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jonathan.rawle.org
New BBC Weather page with MeteoGroup forecast
In 2015, it was announced that the Met Office had lost the contract to provide the BBC's weather for the first time since forecasts started in 1922, with the contract instead going to MeteoGroup. Towards the end of last year, it was announced that MeteoGroup were behind schedule in their work towards providing the BBC's forecasts, so the contract with the Met Office had to be extended until March.
This week, I discovered that the BBC Weather website looked different in one of my browsers. They must be selecting people at random to try the new MeteoGroup-powered website. Not only is the data provider changing, but it seems the BBC have taken the opportunity to tinker with the layout of their weather pages.
The new BBC Weather website, with forecasts from MeteoGroup
The new page has a wider layout with an updated look and feel. As is now increasingly common in an era when people are switching to tablets, the page is shorter, to avoid the need to scroll on a landscape screen. One thing that is immediately noticeable is the lack of colours indicating the temperatures throughout the day. The BBC tried to remove these in a previous update in 2011, and ended up having to add them back after "user feedback". In fact, the colours are present in the new layout for the daily average temperatures, but as far less prominent stripes of colour below the daily forecast (or above the currently selected one). The colours are, however, not used at all for the hourly temperatures, a reversal of the previous situation. Another change is that there is no longer an option to switch between "graph" and "table" views, with the graph view forced on everyone. I happen to prefer the view with the temperatures lining up, but this choice has been taken away. Details such as the humidity and pressure were previously only visible on the five-day forecast page in table view, so these are currently missing.
Thankfully, the BBC has retained its classic weather symbols on the new page. The wind speed indicators have switched to a circular outline rather than filled circles. There is also a new symbol and a percentage, showing the probability of rain during that hour.
The old BBC Weather page with data from the Met Office, showing the "Table" view
The new layout looks OK, but they really need to bring back the colours for all the temperature values, and also the option of table mode with all the old data. But how about the quality of the new forecasts from MeteoGroup? Clearly, it's too early to say how accurate the forecasts will be from the new provider. Having said that, on the day I took the screenshots above, MeteoGroup said the next hour's weather would feature hail showers. The Met Office's version predicted sunny spells. Out of the window: nice and sunny. While I realise it's not exactly a thorough comparison, it's possibly not the best of first impressions of the MeteoGroup forecast.
Of course, anyone who objects to the Met Office being replaced like this can always go directly to the Met Office website. This should contain exactly the same information as the old BBC forecasts. Unfortunately, it does lack the bold BBC weather symbols, instead having its own cartoon-like versions, and the differing shades of orange are no match for the familiar BBC temperature colours. It does, however, have more details about weather warnings, and includes some additional information, for example giving both the wind speed and maximum gust speed separately (the BBC usually give the former, but switch to showing gusts once they are over 40mph, which is why the wind speeds reported always jump from the 20s to 40s and never show a value in the 30s!)
The same weather forecast on the Met Office site
The Met Office site also carries advertising, despite being a .gov.uk branded site. The BBC, of course, never features advertising, so we have the slightly bizarre situation of being able to view a forecast from the private MeteoGroup free of advertising, or a forecast from the UK Meteorological Office complete with adverts.
I feel some sort of Greasemonkey script or similar is in order to restore the perfect weather page. How about the new BBC page but with colours; or the Met Office page with the BBC's symbols and colours? The numbers used for the image filenames on the Met Office site are identical to those on the old BBC site, ranging from 0 for a clear sky at night, to 31 for a rather alarming-looking whirlwind symbol, which thankfully we do not usually see in UK forecasts. Hopefully, though, no hacking will be required, and "user feedback" will ensure the best aspects of the old layout will be retained in a way that works with the new data from MeteoGroup. But anyone who tires of spurious warnings of hail showers will know where to look for a second opinion.
Posted in Media | 2 comments
Airbnb: Turning homes into hotels
The original premise of Airbnb seemed like a good one. If someone had a spare room, they could let it out as a bed and breakfast room to bring in an extra bit of cash. The person staying would be a guest in their host's home, meet them, probably chat with them in the evening, and share breakfast in the morning. However, Airbnb has turned into something quite different. It is now used by professional landlords to let out entire properties on a day-by-day basis. Unsurprisingly, a landlord can make much more money from such short-term lets than they can from a long-term tenant paying monthly.
Turning a home into a de facto hotel is quite unfair on the neighbours, who have to put up with different people arriving each day or week, and with guests' behaviour, which may not be of the same high standard as when they are at home. Councils are starting to take action, with London banning property owners from letting them out short-term for more than 90 days per year, and there are plans to introduce a similar restriction in other cities such as Edinburgh and Liverpool.
The craze for turning homes into hotel rooms has been around longer than Airbnb, however. In 2007, the Rotunda, an iconic, cylindrical office building in Birmingham, was extensively refurbished and converted into apartments. Due to its location and being a famous building, these flats sold for a hefty premium. A significant number, however, were bought by a company trading as Staying Cool, for use as "serviced apartments". I thought at the time that this was simply a euphemism for turning them into hotel rooms. It seemed rather unfair on people who had bought their apartments to live in, for them to discover they were sharing the building with a hotel, despite no planning permission existing for such a use. Today, some of these rooms are available for £300 or more per night.
It seems a grey area exists where "serviced apartments", including Airbnb-style lets, are concerned. English planning law defines various use classes. Class C1 is for hotels, and class C3 for "dwellinghouses". Most homes will only have planning permission for C3, and indeed the Rotunda was granted change of use to class C3. Why, therefore, are people allowed effectively to run hotels from their properties? The idea of planning law is that local councils can decide whether a certain site is appropriate for use as a hotel, particularly regarding nuisance caused to neighbours. It's unlikely a few flats in a building would be given such permission unless certain facilities were provided, maybe even a separate entrance and lifts.
The solution to the problem of Airbnb could be to tighten up the planning rules. If someone wants to let out a single room, as was the original idea of Airbnb, of course that should be allowed, as long as it only involves letting out part of the property, and the host actually lives there too. If, however, it's a case of letting out whole apartments as hotel suites, change of use to C1 should be required, and then it would be up to the authorities to decide whether such use is appropriate. Landlords should not be able to profit hugely from turning their properties into hotels at the expense of people who are looking for somewhere to live, and people who have the enjoyment of their homes ruined by holidaymakers or party-goers.
Posted in Society | Leave a comment
Once in a red and blue moon
A lunar eclipse in September 2015
At the end of this month, some people will have the opportunity to see a moon that is both a red moon and a blue moon. Of course, it will be a figurative blue moon but a literal red moon, the latter caused by a total lunar eclipse.
Neither lunar eclipses nor blue moons are actually that rare. This month's will be the eighth total lunar eclipse since 2010 (although unfortunately not visible from most of Europe this time) and indeed there will be another one in July. As for "once a blue moon", that is usually taken to mean not for a very long time. However, these days, a blue moon is usually defined as the second full moon in a month, and that isn't actually so rare either. In fact, there will be another blue moon in March!
There is some uncertainty as to the exact definition of a blue moon. Some sources say it occurs where there are four full moons in a quarter of a year (in which case, "blue moon" refers to the third one). Using this definition, there have only been three blue moons since 2010, and the next isn't due until 2019.
This month's event also coincides with a so-called "super moon" where the moon is closer to the Earth, so appears bigger. A super blood-red blue moon.
Lunar eclipses and blue moons both necessarily occur when there is a full moon. Both occurring together is far more unusual, though. The last time there was a total lunar eclipse coinciding with a blue moon was on 31 March 1866! Perhaps the expression should be "Once in a red and blue moon". However, for those of us unable to see this rare phenomenon this January, there's no need to wait 150 years. There is another one due in December 2028!
Posted in Astronomy | Leave a comment
Orchestrating songs, or singing orchestral tracks?
Classic FM is shortly going to release a new album, Pop Goes Classical . They have already played tracks from it on the station. It features the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra playing versions of famous pop songs.
The track that they keep playing on the station is a version of the 1991 song (Everything I Do) I Do It for You . (Now, why is it always written with the first three words in brackets?) This was originally sung by Bryan Adams, and famously accompanied the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves , spending a record 16 weeks at the top of the UK singles chart.
Credit for writing the song is usually given to Bryan Adams, Michael Kamen, and Robert Lange. Michael Kamen wrote the score for the movie, but I seem to remember reading that he didn't think there should be a song to go with the film. Adams and Lange therefore took Kamen's music and turned it into the song. Classic FM have been crediting the track as being "by" Bryan Adams. I thought this was rather inaccurate as neither his lyrics nor his singing is included. The tune was clearly by Michael Kamen. I therefore dropped a quick note to presenter Bill Turnbull, who had played the track. Earlier this week, I heard him play it for a third time, and to my surprise, this time he credited it to Michael Kamen. I'd like to think that's because I, and perhaps others, pointed out the omission.
The fact remains that there was already an orchestral version of the song, and it pre-dates the song itself. Anyone who wants to hear Michael Kamen's own version of it should listen to the track Maid Marian from the soundtrack album. It does seem slightly bizarre to orchestrate a song that started life as an orchestral piece, particularly when, it has to be said, the original was far superior.
This is not the first time Classic FM have released such an album. In 2008, they released Songs Without Words , a very similar CD played by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. As I write, this is still available from Amazon for the princely sum of £16.04, or for 15p second-hand. This CD features that other famous movie song, My Heart Will Go On , from Titanic . As with Everything I Do , James Horner's orchestral score for Titanic already includes many versions of the same tune, including one for Irish bagpipes. The song is credited to Horner and lyricist Will Jennings (and it was sung by another Canadian singer, Celine Dion). But the version on Songs Without Words is turned into a slightly jaunty waltz. That's clearly from the special edition of the film where the ship doesn't sink.
Orchestral versions of pop songs are a nice idea, but is it just a coincidence that the most popular are pieces that started out as orchestral works in the first place? Perhaps we should just listen to the originals, rather than arrangements of pop songs derived from them – the latter simply not being as good!
Posted in Film, Music | Leave a comment
Garden Bridge has fallen down
At last a piece of good news. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has finally withdrawn support for the proposed Garden Bridge across the River Thames, effectively killing the project. After a report by a committee of MPs earlier this month said the bridge should be scrapped, any other decision on the part of the mayor would have been just the latest in a series of scandalous decisions wasting yet more public money on this vanity project.
