In our part of the country here in Western North Carolina we are blessed with many waterfalls. Two counties over is Transylvania County that boasts over 200 falls.
Some are smaller with loads of personality, Some cascade. Some are very showy and when it rains are almost too huge to take in. We can document them all; but, just like landscapes, unless we're making a wall mural, we often need to break them down to manageable size.
The one here is part of the middle section of Mingo Falls, near the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. On this day it was very full from the rain and offered many different views.
Here is the full view. Sometimes, by including both views a better appreciation is gained.
Mingo Waterfall, 120 ft, March, 2018 Sony A7II, 50mm 1.8 pr lens set at F/22, 4 sec shutter speed.
However, nothing replaces being there. The Roar, the mist, just the grandeur.
By the way, we just had two more fatalities by visitors who felt the view was better from the top. One was a slip on a mossy rock, another when a dog got caught in the current and owner tried a rescue. Be safe. Nothing is gained by being on top of the falls. All the magic is when looking up.
I heard about those deaths. So sad.


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Black Majesty: In Your Honour
Melodic Heavy/Power Metal
Limb Music
www.myspace.com/blackmajesty
www.blackmajesty.com
Australian power metal band Black Majesty came into their own with 2007's Tomorrowland, pushing them away, ever so slightly, from the derivative power metal that rules the day. With their latest, In Your Honour returns Black Majesty to this form. In other words, confusing consistency with standing still may be your major problem here. Black Majesty neither gains new ground nor explores new direction on In Your Honour. This is the status quo, but it sounds very good. This classic melodic heavy/power metal that would make Helloween or GammaRay blush. Hey, that's good enough for this long time (and jaded) power metal fan. Songs like Far Beyond, Further than Insane, and the soaring Break These Chains prove that epic power metal can still reign (even if you're not a fan).
At the final curtain, In Your Honour will be called predictable by most or dismissed as a tired euphemism for past glory by the greater majority of the uneducated modern metal masses. This is quite the shame as modern metal is replete with their own redundancies, especially in the realm of melodic metalcore and death metal. Instead, while not blinding us with earthshaking innovation, Black Majesty remains a tried and true veteran of melodic heavy metal, and we are better for it.
Black Majesty's In Your Honour finds them resting on their convincing and very sound melodic heavy and power metal laurels. We are better because of it. Solid stuff.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence is a professional who leads and champions process-improvement initiatives - everywhere from small businesses to multinational corporations - that can have regional or global focus in a variety of service and industrial settings.... The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence is a professional who leads and champions process-improvement initiatives - everywhere from small businesses to multinational corporations - that can have regional or global focus in a variety of service and industrial settings.
An entry-level employee at a manufacturing plant or warehouse may be able to become a quality control manager after gaining years of experience and proving his or her competence at the job.... The primary qualifications for this position vary by company. Most employers prefer candidates who have a bachelor's degree in project management or a field related to the product or service they create.
Introduction. Managing the quality of data within an enterprise has become increasingly important due to a number of key business drivers: Competitors with better quality information and analytics... What are the Requirements to Become a Quality Control Manager? Education Requirements. Quality control managers can potentially work their way up from an entry-level inspection or sampling position after gaining experience working at the employer's manufacturing site.
A Quality Engineer works within a wider team of quality professionals with the overall aim of maintaining the quality of the final product. They do so by following the quality management systems of the manufacturing process.... 5 Steps to Becoming a Pharmaceutical Product Manager As a pharmaceutical product manager, you will be responsible for the coordination and overseeing of every element of medical products. This starts with funding new research to advertising new products to the market.
How to become a Occupational Health and Safety Officer Occupational health and safety officers coordinate health and safety systems in an organisation. They identify hazards, assess risks to health and safety, put appropriate safety controls in place and provide advice about accident prevention and occupational health to management and employees.
An entry-level employee at a manufacturing plant or warehouse may be able to become a quality control manager after gaining years of experience and proving his or her competence at the job.
From the car you drive to the mattress you sleep on, nearly every product you've ever used has been checked to ensure that it works the way it is intended to be used.


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Are a majority of grade-school children in Arizona Hispanic?
Conservative pundit Mark Steyn just said this to Fox News' Tucker Carlson:
In Arizona, a majority of the grade-school children now are Hispanic. That means Arizona's future is as an Hispanic society. That means, in effect, the border has moved North.
My question is, is it true that a majority of grade-school children in Arizona are Hispanic? I assume there should be readily available statistics on this.
united-states politics immigration race
Keshav SrinivasanKeshav Srinivasan
Does he really think nobody realizes that what he's implying with this line of reasoning is "Only white people count as American" ? – Shadur Jan 20 '18 at 10:17
@Shadur it's possible to be white and Hispanic IIRC. – Andrew Grimm Jan 20 '18 at 12:59
@AndrewGrimm Among white supremacists, "white" never was a skin color. Back in the 17th century when the idea of white supremacy first emerged, the only "white" races were those from around the North Sea; Great Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia, etc. Spaniards and Portuguese were not "white." Other Europeans were not "white." The Irish were not "white." The tent is more inclusive today, but the idea hasn't changed: When they say "white," they mean "Our Kind," and when they say "non-white,"... Well, there really isn't any polite way to say what they mean in that case. – Solomon Slow Jan 20 '18 at 21:45
What silliness. By analogy with his comments, I suggest that the US doesn't exist, and is in reality Southern Canada. The border has moved south. After all, the majority of Americans are the same ethnicity as the majority of Canadians.... ;) Of course, as one of the invading Canadians who are destroying our culture, he wouldn't understand this. – Obie 2.0 Jan 21 '18 at 21:26
@jameslarge Yes, most notably they still don't consider Jews to be white, however white their skin is. – Keshav Srinivasan Jan 21 '18 at 21:52
The actual figure appears to be about 45%, though it takes a little sorting to determine. According to the enrollment figures for the Arizona Department of Education on their Accountability & Research page for the 2016-17 school year, 511,608 of 1,126,441 public school students were "EthnicHispanicLatino," which is 45.4 percent.
But that includes high school grades 9-12; Arizona grade school is broken down as grades 1-8.
The grade school student number was 44.9%, according to my crunching of the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction's Superintendent's Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2014-2015, the most recent report posted by the Arizona Department of Education at http://www.azed.gov/superintendent/superintendents-annual-report/.) (Figures are for Fiscal Year 2013-14 and may have changed.) For students enrolled in grades 1-8 in district schools, 272,638 of 580,000, or 47.0%, were identified as Hispanic. For students enrolled in grades 1-8 in charter schools, 35,887 of 106,277, or 33.8%, were identified as Hispanic. Aggregated, that's 308,525 Hispanic students out of 686,917 total students, for 44.9%.
Which does raise the question of how students are determined to be Hispanic, which turns out to be based on what Arizona labels Federal Race/Ethnicity Data Guidance, which appears to be summed up by the federal Department of Education as "New Race and Ethnicity Guidance for the Collection of Federal Education Data," from August 2008.
Generally, "Hispanic" is an ethnicity, typically self-reported, so both Hispanic and non-Hispanic categories include American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black/African American, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, White, and Multi-Racial.
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DS 3 Cabrio DStyle by Benefit, the fourth DS 3 special edition designed in collaboration with Benefit Cosmetics, has been unveiled. On sale from 1 August and priced at £18,745 OTR, DS 3 Cabrio DStyle by Benefit features design cues inspired by 'Stay Flawless' – Benefit's favourite primer that keeps foundation looking flawless for up to 15 hours.
Buyers will also be able to take full advantage of the summer sunshine with DS 3 Cabrio's folding fabric roof, which can be opened or closed at motorway speeds.
Externally, the model features a Polar White body, with a black fabric roof and Fuchsia Pink touches to the door mirrors and wheel centre caps. There is a 'Gabbi's Head' logo on the 'Shark Fin' B-Pillars and a Benefit badge on the rear, also in Fuchsia Pink.
The 'Stay Flawless' theme continues inside, featuring bespoke black velour floor mats with Fuchsia edging and an embroidered Fuchsia Benefit logo. The dashboard, air vent surrounds and gear stick cap are finished in gloss white trim, with Benefit's trademark 'Stay Flawless' black and white polka dot design on the upper part of the dashboard. The key fob also features the 'Gabbi's head' logo, with a Fuchsia Pink insert.
A special Benefit Beauty Bag will be delivered to the new owner, containing Benefit's favourite makeup products, including 'Stay Flawless' primer.


