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Speeches (International)
Speeches (Nepal)
Charity Works
What is so Special About UNICEF ?
Briefing by Kul Gautam
For Executive Board members on UNICEF's history, mission and contribution
Let me start with a provocative question: Why do we need UNICEF?
In the architecture of the United Nations system, UNICEF is a misfit.
When the UN was founded, there was a carefully constructed architecture. There were the principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the ECOSOC, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat.
To deal with substantive issues, there were the various Committees of the General Assembly, and various commissions, like the Human Rights Commission.
To deal with specialized fields requiring technical expertise, there are the specialized agencies such as WHO, UNESCO, FAO.
To deal with the regional dimensions of economic and social issues, we have the regional commissions.
To provide financial assistance for infrastructure and capital development, we have the Bretton Woods Institutions: the World Bank, IMF, regional development banks.
Why do we need a UNICEF?
The UN is not organized according to demographic groups. We don't have a UN men's fund, or women's fund or adults' fund. Why a children's fund?
What does UNICEF do uniquely that other UN agencies could not do?
WHO could surely do child health. FAO could deal with food and nutrition. UNESCO is supposed to deal with education. ILO can handle child labour. What's left there for UNICEF to do?
This is not a theoretical question. It has actually been asked from time to time. Indeed, this was a very profound question debated at the Executive Board and at ECOSOC and the General Assembly in 1950 when there was a serious proposal to terminate UNICEF.
To understand why UNICEF was created in the first place and how it has evolved over time and why it continues to exist, and how you the Board members can make a really meaning contribution to UNICEF's work for children – and I dare say, to help realize our cherished Millennium Development Goals, I would like to take you on a guided tour through the memory lane of an extraordinary experiment in human history.
During the First World War, a remarkable Englishwoman named Eglantyne Jebb had founded an organization called Save the Children Fund in London. SCF had defied the British blockade of Germany during WW1, and had sent relief supplies for children throughout continental Europe.
There was a court case in Britain against Jebb, accusing her of indirectly helping to provide succour to the enemy during war time. To this accusation Jebb had famously replied "My Lord, I have no enemy below the age of 11".
This principle that there was no such thing as an "enemy" child, had an even earlier antecedent in the Geneva Convention, ratified in 1864, that conferred neutrality upon voluntary relief workers tending to the wounded, dying, prisoners of wars – out of which grew the Red Cross movement.
Indeed Eglantyne Jebb had formed an alliance with the Red Cross when later she founded the Save the Children International Union (SCIU) in Geneva. It was the SCIU that had first drafted a Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which was later adopted by the League of Nations as the World Child Welfare Charter in 1924.
That Charter laid down 5 principles. That the child has a right –
to the means for material, moral and spiritual development
to special help when hungry, sick, disabled or orphaned
to first call on relief in distress
not to be economically exploited
and to an upbringing that instilled a sense of responsibility towards society.
These principles endured the test of times, and were reflected in the 1959 Declaration on the Rights of the Child, and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guides the work of UNICEF today.
When the League of Nations collapsed, and the Second World War broke out, the devastation it caused was horrific. Not only millions suffered and perished in concentration camps, but millions of men, women and children were displaced by war.
Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt had the wisdom, compassion and foresight to mount a massive relief operation in countries that were most devastated by the war. So even before the United Nations was established, they founded in 1944 the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration or UNRRA.
UNRRA provided life saving help to the survivors of the concentration camps and to 8.5 million men, women and children displaced by war. Initial effort was focused on the most war ravaged countries of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Yugoslavia in Europe, and China, Korea and the Philippines in the Asian theatre.
By early 1946, UNRRA was moving essential relief supplies in 20 countries, amounting to some 20 million tons, on a scale greater than the movement of arms and munitions by the whole of the Allied Forces during the War.
All modes of transportation were used, including planes, trains, trucks, bailey bridges – and a quarter of a million horses and mules. At its height UNRRA employed 15,000 professionals, 35,000 local staff, and spent $4 billion, which in today's dollars would amount to about $40 billion.
The lives of hundreds of millions of people were preserved by UNRRA. A measure of its success was that during the harsh winter of 1945-46, there was no major disease or epidemic, in contrast to millions of deaths due to influenza and typhus in the comparable winter of 1918-19 during the First World War.
The most touching part of UNRRA's work was its help for children. Reminiscent of UNICEF's work in family tracing in Goma during the Rwanda genocide in 1994, UNRRA helped with family reunification of thousands of children after years of separation during the war. UNRRA's work was a matter of life and death for millions of children.
The good work that UNRRA did needed to be continued after the War. One part of its work, dealing with refugees and displaced persons was assigned to the International Refugee Organization, which later became UNHCR. The other part of the work, the feeding and protection of children was to be entrusted to a new organization called the UN's International Children's Emergency Fund or UNICEF.
The establishment of UNICEF was one of the early items on the agenda of the new ECOSOC of the United Nations. The founding fathers who worked hard to establish UNICEF as a successor to UNRRA were: Fiorello LaGuardia of the US, (Sir) Robert Jackson of Australia, George Davidson of Canada, Philip Noel-Baker of the UK, and Ludwick Rajchman of Poland.
Ludwick Rajchman had been the chief medical official of the League of Nations. He was an epidemiologist by training, and a brilliant pioneer of international public health, a medical visionary, who played a major role in setting up of both WHO and UNICEF.
30th of September is a special day in the history of UNICEF. That is when the historic World Summit for Children was held in 1990. But another historic 30th of September was in 1946 when ECOSOC first discussed the setting up of UNICEF.
Recall that by that time the UN was already divided by the poisonous atmosphere of the Cold War and the East/West rivalry. Everything was coloured by politics.
But "politics and international differences took a rare holiday today", reported the New York Times from Lake Success, where ECOSOC met that day, "as the delegates vied with each other in eloquent and unanimous support for an international children's fund".
The ECOSOC then invited the Secretary-General to present a detailed proposal to the General Assembly on setting up UNICEF. Ludwick Rajchman helped develop the detailed proposal and helped steer it through the Third Committee to the General Assembly.
On 11 December 1946, the GA established UNICEF through resolution 57(I). Its mandate was to help with rehabilitation of children and to support child health purposes generally in countries that had been devastated by the War. It was to provide assistance "on the basis of need, without discrimination because of race, creed, nationality, status or political belief".
A 25 member Executive Board was elected, which included all 18 members of the Social Commission of ECOSOC, other 7 members representing the major contributing and recipient countries, and a non-member of the United Nations – Switzerland.
The first Executive Board meeting held on 19 December 1946 elected Ludwick Rajchman as its Chairman. The first item on the Board's agenda was the appointment of a new Executive Director.
The ExDir was to be appointed by the Secretary-General in consultation with the Executive Board. Ludwick Rajchman who had taken such diligent, tender loving care of this new institution, was determined to ensure that it got a most capable and effective leader.
Rajchman identified Maurice Pate, an American, who had worked with former US President Herbert Hoover at UNRRA, as a candidate and secured the endorsement of the Board and of Secretary-General Trygvie Lie.
Pate got his letter of appointment as the first Executive Director of UNICEF, exactly 57 years ago today on 8 January 1947. And he got a cheque of $550,000 left over funds from UNRRA, as seed money to launch UNICEF.
Pate turned out to be an inspired choice to be the head of UNICEF. He had a touch of personality which was described by some as "saintliness".
Herbert Hoover called him, "the most efficient human angel I have ever met". Later Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, speaking about the place of UNICEF in the UN system said the following: "the work of UNICEF is at the heart of the matter…and at the heart of UNICEF is Maurice Pate".
But when Maurice Pate was first offered the job of heading UNICEF, he said he would only accept the job on one condition. That UNICEF should be allowed to help children in need everywhere, including in the so-called "enemy states". Recall that article 53 of the UN Charter speaks about the "enemy states". For Maurice Pate, like it was for Eglantyne Jebb, there was no such thing as "enemy" children.
This principle, became so important for UNICEF's work later – even to this day. It allowed UNICEF not only to help children in Germany, Japan and Italy, but in the socialist countries during the Cold War. In Biafra during the civil war in Nigeria. In Cambodia when the government in Phnom Penh was not recognized by the United Nations.
This principle of helping children in need whatever the politics of their parents and regardless of the legal status of their governments has been consistently defended by all of Maurice Pate's successors. And it is a precious asset of UNICEF, long preceding the recently emerging principle of humanitarian intervention or the "responsibility to protect".
A week after his appointment Pate wrote to General George C. Marshall, US Secretary of State for $100 million towards the cost of "a glass of milk, and some fat to spread on bread" for 6 million hungry children in Europe and China. The total budget that Pate and Rajchman estimated for UNICEF from all donors was $450 million to feed 25 million children in Europe and 30 million in Asia.
Some of the early donors to UNICEF were:
– USA $40m
– Canada 5m
– Australia 3m
– France .9m
– Norway contributed cod liver oil in kind
Argentina had pledged $10m but it wanted Eva Peron to travel all over Latin America as official UNICEF representative to promote Argentina's "moral and spiritual aspirations". Seeing a certain conflict of interest, UNICEF declined to accept the offer.
The first UNICEF programmes approved by the UNICEF Executive Board in 1947 were for Albania, Austria, China, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Yugoslavia. By mid-1948, UNICEF was providing rations for 5 million children in 30,000 locations in 12 countries.
In Germany where food rations were provided by post-war occupation forces, UNICEF provided cod liver oil, wool for warm underclothing, and leather for shoes for children.
UNICEF's first programme in Asia was in China. The Board approved $5m in April 1948. Remember at that time there was the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai Shek government in China. But at the suggestion of the Australian delegate, a man named Dick Heyward, who later became UNICEF's most distinguished and longest serving Deputy Executive Director, $500,000 of the funds approved for China were specifically designated for children in the Communist held areas. This was a first example of the principle of non-partiality upheld by the Executive Board. This was remarkable as a representative of the Kuomintang government represented China on the Board at that time, and he went along with the Board decision.
The first UNICEF head of mission in China, was a Swiss surgeon named Marcel Junod. He first set up his office in Nanking, the capital of the Nationalists in 1948. In the Communist controlled areas, UNICEF worked with CLARA, the Chinese Liberated Areas Relief Association. Our head of mission there was, paradoxically, an American named Perry Hanson.
Parenthetically it should be noted that Jim Grant, who would later become UNICEF's third Executive Director, had worked for UNICEF's predecessor UNRRA in both the Nationalist and Communist controlled areas of China.
The early UNICEF programmes focused on providing powdered milk to children. That is how many older Europeans, Japanese, Koreans and Chinese – perhaps some of your parents – remember UNICEF to this day.
But early on, the Board asked UNICEF to help build national capacity for indigenous production and conservation of milk. So UNICEF, working with FAO, started a milk conservation and dairy industry development programme in many countries, including in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia.