I have been among those opposed to the bridge from early on. Anyone who knows the South Bank will know that it is already usually packed with people, given that it is home to many attractions such as the Royal Festival Hall, the National Theatre, the Hayward Gallery, the London Eye and the Aquarium, not to mention numerous restaurants. The last thing this area needs is another tourist attraction, and tourist attraction is exactly what this so-called bridge was. It wasn't to be built in an area that needed a new bridge: there are two bridges nearby, and the northern end would land at Temple which is a quiet area where law firms are based, not so popular with visitors. The bridge would be privately owned, cycling would not be permitted, it would be closed at night, and could be closed in the daytime for private functions. Many people were also upset that it would block views across the river to St Paul's Cathedral.
Trees with blue and white lights on the South Bank. Photo by Marco Marini on Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence
My main objection was to the damage it would do to the South Bank. If you walk east from the Royal Festival Hall, you soon come to an area where the riverside walk widens out. This is a welcome breather from where it is rammed full of tourists closer to the London Eye, and offers an opportunity to enjoy strolling along the river for a short distance with slightly more space. This part of the path is lined on both sides by mature trees which are strung with blue and white lights, making it equally appealing at night. This is just the area where the southern end of the bridge would have "landed". Indeed, the so-called Garden Bridge would have resulted in the felling of many mature trees, and in their place would have been a concrete building housing 350 square metres of commercial space.
The bridge would have spoilt one of the most pleasant stretches of the South Bank. I'm glad it will no longer go ahead. What needs to happen now is that the people who have allowed £40 million of public money to be spent on this project before any construction had even started need to be investigated, starting with former mayor Boris Johnson.
It's not that a garden bridge is a bad idea in itself. This was simply the wrong place, and the way the design was chosen was verging on the corrupt. (Anyone who just knows Thomas Heatherwick for his work on the 2012 Olympic cauldron might do well to consider his contribution to the 2002 Commonwealth Games.) Why not construct a garden bridge somewhere that actually needs a bridge, and could do with the extra footfall a new attraction will bring?
Happily, it was the Garden Bridge that fell and not the South Bank's trees. Hopefully a few egos will fall with it.
Thames Central Open Spaces – campaign to save open spaces on the South Bank
Garden Bridge Trust – official site. Note how all the pro-bridge news articles are from The Times …
Posted in Environment, Politics | 1 comment
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O Unlucky Man: Fortune never smiled on Sonny Liston
Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated
In this SI 60 story, William Nack retraces the sad life and tragic death of one-time heavyweight champion Sonny Liston.
By William Nack
In honor of Sports Illustrated's 60th anniversary, SI.com is republishing 60 of the best stories to ever run in the magazine. Today's selection is "O Unlucky Man," William Nack's piercing profile of the sad life and tragic death of one-time heavyweight champion Sonny Liston.
SOMEDAY THEY'RE GONNA WRITE A BLUES SONG JUST FOR FIGHTERS. IT'LL BE FOR SLOW GUITAR< SOFT TRUMPET AND A BELL. -- CHARLES (SONNY) LISTON
It was already dark when she stepped from the car in front of her house on Ottawa Drive, but she could see her pink Cadillac convertible and Sonny's new black Fleetwood under the carport in the Las Vegas night.
Where could Charles be? Geraldine Liston was thinking.
All through the house the lamps were lit, even around the swimming pool out back. The windows were open too, and the doors were unlocked. It was quiet except for the television playing in the room at the top of the stairs.
By 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 5, 1971, Geraldine had not spoken to her husband for 12 days. On Christmas Eve she had called him from St. Louis after flying there with the couple's seven-year-old son, Danielle, to spend the holidays with her mother. Geraldine had tried to phone him a number of times, but no one had answered at the house. At first she figured he must be off roistering in Los Angeles, and so she didn't pay his absence any mind until the evening of Dec. 28. That night, in a fitful sleep, she had a vision so unsettling that it awakened her and sent her to her mother's room.
''I had the worst dream,'' Geraldine says. ''He was falling in the shower and calling my name, 'Gerry, Gerry!' I can still see it. So I got real nervous. I told my mother, 'I think something's wrong.' But my mother said, 'Oh, don't think that. He's all right.' ''
In fact, Sonny Liston had not been right for a long time, and not only for the strangely dual life he had been leading -- spells of choirboy abstinence squeezed between binges of drinking and drugs -- but also for the rudderless, unfocused existence he had been reduced to. Jobless and nearly broke, Liston had been moving through the murkier waters of Las Vegas's drug culture. ''I knew he was hanging around with the wrong people,'' one of his closest friends, gambler Lem Banker, says. ''And I knew he was in desperate need of cash.'' So, as the end of 1970 neared, Liston had reached that final twist in the cord. Eight years earlier he was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world -- a 6 ft. 1 1/2 in., 215-pound hulk with upper arms like picnic roasts, two magnificent, 14-inch fists and a scowl that he mounted for display on a round, otherwise impassive face. He had won the title by flattening Floyd Patterson with two punches, left hooks down and up, in the first round of their fight on Sept. 25, 1962; 10 months later he had beaten Patterson again in one round.
SI 60 Q&A: Talking Sonny Liston and the craft of writing with William Nack
Liston did not sidestep his way to the title; the pirouette was not among his moves. He reached Patterson by walking through the entire heavyweight division, leaving large bodies sprawled behind him: Wayne Bethea, Mike DeJohn, Cleveland Williams, Nino Valdes, Roy Harris, Zora Folley et al. Finally, a terrified Patterson waited for him, already fumbling with his getaway disguise, dark glasses and a beard.
Before the referee could count to 10 in that first fight, Liston had become a mural-sized American myth, a larger-than-life John Henry with two hammers, an 84-inch reach, 23 knockouts (in 34 bouts) and 19 arrests. Tales of his exploits spun well with the fight crowd over beers in dark-wood bars. There was the one about how he used to lift up the front end of automobiles. And one about how he caught birds with his bare hands. And another about how he hit speed bags so hard that he tore them from their hinges, and ripped into heavy bags until they burst, spilling their stuffing.
''Nobody hit those bags like Sonny,'' says 80-year-old Johnny Tocco, one of Liston's first and last trainers. ''He tore bags up. He could turn that hook, put everything behind it. Turn and snap. Bam! Why, he could knock you across the room with a jab. I saw him knock guys out with a straight jab. Bam! In the ring, Sonny was a killing machine.''
Perhaps no fighter had ever brought to the ring so palpable an aura of menace. Liston hammered out danger, he hammered out a warning. There was his fearsome physical presence; then there was his heavy psychic baggage, his prison record and assorted shadows from the underworld. Police in three cities virtually drove him out of town; in one of them, St. Louis, a captain warned Liston that he would wind up dead in an alley if he stayed.
In public Liston was often surly, hostile and uncommunicative, and so he fed one of the most disconcerting of white stereotypes, that of the ignorant, angry, morally reckless black roaming loose, with bad intentions, in white society. He became a target for racial typing in days when white commentators could still utter undisguised slurs without Ted Koppel asking them to, please, explain themselves. In the papers Liston was referred to as ''a gorilla,'' ''a latter day caveman'' and ''a jungle beast.'' His fights against Patterson were seen as morality plays. Patterson was Good, Liston was Evil. On July 24, 1963, two days after the second Patterson fight, Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote: ''The central fact . . . is that the world of sport now realizes it has gotten Charles (Sonny) Liston to keep. It is like finding a live bat on a string under your Christmas tree.''
The NAACP had pleaded with Patterson not to fight Liston. Indeed, many blacks watched Liston's spectacular rise with something approaching horror, as if he were climbing the Empire State Building with Fay Wray in his hands. Here suddenly was a baleful black felon holding the most prestigious title in sports. This was at the precise moment in history when a young civil rights movement was emerging, a movement searching for role models. Television was showing freedom marchers being swept by fire hoses and attacked by police dogs. Yet, untouched by image makers, Liston steadfastly refused to speak any mind but his own. Asked by a young white reporter why he wasn't fighting for freedom in the South, Liston deadpanned, ''I ain't got no dog-proof ass.''
Four months after Liston won the title, Esquire thumbed its nose at its white readers with an unforgettable cover. On the front of its December 1963 issue, there was Liston glowering out from under a tasseled red-and-white Santa Claus hat, looking like the last man on earth America wanted to see coming down its chimney.
Now, at the end of the Christmas holiday of 1970, that old black Santa was still missing in Las Vegas. Geraldine crossed through the carport of the Listons' split-level and headed for the patio out back. Danielle was at her side. Copies of the Las Vegas Sun had been gathering in the carport since Dec. 29. Geraldine opened the back door and stepped into the den. A foul odor hung in the air, permeating the house, and so she headed up the three steps toward the kitchen. ''I thought he had left some food out and it had spoiled,'' she says. ''But I didn't see anything.''
Leaving the kitchen, she walked toward the staircase. She could hear the television from the master bedroom. Geraldine and Danielle climbed the stairs and looked through the bedroom door, to the smashed bench at the foot of the bed and the stone-cold figure lying with his back up against it, blood caked on the front of his swollen shirt and his head canted to one side. She gasped and said, ''Sonny's dead.''
''What's wrong?'' Danielle asked.
She led the boy quickly down the stairs. ''Come on, baby,'' she said.
SI 60: 'Lawdy, Lawdy, He's Great'
On the afternoon of Sept. 27, 1962, Liston boarded a flight from Chicago to Philadelphia. He settled into a seat next to his friend Jack McKinney, an amateur fighter who was then a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Daily News. This was the day Liston had been waiting for ever since he first laced on boxing gloves, at the Missouri State Penitentiary a decade earlier. Forty- eight hours before, he had bludgeoned Patterson to become heavyweight champion. Denied a title fight for years, barred from New York City rings as ) an undesirable, largely ignored in his adopted Philadelphia, Liston suddenly felt vindicated, redeemed. In fact, before leaving the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago, he had received word from friends that the people of Philadelphia were awaiting his triumphant return with a ticker-tape parade.
The only disquieting tremor had been some other news out of Philadelphia, relayed to him by telephone from friends back home, that Daily News sports editor Larry Merchant had written a column confirming Liston's worst fears about how his triumph might be received. Those fears were based upon the ruckus that had preceded the fight. The New York Times's Arthur Daley had led the way: ''Whether Patterson likes it or not, he's stuck with it. He's the knight in shining armor battling the forces of evil.''
Now wrote Merchant: ''So it is true -- in a fair fight between good and evil, evil must win. . . . A celebration for Philadelphia's first heavyweight champ is now in order. Emily Post probably would recommend a ticker-tape parade. For confetti we can use shredded warrants of arrest.''
The darkest corner of Liston's personality was his lack of a sense of self. All the signs from his past pointed the same way and said the same thing: dead end. He was the 24th of the 25 children fathered by Tobey Liston, a tenant cotton farmer who lived outside Forrest City, Ark. Tobey had two families, one with 15 children and the other with 10; Charles was born ninth to his mother, Helen. Outside the ring, he battled his whole life against writers who suggested that he was older than he claimed he was. ''Maybe they think I'm so old because I never was really young,'' he said. Usually he would insist he was born on May 8, 1932, in the belly of the Great Depression, and he growled at reporters who dared to doubt him on this: ''Anybody who says I'm not 30 is callin' my momma a liar.''
''Sonny was so sensitive on the issue of his age because he did not really know how old he was,'' says McKinney. ''When guys would write that he was 32 going on 50, it had more of an impact on him than anybody realized. Sonny didn't know who he was. He was looking for an identity, and he thought that being the champion would give him one.''
Now that moment had arrived. During the flight home, McKinney says, Liston practiced the speech he was going to give when the crowds greeted him at the airport. Says McKinney, who took notes during the flight, ''He used me as sort of a test auditor, dry-running his ideas by me.''