Pilots had mere seconds to spot the object and react in order to avoid catastrophe.
However, due to the altitude, the plane was traveling researchers believe it's difficult to think it was a drone.
The reaction of the pilots before the imminent collision was to perform an evasive maneuver that caused two stewards who were not in their seats to be injured; however, they were able to recover and continue their respective tasks.
None of the passengers on board was injured, and the plane landed normally. As a precaution, the stewardesses were taken to the hospital where they were soon discharged, reports The Star.
OTTAWA-A drone? A weather balloon? A piece of garbage swept up by the wind? The pilots of a Porter Airlines flight inbound to Toronto on Monday morning were forced to put their plane into a sudden dive to avoid a mid-air collision with an unidentified object high over Lake Ontario, causing minor injuries to two flight attendants.
"Nobody knows at this point. It happened so quickly," said Peter Rowntree, a senior regional investigator with the safety board.
"We've got our work cut out trying to figure out what this unidentified flying object was. What did they encounter?" Rowntree said in an interview.
"It definitely wasn't a bird. It was a fairly large object," he said, describing it as up to three meters wide.
"They essentially just pushed the nose down to get underneath it," Rowntree said.
"It's a big sky out there, so the fact they even saw it is something," he said, noting that the aircraft was traveling at almost 450 kilometers per hour.


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Charlotte Children's Choir
Spotlight CLT
Programs Plus
Current Parents and Students
Arts+ Alumni
Arts+ Highlights Initiative
Arts+ Recommended for NEA Grant
Charlotte — National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Acting Chairman Mary Anne Carter has approved more than $27 million in grants as part of the Arts Endowment's first major funding announcement for fiscal year 2019. Included in this announcement is an Art Works grant of $20,000 to Arts+ for the Spotlight CLT program. Art Works is the Arts Endowment's principal grantmaking program. The agency received 1,605 Art Works applications for this round of grantmaking, and will award 972 grants in this category.
"The arts enhance our communities and our lives, and we look forward to seeing these projects take place throughout the country, giving Americans opportunities to learn, to create, to heal, and to celebrate," said Mary Anne Carter, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Spotlight CLT program was created as part of the 50th Anniversary Celebration for Arts+. Spotlight CLT is a special initiative where Arts+ will bring prominent artists and musicians from around the country to Charlotte to engage with Arts+ programs, students and the broader community throughout the year.
The first two visiting artists will be Lynn Chang, internationally renowned violinist and educator, and Lisa Wong, pediatrician, violinist and violist focused on music and wellness. Chang will be in Charlotte from February 21-23 to engage with Arts+ and the community through in-school workshops, community performances and a masterclass. Wong will visit Charlotte February 21-22 to partner with the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Atrium Health and Southminster. Additional musicians and visual artists will be visiting Charlotte through Spotlight CLT later this year.
"Arts+ is tremendously honored to receive a grant from the NEA through their very competitive Art Works program," said Devlin McNeil, Executive Director at Arts+. "These funds will allow us to bring unique music and art experiences to our community."
For more information on this National Endowment for the Arts grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.
For more information on Spotlight CLT, visit www.artsplus.org/programs/spotlight-clt.
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There are many misconceptions regarding pet cancer care treatments. Below, we have listed a few of the most common myths along with explanations as to why they are false. If after reading these, you still have questions or concerns about treating your pet's cancer, please contact us. We're happy to schedule a consultation at one of our convenient locations in Westford, MA or Windham, NH to see your pet and answer any additional questions you may have.
Myth 1: The prognosis is always poor with a cancer diagnosis.
Truth: Every prognosis (the pet's expected lifespan after being diagnosed with cancer) depends on the type of cancer and how advanced it is at the time it is diagnosed. Many cancers can be effectively managed for an extended period of time.
Myth 2: My pet has been diagnosed with cancer, but he seems fine, so it's okay to watch and wait.
Truth: Early detection and treatment is key to the best outcome possible for your pet. Surgery is less complicated with smaller tumors, and chemotherapy and radiation are more effective in the early stages of disease. However, if your pet's cancer is more advanced at the time of diagnosis, there can still be options to help maintain excellent quality of life for a period of time. Treating your pet's cancer while he feels good can improve the prognosis and response to treatment.
Myth 3: There is only one treatment option for cancer.
Truth: Chemotherapy is one treatment option for cancer. Other modalities to treat cancer are radiation, surgery, and immunotherapy. The oncologist will discuss which treatment or combination of treatments is most appropriate for your pet's cancer. We work hard to personalize a therapeutic plan that works best for you and your pet.
Myth 4: Cancer treatment is too expensive.
Truth: The cost of treatment is dependent on many factors, and there are moderately priced options that may be appropriate to treat your pet's cancer. The oncologist can discuss your options and will come up with a treatment plan that's right for you and your pet.
Myth 5: Chemotherapy will make my pet sick.
Truth: The number one goal of chemotherapy is to maintain quality of life for as long as possible. The chance of significant side effects of this treatment is less than 10% in most cases. If side effects do occur, they tend to be temporary, and they resolve within a few days.
Myth 6: My pet is too old to undergo therapy.
Truth: Age is not a disease. As long as they are otherwise healthy, dogs and cats can tolerate chemotherapy treatment very well, regardless of age.
Myth 7: My pet will have frequent long visits to the hospital.
Truth: Treatment protocols range from once a week to once a month. Most on-going treatment visits are on an out-patient basis and are scheduled for 30 minutes.
Myth 8: My pet's quality of life will be reduced during therapy.
Truth: Our goal is to extend an excellent quality of life, longer than would otherwise be possible without treatment. Your pet's quality of life will never be sacrificed just to buy more time.
Myth 9: My pet will go bald during chemotherapy.
Truth: Most cats and dogs have fur—not hair—and their fur is not continuously growing. For this reason, most pets do not go bald during therapy. However, there are a few breeds of dogs with continuously growing hair that can experience hair loss, and cats may lose their whiskers.
Myth 10: My pet's daily activities will need to change during treatment.
Truth: Pets continue to live normal active lives during therapy. There are no restrictions on their activities. We have successfully treated police dogs, agility dogs, and assistance dogs who all have continued to perform at a high level throughout their treatment. With this in mind, you should expect your dog to continue to do all his normal activities while undergoing chemotherapy.


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SOURCE: Slate
How Not to Be the Next Brian Williams
tags: science relevant to history, Brian Williams, false memories
by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons
Christopher Chabris is a psychology professor at Union College and co-author of The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us. Follow him on Twitter. Daniel Simons is a psychology professor at the University of Illinois and co-author ofThe Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us. Follow him on Twitter.
Related Link What Historians Can Learn from the Social Sciences and Sciences: Memory
For years, Brian Williams told various versions of a story about his experiences during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Last week, he admitted he had gotten crucial facts wrong, and he apologized. It's possible that Williams was lying all along for self-aggrandizing reasons, but his serial misstatements could also be the product of ordinary, unintentional memory distortion. We may never know which is true. But the scientific evidence for the fallibility of human memory is now so well established and widespread that claims of false memory should no longer earn anyone a free pass. Any responsible storytellers—any who believe they owe their first allegiance to the truth—should recognize the limits of their own memory and the risk of self-serving memory distortions. We must all change the way we work to ensure that we get the facts right, knowing that our memories might be wrong.
As usual in cases of celebrity fabulism, public reaction to the Brian Williams revelations ranged across the narrow spectrum from incredulity to outrage. The left-leaning website Talking Points Memo linked his false story to a list of "all the pols who've either fibbed about military service or told phony baloney stories about their close calls." At the right-leaning The Federalist, Sean Davis wrote: "Brian Williams was never in danger. And yet, for over 12 years, he blatantly lied about it."
Even many of Williams' fellow journalists have been unable to summon an innocent explanation for his falsehoods. The New York Post dubbed him "Lyin' Brian" and published a cartoon of him in military regalia (including an NBC peacock logo). On Fox News, Howard Kurtz asked, "Why would Brian Williams feel the need to do this?" His guest responded, "The one thing I have avoided steadfastly is to try to psychoanalyze, to try to do what's going on in Brian Williams' head." And according to the New York Times, Aaron Brown (formerly of CNN) said "My inbox is filled today with producers who went to Iraq with me, to Afghanistan with me, to Haiti with me, all kind of wondering how you could mess this up. I have no answer for that. I will tell you that getting shot at is not something you forget."
Of course, the question is not whether Williams forgot getting shot at. It's whether he deliberately fabricated a story for personal gain or instead unwittingly created a memory of an event that never happened. Common sense tells us that memory shouldn't break down to this extent—especially when we recall significant events in our lives. That belief makes us assume the worst of those who misremember. Yet a full century of scientific research tells us that these intuitive, common-sense beliefs about how memory works are often wrong.
No one has, to our knowledge, tried to implant a false memory of being shot down in a helicopter. But researchers have repeatedly created other kinds of entirely false memory in the laboratory. Most famously, Elizabeth Loftus and Jacqueline Pickrell successfully convinced people that, as children, they had once been lost in a shopping mall. In another study, researchers Kimberly Wade, Maryanne Garry, Don Read, and Stephen Lindsay showed people a Photoshopped image of themselves as children, standing in the basket of a hot air balloon. Half of the participants later had either complete or partial false memories, sometimes "remembering" additional details from this event—an event that they never experienced. In a newly published study, Julia Shaw and Stephen Porter used structured interviews to convince 70 percent of their college student participants that they had committed a crime as an adolescent (theft, assault, or assault with a weapon) and that the crime had resulted in police contact. And outside the laboratory, people have fabricated rich and detailed memories of things that we can be almost 100 percent certain did not happen, such as having been abducted and impregnated by aliens.
Even memories for highly emotional events—like the Challenger explosion or the 9/11 attacks—can mutate substantially. As time passes, we can lose the link between things we've experienced and the details surrounding them; we remember the gist of a story, but we might not recall whether we experienced the events or just heard about them from someone else. We all experience this failure of "source memory" in small ways: Maybe you tell a friend a great joke that you heard recently, only to learn that he's the one who told it to you. Or you recall having slammed your hand in a car door as a child, only to get into an argument over whether it happened instead to your sister. People sometimes even tell false stories directly to the people who actually experienced the original events, something that is hard to explain as intentional lying. (Just last month, Brian Williams let his exaggerated war story be told at a public event honoring one of the soldiers who had been there.)...
Read entire article at Slate