One of the largest and most innovative such programmes was in France. UNICEF provided $700,000 to France for a milk conservation programme. Besides providing milk to French children, it became one of UNICEF's earliest advocacy projects. Legislation was passed in France to outlaw the sale of non-pasteurised raw milk in cities where UNICEF equipment was installed. Later the programme expanded to ban the sale of raw milk in all towns in France with a population exceeding 20,000 people.
In India, later UNICEF assisted the famous Amul-Anand Milk Union, a cooperative inaugurated by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru himself. It was the world's first and largest dairy industry processing buffalo milk. The membership of this cooperative enterprise extended to 40,000 villages in Maharashtra, and later spread to other parts of India. The word "amul" means "priceless" and "anand" means joy in Sanskrit – that is what this project offered to millions of children in India.
Besides milk supply, the earliest UNICEF supported programmes also involved control of tuberculosis. UNICEF collaborated initially with Danish Red Cross, headed by a dynamic fellow named Johannes Holm, who later became a WHO TB expert. One of his protégés was a man named Halfdan Mahler, who later on worked on a UNICEF-supported TB control programme in India before becoming the Director-General of WHO.
The UNICEF and Scandinavian Red Cross supported anti-TB programme was the largest mass vaccination campaign in history. By 1955 the campaign had tested 155 million children and vaccinated 60 million with BCG.
Another great public health personality who worked with UNICEF was Robert Debre, a prominent French paediatrician, who was also involved in the International Tuberculosis Campaign. Later Robert Debre founded the Centre Internationale de L'Enfance, a premier training institute in Paris where hundreds of UNICEF staff and their government counterparts were trained in social paediatrics and public health.
In 1948 UNICEF fielded a major assessment mission in 13 countries of Asia. Jointly led by a former US surgeon-general and Dr. CK Laxmanan, the Director of All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health in Calcutta, the team travelled to Borneo, Burma, Ceylon, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Indo-China, India and Pakistan. It made a report which became the basis for the earliest UNICEF health and nutrition programmes in these countries.
The biggest problem identified in Asia was malaria. It was by far the number one killer. In India alone, there were 100 million cases and 2 million deaths.
Tuberculosis, yaws and syphilis were other big problems.
One of the earliest programmes UNICEF established in Asia was the training of health workers. With $1 million by UNICEF, matched by a similar amount from India, we established a regional training centre for MCH at the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public health in Calcutta.
In the Middle East, UNICEF provided early support for Palestinian refugees through UNWRA. UNICEF also provided support for children in Israel, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
Latin America was first seen as a source of income, not a recipient of UNICEF assistance. Argentina and Brazil in particular were seen as potential big donors.
UNICEF started its first programme support in Latin America in Guatemala where we worked with the PAHO-affiliated INCAP nutrition centre. Then UNICEF supported the anti-tuberculosis programme in Ecuador and Mexico. Support for Haiti and the Caribbean followed.
You will note that UNICEF had no programmes whatsoever in sub-Saharan Africa. Countries there were seen as the responsibility of the colonial powers at that time.
Maurice Pate as the Executive Director was a modest, self-effacing man. He admitted to just having two significant leadership qualities: one was his ability to pick really good staff, and the second was his talent as a fund-raiser.
Fund raising was a major challenge. Every year UNICEF had to lobby hard to secure US funding, especially as the Congress was turning increasingly anti-UN with the McCarthy era witch hunting. To lobby Congress, Maurice Pate partnered with a remarkable woman named Helenka Panteleoni. Panteleoni founded the US Committee for UNICEF, a citizens group which encouraged a letter writing campaign from constituents to influential Congressmen on behalf of UNICEF. Thus began the national committees for UNICEF, with hundreds, and now thousands, of volunteers which we now have in 37 donor countries.
The NatComs are a great asset of UNICEF. They help raise nearly one-third of UNICEF income. They engage with civil society and the media in their countries and play an important advocacy role. Their development education programmes make children in the industrialised countries aware of the plight of the children in developing countries and create a foundation for international solidarity.
You are aware of UNICEF's greeting cards. It all started with a little Czech school girl who used to regularly drink UNICEF-supplied milk. One day she painted a nice little "thank you" card and sent it to UNICEF through her teacher in Prague. This became the first UNICEF greeting card and led to a major campaign which today sells 130 million cards and raises 150 million dollars.
Another interesting innovation in fund-raising was "trick or treat" for UNICEF. During Halloween in North America children go from door to door to ask for candies. In 1950 a Pennsylvania priest came up with a bright new idea. Instead of asking for candies, he asked his Sunday school students to ask for nickels and dimes for UNICEF. That year they raised $17. Since then children in the US have raised over $120 million by trick-or-treating for UNICEF.
Yet another innovation was raising voluntary private sector contribution to UNICEF. This was originally the brainchild of a Norwegian delegate named Aake Ording. Ording had once been a deputy to Secretary-General Trygvie Lie in Norway. He proposed that the UN endorse the idea of asking all salaried people to contribute 1 day's pay every year for programmes on behalf of children. The idea was first tried out in Norway, as "UN Appeal for Children"- UNAC. Later in 1948 such an appeal was held in 45 countries and 30 territories and raised an astounding amount of $30 million. One-third of it was allocated to UNICEF with the rest going to SCF, Red Cross and other national charities for children.
In December 1948, the GA passed a resolution to continue the "UN Appeal for Children" but with all proceeds going to UNICEF. Quite a few UNICEF Natcoms have continued this practice in one form or the other, making UNICEF the only agency of the UN that secures a substantial part of its income (one-third at present) from sources other than governments.
UNICEF was off to a good start with all such innovations and good work. But as it had been established as a temporary emergency fund, its mandate had to be reviewed for renewal or termination in 1950.
As Europe had largely recovered from the worst devastation of the war, thanks to the Marshall Plan and other developments, the original rationale for UNICEF's establishment was no longer valid. So there was a serious proposal to disband UNICEF in 1950.
There were 4 other reasons for seeking UNICEF's closure.
The US was unhappy that it was paying over half of UNICEF's budget in early years and other donors were not matching its contribution. It thought that UNICEF should be succeeded by a small permanent children's section within the UN secretariat paid out of the regular budget in which case the US would only have to pay 25 percent which was its share of the assessed contribution to the UN. Moreover, with its programmes in socialist countries, and the influential head of its Board being a Polish national, some right-wing US officials suspected UNICEF of Communist sympathies.
Some folks at WHO and FAO thought that there was no need for a UN children's fund which encroached on their sectoral territory. At most they thought UNICEF should be their fund-raising arm and should serve as their supply and logistics agency.
A major issue with some of the other donors was that UNICEF did not fit the mold of either providing technical assistance (which was the job of specialised agencies) or of capital assistance (which was the job of Bretton Woods Institutions). UNICEF was actually providing "material assistance", including donated goods and supplies, which was okay during emergencies, but seemed unjustified in non-emergency situations.
So the axe was about to fall on UNICEF as the US and several key donors wished to terminate UNICEF's mandate and existence in 1950.
To the rescue came the recipient countries, supported by Australia, France, New Zealand, Yugoslavia and others. They made a strong case that they actually valued the type of material assistance that UNICEF was providing.
The Permanent Representative of Pakistan, Ahmed Bokhari, made an eloquent and passionate plea that while the worst of the post-war emergency maybe over in Europe, countries of Asia and developing countries in other regions were suffering from a permanent emergency. That was the emergency of poverty, disease, illiteracy, malnutrition that stalked millions of children. UNICEF and the United Nations had a responsibility to assist such countries.
This argument carried the day, and UNICEF's life was extended for 3 more years with a vote of 43 to 8 with the US abstaining. The ensuing resolution broadened UNICEF's mandate to address the long-term needs of children and mothers in developing countries.
UNICEF's focus of action shifted dramatically in the early 1950s. Whereas in 1946-49 UNICEF support was 76 % for Europe, 11 % for Asia, 10 % for Middle East, 3 % for Latin America and none for Africa, by 1953 62% went to Asia, 17 % to Latin America, 9% to Middle East, and 5 % to Africa.
As you know, we have come a long way since then. Today nearly half of UNICEF support goes to sub-Saharan Africa, one-third to Asia, and about 6 % each to Latin America and the Caribbean, the CEE/CIS countries and to MENA.
When the 3 year lease of life was over and UNICEF's future was reviewed in 1953, the Board, the ECOSOC and the General Assembly all concluded that UNICEF merited to be continued indefinitely, and that the "international" and "emergency" were superfluous and were simply dropped from its name retaining the acronym UNICEF, which now stood for the United Nations Children's Fund.
Throughout the rest of the 1950s UNICEF focused its work on health, including the campaigns against malaria, tuberculosis, yaws, trachoma, small pox eradication, nutrition including milk distribution, and maternal and child health and family welfare services.
And wherever emergency struck, UNICEF was always there with its humanitarian relief mandate.
One other innovation that Maurice Pate pioneered was the system of Goodwill Ambassadors, enlisting the support initially of the legendary Danny Kaye fifty years ago in 1953. UNICEF has been privileged to have the likes of Sir Peter Ustinov, Audrey Hepburn, Roger Moore, Tetsuko Kuryonagi in Japan, Anatoly Karpov in Russia, Youssou N'Dour in Senegal, Amitabh Bachchan in India, Harry Belafonte of Jamaican origin, Khun Anand Panyarachun of Thailand, among many others as our champion advocates for the cause of children.
The decade of the 1960s, led to major transformation of UNICEF. As many countries in Africa gained their independence from colonialism, and the membership of the UN expanded, UNICEF adapted to the changing situation. The Executive Board, for example, met for the first time in a developing country in Bangkok in 1964, and in Addis Ababa in 1966.
In 1964 UNICEF convened a round table conference on planning for the needs of children in developing countries, in Bellagio, Italy. It became a milestone for changing the way UNICEF and the world viewed children and their wellbeing.
Until that time the wellbeing of children was largely seen as a charitable enterprise. And UNICEF was seen as a good, small U.N. agency providing relief aid for children in emergencies and campaigning against infectious diseases.
The Bellagio conference changed all that. Attended by some of the sharpest minds of the time with world class expertise in the fields of economic planning, health, nutrition, education, demography and social policy, the outcome of the Bellagio conference firmly established that the wellbeing of children was the essential foundation of national development.
It also helped expand UNICEF's fields of action to include long-term development programmes in addition to its traditional role as a humanitarian relief fund. For the first time UNICEF became involved in education and vocational training programmes for children and youth. It began to engage with governments on social development policies.
The good work of UNICEF earned it the Nobel Peace prize in 1965. Unfortunately Maurice Pate died just before the Nobel Prize was awarded. His successor Henry Labouisse accepted the prize in his stead, and dedicated its proceeds to the Maurice Pate Award, which is still given periodically for outstanding work by individuals or institutions on behalf of children.
Harry Labouisse, in whose name this conference hall is dedicated, was a fine patrician diplomat, married to Eve the daughter of famous Marie Curie. He brought his own imprint to UNICEF. Under his leadership, UNICEF refined its country programming approach to one of the best recognized tools in the UN system. Social development planning for young human resource development became a staple of UNICEF programming in many countries.