Liston was excited, emotional, eager to begin his reign. ''There's a lot of things I'm gonna do,'' he told McKinney. ''But one thing's very important: I want to reach my people. I want to reach them and tell them, 'You don't have to worry about me disgracin' you. You won't have to worry about me stoppin' your progress.' I want to go to colored churches and colored neighborhoods. I know it was in the papers that the better class of colored people were hopin' I'd lose, even prayin' I'd lose, because they was afraid I wouldn't know how to act. . . . I remember one thing so clear about listening to Joe Louis fight on the radio when I was a kid. I never remember a fight the announcer didn't say about Louis, 'A great fighter and a credit to his race.' Remember? That used to make me feel real proud inside.
''I don't mean to be sayin' I'm just gonna be the champion of my own people,'' Liston continued. ''It says now I'm the world's champion, and that's just the way it's gonna be. I want to go to a lot of places -- like orphan homes and reform schools. I'll be able to say, 'Kid, I know it's tough for you and it might even get tougher. But don't give up on the world. Good things can happen if you let them.' ''
Liston was ready. As the plane rolled to a stop, he rose and walked to the door. McKinney was next to him. The staircase was wheeled to the door. Liston straightened his tie and his fedora. The door opened, and he stepped outside. There was no one there except for airline workers, a few reporters and photographers and a handful of p.r. men. ''Other than those, no one,'' recalls McKinney. ''I watched Sonny. His eyes swept the whole scene. He was extremely intelligent, and he understood immediately what it meant. His Adam's apple moved slightly. You could feel the deflation, see the look of hurt in his eyes. It was almost like a silent shudder went through him. He'd been deliberately snubbed.
''Philadelphia wanted nothing to do with him. Sonny felt, after he won the title, that the past was forgiven. It was going to be a whole new world. What happened in Philadelphia that day was a turning point in his life. He was still the bad guy. He was the personification of evil. And that's the way it was going to remain. He was devastated. I knew from that point on that the world would never get to know the Sonny that I knew.''
On the way out of the airport after a brief press conference, Sonny turned to McKinney and said, ''I think I'll get out tomorrow and do all the things I've always done. Walk down the block and buy the papers, stop in the drugstore, talk to the neighbors. Then I'll see how the real peoples feel. Maybe then I'll start to feelin' like a champion. You know, it's really a lot like an election, only in reverse. Here I'm already in office, but now I have to go out and start campaignin'.''
That was a campaign that Liston could never win. He was to be forever cast in the role of devil's agent, and never more so than in his two stunning, ignominious losses to Cassius Clay, then beginning to be known as Muhammad Ali. In the history of boxing's heavyweight division, never has a fighter fallen faster, and farther, than did Liston in the 15 months it took Ali to reduce him from being the man known as the fiercest alive to being the butt of jokes on TV talk shows.
Mark Kauffman/Sports Illustrated
''I think he died the day he was born,'' wrote Harold Conrad, who did publicity for four of Liston's fights. By the nearest reckoning, that birth would have been in a tenant's shack, 17 miles northwest of Forrest City and about 60 west of Memphis. Helen had met Tobey in Mississippi and had gone with him to Arkansas around the time of World War I. Young Charles grew up lost among all the callused hands and bare feet of innumerable siblings. ''I had nothing when I was a kid but a lot of brothers and sisters, a helpless mother and a father who didn't care about any of us,'' Liston said. ''We grew up with few clothes, no shoes, little to eat. My father worked me hard and whupped me hard.''
Helen moved to St. Louis during World War II, and Charles, who was living with his father, set out north to find her when he was 13. Three years later he weighed 200 pounds, and he ruled his St. Louis neighborhood by force. At 18, he had already served time in a house of detention and was graduating to armed robbery. On Jan. 15, 1950, Liston was found guilty of two counts of larceny from a person and two counts of first-degree robbery. He served more than two years in the Missouri state pen in Jefferson City.
The prison's athletic director, Father Alois Stevens, a Catholic priest, first saw Liston when he came by the gym to join the boxing program. To Stevens, Liston looked like something out of Jane's Fighting Ships. ''He was the most perfect specimen of manhood I had ever seen,'' Stevens recalls. ''Powerful arms, big shoulders. Pretty soon he was knocking out everybody in the gym. His hands were so large! I couldn't believe it. They always had * trouble with his gloves, trouble getting them on when his hands were wrapped.''
In 1952 Liston was released on parole, and he turned pro on Sept. 2, 1953, leveling Don Smith in the first round in St. Louis. Tocco met Liston when the fighter strolled into Tocco's gym in St. Louis. The trainer's first memory of Liston is fixed, mostly for the way he came in -- slow and deliberate and alone, feeling his way along the edges of the gym, keeping to himself, saying nothing. That was classic Liston, casing every joint he walked into, checking for exits. As Liston began to work, Tocco saw the bird tracks up and down Liston's back, the enduring message from Tobey Liston.
''What are all those welts from?'' Tocco asked him.
Said Liston, ''I had bad dealin's with my father.''
''He was a loner,'' Tocco says. ''He wouldn't talk to nobody. He wouldn't go with nobody. He always came to the gym by himself. He always left by himself. The police knew he'd been in prison, and he'd be walking along and they'd always stop him and search him. So he went through alleys all the time. He always went around things. I can still see him, either coming out of an alley or walking into one.''
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Nothing was simpler for Liston to fathom than the world between the ropes -- step, jab, hook -- and nothing more unyielding than the secrets of living outside them. He was a mob fighter right out of prison. One of his managers, Frank Mitchell, the publisher of the St. Louis Argus, who had been arrested numerous times on suspicion of gambling, was a known front for John Vitale, St. Louis's reigning hoodlum. Vitale had ties to organized crime's two most notorious boxing manipulators: Frankie Carbo and Carbo's lieutenant, Frank (Blinky) Palermo, who controlled mob fighters out of Philadelphia. Vitale was in the construction business (among others), and when Liston wasn't fighting, one of his jobs was cracking heads and keeping black laborers in line. Liston always publicly denied this, but years later he confided his role to one of his closest Las Vegas friends, Davey Pearl, a boxing referee. ''He told me that when he was in St. Louis, he worked as a labor goon,'' says Pearl, ''breaking up strikes.''
Not pleased with the company Liston was keeping -- one of his pals was 385- pound Barney Baker, a reputed head-cracker for the Teamsters -- the St. Louis police kept stopping Liston, on sight and without cause, until, on May 5, 1956, 3 1/2 years after his release from prison, Liston assaulted a St. Louis policeman, took his gun, left the cop lying in an alley and hid the weapon at a sister's house. The officer suffered a broken knee and gashed face. The following December, Liston began serving nine months in the city workhouse.
Soon after his release Liston had his second run-in with a St. Louis cop. The officer had creased Liston's skull with a nightstick, and two weeks later the fighter returned the favor by depositing the fellow headfirst in a trash can. Liston then fled St. Louis for Philadelphia, where Palermo installed one of his pals, Joseph (Pep) Barone, as Liston's manager, and Liston at once began fighting the biggest toughs in the division. He stopped Bethea, who spit out seven teeth, in the first round. Valdes fell in three, and so did Williams. Harris swooned in one, and Folley fell like a tree in three. Eddie Machen ran for 12 rounds but lost the decision. Albert Westphal keeled in one. Now Liston had one final fight to win. Only Patterson stood between him and the title.
Whether or not Patterson should deign to fight the ex-con led, at the time, to a weighty moral debate among the nation's reigning sages of sport. What sharpened the lines were Liston's recurring problems with the law in Philadelphia, including a variety of charges stemming from a June 1961 incident in Fairmount Park. Liston and a companion had been arrested for stopping a female motorist after dark and shining a light in her car. All charges, including impersonating a police officer, were eventually dropped. A month before, Liston had been brought in for loitering on a street corner. That charge, too, was dropped. More damaging were revelations that he was, indeed, a mob fighter, with a labor goon's history. In 1960, when Liston was the No. 1 heavyweight contender, testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee probing underworld control of boxing had revealed that Carbo and Palermo together owned a majority interest in him. Of this, Liston said, he knew nothing. ''Pep Barone handles me,'' he said.
''Do you think that people like [Carbo and Palermo] ought to remain in the sport of boxing?'' asked the committee chairman, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver.
''I wouldn't pass judgment on no one,'' Liston replied. ''I haven't been perfect myself.''
In an act of public cleansing after the Fairmount Park incident, Liston spent three months living in a house belonging to the Loyola Catholic Church in Denver, where he had met Father Edward Murphy, a Jesuit priest, while training to fight Folley in 1960. Murphy, who died in 1975, became Liston's spiritual counselor and teacher. ''Murph gave him a house to live in and tried to get him to stop drinking,'' Father Thomas Kelly, one of Murphy's closest friends, recalls. ''That was his biggest problem. You could smell him in the mornings. Oh, poor Sonny. He was just an accident waiting to happen. Murph used to say, 'Pray for the poor bastard.' ''
But even Liston's sojourn in Denver didn't still the debate over his worthiness to fight for the title. In this bout between good and evil, the clearest voice belonged to New York Herald-Tribune columnist Red Smith: ''Should a man with a record of violent crime be given a chance to become champion of the world? Is America less sinful today than in 1853 when John Morrissey, a saloon brawler and political headbreaker out of Troy, N.Y., fought Yankee Sullivan, lammister from the Australian penal colony in Botany Bay? In our time, hoodlums have held championships with distinction. Boxing may be purer since their departure; it is not healthier.''
Since he could not read, Liston missed many pearls, but friends read scores of columns to him. When Barone was under fire for his mob ties, Liston quipped, ''I got to get me a manager that's not hot -- like Estes Kefauver.'' Instead, he got George Katz, who quickly came to appreciate Liston's droll sense of humor. Katz managed Liston for 10% of his purses, and as the two sat in court at Liston's hearing for the Fairmount Park incident, Liston leaned over to Katz and said, ''If I get time, you're entitled to 10 percent of it.''
Liston was far from the sullen, insensitive brute of the popular imagination. Liston and McKinney would take long walks between workouts, and during them Liston would recite the complete dialogue and sound effects of the comedy routines of black comedians like Pigmeat Markham and Redd Foxx. ''He could imitate what he heard down to creaking doors and women's voices,'' says McKinney. ''It was hilarious hearing him do falsetto.'' Liston also fabricated quaint metaphors to describe phenomena ranging from brain damage to the effects of his jab: ''The middle of a fighter's forehead is like a dog's tail. Cut off the tail and the dog goes all whichway 'cause he ain't got no more balance. It's the same with a fighter's forehead.'' He lectured occasionally on the unconscious, though not in the Freudian sense. Setting the knuckles of one fist into the grooves between the knuckles of the other fist, he would explain: ''See, the different parts of the brain set in little cups like this. When you get hit a terrible shot -- pop! -- the brain flops out of them cups and you're knocked out. Then the brain settles back in the cups and you come to. But after this happens enough times, or sometimes even once if the shot's hard enough, the brain don't settle back right in them cups, and that's when you start needing other people to help you get around.''
So it was that Liston vowed to hit Patterson on the dog's tail until his brain flopped out of its cups. Actually, he missed the tail and hit the chin. Patterson was gone. Liston had trained to the minute, and he would never again be as good a fighter as he was that night. For what? Obviously, nothing in his life had changed. He left Philadelphia after he won the title, because he believed he was being harassed by the police of Fairmount Park, through which he had to drive to get from the gym to his home. At one point he was stopped for ''driving too slow'' through the park. That did it. In 1963 he moved to Denver, where he announced, ''I'd rather be a lamppost in Denver than the mayor of Philadelphia.''
At times, in fact, things were not much better in the Rockies. ''For a while the Denver police pulled him over every day,'' says Ray Schoeninger, a former Liston sparring partner. ''They must have stopped him 100 times outside City Park. He'd run on the golf course, and as he left in his car, they'd stop him. Twenty-five days in a row. Same two cops. They thought it was a big joke. It made me ashamed of being a Denver native. Sad they never let him live in peace.''