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Robert Pattinson Reveals He Was Shocked About Being Batman
New Batman star was shocked to get the part Robert Pattinson, best known for his role as Edward Cullen in Twilight, was tapped to play Batman in the latest...
(Photo Credit: FADEL SENNA/AFP/Getty Images)
New Batman star was shocked to get the part
Robert Pattinson, best known for his role as Edward Cullen in Twilight, was tapped to play Batman in the latest installment of the superhero's story. But Pattinson said he's as shocked as everyone else that he got the role.
"It's kind of insane," Pattinson said in an interview with Esquire. "I was so far away from ever thinking it was a realistic prospect. I literally do not understand how I've got it, at all."
And he's not the only surprising choice in the upcoming Batman cast. Although the directors are keeping the details under wraps, rumor has it that Jonah Hill will play one of the series' famous villains.
According to Variety, director Matt Reeves had long wanted Hill for the role. No one knows who the surprise villain is, but some speculate it's The Penguin.
Pattinson said the new Batman film's script is "gorgeous."
"It's a beautiful script, very musical, the text is gorgeous," he said. "And I'm enough of a nature boy that I knew that we were gonna be in full-on nature. I'm enough of an athlete to know that there were gonna be some physical things to do. And I'm enough of an actor to know that it would be challenging to do this very full-blown character but to give him a reality that really gets under your skin."
Ashley Herzog	October 4, 2019
BatmanEntertainment NewsJonah HillMatt ReevesMoviesRob Pattinson
Weekend Sports Preview Baseball's Postseason, College Football, NFL, And NASCAR Playoffs
U.S. Tariffs To Make Scotch Whisky And French Wine More Expensive For Americans
Margaret McQuarry	- Oct 4, 2019
Kaya Whitfield
Ashley Herzog
Jennifer Aniston Enjoyed Having Ex Brad Pitt Watch Her Accept SAG Award
A beautiful moment at the SAG Awards Jennifer Aniston says it was "sweet" that her ex-husband, Brad Pitt, watched...
Eminem is trending on Twitter for new music video Eminem just dropped a new album, "Music To Be Murdered...
Stephen King Criticized For Saying He Wouldn't Consider Diversity In Oscar Vote
Stephen King criticized for criticizing Oscar nominations People are criticizing the Academy's overwhelmingly white Oscar nominees for 2020, especially...
Her name or position in the company has yet to be revealed Jerrod Blandino, who founded the cosmetics brand...
Hannah Brown Returns To Peter's Season Of "The Bachelor"
Bachelor Nation is on the edge of their seats In last summer's season of The Bachelorette, starring Hannah Brown,...
"Joker" Earns Eleven Oscar Nominations
The Oscar nominations announcement celebrates "Joker" Joker, a film exploring the origins of the infamous Batman villain, is up...
Lizzo And Eddie Murphy Are Up For NAACP Image Awards
Celebrating the 51st NAACP Image Awards The 51st NAACP Image Awards, which honors African-American leaders in culture and entertainment,...
Jussie Smollett Will Not Return For "Empire" Finale
"Empire" will not be welcoming back Jussie Smollett Jussie Smollett, the embattled actor who appeared on Empire for several...
Tom Hanks At Golden Globes: "I'm not in this for power, I'm not in this for money"
Tom Hanks gives one of the most honest award acceptance speeches Tom Hanks, who played the beloved children's TV...
Ricky Gervais Rips Hollywood During Golden Globes Monologue
Gervais stirs controversy at the Golden Globes Ricky Gervais, the controversial host of the annual Golden Globes award show,...
Kathy Griffin Marries Longtime Boyfriend On New Year's Eve
As expected, the nuptials were full of laughs Comedian Kathy Griffin got married in a surprise ceremony on New...
Michelle Williams Is Pregnant, Engaged To "Hamilton" Director Tony Kail
Actress and director celebrate pregnancy announcement Almost twelve years after the death of Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams is pregnant...
Tom Hanks At Golden Globes: "I'm not in this for…


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Review: The Fault in Our Stars
The fault lies in the book, not ourselves
By Mike Cosimano February 20, 2020
I did not enjoy John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. The narration was precocious and cloying, the dialogue simply ridiculous, and any attempts at pathos were laughable; a novel collectively written by the people behind those wretched Upworthy headlines. I still have it, because it wasn't even worth the energy it would have taken to sell it back.
Thankfully, Josh Boone's adaptation is not quite as horrible. It trades mountains of burning trash for some of the most color-by-numbers direction I've ever seen. In that sense, it's a major improvement on the source material, but a polished turd nevertheless smells just as rotten.
[Editor's Note: Check the bottom of this review for a second opinion from a writer who did enjoy this film's source material.]
Director: Josh Boone
The Fault in Our Stars is a movie about cancer-ridden teenagers who fall in love. Hazel Lancaster (Shailene Woodley, doing a fine job with some awful dialogue (the same could be said of her in Divergent)) meets one Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort) during a support group meeting, and is instantly smitten. From there, the duo fall into a romance, packed to the odious brim with the kind of indie-kitsch you would expect from a movie where a youth puts cigarettes in his mouth, purposefully does not light them, refers to this act as a metaphor, and is not immediately ridiculed by everyone within earshot.
Both Hazel and Gus are perfectly crafted human beings — even worse, they seem aware of it. The singular likable character in the film is Isaac, a blind cancer survivor who only just manages to dodge my ire because he's not really a character. Isaac's character arc flat-out ends within two scenes, leaving him to spout one-liners for the rest of the duration.
Ansel Elgort's Gus simultaneously revels in his own majesty, while still letting his inner dork out now and then. If there is one person who will escape this farce unscathed, it will be him. Although this is likely a result of Augustus' more cringe-worthy moments having been left on the cutting room floor, Elgort still does an alright job with the role. He still looks like he would complain about the friend-zone, but that's really not his fault.
The Fault in Our Stars has an odd problem with tone — though thankfully more complex than your usual tone problems. The movie's opening moments suggest an almost Edgar Wright-esque style of humor, with quick cuts and a startling awareness of the frame as a humor device. Of course, the jokes don't land, but it's an admirable effort nonetheless.
However, this stylistic aping is quickly tossed aside for the remainder of the movie, instead turning into every other movie out there. It becomes so incredibly generic, I'm having trouble recalling any particular images from the movie, except for the scene in Amsterdam's famous Anne Frank house. That scene feels like a film student's sophomore year project, right down to the overwrought symbolism. This scene essentially takes one of the most recognizable symbols of the horrors wrought by the Holocaust, and uses it to frame a kiss. I would call it despicable, but it's a fairly crucial scene in the book.
Since I am strapped for much of anything of interest regarding this film, I would normally turn to the supporting cast, but even that eludes me. Willem Dafoe is in the film, playing an alcoholic hermit who just happened to have written Hazel's favorite book, and hot damn that man looked tired. Dafoe is a ticket-seller for me, and to see him essentially sleepwalk through a potentially captivating role is nothing short of disappointment.
The core problem with The Fault in Our Stars is simple: it is an adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars. Its source material is worthless as entertainment, to be used only in the event of a slowly dying campfire. Any problems with the screenplay can be laid at the book's feet, absolving director Josh Boone of the guilt associated with the now-infamous "metaphor" exchange. What cannot be excused, however, is the workmanlike direction. There is not a thing about The Fault in Our Stars that is visually remarkable, and in a visual medium, that is perhaps its most damning flaw.
Sean Walsh: My younger sister, Taylor, has Crohn's disease, which is a disease I know little about (whenever my mom would tell me the horrific things my sister had to endure I'd phase out), but what I do know is that it's terrible. Not necessarily 'cancer terrible,' but still pretty horrible. She read The Fault in Our Stars and related tremendously to the main character. Due in part to my knack for screening out all the horrible stuff she lives with for my own selfish reasons, I felt that reading the book would be a great way to help relate to her and her illness better. I read it and I found the frequency I was tearing up increased exponentially the further I got into the book.
Naturally, I was excited about the movie, and I was lucky enough to have not only Taylor but our sister Lindsey home (both live in Boston most of the time) to see The Fault in Our Stars on opening night. The movie itself was a solid adaptation (leaving out only a few key moments that I could think of), very well acted (Willam Dafoe was especially delightful), and tugged the heartstrings just like I thought it would (the last act of the movie, I found myself surrounded by sobbing fifteen-year-olds). It's uncomfortable subject matter, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that was able to relate better to an unwell loved one a little better. As far as film adaptations go, The Fault in Our Stars is certainly one of the best in recent history. 80 – Great
Review: Locked Down
Recap: WandaVision Episodes 1 & 2
Review: Batman: Soul of the Dragon