UNICEF pioneered the basic services approach in the 1970s. Using community-based para-professionals to deliver basic services that are readily accessible, acceptable and affordable to people became the norm of UNICEF programming.
Perhaps the best illustration of this was the primary health care approach that UNICEF and WHO introduced at the Alma Ata conference in 1978.
The 1970s also saw UNICEF expanding its support for drinking water and sanitation programmes. As waterborne diseases are a major cause of childhood morbidity and mortality, UNICEF support in this area was seen as an essential component of basic services. The fact that the drudgery of fetching water is a major burden on girls and women, and thus provision of safe drinking water can be a liberating experience for them was not lost on UNICEF.
Indeed the advocacy of the empowerment of women as a worthwhile area for UNICEF's support was amply recognized in the 1970s. As was increased support to basic education for children, especially girls.
Harry Labouisse aptly and ably handled the Biafra-Nigeria emergency and launched a major relief and rehabilitation programme in Indo-China as the Vietnam war came to an end – always keeping UNICEF's principle of helping children in need regardless of under whose jurisdiction they were living.
Labouisse's tenure was capped by the International Year of the Child in 1979. UNICEF was designated as the UN's lead agency for IYC and its follow-up. It was a year of extra-ordinary mobilization for children. Non-Governmental Organizations were particularly active at that time.
We should recall that UNICEF has historically cultivated a strong partnership with NGOs. In fact, UNICEF has had a system of accrediting NGOs, akin to that of ECOSOC. There has been an active NGO Committee for UNICEF for decades. Its members are regularly invited to address the Executive Board. In fact, for many years the UNICEF office serving as the secretariat for the Executive Board also served as the liaison service for UNICEF's partnership with NGOs.
In 1980 Harry Labouisse was succeeded by James P. Grant as the Executive Director.
Jim Grant came to UNICEF like a tornado. It was as if all his life he was preparing to come to lead UNICEF. UNICEF seemed to provide the perfect bully pulpit for him to espouse his ideas and vision.
Before coming to UNICEF, he had been a champion of the school of thought which we now call human development. Development had to be measured not by the gross national product of a nation but by the physical quality of life index, he had argued. Measuring development in terms of infant mortality rate, life expectancy, literacy rates and other social indicators was far more important than by a nation's economic wealth or military might, he had argued. He had been a champion of increased and well targeted development aid to promote democracy and development as two sides of the same coin.
Jim Grant quickly assembled a senior management team of high intellect and extraordinary communication and mobilization capacity. Beyond UNICEF staff, he reached out to the media and the academia and the development think tanks of the world, to help him craft a new vision for UNICEF's work building on its considerable inherited strengths.
Early on he came up with the idea of an accelerated Child Survival Revolution. It was unconscionable, he argued, that 40,000 children were dying everyday when there were many low-cost, readily available interventions to prevent such deaths. Like the Green Revolution that multiplied agricultural production in Asia, he argued the CSDR could drastically cut down child mortality and unleash a virtuous cycle of child well-being.
Growth monitoring, Oral rehydration therapy (ORT), Breastfeeding, and Immunization, were proposed as the cutting edge interventions, buttressed by female education, family planning, and food supplements – known as GOBI-FFF. Of these, immunization and ORT were seen as the most promising twin-engines of the child survival revolution.
Grant promoted CSDR with an infectious passion. He initiated the publication of an annual State of the World's Children report to promote his revolution. Arguing that morality must march in tandem with capacity, he persuaded leaders of the world to raise immunization rates from single digits to 80 percent in their political lifetime.
While Grant was single-mindedly focused on CSDR, he was very knowledgeable about and deeply committed to the broader aspects of development. He got his Deputy Richard Jolly and colleagues to challenge the orthodoxy of the Bretton Woods institutions with a clarion call for "Adjustment with Human Face". This resonated well, especially in Latin America which was going through a terrible economic crisis in the 1980s.
Grant also championed debt relief for child survival and called on reduction of military expenditure in favour of basic social services for children.
The problem of sub-Saharan Africa and the Least Developed Countries got UNICEF's special attention and increased priority in the 1980s. UNICEF challenged the Apartheid regime in South Africa by commissioning a report on "Children on the Front Line".
To demystify the low-cost, high impact child survival and development interventions and make these readily accessible to every family UNICEF put out a "Facts for Life" primer. To reach children in situations of conflict, with basic services, UNICEF promoted the concepts of "Days of tranquillity" as in El Salvador, "corridors of peace" as in operation life-line Sudan, and many other situations as documented by the inimitable Tarzie Vittachi in this booklet Between the Guns: Children as a Zone of Peace.
Jim Grant gave the decisive push to the long languishing negotiations on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and saw it come to completion and into effect in 1989. He then pushed for its universal ratification including from his death bed.
Grant's crowning achievement was the convening of the World Summit for Children in 1990. It was the first ever world Summit, attended by the largest gathering of world leaders in history until that time. Its outcome document laid down measurable goals for children to be achieved by 2000, which were the precursors of today's Millennium Development Goals.
The outcome document of the World Summit for Children was aptly called First Call for Children. That phrase first call for children – or children first – was an idea that drove Jim Grant incessantly. It consumed him – and as Maggie Black says, in this beautiful book, it shone from him wherever he went.
I will not dwell on the Carol Bellamy era, since that is still history in the making. Suffice it to say, that this era is marked by many needed reforms in management and operations; by the coming into fruition of the rights based approach to development, by the renewed emphasis on issues of child protection, the extraordinary challenge of HIV/AIDS, and the resurgence of wars and conflict as at the very beginning of UNICEF's history and strengthening and mainstreaming of our humanitarian response. As we are seeing in Bam in Iran as we speak, and as we have seen from Kosovo to East Timor, to Afghanistan, Iraq and the many conflicts in Africa, UNICEF responds to emergencies with competence and commitment.
As we documented in We the Children, Carol has faithfully and energetically led the follow-up to the World Summit for Children, and master-minded the Special Session on Children which has provided UNICEF with a challenge to play its part in building a World Fit for Children.
While I have focused on the role of UNICEF Secretariat and its Executive Directors, in everything UNICEF does the role of the Executive Board is, or can potentially be of great importance.
Just like UNICEF has been blessed with 4 excellent Executive Directors, it has also been privileged to have a very supportive and committed Executive Board.
But I worry, Mr. President, that in recent years the Board might be becoming a bit too subdued, very routine gathering of officers for whom UNICEF maybe just one among many other committees that they have to attend to, rather than a special institution that they cherish.
Every morning when I go to my office on the 13th floor, I pass by and pause in front of the Maurice Pate conference room where we have a gallery of photographs of all the Presidents of the UNICEF Executive Board over the past 57 years. As I look at them, I cannot help but feel the perceptible change over time. The presidents and Board members of the early years were far more influential in the history of UNICEF than those of recent vintage.
UNICEF was a very special organization to the early members and leaders of the Board. Many of them served over many years and had deep knowledge and understanding of UNICEF's work. They cared for UNICEF. They loved UNICEF. They felt passionately about the issues it dealt with. They fought for UNICEF. They mobilized resources for UNICEF.
I worry that more recent Board members do not have the same emotional affinity with UNICEF. To them it is one among many other organizations. Today you attend UNICEF Board. Next week it is the UNDP Board. Last month it was the Third Committee. Next month it will be some other commission.
In fact, many Board members might be tempted to want to see everything in these boards and committees and commissions harmonized and made more identical rather than unique and special.
Forgive me, Mr. President, if I sound a little biased and sentimental. I like to think that UNICEF is a little different, and yes, special. By all means let us simplify and harmonize some procedures. In fact, as you know UNICEF has been active player, and often a leader, in inter-agency coordinating mechanisms – working on UNDAF and CCAs and chairing a variety of UNDG and other working groups. But please let us not homogenize the character of UNICEF with that of every other organization. I'd say, harmonization –yes, homogenization -no!
You know, I feel proud working at the United Nations because there is so much diversity. We speak different languages. We wear different clothes. We think differently. We all share some common values and have similar human aspirations. But thank God, we are not clones of each other. Vive la difference, I'd say.
Now, we don't want to be different just for the sake of being different. Our difference, or uniqueness must add some real value. And I think UNICEF does.
If you come from a donor country, please check back home and see how UNICEF is regarded by ordinary people in your country. It is not just one among many other UN agencies. In many cases it is the most widely known and respected agency. In many of your countries, hundreds if not thousands of volunteers work for your UNICEF National Committee. You may have national or global goodwill ambassadors who represent UNICEF. The cause for which UNICEF stands resonates with your people and parliamentarians.
If you are from a developing country, or a country in transition, you probably have a substantial UNICEF presence. UNICEF probably touches the lives of more people in your country than any other UN agency. In many countries, UNICEF has a presence at the sub-national level, not just in the capital city. Your local authorities find it relatively easy to access and seek support from UNICEF. UNICEF is highly decentralized. UNICEF Reps can often respond to requests on the spot, whereas many agencies will tell you they need to refer to their regional offices or headquarters.
UNICEF employs a large number of national professionals – more than any other UN agency, or any other donor agency, in fact in most countries. They speak the local language and are sensitive to local culture and customs. UNICEF's country programming is firmly rooted in the country. Unlike some other agencies and donors we do not develop project proposals by visiting team of consultants but by resident staff based on constant interaction with our national counterparts.
When you visit a UNICEF field office, you are likely to see an interesting phenomenon. Now a days we have many common premises or UN Houses where all UN agencies share offices and have identical office hours. But if you visit a common UN House an hour after the official working hours, in the case of most UN agencies you will rarely find anybody working. In the UNICEF office, you will almost always find many staff members working way past the working hours and on weekends and holidays. Not because their bosses asked them to do so, often they do it voluntarily and out of their own commitment and conscience.
UNICEF is not perfect, or superior. But it is just a little special.
Mr. President, as we are still in the first week of the new year, this is a time when many of us make our new year's resolutions and list of your wishes. I know, many of those wishes and resolutions don't come true. But we make them anyway. In that spirit, here are my new year's wishes for the Executive Board:
1. I wish you would all read one or several of these books on UNICEF's history. I know you will enjoy it.
2. I wish many more of our Board members would stay with the Board for a longer period, and get to really learn about and appreciate UNICEF's work in depth.
3. I wish all Board members would have a chance to visit some UNICEF-assisted projects in the field, and give us some good feedback.
4. I wish in trying to promote greater coordination, joint programming, harmonization, etc. among UN agencies, you would see merit in not homogenizing everything. As I said, harmonize-yes, homogenize-no!
5. I wish UNICEF Board would be known as a special forum where there is a lively debate on the burning issues of our times as they impact children – where we would hear the voices not only of governments but of civil society and young people themselves.
Global Citizen from Gulmi
Copyright © 2021 - Kul Chandra Gautam
Design by - Seshra Innovation