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Liston's disputes were not always with the police. After he had won the title, he walked into the dining room of the Beverly Rodeo Hotel in Hollywood and approached the table at which former rum-runner Moe Dalitz, head of the Desert Inn in Las Vegas and a boss of the old Cleveland mob, was eating. The two men spoke. Liston made a fist and cocked it. Speaking very distinctly, Dalitz said, ''If you hit me, nigger, you'd better kill me. Because if you don't, I'll make one telephone call, and you'll be dead in 24 hours.'' Liston wheeled and left.
The police and Dalitz were hardly Liston's only tormentors. There was a new and even more inescapable disturber of his peace: the boisterous Clay. Not that Liston at first took notice. After clubbing Patterson, he took no one seriously. He hardly trained for the rematch in Las Vegas. Clay, who hung around Liston's gym while the champion went through the motions of preparing for Patterson, heckled him relentlessly. Already a minor poet, Clay would yell at Liston: ''Sonny is a fatty. I'm gonna whip him like his daddy!'' One afternoon he rushed up to Liston, pointed to him and shouted: ''He ain't whipped nobody! Who's he whipped?'' Liston, sitting down, patted a leg and said, ''Little boy, come sit in my lap.'' But Clay wouldn't sit; he was too busy running around and bellowing, ''The beast is on the run!''
Liston spotted Clay one day in the Thunderbird Casino, walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Clay turned, and Liston cuffed him hard with the back of his hand. The place went silent. Young Clay looked frightened. ''What you do that for?'' he said.
'' 'Cause you're too -- -- fresh,'' Liston said. As he headed out of the casino, he said, ''I got the punk's heart now.''
That incident would be decisive in determining the outcome of the first Liston-Clay fight, seven months later. ''Sonny had no respect for Clay after that,'' McKinney says. ''Sonny thought all he had to do was take off his robe and Clay would faint. He made this colossal misjudgment. He didn't train at all.''
If he had no respect for Clay, Liston was like a child around the radio hero of his boyhood, Joe Louis. When George Lois, then an art director at Esquire, decided to try the black-Santa cover, he asked his friend Louis to approach Liston. Liston grudgingly agreed to do the shoot in Las Vegas. Photographer Carl Fischer snapped one photograph, whereupon Liston rose, took off the cap and said, ''That's it.'' He started out the door. Lois grabbed Liston's arm. The fighter stopped and stared at the art director. ''I let his arm go,'' Lois recalls.
While Liston returned to the craps tables, Lois was in a panic. ''One picture!'' Lois says. ''You need to take 50, 100 pictures to make sure you get it right.'' He ran to Louis, who understood Lois's dilemma. Louis found Liston shooting craps, walked up behind him, reached up, grabbed him by an ear and marched him out of the casino. Bent over like a puppy on a leash, Liston followed Louis to the elevator, with Louis muttering, ''Come on, git!'' The cover shoot resumed.
A few months later, of course, Clay handled Liston almost as easily. Liston stalked and chased, but Clay was too quick and too fit for him. By the end of the third round Liston knew that his title was in peril, and he grew desperate. One of Liston's trainers, Joe Pollino, confessed to McKinney years later that Liston ordered him to rub an astringent compound on his gloves before the fourth round. Pollino complied. Liston shoved his gloves into Clay's face in the fourth, and the challenger's eyes began burning and tearing so severely that he could not see. In his corner, before the fifth round, Clay told his handlers that he could not go on. His trainer, Angelo Dundee, had to literally push him into the ring. Moving backward faster than Liston moved forward, Clay ducked and dodged as Liston lunged after him. He survived the round.
By the sixth, Clay could see clearly again, and as he danced and jabbed, hitting Liston at will, the champion appeared to age three years in three minutes. At the end of that round, bleeding and exhausted, he could foresee his humiliating end. His left shoulder had been injured -- he could no longer throw an effective punch with it -- and so he stayed on his stool, just sat there at the bell to start Round 7.
There were cries that Liston had thrown the fight. That night Conrad, Liston's publicist, went to see him in his room, where Liston was sitting in bed, drinking.
''What are they sayin' about the fight?'' Liston asked.
''That you took a dive,'' said Conrad.
Liston raged. ''Me? Sell my title? Those dirty bastards!'' He threw his glass and shattered it against the wall.
The charges of a fix in that fight were nothing compared with what would be said about the rematch, in Lewiston, Maine, during which Liston solidified his place in boxing history. Ali, as the young champion was now widely called, threw one blow, an overhand right so dubious that it became known as the Phantom Punch, and suddenly Liston was on his back. The crowd came to its feet in anger, yelling, ''Fake! Fake!''
Ali looked down at the fallen Liston, cocked a fist and screamed, ''Get up and fight, sucker! Get up and fight!''
There was chaos. Referee Joe Walcott, having vainly tried to push Ali to a neutral corner, did not start a count, and Liston lay there unwilling to rise. ''Clay caught me cold,'' Liston would recall. ''Anybody can get caught in the first round, before you work up a sweat. Clay stood over me. I never blacked out. But I wasn't gonna get up, either, not with him standin' over me. See, you can't get up without puttin' one hand on the floor, and so I couldn't protect myself.''
The finish was as ugly as a Maine lobster. Walcott finally moved Ali back, and as Liston rose, Walcott wiped off his gloves and stepped away. Ali and Liston resumed fighting. Immediately, Nat Fleischer, editor of The Ring magazine, who was sitting next to the official timer, began shouting for Walcott to stop the fight. Liston had been down for 17 seconds, and Fleischer, who had no actual authority at ringside, thought the fight should have been declared over. Walcott left the two men fighting and walked over to confer with Fleischer. Though he had never even started a count, Walcott then turned back to the fighters and, incredibly, stepped between them to end the fight. ''I was never counted out,'' Liston said later. ''I coulda got up right after I was hit.'' No one believed him, of course, and even Geraldine had her doubts. Ted King, one of Liston's seconds, recalls her angrily accusing Sonny later that night of going in the water. ''You could have gotten up and you stayed down!'' she cried.
Liston looked pleadingly at King. ''Tell her, Teddy,'' he said. ''Tell her I got hit.''
Some who were at ringside that night, and others who have studied the films, insist that Ali indeed connected with a shattering right. But Liston's performance in Lewiston has long been perceived as a tank job, and not a convincing one at that. One of Liston's assistant trainers claims that Liston threw the fight for fear of being murdered. King now says that two well- dressed Black Muslims showed up in Maine before the fight -- Ali had just become a Muslim -- and warned Liston, ''You get killed if you win.'' So, according to King, Liston chose a safer ending. It seems fitting somehow that Liston should spend the last moments of the best years of his life on his back while the crowd showered him with howls of execration. Liston's two losses to Ali ended the short, unhappy reign of the most feared -- and the most relentlessly hounded -- prizefighter of his time.
Liston never really retired from the ring. After two years of fighting pushovers in Europe, he returned to the U.S. and began a comeback of sorts in 1968. He knocked out all seven of his opponents that year and won three more matches in 1969 before an old sparring partner, Leotis Martin, stopped him in the ninth round of a bout on Dec. 6. That killed any chance at a title shot. On June 29, 1970, he fought Chuck Wepner in Jersey City. Tocco, Liston's old trainer from the early St. Louis days, prepared him for the fight against the man known as the Bayonne Bleeder. Liston hammered Wepner with jabs, and in the sixth round Tocco began pleading with the referee to stop the fight. ''It was like blood was coming out of a hydrant,'' says Tocco. The referee stopped the bout in the 10th; Wepner needed 57 stitches to close his face.
That was Liston's last fight. He earned $13,000 for it, but he wound up broke nonetheless. Several weeks earlier, Liston had asked Banker to place a $10,000 bet for him on undefeated heavyweight contender Mac Foster to whip veteran Jerry Quarry. Quarry stopped Foster in the sixth round, and Liston promised Banker he would pay him back after the Wepner fight. When Liston and Banker boarded the flight back to Las Vegas, Liston opened a brown paper bag, carefully counted out $10,000 in small bills and handed the wad to Banker. ''He gave the other $3,000 to guys in his corner,'' Banker said. ''That left him with nothing.''
In the last weeks of his life Liston was moving with a fast crowd. At one point a Las Vegas sheriff warned Banker, through a mutual friend, to stay away from Liston. ''We're looking into a drug deal,'' said the sheriff. ''Liston is getting involved with the wrong people.'' At about the same time two Las Vegas policemen stopped by the gym and told Tocco that Liston had recently turned up at a house that would be the target of a drug raid. Says Tocco, ''For a week the police were parked in a lot across the street, watching when Sonny came and who he left with.''
On the night Geraldine found his body, Liston had been dead at least six days, and an autopsy revealed traces of morphine and codeine of a type produced by the breakdown of heroin in the body. His body was so decomposed that tests were inconclusive -- officially, he died of lung congestion and heart failure -- but circumstantial evidence suggests that he died of a heroin overdose. There were fresh needle marks on one of his arms. An investigating officer, Sergeant Gary Beckwith, found a small amount of marijuana along with heroin and a syringe in the house.
Geraldine, Banker and Pearl all say that they had no knowledge of Liston's involvement with drugs, but law enforcement officials say they have reason to believe that Liston was a regular heroin user. It is possible that those closest to him may not have known of his drug use. Liston had apparently lived two lives for years.
Pearl was always hearing reports of Liston's drinking binges, but Liston was a teetotaler around Pearl. ''I never saw Sonny take a drink,'' says Pearl. ''Ever. And I was with him hundreds of times over the last five years of his life. He'd leave me at night, and the next morning someone would say to me, 'You should have seen your boy, Liston, last night. Was he ever drunk!' I once asked him, 'What is this? You leave me at night and go out and get drunk?' He just looked at me. I never, ever suspected him of doing dope. I'm telling you, I don't think he did.''
Some police officials and not a few old friends think that Liston may have been murdered, though they have no way of proving it now. Conrad believes that Liston became deeply involved in a loan-sharking ring in Las Vegas, as a bill collector, and that he tried to muscle in for a bigger share of the action. His employers got him drunk, Conrad surmises, took him home and stuck him with a needle. There are police in Las Vegas who say they believe -- but are unable to prove -- that Liston was the target of a hit ordered by Ash Resnick, an old associate of Liston's with whom the former champion was having a dispute over money. Resnick died two years ago.
Geraldine has trouble comprehending all that talk about heroin or murder. ''If he was killed, I don't know who would do it,'' she says. ''If he was doing drugs, he didn't act like he was drugged. Sonny wasn't on dope. He had high blood pressure, and he had been out drinking in late December. As far as I'm concerned, he had a heart attack. Case closed.'' There is no persuasive explanation of how Liston died, so the speculation continues, perhaps to last forever.
Liston is buried in Paradise Memorial Gardens, in Las Vegas, directly under the flight path for planes approaching McCarran International Airport. The brass plate on the grave is tarnished now, but the epitaph is clear under his name and the years of his life. It reads simply: A MAN. Twenty years ago Father Murphy flew in from Denver to give the eulogy, then went home and wept for an hour before he could compose himself enough to tell Father Kelly about the funeral. ''They had the funeral procession down the Strip,'' Murphy said. ''Can you imagine that? People came out of the hotels to watch him pass. They stopped everything. They used him all his life. They were still using him on the way to the cemetery. There he was, another Las Vegas show. God help us.''
In the end, it seemed fitting that Liston, after all those years, should finally play to a friendly crowd on the way to his own burial -- with a police escort, the most ironic touch of all.
Geraldine remained in Las Vegas for nine years after Sonny died -- she was a casino hostess -- then returned to St. Louis, where she had met Sonny after his parole, when he was working in a munitions factory. She has never remarried, and today works as a medical technician. ''He was a great guy, great with me, great with kids, a gentle man,'' says Geraldine.
With Geraldine gone from Las Vegas, few visit Sonny's grave anymore. Every couple of minutes a plane roars over, shaking the earth and rattling the broken plastic flowers that someone placed in the metal urn atop his headstone. ''Every once in a while someone comes by and asks to see where he's buried,'' says a cemetery worker. ''But not many anymore. Not often.''
by Mark Kram
by Frank Deford
by John Ed Bradley
More Boxing