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The Heroic Heart
Tod Lindberg
A Republic, If We Can Keep It
Posted by Tod Lindberg in Policy Review
View this article at Policy Review, December 2000/January 2001
The American political system has thrown off some truly anomalous results in the past decade. We have gone from the historic 1994 election (a 50-seat swing in the House of Representatives bringing to power a Republican leadership promising "Revolution"), to an historic presidential impeachment and acquittal, to an historic 2000 election in which voters divided as evenly as imaginable in their preference for Democrats or Republicans. We are practically awash in the historic these days.
Commentary in the weeks after the 2000 presidential election told us to watch events closely, since we would never see their like again in our lifetime. This may be true, but it may also miss the larger point. For those who found themselves disturbed one way or another by the outcome and aftermath of the contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore — or as the Clinton impeachment drama unfolded, or as the Republican Congress tried to enact its Revolution — the uniqueness of each event and the unlikelihood of a recurrence may be a false consolation. We may not run into these particular oddities again, but it may be that we are in the midst of something bigger — a pattern of oddity.
One can certainly try to explain away these and lesser instances of strange politics. For example: The fact that a former professional wrestler was elected governor of Minnesota — and that one Sunday in 1999, the governor decided to make a triumphant return to the ring as referee in the World Wrestling Federation Summerslam — well, it is certainly strange. But it is also perhaps colorful, in the great American tradition of eccentricity, and not especially noteworthy except in the context of that tradition. Anyway, Jesse Ventura won office with a narrow plurality in a three-way election. How significant is this?
Or, for another example, the fact that voters in Missouri cast their ballots in the state's 2000 Senate race for a man who died three weeks earlier — because the governor promised to appoint the man's widow to the seat — is macabre, and perhaps uniquely so. But the "widow's pension" has a long pedigree in American politics, even if it is not exactly a noble one, and it hardly seems fair to single out this instance as especially noteworthy. Americans are sympathetic to the bereaved, after all. The late Mel Carnahan's election may have been no more than a particularly florid expression of that.
And if it's a bit odd that the son of the forty-first president sought to become the forty-third in a race that ultimately hinged on the vote count in the state in which the candidate's brother served as governor — even as the wife of the president of the United States was unprecedentedly winning election as a United States senator — well, family has always been important in politics, no?
But if instead of trying to explain away these possibly isolated instances of oddity, we take the sum of them — then add to the mix a failed revolution, an impeachment and acquittal, and the closest and most litigated presidential election ever — we could probably be forgiven for reaching the conclusion that this has been a distinctly volatile period in American politics. And we might want to ask if the country has run into anything like this before, and if so, whether any such previous periods have enough in common with our own to point to something that might help account for these strange days.
One needn't scratch at this volatility too deeply before some of its paradoxical qualities become apparent. For example, the American electorate split evenly in the 2000 election — not only in the presidential vote, but also in that voters elected a House and Senate nearly equally split between the parties. But are voters themselves really so bitterly divided?
Certainly, elite partisan and ideological opinion is. Those who associate the advance of their ideological interests with the progress of the Republican Party are at loggerheads with those who associate the advance of their ideological interests with the progress of the Democratic Party. This may not be the most acrimonious period in the history of partisan politics, but it is hardly one of comity. There is unmistakable continuity between the bitterness of the fight over the "Contract with America," the bitterness of the argument over impeachment, and the bitterness of the argument over vote-counting in Florida.
But this is elite opinion, not mass opinion. There is no reason whatsoever to think that anything like a majority of the 103 million people who voted in 2000 see politics and elections in such Manichean terms. On the contrary, by any number of measures of public opinion, the electorate these days seems generally content with conditions nationally, generally contemptuous of and cynical about politics, about which the electorate is not particularly well-informed in any case, and perhaps placid to the point of docility.
Nor have the two parties tried to rile people up — though one makes such an observation in the presence of those who care deeply about politics at one's peril. What about the name-calling, the attack ads, and the obviously untrue last-minute pleas to core supporters that the end of the world is near unless each and every one turns out on election day to defeat the enemy? Who could deny that such incendiary tactics figure into most campaigns? This is, indeed, undeniable. But it is important to bear in mind how such negative campaigning is designed to operate on its intended audience: It rallies people against supposedly imminent danger. It rarely invites people to gather in support of great controversial causes. And as for what the two parties stood for in the 2000 election, they were both working diligently to position themselves as close to the center of the American political spectrum as possible.
This was a campaign in which both candidates campaigned on tax cuts, on paying down the debt, on private accounts as a supplement for Social Security, on more federal involvement in education, on expansion of Medicare to provide a prescription drug benefit, and on continuity in foreign policy. Each said he was committed to smaller government. Both supported the death penalty on the narrow grounds that it deters, but both professed to be troubled by it. The two disagreed not over whether the United States should increase military spending (it should), nor over whether the United States had become and should remain the strongest power in the world (likewise), but over whether the United States was as strong as it should be. Both wished eternal life upon the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. The convergence of the two parties was genuine.
This is not to say that there were no differences. Partisan Democrats saw sharp distinctions between themselves and Republicans, and vice versa. The candidates themselves even said so. Bush accused Gore of favoring big government and centralized decision-making in Washington. Gore accused Bush of favoring the wealthiest 1 percent over helping the middle class and shoring up Social Security. And, of course, partisans on each side were right to see differences. The faithful understood perfectly well that behind each campaign's reach for the middle lay rather different visions of where the country should go and how it should be governed. But there was no indication in any of the polling data that most voters discerned an esoteric meaning behind the rhetoric of the two campaigns, nor that they really believed Bush or Gore about the existence of a big difference, nor that they thought they faced a choice between starkly different visions for the future. When the American electorate divided evenly in 2000, it was not dividing evenly between support for the fascists and support for the communists.
In fact, the broadest indicators point to a continuing disengagement of voters from politics. Throughout the political season, pollsters found consistent evidence that few people were paying much attention. The level of ignorance about where the candidates stood on the issues was quite high. For example, the "Vanishing Voter" project of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government repeatedly surveyed Americans' knowledge of the candidates' positions on a variety of issues. The final survey, released two days before the election, found that of U.S. citizens 18 years of age or older, 37 percent said they did not know if Bush supported a large cut in personal income taxes, and 11 percent erroneously thought he opposed such a tax cut. Fifty-one percent said they didn't know if he favored a tax credit for low-income people to pay for health insurance, while 22 percent mistakenly thought he opposed it. Thirty-nine percent said they didn't know if Gore opposed using part of Social Security taxes for private retirement accounts, while 19 percent thought, wrongly, that he favored doing so. On the question of tax dollars for private schools, 41 percent said they didn't know if Gore was in favor or opposed, and 21 percent erroneously thought he was in favor.
In some cases, the ignorance extended to who the candidates were. MTV, which would have no obvious reason to overstate the ignorance of American youth, reported that a survey it commissioned found that 70 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 could not name both vice presidential candidates. It is striking that bulletins throughout election day reported high voter turnout, when in fact voter turnout was 51 percent, its lowest in a presidential election with no incumbent since 1924, when Calvin Coolidge beat his closest opponent almost 2-1. Perhaps what accounted for the mistaken reports about high turnout in 2000 was the novelty of seeing any kind of line at the polls at all.
There are a number of possible explanations for this disengagement. Some observers take a kind of perverse comfort in it: The United States is a great country precisely because our political system allows people to concern themselves with their daily lives rather than politics. Others have argued that politicians are at fault, because they have failed to offer anything of value to a large swath of Americans, especially the working class. Others say that large numbers of Americans have concluded politics and politicians are corrupt, and that the people can do nothing about it. To risk a generalization that tries to encompass these and other explanations, one might say that large numbers of Americans have concluded, rightly or wrongly, that the problems they face in their lives are matters on which government has nothing to offer them.
It would be a mistake, however, to equate disengagement with discontent. Of the latter, there is little indication. In a time of peace and prosperity, polls show high levels of satisfaction among Americans. Most think they are better off than they were, and most believe things will get better still. Most people think the country is on the "right track." For most of those who think it is on the "wrong track," the worry is not policy but a perceived decline in moral values — something that is surely reflected in the world of politics and governance, but not assigned to it in the way that, say, the question of whether and how to reform welfare is.
Meanwhile, political protest is hard to find, and when it has bubbled up, as at the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization and the Washington meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, it has been characterized mainly by incoherence; there was no obvious answer to the question of what demonstrators wanted. A populist crusade would seem a fool's errand. In the end, much of Ralph Nader's early support in the polls returned to its home in the Democratic Party in 2000, and the Reform Party candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan vanished without a trace.
Contentment and disengagement: Is it now the case that Americans think current uniquely benevolent conditions require no exertion on their part to maintain? Are they in for a rude awakening come the next recession or foreign crisis? Surely there is no comfort in the fact that on the eve of the election, 48 percent of American didn't know George Bush was for an income tax cut (and that the 52 percent who said he was includes those who happened to guess correctly). This cannot be good.
Given low turnout, it is probably fair to conclude that most of the invincibly ignorant stay home, leaving the decisions to those who are paying more attention. The "Vanishing Voter" project found that 43 percent of nonvoters thought Republicans and Democrats were alike, compared to 21 percent of voters. Those who turn out at the polls are clearly applying finer standards of discrimination than those who stay home. But how comforting is this, really? The old joke goes: Q. "Which is worse, ignorance or apathy?" A. "I don't know and I don't care." If ignorance is truly on the rise, it's hardly cheering to find oneself rooting for an equal increase in apathy, in the hope that the few who do show up to exercise their franchise will have at least some clue as to what they are doing.
What if ignorance wins? What does it mean if Al Gore really did turn his political fortunes around by kissing his wife at the Democratic convention — and that George W. Bush's comeback began by kissing Oprah Winfrey? If politics is exclusively a matter of symbolism and semiotics, and if the parties turn out to be equally good at them, will we reach the point at which we can say that each party can figure on fooling about half the people all the time?
Such reflections are, to be sure, somewhat perverse at a time when throughout the world, there is no serious competitor to the idea that in order to be just, government should be democratic. At the same time, the age-old problems of democracy remain: What if the people decide they want something they can't have? What if they democratically vote democracy down? What if they are too ill-informed to understand what goes into preserving the way of life to which they have grown accustomed.
It is surely overblown to suggest that we have arrived at that point. Yet disengagement and near-even division do have consequences. The American people are simply not providing much in the way of instruction to their elected leaders about what to do — instruction that might take the form, say, of a clear majority in the House and Senate, or even a clear answer to the question of who should be president. But that is not, finally, the end of the matter. It falls to the people's representatives to try to figure things out.