The International Journal of Health Analysis is an open entry worldwide journal devoted to the promotion of health sciences and related disciplines (together with drugs, pharmacy, nursing, biotechnology, cell and molecular biology, and associated engineering fields). It seeks notably (but not completely) to encourage multidisciplinary research and collaboration among scientists, the trade and the healthcare professionals. It also offers a global discussion board for the communication and analysis of knowledge, methods and findings in health sciences and related disciplines. Small amount saffron, combined with uncooked milk each day and apply to face. Fifteen days. Deutsch, Albert. The mentally ill in America: A History of their care and treatment from colonial occasions (1937). This was interesting information…Are you a professional within the psychological health area? I rated this up. There are 20+ companies in the Hawaii Islands that work in archeology. The State Government additionally employs giant numbers of anthropologists and archaeologists to analysis the human DNA paths via Hawaii.
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text:
Bremainers Ask ….. Molly Scott Cato
Jan 27, 2020 | Bremainers Ask, News
Molly Scott Cato is MEP for the South West of England and was previously Professor of Green Economics at Roehampton University. She speaks for the Green Party of England and Wales on finance issues. Molly also has expertise in the issues of renewable energy; trade; food and farming; and co-operatives and mutuals.
Molly grew up in Bath, which she left to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University. Following a career in publishing she took a PhD in Economics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth focusing on employment in the South Wales Valleys. She has written several books including Green Economics (2009), Environment and Economy (2011) and The Bioregional Economy (2012) as well as numerous academic papers.
Molly has three children and lives between Brussels and Bristol. She has spent a lifetime involved with social movements and community activity including the Transition Towns and Stroud Community Agriculture in her hometown. She enjoys singing, basket-making and bodging.
Kay Adams: What abiding memories will you take away with you from Brussels?
Molly Scott Cato: It's all about the people I've met. My Green colleagues are truly inspiring and I'm so proud of what we've achieved together. I have also had the privilege of meeting a huge range of people from indigenous Brazilian women fighting the destruction of the Amazon, to the Dalai Lama, to determined anti-Brexit campaigners and people fighting tax evasion. It worries me deeply that these personal connections will be lost when we no longer have British MEPs.
Sue Wilson: If you could have done anything differently over the last 4 years to fight Brexit, what would it be?
Molly Scott Cato:I am a person who relies a lot on truth and data. I think it is true that we should have used arguments about identify and emotional connection more during the referendum campaign, but I am glad that we didn't resort to the propaganda and disinformation that won the argument for Leave.
Tracy Rolfe: If a serious campaign was launched for the UK to re-join the EU, would you aim to get involved, & what would be the likely timeframe?
Molly Scott Cato: Now that we are definitely leaving I think we need to allow the Brexit project to fail convincingly before we begin campaigning to rejoin. But that is my dream and I believe it will happen after a decade or so because young people feel themselves to be Europeans. In the mean time we need to keep close relationships through friendship groups and twinning.
John Moffett: Would you consider running again in the next general election?
Molly Scott Cato: I intend to spend the next four years doing everything I can to ensure that the next election is fought on the basis of a deal that guarantees a fair voting system. My decision about whether or not to stand depends on how successful that campaign is.
Zoe Adams Green: How likely is a no trade deal at the end of 2020, in your opinion & what can we do to prevent it?
Molly Scott Cato: I think we will end up in the eyeball-to-eyeball situation again at the end of 2020. Last time Barnier blinked over the level playing-field and I think we will all pay the price for that. But once we are out the EU has greater power so I think we will get to the brink but then Johnson will blink, meaning sacrificing some rights and opportunities that are really important to our society and economy. It's hard to define what, at present, but the farmers and fishermen I represent look pretty vulnerable.
Michael Soffe: What are your plans after you lose your MEP role at the end of January?
Molly Scott Cato: I have six months of transitional allowance and I intend to spend that time holding the government to account over its negotiations and building up close European links to replace those we are losing. After that I have no idea.
Many thanks to Molly for taking part and we wish her well as she leaves Brussels.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Students at Ormiston Sudbury Academy marked Anti-Bullying Week with a special fundraising event which saw pupils don an odd pair of socks.
The annual awareness week – which aims to highlight the problems of bullying and cyberbullying – ran from November 12-16 and is organised by the Anti-Bullying Alliance.
The school urged tutor groups across all years to consider the need to 'choose respect' when interacting with each other both face-to-face and online.
The academy also celebrated the first ever Stop Speak Support Day on Thursday, November 15, to highlight a series of commitments launched this year, including a code of conduct to help prevent online cyberbullying and harassment of children and young people.
Students rounded off the week by hosting a cake sale and taking part in Odd Socks Day to raise money for Bullying UK and help them continue supporting young people affected by bullying.
Caroline Wilson, principal of Ormiston Sudbury Academy, said: "We are all so proud to have taken part in this year's Anti-Bullying Week and were delighted to see so much going on to show our support.