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text:
Евфимия Мазовецкая (, ; 1395/1398 — до 17 сентября 1447) — польская принцесса из Мазовецкой линии династии Пястов, жена князя Цешинского Болеслава I (ок. 1363 — 1431).

Биография
Анна была третьей дочерью князя Плоцкого и Равского Земовита IV и его жены Александры Литовской, дочери великого князя литовского Ольгерда и сестры короля Польши Владислава II Ягайло.

Согласно Хронике Яна Длугоша Евфимия обладала большим естественным обаянием. Король Владислав II Ягайло, дядя Евфимии, хотел установить тесные связи между Краковом и Верхней Силезией, и по этой причине он сыграл важную роль в ее браке с Болеславом I, князем Цешинским. Однако Болеслав и Ефимия находились в третьей степени родства, и для заключение их брака требовалось согласия папы римского. Такое согласие было получено 27 января 1412 года, а свадебная церемония состоялась 20 ноября 1412 года в городе Вислица. В 1424 году Евфимия и ее муж приняли участие в коронации Софьи Гольшанской, четвертой и последней жены короля Владислава II Ягайло.

После смерти Болеслава I 6 мая 1431 года Евфимия приняла на себя управление Цешинским княжеством от имени четырех своих несовершеннолетних сыновей, которые унаследовали владения своего отца в качестве соправителей. Она продолжила политику своего мужа, поддерживающую города, и в 1438 году совместно со своим старшим сыном Вацлавом I приняла решение предоставить Цешину право чеканить монеты.

Несмотря на то, что ее сыновья со временем достигли совершеннолетия, Ефимия продолжала фактически управлять Цешинским княжеством. С ее согласия 24 декабря 1443 года ее сыновья продали Севежское княжество Збигневу Олесницкому, епископу Кракова.

29 ноября 1442 года цешинские князья формально разделили свои владения, но при жизни Евфимии сохранялось фактическое единство княжества. Она умерла до 17 сентября 1447 года и, предположительно, была похоронена рядом со своим мужем в  доминиканском костёле в Цешине.

Семья
20 ноября 1412 года Евфимия вышла замуж за Болеслава I, князя цешинского, бытомского, севежского, глогувcкого и сцинавского (ок. 1363 — 6 мая1431). Дети от второго брака:

 Вацлав I (1413/1418-1474), князь бытомский, цешинский, севежский, глогувcкий и сцинавский;
 Владислав (ок. 1420—1460), князь бытомский, цешинский, севежский, глогувcкий и сцинавский;
 Пшемыслав II (ок. 1420—1477), князь бытомский, цешинский, севежский, глогувcкий и сцинавский;
 Болеслав II (1425/1428-1452), князь бытомский, цешинский, севежский, глогувcкий и сцинавский;
 Александра (1412—1463), жена палатина венгерского Ласло Гораи (1410—1459).

Литература
 Kazimierz Jasiński. Rodowód Piastów śląskich, t. III, Wrocław 1977  (пол.)
 Książęta i księżne Górnego Śląska, pod red. Antoniego Barciaka, Katowice 1995, ISBN 83-86053-08-9 (пол.)
 Popiołek F. Eufemia (Ofka) (1395 - 1447), Polski Słownik Biograficzny, t. VI, z. 4, Wrocław 1948, ISBN 83-86301-01-5 (пол).
 Wilamowski M. Eufemia, (w:) Piastowie. Leksykon biograficzny, Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 1999, s. 314-315 (пол.)