We have perhaps become a bit casual about the republican character of American government, certainly more so than we are about its democratic character. A substantial part of the drama of the history of the United States turns on the question of political equality, which is obviously intimately related to the question of who gets a say on election day. The democratic character of the country has increased as the franchise has broadened by turns from white, male property owners to all those aged 18 or over. It seems safe to say that Americans are generally pleased with themselves for their increasing democratization, which they regard as an American ideal.
Yet what the Constitution lays out for the central government and guarantees to the citizens of each state is a republican form of government. The people's say in their laws is not direct, but channeled to the election of those who make law. The Framers clearly feared the tyranny of the majority as much as other forms of tyranny. Hence the careful separation of powers and the system of checks and balances between the branches of government — hence, too, the federalist character of government, with substantial authority left in the hands of the states. And while one can point to numerous ways in which the processes of government have become more democratic over the years, its structure remains republican.
If this structure offers some protection from the tyranny of the majority, it may offer protection also from the indifference, disengagement, and complacency of the majority. Our elected officials and the elites that serve them — Democrat, Republican, or neutral — may from time to time have to rise to an occasion.
There was much well-meaning talk in the aftermath of the 2000 election about the need for Democrats and Republicans to work together, to meet in the middle, etc. One might think that would be easily achievable, given the centrism on display from the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. But the reality is more complicated, and it is hardly just another case of the two political parties' dispute being so bitter, as Henry Kissinger once famously said of faculty infighting on campus, because the stakes are so small.
The truth about the relatively cheerful and benevolent policy status quo in the United States is that it is a product of long and bitter political struggle that continues to this day. The convergence of the two major political parties is not something each has decided to undertake for the sake of coming together. Rather, it is a product of the fear of losing a grip on the center, of becoming a long-term minority. For the time being, this constitutes a check on the passions that have led significant numbers of partisans in each party to regard the other as dubious at best, even as illegitimate. But what happens if the center of the electorate no longer serves as a lodestone, for the simple reason that politicians conclude they can manipulate it so well they need no longer fear its anger?
As James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 10,
[I]t may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.
The Framers thought that their republican government offered substantial protection from "men of factious tempers." But they did not promise perfect protection.
The oddities of the current period in our politics are not, in fact, unprecedented. They are similar in character to the political anomalies in the period from Reconstruction to the end of the nineteenth century. A presidential impeachment and acquittal, a harsh political dispute over the future direction of the country, presidential elections in which the popular vote went to one candidate and the electoral college to another.
Is this more than coincidence? Perhaps not. But the period from Reconstruction to the end of the nineteenth century was a period in which the United States emerged from a life-or-death national struggle, the Civil War, rebuilt itself and its institutions, checked the dominance of the legislative branch over the executive, and harnessed a fast-growing economy to claim, for the first time, a seat at the table of the world's great powers. Our current period is one in which the United States emerged victorious from the Cold War, unseated from Congress the brand of domestic liberalism that had dominated the body since the New Deal, forged a "New Economy," and began the process of trying to figure out what it means to be the most important power in the world.
Some of the points of connection across a century or more are obvious. It is difficult to read the statements made by the Radical Republicans in Congress during the debate over the impeachment of Andrew Johnson and fail to find an echo in the statements of Republicans in 1998 during the debate over the impeachment of Bill Clinton. And of course, the economic boom and national sense of optimism of the Gilded Age have parallels with the expectations created by the information economy — and some would say that the nineteenth century robber baron is alive and well and living in Redmond, Wash.
Other situations are merely evocative: the way the struggle for the presidency in 1876 between Democrat Samuel Tilden, the popular vote winner, and Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, the eventual winner in the electoral college, relates to the struggle between Al Gore and George W. Bush in 2000. One point of connection is a robust might-have-been scenario in each case: In Southern states in which Reconstruction had come to a halt and the federal army withdrawn, blacks who had voted in large numbers for Republican Ulysses S. Grant in 1872 found themselves struck from voter rolls on a massive scale in 1876. Had they been permitted to vote, they would surely have voted overwhelmingly for Hayes, and he might have won the popular vote as well. Then, too, there is an intriguing moral dimension. A vote for Tilden was a vote to move on — to leave Reconstruction behind, and therefore to abandon sweeping postwar efforts to incorporate blacks into society in the South (in effect, yielding to Jim Crow). Although Reconstruction came to a close under Hayes anyway (in part due to fatigue, in part as a result of the specific terms of the brokered deal that won Hayes the White House), his was the party that had stood for rigorous enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in the South. Likewise, the long shadow of Bill Clinton's scandals fell on the 2000 election, yielding an equal division between the party of censoriousness and the party of acquiescence.
But the particulars of the parallels are less important than the general observation. Let us say this: It would be more surprising if a country undergoing change on so large a scale — from a condition of civil war to self-confident nationhood and great power status — were able to do so without a number of political anomalies and even constitutional crises along the way. The close of the nineteenth century was a time of practical national self-definition on a scale comparable to the theoretical achievements embodied in the Constitution a century before.
And what of our time? It is quite possible, indeed it is becoming harder and harder to deny, that we are in a comparable position of practical national self-definition. The implications of the end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union are only beginning to be appreciated.
The United States is immensely strong, the leading power of a world organized largely according to the specifications the United States itself set forth in the aftermath of World War II to fight the Cold War. During the period of superpower rivalry, the United States grew accustomed to thinking of itself as a very powerful country in a world in which power was mainly divided between itself and the Soviet Union. But this power is not a sum, in the sense that subtracting the Soviet Union from the equation leaves the United States with the same amount of power and influence as previously, just no rival. Rather, it is closer to a mathematical dividend, one whose divisor is no longer two (the United States and the Soviet Union) but one (the United States alone). No current or imminent power or combination of powers can balance U.S. power.
This, by itself, would be an awesome enough thing to try to comprehend. In fact, writers and scholars have spent a decade wrestling with and until recently mainly resisting the conclusion that the world is unipolar in character now and may well remain so for quite some time. Yet for better or worse, the change in the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union is bigger than that. The contest between the United States and the Soviet Union was not the equivalent of a contest between two rival but essentially indistinguishable duchies — in which the conquest of one of them would do no more than shift power to the other. On the contrary, the collapse of the
Soviet Union also resulted in the demise of the only major competitor to democratic capitalism as an organizing principle of political economy.
The period since the end of the Cold War has seen a tremendous amount of economic liberalization. Economies that have long been subject to central planning have been opened up to market reforms. Socialist countries have been privatizing and liberalizing. In the 1970s, the notion of a "third way" in economics referred to a cradle-to-grave welfare state on the model of Sweden — a socialist path between communism and capitalism. Now, most of the left-leaning parties of prosperous Western countries have remade themselves as adherents of a "Third Way" that readily accepts the market and rejects as counterproductive such antique nostrums as the nationalization of industry.
In the United States, the "Third Way" distinguishes itself from old-style, big-government liberalism on one hand and laissez-faire, libertarian capitalism on the other. Since the libertarian impulse died aborning with the Republican "Revolution," this reflects a high degree of satisfaction with current economic arrangements. The story of the 1990s has been the steady rightward march, under Bill Clinton's direction, of the left pole of the debate over the economy. By the time of the 2000 election, the candidate of the traditionally more left-wing party was calling for paying off the national debt by 2012 and for more middle-class tax cuts.
Democracy, too, seems to have been taking root. Authoritarianism has been on the defensive, and in a number of cases, democratic government seems to have won out precisely as a result of a failure of nerve on the part of erstwhile rulers, a collapse of their sense of their own legitimacy. This phenomenon is by no means exactly coextensive with the spread of capitalism. It is possible to be capitalist without being democratic, or democratic without being capitalist. But it hardly seems to be a stretch to say that what has triumphed in the realm of ideas has been democratic capitalism — of the kind practiced by the United States.
A victory in the realm of power politics is one thing; the triumph of the system one thinks of as one's own is something bigger. In neither case was the United States prepared for the result. Nor is there much indication that the American political system nor the American people are especially comfortable with this new role for their country, now that they have come to confront it. Nor is the question of what to do in this role one to which there are any settled answers.
Again, the points of connection between the underlying issues of national self-definition and the specific form political volatility has taken are at times explicit and at times only suggestive. Disputes over the deployment of troops and the use of force clearly go directly to the question of American power — how much we have and how best to use it. Even here, it is difficult to untangle such interwoven strands as partisan conflict, conflict between the executive and legislative branches, jockeying for domestic political or electoral advantage, and principle. But all in all, if one were looking for conditions in which politics might take on a volatile character, one would find them in the dawning realization — and it has come as a surprise — that one's country is the most powerful on the globe since Rome at its peak and already finds itself with the vast array of responsibilities that are commensurate with that power.
At the end of the Civil War we knew we were one country; by the end of the nineteenth century, we knew we were one of several great powers; shortly after the end of World War II, we knew we were one of two superpowers; and by the end of the twentieth century, we were trying to come to terms with our unipolar power. In a sense, our dominant global position fell into our lap, a product of wise decisions made 50 years ago about how to fight a Cold War with the Soviet Union. But what happens next is very much an open question. This is a point on which the American people are providing little guidance. If the democratic process will not tell us, then it will be a republican obligation to figure it out.
The obligation is to make the most of the fortunate position in which we find ourselves. Needless to say, this does not mean living it up. It means doing what we can to prolong a period of benevolence as long as we can, for the same reason Americans gathered in Philadelphia to devise a means to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
We could probably do nothing for quite a while without great risk to our position — such is the overwhelming character of American power now. But that is provided we do no harm, something that is by no means certain. Each new political oddity in this period of self-definition is a new opportunity for radical misbehavior in the circles that are charged with representing the people and making decisions for them. Fully indulged, such misbehavior just might paralyze the national government sufficiently to allow for a rapid erosion of our position and the quick emergence of a world not in the least to our liking. And it is not clear that there is currently a popular electoral check on such misbehavior to act as a deterrent.
There may be some justice in blaming the people for disengagement from politics. But in the end, there is little point. We live in our times, and they are hardly bad ones. Yet Ben Franklin's famous description of the kind of government America would have — "A republic, if you can keep it" — is an admonition not just to the people but to their representatives. And it seems especially relevant when the people have disengaged from their government at exactly the time their country finds itself engaged in the world as never before.
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text:
Q: Combine several sbt tasks into one I'm a little confused on the Scala/SBT documentation for creating Scala tasks. Currently I can run the following from the command line:
sbt ";set target := file(\"$PWD/package/deb-upstart\"); set serverLoading in Debian := com.typesafe.sbt.packager.archetypes.ServerLoader.Upstart; debian:packageBin; set target := file(\"$PWD/package/deb-systemv\"); set serverLoading in Debian := com.typesafe.sbt.packager.archtypes.ServerLoader.SystemV; debian:packageBin; set target := file(\"$PWD/package/rpm-systemd\"); rpm:packageBin"