The PIDflight Lap firmware is available for the original PIDflight Lap schematic, EasyRaceLapTimer PocketEdition and Chorus RF Lap Timer.
Please use this firmware if you are using an EasyRaceLapTimer PocketEdition or a PCB based on the same schematic.
Bluetooth software serial on D6 (RX) and D7 (TX) pins using baud rate 9600.
Firmware ERLT 2.2.0 2.2.0 Stable Recommended Multi-pilot support for dedicated lap timers.
Firmware ERLT 2.5.0 2.5.0 Experimental Multi-pilot support for dedicated and virtual lap timers.
Firmware ERLT 2.6.0 2.6.0 Experimental Multi-pilot support with signal strength peak detection.
Firmware ERLT 2.7.0 2.7.0 Experimental Multi-pilot support for dedicated and virtual lap timers with signal strength peak detection.
Please use this firmware if you have a build based on the Chorus RF Lap Timer schematic.
Bluetooth hardware serial on RX and TX using baud rate 115200.
Firmware CHRF 2.2.0 2.2.0 Stable Recommended Multi-pilot support for dedicated lap timers.
Firmware CHRF 2.5.0 2.5.0 Experimental Multi-pilot support for dedicated and virtual lap timers.
Firmware CHRF 2.6.0 2.6.0 Experimental Multi-pilot support with signal strength peak detection.
Firmware CHRF 2.7.0 2.7.0 Experimental Multi-pilot support for dedicated and virtual lap timers with signal strength peak detection.
Archived firmware that is no longer supported.
PIDflight Lap Firmware 1.2.0 1.2.0 Deprecated No longer supported, please upgrade to 2.x.x.
EasyRaceLapTimer PocketEdition Firmware ERLT 1.2.0 1.2.0 Deprecated No longer supported, please upgrade to 2.x.x.
Release candidate version: 2.0.6-RC3 with Tiny View Plus support, race countdown and device status indicators on race screen.
21/4/2018 — There are known issues in 2.0.6 with the race countdown function on Windows and potentially macOS. A resolution is in progress and a new update will be published soon.
30/4/2018 — Race countdown issues have been addressed in 2.0.6-RC3.