Ссылки
 Charles Cawley POLAND, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy
 Miroslav Marek Генеалогия князей Плоцких

Пясты
Супруги правителей XV века

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Those who used to follow reports on Examiner.com may recall the announcement of Early Bird subscriptions to the 2017 season of Chamber Music San Francisco (CMSF), which went out this past June. At that time it was also announced the CMSF would also be launching a new Debut Series of concerts that would be held only in San Francisco that would provide a platform for lesser-known artists to make their debut here. The announcement promised that further information would be provided once programming specifics had become available. As of this writing, those specifics have only been given for the last of the five concerts in the series. However, because the first of those concerts will take place in a little over a month, it seems appropriate to provide as much information as is currently available.
Tuesday, February 7, SFCM, Ning Feng: Violinist Feng was born in China in 1981 but studied in London and now lives in Berlin. He won the Gold Medal at the 2006 International Paganini Competition in Genoa. He will be accompanied at the piano by Jeeyoon Kim.
Tuesday, February 28, Herbst Theatre, Seong-Jin Cho: Pianist Cho was born in Seoul in 1994. He won the Gold Medal at the 2015 Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. He will give a solo piano recital.
Saturday, March 11, St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Sara Daneshpour: Pianist Daneshpour will be the only American to perform in this new series. However, she has already established an international reputation, having won first prize at both the 2007 International Russian Music Piano Competition in 2007 and the Concours International de Musique du Maroc in 2012. She is currently studying with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music and previously studied with Leon Fleisher at the Curtis Institute of Music. She will also give a solo recital.
Saturday, April 1, St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Haochen Zhang: 25-year old Chinese pianist Zhang won the Gold Medal at the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition. He was appointed Artist-in-Residence with the Hangzhou Philharmonic for the 2015–16 season. He will also give a solo recital.
Friday, May 5, St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Mayuko Kamio: Osaka-born violinist Kamio won the Gold Medal at the 2007 International Tchaikovsky Competition, having already been the youngest winner of the Menuhin Violin Competition in 1998. She is the only performer to have announced her program, which will consist of three sonatas for violin and piano. The composers will be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (K. 304 in E minor), Maurice Ravel (Opus 77 in G major), and the only such sonata, in the key of A major, by César Franck. However, Kamio's accompanist has not yet been announced.
Tickets for individual concerts are all being sold for $40 with a $35 rate for seniors aged 65 and older and students. Tickets for children under the age of sixteen are being sold for $20. Subscriptions to the entire series are available for $150 with no special reduced rates. Hyperlinks for advance online purchase of both subscriptions and single tickets have all been set up at the top of the Debut Series Web page. Both tickets and subscriptions may also be purchased by called 415-392-4400.


text:
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Linq.Expressions;

namespace Codestellation.Quarks.Enumerations
{
    internal class EnumIndexer<TEnum, TValue>
    {
        private static readonly int _arraySize;
        private static readonly Func<TEnum, int> ConvertToInt;
        private TValue[] _valueArray;

        static EnumIndexer()
        {
            if (!typeof(TEnum).IsEnum)
            {
                throw new InvalidOperationException("Type parameter TEnum must be an Enum");
            }

            var maxValue = Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum)).Cast<TEnum>().Select(x => Convert.ToInt32(x)).Max();

            _arraySize = maxValue + 1;

            var enumValue = Expression.Parameter(typeof(TEnum));
            var castToInt = Expression.Convert(enumValue, typeof(int));
            ConvertToInt = Expression.Lambda<Func<TEnum, int>>(castToInt, enumValue).Compile();
        }

        public EnumIndexer()
        {
            InitializeArray();
        }

        private void InitializeArray()
        {

            _valueArray = new TValue[_arraySize];
        }

        public TValue this[TEnum index]
        {
            get
            {
                int intIndex = ConvertToInt(index);
                return _valueArray[intIndex];
            }
            set
            {
                int intIndex = ConvertToInt(index);
                _valueArray[intIndex] = value;
            }
        }

        public TValue[] GetValues()
        {
            return _valueArray;
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Developing a database for a funds transfers business where (a) people and organizations can (b) send and receive money In the business context of relevance, both members and organizations need to have an account for funds. Funds can be transferred

*

*from member to member,

*from member to organization,

*from organization to organization, and

*from organization to member.

Considerations
In order to build a database for such a scenario, I have created the following three tables:
CREATE TABLE Members (
  memberid serial primary key,
  name varchar(50) unique,
  passwd varchar(32),
  account integer
);

CREATE TABLE Organizations (
  organizationid serial primary key,
  name varchar(150) unique,
  administrator integer references Members(memberid),
  account integer
);

CREATE TABLE TransferHistory
  "from" integer, -- foreign key?
  "to" integer, -- foreign key?
  quantity integer
);

I think that the TransferHistory table is necessary to show who/what sent funds to whom/what.
The problem is, since Members and Organizations are different tables, how can I reference them from the TransferHistory table?
For instance, the data involved can show up as follows:
Account      Account      Quantity
-----------  -----------  --------
 1072561733  38574637847       500
38574637847   1072561733       281

That would suggest that accounts need to be recorded in the same table, but accounts are for two different kinds of owners (members and organizations), each of which are retained in their respective table.
I could create a table called Accounts, so now I would have four tables:
CREATE TABLE Members (
  memberid serial primary key,
  name varchar(50) unique,
  passwd varchar(32),
  accountid integer references Accounts(accountid)
);

CREATE TABLE Organizations (
  organizationid serial primary key,
  name varchar(150) unique,
  administrator integer references Members(memberid),
  accountid integer references Accounts(accountid)
);

CREATE TABLE Accounts (
  accountid serial primary key,
  state integer
);

CREATE TABLE TransferHistory (
  "from" integer references Accounts(accountid),
  "to" integer references Accounts(accountid),
  quantity integer
);

...but now I have to ensure that each foreign key from Members and Organizations tables does not point to the same Account row in Accounts table...
...or I could have an Accounts table having two foreign keys, one pointing to Members and another to Organizations (and one foreign key column would have to contain a NULL mark at all times). But now things get a bit confusing with respect to queries. The database design would be, generally speaking, as follows:
CREATE TABLE Members (
  memberid serial primary key,
  name varchar(50) unique,
  passwd varchar(32)
);

CREATE TABLE Organizations (
  organizationid serial primary key,
  name varchar(150) unique,
  administrator integer references Members(memberid)
);

CREATE TABLE Accounts (
  accountid serial primary key,
  member integer references Members(memberid),
  organization integer references Organizations(organizationid),
  state integer
);

CREATE TABLE TransferHistory (
  "from" integer references Accounts(accountid),
  "to" integer references Accounts(accountid),
  quantity integer
);

So, does anybody have a suggestion on how to solve this problem?

A: If the intention is to build a relational database, it is really helpful to first carry out (a) an analysis of the business context of interest —in order to delineate a conceptual schema— in terms of entity types, inspecting their properties and associations before (b) thinking in terms of tables, columns and constraints —aspects that correspond to the logical level—. Following this course of action, it is much simplier to capture the meaning of the business domain with accuracy and then reflect it in an actual, well constrained, SQL-DDL design.
One of the numerous advantages offered by the relational paradigm is that it permits managing the data in its natural structure; hence one has to "find" such structure before employing relational instruments to manage it. It does not matter if the scenario at issue is related to a personal project (as you pointed out via comments): the more realistic you define it, the more you will learn from its development (if that is the purpose of this effort). Of course, a realistic personal project may evolve into a comercial one with relatively minor adaptations.
Business rules
In order to present a first progression that you may like to use as a reference, I have formulated some of the conceptual-level business rules that are among the most significant ones, and they are enumerated as follows:

*

*A Person owns zero-one-or-many Accounts

*A Person is primarily distinguished by its Id

*A Person is alternately distinguished by his/her Firstname, Lastname, BirthDate and Gender

*An Organization owns zero-one-or-many Accounts

*An Organization is primarily differentiated by its Id

*An Organization is alternately differentiated by its Name

*An Organization starts operating at a FoundingDate

*An Account is the Transferor in zero-one-or-many Transfers

*An Account is the Transferee in zero-one-or-many Transfers

*An Account is primarily identified by its Number

*An Account is issued at an exact CreatedDate

*In a Transfer, the Transferor must be different from the Transferee

*A Person may log in via zero-or-one UserProfile
Since the associations —or relationships— (1) between Person and Account and (2) between Organization and Account are very similar, this fact reveals that Person and Account are entity subtypes of Party (basically, either an individual or a group of individuals), which is in turn their entity supertype. This is a classic information structure that arises very frequently in multiple conceptual models of diverse kinds. In this manner, two new rules can be asserted:

*

*A PartyType classifies zero-one-or-many Parties

*A Party is either a Person or an Organization
And two of the previous business rules can be consolidated into a single one:

*

*A Party owns zero-one-or-many Accounts
Which can be also be stated from the point of view of the Account entity type:

*

*An Account is owned by exactly-one Party
Expository IDEF1X diagram
Consequently, I created an expository (simplified) IDEF1X† diagram that synthesizes the rules formulated above, and it is shown in Figure 1:

Party, Person and Organization: Supertype-subtype structure
As demonstrated, Person and Organization are depicted as mutually exclusive subtypes of Party.
The Party supertype holds a discriminator (i.e., PartyTypeCode) and all the properties (or attributes) that are common to its subtypes, which, in turn, have the properties that apply to each of them.
Account
The Account entity type is directly connected with Party, which provides a subsequent connection between (i) Account and Person, and between (ii) Account and Organization.
Since it is possible that, in the real world, (a) a bank Account is not transferable, i.e., its Owner cannot change and (b) an Account cannot start being current or enabled without an Owner, the PRIMARY KEY of this entity type may be comprised of the properties PartyId and AccountNumber, so you should analyze the scenario even more thoroughly to define this point with high precision.
Transfer
On the other hand, the Transfer entity type presents a composite PRIMARY KEY made up of three properties, i.e., TransferorAccountNumber, TransfereeAccountNumber (role names I assigned to distinguish every one of two Account properties involved in each Transfer instance) and TransferDateTime (which tells the exaxct Instant when a Transfer occurrence was performed).
Factors about AccountNumbers
Be also aware that, in actual banking systems, the format of an AccountNumber data point is usually more complex than a "mere" integer value. There are different format arrangements, e.g., the one that corresponds to the International Bank Account Number (IBAN), defined by the ISO 13616 standard. This aspect implies, evidently, that the (1) conceptual analysis and the later (2) logical definitions require a much more exhaustive approach.
Illustrative logical SQL-DDL declarations
Then, as a derivation from the previous analysis, I have declared a logical design where

*

*each table represents an entity type,

*each column stands for a property of the respective entity type, and

*multiple constraints are set up (declaratively) in order to guarantee that the assertions in form of rows retained in all the tables comply with the business rules determined at the conceptual tier.

I have supplied notes as comments that explain some of the features that I esteem particularly important with respect to the aforementioned structure, that is shown below:
-- You have to determine which are the most fitting
-- data types and sizes for all your table columns
-- depending on the business context characteristics.

-- Also, you should make accurate tests to define the
-- most convenient physical implementation settings; e.g.,
-- a good INDEXing strategy based on query tendencies.

