and seeing that exciting performance, it was clear to me that dancers can not only memorize music, but can also really perform music—interpret it and make it completely their own.
While I spent all of Friday morning unwilling to leave the hotel room, my internet peregrinations led me to Into The Music, a used record store than was roughly the same distance from the hotel as Centennial Concert Hall. If there's anything that can cure me of a reasonable act of self-preservation, it's vinyl. So I decided to walk there and I did. Somehow it didn't feel quite as cold. But before I could really explore all that was on their shelves, it was time to head to the concert hall for a rehearsal of Tehillim. Though it clearly sounds heavily syncopated, Tehillim seems metrically regular until you carefully study the score; it's chock full of meter changes, many of which are highly irregular. (The final eight measures are 9/8, 12/8, 8/8, 10/8, 17/8, and three measures of 10/8.) During the rehearsal, it seemed slightly beyond the grasp of the ensemble, though they were clearly giving it their all. I was somewhat worried.
After dinner in the hotel, we walked back to the concert hall for the performance. (It was just as cold as the day before, but I suppose we were acclimated at that point.) The first half of the concert opened with the North American premiere of Jonny Greenwood's Suite from There Will Be Blood. I'm a huge Radiohead fan, so I was excited to hear a live performance of the orchestral music that Greenwood has been composing as of late. But after getting particularly excited when I read in the program notes that Greenwood's score was originally written for ondes martenot and strings, I admit that I was disappointed that the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra performance was just strings. Then Evelyn Glennie joined the orchestra for another North American premiere, Hikoi, an extremely flamboyant percussion concerto by Gareth Farr, who is one of New Zealand's most widely performed composers. I had been familiar with Farr's music from recordings but this was my first exposure to it in a concert hall. Hearing it live definitely adds to the experience since it is very theatrical, although Farr asserted during the pre-concert Q&A that for him "the music has to be the priority" and if something that's great theatrically doesn't ultimately serve the music, he'll opt for a less theatrical solution that does. Hearing Farr talk about his music was as entertaining as the music itself. "People think because I'm a composer I must be a very serious person," Farr exclaimed at one point and then proceeded to describe his other career as Lilith LaCroix, New Zealand's most famous drag queen.
Then came the real shock of the evening, and perhaps of my entire Winnipeg experience. After a euphoric standing ovation for Glennie and Farr, Vincent Ho came to the stage to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances, the performance of Tehillim would have to be cancelled and a work that had been performed earlier in the week would be performed again instead. Everyone seemed crestfallen. I certainly was. Conversation during intermission bordered on the surreal. What possibly could have happened? We tried to find out but no one was talking. Then we heard a series of announcements, calling various people to report back stage. When we re-entered the concert hall, it seemed like the audience was only about 5/8ths the size prior to intermission. But then there was another announcement that the performance of Tehillim would go on after all! It did, and it was practically flawless. It was miraculous and was also one of the most exciting performances I have ever witnessed; it was as if life itself depended on every note. We learned after the concert that one of the four singers came down with the flu right after the rehearsal and had completely lost her voice. After a hot bath and a shot of cortisone, her voice returned at around 9 p.m. and she contacted intrepid WSO conductor Alexander Mickelthwate. She rushed back to the concert hall and they called Steve Reich, who at this point was in his hotel room, and she sang for him. Reich came back to the concert hall in time to experience what for him, as he later acknowledged, was also one of the most exciting performances of his music.
WSO conductor Alexander Mickelthwate, Steve Reich, and WSO resident composer Vincent Ho
Everything the following day seemed somehow anticlimactic, although it got off to a great start thanks to a fabulous dim sum brunch we had with Vincent Ho. I did make it back to that record store and bought three LPs (including a collection of historic recording by the iconic Canadian folk fiddler Don Messer). I also wandered through the underground walkways and skyways in downtown Winnipeg and found a store that sold Canadian wine. We had dinner at a restaurant across from our hotel named Bailey's which is in a historic Winnipeg building that dates back to the year 1900. The concert that evening opened with another percussion concerto featuring Evelyn Glennie, From Darkness to Light: A Spiritual Journey by Vincent Ho, which is more introspective than most works in that medium. An extremely moving tribute to a visual artist friend of Ho's who died of cancer last year, From Darkness to Light emphasizes timbre over pulsation. Ho's music and Glennie's stellar performance of it offered clear aural proof that percussion instruments can be as expressive as strings or winds. The festival concluded with Reich's The Desert Music, a 40-minute choral/orchestral tour de force based on fragments of poems by William Carlos Williams. Again, it was a delight to hear live again after nearly 30 years, but there was something magical about the previous evening's performance of Tehillim that trumped every other event that I attended.
As Ellen McSweeney opined earlier today in her musings about what the new music community could learn from the Super Bowl (I had actually done my best to stay completely away from it this year, and succeeded up until reading her essay—go Canada!), we should not "be afraid to show vulnerability." Everyone's experience of that performance of Tehillim was amplified by the fact that it almost didn't happen; my own experience was further enhanced by attending a rehearsal that seemed far from perfect. Perhaps we need to open all new music rehearsals to the public. Indeed, the performers did seem vulnerable, and everyone was cheering for them to win and ultimately they did. And what was even better about that than the Super Bowl is that nobody lost.
Tags: performance vulnerability, Steve Reich, Winnipeg New Music festival