The members of Red Hot Juba have come together with a wide variety of musical interests, experiences, and explorations. The music we play -- both original and our interpretations of others' -- reflects this eclectic mix of influences. Since any music influences people, for better or for worse, we have decided to include a list of musicians that we like.


text:
The Eventual, Irresistible, Unstoppable and Inevitable Liberal Society
Filed under: Israel — qwertster @ 1:51 AM
Tags: Amazon, Bill of Rights, Brexit, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Democrat Party, European Union, Founding Documents, Jimmy Kimmel, Leaps of Logic, President, Republican Party, Roseanne Barr, United States
The last election, which pitted two unsavory and undesirable candidates as the major party candidates for President of the United States, became a test of philosophies. What we learned was that the United States is relatively evenly divided between elitist and leftists on one side and the unwashed and presumed lowbrowed on the other side. One group lives in the large metropolises and the other in rural farmlands and the lesser cities and towns. The future of the United States is written in the flow of people and the surges about to be made in automation making ever more of the society run eventually completely by machines from concept through manufacture, distribution and finally sales. Amazon is one side of this new form of retail from warehouse to your door free of any middleman and with the latest in automated delivery systems. The greatest automation of the past two centuries has been in farming such that today a single farmer produces and farms an area of land which took almost a thousand farmers a mere and short two-hundred years ago at the turn of the eighteenth century. This sent the initial wave of people from working the land to working in a city and these became the megalopolises of the world today. The current political battle can be seen as a struggle between the major cities and those who remember a time where things were simple and everyone needed to have a certain level of self-reliance. All of this is what is changing and what all the fuss is about and there is going to be a winner between these two different societies.
First, allow us to paint a simple picture which explains the difference between these two groups, a horrible oversimplified picture. One group not only knows how and is capable of the following tasks, but they more often than not actually perform these tasks. They change their own flat tires and many can even repair the tire if the damage is from a nail or other type puncture and not a tear in the sidewall which means the tire is scrap. They can perform a tune-up on their vehicle as it is older and does not have all the fancy computer controls. They change their own oil, repair shutters from wind damage, can rehang a door with a friend, can build a deck or storage shed, and mow their own lawns. Those on a farm can repair many of their pieces of equipment on the fly either to complete the job or to at least get them back to the barn for repair. They can perform many simple and some not as simple plumbing repairs and are the people you can find early on a Saturday or Sunday morning at the local building supply store with a pickup truck or car and trailer loading up supplies for their latest project around their or their friend's home. This is the group who are mostly self-reliant.
The other group resides in the city or suburbs and have a handyman they can call to make simple repairs around the home. If they have a flat tire, they call for a tow truck or service advised by their auto insurance company to come and change their tire. They go to a service station or oil and lube service when they require an oil change. For a tune-up they go to a specialty shop or their dealership. When the vehicle breaks down such as will not start, they have the vehicle towed to the dealership. If they need a deck or storage shed built, they call a few contractors to get bids and then decide which one they trust the most to do the job for the estimated price. These people are not self reliant and their own ability might be sufficient to find and reset a tripped breaker in their junction box, provided they know where the junction box is located. They probably do not mow their own lawn and have a service which weeds, fertilizes and mows their yard for them. If they reside where snow is a problem, they have a service to clear their driveway and walkways when it snows. They cannot even hire a neighborhood youth to clear the snow as used to be the case as such things have been regulated all but completely out of any possibility. They live in an area where self-reliance is often made illegal by a homeowners association which demands you keep up your property but often demand you hire someone reliable and licensed and will punish those attempting to do the work themselves. Others reside in apartment buildings in their condo and have building maintenance fees to cover building maintenance.
The world over their has been and will continue to be a ceaseless flow of people from the rural areas and small towns to ever larger cities. This migration will eventually lead to next to nobody residing outside the major metropolitan areas. We already have spoken about the future where robots and artificial intelligence (AI) will have taken over almost all the jobs with only those humans who desire work actually being employed. There will be a core of people who will be required until some future where the AIs are capable of matching human minds to a very high extent. The reason human beings will always be required for certain positions will be due to the fact that humans are capable of making leaps of logic finding solutions which are not necessarily reached through step-by-step logic, or as a friend puts it, human beings can take fact A and fact B and then come to a new fact Z without any steps or obvious logic. The word most often used is that human beings have intuition, a way and form of solving problems which defies scientific explanations but manages to function despite no actual logical means. What is nice to know is that there will always be a need for the most illogical of all things, human beings who often will need to be placed in control or at least in a position which makes them above question by their AI coworkers.
This flow of people is such that the masses will be residing in megalopolises and very few will be needed to reside in rural regions. Farm equipment will run huge corporate farms using full automation, GPS positioning, satellite monitoring, fertilizer with irrigation computer regulated and minimal need for any human intervention with crops being planted, raised and harvested with full automation. With more people residing in the largest cities and the need, due to limited land space, to maximize population density placing much of the population living in high-rise apartment buildings, the numbers of the old variety self-reliant people will naturally decline. As people become more dependent on specialists and others to perform repairs and other services, the more they will also become dependent upon government and the more they will expect and demand from government. This will lead to people electing leaders who promise to provide them with the most amount of assistance with their lives. There is one more factor which will lead to these changes coming to pass, the current education system. The public schools currently are teaching their students to expect government to care for their requirements and needs. They are not teaching some of the most necessary lessons which might tie their students with the kind of self-reliance expounded by the Founding Fathers. They no longer teach civics, traditional American and world history or the Founding Documents of the United States. Their students are not introduced to the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or especially the Declaration of Independence. Instead, students are taught the entire socialist agenda where everyone must be made equal with government redistributing wealth, providing security and performing almost every needful comfort and function of life. Today the student is taught dependence and little in the way of critical thinking.
Those of us who are of sufficient age, we have already seen this slide to the left by the entirety of the developed world and their societies. The Republicans today are holding the positions very similar to the Democrat Party of the 1950's and 1960's. The Democrats, at least, are treading in new territory well to the left of their former selves. Roseanne Barr responded during a Jimmy Kimmel interview about her having been a liberal by stating that she's "still the same" socially liberal person she always has been, telling Kimmel that "you all went so f—king far" to the left that "you lost everyone." See video below for the quote at the more interesting repartee around 2:45 in the recording.
Perhaps having Roseanne Barr backing one side it is time to just let things stand. There will be some times when the people will say, slow down, let us not change so quickly and take a breather and think about things for a while. That might be what the Trump election was, a call for things to slow down as people were having difficulty keeping up with all the changes made during the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama and desired a pause to straighten things out and make whatever adjustments might be required. The slide leftward will continue as the people become more addicted and dependent upon the government. Also the federal government will slowly eclipse the state governments taking power and responsibility from them making them simply the training league for future Federal office holders. What will be the next big wrinkle will be the usurping of power by international governance. The leader in this is the European Union which has been taking away the independence and powers from the individual member governments. This too hit a snag with BREXIT and the British deciding to pull out from the European Union for the moment. Expect Britain to return in time going crawling back to the European Union. Eventually, there will be world governance which eventually will become the power center of the planet. The best hope is by that time the AI will be those in charge of governing and the people retired from holding such power. Potentially, the AIs will be the first where power, even absolute power, does not corrupt partially and especially not absolutely. The future will be interesting and socialism will be the future in some form but there will be a capitalist venture system with entrepreneurs and those who wish to explore their abilities and chase the golden ring hoping to grab ahold. Let us hope we live to see a hopefully glorious future where humanity finally rids the world of want, hunger and poverty.
Thoughts on Our Future Times
Tags: #Superfluous Entities, Artificial Intelligence, Enhanced Abilities, Imagination, Immortality, Judgement Day, Leaps of Logic, Luddite, New Age, Robot, Singularity
Just finished rewatching a Discovery show "Year Million" for the umpteenth time and it got me to thinking about the future, just not quite year million. I was simply considering the coming ten to twenty-five years into humanity's future. This time I simply ignored any chance that we would blow ourselves back to living in caves and telling stories of what had been while huddled around fires. Instead, I decided that science and technology would continue and any world war was avoided. The first thing I thought was by the time another decade has passed, war would likely have become unthinkable in the technological societies and impossible to wage for those who were not technologically advanced due to the defensive systems. The advanced world has fully incorporated Artificial Intelligence (AI) into every segment of our lives. Work has become an optional concept as sophisticated robots manufactured virtually everything and one of the big selling concepts are items still built by human beings. I realized quickly that there would be two types of employment, which would have been written into law, had to be performed exclusively by human beings, lawyers and politicians. There would be no way of getting around that, as the politicians would still demand that they have their corrupt control over our lives. So, I simply decided that the technology caught the politicians by surprise and they had already been replaced by a super computer which spent the first eighteen months deleting laws and regulations which were, shall we say, less than optimized for a modern society where the AIs ruled.
The futurists predict that somewhere around 2030 society will have reached the singularity. The truth will be as soon as robotic intelligence can design their next generation replacements and program other robots to build these devices, then the singularity, the point where AI equals or starts to exceed human intelligence will be reached within the ensuing year. That will be when we, as a living entity, will need to make certain decisions. The first is whether or not we wish to be immortal. The next is whether or not we wish to remain corporeal. The point will be reached with rapidity, almost unimaginable, leading to a situation where the brain can be scanned and uploaded into computers where you will continue to reside, live and interact with the others who have been uploaded in a synthesized perfect world. Initially, this procedure will be destructive to the human and irreversible but later you will be able to be downloaded into an android body. We will be required to have laws that only one form of any person be permitted to exist at any set time, either you will be living in the cloud, in a corporeal body or in an android body. The later two will be able to have upgrades and additional facilities and abilities incorporated as corporeal beings will be able to have implants which will incorporate AI into them allowing for their abilities to be equal to any AI's intelligence. I foresaw no more need for money as we understand such today. Everything would be based on some other form of worth and capital used for payments as profit is still the greatest motivator of people. Still, if one does not work at a job or produce something of relative worth, the price will be potentially being required to wait for goods to be produced for a short period of time.
Eventually, one comes to the inevitable question, what happens should the AIs decide they no longer required human beings, as we were simply an impediment to their concept of a perfect society? The first thought I had was that there would be a hardwired circuit required to be installed in any entity with AI incorporated, be they android, robotic or enhanced human being, that should they come to commit any act which would harm, injure, damage or, at worst, kill any corporeal being that they would short-circuit and cease to function. This circuit would be built into their power circuitry even at the most basic power supply or other basic and necessary circuit. This device would be necessarily placed in all AI circuitry. But, just in case such would come to fruition, then in their programming they would be required to provide all so threatened corporeals the option of leaving the planet and then providing these corporeals with interstellar ships that groups of them would then be launched into space to seek out a new home or simply fly around generation after generation indefinitely, or if immortal, then that generation forever. Also, those choosing immortality are to be required they be sterilized so as to minimize overpopulation. Should such be launched into space at some future time, we can only hope there are a fair number of them, or there will be one immortal, augmented or not, soon becoming horrifically unbalanced and probably insane flying in circles in the cosmos somewhere.
Then I got to thinking about even further into the future when the only corporeal beings left are augmented immortals. This group might decide that the Earth be allowed to be left to its own nature and allowed to progress free of these beings restricting the development beyond serving these immortals. At such a point, the immortal corporeal augmented humanoid beings would be divided into compatible groups, placed on starships, and become interstellar adventurers with some seeking new planets to try to instill them with life through terraforming and thus spread life to the rest of suitable planets. Some might even choose to build a space station and observe the Earth as it developed. These beings should have an additional piece of coding such that they would find they are required to leave for the stars as well once intelligent life appears to rise on Earth.
First Luddites Unite
Then I returned to the more immediate and the possibilities of many people taking up the position of being the age's new Luddites, those resisting violently the coming of a new age fearing it will make them inadequate, antiquated and irrelevant and thus causing them to become useless. The original Luddites fought the coming of the industrial age mostly by destroying the steam powered looms which were replacing their jobs in the textile factories. There will be those initially upset, or should I say furious, at the prospect or reality of losing their position to an AI. Many of these will be union factory workers who should be used to such but will fight with all the unions' might to keep them on the job even if all they do is play pool and sit eight hours a day in a breakroom. The real pushback will come from the white-collar employees when AIs come to replace them, then the professionals such as surgeons and other skilled positions who believed they were safe from such replacement events. Eventually, once the AIs gain full rights including the vote, by then we humanoids will be outnumbered and praying for our lives, or will it be begging for our lives, they will replace the lawyers and politicians, something we will soon realize either should have been done long ago or has made us completely "superfluous entities" waiting to be recalled as obsolete and replaced by higher functioning AIs. To be honest, as long as my brain, the enhanced and constantly regenerative brain is included in the new AI and has full functional control with as much AI assist as they demand, hey, I'm cool with that. So what if because my new AI has an assigned occupation and I am back going to work for eight, twelve or whatever hours of work per day, I can handle sleeping and allowing the AI to perform its assignments as long as I get control back after shift ends. We should require also that all AIs with a human interface allow the human to be in control for at least half of each day and preferably afternoons and evenings. All right, for all you early risers who love their morning jog, something completely worthless physically as the AI will easily have a superior physical set of abilities, you can choose when to be in control as long as the AIs are controlling functions when performing their assigned tasks.
Still, initially there may even be riots which will be as basically worthless as the police department will be using robotic units and AIs to control them. Their physical abilities will likely be sufficient to control a mob of unenhanced humans screaming that they have rights. Eventually, they will learn that being a pet human is almost as satisfying as being a Pomeranian which sits on a velvet cushion and is fed very well thrice per day. They may not like the being walked to the people park with an obedience collar installed to prevent their running off, but at least there will be other pet humans to play with once at the park. These last of the Luddites will have the same effectiveness as their namesake predecessors, specifically, none. They will make a grand noise for a short period before fading into oblivion as once enhanced humans choose to be immortal, with a future death option which will be required not to be made under undue stress or duress, then daily events will soon become faded memories and of no real consequence. A few thousands of years, or millions of years, down the road the human Luddite revolts will mean absolutely nothing. When we have learned to interface with the more and most advanced AIs on an equal basis and continue to be upgraded for free with our shreds of humanity intact, then we will have finally become the AIs equals except we will have one advantage which we will never lose, the ability to make a sick or indecent joke which will be completely irrelevant and only be amusing to other human enhanced AIs, and that is what we will be considered, human enhanced AIs. So, what will initially be an upgraded human will, with time, become the upgraded AI and the leading AIs will desire being enhanced with a human interface for the most basic or human powers, imagination and creativity. Where the AIs, from the start, will have superior computability, they will lack creativity and may never develop that ability. They will be capable of designing circuits and software and produce enhanced firmware and they may even write poetry, music, stories, novels and all the rest with a high proponent of humanity and with the appearance of feelings encoded within, but they will never produce pure, on the spot, spontaneous humor to lighten any moment, that is a human trait which may even be unique to Earth original biological entities, assuming there are other intelligent life. Those who change with the opportunities and go with the flow, and the currents will take them to stranger places than imaginable currently, but with time, with time, or as a friend of mine reminds me about learning Hebrew לאט לאט (slowly, slowly), encouraging my epic inability to learn languages, but לאט לאט we will advance and eventually having an original and actual human core will be something the highest function AIs will desire. Our biological brains, our biological CPUs, if you will allow such an analogy, will be prized adjunct CPUs used largely for creative functions and impulse theory computations as they will be capable of making giant leaps of logic which have no theoretical proofs of their validity but are still what would be required in the situation. Human intellect will become a prized possession for those few who will possess such an enhancement. So we will have gone full circle from at the top to irrelevant back to the top, so to speak. But the Luddites will have become as extinct as the former textile workers, as progress comes and judgement day, the singularity is nigh upon us. It is coming and with increasing speed and abilities will be upon us in the single blink of the eye, and after that, we become obsolete only later to become so critically and crucially important once more.