-- As one would expect, you are free to make use of
-- your preferred (or required) naming conventions.

CREATE TABLE PartyType (
    PartyTypeCode CHAR(1)  NOT NULL, -- This one is meant to contain the meaningful values 'P', for 'Person', and 'O' for 'Organization'.
    Name          CHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    --
    CONSTRAINT PartyType_PK PRIMARY KEY (PartyTypeCode)
);

CREATE TABLE Party ( -- Represents the supertype.
    PartyId         INT       NOT NULL,
    PartyTypeCode   CHAR(1)   NOT NULL, -- Denotes the subtype discriminator.
    CreatedDateTime TIMESTAMP NOT NULL,
    Etcetera        CHAR(30)  NOT NULL,
    --
    CONSTRAINT Party_PK            PRIMARY KEY (PartyId),
    CONSTRAINT PartyToPartyType_FK FOREIGN KEY (PartyTypeCode)
        REFERENCES PartyType (PartyTypeCode)
);

CREATE TABLE Person ( -- Stands for a subtype.
    PersonId        INT      NOT NULL, -- To be CONSTRAINed as PRIMARY KEY and FOREIGN KEY at the same time, enforcing an association cardinality of one-to-zero-or-one from Party to Person.
    FirstName       CHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    LastName        CHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    GenderCode      CHAR(3)  NOT NULL,
    BirthDate       DATE     NOT NULL,
    Etcetera        CHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    --
    CONSTRAINT Person_PK        PRIMARY KEY (PersonId),
    CONSTRAINT Person_AK        UNIQUE ( -- Composite ALTERNATE KEY.
        FirstName,
        LastName,
        GenderCode,
        BirthDate
    ),
    CONSTRAINT PersonToParty_FK FOREIGN KEY (PersonId)
        REFERENCES Party (PartyId)
);

CREATE TABLE Organization ( -- Represents the other subtype.
    OrganizationId  INT      NOT NULL, -- To be CONSTRAINed as PRIMARY KEY and FOREIGN KEY simultaneously, enforcing a association cardinality of one-to-zero-or-one from Party to Organization.
    Name            CHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    FoundingDate    DATE     NOT NULL,
    Etcetera        CHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    --
    CONSTRAINT Organization_PK        PRIMARY KEY (OrganizationId),
    CONSTRAINT Organization_AK        UNIQUE      (Name), -- ALTERNATE KEY.
    CONSTRAINT OrganizationToParty_FK FOREIGN KEY (OrganizationId)
        REFERENCES Party (PartyId)
);

CREATE TABLE UserProfile (
    UserId          INT       NOT NULL, -- To be CONSTRAINed as PRIMARY KEY and FOREIGN KEY at the same time, enforcing an association cardinality of one-to-zero-or-one from Person to UserProfile.
    UserName        CHAR(30)  NOT NULL,
    CreatedDateTime TIMESTAMP NOT NULL,
    Etcetera        CHAR(30)  NOT NULL,
    --
    CONSTRAINT UserProfile_PK         PRIMARY KEY (UserId),
    CONSTRAINT UserProfile_AK         UNIQUE      (Username),
    CONSTRAINT UserProfileToPerson_FK FOREIGN KEY (UserId)
        REFERENCES Person (PersonId)
);

CREATE TABLE Account (
    AccountNumber   INT       NOT NULL,
    OwnerPartyId    INT       NOT NULL, -- A role name assigned to PartyId in order to depict the meaning it carries in the context of an Account.
    CreatedDateTime TIMESTAMP NOT NULL,
    Etcetera        CHAR(30)  NOT NULL,
    --
    CONSTRAINT Account_PK        PRIMARY KEY (AccountNumber),
    CONSTRAINT AccountToParty_FK FOREIGN KEY (OwnerPartyId)
        REFERENCES Party (PartyId)
);

CREATE TABLE Transfer (
    TransferorAccountNumber INT       NOT NULL, -- Role name assigned to AccountNumber.
    TransfereeAccountNumber INT       NOT NULL, -- Role name assigned to AccountNumber
    TransferDateTime        TIMESTAMP NOT NULL,
    Amount                  INT       NOT NULL, -- Retains the Amount in Cents, but there are other possibilities.
    Etcetera                CHAR(30)  NOT NULL,
    --
    CONSTRAINT Transfer_PK             PRIMARY KEY (TransferorAccountNumber, TransfereeAccountNumber, TransferDateTime), -- Composite PRIMARY KEY.
    CONSTRAINT TransferToTransferor_FK FOREIGN KEY (TransferorAccountNumber)
        REFERENCES Account (AccountNumber),
    CONSTRAINT TransferToTransferee_FK FOREIGN KEY (TransfereeAccountNumber)
        REFERENCES Account (AccountNumber),
    CONSTRAINT AccountsAreDistinct_CK  CHECK       (TransferorAccountNumber <> TransfereeAccountNumber),
    CONSTRAINT AmountIsValid_CK        CHECK       (Amount > 0)
);

As noted, there is no need for the retention of ambiguous and problematic NULL marks in the columns of any of the base tables.
If you want to know if an Account involved in a certain Transfer is owned by an Organization or a Person, you can derive such information in a single SELECT statement via, e.g., the Transfer.TrasnferorAccountNumber, the Account.PartyId, and the Party.PartyTypeCode columns.
So that you can ensure that a Party can own at most one Account (as stated in comments), then you should fix a UNIQUE constraint for the Account.PartyId column. However, in real world scenarios, e.g., in a bank, a Person can own zero-one-or-many Accounts, thus I esteem that a one-to-zero-or-one association does not appear realistic.
As previously mentioned, the approach proposed in this answer is supposed to be utilized as a reference that you can extend and adapt on your own. Naturally, extensions and adaptations made at the conceptual level should be reflected in the logical model.
I tested the declaration of this structure in (i) this db<>fiddle and in (ii) this SQL Fiddle, both running on PostgreSQL 9.6 (you initially attached the tag of this database management system).
Integrity and consistency considerations regarding the tables Party, Person and Organization
With the layout described above, one must guarantee that each "supertype" row is at all times complemented by its corresponding "subtype" counterpart and, in turn, ensure that said "subtype" row is compatible with the value contained in the supertype "discriminator" column.
It would be very handy and elegant to enforce such circumstances declaratively but, unfortunately, none of the major SQL platforms has provided the proper mechanisms to do so (as far as I know). Therefore, it is quite convenient to make use of ACID TRANSACTIONS so that these conditions are always confidently met in a database.
Similar scenarios
In case you are interested in other business domains in which supertype-subtype structures come about, you might like to see my answers to

*

*"Modeling a scenario in which each Music Artist is either a Group or a Solo Performer",

*"Advice on a basic design, first time database design", and

*"How to model an entity type that can have different sets of attributes?".

Relevant resource

*

*These Stack Overflow posts cover very relevant points concerning the data type of a column that holds a currency datum, like Transfer.Amount, in PostgreSQL.

Endnote
† Integration Definition for Information Modeling (IDEF1X) is a highly recommendable data modeling technique that was established as a standard in december 1993 by the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It is solidly based on (a) some of the early theoretical works authored by the originator of the relational model, i.e., Dr. E. F. Codd; on (b) the Entity-Relationship view, developed by Dr. P. P. Chen; and also on (c) the Logical Database Design Technique, created by Robert G. Brown.

A: Adding the account table doesn't appear to change the fundamental issue.
In TransferHistory, you could have TransferFrom and TransferFromType, where TransferFrom is either a Member or an Organization ID value, and TransferFromType is "M" or "O". You can't use foreign keys at all here, and would have to maintain referential integrity "manually" (for instance, with triggers). Same for TransferTo.
A query would look something like this (replace with actual fields as needed):
SELECT COALESCE(of.OrgName, mf.MemberName) as "From"
      ,COALESCE(ot.OrgName, mt.MemberName) as "To"
      ,th.*
  FROM TransferHistory th
         LEFT JOIN Organization ot ON (th.TransferTo = ot.ID AND th.TransferToType = 'O')
         LEFT JOIN Member mt ON (th.TransferTo = mt.ID AND th.TransferToType = 'M')
         LEFT JOIN Organization of ON (th.TransferFrom = of.ID AND th.TransferFromType = 'O')
         LEFT JOIN Member mf ON (th.TransferFrom = mf.ID AND th.TransferFromType = 'M')
;

Or, you have 4 fields, TransferFromMember, TransferFrom Org, TransferToMemberandTransferToOrg`, all foreign keys, and use constraints to ensure only one From and one To is set.
A query would look something like this (replace with actual fields as needed):
SELECT COALESCE(of.OrgName, mf.MemberName) as "From"
      ,COALESCE(ot.OrgName, mt.MemberName) as "To"
      ,th.*
  FROM TransferHistory th
         LEFT JOIN Organization ot ON (th.TransferToOrg = ot.ID)
         LEFT JOIN Member mt ON (th.TransferToMember = mt.ID)
         LEFT JOIN Organization of ON (th.TransferFromOrg = of.ID)
         LEFT JOIN Member mf ON (th.TransferFromMember = mf.ID)
;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Wish You Were Here Charm and Gemstone Bracelet From the Special MessageS Collection, silver charms with a texting acronym on one side and the meaning on the other adorn a gemstone bracelet.
Turquoise is perhaps the oldest stone in man's history, the talisman of kings, shamans, and warriors. It is a stone of protection, strong and opaque, yet soothing to the touch and as healing to the eye as the waters of the Amalfi Coast.
Tiger eye will you remain calm and courageous, stay focused and persevere.


« CD Signing This Weekend!
James Callis… Shooting these scenes with you was a blast, and an inspiration as well. And your footage from Vancouver with the cast was masterful!
I would also like to thank Julie Harter at NBC Universal Home Video for helping us work out the all the necessary details to get this on DVD.
Keep checking this blog every Friday night starting January 16th for an entry about each week's episode. There's also other exciting news that will be unveiled here in the coming weeks, including information about an upcoming Battlestar Galactica concert.
And I hope you guys enjoy our little documentary.