This resets my target each time to a different directory (deb-upstart, deb-systemv and rpm-systemd) and runs an sbt-native-package task for each of those settings. (Yes, I realizing I'm compiling it three different times; but sbt-native-packager doesn't seems to have a setting for the artifact directory)
This works fine from a bash prompt, but I've been trying to put the same target into jenkins (replacing $PWD with $WORKSPACE) and I can't seem to get the quote escaping correct. I thought it might be easier just to have a task in either by build.sbt or project/Build.scala that runs all three of those tasks, changing out the target variable each time (and replacing $PWD or $TARGET with the full path of the base directory).
I've attempted the following:
 lazy val packageAll = taskKey[Unit]("Creates deb-upstart, deb-systenv and rpm-systemd packages")

packageAll := {
  target := baseDirectory.value / "package" / "deb-upstart"

  serverLoading in Debian := com.typesafe.sbt.packager.archetypes.ServerLoader.Upstart

  (packageBin in Debian).value

  target := baseDirectory.value / "package" / "deb-systemv"

  serverLoading in Debian := com.typesafe.sbt.packager.archetypes.ServerLoader.SystemV

  (packageBin in Debian).value

  target := baseDirectory.value / "package" / "rpm-systemd"

  (packageBin in Rpm).value

}

But the trouble is the .value causes the tasks to get evaluated before my task is even run, so they don't get the new target setting (as stated in this other question: How can I call another task from my SBT task?)

A: So, I figured this out for you :)
As you already mentioned, combining a multiple tasks in a single one where some of the tasks depend on the same setting, doesn't work out as expected.
Instead we do the following

*

*Create a task for each of our custom steps, e.g. packaging debian for upstart

*Define an alias that executes these commands in order

Define tasks
lazy val packageDebianUpstart = taskKey[File]("creates deb-upstart package")
lazy val packageDebianSystemV = taskKey[File]("creates deb-systenv package")
lazy val packageRpmSystemD = taskKey[File]("creates rpm-systenv package")

Example task implementation
The implementation is pretty simple and the same for each of
the tasks.
// don't forget this
import com.typesafe.sbt.packager.archetypes._

packageDebianUpstart := {
  // define where you want to put your stuff
  val output = baseDirectory.value / "package" / "deb-upstart"

  // run task
  val debianFile = (packageBin in Debian).value

  // place it where  you want
  IO.move(debianFile, output)
  output
}

Define alias
And now compose these tasks into a single alias with
addCommandAlias("packageAll", "; clean " +
                          "; set serverLoading in Debian := com.typesafe.sbt.packager.archetypes.ServerLoader.SystemV" +
                          "; packageDebianSystemV " +
                          "; clean " +
                          "; set serverLoading in Debian := com.typesafe.sbt.packager.archetypes.ServerLoader.Upstart" +
                          "; packageDebianUpstart " +
                          "; packageRpmSystemD")