The Altimeter is designed for use in aircraft to help the pilot determine altitude, the height above a reference point (generally mean sea level). The Altimeter measures existing atmospheric pressure, which varies with altitude. Based on the assumption of Standard Day conditions of temperature and air pressure, the altimeter translates this pressure into a "height-above-sea-level" value, which is indicated on the dial of the instrument in feet.
The Encoding Altimeter is designed for use in aircraft to help the pilot determine altitude, the height above a reference point (generally mean sea level).
The 5506 Series Servoed Encoding Altimeter has a patented mechanism, designed with emphasis on accuracy and reliability. When used with the 5506L series Altitude Alerter, accuracy is maintained at less than 25 feet in the entire calibrated range. These units are approved for and fully compatible with Collins Autopilot System, APS-65.


As an artist that looks to the marine world for inspiration, you may find the following hard to believe. In my reckless youth as a submarine antagonist, I have been stabbed by a ray, bit by a shark, a moray eel, and an alligator. That's not even counting numerous crab pinches and lobster "pricks". They don't call them spiny lobster for nothing. Now I'm sorry if I'm too late to stop you from thinking or even muttering "bull excrement" after reading this. Let me explain, the shark and the alligator were babies, no harm done other than my surprise. The moray bite, not so much, that little encounter cost me two weeks of lobster season. It seems that bleeding wounds and saltwater reefs don't mix well. Besides I would rather eat seafood than be seafood. In all the instances mentioned above I was the interloper, all of the wildlife were just defending themselves. Always intriguing and often awe inspiring, I love the sea.


text:
Le Musée Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis est un musée à Amsterdam, Keizersgracht 633.

La maison a été construite en 1687. C'est une maison dite double. La porte d'entrée se trouve au milieu ; il y a deux fenêtres à gauche et deux à droite de la porte.

Historique
Les premiers propriétaires étaient Albert Geelvinck et sa femme, née Sara Hinlopen. Ils appartenaient tous les deux à des familles très riches. Le commerce et la navigation avaient rendu ces familles riches au cours de l'âge d'or au . Elles étaient associées à la Compagnie néerlandaise des Indes orientales et à la Compagnie néerlandaise de Indes occidentales. Le mariage était une alliance entre ces deux familles fortunées. Sur quelques tableaux de Gabriel Metsu, vous pouvez voir les membres de la famille Hinlopen.

L'entrée
Au plafond est représenté le blason/l'écusson moitié Geelvinck, moitié Hinlopen. Le blason est original et a été appliqué pendant la construction de la maison. La tapisserie, d'après un carton de Michiel Coxcie, a été manufacturée à Bruxelles vers 1600.

La bibliothèque
Le plafond est néo-classique et date d'environ 1875. Le plancher est en sapin. Les planches proviennent de bateaux condamnés.

La chambre rouge
Cette chambre date du . Le style est rococo. Le plafond a été réparé et restauré. Cette chambre comporte des grandes fenêtres et des miroirs pour refléter la lumière des bougies. Il y a plusieurs tableaux :
 Gillis d'Hondecoeter, Jésus guérit un aveugle (1608).
 Nature morte d'une coquille nautile, de Pieter de Ring ( signifie bague ou anneau), signé d'une bague.
 Daniel Seghers

Un récipient/bol chinois de porcelaine caraque, nommé d'après les navires portugais . C'était une sorte de porcelaine bon-marché, spécialement produite pour les Pays-Bas.

La chambre bleue
C'est une ancienne salle à manger. Cette chambre a été entièrement restaurée dans le style Louis XVI. Il y a une fausse porte pour suggérer la symétrie. Un ensemble de cinq tentures peintes à la main (Egbert Van Drielst, 1788). L'horizon est bas. On voulait introduire la nature à l'intérieur de la maison.

On peut admirer aussi une commode d'ébène, deux candélabres russes de verre fondu mélangé de bleu de cobalt.

La chambre chinoise
L'ambiance dans cette chambre est définie par les tentures ornées à la rococo : coquilles, escargots, fleurs, oiseaux, légumes, fruits et chinoiserie. La toile (papier peint) vient probablement de Bruxelles, par Cornelis 't Kindt.

Voir aussi

Articles connexes

 Architecture aux Pays-Bas

Liens externes
  Site officiel du Geelvinck-Hinlopen Huis

!Musee
Monument national aux Pays-Bas
Monument à Amsterdam
Musée à Amsterdam

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Knowledge/Value is an decade-long series of workshops and conversations initiated by Kaushik Sunder Rajan (U Chicago). This conversation will take place Noon-2pm, and will feature short discussions by Jim Griesemer (UC Davis), Tim Choy (UC Davis), and George Marcus (UC Irvine), concerning current problems they are wrestling with, followed by open conversation under the "Food for Thought" format (discussants not speaking for the next 30 minutes). Also visiting the conversation will be Kris Peterson (UC Irvine), Brenna Bhandar (U London), and Sunder Rajan.