For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. . . .
I would think that the above excerpts, especially the lines from "One Corinthians," would be among Donald Trump's favorite verses, since they mention him by name, associate him with the return of Jesus Christ, and suggest that after the final vote the faithful will be incorruptible winners.
Is that a superficial reading that takes a few words out of context and uses them to generate fake warm-fuzzies in voters? Yes, of course. Welcome to the 2016 US presidential campaign!
Just before the 2016 Iowa caucus, Trump pulled out from a debate among Republican presidential candidates. A blogger asked whether the actual reason was not because the female moderator was unfair, as Trump said, but rather because Trump did not want to debate a genuine principled conservative such as Ted Cruz.
[N]ational polls suggest that Donald J. Trump has forged a real connection with this voting bloc. In a recent New York Times/CBS News survey, the Republican frontrunner earned the support of 42% of evangelicals, far outpacing the rest of the GOP field, including his top rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who garnered 25%. A January NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll also showed Trump with the deepest support among white evangelicals, at 33%. . . .
Trump has continued to garner hefty support from evangelical voters, even as prestigious theological conservatives such as Russell Moore — head of the political arm of the Southern Baptist Convention and an actual reverend — openly criticize his candidacy as out-of-step with evangelical beliefs.
A good segment of evangelical voters appear to have blithely abandoned both the Christian-nation candidacy of Mr. Cruz and the kinder, gentler social conservatism of Mr. Rubio in favor of Mr. Trump, who is unabashedly ignorant of the biblical imperatives that form the foundation of evangelical culture and politics. That Mr. Trump is a Presbyterian and not evangelical is not the issue. It's that he doesn't pretend to understand evangelicalism, or even his own mainline Protestantism, failures that would have been, in recent elections, disqualifiers for evangelical Republican voters.
Yet for months, polls have shown Mr. Trump attracting a quarter to a third of white evangelical support. A Pew Research Center survey released on Wednesday found that half of white evangelicals believe that Mr. Trump would make a "good" or "great" president. Although Mr. Cruz and Mr. Rubio are viewed by more voters as "religious" than Mr. Trump is, both run behind him among white evangelicals as a potentially "good" or "great" president. . . .
Mr. Trump's standing among evangelicals shows just how little those issues matter to a good many erstwhile culture warriors, at least when picking a president. If he turns out to be their standard-bearer, this once-cohesive movement will have to spend this election season asking itself what it really means.
So, what could possibly be going on here? Have all the "principled conservatives" decided to just vote for whoever promises them to "make the trains run on time"? That sure is how it seems to me.
There is an old tradition in American politics, in which "grass-roots" movements are cultivated as a way to get people excited about politics. A political party takes up populist issues and political candidates start talking about them. The people feel better, because it seems as if politicians are listening to them; and politicians feel better, because it seems as if a lot of people really like them for saying the right things. Everybody is happy, at least for awhile.
Trump is resonating within the ranks of the "sick and tired." Evangelicals are fed up with politicians telling them one thing and doing another. We saw this play out in the 2004 presidential election. The GOP establishment pleaded with evangelicals to get out and vote, promising that in his second term, George W. Bush would champion a Federal Marriage Amendment constitutionally limiting marriage to a man and a woman. They showed up in droves, and then the issue was dropped like a hot potato. They're sick and tired of being lied to and played like pawns.
Ever since the rise of the modern evangelical conservative, or "religious right," political movement about four decades ago, these activists in the GOP usually have backed either one of their own (Pat Robertson, Mike Huckabee) or an establishment Republican who pledges support for their agenda (Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney). The "fellow travelers" never win, so no gain there.
The establishment types sometimes win, but once in office they focus their agendas on the economy, foreign policy, fighting wars, fighting terrorism — and they then tell the religious conservatives to be patient because social issues just can't be the focus right now.
In either scenario, the evangelical conservatives end up burned. Their past four decades of political activism have produced both a realistic assessment of the chances of fellow travelers to win the White House (none), and a deep disdain for establishment Republicans who say the right things in the primaries but always revert to mainstream agendas in office.
The frustration level among evangelical conservatives is wide and deep at this point. They don't know who to trust, and some have suggested exiting political activism altogether and putting their energies instead into their communities where they feel they can make a difference.
This sentiment is understandable when considering the amount of dedicated effort the activist core of the movement has devoted to the Republican Party and its nominees, only to have marginal progress on the social agenda at the national level. From their standpoint, mainstream politicians use them, powerful institutions — government, media, public and higher education — are aligned against them, and political correctness is running amuck.
What they believe to be a "Christian nation" is, they think, being turned upside down.
For half a century, the history of American conservatism has been a story of disappointment and betrayal. Conservative leaders have denounced decades of change, pledging what would amount to a return to the government and economy of the 1890s, the cultural norms of the 1950s and, in more recent times, the ethnic makeup of the country in the 1940s. But no conservative administration — not Richard Nixon's, not Ronald Reagan's and neither of the Bush presidencies — could live up to the rhetoric that conservative politicians regularly deploy to rally their supporters.
. . .the victories Republicans have won over the decades have produced neither the lasting electoral realignment that conservative prophets keep predicting nor the broad policy changes that the faithful hope for. For the rank-and-file right, the sense that their leaders have failed them and the political system shortchanged them has created a cycle of radicalization.
With each disappointment, movement conservatives have blamed moderation and advanced an ever-purer ideology, certain that doing so will eventually bring them the triumphs that have eluded them over and over.
This rift has widened to the point that many "business conservatives" have abandoned any pretense about supporting social conservative issues, and the Republican Party is following the money.
To simplify Francis' theory: There are a number of Americans who are losers from a process of economic globalization that enriches a transnational global elite. These Middle Americans see jobs disappearing to Asia and increased competition from immigrants. Most of them feel threatened by cultural liberalism, at least the type that sees Middle Americans as loathsome white bigots. But they are also threatened by conservatives who would take away their Medicare, hand their Social Security earnings to fund-managers in Connecticut, and cut off their unemployment too. . . .
The political left treats this as a made-up problem, a scapegoating by Applebee's-eating, megachurch rubes who think they are losing their "jerbs." Remember, Republicans and Democrats have still been getting elected all this time.
But the response of the predominantly-white class that Francis was writing about has mostly been one of personal despair. And thus we see them dying in middle age of drug overdose, alcoholism, or obesity at rates that now outpace those of even poorer blacks and Hispanics. Their rate of suicide is sky high too. Living in Washington D.C., however, with an endless two decade real-estate boom, and a free-lunch economy paid for by special interests, most of the people in the conservative movement hardly know that some Americans think America needs to be made great again. . . .
What is so crucial to Trump's success, even within the Republican Party, is his almost total ditching of conservatism as a governing philosophy. He is doing the very thing Pat Buchanan could not, and would not do. And in this, he is following the advice of Sam Francis to a degree almost unthinkable. . . .
What so frightens the conservative movement about Trump's success is that he reveals just how thin the support for their ideas really is. His campaign is a rebuke to their institutions. It says the Republican Party doesn't need all these think tanks, all this supposed policy expertise. It says look at these people calling themselves libertarians and conservatives, the ones in tassel-loafers and bow ties. Have they made you more free? Have their endless policy papers and studies and books conserved anything for you? These people are worthless. They are defunct. You don't need them, and you're better off without them.
When I first started hearing snippets of Trump rhetoric second-hand over the past year, I recognized how he was echoing previous right-wing populist campaigns. During the George W. Bush administration, I had spoken to many people in the Patriot Movement who had been excited about Republican politics during the Reagan years, but who had become increasingly bitter and angry after repeated disappointments. They had spoken glowingly about candidates such as Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, and Ross Perot, but they despised George H. W. Bush and many congressional Republicans. They tended to become more vocal during Democratic administrations, but had kept quiet during the George W. Bush years because they didn't want to lose a chance for progress on their issues within the Republican Party. In this presidential election season, Trump has identified the soft spots in Republican populist support that most of the professional politicians were afraid to poke.
There is a similar problem within the Democratic party, in which some left-wing populists are rejecting the disappointing neoliberalism of Hillary Clinton for the democratic socialism of Bernie Sanders. I don't see a whole lot of difference between Bernie Sanders 2016 and Ralph Nader 2000, except that Sanders, like Trump, is willing to work within the established party apparatus. However, Sanders has a disadvantage in that he can hardly attract anyone from the right. Trump ultimately has an electoral advantage, apparently, since in polls he seems to attract supporters who are not traditionally conservative or Republican, as well as attracting disaffected conservatives and the far-right.


text:
I delitti dei padri (Die Sünden der Väter) è un cortometraggio muto del 1913 sceneggiato e diretto da Urban Gad.

Trama
In casa, Hanna cerca di combattere l'alcolismo del padre senza risultati. La giovane donna, allora, per guadagnare qualche soldo, va a fare la modella alla scuola d'arte, dove si innamora di Marten, uno dei pittori. Ma la relazione finisce presto perché lui lascia lo studio per recarsi in Italia. Quando torna, non riconosce più Hanna che, per il dolore, ha cercato il conforto nel bere, seguendo le orme del padre ed è totalmente cambiata. Nel bar dove la incontra, Marten - ignaro - le chiede di posare per lui come modella per un quadro allegorico sull'ubriachezza. Hanna accetta ma, quando il quadro è finito, lo distrugge per vendicarsi. Ormai la sua vita finisce prematuramente come quella del padre.

Produzione
Il film fu prodotto dalla Deutsche Bioscop GmbH e venne girato nei Bioscop-Atelier di Neubabelsberg.

Distribuzione
In Germania, il film - un cortometraggio di tre bobine vietato ai minori - uscì nelle sale tedesche il 28 febbraio 1913 attraverso la Internationale Film-Vertriebs GmbH (Frankfurt am Main + Wien) con il visto di censura rilasciato in data 28 gennaio, mentre venne distribuito in Danimarca il 25 agosto dello stesso anno tradotto in Fædrenes synd.
La Pathé Frères importò la pellicola negli Stati Uniti dove venne distribuita dalla General Film Company il 26 febbraio 1914 usando i titoli Regina o The Devil's Assistant.

Note

Collegamenti esterni

  Det danske Filminstitut Scheda e Foto
  Early Cinema
  DIE SÜNDEN DER VÄTER su Murnau Stiftung

Film basati su opere di Hermann Sudermann
Film basati su opere di narrativa
Cortometraggi drammatici