You can look at the complete code here.
Update
Setting the SystemLoader inside the alias seems to be the right
way to solve this. A clean is unfortunately necessary between
each build for the same output format.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Seekonk residents probably already know that Massachusetts is a "no-fault" state when it comes to car insurance and auto accidents. This means that if you are injured in a car crash, you are expected to seek compensation for your losses, such as medical bills and lost wages, under your own auto insurance coverage. This remains true regardless of who is at fault for the crash. A couple of exceptions to the Massachusetts no-fault rule are 1.) your personal injury incurred over a certain monetary limit in reasonable medical expenses and, 2.) your personal injury resulted in a permanent and serious disfigurement, broken bone, and/or loss of vision or hearing. An experienced Massachusetts personal injury lawyer may be able to negotiate whether or not the "serious injury" falls outside of the no-fault system thereby opening up the potential to file a personal injury lawsuit outside of the "no-fault" rules. Persons whose car accident injuries fall under the no-fault law are not permitted to make a claim for pain and suffering. If the injured is qualified to to file a personal injury claim outside of the no-fault law, they may seek compensation for qualifying losses including pain and suffering. No-fault car insurance laws for Massachusetts pertain to car accident injuries and do not pertain to vehicle damage resulting from a vehicle accident. Compensation for vehicle damage caused by an auto accident in Seekonk, Massachusetts, may be sought against the driver who caused the accident. Whether you have suffered severe injuries or property damage due to an auto accident, contact the Seekonk personal injury lawyers at Tapalian Law.
Suffering injuries from any type of accident- vehicle collision, motorcycle crash, bike accident, work-related incident, slip and fall, or dog bite- can be a traumatic experience. Severe repercussions can follow for the injured victim and their families. Attorney David Tapalian, a well-respected injury lawyer serving Seekonk, Massachusetts and Rhode Island residents, can help you seek compensation for your losses. When the sole financial provider for a family is hurt and unable to work, this can cause undue stress on a family already suffering from the physical and mental impact of a grievous accident. Let our aggressive personal injury team go to work for you to seek compensation for your medical expenses, hospital bills, lost wages, future treatment, and pain and suffering. With offices located in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, our skilled Seekonk injury lawyers are ready to fight on your behalf while you focus on recovery. Call Tapalian Law today at 401-552-5000, or email us, for a free consultation of your Mass auto accident injury case.