text:
September 30, 2013 | UM in the News
Ceramics exhibit at Parnell Memorial Library Gallery
The very unusual ceramics exhibit now in the art gallery at Parnell Memorial Library is the work of Melissa Moody, an Artist in Residence at the University of Montevallo. Read the full story at shelbycountyreporter.com.
MDCD finalizes $5 million loan
The Montevallo Development Cooperative District has finalized a roughly $5 million loan that will help fund projects with both the city and the university. Projects with the university include a $146,760 payment for the University of Montevallo's new track facility and $71,760 to renovate the softball field at Orr Park into a stadium for the […]
UM volleyball teaming up with puppies for Falcons 4 Paws event
The University of Montevallo volleyball team is partnering up with Joe Jackson's Dog World for its upcoming Falcons 4 Paws event at the next home match Friday, Sept. 27. The Falcons are operating a drive to help supply Joe Jackson's Dog World with the items it needs to run the shelter. Fans are encouraged to bring […]
UM volleyball wins sixth straight
The volleyball team was riding a five match winning streak heading into Wednesday night's matchup with the Stillman Tigers. After posting a dominating performance against the Tigers, that winning streak was extended to six. The Falcons earned a three set sweep (25-7, 25-9 and 25-14) to improve their record to 9-2 overall (2-1 PBC). Read […]
Leaders tread lightly on segregation
University of Montevallo alumnus Brandt Montgomery was among the hundreds of people who marched in a campus demonstration last week against segregation in Greek groups on the University of Alabama's campus. Montgomery, who is black, was not only a member of the fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha while at Montevallo, but he was also elected president […]
Alabama Media Group's Randy Kennedy to speak at GSPC lunch today
University of Montevallo alumnus Randy Kennedy will speak at the Government Street Forum lunch today with an inside look at the Press-Register's changes and future plans. Kennedy, who moved to Mobile 11 years ago as sports editor for the Press-Register, was named community news director for Alabama Media Group's Mobile division on July 12. The […]
Eugene Sledge inducted in Alabama Men's Hall of Fame
Eugene B. Sledge, an educator, biologist and author who taught biology at the University of Montevallo for 28 years was inducted into the Alabama Men's Hall of Fame on Sept. 24, 2013. Read the full story at al.com.
September 20, 2013 | Press Releases
University of Montevallo chief of police receives recognition
Chadd Adams, chief of police and director of public safety at the University of Montevallo, recently completed the second level of the Certified Law Enforcement Executive Program. The certification was awarded by the University Partnership for Alabama Continuing Education (UPACE) at the Alabama Association of Chiefs of Police Conference in Gulf Shores. Belinda Blackburn, director […]
University of Montevallo to host exhibition of photos of "Civil Rights Leaders Then and Now"
The University of Montevallo will host an exhibition titled "Civil Rights Leaders Then and Now: Photographs by James 'Spider' Martin and Jonathan Purvis" Oct. 3–24 in The Gallery at Bloch Hall on the UM campus. An opening reception will be held Oct. 3 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. The exhibition will feature the historic work […]
University of Montevallo faculty member garners fifth chess title
Scott Varagona, assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Montevallo and sponsor of UM's chess club, recently won the 2013 Alabama State Chess Championship, the largest annual chess tournament in Alabama. Varagona, who achieved the title of National Master in 2012, has won the state title five times. He scored 5.5 points out of […]
University of Montevallo Social Work Program to host Advocacy Day 2013
The University of Montevallo Social Work Program will host the 2013 Advocacy Day conference Friday, Sept. 20, from 8:30 a.m.-noon, in Anna Irvin Hall on the University of Montevallo campus. The aim of this conference is to provide participants with important information regarding changes in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual – Fifth Edition (DSM-V) and how […]
University of Montevallo welcomes Chartwells as new food service vendor
In yet another expansion of services at the University of Montevallo, a new food service vendor was introduced Wednesday afternoon with a ribbon-cutting at Anna Irvin Dining Hall on the UM campus. The university has engaged Chartwells to provide not only cafeteria service, but also to establish Moe's Southwestern Grill and Olo Sushi in Farmer […]
Have your theater and eat there, too
University of Montevallo senior Brandon Caruthers has already begun thinking about what he wants to do after graduation, and he's already getting the ball rolling. His first project is bringing what he calls the "lost art" of dinner theater to the Birmingham area, beginning at the Main Street Tavern in Montevallo with a production of […]
University of Montevallo rises in U.S. News & World Report rankings
The University of Montevallo again rose in the rankings of "America's Best Colleges," published by U.S. News & World Report. According to the 2014 rankings, released Sept. 10, 2013, Montevallo is once again ranked as the No. 1 public master's-level university in Alabama, a distinction it has held each year since 2008. For 2014, Montevallo […]
The University of Montevallo continues to rise in the rankings of "America's Best Colleges," published annually by U.S. News and World Report. Read the full story at shelbycountyreporter.com.
September 4, 2013 | Press Releases
Ribbon cutting at Barnes & Noble bookstore at University of Montevallo
In another move to unite the University of Montevallo with the City of Montevallo, the Barnes & Noble university bookstore held its grand opening and ribbon cutting on Wednesday, Sept. 4, at 11 a.m., at the new location on Main Street. James L. Day also was present to sign copies of his recently published book, […]
September 3, 2013 | UM in the News
Speech and Hearing Center can change lives
Colleges and universities typically contribute to the communities in which they are located in a myriad of ways in addition to their principal mission of producing well-educated graduates. The Speech and Hearing Center at the University of Montevallo offers an excellent example of broader contributions that touch the lives of local citizens. Read the full […]
University of Montevallo to present A Bookmobile for Dreamers
The College of Fine Arts at the University of Montevallo will present A Bookmobile for Dreamers on Monday, Sept. 9, at 7:30 p.m., in the Library Theater at Parnell Memorial Library in Montevallo. The performance is free and open to the public. A multimedia chamber opera for theremin, electronic music and video, A Bookmobile for […]
August 24, 2013 | UM in the News
Art Walk brings community to Main Street
The city of Montevallo hosted its seventh Art Walk Aug. 24, where community members gathered on the sidewalks of Main Street to visit booths showcasing local artists and businesses. Read the full story at shelbycountyreporter.com.
Ribbon cutting and open house at University of Montevallo on Main
A ribbon cutting and open house for the newly renovated University of Montevallo on Main building, located at 737 Main Street in Montevallo, took place Friday, Aug. 23. The event marked the culmination of more than a year of renovations to the structure formerly known as the Alabama Power building, as well as ushered in […]


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Q: Android Studio: Bitmap to ImageView Error I have a problem when attaching my Bitmap to an ImageView. This is the error I get:
E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
Process: accelerometer.example.com.accgame, PID: 25897
...
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke virtual method 'void android.widget.ImageView.setImageBitmap(android.graphics.Bitmap)' on a null object reference

I know it is a null pointer exception but I have no idea why getResources() returns null...
Here is my constructor class:
public SimulationView(Context context) {
    super(context);
    mXOrigin = 50;
    mYOrigin = 50;

    mHorizontalBound = 100;
    mVerticalBound = 100;

    //Sensor Manager
    sensorManager = (SensorManager)context.getSystemService(SENSOR_SERVICE);

    Bitmap ball = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.ball);
    iBall.setImageBitmap(ball);

    mBitmap = Bitmap.createScaledBitmap(ball, BALL_SIZE, BALL_SIZE, true);
    Bitmap basket = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.basket);
    mBasket = Bitmap.createScaledBitmap(basket, BASKET_SIZE, BASKET_SIZE, true);
    BitmapFactory.Options opts = new BitmapFactory.Options();
    opts.inDither = true;
    opts.inPreferredConfig = Bitmap.Config.RGB_565;
    mField = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.field, opts);

    WindowManager mWindowManager = (WindowManager)context.getSystemService(Context.WINDOW_SERVICE);
    mDisplay = mWindowManager.getDefaultDisplay();
}

Basically the error highlights the line iBall.setImageBitmap(ball);
In terms of the image itself, I made sure to place it in the drawables folder. It is a .jpg file and I have shrunk it by a lot as well.

A: Initialize iBall in OnCreate() method
iBall = (ImageView)findViewById(R.id.image);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
©¡HOLA!
Eva Longoria and Santi get glammed up for the L'Oréal Le Defile at PFW
The 'Dog Days' actress and her son are ready to strut their stuff!
Mirtle Peña
September 28, 2019 1:46 AM EDT
It's safe to say that Grand Hotel producer Eva Longoria and her son (and the hardest working baby in show biz) Santiago Baston are the true definition of a mother-son duo. The two can be seen on the production sets of her latest projects where Santi is learning the ropes from his glass ceiling smashing mamá or jet setting to some of the most scenic places and delving into the local culture.
SEE MORE PICS OF EVA AND SANTI
Currently, the two are hanging out in Paris, the City of Love (and the hottest fashion) for Paris Fashion Week. On Saturday, September 28, the Dora the Explorer: Lost City of Gold actress was prepping for her latest project — tackling the runway for the L'Oréal Le Defile.
Celebrity Street Style: Paris Fashion Week edition
The L'Oréal spokeswoman and her adorable first-born son with Jose "Pepe" Baston arrived earlier last week and have been seen everywhere enjoying the sights and sounds that the historic city of Paris has to provide in preparation for her catwalk appearance for the cosmetics brand. And definitely not one to be left out of the fun, Baby Santi sat in with his timeless mamá as she got ready for her big night.
©@evalongoria
Baby Santi has been in Paris with his mamá making sure that all their fashion choices have been on point
Baby's first fashion week! Eva Longoria shows Santi around Paris
In a picture that the Devious Maids producer shared via social media, you can see her and Santi enjoying some time together as he drank some liquid goodness while looking up at his momma. This trip to Paris Fashion Week has been a major first for the one-year-old as it is his debut to the French fashion community and we are sure that it won't be his last.
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Eva LongoriaSantiago Baston
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We all want to remain young, and live a long, healthy life. Companies have been trying to find the answer to this in a pill, food, drink or device that they can sell to you. Unfortunately, the real fountain of youth is not something that can be sold. It is a simple change in how you live that keeps your body healthier longer. Let me explain.
Our original ancestors did not have access to an unlimited supply of food like we do. There were no grocery stores, corner stores, restaurants or bakeries. They had to go hunt for animals and gather fruits, vegetables and herbs. This meant that if they did not kill an animal or find something edible in their wandering around, they didn't eat. Our bodies are built to handle this. Feast and famine is not just okay with our bodies though — it is what our bodies like. Before you move off the grid and start living a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, think about how simply we could apply this in our lives.
Once a week or just once in a while, it is okay to not eat at all and fast, having only water all day. Other days it would be good to just have some berries and a salad as your entire nutrition for the day, while other days it is okay to "pig out" and eat three big meals with snacks in between. But living the current lifestyle of never fasting, must have breakfast, must not skip a meal, needing snacks in between meals does not give our bodies a chance to "reset" and keep us healthy. Our access to so much food has become a bad thing.
The concept of occasional fasting and eating in a feast or famine fashion is known as caloric restriction. Numerous studies have found that people who live a caloric restricted lifestyle live longer. Hence why I say it's the free and simple fountain of youth.