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What's New in Sonoma County 2022
by BROOKE HERRON
Guest room at The Stavrand, Courtesy of The Stavrand
I read this article and want to share it with you. The article is called What's New in Sonoma County 2022 and is located at https://www.sonoma.com/blog/new-in-sonoma-county-2022/
After closing out yet another challenging pandemic year, it's heartening to see so many new and exciting business openings in Sonoma County, even as we acknowledge that some wonderful businesses have closed or were not able to make it due to COVID-19.
Yet, while the business landscape may be changing, the spirit of entrepreneurship and a love for 'la dolce vita' is still alive in Sonoma Wine Country. For those seeking inspiration to make the journey to Sonoma in 2022, here are the top new places to eat, drink, and stay in Sonoma County this year.
New For Foodies & Gourmands
Roof 106 at The Matheson, Courtesy of The Matheson
After years in the making and close to a year of anticipation from Healdsburg locals, The Matheson finally opened its doors in September 2021. Housed in a renovated 100+-year-old historic building, this three tier restaurant, sushi kitchen, wine lounge, and rooftop cocktail lounge and open-air restaurant pays homage to the Sonoma County region while at the same time incorporating stunning modern design. Chef/Owner Dustin Vallette hopes that the spaces created at The Matheson will allow guests to 'immerse themselves in Sonoma, its craftspeople and its lifestyle, all in an afternoon.'
Courtesy of The Matheson
Adorned with murals painted by local Sonoma County artists, The Matheson's downstairs bar and restaurant feature a wine wall with over 85 wines by the glass and a large open plan kitchen and sushi/sashimi bar. The menu offers ever changing dishes that feature seasonal fare highlighting California's micro-seasons, while the sushi and sashimi bar feature creations curated by master sushi chef Ken Tominaga and chef Daisuke Soma. On the second floor sit a number of gorgeous spaces that can be booked by large parties or for private events (dinners hosted by local winemakers may be on The Matheson's future calendar). Up on the roof, the bar serves up innovative cocktails combining unique spirits, seasonal fruits, flowers, and herbs alongside a menu of small plates and wood fired pizzas in a casual, open-air environment. The outdoor patio features fire pits and a perch overlooking the Healdsburg Plaza, while at the more casual rooftop bar, Roof 106, seating is first come first served (no reservations are accepted).
In Sonoma (or more specifically, Boyes Hot Springs), Il Fuoco opened up in the former Cochon Volant space off of the Sonoma Highway, after months of work turning the former barbecue spot into a wood fire pizza-focused Italian restaurant. Il Fuoco is local chef and restaurateur Rob Larman's second venture in the space.
In Petaluma, Table Culture Provisions recently opened up at its new location, to the delight of their locavore customers. With simple, fresh, delicious dishes that incorporate local ingredients, Table Culture Provisions offers seasonal California Wine Country fare that walks the line between comfort food and haute cuisine. Dinner is served Wednesday through Saturday, with brunch on Saturdays and Sundays.
Courtesy of Facebook: Fleur Sauvage Chocolates
And for dessert? Beloved artisan chocolatier Fleur Sauvage opened up their first brick and mortar customer retail space in Windsor in mid-December (just in time for the holidays), while Stellina Pronto opened their Petaluma cafe and bakery, featuring a variety of mouth watering pastries (as well as wood fired pizzas, paninis, and frittatas) in the fall of 2021.
Several other notable Sonoma County restaurant, eatery, or foodie related openings include Khom Loi in Sebastopol, Sonoma County's newest Thai restaurant; the Latin-influenced Pezcow in Windsor; Santa Rosa's El Meson de los Molcajetes Mexican restaurant; El Dorado Cantina, El Dorado Kitchen's new take-out only cantina window in Sonoma; Gold Ridge Organic Farms in Sebastopol, featuring organic produce and olive oil; premium olive oil producer Il Fusti in Sebastopol; and the newly rehabbed Altamont General Store and Cafe in Occidental.
New For Wine & Drink Lovers
Courtesy of Facebook: Bacchus Landing Cellars
Since opening its doors in Healdsburg in July 2021, the wine tasting collective that is Bacchus Landing has grown to include five wineries, including new additions Alden Alli, Dot Wines, and Smith and Story having 'officially' opened their tasting rooms last year. And a new arrival to look forward to in 2022 is The Setting Wines (one of noteworthy winemaker Jesse Katz's brands), slated to open up their new tasting space in early 2022.
In downtown Healdsburg, a couple of exciting new bar and tasting room openings include the swanky Burdock Bar (which occupies the space next to Duke's on the plaza) and Marine Layer Wines, where wine tastings take place in their new design-savvy tasting room.
In Sonoma, The Beacon Cocktail Bar had its belated official opening in spring of 2021. This speak-easy style cocktail bar, tucked away upstairs inside the Taub Family Outpost, serves a selection of craft cocktails that incorporate artisan spirits and mixers.
New Places to Stay in Sonoma
Courtesy of The Flamingo Resort | Stephanie Russo
Offering high end farm-stay experiences just minutes from the center of Healdsburg, The Barn at NewTree Ranch opened in summer of 2021. NewTree Ranch is a sustainable eco-luxury farmstead retreat, animal sanctuary, and regenerative farm situated on 120 acres in the heart of Healdsburg Wine Country. The ranch offers both glamping options as well as private farm stays that offer guests an immersive experience. The Barn is an off-grid, solar powered private farm stay residence housed in a renovated barn house situated on a one acre parcel just above New Tree farm. Guests who book stays at The Barn (this property can be rented for a minimum of thirty nights for up to four people) will enjoy a peaceful and remote retreat nestled in the redwoods and surrounded by nature and other peace inspiring amenities such as a Japanese tea garden and stone pool.
In Santa Rosa, The Flamingo Resort unveiled a multimillion-dollar reimagination of their 10-acre hotel and resort property in June of 2021. Considered a cornerstone of the Santa Rosa community for over 60 years, the iconic resort has always strived to provide an urban oasis to their guests, just minutes from vineyards and wineries in Wine Country. The hotel features 156 guest rooms and 14 spacious poolside suites, many with private outdoor patios, designed to blend the resort's mid-century architecture with a fresh modern design, creating a sanctuary for guests to relax or work. The property offers everything visitors need to enjoy a relaxing getaway including an on-site restaurant, poolside dining, a health club, spa, fitness center, pilates and cycling studio, tennis courts, a lap pool, and large stretches of indoor and outdoor gathering spaces.
Courtesy of The Stavrand
And over in West Sonoma County, The Stavrand (formerly The Applewood Inn) unveiled their newly remodeled boutique hotel and rooms last fall. The new look is a reimagining of their spacious rooms, including a luxury remodel of their bathrooms, offering guests a comfortable place to rest their heads amid redwoods and vineyards in the Russian River Valley.
The 21-room hotel offers guests a menu of experiences and amenities including outdoor yoga classes, spa treatments, fireside aperitifs, and world-class California cuisine prepared by their on-site chef and utilizing ingredients from their culinary garden.
Coming Soon (early 2022)
Courtesy of Little Saint
For those who have been patiently awaiting the Healdsburg opening of Little Saint in the former SHED space, it's anticipated that they won't have to wait longer than spring to finally get a peek (and taste) at the new space, which will include a plant-based restaurant, cafe, and wine shop. Maison Healdsburg, a venture by former Single Thread Farm managers, is also expected to be able to open by spring. The intent is to serve an underserved niche (and audience) in Healdsburg, namely those in the community who would like to go out for a glass of wine after dinner. The wine bar will stay open later than other businesses in town that serve wine (which typically close quite early or as soon as the last dinner patrons have been served).
Rendering of Maison Healdsburg
Also in Healdsburg, Lo and Behold (a cocktail bar and kitchen), Troubadour (a gourmet sandwich shop by the owners of Quail and Condor Bakery), and the newly redesigned Madrona Manor (now called The Madrona) are expected to open their doors in early 2022. In West Sonoma County, Sonoma Pizza Co. is expected to open their new pizzeria, mercantile, and wine garden in Forestville in early 2022, while further south in Petaluma, Sol Food's new location is slated for opening sometime this spring, bringing their popular Puerto Rican cuisine to Sonoma.
– 10 Sonoma County Wineries with Beautiful Views –
– 15 Best Wine Tasting Rooms in Sonoma County –
Brooke Herron
A 17-year wine industry and brand-marketing professional, Brooke has recently returned home to Northern California after four years of living and working abroad. When she's not working on marketing projects for clients or writing articles for publications or her own travel blog you can find Brooke hiking, enjoying a good glass of wine, or sitting somewhere with an ocean view.
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Mizzou Engineering recognizes outstanding alumni
inAlumni, Mizzou Engineers, Planning, Operations and Stewardship
Pictured, from left: Dean Noah Manring and Alumni Award winners Bob Bloss, Phil Bennett, Steve Pelch, Bruce Holt, Sheri Smithey, Lawson Hart, Ron Wood and Jeff Cook.
Mizzou Engineering celebrated outstanding alumni during the Alumni Awards Banquet held Friday, Sept. 17. These eight individuals were honored for their leadership, contributions to the profession and commitment to the College.
"We truly have an outstanding network of alumni who exemplify what it means to be an engineering leader," Mizzou Engineering Dean Noah Manring said. "It's always an honor to be able to recognize those who have continued to stay involved with our educational and research mission throughout their careers."
Manring and Matt Osterthun, executive director of advancement for the College, as well as Andy Bonderer, president of the MU Engineering Alumni Organization, presented the awards for both 2020 and 2021.
Missouri Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Engineering
Since 1951, the College of Engineering has recognized outstanding work of alumni through the Missouri Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Engineering. To date, 273 alumni have earned this prestigious honor for significant contributions to the field and the College.
The 2020 Missouri Honor Award recipients are:
Steve Pelch '87 earned a degree in mechanical engineering. During his 34-year career with Emerson, Pelch served as chief operating officer and was responsible for the company's global operations, procurement, supply chain, logistics and human resources. Pelch lives in St. Louis, where he is involved in several organizations and serves on the board of directors of Junior Achievement of Greater St. Louis.
Sheri Smithey '93 earned her PhD in agriculture engineering from Mizzou. She's worked for Nestle Purina PetCare for more than 26 years and currently serves as vice president of the Global R&D Network in St. Louis. Smithey is also a longtime champion of STEM education, mentoring and teaching young female engineers at her company, in the K-12 community in St. Louis and at Mizzou. She has also served on the Bioengineering Industrial Advisory Board for Mizzou Engineering.
Jeff Cook '83 earned a degree in civil engineering. After graduation, he worked for the Missouri Highway Department and R.W. Murray Company, where he served as vice president. In 1992, Cook co-founded ARCO Construction Company in St. Louis, where he serves as president and CEO. ARCO is now the seventh largest design-build general contracting firm in the U.S. Cook was inducted as a member of Mizzou Engineering's Academy of Distinguished Civil Engineers in 2014 and proudly supports construction management education within the civil engineering department.
Bruce Holt '87 earned a degree in mechanical engineering. Holt spent his early career working in the oil field industry at companies such as General Dynamics, CCC Conveyors and Lurgi PSI. Since 2006, he has been the owner and principal engineer of his own company, Holt Engineering, in Cordova, Tennessee. Holt is known for his high standard of professionalism and contributions to the success of his clients and their businesses.
James E. "Bud" Moulder Distinguished Alumni Award
Since 2009, Mizzou Engineer has honored Bud Moulder by presenting an award in his honor. Moulder was a 1953 and 1955 graduate of the civil engineering program and served as CEO and chairman of the board at R.W. Booker in St. Louis before retiring. Throughout his life, he invested heavily in the College through financial support and involvement with numerous Mizzou organizations.
The James E. "Bud" Moulder Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes those who go above and beyond in their service to the College.
The 2020 recipient is Bob Bloss, who earned an industrial engineering degree in 1977. After working for Colgate-Palmolive Company, Bloss joined Hallmark Cards, eventually becoming senior vice president and chief human resource officer until his retirement in 2019. In 2011, Bloss was inducted into the Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering (IMSE) Hall of Fame, and in 2012, he and his wife, Pam, established the Bloss Faculty Enhancement Fund in the IMSE department.
The 2021 recipient is Lawson Hart, who earned a bachelor's in electrical engineering in 1964 followed by a master's in 1966. Lawson retired from Boeing in 2006 as Director of Naval Missile Launch Systems, responsible for running integrated tactical missiles onto planes, ships, submarines and other platforms. Lawson has contributed his expertise to Mizzou as a member of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department's Industrial Advisory Council for more than 15 years. He has also assisted with the introduction of a graduate certificate in aerospace engineering. Lawson is a 2007 recipient of a Missouri Honor Award.
Citation of Merit Award
Every year since 1984, the MU Engineering Alumni Organization has honored one distinguished alumnus or alumna who has made significant impacts and noteworthy contributions to the engineering profession.
The 2020 recipient of the Citation of Merit Award is Ron Wood, who earned an electrical engineering degree in 1964. After graduation, Wood began work at Black & Veatch, where he served as an executive officer and a member of the Board of Directors from 1999 until his retirement as president and CEO of the Black & Veatch Energy in 2006. Wood and his wife, Judy, established a scholarship in 2005. He is also a member of the Dean's Advisory Council for the College of Engineering, a lifetime member of the Mizzou Alumni Association and a strong advocate of the MU Engineering Alumni Organization. Wood is the seventh Mizzou Engineer to receive all three distinguished alumni awards from the College.
The 2021 recipient of the Citation of Merit Award is Phil Bennett, who earned a mechanical engineering degree in 1986 and a master's in 1987. Bennett has worked for Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for more than 30 years. He is currently a system engineer in Global Engineering Security Systems Group and works with international nuclear and radiological security. Bennett has served as a member of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department's Industrial Advisory Board since 1993. Bennett is also a 2011 recipient of the Missouri Honor Award.
Nominations for 2022 College of Engineering awards are now open! Read more about each award and submit a nomination form here by Nov. 1, 2021.
AlumniAlumni AwardsAlumni successOperations and Stewardship – Missouri CompactsPlanning
Alumnus earns spot on Forbes 30 under 30
EECS Industrial Advisory Board holds virtual meeting
Hoeferlin encourages students to seek new opportunities during commencement address
Investing in the future: Jost gift supports education, workforce
Gift to establish Jerry L. Jost Endowed Chair in Chemical Engineering


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Armenia People 1997
https://photius.com/wfb1997/armenia/armenia_people.html
SOURCE: 1997 CIA WORLD FACTBOOK
Population 3,433,629 (July 1997 est.)
0-14 years: 27% (male 476,375; female 456,723)
15-64 years: 65% (male 1,088,103; female 1,134,649)
65 years and over: 8% (male 115,135; female 162,644) (July 1997 est.)
Population growth rate -0.33% (1997 est.)
Birth rate 13.59 births/1,000 population (1997 est.)
Death rate 8.6 deaths/1,000 population (1997 est.)
Net migration rate -8.32 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1997 est.)
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
Infant mortality rate 40.4 deaths/1,000 live births (1997 est.)
total population: 66.9 years
male: 62.69 years
female: 71.32 years (1997 est.)
Total fertility rate 1.71 children born/woman (1997 est.)
noun: Armenian(s)
adjective: Armenian
Ethnic groups Armenian 93%, Azeri 3%, Russian 2%, other (mostly Yezidi Kurds) 2% (1989)
note: as of the end of 1993, virtually all Azeris had emigrated from Armenia
Religions Armenian Orthodox 94%
Languages Armenian 96%, Russian 2%, other 2%
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female : 98% (1989 est.)
NOTE: The information regarding Armenia on this page is re-published from the 1997 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Armenia People 1997 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Armenia People 1997 should be addressed to the CIA.
Revised 06-Mar-02
Copyright © 2002 Photius Coutsoukis (all rights reserved)
ctr03/06/02